Later On

I watched Harry Brown; or, The Pensioner’s Revenge, with Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer, last night. Quite a good movie. That’s not the actual subtitle, but it seemed fitting: Michael Caine is the pensioner.

At one scene we see him in the cemetery. He has brought flowers, and we have just witnessed the death of his elderly wife. Harry kneels down with a bunch of flowers, putting one by a small granite headstone that includes a sculpture of a teddy bear—obviously, his child’s grave. The rest he puts by a grave at whose head is a simple wooden cross, painted white, with a photograph at the intersection of the arms and upright, stapled in place and protected by plastic: his wife’s grave.

No comment is made, but the two markers poignantly mark how Harry has fallen on hard times compared to his earlier life. Very well done.

28′ this morning on the Nordic Track, and I must say that listening to a novel makes one look forward to the exercise, especially once one is in good enough shape that the exercise itself is not so daunting. I do work up a sweat, but I no longer feel that I have to stop or keel over.

I mentioned the documentary Collapse, available currently on Netflix Watch Instantly. Michael Ruppert discusses the perfect storm into which the world is heading, climate change and Peak Oil being the critical factors. We are doing nothing about climate change, and yet when the climate changes, massive crop failures result, which leads to food shortages and famine, with war close behind.

Notice this story in today’s NY Times, titled "U.N. Data Notes Sharp Rise in World Food Prices":

World food prices continued to rise sharply in December, bringing them close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago, according to newly released United Nations data.

Prices are expected to remain high this year, prompting concern that the world may be approaching another crisis, although economists cautioned that many factors, like adequate stockpiles of key grains, could prevent a serious problem.

The United Nations data measures commodity prices on the world export market. Those are generally far removed from supermarket prices in wealthy countries like the United States. In this country, food price inflation has been relatively tame, and prices are forecast to rise only 2 to 3 percent this year.

But the situation is often different in poor countries that rely more heavily on imports. The food price index of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization rose 32 percent from June to December, according to the report published Wednesday. In December, the index was slightly higher than it was in June 2008, its previous peak. The index is not adjusted for inflation, however, making an exact comparison over time difficult.

The global index was pushed up last year by rising prices for cooking oils, grains, sugar and meat, all of which could continue to remain high or rise.

“We are at a very high level,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist for the organization, which is based in Rome. “These levels in the previous episode led to problems and riots across the world.”

Mr. Abbassian said that bad weather affecting commodity crops in many exporting countries might help keep prices high over the next several months.

“The concern is that the long duration of the high prices for the months to come may eventually result in these high prices reaching the domestic markets of these poorer countries,” he said. “In the event of that, there is the chance of the repeat of the events of 2007 and 2008.”

At that time, high petroleum prices, growing world demand for food and poor harvests in some areas combined to sharply push up food prices in poorer importing countries. That led to shortages and sometimes deadly riots in several countries, including Egypt, Haiti, Somalia and Cameroon.

Mr. Abbassian said there were several crucial differences this year…

Continue reading. And, of course, last year Russia suspended its train exports due to crop failures.

I see it as overwhelmingly likely that our governments and other institutions will do nothing effective to halt (much less reverse) climate change and it seems obvious that Peak Oil has arrived, and I would guess that the collapse referred to in the documentary could well occur within a decade: "slowly at first, and then all of a sudden."

So how should one act in the face of the end of civilization and possible extinction of the human race? I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems obvious that unremitting despair is ineffective and unhealthy—physically, mentally, and spiritually. And the situation is not that different from the familiar destiny we face in our own mortality: we ourselves are individually going to be extinct sooner (the elderly) or later (most children). What we have learned is to make the best of the time we have: treat each other well, enjoy the pleasures that come our way, enjoy learning about the universe in which we live and the things we have created, and face death with equanimity, having done our best and even (hopefully) some good.

So I’ll continue to work on fitness, try to learn Spanish, read more history, and treat people well. In time, we all will die. That is not news, and we know how best to act.

The Wee Scot is by no means a toy: it’s a fully functional—and effective—shaving brush, and a good size for travel and camping. I got three good passes of lather from the fully loaded Wee Scot—and the third pass was by no means sparse: I had enough for another pass easily.

The iKon open-comb was its usual comfortable self and carried its usual Swedish Gillette blade, and a splash of Mr. Taylor’s aftershave set me up nicely.

Again drawing on Dan Colman’s Open Culture:

Last month, we posted a dazzling clip – Hans Rosling tracing health trends within 200 countries over 200 years, using 120,000 data points, all in 4 minutes. Pretty quickly you saw why Rosling has earned a reputation for presenting data in extremely imaginative ways. The video was an outtake from a BBC documentary called “The Joy of Stats,” which is now fully available online. It runs 59 minutes and takes you on a “rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics.” When it’s all over, you’ll never doubt that stats can change how you understand our world.

Note: If this whets your appetite to learn statistics, then check out the free courses in the Math Section of our Free Online Course collection. Also find stats textbooks in our Free Textbooks collection.

Via Dan Colman’s Open Culture.

I thought The Younger Daughter would enjoy the Greek travelogue:

This month will be private lessons so we can really focus on improving my technique. Today was amazing. My general current posture profile has me throwing out my chest, with everything then pulled out of alignment. My instructor had me stand sideways in front of a mirror, my back to an upright pole. When I looked, my head was tilted forward at an angle and my posture was sort of slumped.

We then went to a table, and worked on enabling me to lie properly, and finally moved to just get me to breathe properly: not using my head and neck and shoulders, as I seem to (those muscles are tensed), but rather my diaphragm and lower chest, my back flat on the table, with fuller breaths. It’s quite hard for me to describe, because I don’t understand it and generally I can’t even feel small differences in muscle tension and alignment that are obvious to my instructor. But we continued to work on the breathing, and I did make progress, beginning to breathe more fully with greater relaxation of irrelevant muscles.

After about 40 minutes of that we returned to the mirror. I was truly startled by the difference: my head was upright instead of tilted forward and my overall posture greatly improved.

I suddenly realized why my height has mysteriously shrunk from 6’1″ to 6’0″: it was my poor posture (and weakened muscles that determine posture).

This is important: I can reach the same BMI at 180 lbs when 6’1″ as at 175 lbs when I’m 6’0″. If I can improve my posture, that’s 5 lbs I don’t have to lose.

I highly recommend Pilates with the caveat that you need a good instructor and, at the beginning, either private or 2-person classes or a mix.

The Wife left early this morning to spend 30 days in Paris, for her the sine qua non of cities. I will be taking care of Miss Molly.

An easy 27 minutes on the Nordic—working up to it gradually really does make it go easier—and I’m really enjoying the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote: extremely good.

My success with the Healthy-Way-monitored weight loss and the instructor-run Pilates effort indicates to me that I do well with hired coaches/teachers/monitors. It may be a crutch, but OTOH it’s a crutch with a venerable history: it seems that we have always valued the guidance of teachers, coaches, and other such mentors and it is only recently (I think) that seeking help began to be perceived as a flaw or character defect.

For example, last year I really wanted to learn Spanish. I set everything up for self-directed study, and it just fizzled. Indeed, my self-directed exercise program also fizzled until the Healthy Way counselor told me I would have to start exercising again, and that carried me through.

With those successes in mind, I decided to get a teacher and a formal structure and tackle Spanish again. Crutch or not, once I learn it, I know it, and that seems worthwhile. So I’ve completed the on-line application to Monterey Peninsula Community College. And it occurs to me that they probably have drawing classes as well, that being another skill I have failed to master on my own.

Spring semester starts 31 Jan. This should be an interesting spring.

I had forgotten that California doesn’t charge tuition for higher education for state residents (though there are some fees). It looks right now as though this will be a relatively inexpensive venture.

Terrific lather from Blenheim Bouquet thanks in no small part to the TOBS artificial badger brush. I think artificial badger is simply excellent. I do note that those who speak against these brushes do not seem to have actually tried them: they seem to object to the idea of the brush: using a synthetic in place of a natural fiber. For this use, it seems to me, this substitution works  extremely well.

Three smooth passes with the Feather razor holding a Feather blade, then a splash of Klassik.

The GOP seems to have completely lost its collective mind. Glance, if you dare, at the stores to which these headlines are linked:

RNC Candidates: Marriage Is ‘Foundational In Our Lives,’ But Gay People Should Be Excluded

In Killing Ohio’s High-Speed Rail Project, Kasich Eliminated Private-Sector Jobs He Promised To Create

Defending Senate Filibuster, Heritage Hosts Corporate Lobbyists Who Specialize In Holding Up Legislation

Rep. Kingston Threatens To Repeal Food Safety Law

GOP Rep. Proposes Forcing House To Ignore Two Provisions Of The Constitution

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This is disgusting. Sharon Coolidge reports in the Cincinnati Inquirer:

John Harmon was coming off a late night at work when he left his downtown marketing firm for his Anderson Township home just after midnight in October 2009.

The 52-year-old longtime diabetic’s blood sugar levels had dipped to a dangerously low level causing him to weave into another lane.

A Hamilton County sheriff’s deputy spotted him on Clough Pike and suspected drunken driving.

What happened over the next two minutes and 20 seconds should never happen to anyone, Harmon said.

Deputies broke the window of Harmon’s SUV, shocked him seven times with a Taser, cut him out of his seatbelt and wrestled him to the ground, severely dislocating his elbow, and causing trauma to his shoulder and thumb.

The deputies’ actions prompted a state highway patrol trooper to pull one deputy away from Harmon because he was so concerned about how Harmon was being treated. That trooper alerted his bosses to the deputies’ actions.

Even after learning the incident was a medical emergency, deputies charged Harmon with resisting arrest and failing to comply with a police officer’s order.

"I thought for sure I was going to die," Harmon said. "I remember praying to God, ‘Help me through this.’"

Harmon, a tall and burly black man, owns a marketing company with his wife. He said he moved to the mostly white township for its good schools, and said he believes he wouldn’t have gotten the same treatment if it was a white man.

"I do think that maybe (race) was a factor," Harmon said. "Just out of common decency some of the things that were done here don’t make sense, even if I were drunk."

Harmon and his wife, Stephanie Harmon, filed a civil rights lawsuit Dec. 20 in U.S. District Court against Hamilton County, the sheriff’s office and four deputies: Ryan Wolf, Matthew Wissel, John Haynes and Shawn Cox, and their supervisor, Sgt. Barbara Stuckey.

The couple allege that Harmon’s civil rights were violated because of his false arrest, malicious prosecution and the excessive force used. They also cited battery; malicious prosecution; intentional infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium. They want an unspecified amount of compensation. . .

Continue reading. This will cost that city millions.

Steven Greenhouse writes a peculiar news report in the NY Times titled “Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions.” The story is frustrating because it lacks information and accepts clueless arguments. For example, Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, seems to think Wisconsin public employees do not pay taxes:

“We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots,” Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a speech. “The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers.”

A kind reporter would have let the governor know that Wisconsin public employees are in fact taxpayers, and his entire statement is the equivalent of farting with his mouth.

The story opens with this puzzler:

Faced with growing budget deficits and restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona, are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and politics.

State officials from both parties are wrestling with ways to curb the salaries and pensions of government employees, which typically make up a significant percentage of state budgets.

Have you noticed the complete omission from the opening (and the entire story) of any sign of accountability.

Here’s the situation: A and B are negotiating. Naturally enough, each attempts to maximize his own benefit, but since it’s a true negotiation, A and B must in the end agree in order to have a contract and agreement.

The agreement turns out to be bad for B. Whom would you say deserves the blame: A? or B?

I’d be inclined to blame B, assuming it was an honest negotiation with nothing concealed. (And if anything material was concealed, I believe that would void the contract in any case.)

So apparently we had a bunch of elected officials, all over the country, enter into agreements with the public employees’ unions. The agreements turn out to be bad for the government. Who is at fault? I would have to say that it’s not the unions, it’s the elected officials.

But the Right will always blame unions, because the Right believes that employees should have no power. Companies (and governments) should be able, in the view of the Right, to do what they want with their employees.

When the American auto manufacturers were in terrible trouble, I have a right-wing acquaintance who thought it was all the fault of the unions. But:

The unions don’t design the car, plan the product line, plan and administer the advertising, set prices, do competitor research, and so on: that is all the job of management.

And in fact the unions don’t make the labor contracts: Those are agreements between management and the unions. Management is as much a part of those agreements as unions, and if the agreements are bad for the company, it was management at fault: management is responsible for running the company, and management is responsible for agreeing only to sensible contracts that properly protect the company.

We have unions for a reason: the record shows that companies—and management—will in general treat their workers as shabbily as they possibly can, paying them as little as they can get away with, and cutting costs by cutting safety and all other programs that protect workers. Look at Massey Energy to see why we need unions.

And we also need better managers and better elected officials, ones who can exercise responsibility and accept accountability.

Lovely shave. The Grosvenor provided three passes of lather (although the third pass was a bit sparse) worked up from Taylor of Old Bond Street Lavender shaving soap. The Eclipse Red Ring with its Swedish Gillette blade provided three flawless passes, and a splash of Pashana provided the fragrance to get the day rolling.

The US crossed a line some time back, and I think it an important line, one that marks a clear transition to decline. The line in question in this: When powerful figures can publicly acknowledge that they committed serious crimes, and nothing happens. Certainly that line was crossed when Dick Cheney and George Bush publicly admitted that they ordered the torture of suspects. I would say the line was crossed earlier, when President Obama promised to prevent any investigation of the allegations of torture done under the previous administration.

Once powerful people are granted overt immunity from prosecution for crimes, the state changes. Not only does it protect its favorites, it begins serious prosecution of persons it simply does not like, who challenge its control—much as the US government is treating Julian Assange.

Here is another group of powerful people, publicly committing a felony, and I bet nothing will be done. David Cole’s op-ed in the NY Times begins:

Did former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support. And, according to the Justice Department under Mr. Mukasey himself, as well as under the current attorney general, Eric Holder, material support includes not only cash and other tangible aid, but also speech coordinated with a “foreign terrorist organization” for its benefit. It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe Mr. Mukasey and his compatriots had every right to say what they did. Indeed, I argued just that in the Supreme Court, on behalf of the Los Angeles-based Humanitarian Law Project, which fought for more than a decade in American courts for its right to teach the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey how to bring human rights claims before the United Nations, and to assist them in peace overtures to the Turkish government.

But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity. Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that a terrorist group might use human rights advocacy training to file harassing claims, that it might use peacemaking assistance as a cover while re-arming itself, and that such speech could contribute to the group’s “legitimacy,” and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends. Under the court’s decision, former President Jimmy Carter’s election monitoring team could be prosecuted for meeting with and advising Hezbollah during the 2009 Lebanese elections.

The government has similarly argued that . . .

Continue reading.

Greenwald comments:

Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with — and expressed vocal support for — supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein’s brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a “Terrorist organization” by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening.

But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives — including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend — did exactly that. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) — a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be “terrorist organization” — and expressed wholesale support for that group. Worse — on foreign soil — they vehemently criticized their own country’s opposition to these Terrorists and specifically “demanded that Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran.” In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced his own country’s opposition to these Terrorists as “nothing less than an embarrassment.”

Using common definitions, there is good reason for the MEK to be deemed by the U.S. Government to be a Terrorist group. In 2007, the Bush administration declared that “MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond,” and added that the group exhibits “cult-like characteristics.” The Council on Foreign Relations has detailed that the MEK has been involved in numerous violent actions over the years, including many directed at Americans, such as “the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries” and “the killings of U.S.military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran in the 1970s.” This is whom Giuliani, Ridge, Townsend and other conservatives are cheering.

Applying the orthodoxies of American political discourse, how can these Terrorist-supporting actions by prominent American conservatives not generate intense controversy? For one thing, their appearance in France to slam their own country’s foreign policy blatantly violates the long-standing and rigorously enforced taboo against criticizing the U.S. Government while on dreaded foreign soil (the NYT previously noted that “nothing sets conservative opinion-mongers on edge like a speech made by a Democrat on foreign soil”). Worse, their conduct undoubtedly constitutes the crime of “aiding and abetting Terrorism” as interpreted by the Justice Department — an interpretation recently upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last year in Holder v. Humanitarian Law. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole represented the Humanitarian Law plaintiffs in their unsuccessful challenge to the DOJ’s interpretation of the “material support” statute, and he argues today in The New York Times that as a result of that ruling, it is a felony in the U.S. “to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s ‘terrorist’ designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.”

Like Cole, I believe the advocacy and actions of these Bush officials in support of this Terrorist group should be deemed constitutionally protected free expression. But under American law and the view of the DOJ, it isn’t. There are people sitting in prison right now with extremely long prison sentences for so-called “material support for terrorism” who did little different than what these right-wing advocates just did. What justifies allowing these Bush officials to materially support a Terrorist group with impunity?

Then there’s CNN. . .

Continue reading. He notes in an update:

Amazingly, Fran Townsend, on CNN, hailed the Supreme Court’s decision in Humanitarian Law — the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the DOJ’s view that one can be guilty of “material support for terrorism” simply by talking to or advocating for a Terrorist group — and enthusiastically agreed when Wolf Blitzer said, while interviewing her: “If you’re thinking about even voicing support for a terrorist group, don’t do it because the government can come down hard on you and the Supreme Court said the government has every right to do so.” Yet “voicing support for a terrorist group” is exactly what Townsend is now doing — and it makes her a criminal under the very Supreme Court ruling that she so gleefully praised.

Fascinating. Paul Collins writes in Lapham’s Quarterly:

In a New Hampshire apartment during the winter of 1923, this typewritten notice was fastened squarely against a closed door:

NOBODY MAY COME INTO THIS ROOM IF THE DOOR IS SHUT TIGHT (IF IT IS SHUT NOT QUITE LATCHED IT IS ALL RIGHT) WITHOUT KNOCKING. THE PERSON IN THIS ROOM IF HE AGREES THAT ONE SHALL COME IN WILL SAY “COME IN,” OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND IF HE DOES NOT AGREE TO IT HE WILL SAY “NOT YET, PLEASE,” OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THE DOOR MAY BE SHUT IF NOBODY IS IN THE ROOM BUT IF A PERSON WANTS TO COME IN, KNOCKS AND HEARS NO ANSWER THAT MEANS THERE IS NO ONE IN THE ROOM AND HE MUST NOT GO IN.

REASON. IF THE DOOR IS SHUT TIGHT AND A PERSON IS IN THE ROOM THE SHUT DOOR MEANS THAT THE PERSON IN THE ROOM WISHES TO BE LEFT ALONE.

Through the door could be heard furious clacking and carriage returns: the sound, in fact, of an eight-year-old girl writing her first novel.

In 1923, typewriters were hardly a child’s plaything, but to those following the family of critic and editor Wilson Follett, it was a grand educational experiment. He’d already written of his daughter Barbara in Harper’s, describing a girl who by the age of three was consumed with letters and words. “She was always seeing A’s in the gables of houses and H’s in football goalposts,” he recalled. One day she’d wandered into Wilson’s office and discovered his typewriter.

“Tell me a story about it,” she demanded.

This was Barbara’s way of asking for any explanation, and after he demonstrated the wondrous machine, she took to it fiercely. A typewriter, her parents realized, could unleash a torrential flow of thoughts from a gifted child who still lacked the coordination to write in pencil.

“In a multitude of ways,” Wilson Follett reported, “we become more and more convinced of the expediency of letting the typewriter be, so far as a machine can, the center and genesis of the first processes.”

By five, Barbara was being homeschooled by her mother, and writing a tale titled The Life of the Spinning Wheel, the Rocking-Horse, and the Rabbit. Her fascination with flowers and butterflies bloomed from her typewriter into wild and exuberant poems and fairy tales. By 1922, at the age of seven, she was versifying upon music: . . .

Continue reading.

I don’t either, but the Pope has a clear memory of a period in the ’70s when child rape was considered okay. I think this must have been strictly within the Catholic hierarchy, because certainly I recall no such sentiment being expressed publicly. But the Pope offers that as the explanation for why some priests raped so many children and other priests and bishops covered up the incidents and assisted in the effort. From the Belfast Telegraph:

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.

Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.

“We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society” he said.

But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.

Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.

He said: “That is not normal. I don’t know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.”

Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was “threatening an entire generation”. . .

Continue reading.

My weight was down a bit after yesterday’s bounce. One thing that calms me (usually) is to look at what my weight was a week ago. This morning I weighed 205.4 lbs. A week ago I weighed 207.0 lbs. Improvement.

A very pleasant shave. The Grosvenor Badger-and-Boar-Bristle brush worked up a very nice lather from the Dovo soap (a lather I had to renew for the last pass), and the Mühle open-comb with a Astra Keramik Platinum blade did a fine job. A splash of the aftershave—another sample from Bullgoose Shaving—and I am ready for the day.

Interesting article by Jamil Zaki in Scientific American:

Humans are unlikely to win the animal kingdom’s prize for fastest, strongest or largest, but we are world champions at understanding one another. This interpersonal prowess is fueled, at least in part, by empathy: our tendency to care about and share other people’s emotional experiences. Empathy is a cornerstone of human behavior and has long been considered innate. A forthcoming study, however, challenges this assumption by demonstrating that empathy levels have been declining over the past 30 years.

The research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in Personality and Social Psychology Review, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

An individual’s empathy can be assessed in many ways, but one of the most popular is simply asking people what they think of themselves. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a well-known questionnaire, taps empathy by asking whether responders agree to statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.” People vary a great deal in how empathic they consider themselves. Moreover, research confirms that the people who say they are empathic actually demonstrate empathy in discernible ways, ranging from mimicking others’ postures to helping people in need (for example, offering to take notes for a sick fellow student).

Since the creation of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in 1979, tens of thousands of students have filled out this questionnaire while participating in studies examining everything from neural responses to others’ pain to levels of social conservatism. Konrath and her colleagues took advantage of this wealth of data by collating self-reported empathy scores of nearly 14,000 students. She then used a technique known as cross-temporal meta-analysis to measure whether scores have changed over the years. The results were startling: almost 75 percent of students today rate themselves as less empathic than the average student 30 years ago.

What’s to Blame?
This information seems to conflict with studies suggesting that empathy is a trait people are born with. For example, in a 2007 study Yale University developmental psychologists found that six-month-old infants demonstrate an affinity for empathic behavior, preferring simple dolls they have seen helping others over visually similar bullies. And investigators at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have shown that even when given no incentive, toddlers help experimenters and share rewards with others. Empathic behavior is not confined to humans or even to primates. In a recent study mice reacted more strongly to painful stimuli when they saw another mouse suffering, suggesting that they “share” the pain of their cage mates.

But the new finding that empathy is on the decline indicates that even when a trait is hardwired, social context can exert a profound effect, changing even our most basic emotional responses. Precisely what is sapping young people of their natural impulse to feel for others . . .

Continue reading.