“A Language of Smiles” by Olivia Judson

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This lady has a way of turning my crank with her thoroughly bibliographed articles in NY Times. The latest is definitely a keeper. It’s about a possible connection between facial expressions related to speaking different languages and happiness triggers. How can you not like that kind of research?

Olivia Judson does a facility for seeing animal characteristics in ways that few science writers do. It’s part biology, microbiology, evo-devo and . . .

And her writing is direct and pithy and teasing. Just the way for an interesting woman to be!

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Dec 5 was the 75th anniversary of Repeal in the US

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I count on the NY Times to provide me with the news of the day, as well as reminders of past news that could be significant today. In these parlous economic times, what can be more soothing than one or two or … stiff drinks. Here is a reminder from NY Times:

Although there’s a general trend towards permitting drinking and a number of previously arid locations have gone under — including the gloriously named Slippery Rock in Pennsylvania, which had been alcohol-free since its foundation by Zebulon Cooper in 1798 — the anniversary of repeal should perhaps be celebrated not with cocktails, but, following the example of H.L. Mencken, with a glass of some alcohol-free fluid, preferably someplace where you’d rather be drinking something stronger — to remind you of how pleasant, indeed life-enhancing alcohol can be, and to sympathize with the people who used to be dry and those who still are.

For hooch has the power to inspire, to console, to make celebrations brighter, and hard times more bearable. In the words of the Roman poet Horace, drink “unlocks secrets, bids hopes be fulfilled, thrusts the coward onto the battle-field, takes the load from anxious hearts. The flowing bowl — whom has it not made eloquent? Whom has it not made free even amidst pinching poverty?”

The Bush Administration is font of incompetence that keeps on giving

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Check out this comment in NY Times about puerile revisions to history being attempted by the lame duck administration of GWB, the resident clown in the White House.

This quote puts a neat cap on this opinion piece:

George Orwell would not have been surprised by this sort of revisionism. It was, after all, Orwell, who observed: “He who controls the past controls the future.”

And now I read this in NY Times! GWB should be told to just shut up about his wars!

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At this late stage of my life here on this wracked and wrenched Earth

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there are a few things I dearly love. In one case I haven’t been to one much lately since there are no affordable ones in Vancouver, the French bistro with its characteristic walnut finishings and great red wine. The other is the NY Times.

Both of these artifacts of civility and my version of the good life are suffering. Both are losing business at alarming rates and both institutions are in peril of becoming non-existent and that saddens me in anticipating their real life demise.

As for the bistro in France, click here to read the NY Times piece about that sad situation with a closing of 2 of them every during these financially troubled times. Over 80% of the 200,000 of them that did business in 1960 have disappeared since.

The NY Times does not report much about the financial situation of the holding company or its main newspaper holdings, but the news in the blogosphere and in other news agencies is especially sad. The Grey Lady faces financial burnout by the middle of next year. It has ended dividend payouts and has apparently been shopping some of its media assets to gain cash for financial survival. What the H will I do if she disappears too!

This is not a pretty sight and I truly regret that all those Wall Street jerks and downright thieves have brought us to this unpretty pass! No doubt I’ll survive but some essence of the good life will be drained from my spirit. How much of that kind of loss will I be able to deal with before I decide that it’s enough? But I have no plans for an online suicide ever!

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Another reason to use a Mac

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David Pogue is probably the dean of US tech reviewing. He does it for the NY Times in print and most prominently with a weekly video.

This report underlines the human use of personal technology like computers, video and digicams and personal family records. It is well known and a given that Macs are the preferred choice for anybody who needs and wants to do the multimedia thing.

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NY Times’ editorial Moon View

The view of Earth cresting over the moon

And here is the link to the NY Times editorial, which I found whimsical even for the NYT editors!

Napoleon developed principles for industrial warfare and …

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Cover of Empire

‘The Utility of Force’ – New York Times

My life till I was about 5 years old was dominated by two wars, the Spanish Civil War and WW II.

Later on at age 70some, I decided to read about how those wars got started and how they were fought. I recently learned that a few key principles about fighting industrial warfare were worked out by Napoleon more than 200 years ago. They are well described in the First Chapter piece linked to above.

I also realize that there is a big difference between a principle and how it is put into action. In the end mass, industrial mass, will win as long as effective leadership is provided on the battle and home fronts. Napoleon understood and practiced that well until he over-committed the resources and means of communication he commanded. The same happened to Hitler.

The Allies, especially the French and the English, couldn’t apply those principles when WW II began and suffered many quick and humiliating defeats. Hitler was winning until Stalin worked out how to find the resources and shape his armed forces to break the back of the Nazi military juggernaut on the eastern warfront in several epic battles, including Leningrad, Stalingrad and Kursk.

Eventually American industrial and manpower resources as well as battlefield leadership finally came to grips with and defeated the more efficient Wehrmacht in Western Europe and the Japanese Empire in the Pacific.

In the end mass should win any contest of industrial war. Today the US has undertaken a war on terrorism in which the principles of industrial war don’t work any longer since this seems to be more of a war of shadows.

The Spanish Civil War did have some characteristics of a war of shadows until intervention by German and Italian forces turned the force of superior firepower against the under-armed and splintered Republican armed forces, which were refused support by the Allied democracies.

Those leaders, including Churchill at that time, were unwilling to confront the threat of military force deployed by the Axis powers and manifested greater anxiety about the USSR.

The day after I posted the above, I found this text in a review by Niall Ferguson, which seems to me the best description of the Iraq quagmire:

Still, “The Utility of Force” remains an impressive and absorbing work of military analysis. At his best, Smith is the Clausewitz of low-intensity conflict and peacekeeping operations. If, in the end, he does not quite solve the riddle of how to win the small wars of our time, he brilliantly lays bare the newfound limits of Western military power. The more Iraq looks like Bosnia on the Tigris — as a war amongst the people becomes another bloody war between peoples — the more prescient his book will seem.

Update 2008-10-20:

Ben Weider, founder and president of the International Napoleonic Society died at 85 years of age.

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