Jake Tapper versus Emily Lindin: Should we worry about men falsely accused of sexual misconduct?

November 25, 2017 • 1:15 pm

AJC News, an Atlanta, Georgia news site, reports on a kerfuffle that occurred when Emily Lindin, an author and columnist for Teen Vogue, emitted a series of tweets this week asserting that she couldn’t be bothered about men damaged by false accusations about sexual harassment and assault since the benefit of making allegations public clearly overrides any damage from false allegations.

Of course there’s a benefit to making these allegations public, as it’s a good way to end sexual predation on women and, in the present situation, has prompted a lot of women to come forth saying they were damaged by men who practiced sexual harassment or assault. In the case of Harvey Weinstein, for example, I have little doubt that he’s guilty of gross sexual misconduct and perhaps rape (I don’t want to say he’s definitely guilty of a crime as that’s for the courts to determine). The issue is whether all allegations are to be believed, that those accused are certainly guilty, and if some innocent men are collateral damage, well, the ends justify the means.

This is in opposition to the generally approved view that it’s better to let several guilty people walk free than convict someone who’s innocent. (That’s one reason why the presumption in court is innocence.)

Now this situation isn’t quite the same as that, for many men accused of sexual misconduct aren’t “walking free” since their reputations are ruined, they’ve been fired, will be apostates forever, and their legal guilt will be determined by the courts. What Lindin is talking about isn’t really legal guilt, but guilt in the court of public opinion. And even here, I maintain, one has to have sufficient evidence beyond mere allegations before agitating to get someone fired or declaring that they’re guilty. (Multiple coincident accusations, as in the case of Weinstein, are of course a form of evidence.)

Jake Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN, responded with an apposite tweet mentioning a fictional tale we know well, about a man falsely accused of rape (in that case, of course, it was a legal issue and the man was convicted in court):

Tapper responded again, saying Lindin’s tweet was “immoral”. A woman named Emma Erbach then accused Jake of not standing up for women:

. . .  and Tapper argues for his credibility:

I’m not sure which article Tapper’s referring to, but it may be this one from the Washington City Paper in which he says he went out on a date with Lewinsky, things didn’t work out, but then he stands up for her as a victim of the media, Clinton, and public opinion. You may argue that the fact that he dated Lewinsky may detract from his objectivity, but then again their short relationship never went anywhere.

Overall, I tend to take Tapper’s side on the morality issue. Nobody should defend the real sexual predators and harassers, but we need to remember that we need evidence, that an accusation is not tantamount to a conviction, and that we have to be careful about throwing out such accusations. I tend to believe nearly all the women who have made these accusations, but again, sometimes the evidence is thin, as in the case of Neil deGrasse Tyson (yes, he too was accused of rape). And there are well known accusations of rape that nearly everyone believed, like those against the Duke Lacrosse team and the fraternity at the University of Virginia—cases that fell apart under inspection.

The lesson is that whatever our ideological leanings, we shouldn’t participate in ruining the lives of others unless and until we have credible evidence. Tapper is bucking a Left-wing trend, and I have to admire him for that.

(Note: AJC.com reports that Lindin locked down her Twitter account, but it looks open to me now, and she may have reinstated it. The tweets above are taken directly from her site.)

Talks at the Ciudad de las Ideas

November 25, 2017 • 10:15 am

So far I haven’t said much about the talks at the Ciudad de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico.  I’ll mention just a few of them here, but there were so many, and spread out over three days from about 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., that I didn’t hear even most of them. I’ll give just a short report on the highlights for me.

Here’s the venue which, I was told, seats over 5,000 people; it’s the local civic auditorium whose use was donated to the conference. I took this onstage while we did our “practice” (learning how the screens and timer worked). I think there were about 3,000 people during the big talks; there are two levels above the floor:

David Buss gave a good talk the first day on “Beyond strategies of human mating: The evolution of desire”. He reprised evolutionary-psychology view of human mating, described a lot of studies of differential selectivity, adultery, and so on. It was great hearing someone describe the data unapologetically, without those odious nay-sayers who totally reject evolutionary psychology on ideological grounds (though they pretend they reject the whole field on scientific grounds). After his talk, an artist drew David’s caricature, as they did for many of the speakers; here he is (left) with the artist:

The opening talk was by Steve Pinker, called “Beyond violence” (the theme of the conference was “Beyond X”). I had hoped he’d talk about his new book, out February, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (this will be a must-read), but he told me that his publishers wanted him to hold off on that until a bit closer to release time, for talking about a book before it’s out doesn’t really boost sales. He did talk a bit about the values of reason, science, and humanism extolled in the new book, and also struck back, as you can see in the second photo, against his left-wing detractors who repeatedly criticize him for both having faith in progress and, in his last book, documenting it. The slide shows some criticisms leveled at Better Angels. The fuzziness is due to low lighting and a hand-held camera with no flash:

Afterwards I got a surreptitious shot of Steve’s cowboy boots: black quill ostrich. He has six pair now, and I take some credit for that. After all, cowboy boots are the Official Footwear of Atheists and Humanists™

And of course, as a big macher, Pinker was interviewed in the Green Room after his talk by a passel of reporters. The hair is unmistakable, even from a distance. In the background is the pastry bar.

For me the conference’s highlight was supposed to be a 1.5 hour discussion: a “Beyond Doubt Debate” on global warming.  At the beginning it was announced that all the speakers, pro and con, accepted anthropogenic global warming, and the debate was going to be on what we should do about it. But it turned out that the debate was largely about whether global warming was even real, and here we heard the familiar arguments of the climate-change deniers. The “pro-warming and we need to deal with it side”, had, I thought, the better arguments. But I’m sure the audience, faced with a barrage of conflicting statistics, was a bit confused. Andrés Roemer moderated, keeping strict time (one speaker got cut off despite protesting they he more to say).

Here are the “denialists” which I call those who might admit that climate change was real but not a danger. (The names of most everyone are underneath, but I’ll include links, for the Wikipedia pages, sans Krauss, describe their stands on global warming.)

Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist:

Lord Nigel Lawson, a British Tory politician and journalist (he’s the father of cooking star Nigella Lawson):

William Happer, a physicist and professor emeritus at Princeton.

And the “acceptance-ists”: those who thought global warming was a serious problem AND that we need to do something about it now.

Lawrence Krauss, whom we all know. He was eloquent and aggressive, as always, but made one tactical mistake, saying that behind all climate denialists was big money from conservatives like the Koch brothers. When the other side protested that none of their research was funded by any of these groups or people, it made Krauss (who had made a serious point) look a bit ad hominem, and the other side, having no great arguments of their own, tended to harp on that over and over.

Mario Molina, a chemist who won the Nobel Prize for figuring out what caused the hole in the ozone layer—a very important discovery. I believe he’s Mexico’s only Nobel Laureate in science. He started off amiable and soft-spoken, but after hearing the distortions and arguments of the other side, got increasingly angry—to the point that he told one of them, who had interrupted him—to “shut up!”

Noam Chomsky had an onstage conversation with Andrés Roemer and Lawrence Krauss. Chomsky had his own special chair, something that Julia Sweeney pointed out (below) looked like either devil horns or angel wings. It was largely about politics, and I had trouble hearing it through the monitor. Chomsky had several choice comments on Trump and his administration, which to him was only the worst bit of an America that he thinks (as you know) is generally horrible. Chomsky is 89 now, and his mind is as clear as ever, even if I don’t agree with a lot of what he says.

Julia Sweeney gave the last “talk,” which was really her humorous take on selected talks, mostly from the last day. She had a hard job: I sat next to her right offstage watching her make notes on the talks as she watched the monitor in real time. At the end she went onstage and managed to synthesize the whole weekend into a humorous bit, along with some savvy comments and then a generous acknowledgment to Andrés Roemer and the rest of the organizers. Here’s Julia watching the proceedings. I have enormous respect to stand-up comics who can go onstage (she with just a tiny scrap of paper with notes) and extemporize a good bit.

I got her autograph for the copy of Faith versus Fact that will eventually go on auction for charity. (Other new signers included Pinker and two Nobel Laureates).

Caturday felids: Cat dwellings, the world’s most beautiful cat, and a cat with a VERY deep meow

November 25, 2017 • 9:00 am

From the site Colossal we have a series of artistic dwellings for homeless cats:

Architects for Animals celebrated its 10th edition last month, inviting local architects and designers to build functional cat dwellings in response to the city’s homeless cat population. The homes were auctioned off to benefit LA-based non-profit FixNation, a charity organization that provides free spay/neuter services to stray, abandoned, and feral cats. Designs ranged from a modern kitty disco to a roller-coaster like structure, each placing a creative twist on feline shelters with a variety of different cat-safe materials.

More designs from previous Architects for Animals can be found on their website. (via Design Milk)

The problem is that not many of these seem “functional”; that is, they don’t seem properly designed to house cats and shelter them from the elements. (I suppose people buy them to house their own cats.) To wit:

This is the only one that looks like it would work. Don’t any architects own cats?

 

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I’ve posted pictures of the Bengal cat Thor before, but you can’t see too many. To my mind he’s the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen, and look at that fur! Here are four pictures from Adorable Animals:

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This cat has a very deep meow, and the YouTube notes explain it:

Jack has a very rare form of laryngeal paralysis and his voice changed after his first surgery.

He sounds like he’s saying “Whoa!”

 

h/t: Duncan, Gregory

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 25, 2017 • 7:30 am

Reader Mark Sturtevant sent us a variety of insect photos; his IDs and notes are indented.

Here is another batch of pictures from this summer. Enjoy!

The first picture is of a hatchling Chinese mantis (Tenedora sinensis). I had bought a bunch of Chinese mantis egg cases from a local nature store, and I had hundreds of the hatchlings to deal with early this summer. They were released into my garden and into some local fields.

Next is a large lace bordered moth (Scopula limboundata). I almost decided to ignore this plain-looking moth, but I like the subtle colors and contours that are revealed here.

The odd inchworm in the next picture is the horned spanworm, Nematocampa resistaria. This tiny thing gave itself away when I spotted teeny caterpillar droppings on a leaf along a forest path. These clues usually turn up nothing, but this time I got lucky. The fleshy horns can be extended when the insect is alarmed, as is shown in the more mature specimen in the link above. I don’t know why they would do that, but perhaps the effect is to break up their outline or to look more like plant matter.

Next are two pictures of a moth that I had been trying to get since I began this hobby a few years ago. This is the Nessus Sphinx (Amphion floridensis), a species closely related to the bumblebee-mimicking clearwing sphinx moths although it is larger and this species lacks clear wings. I don’t see many of these, and when I do they are always in a super-hurry, going from flower to flower at a blazing pace. This one was no different, but this time I staked out a patch of flowers ahead of it, and waited to get off a few quick pictures before it was gone.

The dragonfly in the next picture is the Common Baskettail (Epitheca cynosura). These were super common in the early summer, and I had a lot of fun just sitting and watching their territorial drama over a patch of sand on one of my favorite trails alongside the Flint River. I suspect this individual was a recently emerged adult. It showed little inclination to fly far and the shiny wings are also a clue.

The insect in the next picture looks like a caterpillar, but actually it is the larva of a sawfly, which is a kind of wasp. It even has a series of fleshy ‘pro-legs’ on the abdomen, like a caterpillar. There were quite a few of these on the pines that grow in my favorite field. The species is the European pine sawfly, Neodiprion sertifer. This is an introduced species, and it can sometimes occur in large numbers and cause significant damage. But in this case I would say they were just generously sprinkled on every pine tree.

The final batch of pictures is a lovely Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus). I found a cocoon on a bush outside of our dentists’ office last Winter, and so I took it home and kept it in the fridge. I set it out to emerge in our office early this summer, fully expecting that it would emerge as luna moth since the cocoon looked like it belonged to that species. So when I later saw that the cocoon was empty I spent a long time looking for a big green moth. Took me a while to realize that right in front of me was an even bigger brown moth! Anyway, after the pictures he was becoming anxious to fly and so that evening I wished him luck and set him free.

Saturday: Hili dialogue

November 25, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s Saturday, November 25, 2017, and the third day of our long four-day Thanksgiving weekend. It’s National Parfait Day (oy!) as well as a UN day: International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

It’s again one of those days again in which events and births/deaths are a bit thin. On November 25, 1915, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of general relativity at a meeting of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.  In 1947, New Zealand formally became independent of legislative control by the UK by ratifying the  Statute of Westminster. (This is what Wikipedia says, but I’m not sure it’s correct.) On this day in 1952, Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery play The Mousetrap began its run in London. It became the longest continuously running play in history. The play’s 25,000th performance took place in 2012, and it’s still going strong!  On November 25, 1963, John F. Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C., and on the same day Lee Harvey Oswald, his killer, was buried in Forth Worth, Texas.  On November 25, 1970, author Yukio Mishima and one follower, after a miserable failure to instigate a coup d’etat that would restore the Emperor, committed seppuku.  On this day in 1992, the Czechoslovakian government voted to split the country in two: the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a sundering that took place on January 1 of the next year. Finally, on this day in 1999—and many of you will remember this and its aftermath—the 5 year old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, floating in an inner tube off Florida, was rescued by fishermen. His mother drowned in the escape attempt, and ultimately American courts ruled that he be returned to his father in Cuba, something that happened in June of 2000. You may remember the heart-rending video of government agents wresting Elian from the arms of his American relatives.

Notables born on this day include Andrew Carnegie (1835), Carrie Nation (1846), Rudolf Höss (1900), Joe DiMaggio (1914), Augusto Pinochet (1915), Percy Sledge (1940), Bob Lind (1942), Amy Grant and John F. Kennedy Jr. (both 1960), and Jill Hennessy (1968).  Those who began pushing up daisies on this day include Gaston Chevrolet (1920), Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1949), Upton Sinclair (1968), Yukio Mishima (1970; see above), U Thant (1974), Harold Washington (1987; our beloved Mayor of Chicago, who loved the invasive monk parrots), George Best (2005), and, one year ago today, Fidel Castro.

In honor of Bob Lind‘s 75th birthday, I’ll put up his song, which those of a certain age will remember. He was a one-hit wonder, and his hit was “Elusive Butterfly“, a romantic hippie ballad released in 1965. It was his own composition, written in 1964, released the next year, and wound up as #5 on the charts. Leon Russell played piano on the recording, and Wikipedia recounts the song’s genesis:

Bob Lind wrote “Elusive Butterfly” around sunrise while pulling an all-nighter in 1964: at that time he was living in Denver, performing at local Folk clubs. Lind credits the song’s inspiration as the W. B. Yeats’ poem The Song of the Wandering Aengus, stating: “I wanted to write something that [like Yeats’ poem] had the sense we feel of being most alive when we’re searching or looking or chasing after something. That expectation is more life affirming than getting the thing you’re after.” The song was originally five verses long and with the instrumental passages Lind included its performance time approximated ten minutes: (Lind quote:) “I played it for everybody I knew but I didn’t [think] ‘Man, this is my best song: it’s going to be a hit [that] millions of people [will] hear…It was just another [Bob Lind] song. I was thrilled [then] by everything I wrote.”

Remember this?

And let’s not forget Amy Grant, who crossed over into pop from a successful career singing Christian Music. This 1991 song made it to #1 on the Billboard chart.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, like the vegetation, is taking a nap:

Hili: The orchard has gone into its winter sleep.
A: So what does that mean?
Hili: I think I will go to sleep as well.
In Polish:
Hili: Sad zapadł w zimowy sen.
Ja: I co w związku z tym?
Hili: Ja też chyba pójdę spać.

Faithful Dr. Cobb has sent a “spot the” tweet. Can you see the sparrowhawk driving this starling murmuration?

A great example of crypsis, also found by Dr. Cobb:

A cat tweet contributed by Heather:

https://twitter.com/Elverojaguar/status/934156557750882305

Tw**ts stolen from Heather Hastie:

A first! I had no idea that bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) even existed.

I love flying foxes:

https://twitter.com/pintsize73/status/903501296795344896

And Stephen Muth put this on my Facebook page:

Islamists bombs Sufi mosque in Egypt

November 24, 2017 • 5:53 pm

Islamist terrorists killed more than 235 and wounded 109 people worshiping at a Sufi mosque in the Sinai. The attackers used a combination of bombs and guns, even shooting at ambulances. What did the Sufis do? Nothing—except belong to a mystical sect of Islam regarded by some Muslims as “heretical.”

I’m guessing, though this hasn’t been confirmed, that ISIS is responsible. Sunnis kill Sufis, and Sunnis and Shiites kill each other, yet they’re nominally of the same faith.  How many thousands have died, how many more thousands will die, because of differences in doctrine—doctrines based on delusions? Remember that the Sunni/Shia schism goes back to disputes about who was Muhammad’s rightful successor.

You’ve probably already heard this, but the world of pain associated with such attacks is overwhelming. Best wishes to the brave souls trying to tame Islamism.

 

Dramatic video: North Korean soldier defects to the South

November 24, 2017 • 2:30 pm

As you surely have heard, eleven days ago a North Korean soldier defected to the south, driving a jeep up to the DMZ between North and South Korea, jumping out when it ran into a ditch, and then sprinting for the South, successfully crossing the border but also getting shot five times by DPRK soldiers. Those soldiers violated the North/South agreements by shooting at someone who was actually in South Korea, and by one DPRK soldier actually crossing the line. I thought the defector was surely killed, but two South Korean soldiers, at severe risk to their own lives, crawled up to the defector and dragged his body away. After operations and medical care, he’s now expected to live. It was also reported that he was severely infected with worms, probably due to infected food or water (if soldiers are, then many North Koreans must be, too). He also had hepatitis B.

As the Washington Post reports (video below):

In the dramatic footage, the soldier’s vehicle is seen driving along a road in North Korea and across what is known as the “72-hour Bridge” before barreling through the Joint Security Area, the only part of the DMZ where North and South Korean soldiers face each other.

However, the jeep got stuck in a ditch and the soldier jumped out and started running toward the South. Four other North Korean soldiers are seen running toward him and stopping to shoot at him.

One of the North Korean soldiers briefly crosses the military demarcation line that runs through the DMZ, marking the border, before returning to the north side of the security area. This constitutes a violation of the armistice agreement that the two sides signed when fighting ended in the Korean War in 1953.

The North Korean man can then be seen in a pile of leaves against a building on the southern side of the line, and then three South Korean soldiers can be seen going in to rescue him.

After that, the North Korean was flownd in a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter to Anjou Hospital south of Seoul, known for having one of the best trauma centers in South Korea.

Here is dramatic video released by the UN. The defector hightails it for the border past checkpoints, while the DPRK soldiers muster to intercept him (“KPA” is the North Korean Army). At about 2:58 he ditches the jeep and runs for it while his pursuers start firing at him, one actually crossing the line in pursuit.  “ROK JSA” troops are South Korean soldiers who monitor the Joint Security Area (JSA), the only place where North Korean and South Korean soldiers are within a few feet of each other.

The ROK troops, shown by thermal imaging, crawl toward the wounded man (a light horizontal line on the ground) and drat him away at about 6:10. They are brave men, because even though they’re in the South, they could still be shot.

This is ineffably sad. First, there’s an entire people walled in, as were the East Germans, and their own soldiers trying to kill them when they try to escape. (If they didn’t, the pursuers would be punished, and I’ve already heard they’ve been “relieved”.) A lifetime of indoctrination would have given the DPRK soldiers no compunction about killing one of their own.

What’s equally sad is that we know for sure that if this escapee had any family remaining in North Korea, they’d be rounded up and sent to prison camps, where they’d almost certainly die. The choice that any escapee has to make is whether to stay in the horrible conditions of the North or flee, with the certainty that if he survives, his family will all die, including his parents, kids, and grandparents (that’s the DPRK’s “three generation” rule).

Without a doubt North Korea is the most horrible nation on Earth, and this video demonstrates that. I’m glad the soldier survived, but imagine the mental anguish he’ll have knowing that, if he had parents or kids or a wife, they’d all be sent to the death camps.

If you want to see the perils of fleeing the DPRK, here’s an informative video of “10 ways to escape North Korea”. None of them are easy.