Yesterday’s Guardian carried an interesting and coherent dismantling of why the authorities need more surveillance powers in the wake of the Paris attacks. The writer, Henry Porter, argues that more surveillance powers undermine our liberty and openness in just the same way that the terrorists are trying to.
All posts by Keith
Weekly Photograph
This week I bring you two photographs of magnificent memorials from Goudhurst church in Kent, taken at the end of the day after we had been round some of the nearby villages in search of my ancestors.
[You really do need to click the images and look at larger versions on Flickr!]
The first, which dates from around 1616, is to William Campion and his wife Rachell:
Goudhurst Campion Tomb
Goudhurst, Kent; September 2014
The second, of about the same date, is the tomb of Sir Thomas Colpepper:
Goudhurst Colepepyr Tomb
Goudhurst, Kent; September 2014
Just look at this Colepepyr tomb. The guy had 14 sons (two of whom died as babies) and 5 daughters, admittedly by two wives. OK he was clearly well off — the Culpepers were Tudor and Stuart courtiers — but to have this many children and to lose only two under the age of about 5 or 6 is remarkable.
Ten Things #13
This month’s “ten things” list is suitably topical for the beginning of the year.
To quote my friend Katy:
Regular readers will know that I do no do punitive resolutions. I don’t believe in forcing myself into a miserable cycle of activities I really don’t want to do, but feel in some spartan way would be ‘good for me’, and which I torture myself with before inevitably giving up, because they’re hateful and things that are good for me in that way are usually about as much fun as sitting on a spike and eating raw turnips.
However here is a list of 10 things I am going to try to do in 2015, in no special order:
- Kick the depression
- Drink more champagne
- Keep breathing
- Restart meditation
- Take more photographs
- Be drawn/painted/photographed nude by someone other than family
- Have at least one 2 week holiday
- Celebrate my mother’s 100th birthday with her
- Visit Horniman Museum
- Go somewhere/do something I’ve not done before
Some of those are going to be a lot harder than others, and not all are ultimately within my control, so it remains to be seen how successful I shall be, but we’ll give it a go and not be disappointed if we fail.
Something for the Weekend
This week a topical side-swipe from Calvin & Hobbes …
Male Circumcision
I’ve written before about my belief that male circumcision should be outlawed (unless really medically essential) — see inter alia here and here.
Well this peer reviewed paper looks like another damn good reason not to circumcise boys.
Morten Frisch & Jacob Simonsen, “Ritual circumcision and risk of autism spectrum disorder in 0- to 9-year-old boys: national cohort study in Denmark”, J R Soc Med OnlineFirst, 8 January 2015.
Abstract
Objective: Based on converging observations in animal, clinical and ecological studies, we hypothesised a possible impact of ritual circumcision on the subsequent risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in young boys …
Participants: A total of 342,877 boys born between 1994 and 2003 and followed in the age span 0–9 years between 1994 and 2013.
Main outcome measures: Information about cohort members’ ritual circumcisions, confounders and ASD outcomes, as well as two supplementary outcomes, hyperkinetic disorder and asthma, was obtained from national registers. Hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) associated with foreskin status were obtained using Cox proportional hazards regression analyses.
Results: With a total of 4986 ASD cases, our study showed that regardless of cultural background circumcised boys were more likely than intact boys to develop ASD before age 10 years … Risk was particularly high for infantile autism before age five years … Circumcised boys in non-Muslim families were also more likely to develop hyperkinetic disorder … Associations with asthma were consistently inconspicuous …
Conclusions: We confirmed our hypothesis that boys who undergo ritual circumcision may run a greater risk of developing ASD. This finding, and the unexpected observation of an increased risk of hyperactivity disorder among circumcised boys in non-Muslim families, need attention, particularly because data limitations most likely rendered our HR estimates conservative. Considering the widespread practice of non-therapeutic circumcision in infancy and childhood around the world, confirmatory studies should be given priority.
Word:
Chirography
1. Handwriting.
2. One’s own handwriting or autograph.
3. A style or character of writing.
The word was first recorded (at least according to the OED) in 1654 and derives from the Greek.
Stupid People
So says Diamond Geezer in a post yesterday taking an extremely askance look at the way in which “stupid people” influence the direction the country goes:
There are Stupid People everywhere … they’re the ones who’ll be voting in the upcoming General Election and letting the wrong lot in. Be very afraid …
[T]hey only see personal truth, and your opinion is wrong QED … You and I can see the flaws in their arguments, but the Stupid People plough on regardless …
And so the soundbites sparkle and the slogans flow because, although you and I don’t need them, they help the Stupid People make their minds up … [and] be temporarily recruited. And once they’ve spoken, however wrongly, the entire country has to put up with their decision.
Hence 2015 will be defined by the thoughts and actions of the Stupid People. May they jump the right way this General Election year, because the rest of us alas have no say in the matter whatsoever.
Gawdelpus!
Oddity of the Week: Underarm Odour
Scientists have discovered that a gene called ABCC11 determines whether people produced wet or dry earwax. What is even more curious is that people who produce the “dry” version of earwax also lack a chemical in their armpits that bacteria feed on to cause underarm odour. And it seems that this gene is the single determinant of whether you do produce underarm odour or not.
Strangely while only 2 percent of Europeans lack the gene for smelly armpits, most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack the gene.
From: Tia Ghose, “People without Gene for Underarm Odor Still Wear Deodorant” at www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/.
Quote: Thought
a thought without accepting it.
[Aristotle]
Weekly Photograph
This week’s photo is another I took in October 2013 when Noreen and I travelled on the paddle-steamer Waverley from London (Tower Pier) to Southend. This is a shot of some bit of waterside industrial buildings somewhere along the south bank of Thames below Docklands. You can often get some interesting effects shooting lights at twilight or at night from a moving platform (boat, train, car) which make boring scenes rather fun.
Industrial Twilight
London; October 2013