WELCOME TO SPRING:

Today, at 00:07 UTC (19:07- 7:07 pm Winnipeg Time) the change of seasons has occurred, and it is now officially spring (yah, cheer, rah).

Molly spent the better part of today driving around and listening to the founts of all wisdom on the radio try their best to give the right time, almost always failing. The actual time is easily looked up, and if readers from other localities are interested in when it occurred in their time zone they can use the Time and Date.com site under our 'Other Interesting Sites' section to calculate the time difference between UTC and their time zone.

The equinoxes, from the latin equus(equal) and nox (night), are the two times each year when the sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon. In actual fact the day at this time is longer than the night because the sun is not a "point" source of light, and when the centre of the solar disc is below the horizon the upper edge is still visible. Also refraction means that the sun's rays reach the ground even when the whole disc is below the horizon. At the equator this means that the day is about 14 minutes longer than the night at the equinox, and as you go towards the poles the difference becomes greater and greater.

The Spring Equinox has several alternative names ie the March Equinox, the Vernal Equinox, the First Point of Aries (an obsolete astrological term because precession has led to a total disjuncture between astrology and the actual position of the constellations), the Pisces Equinox (present position of the equinox) and the Northward Equinox. It should be noted that the term "equinox" refers to a moment in time, not a day. The rate of change of daylight versus nighttime is greatest at the time of the equinoxes. At the equator the rate of change is zero while at the poles the equinoxes mark the change from 24 hours of night or day to its opposite. The equinoxes fall about six hours later every years but are "reset" by the leap year inserted in the Gregorian calender. This itself varies as the Gregorian calender is not 100% accurate. Small changes also occur due to the gravitational influence of other bodies in the solar system, particularly the Moon. Because of the shift of the time of the equinoxes (and solstices) the present most common day for the Vernal Equinox is March 20th (as it is this year). Older people such as Molly have the date March 21st stuck in their minds because the equinox did indeed come earlier back in the days when Molly was a wee kitten.

The Spring Equinox has been associate with a great number of Spring festivals in many cultures and many ancient cultures devoted considerable effort in building "observatories" to calculate the exact time. In ancient German religion the vernal equinox was the time when Ostara, the goddess of fertility and the Moon mated with the solar god to produce a child due to be born 9 months later on "Yule". In ancient Greece this equinox marked the return of Persephone from the Underworld. The Mayans in Central America celebrate a spring festival that dates back a thousand years to the ancient "return of the Sun Serpent". the ancient cultures of the Middle East (Babylonian, Sumerian, Elamite and Persian) considered this day as their "New Years' Day", and this is still preserved in the Iranian and Bahai calenders. This marking of New Years at this time is common to many other countries in Central Asia such as Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, etc. and is a holiday in many countries where it is not accepted as the date of the New Year.

In Saxon mythology, from which many modern day Wiccan myths are derived, the goddess Eostre (from whom derives the word "estrogen") had her feast day on the full Moon following the vernal equinox. The present Christian calculation of "Easter" (also derived from her name) as the first Sunday after the full Moon on or after the Spring Equinox was derived from the appropriation of this festival. One interesting legend about Eostre is that she once found a dying bird on the ground one winter and in order to save it she transformed it into a rabbit. But the transformation wasn't complete, and the rabbit retained the ability to lay eggs which it would decorate and leave as gifts for Eostre. Now you know from whence comes the Easter Bunny.....

Christianity also borrowed from the ancient pagan religions to place the Feast of the Annunciation on the date of March 25th by the old Julian calender. This led to the further appropriation of Yule, December 25th, some 9 months later in imitation of the old Teutonic calenders, as the time of the birth of Jesus.

Elsewhere, Japan has the day of the Spring Equinox as a national holiday. In many Arab countries this equinox is celebrated as Mothers' Day. Earth Day was originally celebrated on March 21st, but more recently it has been moved to April 22nd. A few other pieces of trivia follow.

In some European countries legend has it that the equinox is the only time when one can successfully balance an egg on its end. during the equinox geostationary communication satellites may temporarily "go down" as the radiation of the Sun directly behind them disrupts their signals. The actual day when daytime and nighttime are closest to equal is referred to as the "equilux" as opposed to the equinox. This is usually three or four days "towards the winter" ie it fell three days earlier this year as opposed to the equinox.

For those who enjoy total trivia there is a table of times for the spring equinox from 1452 to 2547 at http://ns1763.ca/equinox/eqindex.html .

ANYWAYS, HAVE A GOOD SPRING

MOLLY

HAPPY HANGOVER DAY- THE DAY AFTER ST. PATRICK'S DAY

Well, Molly has survived yet another round of the most important day of the year, and she's only slightly the worse for wear. Anyways, a few factoids on St. Patrick and his day.

The general legend of St. Patrick (Latin: Patricius, Irish Naomh Padraig) derives from two of his letters in Latin that are generally accepted as authentic ie the Declaration (Latin Confessio) and the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus (Latin Epistola). There are also other works such as those of Tirechan and Muirchu moccu Machtheni, written about a century and a half after the death of Patrick, the Irish Annals which contain material from the Chronicle of Ireland and the probably forged First Synod of St. Patrick. All of these are less reliable than the two letters aformentioned and often conflate incidents from the life of Patrick and of Palladius who was the first missionary sent to Ireland from the monastery in Gaul, where Patrick was later sent from.

According to Patrick's own statements he was born Maewyn in the village of Banna Venta Berniae. Various locations from Wales to northern England to southern Scotland have been proposed for this town. His father was Calpornius a deacon, and his grandfather was Potitus, a priest. The year of his birth is uncertain but is likely around 385 CE.

According to the Confessio Patrick was about sixteen when he was captured by raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland. There he worked for 6 years as a herdsman, until, as he says, he heard a voice saying that he soon would be free and that his ship was ready. He boarded a ship on the coast and sailed back to his father in Roman Britain. After six years at home he had a vision in which "the voice of the Irish" begged him to return as a missionary. He studied for the priesthood at a monastery in Gaul under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre for 12 years. He hoped to return to Ireland, but the first missionary chosen was St. Palladius. Two years later Palladius was transferred to Scotland, and Patrick was anointed as the new bishop of Ireland. He went there and ministered for 30 years, dying most likely on March 17th, 461. The main line of evidence for this is the Annals of Ulster, which mistakenly give the term of his mission in Ireland as 60 years and claim that he was 120 years old at his death in the year 493, rather than 461. The confusion results from the conflation of the lives of Palladius and Patrick.

Patrick's traditional resting place is with the two other patron saints of Ireland, St. Bridgid of Kildare and St Columba under Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, County Down. Patrick was definitely not the first missionary to Ireland. In addition to St Palladius others such as Sts Auxilius, Secundus and Iserninus possibly predated Patrick. Patrick's prominance resulted from skillful propaganda on the part of the monastery in Armagh which claimed his relics. Most of Patrick's work was done in Ulster and Connaught while the others had mainly worked in the south of the country. While claiming many converts, Patrick's mission in Ireland was not without controversy. The Confessio mentioned above was actually a defense in his trial for simony. Patrick has never actually been canonized by a Pope. During the first millenium of the Church most canonization was done on a diocesan or regional level. The inclusion of St. Patrick in the Universal Calender with a feast day was due to the efforts of the 17th century Franciscan Luke Wadding, a prominant member of the commision for the reform of the Breviary. Wadding was also an arch-conspirator who arranged funds and arms for the Irish fighting the forces of Cromwell.

The generally accepted outline of Patrick's career in Ireland goes as follows. His original landing point in the summer of 433 is disputed, but the the mouth of the Vantry River is the most probable site. He did not receive a pleasant welcome from the local Druids. After a detour to pay off his former owner (a probably wise precaution rather than an act of Christian charity) he proceeded north to the islands off the Skerries coast. Tradition says that an imprint on a rock off the entrance to the harbour is the footprint of Patrick. He then visited the mouth of the River Boyne where he reportedly performed his first miracle.

From there, the legend continues, he continued inland towards Slemish. He was confronted by a chieftan named Dichu who intended to bar his path. When Dichu drew his sword to strike Patrick his arm reportedly became paralized and continued so until he declared for Patrick. In gratitude he gave the use of a large barn (sabhall in irish, pronounced "Saul") where Patrick founded his first Irish church and monastery. As Patrick continued on towards Slemish he observed the stronghold of his old master Milchu burning. The legend has it that Milchu himself gathered all his treasures into the hall and set it on fire, killing himself in the process, because "his pride could not endure the thought of being vanquished by his former slave".

On returning to Saul/Sabhall Patrick learned from Dichu that the Irish chieftans had been summoned by the Ard-Righ (High King) Leoghaire to Tara for a special feast. Patrick decided to journey to that feast to press his case for Christianity against Druidism. On his way to Tara Patrick rested at the house of a chieftan named Secsnen and converted his whole family. Secsnan's son Benin/Benignus became one of Patrick's closest companions in his work.

On March 26th, Easter Sunday, in 433 Patrick arrived at Tara. Patrick arrived at the hill of Slane, across the valley from Tara on the night before. In defiance of the royal edict that forbade any fires being lit until a signal fire was lit at the royal stronghold Patrick kindled a blaze. The efforts of Leoghaire's retainers and the druids reportedly failed to extinguish the fire that Patrick had set, and many legends have grown up about the escape of Patrick and his retainers from the attacks of the Druids that night.

The next day Patrick's party, led by Benignus carrying a copy of the gospels, entered Tara and the legend says that Patrick and the Druids engaged in a contest of magics. When the Druids created a cloud of darkness that engulfed Tara and the surrounding plain Patrick challenged them to remove it, and when they failed it reportedly dissipated at his prayer. When the arch-Druid Lochru levitated Patrick prayed once more and Lochru fell to his death on a rock. According to the story Patrick twice pleaded for Christianity before Leoghaire, and on the second occasion patrick supposedly used the shamrock, plucked from the ground to explain the doctrine of the Trinity.

The whole matter of the shamrock, by the way, is probably nothing more than another example of Christian borrowings from previous pagan religions. The traditional three leaved white clover held to be the shamrock doesn't grow as early in the year as the reported incident, but the sour trefoil, known as the Wood Sorrel, does. This plant reputedly had herbal properties as an anodyne. It was reportedly an object of worship amongst the legendary ancient race of the Tuath-de-Danaans, and it was the symbol of the Vernal Equinox amongst the Druids. The shamrock also appears in numerous other places as a religious symbol such as the three-leaved wand of Hermes, the three-leaved sceptre of Triphyllian Jove and on the head of the Egyptian goddess Isis and the go Osirus. It was present on ancient Persian and Irish crowns.

After these pleas the High King gave Patrick permission to preach throughout all of Ireland. Patrick remained at Tara and Slane for the rest of Easter week. The next week he reportedly travelled to Tailten (now Telltown) where the national games were being celebrated in connection with the royal feast. There he celebrated the first public baptism in Ireland, that of Conall, the brother of the Ard-Righ. Conall reportedly made a gift to Patrick of the site of a church which is known today as Donagh-Patrick. Many of the kings of Ireland until the 11th century were decended from Conall as was St. Columba.

Leaving some of his companions in Meath, Patrick then reportedly proceeded to County Connaught. The "children of Erin" who had called to him in his vision came from Focluth in Connaught, and so he travelled with the chieftans of that district who were returning from the feast. Despite this escort he had to pay the equivalent price of 15 slaves for his safe passage through the intervening terrirories. Along the way he reportedly caused the pillar of Crom-Cruach and its twelve surrouding pillars to crumble to dust by striking it with his bishop's crozier. His first converts in Connaught were the king of Killara, along with his six sons and 12,000 subjects of the king.

Patrick spent 7 years visiting every district of Connaught. While there he reportedly converted two daughters of the king of Connaught, Ethne the fair and Fedelm the ruddy. When they had converted they desired so much to behold the face of God that they died after receiving Communion. if this wasn't legend it probably would have been the end of Patrick's mission in Connaught.

In 440 CE Patrick turned his attentions to Ulster, and by 444 CE he was granted a tract of land in Armagh for the construction of a cathedral. The legend has it that his companions wanted to kill a doe and her fawn for food, but Patrick wouldn't allow it. He took the fawn upon his shoulders and carried it to a neioghbouring hill where he set it down and declared that that spot would be the location of the cathedral.

From Ulster patrick returned to Meath and then travelled on to Leinster. Two of the missionaries who possibly proceded Patrick to Ireland, Sts Auxilius and Iserninus, have been conflated into the story as being companions of Patrick who were assigned the valley of the Liffey to minister to. Patrick paid special attention to the conversion of the local headsmen, but he wasn't always successful. On the border of Kildare and Queens his charioter Odham was killed by a spear thrust meant for Patrick.

From Leinster Patrick reportedly proceeded on to Munster where he stayed for 7 years, once more concentrating on the conversion of the ruling class. It was here that, while baptising Aengus, the son of the king of Munster that he supposedly accidently pierced the prince's foot with the tip of his crozier. The prince remained unmoved and when Patrick questioned him afterwards he said that he thought it was part of the ceremony. This is the legendary origin of the coat of arms of Munster with its cross with a pointed tip. His farewell address to the people of Munster was said to have been given from the hills of Tipperary.

The legends say that Patrick continued his ministrations and anointed no less than 350 bishops. Many shrines in Eire lay claim to his legend. One of them is the island of Lough Derg, known as St. Patrick's Purgatory. Another is the mountain in Connaught known as Crough Patrick, Patrick's Mountain. It was there that patrick was said to have spent the classical forty days and forty nights in spiritual combat with the ancient gods and demons of Ireland. He finally overcame them by the ringing of his bell which scattered them so that they threw themselves into the ocean. Patrick then remained upon the mountain until he had wrung special blessings for the people of Ireland . Among these were:

*many souls would be freed from purgatory through his intercession

*whoever in the spirit of penance would recite his hymn before death would achieve the heavenly award

*barbarian hordes would never obtain sway in his Church (I guess this doesn't include the English ?)

*seven years before the Last Judgement the sea would rise up and engulf Ireland to spare the people the temptations and terrors of the Antichrist.

*St. Patrick himself would be appointed to judge the Irish at the final judgement.

And so the legend goes on. From Patrick's own Confessio he was imprisoned no less than 12 times during his stay in Ireland. At his death in 461 (or 493 according to other sources) St. Brigid brought the shroud in which he was to be buried. He was interred at the chieftan's Fort two miles from the sabhall where the cathedral of Down stands today.

NEW LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

"Dat Ol' cat Molly,

Dat Ol' cat Molly,

She jus' keep a linkin'

She jus' keep a linkin'

She jus' keep linkin' along"

I've recently added a whole slew of new links to this blog. Many are from the ex-Soviet Empire. I have only posted links from there that have English sections.They fall into a number of categories. For ease of browsing L= Links section, AS = Anarcho-syndicalist section, OLL= On Line Libraries, B=Blogs, and S= Scientific Links. In as much order as I can put to this here they are:

Under the Blogs Section

1) Anarcho Akbar, a Muslim anarchist site. B

2)Kropotkunin, a Canadian blog B

Under The Links section:

1)Anarchopedia An on-line version of wikipedia on anarchist subjects L

2)Praska Anarchist Group, from Warsaw Poland L

3)Revolutionary Manual, from Belarus L

4)A-Contra, Czech Republic L

5)Czechoslovak Anarchist Federation L

6)Elf's Reading Room from Slovenia L

7)The Armenian Libertarian Socialist Movement L

Under the Online Libraries Section:

1)3monkeyz.net a source of online books, pamphlets, images, audio, multimedia and software OLL

2)Nothingness.org, an online library of situationist and other texts OLL

3)Audio Anarchy, a source for audio and audiobooks resources OLL

Finally, under the Scientific Links section, two sites dealing with evolutionary psychology. One is a link to the Center for Evolutionary Psychology and the other is a text items of evolutionary psychology as applied to political problems.

1)The Center for Evolutionary Psychology S

2)'Injustice, Inequality and Evolutionary Psychology' by Dr. Bruce G Charlton MD S

That's it for now. Enjoy

Molly

ZIMBABWE: SOLIDARITY WITH THE ZIMBABWE CONGRESS OF TRADE UNIONS:

The on line labour solidarity site, Labour Start, has launched a campaign at the request of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Under the dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe the people of Zimbabwe have watched their situation sink into daily crisis. The country's GNI shrunk by 54% from 2000 to 2005, and inflation presently runs at 1,700% while unemployment is over 80%. protests against the regime have been led by the ZCTU, student, youth and church groups. In 2005 more than 30,000 arrests were made against opponents of the regime, thousands of people were displaced by the government's forced demolition of entire neighbourhoods under the guise of a "clean-up campaign" which was mainly aimed at workers in the informal economy (something most Zimbabweans depend on now) who had been turning to the trade unions for help. The dictatorship has now banned all political protests for three months, but trade unionists and others have stepped up their protests instead. A general strike has been announced to begin April 3rd and 4th. The government has responded by intensifying its attacks on the unions and other opposition leaders.

The ZCTU has asked for international solidarity for their struggle. To join this campaign go to : http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=212

Molly Note:

The Mugabe regime has shown its brutality very plainly in the past few years. What has disturbed Molly about the matter is that she has more than occasionally come across mealy mouthed "defenses" of this regime on the part of so-called "leftists". Most of these have come from people or organizations that can easily be tagged as Stalinist (yeah those crazy buggers still exist). Some, however, have come from others who should know better. Many commentators have observed that there is a certain portion of the so-called "left" who will extend support to any regime, no matter how brutal, totalitarian or even fascist, as long as that regime is "anti-American". Moral considerations fall away when some of this "anti-imperialist", Third Worldist, "left" gets to make its mindless choices by the sole criteria of who makes noises against the USA. Not that this is unique in history. For those interested see routine Communist propaganda in the period between the Hitler-Stalin pact and the invasion of the Soviet Union. In that time some of the left, the Communists and their sympathizers, also made their decisions on only one criteria ie what Moscow said.

NEW EDITION OF 'ANY TIME NOW' AVAILABLE:

The anarchist newsletter 'Any Time Now: For Social Anarchism' has just come out in issue # 26, for the Spring of 2007. This issue features articles on the growing libertarian students' movement in Quebec, the USA and Chile. Also the statement of the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the people based in Oaxaca, Mexico, 'Authority, Conformity and Mental Illness' by John Griffin and 'The British Distributionists', a review by Kevin Carson. Plus a whole raft of reviews and short items.

The pdf version of ATN can be viewed and downloaded at the website http://www.atnzine.net . Subscriptions to the printed version are available by donation at the mailing address: Any Time Now, c/o Affinity Place, Argenta BC V0G 1B0, Canada. Anyone who would like a sample printed copy just write to Molly here at Mollymew Productions, Box 172, Henderson Hwy., Winnipeg, MB R2L 2A5, Canada.

Molly

COMING SOON AT THE CARNIVAL OF ANARCHY:

Coming up at The Carnival of Anarchy, where the best anarchists meet to talk: The weekend of March 23rd to 25th will feature round robin blogging on the subject of "Science and the Spirit of Anarchism". anything goes: "software, electronics, climatology, biology, medicine, or what have go..." Come on over and join the carnival.

Molly

INTERNATIONAL SYNDICALISM: THE DEBATE

Molly has pretty well burned her bridges in crossing the Rubicon (how's that for mixed metaphors ?) in previous posts here about the AIT/anti-AIT debate in international syndicalism. Not that I can't swim back across the river if new evidence comes in because Molly, unlike almost all leftists, can form the words "I was wrong and I have changed my opinion" without choking on them. That being said there is a continuing debate on the Lib-Com site that illustrates, more or less, the various positions around the AIT/anti-AIT position, and I urge people who are interested in this matter to go on over to the site to look at it. When Molly visited Spain a few years ago she mostly spoke with people from the CNT ie the "opposition" to what she thinks is the proper way to proceed. All that being said she observed more than a little willingness on the part of some CNT members to put the fight behind them. That is Molly's position in a nutshell. She has more than a little sympathy for the "intransigents" of the CNT, but she thinks their input would be much more valuable in a unified syndicalist movement where they could influence MUCH larger numbers of people. Molly's basic goal is that she thinks that anarchism should provide an alternative to social democracy, and, as such, should fight on the terrain of a gradual approach to anarchism. This is the sort of approach that I consider the only realistic one for this century.

Molly

NEW AT NONRESISTANCE.ORG:

The Christian anarchist site NonResistance.org (see also our Links section)has uploaded a couple more texts to their site. They are:

1)A Solemn Review of the Custom of War by Noah Webster (yes! he of the dictionary fame)

2)War Inconsistent With the Religion of Jesus Christ by David Low Doge.

Go on over to the site to see these essays.

Molly

APPEAL FROM SRI LANKA:

The Clean Clothes Campaign, an international labour solidarity group in support of workers in the garment industry has issued an appeal on behalf of Sri Lankan workers recently arrested/kidnapped by the government of that country. The Asian Human Rights Commission has documented the use of "disappearances" in Sri Lanka over the past few decades. Their report can be viewed at http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2007statements/917 . The Clean Clothes campaign is concerned because the government has attempted to criminalize union activity be claiming it has a connection to the Tamil insurgency in the northeast of the country. A propaganda campaign is being conducted to try and make this link. The CCC is asking people across the world to write to the Sri Lankan government to demand safety of all trade union activists under threat. To join this campaign go to:

http://www.cleanclothes.org/urgent/07-03-06.htm#action

Molly

NEW OCAP PERPETUAL CALENDER NOW AVAILABLE:
Ocap, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, has a new "perpetual calender" on sale. This calender can be used year afater year and features beautiful artwork, history, important dates, birthdays and anniversaries. Artists who have contributed work to this calender include Pete Collins, Shannon Muege, Stepan Pilipa and others. All revenue from this calender goes to support the work of OCAP, everything from individual casework to large-scale mobilizations. Copies are $20 each, with discounts for bulk orders. To order go to perpetual.ocap@gmail.com or phone OCAP at 416-925-6939.
You might also want to drop over to the OCAP site for a browse. Interesting stuff, especially their collection of political songs lyrics. Old favourites, new favourites and some that never made the top 40, popular or otherwise. Have a look...
Molly

STRANGE HITS:
Molly was totally amazed by the number of hits that this blog gathered over the matter of the recent lunar eclipse, and she is only sorry that she was so surprised that she didn't give the further information provided the day before the eclipse earlier. But she never expected such a response- 387 hits in one day March 3rd for instance. I cannot understand why this blog should have become so popular over this one matter, though, in hindsight, I guess that I should have anticipated it. Full details will be posted long before the event for the next lunar eclipse coming up in August.
It was hard to keep up with the hits recorded, but some references stand out as exceptional. One was "lunar eclipse effect on squirrels". Well.... I can see why Molly's Blog should come to the top on such a search. Another was a little more strange. It read, "if the earth was tilted 45 degrees would the sun rise on Christmas day in Winnipeg Manitoba". I'm sure I could give an answer to such a question, but my curiosity is so engaged by the other question of "why" anybody should ask this question" that it's hard to get into it. Anyways, there were many other strange questions, mercifully very few of them revolving around astrology, but that was my little brush with fame, and I can't say that I am unhappy that it is gone. It was a lesson about what interests people and a reminder to give full details earlier. May I learn from this.
Molly

CONTRADICTING 'THE TOMB OF JESUS':
Molly's television viewing is pretty well restricted to sitting in front of the tube during supper and flipping through the channels to try and find the least stupid electronic blah-blah while she shovels the daily caloric intake down her throat. In pursuit of this mindless activity she came across the sleazy "documentary" tonight about 'The Tomb of Jesus'. Like many other things, such as Anne Marie what's her name who died of a presumed drug overdose in (I think) the Bahamas and the so-called star who shaved her head bald (which Molly very happily can't recall the name of at the moment- hey my mind blocks work!) this crap is inescapable, and Molly devotes a considerable amount of effort to forgetting such things even before they are forgotten by the general public. Eat your heart out Freud, "garbage dump" is superior to "repression" any day of the week. By doing this I free the diminishing amount of free neurons that I have for stuff that is much more interesting such as the grammar of foreign languages or odd biological and astronomical facts. I also consider this pseudo-news as something very akin to elephantiasis, or any other parasite that sets up residence in my precious body- or in this case my mind. I get the creepy feeling of invasion whenever such nonsense hits either my ears or eyes. It goes as follows,
"I don't care. I never will care. I also hate you for trying to waste my time with useless gossip".
For somebody who spends far too much time on the phone every day, and plots ways to cut conversations short this is an important thing. It's also important for somebody who tries to take medical histories in the face of the ever present human tendency to never answer a direct question. I've had to circle back to start 8 times sometimes to get the information I want (which is what these people are paying me for after all), and sometimes I've had to give up on ever getting a straight answer. I hate people who waste my time without paying me while I merely plot ways to get information from those that do pay me so that I can be of service to them. Fair deal to my mind. But nobody pays me to pay attention to celebrities or ideas that are essentially boring.
Also my "crook detector apparatus" gets more refined every year that I live. I'm actually amazed by how efficient it is. When I get a message from the answering service this "spider sense" usually starts tingling even if the crook in question hasn't left any obvious clues to their intentions. Something is operating below the level of rational calculation here, and the message conveyed is emotional, but just as obvious nonetheless.
Thus I viewed the sound bites hitting my ears about 'The Tomb of Jesus', though here I don't have to rely on emotion. Oh yeah, a crew of film-makers makes a spectacular pseudo-documentary about discovering Jesus' tomb shortly after a multi-million dollar film grosses megabucks at the cinema. Ah...toooooo obvious. I wonder what bribes had to be paid to get it aired as I doubt that this is the first scam about this thing. Rational suspicion will suffice here. Let's also note that this stunning discovery escaped the scholars who originally unearthed the remains decades ago. This is about as obvious as a tele-evangelist pitch to send money or they will be "called home" (please hurry on that matter).
Anyways, I'd like to call the readers' attention to an interesting debunking of this matter at the Catholic Anarchy site. Not that this implies any sympathy on my part for the Church I left over 40 years ago, but the owner of this blog (see also our 'Blogs' section in the Links) has a bit more interest in this matter than I do, being as I am inclined to dismiss it as "one more crook". If I didn't write about it here I'd forget it ever existed within two weeks- which I almost did except that it disturbed my digestion. Anyways, a good debunking is presented there.
I hope, though I have no "faith", that this piece of silliness will not be adopted by atheists as some sort of "proof" against Christianity. Atheism is no more immune to nonsense than any theism, which is perhaps why I prefer to call myself a "skeptic" rather than an "atheist". Not that I believe in any theism, but I am hardly "evangelical" about the matter. Lest anyone believe that atheism cannot reproduce the worst of evangelical Christianity I urge people to look at the case of American Atheists and its founder Madelaine Murray O'Hare. The anarchist writer Fred Woodworth, who is much more of a militant atheist than I could ever be, took on O'Hare at the very height of her power.
Molly would like to take this opportunity to express a theory about theories. It is very much modelled on the "random search" model of evolutionary biology where a "fitness landscape" allows the possibility of perhaps a great number of "fitness peaks" as organisms evolve. It can be formulated as follows:
"Given the fact that the "fitness" of memes (ie beliefs) doesn't depend solely on either their logical coherence, their approximation to truth nor their compatibility to other memes such standards of morality there will always be a great number of "fit" memes which represent both a gross simplification of the original ideas and even a moral degradation of same. These will evolve and propagate amongst a population of "hosts" for a number of reasons, but, like "the poor" they will always be with us."
I call this The law of Chintz. Every great idea will eventually find a thuggish and low expression. Christianity will evolve tele-evangelists. Ideas such as those of Ellul, Shumacher, and Illich will end up as the degraded rhetoric of primitivists. Critiques of ideology and abstraction such as those of Stirner will end up as ideological gobbledygook such as "post leftism". Observations about the social context of thought, scientific and otherwise, will end up as the petty academic power politics of "post-modernism". Marxism will end up as either Stalinism or sterile academic arguments about dialectics. The anarchist idea of "direct action" will be reduced to the travelling rent-a-riots of protest. Protestanism will end up with the Jehovahs. Catholicism will end up with Austrian arch-bishops who try to deny evolution and a half assed apology to Galleleo. Islam will end up with Wahabism. The evolution of such memes is inevitable, but their triumph is not such.
Enough of the "Molly hiss" for now. The world contains better things than crooks trying to scam bucks by- probably- deliberately lying. I find it hard to believe that the film makers are not deliberate about what they are doing. In any case check out the site of my Catholic comrade for the debunking. For now I zip out to finish the day's unloading and feed the squirrels for tomorrow. They, at least, don't lie. Neither do the stars.
Molly

NEW DOWNLOADABLE FILMS AVAILABLE FORM TVHASTINGS/CHRISTIE BOOKS:
The folks over at TVHastings/Christie Books have made three more downloadable anarchist films available for your internet viewing pleasure. These can be accessed at the following URLs:
1)An Anarchist's Story at http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=596410448
2)The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) at http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=572020959
3)Discovering the Treasure:Making the Treasure of the Sierra Madre at http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=570487966
As a point of interest the title 'An Anarchist's Story' is a documentary on one of the unsung heroines of anarchist history, the Scotswoman Ethel MacDonald. This Scottish anarchist took part in the Spanish Revolution on the side of the anarchists of the CNT-FAI. Well worth looking at.
Molly

THE NEVER ENDING REVIEW: CHAPTER THREE OF 'A BEAUTIFUL MATH' : 'NASH'S EQUILIBRIUM':
Welcome back to this continuing review of Tom Siegried's 'A Beautiful Math', on the growth of game theory. I spend a goodly amount of time on this review because it is, in my opinion, important for a clear sighted view of social action- not because I agree with the author's often overinflated claims for the relevance of game theory. Even a sceptic of some of the grander claims can see just how important this matter is for a rational radicalism of the future. Anyways...
It's the third chapter of this book before the character of the title, John Nash, makes an appearance. Nash entered Princeton University as a graduate student in 1948. This was Von Neumann's stomping grounds. Morgenstein worked in the economics department and Von Neumann was at the Institute for Applied Studies a mile away.
To this point game theory had been restricted to the rather sparse world of "two player zero-sum" games. Nash rapidly broke into new fields of analysis, and his 1950 paper ('The Bargaining Problem, Econometrica 18(1950) pp 155-162) on which he was advised by both Morgenstein and Von Neumann, expanded the world of game theory into "cooperative games" in which the two sides work together to achieve a mutual benefit, and what he provided was a mathematical map for finding the optimal bargain that maximized the utilities of both players.
In the same year that he published the above paper he also presented his doctoral thesis- Non-Cooperative Games. This introduced the idea of an "equilibrium strategy" towards which a repeated round game will evolve. At this equilibrium Nash wrote in his thesis the situation is such that,
"...each player's mixed strategy maximizes his payoff if the strategies of the other players are held fixed."
What this idea did was to take game theory and make it possible to describe multi-player games, something that Von Neumann's ideas floundered on. Nash's proof depended upon something known as the fixed point theorem , an idea borrowed from topology. The ideas presented in this thesis were also published in the PNAC as 'Equilibrium Points in N-Person Games' in 1950 and in 1951 as 'Non-Cooperative Games' in the Annals of Mathematics.
As a side note "cooperative" and "non-cooperative" have a rather restricted meaning here. Cooperative refers to the coalition forming that Von Neumann and Morgenstein used to get around the fact that their theories couldn't deal with more than two players. Non-cooperative refers to Nash's expansion which can deal with any number of players who don't collaborate or communicate with each other. What Nash showed is that there is an "equilibrium strategy" that each player (at least one such but sometimes more than one) which maximizes their payoff no matter what the other players do assuming they also try to maximize their payoff.
This is, of course a simplified version of the real world where the "equilibrium states" of perfectly rational actors who try to maximize their self interest rarely exist. But armed with this general description the author goes on to describe specific "games" have analyzed, especially 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' (1), first described by Nash's Princeton professor Albert W. Tucker in 1950 (2) .
The game is set up as follows, two criminals, call them "Alice and Bob', are arrested. The police interrogate them separately. They have enough evidence to convict each of them on a minor charge, but they need confessions for convictions on more serious charges. If both refuse to confess they each get one year on the lesser charge. If one confesses and the other stays silent the squealer goes free and the other gets five years. If both confess they each get 3 years (two years off for "copping a plea". The payoff matrix is as below (once more excuse the limitations of blogger).

Alice

Keep Mum Rat

Bob: Keep Mum 1, 1 5,0

Rat 0,5 3,3

The above game is actually set up as something like a "routine procedure" by police interrogators, often with the predictable outcome (criminals are usually not heroes after all).

The 'Nash equilibrium' for the above is for both players to confess. from the point of view of either player the best choice is to rat no matter what the other player does. The outcome where both players squeal is "worse for the group" as 6 combined years is the maximum sentence, but is the best outcome for an individual acting in their own self interest. A real life example of this can be seen in continual news of "eco-terrorists" acting as squealers time after time in the USA. The ideology of those who promote such acts (while often remaining aloof from same) is insufficient to overcome the self interest of those who are caught in such acts (which they usually are), and their attempted "punishment" is as quite puny as compared to that of ordinary criminals. Hence the great incentive to confess on the part of people who are caught for such crimes. "Spite" may play a part in this as well, as those who have been caught may come to realize the self-interest of many who have "egged them on" while remaining out of danger themselves.

Another game mentioned, one closer to actual reality rather than anarchist cultism, is the 'Public Goods Game'. The question of this game revolves around the provision of public goods by voluntary donation- something closer to the heart of real anarchism rather than the posturing of certain American cults. In this case "defectors", otherwise known as "free riders" who don't voluntarily contribute can still reap the benefits of a "public good". It seems OK for the defectors, but if too many decide to "free ride" then the public good becomes unavailable and the defectors get no benefit.

One of the variants of the public goods game that Siegfried mentions is set up as follows. Four players are given monetary tokens and told that they could keep as many as they wanted or put them into a "public pot" where the amount would be doubled by the experimenter. There were a certain number of "rounds" in this game wherein each player would be told how much had been contributed to the pot, and they would be offered the chance to change their contribution; either decrease or increase it.

When the game was played repeatedly a stable pattern began to emerge. As Siegried says,

"Players fell into three identifiable groups:cooperation, defection (or free riders) and reciprocaters. Since all the players learned at some point how much had been contributed, they could adjust their behavior accordingly. Some players remained stingy (defectors), some continued to contribute generously (cooperators) and others contributed more if others in the group had donated significantly (reciprocaters).

Over time, the members of each group earned equal amounts of money, suggesting that something like a Nash Equilibrium had been achieved- they all won as much as they could, given the strategy of others. In other words,in this kind of game, the human race plays a mixed strategy- about 13% cooperators, 20% defectors (free riders) and 60 % reciprocaters in this particular experiment". (Molly Note: this emphasizes the importance of what is called "altruistic punishment" in evolutionary psychology. In a "game" where knowledge of an "opponent's" previous interactions with other players is given the percentage of "defectors" can be reduced by such punishment inflicted by players who were not part of the original rounds).

The author ends the chapter with an overview on 'Game Theory Today'. He notes that the field has been broadened considerably to cover "games where coalitions form, where information is incomplete, where players are less than perfectly rational". He also notes that there are arguments about whether game theory predicts behavior or "proscribes" what a rational person should do. He goes on to answer some of the criticisms of game theory's ability to "predict" in real world situations.

Siegried notes that game theory, like other scientific theories, is a model of reality, not reality itself. It makes reality comprehensible by simplifying it. As it is tested in experimental situations it is modified and grows just like any other scientific theory. The author quotes Colin Cameron in 'Behavioral Game Theory':

"The goal is not to disprove game theory...but it is to improve it"

Siegried goes on to describe the contributions of Thomas Schelling who won the 2005 Nobel Prize in economics. Schelling focused on games where there is more than one Nash equilibrium. he particularly analyzed conflict in international relations and the role of "bluff" in same. He also analyzed games where a "coordinated outcome" is better than any particular outcome. These are situations where, as Siegried says,

"...where it is better for everybody to be on the same page, regardless of what the page is."

The work of the other 2005 economics Nobel Prize winner, Robert Aumann, is also mentioned. Aumann analyzed the prisoner's dilemma game as a "repeated rounds" situation rather than a "one shot" affair and showed how cooperation could evolve in such situations (Much closer to everyday life:Molly Note). He identified situations where cooperation is less likely ie many players, limited communication or limited game time (fewer rounds). (Molly Note: The eventual "goal" of studying matters such as these is to identify what sort of conditions lead to "increased cooperation" in the presumed society that we want. Some things are obvious from the above. "Fewer players" means a decentralized society. "Full communication" means not just decentralization but also the elimination of "socialist managers" who mediate such communication and add "noise" to same).

Siegried finishes this chapter by naming multiple applications of game theory, not just in economics but also in medicine, politics,ecology and especially !!! evolutionary biology.

JOIN THE GLOBAL STAR PARTY:

Next week a "Global star party" sponsored by the Globe at Night website kicks off. Running from March 8th to March 21, this is an attempt at assessing global 'light pollution'. Last year over 90,000 people in 96 countries participated. Basically you will be asked to go outside and observe the constellation Orion- pictured to the left (More on Orion in a future Molly's Blog)- and judge the magnitude of the stars in that group with a scale provided by the Globe at Night site. Various communities across the world are trying to do something about the light pollution that dims the view of the night sky for their residents. The measures are almost always energy conservation measures as well. To learn more about these efforts go to the International Dark Sky Association site. Do your part to help build an assessment of how much you are being deprived of the view that is your birthright.

Molly

FALSE CLAIMS ON NUTRICEUTICAL LABELS:

Molly has sold certain nutriceuticals, especially for her canine patients, for some time now. Aside from the omega-3 fatty acids the main item is a combination product containing glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate called 'Cosequin'. One of Molly's own cats is receiving daily supplements of same. It's not a big market for Molly as she often recommends that owners of large dogs purchase their supplements from a human pharmacy and "work down" on the dose given the weight of their dog. Now, Molly is not a devotee of the religion that could be described as "naturophilia" ie the superstitious belief that there is something "magical" about so-called "natural compounds" that makes them mysteriously better than totally synthetic compounds. Being half-Irish she cannot see the difference between "Protestant chemicals" and "Catholic chemicals" despite her ethnic background, and this is an exact metaphor for the belief that there is something magical about "natural". As with any religion there are also an incredible amount of predators who take advantage of such beliefs to empty the wallets of the believers. The best research in the human field has concluded that there is no benefit to sufferers of osteoarthritis, like Molly herself, from taking glucosamine alone, and the research in the veterinary field is ambiguous enough to draw the same conclusion vis-a-vis dogs. The jury is still out, however, regarding the benefit of glucosamine/chondroitin combinations, and so Molly still either sells or recommends them.

This is despite her knowledge of a much deeper level of dishonesty in the nutriceutical market which she hopes to bypass by her usual recommendation that owners never purchase such drugs from an health food store (they are the ultimate epitomy of crookedness in our society falling way below used car salesmen for shear dishonesty) but only from a pharmacy. This is because Molly is fully aware that health food quackery not only makes false claims for efficacy of certain chemicals but is connected to dishonest manufacturers who routinely misrepresent the actual levels of chemicals in the drugs that they sell, to the extent that there may be none of the chemical claimed on the label in the little funny capsules sold at inflated prices in such drug dens. About the only thing that Molly says is "safe" to buy at a health food store are yeast tablets. Yeast is industrial waste and is ultra-cheap and so there is little incentive to lie about it. Simply weigh it, put it in a capsule and charge a markup of 1000% for the marks.

I know in my heart of hearts that purchase from a pharmacy is no guarantee of honesty in labelling, but I still believe that the pharmacies are a few orders of magnitude above the systemic dishonesty of health food stores because lies are not their total business. Yet something I have recently read gives me pause in that it reinforces the need for vigilance on the part of veterinarians, and by implication pharmacists as well. I am only happy that this paper says that what I have been doing to date in terms of my own sales is OK. Anyways...

The item is a comparative analysis of the amounts of glucosamine and chondroitin present in 7 different nutriceutical products manufactured for the veterinary community and their correlation with label claims. The authors are Bertrand Lussier and Maxim Moreau of the Companion Animal Research Group, Faculte de mediceine veterinaire, University de Montreal (the French speaking veterinary college here in Canada). The research was sponsored by the generic drug manufacturer Novo-Pharm in their expectation that their product 'Novo-Flex' would measure up to various brand name formulations marketed to veterinarians here in Canada. It did more than measure up ! There were six other brand name formulations tested: Kirkland, Equate, Ubavet, Cosequin, Osteo 3, and Con-Glu. The results for glucosamine, the cheaper chemical, were not extraordinary. Only Ubavet and Osteo-3 fell significantly below the label claims, by -28.9% and -15.2% respectively. For the more expensive chemical, chondroitin, however, the variation from label claims was astounding: -98.7% for Equate (practically none available in their pills), -83.7% for Uba-Vet, and -19.9% for Osteo 3. Only the Kirkland product, Cosequin and the generic formulation Novo-flex measured up, all of them exceeding the label claims (which are typically expressed as "minimums").

It's food for thought. It says to me that I should stick with Cosequin for my own sales until further research verifies the Novo-Pharm claims. It also, however, says to me that I should be a little more cautious is recommending pharmacy purchases and should perhaps recommend a "house brand" first over other items on the shelf. I think that i can presume that pharmacy house brands have quality control that is superior to those of the other items on their shelf. Something to look up.

Once more, there is no firm proof that a glucosamine/chondroitin mixture does any good for osteoarthritis sufferers, but like much in medicine this is provisional. The authors of the paper from the Universite de Montreal conclude that federal legislation to enforce compliance with minimal standards of honesty in nutriceutical labels would be desirable. As an anarchist I'd like to avoid this conclusion, but it seems like a reasonable reform in the absence of popular education, particularly as so many anarchists-and other leftists- buy into the obvious lies of health food quackery. Those who attempt to educate the public are small in number as compared to those who attempt to steal from the public, and too many of the supposed friends of the public buy into the popular crooked lies for various ideological reasons.

Molly

SOLIDARITY APPEAL FROM WEST BENGAL:
The International Union of Food Workers (IUF) -their "short name", see our 'Other Interesting Links' section- has passed on a solidarity appeal from one of their affiliates in the Indian state of West Bengal. The Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS-West Bengal Agricultural Union) has been lending support to agricultural workers and small peasant farmers in the West Bengali community of Singur who were resisting eviction so that the Tata Group , an Indian multinational, can build a small car factory on their land. The factory would employ 2,000 people and displace up to 30,000 people from their land.
The West Bengali police have acted in a violent manner towards the villagers on several occasions. On February 4th, 2007 the police attacked a rally of the villagers and assaulted several people. Six leaders of the PBKMS were arrested, threatened with rape (all were women) and arraigned on many serious charges the next day. The PBKMS and the IUF are asking you to protest the criminalization of protest in West Bengal by writing to the Chief Minister and Governor of West Bengal. To join in this campaign go to the following e-address:
http://www.iuf.org/den4067
It should be noted that the government of West Bengal that is sponsoring these attacks is a coalition of communist parties that has been in power in that state for some time, and this is one more example of how the managerial interests of the rulers trump any ideological commitment to justice.
Molly

THE MOON AND THE LAST MINUTE:

Molly has been totally amazed by the number of hits this blog has gathered in the last few days, mostly because of a post I put up on Feb 16th about the upcoming lunar eclipse. The number of hits has been accelerating over the last few days. Yesterday there were 115, and as of 1:50 pm today there were 118 hits, almost all of them references to the eclipse. This blog's previous record for daily hits was 45. There's something about an eclipse. Most of the posts on matters astronomical that I've put up before gather 5 or 6 hits at most. This is all to the good if the public interest in sky watching is stimulated by rare events such as an eclipse, though Molly wants to emphasize that the sky is available every night for your viewing at either no cost or the cost of a cheap pair of binoculars. You don't have to invest a thousand dollars in an amateur telescope. Mine cost $450. Glad to see that there is public interest in this event from as far away as Hunan province in China. I hope it stimulates further appetite for the night sky. This blog will certainly continue in this vein.

Molly

NEW FROM SCARY SQUIRREL WORLD (ONE OF THE GREATEST SITES IN THE INTERNET WORLD):

Scary Squirrel World has made available a selection of e-postcards that you can send off this upcoming St. Patrick's Day (March 17th). Go on over to the site for a little Irish fun.

Molly

SOLIDARITY APPEAL FROM IRAQ:
Labour Start has launched another appeal for international solidarity. On Feb 22nd US and Iraqi government forces raided the head offices of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW). They arrested one of the union's secretarial staff, but later released him unharmed. They also, however, destroyed furniture and stole a computer and fax machine. Two days later they returned to do more vandalism. The GFIW is asking people across the world to send letters of protest to the US and Iraqi governments demanding a written apology, return of the stolen property and compensation for the damage caused. To join in this campaign go to
http://www.labourstart.org/iragraid
Molly