In an attempt to clarify another widespread misconception, I am exerpting only a small part of Stephen Pinker’s major article in a 1913 issue of the New Republic:

The humanities are the domain in which the intrusion of science has produced the strongest recoil. Yet it is just that domain that would seem to be most in need of an infusion of new ideas. By most accounts, the humanities are in trouble. University programs are downsizing, the next generation of scholars is un- or underemployed, morale is sinking, students are staying away in droves. No thinking person should be indifferent to our society’s disinvestment from the humanities, which are indispensable to a civilized democracy.

Diagnoses of the malaise of the humanities rightly point to anti-intellectual trends in our culture and to the commercialization of our universities. But an honest appraisal would have to acknowledge that some of the damage is self-inflicted. The humanities have yet to recover from the disaster of postmodernism, with its defiant obscurantism, dogmatic relativism, and suffocating political correctness. And they have failed to define a progressive agenda. Several university presidents and provosts have lamented to me that when a scientist comes into their office, it’s to announce some exciting new research opportunity and demand the resources to pursue it. When a humanities scholar drops by, it’s to plead for respect for the way things have always been done.

Those ways do deserve respect, and there can be no replacement for the varieties of close reading, thick description, and deep immersion that erudite scholars can apply to individual works. But must these be the only paths to understanding? A consilience with science offers the humanities countless possibilities for innovation in understanding. Art, culture, and society are products of human brains. They originate in our faculties of perception, thought, and emotion, and they cumulate and spread through the epidemiological dynamics by which one person affects others. Shouldn’t we be curious to understand these connections? Both sides would win. The humanities would enjoy more of the explanatory depth of the sciences, to say nothing of the kind of a progressive agenda that appeals to deans and donors. The sciences could challenge their theories with the natural experiments and ecologically valid phenomena that have been so richly characterized by humanists.

https://newrepublic.com/article/114127/science-not-enemy-humanities

WHEN  OUT  OF  SORTS

Anger gets boring

after a while,

like milk gets sour.

So, spend more time

with your pet.

If you don’t have

 one,  get one!

I want to write dog,

not pet, but that word

has been sullied into bum

and a bitch.

Don’t you believe it!  Some

of my best friends

were Trixie, Shorty, Boots,

Gracie and Cleopatra.**

They make eye contact,

have empathy, mirror your

mind,  are warm and wag their tail.

What more could you ask for?

**and Buttons and Sinbad

Nan  10/8/22

Reply

Quora has some interesting questions, at times… For instance:

Mark Ross

Former Programmer (Retired) at Washington State Patrol (1986–2015)Jun 14

If Donald Trump got arrested, wouldn’t the next Republican president just pardon him?

If it was for a Federal Crime, then, yes, the next Republican president could certainly pardon him.

If Trump was arrested and convicted of a State Crime, then he would be SOL (Shit Outa Luck). Only the Governor of the State in which his crime was charged could pardon him. So, if it happens, let’s hope it happens in New York, not Florida. Although, DeSantis might have an incentive to not pardon Trump, since that would keep Trump out of DeSantis’ way.

From <https://www.quora.com/>

That’s what it seems to boil down to.  A Legal Services attorney is quoted as saying that “Missouri already has an extreme shortage of housing for people with low incomes. This legislation [hidden into H.B. 1606 on political subdivisions] will reduce access to housing and criminalize the unhoused in the middle of our affordable crisis.” See Public Citizen News September/October 2022 by Rhoda Feng.

________________________________

…And I vowed to not get upset over politics, like how I felt over the disparity of negative responses to Biden’s September 1 speech in front of  Independence Hall.  On one hand he was “being too damn nice,” softening his statement about the “near fascism” of MAGA Republicans while on the other being vociferously accused of spreading hate for even mentioning it….And on January 1, 2023  it will be against the law to toss your tent or even lay your sleeping bag down on public land in Missouri, unless a Legal Services suit disempowers the law.

_________________________________

And I’m speechlessly puzzled (almost speechlessly, anyhow) ) that a self-professed Worshiper at Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)  (1966–present)  could state (share? accuse? report?) the following on Quora recently in an answer to the question  “Trump looked very shaky and slurred his words badly in North Carolina recently. Is he unwell?”  My answer, after pulishing but then sleeping on it, was…Changed my mind and deleted it.  It’s difficult to be of two minds on things these days…: So solly–Guess I’ll have to wait until I sleep on my posts.

A reblog of Afzal Moolla’s post on Scribbled Verse –I love the images, especially “hopes skipping on a moonbeam…”

would you walk with me?

would you walk with me through the wildest storms, wracking distant fields of green
beneath raucous whirlwinds, under the lightning shrieks of night,
where yearning aches,
where my heart splinters,
where this cold world wounds,
would you take my hand in yours,
taking flight,
to soar in the haunted shimmering
of fractured moonlight.
would you take my hand – and with me disappear?
from this cesspool of hurt,
from this cauldron of fear,
to our pastures of peace,
not so far away from the now,
and not so removed from the here.
would you lay your heart,
to rest
beside mine?
sharing
ceaseless laughs and
tears,
sharing
our love, a reflection
of our desires, our fears,
sharing a placid calm, banishing aches and
sorrows,
for our love rejects all labels,
our love discards the detritus of this callous life,
our love dares to dream our dream we dare not dream,
the dream of many shared tomorrows.
would you walk beside me,
hoping to heal our thousand little cuts,
escaping our strewn life so casually
tossed,
to lose ourselves in landscapes etched and sketched,
with delicate hues deeply absorbed,
into a cardamom mosaic gently embossed.
would you sail with me, our hopes skipping on a moonbeam?
bathed in rain-drenched kisses,
soaring across the seas,
dancing,
hopping,
barely afloat,
on cinnamon waters,
sharing that ever elusive elixir,
sipping together, from a honeyed stream,
so that finally, and at long last,
I may hobble on,
trying to,
at long last,
my countless sins begin to redeem.
and so, and yet,
would you still walk with me?

What is the current state of climate change 2022?

Some of this may seem old to you; it is!

The 2018–2022 global mean temperature average (based on data up to May or June 2022) is estimated to be 1.17 ± 0.13 °C above the 1850–1900 average. A La Niña event has had a slight cooling effect on temperatures in 2021/22 but this will be temporary.5 days ago

United in Science: We are Heading in the Wrong Direction – UNFCCC

https://unfccc.int › news › united-in-science-we-are-headi…

: What is the current state of climate change 2022?

What did the 2022 IPCC report say?

The IPCC report 2022 warned that the world is set to reach the 1.5ºC level within the next two decades and said that only the most drastic cuts in carbon emissions from now would help prevent an environmental disaster.Jul 4, 2022

IPCC climate report 2022 summary: The key findings

The IPCC report 2022 warned that the world is set to reach the 1.5ºC level within the next two decades and said that only the most drastic cuts in carbon emissions from now would help prevent an environmental disaster.Jul 4, 2022

taking drastic action now and what would happen if no action was taken. Taking the high-carbon pathway, the worst of the scenarios, would see global temperatures rise by more than 4ºC by the end of the century. To add some perspective to that scenario, the world has not seen temperature increases of more than 2.5ºC over such a short space of time for more than 3 million years.

The latest IPCC climate reportThe third volume of the 6th IPCC assessment report that was launched on April 2022, is the result of a collaboration of 270 scientists from more than 60 different countries. This volume is only part of the sixth assessment report. The full version will be published in September 2022.

Humans are the main drivers of climate change

The last time the IPCC published its climate update, there was a link between human activity and climate change. This time, the group concludes they have high confidence that humans are the main drivers behind issues such as more intense heat waves, glaciers melting, and our oceans getting warmer. Studies have shown that events such as the heat wave in Siberia in 2020 and the extreme heat seen across Asia in 2016 would likely not have happened had humans not burned so much fossil fuel.

Indeed the IPCC report 2022 says: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”. That should be a stark enough warning to all of us to make the changes we need to in our lives and start recycling, and thinking about using green energy to power our homes, such as solar energy or wind energy.

Upon release of the report, politicians and commentators gave their reaction, none more powerfully than by UN Secretary General, António Guterres, who said:

IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.   From <https://climate.selectra.com/en/news/ipcc-report-2022>

For the first time ever, the IPCC dedicated a chapter in its report to short-lived climate forces including aerosols, methane, and particulate matter. The previous edition of the IPCC report outlined safe levels of methane, of which we have well surpassed at this point. In fact, methane levels, which are largely caused by agricultural farming, oil and gas operations, and abandoned coal mines, are at their highest for 800,000 years.

While much of the discussion of emission reductions focuses on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – by switching to an electric or hybrid car, for example – methane actually has a global warming impact 84 times higher over a 20-year period. The IPCC report 2022 said more focus must be placed on methane emissions, which would help reverse climate change and improve air quality around the world.

We are close to reaching irreversible tipping points

Drastic cuts in emissions are needed to stop climate change – something we already know and that governments and businesses around the world are already working towards. However, the report warned that if not enough is done, the world is close to reaching tipping points on climate change, meaning that we will have gone beyond the point where the damage can be repaired.

The IPCC report 2022 highlighted two key examples of what could happen:

1. Forests could start to die: As temperatures continue to rise, forests could begin to die off. Trees play a key role in absorbing CO2, so if deforestation occurs, and forests stop growing, it would have disastrous consequences on the environment;
2. Sea levels will continue to rise: As global warming occurs, ice caps melt at a rapid pace, meaning sea levels rise, and towns and cities around coastal areas are in danger of being swallowed up by the oceans. Research published in the Nature Journal suggests that if nothing is done, sea levels could rise by more than a metre by 2100 and by 15 metres over the next 500 years.