German autumn fashion already cashing in on speckled isle riots

Fashion newsletter received today:





How avant-garde!

Totally Fucking Gaga

I've been thinking about designing a graph illustrating the British Medienlandschaft for one of my classes next semester. I have a nice research exercise mapped out and I need a way to give students an idea of the basics. You know, with the x-axis indicating the political allegiances of different dailies and the y-axis reflecting their level of intellectual sophistication?

But right now I'm really no longer so sure that this is even feasible. I mean: what do you do when you open the website of one the dailies that, at least nominally, used to be among the more liberal and enlightened of the bunch, only to see the following screaming headline:

Revealed: eerie UFO sightings recorded in MoD files

You read on and stumble upon the following passage:

Aircraft of all shapes and sizes have been witnessed flying over a wide range of locations - including Chelsea Football Club and the former Home Secretary Michael Howard's home in Kent.

The paper doesn't say (as would be accurate): "People claimed/believed that they have witnessed aircraft of all shapes and sizes." No, the formulation here firmly asserts that visitations of extraterrestrial tourists have actually taken place.

Then you read further, only to learn that

Experts believe the records highlight how shapes of reported UFOs have changed over the last half-century.

Yeah, right - if "experts" believe it .... At least this time its "reported UFOs." But still.

And then it turns out that one of the experts the only expert consulted is yet again The Independent's favourite crystal ball gazer, David Clarke from Sheffield Hallam University (who has been previously mocked chez nous), making some banal statements about how UFO sightings are conditioned by advances in aircraft design.

This is the front page of The Independent online, people, and its most popular story today.

It think I'll just redo my y-axis: it now starts at "gaga" and ends at "totally gaga."

Birmingham language pledge: Learn German while you drive (into or out of the car park)

German spoken with an English accent is bad enough and I don't like to think what Brum-German might sound like. But according to a report by the BBC, this is exactly what we're going to get - until the good people of Birmingham have sorted out their ticket machines. Which are currently spewing German obscenities at unassuming citizens looking for a place to park their Vauxhalls Opels.

You see, vee haff much moar kanning vays of meking you toalk (Tscherman) than by pleing futbol in bleck shörts.

And more from the department of the bleeding obvious ...

No comment.

Premature evaluation

As much as I continue to admire Barack Obama and despite my measured hope that he will -- at the end of his second term -- be able to look back on a number of great accomplishments in domestic and foreign affairs, I was (like everyone except for a certain committee in Oslo) more than a bit flabbergasted by today's announcement that he had won the Nobel peace prize.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I would agree that he has made “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, but what actual results these might lead to remain more than a little unclear.

I don't have much to add to the current debate, but at the moment I find myself agreeing with a couple of comments suggesting that the best thing may be for Obama to politely decline the award paving the way for it to be given to a more deserving candidate.

It's unfortunate that something that would ordinarily be so welcome appears likely to pose a thorny problem for an administration that has a lot of other pressing concerns at the moment.

Big man, pig man, ha ha, charade you are

I was in London again last week for a research trip (five days of intensive microfilm viewing at Colindale...both a pleasure and a torture, somehow).

I found the city to be -- as ever -- both quite enjoyable and rather frustrating.

It's that kind of place.

And I'm always grateful for the long train ride along the Rhine that brings me home to my small town.

Anyway, I had the pleasure of making a new acquaintance, for which I am grateful to Chris W (as for so many other things).

Some divine serendipitous gleanings from this research will be appearing here soon (as part of the 'historical bycatch' series), probably after we return from this week's travel to Montreal, where I'm giving a paper at a conference on justice and public opinion.

For the moment, though, as is my wont, I'd just like to register my disgust with something.

There I was, returning to my hotel from a hard day's slog in the archives. Having crossed the Worst Road in the World (i.e., Euston Road), as usual, I rounded the corner onto Upper Woburn Place where, as usual, I was assaulted by a paper-wielding thug handed a copy of one of London's various free papers, London Lite (Friday, 1 May 2009).

Given that we are in the middle of a panic (justified or not, who knows) about swine influenza -- otherwise known in the British press by the more catchy and economical 'pig flu' -- I was interested in reading the cover story, with the subtle title of 'Pig flu hell of London student, 22'.

I got as far as paragraph five when I ran across the following:

Max Clifford, who is representing the family, said: 'He's in a bad way and is suffering from awful sickness and vomiting.'

OK, not for a moment do I wish to condemn someone suffering from a potentially fatal illness.

But still, I had to think: Max Clifford. Max Clifford. A PR agent.

What: given 'awful sickness and vomiting' the first call is to the NHS, the second to a publicist?

Am I missing out on something? I mean, am I insufficiently prepared for the current Zeitgeist when I don't imagine that coming down with a bad case of the flu is the kind of thing that requires...um...an agent?

And this is not just envy speaking.

No, I've had several conversations with myself over the last three hours, and this this has nothing to do with the fact that I've spent the better part of a year and a half fruitlessly trying to interest publishing agents in a fascinating book I've written about a half-forgotten murder case from the past whilst receiving all kinds of lame excuses (when I receive any feedback at all) .

No. I am not bitter.

Much.

Except for when I think that instead of slaving away for two years on a sophisticated-yet-entertaining manuscript, I should have just hung around in places likely to generate the pandémie de l'année and sold my story when the projectile vomiting really got going.

Why do I keep missing out on these great opportunities?

(Title reference)

Does not compute

When confronted with stories like this...


...you find your comfort where you can.

Naked mole rats have particularly perky proteins, yay!

One of the weirdest dreams I've had in recent years featured a children's book with a cartoonish cover in hot pink decorated with sparkly stuff called "Billie, Stefan and the Naked Mole Rat."

Honi soit qui mal y pense. We don't do Freudian dream analysis in this house anymore.

The dream was so vivid it felt more like a memory, and immediately on getting out of bed I embarked upon a deep online search for a book which - for about two waking hours - I was convinced I had read at one point of my life.

'Course I didn't find the book - it had been a figment of my imagination, after all. My great brain, having nowt better to do, made it all up.

Ever since then, the naked mole rat has had a particular place in our personal mythology, ugly as hell though it is.


And this is why I was happy to learn today via Der Spiegel that the amazing longevity of the naked mole rat is down to the species's unusually stable proteins. These hideous creatures can live to thirty years in their underground burrows, doing whatever it is naked mole rats are doing and not get bored for a second.

Which is more than can be said about many human beings I know.

I, too, once had a Quick Curl Barbie*

Fascinating stuff that takes me back via David Thompson. Not joking. These photos make the production of Barbie dolls appear like fine art.

* I had the blonde one in the pink dress. I remember to this day how, on my birthday (my fourth, I believe), my mother came into my bedroom early in the morning, holding the doll that apparently I had craved so intensely in the pool of orangey light made by the basket-weave lamp. Her smile was eerie. It said: "Child, this is your future ...."

Sadly, Barbie didn't curl as quickly as the name promised. Or rather: it quickly curled into a wiry mass, making Barbie look vaguely like my granny. Especially with the 'seventies maxi-dress she was wearing.

Oh well, I reckon you all wanted to know that ....

The Daily Nail ....

... don't you just love it?

On (not even) keeping your hands to yourselves

I would so much like to think that the new 'Ex-' series of merchandise from the 'Passion-for-Christ Movement' is a secret ploy by a non-believer with an excellent sense of humour.

I mean: how else can you explain a campaign that seems to have convinced Christian teens to go around wearing 'Ex-Masturbator' t-shirts?

But I think it's genuine.

I'm sorry, this is beyond my ability to satirise. But have a go if you like.

Greek to Mr Barnish

Quaint little tale at the Mail (ooh, it rhymes, too) -- with kind of an ambiguous headline ("Fascist German Bastards Spoiled Honest Brit's Happy Holiday Fun By Doing Yoga in Hun").

No comment, just headshaking bewilderment. How about Butlin's in Skegness next year, sir?

Today in religious insanity...

A couple of well worth noting dispatches on the topic of religion.

The New York Times (via LG&M) looks at a 'Father-Daughter Purity Ball', where daughters pledge to remain virgins until marriage and fathers pledge to help them:

after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.”

"Purity." A nice concept when it comes to some contexts (say, beer), but a disturbing concept when applied to women, defined solely by their sexuality and enforced by men.

And, apparently, it's not even a very useful notion, overall:

Recent studies have suggested that close relationships between fathers and daughters can reduce the risk of early sexual activity among girls and teenage pregnancy. But studies have also shown that most teenagers who say they will remain abstinent, like those at the ball, end up having sex before marriage, and they are far less likely to use condoms than their peers.

Here's a picture from the ceremony:

(Ballerinas carried a 7-foot wooden cross into the ballroom at the Broadmoor. Photo: Kevin Moloney for The New York Times.)

No, the cross is not on fire, it just looks that way. But that and other images are plenty unsettling. I have to agree with Bean: "This whole phenomenon, of girls getting all dolled up to dance with their dads and swear their purity is just flat-out creepy."

Speaking of creepy...

...and taking us right into the realm of the fucking disturbed, Stephen Green is introduced to us by Francis Sedgemore, who does a great service in bringing our attention (especially those of us without easy access to British television) to this very special person.

Stephen Green, leader of the fundamentalist lobby group and rent-a-mob “Christian Voice”, has on pre-watershed TV this evening said that there will be civil war in the UK, with Christians taking up arms against our “nation in pain”’s Muslim population.

I hadn't heard of Green before, and I'm glad that I do now. Someone to keep an eye on, definitely.

In an updated version of his blog post, Francis points us to YouTube versions of the "Dispatches" documentary in question, "In the Name of God".

I've only watched part one so far (also embedded below).

And a disturbing little 10 minutes it was indeed.

You'll note--because it's impossible not to--the berserk obsession with homosexuality and the demented certainty that most of the people interviewed seem to have that the whole universe exists as a kind of background to their personal drama of faith.

Prepare to be sickened.



The obsession with homosexuality is, of course, nothing new. Dale has been keeping tabs on this issue, and, indeed, by one measurement it seems to be nearly the single issue that some conservatives care about.

That one chap named John seems very...disturbed. And certainly very certain about things for which there is no proof.

Another shining moment is when a teacher at an 'independent school' tells children that thanks to Jesus we don't need to fear turning into pillars of salt when we sin ('Which really, really, really happened in the Old Testament').

What a cow.

(I was also not aware that Jesus had so much time to act as a kind of personal spell-checker. That is certainly handy, and a benefit of faith that I admit I had not considered.)

And the 'science' teaching at the school will make you want to vomit.

The other episodes are available here: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

Happy viewing.

Fascists Stole Cliff's Euro Victory (But Ex-Fascists Apparently Liked It)

Or how else are we to interpret the fact that this Express article on "The Greatest Eurovision Fraud Ever" - claiming a Francoist conspiracy against every British mum's dream son-in-law - ends with this reference to the success of Cliff Richard's "Congratulations" beyond the bespeckled isle:

The song stayed at number one in Germany for seven weeks and sold more than one million copies.

An appreciative slap on the back of the former enemy? Or a self-congratulatory reminder of Britain's finest hour - thanks to which a major musical war on two fronts was prevented? (The German Eurovision entry for that year was a pompous hymn by Norwegian-born Wencke Myhre - and what a fascinating combo this and the Spanish song would have been). And why the hell should this be an issue today?

At least, thanks to the research conducted in connection with this Matter of Great Concern, I know that the artist originally entered to sing the impostor song "La La La" was withdrawn because he wanted to sing it in Catalan.

“¡No Pasaran!”

I'm sorry if this is a trifle banal. I'm too tired to come up with anything deep at the moment.

Read before you type. Please. No, really.

Over the last week or so, it so happens that I've been having an interesting e-mail discussion with a recently made friend that has involved evolution, human behaviour, Richard Dawkins, 'spirituality', the possibility of 'group selection' and related topics. It has become clear that we have different perspectives on these various issues, however -- as in all high-quality discussions amongst people with varying viewpoints -- I feel as if it's been a worthwhile use of my time and that I've actually learned something. Or, at least, when we finally differ, I continue to maintain my full respect toward the person with whom I disagree. It has, in fact, been a pleasure to exchange viewpoints.

It's not very easy to define, but I have had precisely the opposite feeling after reading an article by Pat Shipman, a 'professor of biological anthropology', published in the New York Sun. (Via A&L Daily)

Dr. Shipman, it is quite clear, does not like Richard Dawkins's book, The Selfish Gene.

Unfortunately, she shows no sign of having actually read it.

(I know: this is an accusation that appears rather often at this blog; however, I must say that it so frequently seems apposite that I can't help but make it. I would be pleased to receive any evidence to the contrary. Believe me, I would.)

In fact, she seems to dislike Dawkins so much that she can't bring herself to refer to him by his title. Dawkins has a D.Phil and a D.Sc., which in many places would lead to him being called 'Dr.' She denies him this privilege, referring throughout her article to 'Mr. Dawkins'. This might be acceptable in some contexts -- I mean, I don't always insist on my own title-- however, on her departmental website, she prefers being referred to by her title.

Fair is fair, Dr. Shipman. Thus, your insistent repetition of 'Mr.' seems in some way dismissive.

Anyway, in her brief, crappy article 'Reconsiderations: Richard Dawkins and His Selfish Meme', Dr. Shipman essentially argues that Dawkins's book is not only wrong-headed but has actually has had a malevolent effect on science and human morality.

However, it is actually her own ridiculous analysis of Dawkins's book that proves to be laughable.
The hilarity begins on the first page of her article, where she claims:

In Mr. Dawkins's view, the organisms containing those genes are merely "lumbering robots" or "survival machines" that house and carry genetic information. The implication is that, in these terms, selfishness, even ruthless selfishness, pays off, and altruism does not.

This is, not to mince words, utter nonsense.

The word 'selfish' has led to all kinds of misunderstandings of Dawkins's theory, but he has explained at length (including in The Selfish Gene itself) that the metaphor he chose to describe gene-level 'motives' did not require relentless selfishness on the level of individual behaviour. In the thirty years since his book's publication, he has taken ample opportunity to try to correct this misunderstanding. (Beyond even the clarifications in the book itself.)

But even as explained in the first few pages of the original edition of The Selfish Gene, Dawkins made clear that he was interested in the origins of altruism. Even more in the revised version (with a couple of extra chapters emphasising even further the theme of altruism), Dawkins illustrates repeatedly -- how could Dr. Shipman have missed this?! -- how simple ruthlessness does not pay off in most evolutionary stakes and how some degree of altruism (at least that oriented toward kin- or based on reciprocity) does.

Does the phrase 'tit-for-tat' ring a bell, Dr. Shipman? If you have even a glancing familiarity with Dawkins's work, then it should.

If not, then, please, hold your tongue until you have done some required reading. Such as, say, the book you're pontificating about in the New York Sun. At least that should be on your required reading list.

Because Dawkins -- even in the book that Shipman critiques but doesn't seem to have read -- dealt with this issue quite clearly:

The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior. However, as we shall see, there are special circumstances in which a gene can achieve its own selfish goals best by fostering a limited form of altruism at the level of individual animals. 'Special' and 'limited' are important words in the last sentence. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense. (p. 2, emphasis added)

Dr. Shipman might not like this latter conclusion (the 'limitations' bit), but to argue that Dawkins ignored altruism is wrong, wrong, wrong.

In the revised version of The Selfish Gene that I own (the 1989 Oxford edition) there are even further chapters discussing the topic of altruism.

Moreover, considering the flippancy with which she refers to 'lumbering robots' and 'survival machines' on the first page of her misbegotten screed, you might think that Dawkins never considered the difference between genes and beings with more subtlety.

However, in The Selfish Gene (yeah, the book that Shipman, you'd have thought, had read), he observed,

Some people object to what they see as an excessively gene-centred view of evolution. After all, they argue, it is whole individuals with all their genes who actually live or die. I hope I have said enough in this chapter [Chapter 3, 'Immortal coils', and, indeed, he did] to show that there is really no disagreement here. Just as whole boats win or lose races, it is indeed individuals who live or die, and the immediate manifestation of natural selection is nearly always at the individual level. But the long-term consequences of non-random individual death and reproductive success are manifested in the form of changing gene frequencies in the gene pool. (p. 45)

Didn't you manage to read as far as page 45, Dr. Shipman?

In contrast to Dawkins's view, Dr. Shipman advocates a recent article by E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson that has sought to revive a notion of 'group selection'.

Now, I am a great admirer of E.O. Wilson for many reasons (his book Consilience is one that I would recommend to anyone interested in unifying the humanities with the natural sciences and his environmental advocacy has been consistently inspiring...moreover, he manages to impart the way that ants are endlessly fascinating. Who'd have thought that possible?), though I'm rather more sceptical about the other (non-related) Wilson.

In any case, I'm not sure that Dr. Shipman has done much to benefit group selectionism, as she seems to think that this simply means 'the good of the species' (her article, page 1).

Even advocates of group selection (or, more accurately, multi-level selection) are careful enough to emphasise a more nuanced version of the theory.

However, here again, Dr. Shipman lets provides yet another embarrassing howler. Speaking of Wilson and Wilson, she states,

The pair asserted persuasively that altruism and cooperation can be adaptive if they are directed toward relatives who share a suite of one's genes (kin selection) or if relationships can be established within a group in which cooperation is rewarded with future reciprocity.

Having (apparently) not read The Selfish Gene, she is clearly unaware both 'kin selection' and 'reciprocal altruism' are central features of Dawkins's book. (See, particularly, Chapter 6, 'Genesmanship', for the former and Chapter 10, 'You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours' for the latter.)

Indeed, Dr. Shipman appears to present 'kin selection' as somehow in opposition to Dawkins's work, whereas Dawkins very much saw himself as popularising the work of Bill Hamilton, who put the notion of kin selection on a more stable mathematical footing.

For all her blathering on about kin-selection and the altruistic behaviour of meerkats, Dr. Shipman overlooks the fact that Dawkins -- in his revised 1989 edition of The Selfish Gene -- discussed the altruistic behaviour of vampire bats.

In conclusion: to suggest that 'selfish' genes invariably mean 'selfish' behaviour is to fundamentally misunderstand Dawkins's book.

For a professor of 'biological anthropology' managing to avoid that simple error should be a doddle; however, Dr. Shipman appears to not be up to the challenge. She should be ashamed of herself.

Not only does she present the theories of John Maynard Smith as somehow opposed to those of Dawkins (who makes extensive use, for instance, of his notion of the Evolutionarily Stable Strategy), but she oddly lumps kin and group selection together, as if Dawkins had not made abundant arguments in favour of the former.

One of the crowning insults of Shipman's little package of intellectual trash is to claim that Dawkins has in some way assisted the spread of the 'Intelligent Design' movement:

The picture of evolution offered by [The Selfish Gene], and others by Mr. Dawkins, which many found bleak, also contributed to the growth and stridency of the intelligent design movement to undercut the teaching of evolution in public schools.

What?!

Shipman doesn't even begin to explain what she means by this, and she should be deeply ashamed of linking Dawkins's work with any presumed success of 'Intelligent Design', a movement that Dawkins has been intensely focused on combating.

She even has the gall to argue that the book has provoked a 'backlash against science'.

I don't know much about the work of Dr. Pat Shipman, and for all I know she writes brilliantly and insigtfully within her own field. But having examined this piece of intellectual nothingness alongside her depthless article on violence in the wake of September 11th, I have to say this: I'm not impressed.

She definitely has some more reading to do. And in the meantime, she should keep her mouth shut.

And, I suggest, she should refrain from using the word 'biological' in her title until she demonstrates that she has the ability to read, understand and recapitulate works on that topic.

And, for what it's worth, A&L Daily should take a bit more care in the articles that it recommends.

Welcome to Planet LaLa (a fully licenced subsidiary of Virgin Galactic)

Oh dear, what would we do without the British press! Both The Independent and The Telegraph bring us a deeply welcome, indeed essential, piece of news that otherwise would have slipped under our radar: Finally, after all these years, a German TV station will air (dubbed, of course) versions of 'Allo 'Allo.

With due thanks to Tony Paterson of The Independent for that excruciatingly witty headline "'Allo, 'Allo to invade German Screens". My midriff still hurts from all that laughing. You haff vays off mayking us laff indeed. (As the new Citroen ad says, very German.)

Thanks a bunch for this hyper-relevant info. We really have other problems to deal with over here at the moment. There is not only the major leadership crisis currently rocking the SPD. We also have the continuing drama around the polar bear infant 'Flocke' (who is three months old and being weaned off the bottle).

But going beyond the zoo into the human freak-show department, we also have our own, (in)famous incestuous couple, who are intermittently featured at Der Spiegel -- that stalwart defender of those poor people who claim to be victims of that harsh, terrible, inhumane system called "The Welfare State."

In an article about the upcoming decision by the Federal Constitutional Court as to whether this couple -- brother and sister, who are not only deeply enamoured of one another, but who have also sealed their love by producing four (!) children -- should be punished for their luv, the mildly defensive author goes beyond a perhaps understandable sympathy into the realm of scientific illiteracy.

According to Dietmar Hipp, abhorrence of incest is merely a culturally specific artefact of "an evolutionary dread" turned into a "powerful taboo," and does not deserve its illegal status. Apparently seeing evolutionary influences on our psychology as a bit old hat, he calls upon the mythical Oedipus, the French Revolution (though no Robespierre in sight) and Sigmund Freud to vouch for the legitimacy of these blood-crossed lovers. (The temptation to label them "Bro'Sis" is intense, but we will try to resist...oh, fuck it, never mind, we give in.)

What?!

I'm sorry, the negative reaction to incest is not triggered by some outdated prejudice. It is, rather, a universal phenomenon among humans and (at least most) animals, and it is a sensible natural strategy to keep that ol' gene pool a mixin'. (The results of failing to stir the pot can be scary: just see the royal family.) Amongst people unafraid of scientific ideas, such avoidance of sibling relationships is sustained (with little or no "repressive" cultural input) by what is known as the "Westermarck effect".

But this is not the only popular science clanger dropped today. The New York Times paints a grim apocalyptic scenario for the world. Of course, it's 7.59 billion years hence, but adapting the old boy scout adage, it seems it's never too soon to be prepared.

Not only does the article report about the doom that faces us all (eventually), it also makes all sorts of really neat suggestions about what to do about it. Like, shifting Venus an inch or so to the left and making preparations for colonising other planets (and presto: start catapulting your bottled water up to Mars now. No doubt Richard Branson will soon offer a semi-affordable shuttle service. Having been unable to get the toilets to work on his crappy trains under normal gravitational influences, he now wants to make a big mess in space...)

Which would be all cool and the gang, you know, if there weren't a few billion more problems that are a bit more down to Earth. (I could write headlines for the Independent any day, I tell you.)

Besides which: consider -- just for a moment -- what we're talking about here. 7.59 billion years is something like twice the amount of time that life has so far existed on the Earth. Homo sapiens has been around for all of about 100-150,000 years ago (give or take a few ten thou...).

What makes these geniuses (or anyone else) assume that we're going to be around to watch our planet be "dragged from its orbit by an engorged red Sun and spiral to a rapid vaporous death"?

Is it just me, or is there something breathtakingly arrogant about this?

I'd give us even odds to make it out of the century, let alone the next millennium...

(But, might I be able to interest you in some real estate on Venus? Get it while it's cheap!)

He's Alive!

Now what do you think this enormous crash test dummy is doing here?

1) he is in the process of erasing the woman's short term memory with the aid of an everyday device known only in The Dimension Where Crash Test Dummies Rule

2) he and she are members of a suburban theatre group enacting a scene from Frankenstein or Paradise Lost (he's Eve, tempting Rosemarie)

3) this is an intimate instance of courtship. He is handing her a pack of worm bait (or contraceptives?) that he usually keeps in one of the many pockets on his exceedingly fashionable survivalist waistcoat (currently on sale at Aldi for EUR 9,99)

Nooooo! You silly semiotically overcharged fools (been reading too much Derrida lately, have we?). He is offering her a packet of painkillers to assuage the pains in her arthritic knee (daintily indicated by her gloved hand on her leg).

Only a German marketing genius could come up with this at once subtle and surreal suburban snapshot.