MindBody: Father of genetics or mother of invention?

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“Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize-winning father of modern genetics, was under the influence of LSD when he first deduced the double-helix structure of DNA nearly 50 years ago. “The abrasive and unorthodox Crick and his brilliant American co-researcher James Watson famously celebrated their eureka moment in March 1953 by running from the now legendary Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to the nearby Eagle pub, where they announced over pints of bitter that they had discovered the secret of life….”

More by Alun Rees

Comment:

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

The genius Crick on crack — what a crock.

There’s another story there that’s more interesting and much darker…

The greater part of the credit for the discovery should actually go to the brilliant Rosalind Franklin, at the time about 30-31. Franklin died at only 37, cutting short a highly productive career. At least, Crick had the grace to eventually concede that she was two steps away from the double helix (can we trust that concession, I wonder). Watson actually trashed her in a vainglorious account of his own genius.

I first saw the film, The Double Helix, when I was booted out of Heathrow – for having forgotten my green card – at the interesting hour of 1 PM in London. Sent to a rather curious establishment run by the younger son of a Marathi businessman – who confided in me that he could sneak me into the London population, undetected, for the right sum, if I wished. Having neither the sum nor the wish, I managed to invite myself to friends of a friend whom I vaguely recalled lived somewhere near Kensington. The friends of the friend were as kind as they were bright – she, a psychiatrist, he a researcher at the Cavendish lab.

“Oh, Cavendish – Watson and Crick! Double helix!” I said with the gush that the not-faintly-scientific reserve for the annointed ones of modern society. That’s when I learned about Rosalind Franklin and the theft of her work.

“In [The Double Helix by James Watson] he tells about how happy they were, he and Crick, that my husband was not allowed to come because had he come, he would no doubt have seen these excellent photographs that Rosalind Franklin made and had and which, when they saw them, with their other data, they were able to work out the structure of DNA…[If] ever there was a woman who was mistreated, it was Rosalind Franklin, and she didn’t get the notice that she should have gotten for her work on DNA.”

– Ava Helen Pauling, interview with Lee Herzenberg, Sept. 1977

We think of intellectual elites as somehow purer than financial or political elites. We see them as untouched by the same temptations. Above the usual vices. It may be time to become more realistic. And to question the people and the practices in the temple of science.

Idols of the cave?

MindBody: beyond good and evil..

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“He who seeth me in all things and all things in me looseneth not his hold on me and I forsake him not…… He who by the similitude found in himself seeth but one essence in all things, whether they be evil or good, is considered to be the most excellent devotee…”

Bhagvad Gita VI

Comment:

The “me” is the Self — which is consciousness, minus the subject-object dichotomy involved when we perceive…..and categorize. The passage is an exhortation, in the traditional manner of Eastern religion, to loosen the grip of the ego and see everything as different aspects of one.

This is a powerful passage, but psychologically, deeply problematic for me. Is equanimity the highest of all goals? Indifference to outcomes. Eastern religions tend to say so.

To what degree do the emotions cloud the mind? Do they always cloud it? To what degree do they enhance it? Different times and places have given us different answers.
And there is a paradox in the passage. Supposedly, the emotions arise  from attachment to the ego. Attachment to the ego prevents you  from experiencing the indivisibility of consciousness. But, at the same time,  how do you detach from your emotions without experiencing some degree of that indivisibility in the first place.

The role of the emotions in moral judgment in the west and east might seem like a strange place to go for a blog on politics. But surely, the way we think about things has an influence on how we react to them and shape them by action. Our emotions allow us to be manipulated in specific ways.
Bush’s Manichean perception of the world as locked in a struggle between good and evil might seem to be an obvious example, at first. But I’m not certain if we are not just making easy generalizations there. There are probably plenty of people who do not see the world in such black and white terms, and yet have also been guilty of the same bellicosity. It seems to me it isn’t duality so much as conviction of rightness (despite all evidence to the contrary) that is dangerous.

But then again, if you peer into that idea a bit more, you realize that you can only be that convinced about the rightness of anything because you refuse to accept that every thing carries its opposite within it.

So, more than dualism, it’s a kind of absoluteness of perception, an overzealousness in action that seems to be the problem.

“The best lack all of conviction,

The worst are full of a passionate intensity.”

Iraq war mongering: Exhaustive report concludes Blackwater is not Catholic Charities…

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Naturally, it takes a government committee to discover that rain is wet stuff – and Blackwater doesn’t care a  rat’s derriere about civilian deaths in Iraq. The high priced hitmen are taking home chunky checks (bigger than yours, I’ll bet) for mixing it up with the locals….

“The report, prepared by the majority staff of the committee, also says Blackwater has been involved in 195 shooting incidents since 2005, or roughly 1.4 per week.”

In more than 80 percent of the incidents, called “escalation of force,” Blackwater’s guards fired the first shots even though the company’s contract with the State Department calls for it to use defensive force only, it said.”In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fired shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties,” according to the report……

Comment:

Drive-by is what we call that here in the US. And they lock you up should you chance to try your hand at it. Little did you know, gentle reader, that a mere hop and a skip across the ocean and you get to be paid like a minor potentate for rubbing out the natives.

“The staff report says Blackwater has made huge sums of money despite its questionable performance in Iraq, where Blackwater guards provide protective services for U.S. diplomatic personnel.

Blackwater has earned more than $1 billion from federal contracts since 2001, when it had less than $1 million in government work. Overall, the State Department paid Blackwater more than $832 million between 2004 and 2006 for security work, according to the report.

Blackwater bills the U.S. government $1,222 per day for a single “protective security specialist,” the report says. That works out to $445,891 on an annual basis, far higher than it would cost the military to provide the same service….”

More about our costly little capos here.

Econ-job: Should Big Ben strike….and strike…and strike again?

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Pimco’s Bill Gross takes the minority position that Bernanke is right to side with US home-gambling and risk a run on the dollar:

“PIMCO’s view is that a U.S. Fed easing cycle historically has required a destination of 1% real short rates or lower. Under a conservative assumption of 2½% inflation, that implies Fed Funds at 3¾% or so over the next 6-12 months. Actually that’s only two, 50 basis point reductions, something that could, but probably won’t, be accomplished by year-end. Don Kohn’s asymmetric elevator will likely be interrupted by false hopes of a housing bottom, fears of a dollar crisis, or misinterpreted one month’s signs of employment gains and faux economic strength. The downward path of home prices, however, will dominate Fed policy over the next several years as will the lingering unwind of related financial structures and derivatives that have yet to be discovered by the public, and marked to market by their conduit holders.Know nothing? Perhaps they now know more than I or Jim Cramer gave them credit for on that raucous day in August. If they do, however, their options are limited by Republican political orthodoxy, the receding willingness of the private sector to extend credit, and a still exuberant global economy. What do they know? I suspect at the very least they know they’re in a pickle, and a sour one at that.

Your betting we get below 3.75% analyst,

 

Police State Chronicles: Dumbo and Eeyore are out to get us…

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“The two branches of the Establishment party are joined in a totalitarian entente, one of them promoting militarism abroad and police state coercion at home, the other pushing wealth redistribution and social engineering everywhere. Granted, the dichotomy isn’t absolute, and each branch dabbles in the other’s metier — something about which I’ll have more to say anon. But as a matter of “branding,” the division of labor described above is pretty reliable.

And the dialectical synthesis of these two varieties of statism is a bigger, bloodier, costlier and more invasive welfare/warfare/social engineering state that is literally at war with the American people.

Recall Kennedy’s words about the federal hate crimes law: “`We are going to fight terrorism, hatred, and bigotry here at home.'”

William Grigg at Pro Libertate.

Financial Follies: UBS hit by credit crunch

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(CNNMoney) — UBS, the Swiss bank, is expected to announce Monday a third-quarter loss of 600 million to 700 million Swiss francs ($510 million to $600 million) from its fixed-income unit, according to a published report.

The fixed-income loss would be announced before UBS’s overall third-quarter results, which are due October 30, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation.

The loss is based on a writedown of 3 billion to 4 billion Swiss francs for fixed-income assets, the Journal reported on its website Sunday.

Partly the fixed-income losses stem from continuing costs associated with writing off bad bets by its in-house hedge fund, Dillon Read Capital Management, in the subprime mortgage market, according to the Journal. But other securities held by the fixed-income division contibuted to the loss too, it said.”

More here at CNN Money

Ron Paul Revolution: Ron raised a million in seven days…

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“In one comment, written as a response to a post at the quintessential neoconservative and freedom-hating blog, Red State, a reader unsupportive of Paul points out the obvious for most neoconservatives, that Ron Paul’s ability to raise a million dollars in seven days is “[expletive deleted] scary.”
And:

“Ron Paul refuses to convert disagreements into personal arguments which create animosity. His tactic is to merely present his side of the argument while acknowledging that this is part of his core belief system and not an indication that those who disagree are stupid or evil. This has trickled down to his supporters who, for the most part, avoid political arguments and instead implore the uninitiated to simply discover for themselves what Ron Paul is saying. This tactic has worked brilliantly. Ron Paul’s message is genuinely compelling and his defense of these views has been consistent and dogged over the past 30 years; no matter what obstacles are thrown before him. That is the basis for his supporter’s enthusiasm. He truly means what he is saying. Unlike his counterparts, he does not have to waste any words explaining why his votes do not match his rhetoric. His supporters do not have to suffer the nagging feeling that something different would occur if they were to elect him. He has always voted in a manner that matches his speech.

The neocons have no candidate in the race remotely showing the same level of integrity though they appear to be certain that nobody will notice this. They prove by their actions that any talk of truth, honesty or values is just empty, pandering, rhetoric. The number of Paul supporters is increasing because, contrary to neoconservative belief, Americans are not stupid. They just haven’t had a decent alternative in 30 years. Well….now they do”

More by. Robert Fisk at Lew Rockwell on why we love the new Ron.

Support Kucinich’s Cheney Impeachment petition…

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Recognizing the gravity of the increasingly loud drumbeats for more war coming from the Vice President’s office, this week Dennis Kucinich [MP3 Audio Clip] said he was seriously considering forcing the House of Representatives to take up the issue of impeachment by bringing it as a privileged resolution.Each and every member of the House must be called to account at this moment in American political history, by the demands of you, their constituents, whether they will stand up for the Constitution and stop Dick Cheney’s delusional march to Iran . . . or not. The one click form below will send your personal message to all your government representatives selected below, with the subject “Support H. Res 333 To Impeach Cheney” At the same time you can send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper if you like.

Arthur Conan Doyle on wartime atrocities

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In a best-seller he wrote about the British war on the Boer settlers in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, Conan Doyle excoriates Breaker Morant, the renegade Englishman who made a name breaking in horses in Australia, before volunteering to fight for the imperial army, and then becoming implicated in 20 murders of Afrikaner and Africans in the Northern Transvaal, one of a missionary. He was court-martialed and executed.
Incidentally, at the time of the atrocities, 1901, the war had entered the guerrilla stage and Lord Kitchener had formed a special fighting unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers. Plus ca change etc…

“There is one incident, however, in connection with the war in this region which one would wish to pass over in silence if such a course were permissible… (A)n irregular corps… (with its) wild duties, its mixed composition, and its isolated situation must have all militated against discipline and restraint, and it appears to have degenerated into a band not unlike those Southern “bush-whackers” in the American (civil) war to whom the Federals showed little mercy. They had given short shrift to the Boer prisoners who had fallen into their hands, the excuse offered for their barbarous conduct being that an officer who had served in the corps had himself been murdered by the Boers. Such a reason, even if it were true, could of course offer no justification for indiscriminate revenge… This stern measure (the execution of Handcock and Morant) shows more clearly than volumes of argument could do how high was the standard of discipline of the British army, and how heavy was the punishment, and how vain all excuses, where it had been infringed. In the face of this actual outrage and its prompt punishment how absurd becomes that crusade against imaginary outrages preached by an ignorant press abroad, and by renegade Englishmen at home. ” (p. 521).

In Australia, many see Morant as a folk hero and as a scape-goat for Kitchener:

“there is now persuasive evidence from several sources to show that the Kitchener ‘no prisoners’ order did indeed exist, that it was widely known among both the British and Australian troops and carried out by many disparate units…….Bleszynski, like Witton, Denton and Beresford, believes that Morant and Handcock were given a show trial, branded as murderous renegades and then executed as a matter of political expediency. He argues that this was done mainly to appease the Boer government and help secure a peace treaty, but also to prevent the British public from learning that, however unpalatable their actions, Morant and his men had in fact been carrying out a standing ‘no prisoners’ order that had been issued by the British commander-in-chief himself.”

More here. 

Staff Sergeant Dale Beatty

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Staff Sergeant Dale Beatty suffered wounds in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom II and both of his legs were amputated below the knee. He spends his time at the Walter Reed Army medical center with a crafts kit sent by strangers to take his mind off the pain.

Sergeant Beatty looks all of 19 in his picture. It’s nice he gets a crafts kit and a Christmas card. And of course, he’ll have his Purple Heart to remind him he did his duty honorably as he saw it. We judge heroism by honorable intentions and acts of courage.

Staff Sergeant Dale Beatty would probably call his civilian commanders honorable and courageous too, with the eyes of innocence. And with the trust of the young for the old.

To mislead the innocence and trust of the sons of your own country — what could be a better definition of treachery?