Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
As I lie ensconced in the warmth of bed, I know that shortly I will have to rise, shower, and face an outside temperature of -16ºC (3ºF), with the possibility of snow for the rest of the week. It’s not that the cold especially bothers me, but the grayness does. Good thing I don’t live in Ireland, like poor Grania! On this day in 1968, Johnny Cash performed his famous concert at Folsom Prison, and, in 1982, an Air Florida plane crashed into the Potomac River, killing 78 people including Bob Silberglied, a butterfly researcher at Harvard whom I knew. On this date in 1924, the maverick Paul “Anything Goes” Feyerabend was born; and, in 1956, Lyonel Feininger, whom I regard as one of the best unappreciated painters in history, gave up his earthly body. And I will now perform ablutions on my earthly body, which is still here, at least for a while. At least it doesn’t resemble a burst horsehair cushion! Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still absolutely fixated on noms, but of course she’s a cat. . .
Hili: I’m looking very suspiciously at your shopping. A: Why? Hili: I don’t see anything edible here.
In Polish:
Hili: Bardzo podejrzliwie patrzę na te zakupy.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Nie widzę tu nic do jedzenia.
I forgot to add this swell cartoon sent by reader Karl, so I’m appending it here. Note the picture on the wall:
For reasons indeterminate I’ve been unable to brain today, and so have been forced to simply proffer news items without adding value. I hope my brain will be in working order tomorrow, but until then you’ll have to be satisified with two bears. First, the National Zoo is about to put its new baby panda, a male appropriately named Bei Bei (see photo below) on display. It’s unbearably cute: I can’t think of another creature as adorable as a juvenile panda. Here Bei Bei, at five months old, waves to the crowd. What would you pay to be the woman holding him?
Look at that thing!!!!
Here he is as a juvenile. They’re not as cute when they’re newborns, resembling a parti-colored kiwi fruit:
And bear #2, a Kodiak bear named Jimbo, who lives at the Orphaned Wildlife Center in Otisville, New York. (Kodiaks, Ursus arctos middendorffi, constitute an Alaskan subspecies of the grizzly bear.) Jimbo’s 9½ feet tall when he stands up, and weighs a hefty 1500 pounds. But Jimbo’s also friends with Jim Kowalczik, and they play regularly. Here’s a video:
I’m not sure if I’d give a plugged nickel for Kowalczik’s life, but it must be fun while it lasts. . .
What the students of colleges like Yale and Oberlin need is a president like Louise Richardson, formerly Principal (i.e., head) of St. Andrews University and just installed as the 272nd Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. (Remember, Oxford’s been around a long time.) The Vice-Chancellor is the real power at a British University, equivalent to the president of an American University, and Richardson happens to be the first female to fill that position the long history of Oxford. She has a Ph.D. in government from Harvard and is an expert on terrorism.
Richardson proved her toughness at St. Andrews, refusing to be pressured by the Scottish National Party, and it looks as if she’ll continue to be tough at Oxford. This is especially welcome in light of her views on free speech, which are congenial to those of us who oppose speech restrictions or censorship at universities. And it’s timely, for Oxford is embroiled in the same kind of “we DEMAND” wars as many American colleges. One of them is a call for removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes—admittedly not one of the more xenophilic characters in British history. I’m not sure whether Richard was referring to this kerfuffle during her installation address as Vice-Chancellor at the Sheldonian Theatre, but the Telegraph reports that she said this:
“How do we ensure that they appreciate the value of engaging with ideas they find objectionable, trying through reason to change another’s mind, while always being open to changing their own? How do we ensure that our students understand the true nature of freedom of inquiry and expression?”
Separately, Prof Richardson said universities should be places where students are encouraged to think “critically” in light of a push from students to create “safe spaces” at institutions.
She said: “If we can provide leaders for tomorrow who have been educated to think critically, to act ethically and always to question, these are the people who will prevent the next financial crisis; who will help us grapple with the fundamental questions prompted by the accelerating pace of technological change, as we confront profound ethical choices about the prolongation and even replication of life.”
I like her explicit and denigrating reference to “safe spaces.” And I don’t think they’ll be having fights over the authenticity of General Tsao’s chicken at Oxford.
Okay, it’s time for the U.S. Gub’mint to do something about Ammon Bundy and his gang of armed thugs, currently occupying the Malheur Wildlife refuge in Oregon in solidarity with two fellow thugs convicted of arson. As the New York Times reports, these gun-toting, Jesus-loving vandals took a Wildcat excavator and ripped out barbed-wire fencing separating the refuge from private land, allowing other thugs to graze their cows on the reserve:
On Monday, the protesters drove out to a snowy expanse miles from the refuge’s headquarters, bringing along the excavator. They approached a fence they said divided private and public land, and cut a space about 80 feet long, a move they said would allow the Puckett family to graze its cattle at the refuge.
“I feel like this is the first step of many in restoring ranchers’ rights,” Mr. Bundy said.
I’m still amazed that the authorities have done nothing to prevent this criminal trespass on a famous bird refuge. They stand by while the Ammon Gang gets brought food, and while their followers intimidate authorities by trailing them in the area.
What with this vandalism, which now opens the reserve to depredation by Bos taurus, it’s time for the authorities to stop sitting on their hands and do something. If they don’t want to go in with tear gas, which could trigger a gun battle, they can block the roads and cut off power and water. That land is your land, that land is my land, and we don’t have to put up with these morons taking it over for their personal use.
If you’re in what they call “Greater Chicagoland’ (I never hear anything like that for other cities—Greater New YorkLand?), and have nothing to do Saturday afternoon, you’re welcome to come to Revolution Books at 1103 North Ashland at 2 pm for a discussion of Faith versus Fact. (The announcement is here.) I’ll talk briefly about the book’s genesis, but it will mostly be Q&A with both a moderator and the audience.
The book will of course be on sale, and I’ll be glad to autograph them and draw a cat as well if you ask nicely.
Revolution Books is a leftist/socialist/communist institution in Chicago, so you’ll find plenty of comrades at the store.
David Bowie died two days ago, and that was but two days after the release of his last album, Blackstar. He clearly knew he was dying when he recorded it and the song and video shown below, “Lazarus.” (Rumors have it that Bowie died of lung cancer that metastasized to his liver.) Lazarus, of course, was a figure from the Gospel of John, a man whom Jesus raised from the dead—and that’s a clue that Bowie intends this song as a way to live on.
It’s a macabre song, clearly reflecting his impending death and how he wanted to be remembered. But it makes me very discomfited, perhaps because it reminds me of my own mortality. (While watching the house finches eat seeds on my windowsill this morning, I thought to myself, “How lucky they are: they don’t know they’re going to die.”) The grimness is enhanced by the dark and squalid hospital room, Bowie’s gaunt appearance and makeup, and his puppet-like movements, as if he were already dead. Musically it’s not near his best effort, but perhaps it’s his most affecting one.
I’m not sure what Bowie is trying to say here (he notes that he’s “free like a bluebird,” but I don’t know what that means), but of course that’s characteristic of many of his songs. It may be a pure message of emotionality, ending when he closes the door to his closet-coffin.
If you don’t feel plenty weird after you watched that, you’re not sentient.
An 18-month battle with cancer that hardly anyone knew about came to tragic end yesterday (January 10), but Bowie provided bleak hints about his terminal condition for his fans and followers in what was to be the final music video of his that was to be released in his lifetime.
Released only four days ago, the video for single ‘Lazarus’ was Bowie’s parting shot, opening with a blindfolded, fragile-looking Bowie laying in bed. His first words “look up here, I’m in heaven/I’ve got scars that can’t be seen” are now obviously an admission of his ill health, rather than just a fantastical musing on mortality. It soon becomes obvious that the bed he’s in is a hospital one and Bowie begins to float above it, signifying his transmutation to the other side – whatever, or wherever that may be. Watching it now, it’s a statement as bold as it is bleak.
As Bowie writhes around on the bed, trying to break free, another Bowie then appears, a Bowie clad in black and stood upright, a Bowie who can still pose, pout, pick up a pen and create. Inspiration hits him and he scrawls at speed in a notebook, while the other Bowie continues to convulse. As he writes, we see a skull sitting ominously on his writing desk, the spectre of death looming over Bowie and his final creation, before he steps backwards into a wooden wardrobe, a fitting kind of coffin for an icon of style and fashion.
“His death was no different from his life – a work of Art,” explained Bowie’s producer Tony Visconti, in tribute. “He made ‘Blackstar’ for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it.” Creative to the very end, the ‘Lazarus’ video is a heartbreakingly sad way to bid farewell, but a more than appropriate one.
As Bob Harris of the BBC noted, quoting a listener, “Leave it to Bowie to not only write his own epitaph, but sing it and make a video of it as well.”
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UPDATE: Today’s New York Times has a piece relating not only the story of “Lazarus” (also the title of a play co-written by Bowie), but also the effects of his impending death on his other work.
Once again I’m saddened today, this time to learn that The New Republic, a magazine that I’ve long written for in both print and online, is being sold by owner Chris Hughes. Hughes bought it four years ago using money he acquired as founder of Facebook. But after a while it became clear that Hughes was intent in turning the magazine into a PuffHo kind of clickbait e-forum, and the paper edition started coming out less often. With it went the magazine’s reputation as a venue for serious writing about literature, politics, and culture—something that’s hard to maintain online. And online traffic plummeted. About a year ago, editors Frank Foer and Leon Wieseltier (long my own editor in the print version) resigned, along with many others.
However, Hughes said that he “underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate.” He also questioned whether The New Republic, which had historically lost money before Hughes took over, could find a sustainable business model.
“There are bright signs on the horizon: Vox, Vice, the Texas Tribune, Buzzfeed, ProPublica, and Mic embody a new generation of promising organizations — some for-profit, others non-profit — that have put serious, high-quality journalism at the core of their identities,” Hughes wrote.
Bright signs on the horizon? More like storm clouds. And “serious, high-quality journalism”? Who is he kidding? Most of those are rotten role models for a serious magazine. Here, for instance, is the latest “e-cover” of Buzzfeed:
The future of serious magazines is dim. The New Yorker still survives, as does The Atlantic. I have confidence that at least the former will go on indefinitely. But everything else? Threatened by the free access of online publication, and by the clickbait that reduces journalism to its lowest common denominator: “Five things you need to know this morning about the Iowa caucus.” Is this the fault of magazines, the public, or both?
Don’t forget that the historically progressive New Republic was founded by, among others, Walter Lippmann, and that Edmund Wilson, the giant among literary critics, graced its pages for years.
Available: Emeritus biology professor seeking good venue to write for. Likes evolution, cats, boots, humanism, atheism, food, and long walks on the beach.
This seems a bit anticlimactic after the slaughter in Istanbul, but I’ll draw your attention to today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot below), for it involves felids. There are actually at least four versions of the Doodle, which honors Charles Perrault, the French author born on this day in 1628 (died 1703). He’s widely considered to be the inventor of the fairy tale, writing down both original stories and altered versions of older, orally transmitted stories. Here’s one—Puss in Boots (originally called, in French, The Booted Cat), the tale of a duplicitous and ambitious moggie:
Below are some of his tales with the original French titles. Note that “Puss in Boots,” the one I chose to show above—after all, it has both cats and boots!—was also called “The Master Cat”:
He also coined the phrase “Mother Goose”: here’s a bit of information from Wikipedia:
In 1697 [Perrault] published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé), subtitled Tales of Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye). (The spelling of the name is with “y” although modern French uses only an “i”.) This “Mother Goose” has never been identified as a person, but used to refer to popular and rural telltales traditions in proverbial phrases of the time. (Source : Dictionnaire de l’Académie, 1694, quoted by Nathalie Froloff in her edition of the ‘’Tales’’ (Gallimard, Folio, Paris, 1999.- p.10)) These tales, based on French popular tradition, were very popular in sophisticated court circles. Its publication made him suddenly very widely known and he is often credited as the founder of the modern fairy tale genre. Yet his work reflects awareness of earlier fairy tales written in the salons, most notably by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d’Aulnoy, who coined the phrase “fairy tale” and wrote tales as early as 1690.Even so, many of the most well-known tales that we hear today, such as Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, are told as he wrote them.
Couverture des Contes du temps passé de 1843, édition L. Curmer de 1843 ; illustrée par Pauquet, Marvy, Jeanron, Jacque, Beaucé ; texte gravé par Blanchard.
Even the famous Doré illustrated the tale:
Puss meets the ogre in a nineteenth-century illustration by Gustave Doré
Handwritten and illustrated manuscript of Perrault’s “Le Maître Chat” dated 1695
