A portrait I wish I had shot


Christopher Tolkien. New York Times photo by Josh Dolgin. Click for high-resolution version.

I hope I am not inviting copyright trouble here. The extraordinary photo above is linked to a New York Times URL; I have not downloaded a copy of it. The photo accompanies the New York Times’ obituary for Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien: Christopher Tolkien, Keeper of His Father’s Legacy, Dies at 95.

You all know who Christopher Tolkien was. There is nothing that I need to add. But as lovers of literature and photography, how can we not ask a question: Why is it that people who change the world with their books always look so amazing? It was the same with Christopher Tolkien’s father, J.R.R. Tolkien, who was always photographed in tweeds, and often in front of a fireplace or bookcase.

What a gift, to have lived such lives.

Conservatism, with lipstick and without


Roger Scruton. Wikipedia photo.

The Washington Post has an obituary this morning for Roger Scruton, whom the Post describes as a “British philosopher, author and high priest of conservatism.” Scruton was a lipstick conservative. By that I mean that his fundamental meanness was masked by good manners, nice clothes, connections to Cambridge, and even a trip to the palace to be knighted by the queen.

Lipstick conservatism was the rule during the era of Thatcher and Reagan. But in the era of Trump, the masks are gone. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” conservatives no longer feel a need to disguise themselves with lipstick. Ugly things that once had to be encoded and encrypted are now spoken openly. But regardless of how well they speak English or how they dress, they are the same thing: ugly.

I have not read Scruton’s books, and I won’t. But it doesn’t take many words to reveal what he was. According to the Wikipedia article, Scruton wrote, in praising authority, that obedience — obedience! — is “the prime virtue of political beings, the disposition that makes it possible to govern them, and without which societies crumble into ‘the dust and powder of individuality.'” His sense of virtue permitted him to write articles favorable to tobacco without disclosing that he was receiving monthly payments from a tobacco company. When busted for this, he attacked others and made no apology. The Washington Post obituary says, “Unabashedly elitist, he favored fox hunting, the fur trade, Bordeaux wines and the House of Lords, as well as an old-fashioned death sentence, hanging. Single mothers, gays, socialists and multiculturalism came in for scathing criticism.” The Pet Shop Boys once sued Scruton for libel for a gratuitous insult that was provably wrong. The Pet Shop Boys won.

It happens that, when I read Scruton’s obituary in the Post, I was about 30 pages from the end of Katrina Forrester’s book on John Rawls and the history of liberal philosophy. Though many moral and political philosophers who engaged, extended, or criticized Rawls’ thinking are discussed in this book, Scruton is not mentioned. He just doesn’t signify, even as a critic. The contrast is remarkable. While liberal philosophers were building an elegant and rigorous theory of fairness, equality, and justice, Scruton was making mud pies out of privilege and meanness and getting knighted for it.

I Googled for other obituaries for Scruton; they’re mostly hagiographic. But, as for me: Goodbye, Roger Scruton. I’m glad I never knew you.

Richmond, Jan. 20: I’ve got a bad feeling about this


“Unite the Right” rally, Charlottesville, Virginia, August 2017. Wikipedia photo.

I had been wondering when the mainstream media would write a proper piece about the gun-rights rally planned for Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 20. The Washington Post finally has it today: Prospect of gun control in Virginia draws threats, promise of armed protest.

Because I am in the woods of rural red America, I’ve been hearing about this for quite some time. This is militia country, and the buzz I’m picking up on the ground is that lots of militia guys are planning to go. They’re actually training for it. Most of them won’t be looking for trouble. But as we learned from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017, it only takes one fool to start some violence, as when a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others.

The organizers of the Richmond event have asked the militia guys to leave their long guns and military gear at home. But if you know any militia guys, then you know that that’s not going to happen. The militia guys have every right to protest gun legislation in Virginia that they don’t like. But to descend on Richmond heavily armed, with all of Richmond’s emotional reminders of the old Confederacy, and with the world on the edge of a nervous breakdown, is playing with fire. I just hope that the state of Virginia has a plan for keeping the protesters and counter-protesters apart. There are too many people who actually want violence, because violence feeds their fantasies or supports their agendas.

Many studies have found that conservatives are more fearful than liberals. Thus liberals don’t easily understand why conservatives respond they way they do if they think someone is going to take their guns away, because conservatives very much see their guns as protection, while liberals are much more likely to see guns as just dangerous. The Virginia gun legislation is still being debated (the legislature goes back into session on Jan. 8), but actual buybacks of assault weapons, as far as I know, are off the agenda. Registration of already-owned assault weapons may be in the current version of the legislation, but conservatives aren’t going to accept that either, because as the Washington Post story says, they see it as just the first step toward confiscation.

Did organizers of the gun event know that Jan. 20 is Martin Luther King Day? I suspect that they did and that it was intended as an insult. As I said in the headline, I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.

Update 1: I don’t know if I agree with this opinion piece or not. But it’s something that we need to think about: How would the far right react to a Trump loss? Here’s a glimpse.

Update 2: The Guardian posted a story today about Virginia: Virginia Democrats won an election. Gun owners are talking civil war.

Update 3: “We have received credible intelligence from our law enforcement agencies that there are groups with malicious plans for the rally that is planned for Monday.” Virginia Governor Declares State Of Emergency Ahead Of Gun Rights Rally.

Update 4: Virginia Capital on Edge as F.B.I. Arrests Suspected Neo-Nazis Before Gun Rally.

A morbid measure of mass insanity


Wikipedia photo from the entry on Multi-Vehicle collisions

During the weekend, in Pennsylvania, yet another traffic pileup killed five people and injured more than 60. Oddly, I can’t find any information on how many vehicles were involved in that pileup, though several of the stories have referred to a pileup in Virginia two weeks ago, involving 69 vehicles. Other pileups in that area of Pennsylvania have involved 100 vehicles.

This is not just an American phenomenon. According to Wikipedia, the record for the pileup with the highest number of vehicles was in Brazil, at 300. In 2009, 259 vehicles were involved in a pileup in Germany. The record in the Czech Republic seems to be 231. In Los Angeles, it’s 216. In the Pennsylvania crash this past weekend, several of the drivers who were killed were professional drivers, who ought to know better than to drive too fast for conditions.

When one car rear-ends just one other car, that’s bad judgment — often fatally bad. But when 100, 200, 300 cars pile up, that is mass insanity. We have normalized the kind of insane traffic conditions in which pileups occur — too many cars, too close together, traveling too fast. If a driver can’t stop to avoid a hazard ahead, then that driver’s vehicle is not under control. That 300 vehicles should be out of control in the same place at the same time blows my mind.

Wikipedia has a good article on the subject, Multi-Vehicle Collisions, though the article says that very little research has been done on the causes. Some of the details in the Wikipedia article are hellish:

Multiple-vehicle collisions are particularly deadly as the mass of crumpled vehicles makes escape for survivors difficult. Even if survivors are able to exit their vehicles, other cars may strike them. Individual vehicles in a multiple-vehicle collision are often hit multiple times at high speed, increasing the risk of injury to passengers who may have survived the first impact with the benefit of now-discharged protective airbags. Collisions after the initial collision may occur from the side of the vehicle, where the passenger compartment is more vulnerable.

A fire in one part of the collision can quickly spread via spilled gasoline and cover the entire crash area. Multiple-vehicle collisions can also overwhelm local firefighting, ambulance, and police services making speedy rescues more difficult. If the collision takes place in a remote area, getting medical help to the scene can be a daunting task.

Suburban commuters drive every day in traffic conditions in which a pileup would occur if a single mistake by a single driver started a chain reaction. My guess is that people who routinely drive in such conditions have normalized it to such a degree that they no longer sense the danger. They may even be eating or talking on the phone.

Fortunately for me, my lifestyle rarely gets me into the kind of traffic in which pileups occur. I stay off of freeways, and I don’t drive into big cities. Last summer, while driving to the Raleigh airport, I drove through a severe thunderstorm. Visibility was terrible, and water on the road made hydroplaning inevitable. But the traffic around me didn’t slow down. I realized that if I slowed down to a safe speed, I’d be inviting the congestion of speeding drivers behind me and increase the risk of being hit from behind. So I got off the road and waited. That’s why I left for the airport early — to not put my flight at risk if there were traffic problems. But most drivers are in a hurry and won’t slow down, which multiples the dangers.

This is a form of mass insanity that is getting worse, not better. We keep building freeways, and new freeways seem to be overloaded as soon as we build them. If you’re forced to drive on these freeways, even if you’re aware of the insanity of it, you can’t protect yourself by driving at a safe speed, because you’ll be hit from behind. Maybe that’s why good drivers, including professional drivers, get trapped in pileups: They know that if they don’t maintain the same speed as the rest of the traffic, they only increase the danger to themselves and others as traffic packs up behind them. They’re trapped in a fast-moving slug of traffic vulnerable to a pileup. You either entrust yourself to luck in spite of the danger, or you get off the highway.

As readers of this blog know, I’m no techno-utopian. But I wonder if this is one of the problems that self-driving cars might be able to solve. But self-driving cars seem to be a bigger challenge than was expected. For a computer to drive a car is easy. What’s difficult for computers is the same as what’s difficult for good drivers — keeping track of all the idiots around you.

His Dark Materials ★★★☆

Until the next truly smashing science fiction or fantasy series comes along, His Dark Materials will help a bit to tide us over. Some reviewers seem to think that it’s a Game of Thrones knockoff. It looks more like Harry Potter to me. Still, there are strong elements of originality. A big part of what makes it worth watching is purely visual — an imaginary world with lots of gothic and steampunk elements. The animal sidekicks are charming and are used to excellent dramatic effect.

My main criticism might be that it’s a touch too young adult for the total immersion of someone as old as I am. But it’s good enough, I think, to make up for that. Anglophiles will love it, and unfortunately for those who live at Oxford, the flood of tourists is only going to get worse. I thoroughly enjoyed my brief visit to Oxford back in August. I’ve watched two episodes of His Dark Materials so far and have downloaded the third.

His Dark Materials was produced by the BBC and HBO. You can stream it from HBO Now or HBO Go.

Are we overdue for a cat picture?


Click here for high-resolution version.

I apologize for not having posted for a while. For now, here’s a cat picture, because I don’t think I’ve posted a cat picture for a long time.

It’s shocking to me that Lily, who still thunders up and down the stairs like a kitten, is almost 11 years old. In this photo, she was sitting with me while I was reading (she often does), and I caught her in a contemplative moment with the iPhone camera. I regret that I’ve never had the experience with other domestic animals such as horses and cows, but with cats and dogs, if you raise them from infancy, converse with them constantly, give them every possible privilege and the same dignity a human being deserves, they become people. In fact, they become better people than a lot of people. The older they get, the more language they learn, and the more they talk back. The briefness of their lives is a great pity. I can imagine what a 70-year-old cat raised from a kitten in a good home would become.

On other matters: I decided not to write a post about this, because I try to avoid posting when I’m angry, but here’s a link to a New York Times story on the rogue Navy Seal Edward Gallagher and how he has become a right-wing celebrity after Trump pardoned him for war crimes. It is extremely difficult for decent Americans to understand how a criminal sociopath got into the White House and why so many people make heroes of men who are cruel and depraved. I stand by my argument that the entire conservative spectrum, especially when it is socialized, is a cognitive and moral impairment, not just another way of being, and that authoritarian personalities are both sick and dangerous. Decent societies normally can contain and manage these people, but we are living in yet another era in which demagogues and predators have overwhelmed the safeguards.

Reviews to come: I am working my way through Katrina Forrester’s new book about John Rawls, In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy. It’s a book that must be read slowly, but I’ll have a review before long.

“His Dark Materials“: I’ve watched one episode and found it interesting enough that I’ll watch another. I may have a review. It’s an eight-part series produced by the BBC and HBO, and you can stream it from HBO.

No-meat meat pies in Scotland, from Herald Scotland: Greggs launch vegan steak bake.

A globe is worth a thousand maps


North America at sunset in New York, winter solstice. Click here for high-resolution version.

Maps are fascinating. But maps also are highly deceptive. That’s because there is no way to represent the surface of a sphere on a flat piece of paper without distortion. Today is the winter solstice, when the earth’s northern hemisphere is at its maximum tilt away from the sun. While testing a new portrait lens (a Nikon 105mm f2.5 prime lens), I shot photos of my globe, doing my best to light the globe the way the sun lit the earth today.

The first thing that I find striking is just how far north the United States and Europe are — particularly Europe. In the photo below, even sunny Italy is far to the north. The United Kingdom and Scotland are spookily close to the winter darkness inside the Arctic Circle. And just look at the vastness of Africa, even just the part of Africa that is north of the equator.

Maps are great for showing relatively small areas, because that can be done with minimal distortion. But to really see the vastness of our planet in perspective, you must consult a globe.

Just before sunset in northern Europe, winter solstice. Click here for high-resolution version.

The center of the universe at 3 p.m. GMT on Dec. 24

The opening of the 2015 broadcast

It’s a saying of mine that the center of the universe is not a fixed place. It moves constantly. Young Luke Skywalker touches on this in Star Wars episode IV, when the says, “Well, if there’s a bright center of the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from.”

Many people live their entire lives in the dull, obscure shadows of being and meaning, with never a moment at the center of the universe. Lucky is the life that gets there once or twice, in a moment of bliss or discovery or good fortune. But the miracle lasts only for a moment, like lightning. Then the center of the universe moves on.

It’s highly presumptuous of me to claim to predict, in advance, where the center of the universe will be at any future moment. But I dare to predict that at 3 p.m. GMT on December 24, with what remains of Christendom in an annual moment of focus, the center of the universe will be at Cambridge, in the chapel of King’s College. At that moment, a boy soprano who learned only moments before that he is the chosen voice, will, for about the 100th time, step forward and sing “Once in royal David’s city.” After the solo, as the BBC’s camera pans across the high fan vaults of the chapel, the choir will join, then the organ and the congregation.

I would say that the BBC will be there to record the moment, but the BBC’s broadcast actually is recorded in advance. The service is repeated on Christmas Eve, though, for those who waited all night out in the cold to get a seat.

You might wonder why this matters to an old heathen like me. That’s easy: It’s the music. I wouldn’t give you two cents for the total output of every Christian theologian who ever lived. But the art and music — and a heretic or two such as Joan of Arc — are a different story. A culture can lose its religion, but the tradition may still matter.

I can hardly imagine a greater privilege for a child than to grow up as a chorister at Cambridge. It would be far better than being rich. Fortunately, it’s a myth that suicides peak at Christmastime. A song says that “it’s the best time of the year.” Maybe. But I’d argue that, for most people, it’s the most existentially arduous time of the year. And that which is existentially arduous, I suspect, tends to attract the center of the universe. I am about 4,000 miles from Cambridge and many parsecs from the center of the universe, wherever it may be. But at 15:00 GMT on Christmas Eve, I hope to pick up a signal from the center of the universe and maybe even sing with those who’re there.

Those of you in the United Kingdom already know how to get the BBC’s Christmas Eve broadcast. In the United States it’s a bit more difficult. Cable companies, satellite radio, and some radio stations will carry it, and you should be able to stream it with the right app on your smartphone.

Here’s the music. If you start practicing, you’ll be able to sing with them:

Running cedar

Running cedar, as far as I know, has no legal protection, and that’s a shame. It’s not nearly as common as it used to be. I see it often while walking in the woods, but never in the large patches that I often saw as a child in the Carolina woodlands. Its ideal habitat is on the ridges of coniferous Appalachian forests. It likes acid soil and dappled sunlight.

The Virginia Native Plant Society asks people to leave it alone and writes, “Over-collecting and habitat destruction have increased the rarity of the plant, a slow grower.”

It’s scientific name is Diphasiastrum digitatum. When I was a young’un, people used to pull it up to make Christmas wreaths. I hope that’s not done anymore, not least because running cedar is said to be highly flammable. Another form of winter greenery, mistletoe, sometimes grows at the tops of oak trees in these woodlands. It, too, is not as common as it used to be. The Druids, it is said, would climb an oak and cut mistletoe with a golden knife, on the sixth day of the new moon closest to the winter solstice. I’m embarrassed to say that, when I was a boy, we shot it out of trees with .22 rifles.

Now I miss Mrs. Squirrel


Click here for high resolution version.

I’ve posted a couple of times about Mrs. Squirrel, who gnawed her way into the attic through a ventilation grill, built a nest, and gave birth to four baby squirrels thirty feet up in the abbey’s attic. I quarreled with her often for not staying in the woods where squirrels belong, but of course I allowed her to remain in the attic until the little ones were big enough to live in the woods. It turns out that I never had to get rough with Mrs. Squirrel to evict her. She took her children, now half as big as she is, to live in the woods three mornings ago.

It was Sunday morning, and I heard her scrabble down the back of the house at dawn, as usual. That was the last time I heard her on the house. The nest in the attic is now cold and empty. I was relieved, because now I can nail metal fabric over the ventilation grill, and baby squirrels will be born in the trees from now on.

But she and I had become pretty good friends. I never tried to tame her, but we got along. Sometimes I’d go out onto the rear deck and call her, and she’d climb down to talk. She never got closer than about four feet, but she’d look me in the eye and bark back at me when I scolded her.

This evening, I put a long lens on the camera and went out to look for her. When I called her, just behind the house, she came halfway down a tree to say hello. There was no sign of her children. But there are four squirrels’ nest in that area where the children may be.

All’s well that ends well, and I hope to remain friends with Mrs. Squirrel. She is a brave, good mother, and a fine activist for squirrels’ rights.

Update: Mrs. Squirrel came to visit this morning. I was on the deck and didn’t notice her at first, but she barked to get my attention from the tree that overhangs the deck.