AdamSmith

On t'other hand, prompting enemy troops to burst out in choruses from B-grade musicals would seem to make them more lethal. Or, worse, attempting massed Leontyne Price impressions.

One fears that, by the time we are all drawing last breaths, our species' carbon emissions will have been curbed by collapse of the ocean food chain. Because that event could, belatedly, force us to recognize the vast food value in the planet's (dwindling?) petroleum reserves. Arthur Clarke was, to my knowledge, among the first to point out how shortsighted to have squandered these complex hydrocarbons for nothing but their thermal energy.

No sunlight comes between Rex Reed's assessment of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen et al. and my own. But I did once hear an interesting bit of biodata. To another journalist who knew Reed personally, I remarked that Reed's reviews always seem resentful. His colleague said, Yes, exactly the word! And explained that Reed is eternally bitter at having failed to have his own career in theatre, despite a couple of small film roles.

Well ... you know what Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, when told that Coolidge had died: "How could they tell?"

Eerie, no? I have to soak my head in cannabis, Corona, and every damned kind of thing to get anywhere near that groove. Wonderful how naturally it comes to her.

Without comment: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/w...l_n_246034.html

... Following that link, I find myself sucked into rereading the whole thing. Propelled along by such as: Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before you. Algernon. My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. Jack. Oh, that is nonsense! Algernon. It isn't! Jack. Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. Algernon. That is exactly what things were originally made for.

... I shall have to win another contest here, take Andre to Stratford, and check this out. It will erase the memory of the half-hour of 'Coraline' we endured last month. With apologies to any who liked that production.

The (alas) indispensable Google affirms your memory. Except for minor point that the citation appears to be "Rise," not "Arise". Even more apt to our present context-twisting. P.S. The citation: http://www.readeasily.com/oscar-wilde/00196/001960010.php

Delicious! Although one's particular favorite is: "Not even for ready money!" ... said nearly as often of local boys as of the subject (suggestive!) vegetable in the play.

The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout is more than amused... That Was No Lady If you’re looking for one-stop theatrical shopping, go north to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which in summertime more or less takes over the smallish Ontario town for which it is named. This year the festival is presenting 14 plays on four stages, and the fare is richly varied. Much is being made of the fact that under Des McAnuff, the new artistic director, the festival has cut back on Shakespeare (three plays this season, five last season) and beefed up the budget for its roster of crowd-pleasing musical comedies. Be that as it may, classical theater remains Stratford’s mainstay, and Brian Bedford’s brilliantly zany staging of “The Importance of Being Earnest†is good enough to justify a trip to Canada all by itself. Mr. Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s ever-enchanting comedy of turn-of-the-century English manners is built around a gimmick that turns out not to be the least bit gimmicky: In addition to directing, he also plays Lady Bracknell, the money-hungry monster of propriety who is determined to stop Algernon and Gwendolen (Mike Shara and Sara Topham), her nephew and daughter, from marrying beneath themselves. I don’t care for camped-up drag acts, but Mr. Bedford, who makes himself up to look like Queen Victoria and carries himself like a snooty gargoyle, is giving us something completely different, an impersonation so sharp-witted and closely observed that it demands to be accepted on its own daring terms. Not since I last watched Mark Morris enact the double role of Dido and the Sorceress in his modern-dance version of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas†have I seen a man play a woman so convincingly. Indeed, I might well have taken it for granted that Lady Bracknell was being played by a woman had I not glanced at the program before the curtain went up. I’d be tempted to say that Mr. Bedford’s star turn was the best thing about this “Earnest†were it not for the fact that everything and everyone else is just as good. Instead of galloping through their lines at the breakneck speed of farce, the cast strolls unhurriedly from scene to scene, giving Wilde’s double-edged epigrams plenty of time to seek and destroy their satirical targets. Desmond Heeley’s fantastic set, which looks as though Georges Seurat had sculpted it out of marzipan, adds immeasurably to the production’s comic zing. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...3949293078.html

It would also be duller. Having to watch for the footpath suddenly becoming littered with sharp tacks enlivens the walking. Wikipedia is invaluable: On the last episode of I Love Lucy, the last line is "Shoot, if you must, this old red head!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fritchie Also from Wikipedia: The comedian Mark Russell once parodied her quotation as "You can do anything you want with this flag, but don't mess up my hair!" Herself: Her poet-immortalizer (did everyone in the 19th century bear uncanny resemblance to one another?):

I ought to quit reading things like this. Doctors missing consciousness in vegetative patients 12:47 21 July 2009 by Celeste Biever If there's one thing worse than being in a coma, it's people thinking you are in one when you aren't. Yet a new comparison of methods for detecting consciousness suggests that around 40 per cent of people diagnosed as being in a vegetative state are in fact "minimally conscious". In the worst case scenario, such misdiagnoses could influence the decision to allow a patient to die, even though they have some vestiges of consciousness. But crucially it may deprive patients of treatments to make them more comfortable, more likely to recover, or to allow them to communicate with family, say researchers. In a vegetative state (VS), reflexes are intact and the patient can breathe unaided, but there is no awareness. A minimally conscious state (MCS) is a sort of twilight zone, only recently recognised, in which people may feel some physical pain, experience some emotion, and communicate to some extent. However, because consciousness is intermittent and incomplete in MCS, it can be sometimes very difficult to tell the difference between the two. In 2002 Joseph Giacino at the JFK Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey and colleagues released the first diagnostic criteria for MCS. Then in 2004, Giacino released a revised coma recovery scale (CRS-R) – a series of behavioural tests based on criteria that can be used to distinguish between the two states. Alarm 'appropriate' To see if the revised scale improves diagnoses, Giacino and Caroline Schnakers of the Coma Science Group at the University of Liege in Belgium, with colleagues, spent two years using CRS-R to re-diagnose patients admitted to a network of Belgian intensive care units and neurology clinics with head injuries that resulted in some kind of disturbance to consciousness. The clinics and units all used a "clinical consensus" agreed by a range of specialists to diagnose patients. Some of the specialists relied on qualitative, "bedside" observations to diagnose patients, others used older diagnostic tools, but none used the CRS-R – the only one designed specifically to distinguish between MCS and VS. Of the 44 patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state by the clinicians, the researchers diagnosed 18, or 41 per cent, as being in a MCS according to the CRS-R. "We may have become much too comfortable about our ability to detect consciousness," concludes Giacino. "I think it's appropriate for there to be some level of alarm about this." Giacino concedes that, because there is no objective way to measure consciousness, he cannot exclude the possibility that the reason for the discrepancy is that the CRS-R is over-diagnosing MCS. Examiner bias However, Schnakers argues that CRS-R should be more accurate because it specifies how many times each test must be repeated – and how many responses are needed to give an indication of consciousness. This, she says, guards against missing awareness in someone who pops in and out of consciousness, or mistaking a reflexive response for a response based on consciousness. It should also control for "examiner bias", where someone subjectively decides whether the patient is conscious or not, adds Giacino. What's more, the revised scale also makes use of some new insights. One sign of consciousness is whether someone follows the path of a moving object, known as "visual pursuit". Many clinicians simply look at whether someone follows a moving pen or person, says Schnakers. The CRS-R specifies the use of a mirror, which she argues may prompt a reaction in someone who is conscious, but who does not respond to a moving pen. "When you move an object, it is less powerful," she says. 'Death or survival' So why do clinicians still use the qualitative assessment? "Their focus is more typically on death or survival" and on biological factors that need treatment, such as how long a patient needs to be in an intensive care unit, says John Whyte of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study. "For their purposes, the distinction [between MCS and VS] doesn't matter much." For the patient and the family, the difference between MCS and VS can make a huge difference, though. Drug treatments, painkillers, physical therapies designed to stimulate the brain, as well as techniques for encouraging communication, are more likely to be given to someone in a MCS. In some jurisdictions, whether food can be withdrawn may depend on whether or not they are in a VS, says Whyte. "It's very important to be sure of the diagnosis," says Schnakers. Journal reference: BMC Neurology (DOI: 10.1186/1471-2377-9-35) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1749...e-patients.html

And away we go... Climate engineering research gets green light Hacking the planet to rein in humanity's effect on the climate has been given a scientific stamp of approval. The umbrella body for meteorological scientists in the US is about to endorse research into geoengineering as part of a three-pronged approach to coping with climate change, alongside national policies to reduce emissions. New Scientist has seen the final draft of the American Meteorological Society's carefully worded position paper on geoengineering. The AMS is the first major scientific body to officially endorse research into geoengineering. The document states that "deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system" should be explored alongside the more conventional approaches to climate change. Conventional approaches means reducing emissions – "mitigation" in policy-speak – and adjusting to the unavoidable effect of climate change – known as "adaptation". The paper states that "even aggressive mitigation of future emissions cannot avoid dangerous climate changes resulting from past emissions. Furthermore, it is unlikely that all of the expected climate-change impacts can be managed through adaptation. Thus, it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential benefits, to understand its limitations, and to avoid ill-considered deployment". Trials likely Opponents of geoengineering may be reassured to find that the statement calls for studies into the social, ethical and legal implications of geoengineering solutions, and for methods to be developed in a transparent fashion. A New Scientist special report on geoengineering earlier this year highlighted the need for such studies. Research, including some private studies, into geoengineering solutions is gathering pace and it's likely that small and eventually large-scale trials will soon be carried out. Yet there are few, if any, international frameworks in place that can regulate attempts to engineer the climate, despite the fact that the impacts of large-scale geoengineering will be felt on a regional and possibly global scale. "I think this is an important step towards developing an 'official' research programme on intentional climate intervention established in the United States," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California, and a proponent of research into geoengineering. "I think it is increasingly likely that we will see government funded research programs into ways to decrease the amount of climate change caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations," he says. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1749...reen-light.html

Now changing into a dry pair of drawers.

I think what Stu is actually doing is bemoaning Northerners' tendency to be embarrassed by the human condition, and admiring the Southern bent toward rueful delight in same. Or maybe I am projecting again.

On a matter this dire, I am all with Mr. Stevens about it being "not a choice between, but of." If the string runs out on one line of inquiry, as it usually does, I do not want to learn, too late in the day, that we ought to have pursued all likely possibilities in parallel. As with our consideration of our politics, so with life at large. We have always been such great tragedians that our only salvation lay in being even greater comedians. I know of no more hilarious book than As I Lay Dying, for example. Not to mention, stepping down a bit, the entire oeuvre of Flannery O'Connor. Or, back to an earlier point, Sen. Ervin's use of wit and ridicule as the tools of righteous anger during Watergate.

All right, Galifianakis ran a hapless, inept campaign. While Helms, his campaign manager Tom Ellis & crew were inventing the demonically effective tactics of wide-scale fundraising, voter microtargeting, and personal-divisive-destructive messaging later honed by Atwater and carried to perfection by Rove. You'll recall one of Helms's most oft-used slogans against the Greek: "Jesse Helms -- he's one of us." I ought to know I can't sneak anything by you. P.S. Your Colmer sounds vaguely reminiscent of our tippling Andrew Johnson.

TY! This Tar Heel takes exception. Remember Sam Ervin. Actually, here is a demographic analysis, or at least excuse. Helms got elected in 1972, the first election cycle to show the effects of the migration of substantial numbers of Northeast Corridor Republicans into the Research Triangle and other parts, courtesy of new plant openings by IBM, Monsanto, Burroughs Wellcome, etc. Those votes, added to the native bubbas, tipped it. Trend has continued since, with such as the state's emergence as a national banking center. Before 1972, old-time Democrats had, for better or worse, a lock on state politics since just after Reconstruction. One has to go back to Andrew Johnson to find anything quite as bad as the recent crop.

...quoth the fish to their first offspring fool enough to wonder about life on dry land? Less flip, the engineering possibilities of 'terraforming' other worlds are coming more and more into view. (Especially given the sharp boost those technologies could get in the next half-century here at home. A small but serious movement is taking shape to think about actively intervening in the climate mess, out of fear that the thing has already passed a tipping point, and that just decelerating carbon emissions going forward will be far too little, too late.) For good or ill, you're right. As Oberg's article above reminded, puncturing my highflown naivete.

When one begins to despair at the depths of one's own stupidity, this proves one could be even worse off. My favorite part of that article: Mr. Sibrel, who sells his films online, has hounded Apollo astronauts with a Bible, insisting that they swear on camera they had walked on the Moon. He so annoyed Buzz Aldrin in 2002 — ambushing him with his Bible and calling him “a coward, and a liar, and a thief†— that Mr. Aldrin punched Mr. Sibrel in the face. Law enforcement officials refused to file charges against Mr. Aldrin, the second man on the Moon.

Good article by space historian James Oberg on why we really went to the moon (cuts the legs out from some of my points) and what could get us back there: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5380736/ns/tec..._science-space/

Great point. One thought -- now that technology has given nation-states as well as rogue actors the power to take us all with them when they poop out, more reason than ever to spread the human seed widely. (Assuming you grant that preservation of H. sapiens and its successors is a good, not an evil.) Another, maybe broader thought. Could it be that extraplanetary venturing is the necessary spur to the next expansion of the conceptual frame, as arguably the voyages of Magellan et al. were in their age? And that said expansion is the only hope available of at least lengthening the periodicity of the instabilities you rightly identify? Of course another part of attacking the problem you name is to think about modifying H. sapiens itself. Evolution having made the fatal blunder of giving us intelligence, can we not use intelligence to at last rise above the plane of evolution, which after all blindly creeps with no aim but transmission of the code, despite our mythologizing that development of intelligence shows the progressive nature of evolution, when in fact it only shows evolution's desperate improvising of ever more unstable superstructures to clamp together its previous irrevocable blunders? That is, are we not approaching the capability to break free from not only the fatal impulses of the hindbrain, but ultimately even the chains of amino acids in which all our potential has been, to this point, inevitably bound? I realize this advocates the hubris of Dr. Frankenstein over the oft-perceived divine wisdom of blind genetic chance and evolutionary pressure. I would be willing to play that hand.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Countdown and liftoff: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5722827024646179220 From the gantry: Up close with those Saturn V engines: Some of the 40th anniversary activities upcoming: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200...15/1997425.aspx All that noted, I find it beyond dispiriting to look back at the failures of both imagination and nerve that have befallen the species' spaceflight ambitions since. The enormous dead-end investments in that engineering kluge, the space shuttle, in order to build the white-elephant time- and money-waster, the International Space Station. Which, after producing just a fraction of the science once anticipated, is now rumored for de-orbit in 2015. That waste of nearly four decades dashed the "2001"-era hopes that I (age 49) once had of seeing all kinds of post-Apollo frontiering within my own lifetime. The Constellation program to return to the moon is some solace, though it is apparently behind schedule, and running into engineering difficulties that have led to repeated reductions in lift capacity. One bright spot I find -- Buzz Aldrin is on a mission to convince people that settling for return-to-moon is in effect nothing, and that Mars-or-bust is the way to set new challenges equivalent to Kennedy's 1961 "because they are hard" speech. (Irreverence within the temple -- never before struck me how Marilyn Monroe might have construed that phrase. ) On the other side of the ledger, I feel unbounded gratitude for all the professionals who dedicated their careers to the age's triumphs of unmanned exploration and discovery -- the Voyagers, Mars probes, Hubble Space Telescope, on and on. Arguably a vastly better investment, on balance, than in manned flight. Though I tend to side with Aldrin that manned exploration is essential to fueling and satisfying our spirit of discovery. And with the utilitarian argument that eventually establishing self-sustaining colonies off-Earth is critical to giving the species a more robust likelihood of survival, long-term.

So this is how it's done... It's a very nice house in the country (but not for an orgy) Wealthy guests sipped champagne, but at midnight everything suddenly changed Nestled in the rolling Somerset countryside and surrounded by 17 acres of meticulously kept gardens, Halswell House is the sort of quintessentially English retreat that would make an ideal backdrop for a romantic period drama. It is also a perfect venue if you happen to be a member of a shady European party circle which indulges in the very un-English pastime of mass orgies. Grahame Bond rented out Halswell House to a Dutch company but failed to research their parties Last weekend, employees at the 17th-century manor house, which is accustomed to hosting corporate dos and chocolate-box weddings for well-heeled clients, were left speechless when 350 masked guests stripped off at the stroke of midnight and engaged in group sex of bacchanalian proportions. According to those who witnessed the spectacle, security guards gave up trying to persuade copulating couples to go to their rooms because almost every guest at the party was "otherwise engaged" with a fellow reveller. Grahame Bond, the hotel's multimillionaire owner, had hired his 30-room house out for £9,000 to a Dutch company who planned to host a private party, charging guests £65 a ticket. When a convoy of BMWs, Aston Martins and Porsches swept up the driveway on Saturday evening and disgorged their masked occupants, staff assumed they were dealing with a fabulously well-attired fancy-dress party. But at the stroke of midnight, the atmosphere suddenly changed. "We began the evening by serving the guests Kir Royals and the champagne flowed," Mr Bond recalled yesterday. "There was a man – the party organiser – telling guests in a loud voice that they were all under a spell. Then, at the stroke of midnight, he told them that if they kissed a guest the spell would be broken. I couldn't believe my eyes. It suddenly turned into a scene from Eyes Wide Shut." Wherever Mr Bond and his dumbfounded staff looked, they could see revellers indulging in group sex. "Everywhere there were couples having sex," he said. "Over the banisters alone I counted four couples at it." Exclusive swinging parties have long been a staple for the debauched doyens of Mayfair, but locals from the nearby village of Goathurst were flabbergasted. "My staff were astonished and it wasn't long before word got out," admitted Mr Bond, a property developer who acquired Halswell House in 2004 and has since spent more than £5m renovating the building. The Independent has discovered that the party was hosted by Little Sins, a Dutch company which specialises in throwing luxury swingers parties for Europe's wealthy élite. Known as an "Eyes Wide Sin" party, anyone attending must be over the age of 21 and men can only join if they are part of a couple. The dress code is strictly monitored by a "doorbabe", who makes sure that anyone attending the party has obeyed the sartorial requirements. Once inside, pretty much anything goes. A promotional video invites party-goers to a "temple of lust" in the British countryside and claims it is the first time that Little Sins has come to Britain. The footage, taken from a previous party in a German castle, shows naked and masked couples cavorting to the sounds of thumping club music. The mobile-phone number of the party organiser was not answered yesterday, but Mr Bond said the owner of Little Sins had told him that the British event had been particularly debauched. Mr Bond said: "The chap who organised it told me that in Holland they are all rather used to these things, but because this doesn't happen much in Britain he said the guests really went for it. He certainly wasn't wrong." The hotel's owner insisted, however, that he had no inkling that an orgy had been planned. "We were terribly naïve," he said. "The organisers were very polite and well-spoken. Perhaps the alarm bells should have rung when they asked for a chill-out room filled with beds and silk sheets, but we thought they were going for a Moroccan feel and might want mint tea or something." The revellers did, however, call it a night at 3am. "We didn't have any trouble and everyone went to bed very quickly. Most of them stayed in the hotel rooms but there were a few who got on a bus and stayed at the nearby Travelodge," said Mr Bond. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-...gy-1746473.html