Sleep is for chelonians

Happy 179th Birthday Belgium!

I have to confess I usually don't think much of our national holiday -- it's just another day off, really, and an excuse to have a bit of a party, overindulge in my favorite of our famed national products (does it need saying? of course, beer), criticize the King's speech and complain about the "drache nationale", the characteristic downpour of rain that usually marks formal occasions in our little kingdom by the sea.

Not this year though; there was some light sprinkling but no real "drache", and I can tell you why. All the rain is over here (see photo taken out my window), keeping me company and making me feel right at home. Hey, I'm not complaining; after a week of steaming hot weather, this feels lovely and refreshing. And it's like I have a little piece of Belgium with me today (the rain, and Hoegaarden on tap at the local bar since last week, yay!). Which is nice because being away from it makes me value it more, including the national holiday and the history that goes with it. Yes, after all due consideration, I heart Belgium.

Next time I should write a post, I think, about how I describe our people ("like Hobbits in Lord of the Rings") and our history ("shopping around Europe for a spare prince to make King") to, well, pretty much anybody. I suspect true patriots will weep and gnash their teeth and pull out their hair. In my defense, though, I suck at small talk, and my main interests in terms of conversation are either too obscure (plasmids) or too inflammatory (religion) for most social occasions. In contrast, I've noticed that this somewhat comedic bit I've developed poking fun (affectionately!) at the old country seems to be well received, drawing chuckles or even laughter from my conversation partners. Or I'm badly deluded and they're just being polite. But they don't usually slip away at the first possible opportunity [anymore], which I take to be a good sign.

But for now, I want to leave y'all with a wonderfully silly but sweet video made by a loyal Belgian citizen (who might have imbibed quite a bit of that national product I mentioned earlier) to remind us of the history of our national hymn, "La Brabançonne", in its old and new versions, and how to sing it (or not - World War I uniform optional, I believe). For the King, the Law, and Liberty!

The Eucharist as endosymbiont - a valid scientific hypothesis?

(major sarcasm alert)

There's a big Darwin festival going on this week at Cambridge (the Old World one, hence the "at" instead of "in"). Philosopher of science Daniel "I debunk the kooks so you don't have to" Dennett reports on a controversial Templeton-sponsored session that featured such exciting highlights as "kenotic (a.k.a. self-emptying) theology" and "evolutionary Christology", whatever that may be.

Dennett calls it "wonderfully awful"; here's my favorite bit of his account.

"I had an epiphany at the end of the session, but I kept it to myself: The Eucharist is actually a Recapitulation of the Eukaryotic Revolution. When Christians ingest the Body of Christ, without digesting it, but keep it whole (holistier-than-thou whole), they are re-enacting the miracle of endosymbiosis that paved the way for eventual multi-cellularity. And so, dearly beloved brethren, we can see that by keeping Christ intact in our bodies we are keeping His Power intact in our embodied Minds, or Souls, just the way the first Eukaryote was vouchsafed a double blessing of earthly competence that enabled its descendants to join forces in Higher Organizations. Evolutionary theology. . . . I think I get it! I can do it! It truly is intellectual tennis without a net."

Addendum: This comes as I've just received word (hi Popeye!) of a creationist conference at my alma mater, organized by the local baptist church (we have those in Belgium too? who knew?). Sounds like it was a hoot (complete with baby dinosaurs on Noah's Ark) but I find myself wishing that, in the absence of rigorous intellectual scrutiny, the university's catholicism at least had come out a bit more strongly. Perhaps in the form of a little display of religious intolerance? I mean, seriously, I'm all for freedom of speech -- let them rent out any other public space for all I care -- but I don't think the university should be lending respectability to these nutjobs.

Rise of the Farming Machines

Here's another guest post from Dad to keep my innumerable readership entertained while I settle back into my Boston life...

Brussels, June 18th. Today, thousands of tractors of all color and shapes converged to Brussels, capital of Europe. They came from Portugal, Hungary, Germany, Poland and all corners of the European Union, dashing (dashing, really? tractors?) through the highways, wreaking havoc on the daily commute. They are mostly desperate milk producers hit by the drop in sell price they get for their product. They lose money on every liter of the white stuff they sell. Consumers haven't seen anything from the price drop so someone is pocketing the change! Nobody understands it because quotas haven't even been lifted: it is a sheer drop in consumption. Today the demonstrations were peaceful but tonight many of the German fellows planned to stay in the city! Hundreds of tractors are squatting a very large park next to the EC institutions around the Schuman plaza. It was an eerie sight: big sturdy guys in work overalls and heavy boots, truly redneck types with big hands, tanned faces unshaven for a couple of days, young and older men, relatively few women, all huddled in groups around camp fires in the shadow of their big machines. Definitely not the usual crowd of eurocrats generally seen around here!

The true mark of a barbaric society

Allowing people to mow their lawn on a Sunday.

(I guess there is something positive that can be said about having an officially Catholic society after all. Yay for quiet Belgian Sundays.)

Also, leaf blowers are the gas-guzzling tools of Satan. Where's the Christian Right when you need them?

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Addendum: on the flipside, these worship-deficient heathens here have the wonderfully good taste to not sound off their church bells every other minute and a half. Whereas that problem plagued me all my years in Louvain-la-Neuve, I've not heard a peep from church bells here, and it's definitely not for lack of churches since every god-bothering denomination/ congregation/ sect apparently has to have its own.

A poor choice of target

I have previously written of school shootings and of my new-found passion for paintball (and never the twain shall meet, I should hope).

Now I read in a BBC news brief that the German government is planning to move against sports/games such as laser tag and paintball, in reaction to the recent school shooting in Winnenden, because they "simulate killing" and thus "trivialise and encourage violence".

Certainly this is the same old argument used to blame video games and violent movies for teen violence, although there is not a shred of supporting evidence from the many sociological studies that have been conducted on the subject. At best such studies uncover correlations, which should not be (but sadly, so often are) confused with causation, between aggressive tendencies and playing/watching violent material. In fact, more often than not, researchers note the cathartic effect of these activities. (Check out the two paintballers in the picture... don't they look happy and relaxed? Incidentally, what they're each holding up is a Tippman 98 Custom marker, which is what I just bought. A sweet little piece of kit, basic but solid.)

Speaking for myself I can definitely attest to the reality and benefits of the cathartic effect of simulated and/or controlled violence. And if I were to indulge in a brief bout of bar-top psychology, I'd venture to propose that these tragic kids who snap and go on killing rampages are not so much the victims of violent conditioning by games or movies, but rather of life situations in which they find insufficient means to express, channel or defuse the inner rage, whatever its origin, that seems to devour them. Stupendously original insight, I know.

My point is, could we please focus the discussion on the two points that are most likely to prevent future school shootings, i.e. 1) how to identify and actually help kids who are in danger of blowing their fuse and 2) let's control the frakking guns already.

A stunning display of athletic inadequacy

When I spent three and a half months in China last year, I adapted to the local customs and cuisine -- to my great pleasure, I might add. I gained the most in humanistic aspects of course. But there were physical side effects; I lost nearly ten pounds without even trying. And while my general state of fitness was nothing to write home about, neither was it anything to be ashamed of.

I've been in the USA for eight months now and I feel right at home. The culture and customs are mostly very familiar, and the food is easy to like. Nay, too (gr)easy. After a winter of deep hibernation (WITH nutritional intake) my waistline has expanded to Plutonic proportions (i.e. not quite planetary, thank you very much IAU) and so I have decided to give in to one of the few local customs that I had been resisting.

Jogging. Yech. The very word makes me think of Norwegian pickled fish yogurt (which exists only in my mind -- I hope). I know, jogging is not strictly USAmerican -- but the way it's done here is on a whole other level compared to, say, Europe.

Physical exercise in general, in fact, is like that here. It's riddled with bizarre cultural paradoxes. Everything in everyday life is designed to make people's lives easier, allow them to walk less (the Car is Almighty Master of the roads of course), carry less, move less. All week/day long this economy of movement is at full throttle (or minimal throttle, rather?). Then, evenings and weekends witness an explosion of physical activity, in (expensive!) gyms and on sidewalks. People running like hamsters in their little wheels, walking up endless flights of invisible stairs, activating levers and executing exercise routines to the beat of the latest sport/dance fusion frenzy.

Well I say (with no pretension to originality whatsoever) hook up those machines to a set of electrical batteries and power the Eastern seaboard for a year. Solve the energy crisis, yeah?

These criticisms observations aside, my point was, I'm giving in to it. Not the gym thing -- I refuse to pay just for having a place to sweat -- but jogging. Even though in my heart of hearts I still believe, like Frodo's character in the delightful teen horror flick "The Faculty" (which also brought us the twin revelations that snorting aspirin powder can get you high and will help identify alien impersonators), that a person should only run when they are being chased. Though I would add trying to catch a bus or a train to the list of reasonable reasons for running. And maybe performing a flanking manoeuver during a bunker raid in a paintball game.

So today, full of good resolutions and no small amount of self-deception, I got my kit on (including the iPod-in-an-armband, this season's must-have for style-conscious jogsters) and went out for a run in the early morning (11 am) sunlight. Hah. The title of this post says it all. Suffice it to say it's not so much a muscular problem (I'm actually of rather sturdy construction) as a cardiovascular/pulmonary one. There was way more wheezing than running going on. I did stick with it though, and I'm not giving up -- I'll just try to focus on building up my pulmonary capacity for now.

Gosh darn it, that last bit sounds like  something the locals would say. I really am going native.

Still not touching peanut butter though.

Saturday Stupidity: carbon dioxide is naaaaaaaatural

Inspired by this breathtaking display of ignorance and pigheadedness by Republican congresswoman Michele Bachman, I'm moved to inaugurate a regular series of posts dedicated to such affronts to common sense and scientific fact. I can tell you it's going to be depressing, but we might as well laugh about it.

Carbon dioxide is natural, huh? Yes it is. So is carbon monoxide, for that matter. So is arsenic. Care to add some to your diet, congresswoman?

I'm not going to go into the details of everything else she gets abominably wrong (like the numbers!). I just hope not too many people fall for her crap.

America: where sizes really matter, Part 1

Part 1 of a three-part series by January visitor Mom (with comments by me in brackets)

Small is tall, right?

At least when you order a "small" coffee in any of the Starbucks shops in the US...

You say "one small Americano" and the waitress immediately signals her colleague "one tall Americano". OK, you're just off the plane and think your hearing is still impaired from landing or you're dumb tired  from the trip?

Nope, no misunderstanding here, just that strange Starbucks logic where small is "tall", medium is "grande" and large is ... "venti". [The largest size, yet the only one that doesn't actually mean "large"!]

When you know that "venti" stands for 20 in Italian, you realize "one venti Americano" will be 20 ounces (i.e. almost 600 ml) of coffee served. Your daily allowance in one single cup?!

Shoot to paint

This Monday was the tenth anniversary of the Columbine massacre (of "Bowling for Columbine" fame), which saw two teenagers in Colorado storm their high school with guns, wounding over twenty people, killing twelve other teens, one teacher and finally themselves.

Coincidentally (not to minimize the tragedy of school shootings -- bear with me for a few paragraphs), I spent the day just before playing paintball with a bunch of friends, and found it wicked fun. We played first on obstacle courts to warm up, which reminded me of the training scenes in "Starship Troopers" (sadly, no giant insectoid aliens showed up), then in an arena set up in the woods. I found the latter type of play (called "woodsball" for rather obvious reasons) more fun because games are longer (the other type is called, tellingly, "speedball") and there is more opportunity to use the uneven tree-rich terrain for strategic moves, camouflaging and getting really dirty.

Interestingly, I discovered that I am by temperament more of a sniper than a rampage shooter (a tidbit of info that may be dutifully filed away by an FBI profiler, just in case it is needed one day -- which I'm sure it won't, let me just reassure y'all outright) and that I tend to favor the right flank of the field.

Yay for Utah, me-tah and all of us, ta!

Utah's a great state at some levels, but for various reasons (quite a few of them religious) it's got a history of being unfriendly to the noble products of microbial fermentation (i.e. alcohol).

The first time I went to Utah (as far as I remember), I was about 7 or 8 years old, on a family holiday. We visited a bunch of national parks with fantastic canyons, eroded rock formations and probably some dinosaurs (or was that Colorado?). I didn't notice the alcohol-related issues at the time (well duh).

The last time I went to Utah (unless I've had some mental absences quite a bit more substantial than the ones I'm aware of) was with my father a couple of years ago, on a road-trip-and-horse-riding holiday. The holiday itself was pretty awesome (horsies! campfires! funky geology!), but our return route took us through Salt Lake City, which was weird in a not-so-nice way. The approach to the city was miles upon miles of depressing strip malls and fast-food franchises; then the city center, with its bizarre Mormon church that looks like fancy bank headquarters in a park populated by UFO-like statues and over-friendly proselytizers... And nearly nowhere to eat or drink after 8 pm.

When I say drink of course I mean alcohol. Hey, I'm not asking for much; a bit of beer or wine with a meal, y'know, makes a change from iced water and Coca-Cola... But even outside of SLC, there were places where it was hard to get a decent drink with dinner. One evening we ended up at a tex-mex place where they flat out didn't serve alcohol at all.

Turns out that the war on alcohol does not reside only in the moral certitude of restaurant-owners, but also in the state laws. The good news is, Utah's legislators have just decided to relax drinking laws, notably the one that required would-be boozers to "fill in a form and pay a fee" in order to enter a bar. I mean, come on, I do believe encouraging moderation is a good thing, but forms and fees? Talk about buzzkill. Plus, hello civil liberties!

Not that civil liberties were really the focus of the move -- apparently, it was more about attracting those hordes of tourists who might otherwise be turned off by the booze-unfriendly policies. But hey, sometimes, results do not care for causes.

So, here's to Utah... cheers!