How to get into debt

A good one. Even a Chestertonian one.

A golden myth

The story pops up again and again, especially among economists who want you to invest in gold:

The purchasing power of gold has not diminished since Biblical times. According to the Old Testament, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, an ounce of gold bought 350 loaves of bread. Today, an ounce of gold still buys 350 loaves.

And of course it is a myth, one of those urban legends that has been debugged to death but still won't lay down.

However, as a Bible scholar, Claude Mariottini is not afraid of the truth:

To say, however, that one ounce of gold in the days of Nebuchadnezzar bought 350 loaves of bread, one must assume several things. First, one must assume that the ounce, a unit of weight in the avoirdupois system, once used in the United Kingdom and still used in the U.S. system of weights, was also used in Babylon. Since the Babylonians did not use imperial units, this statement is false.

Second, we must assume that the value of gold has remained stable in its relative value to the price of bread. If this assumption is correct, then we must also assume that the price of gold and the price of bread has remained relatively the same for the past 2,600 years. It is evident that no one can assume that this is true, therefore, the statement above also cannot be proved.

Read all about it here.

Tony talks

For my two readers who enjoy ELP, here is a great interview with Tony Ortiz. Who knows a thing or two.

Chesterton, Solzhenitsyn and Liberalism

What better way of returning from holliday than finding an illuminating article on two of my very fav authors? Even if there ideally could have been better occasions for media coverage than the recent passing away of one of them, death does have a knack for putting things in perspective.

Still, it is revealing that so many seem so clueless about Chesterton and Solzhenitsyn - including those who strive for an originality of their own (which in the post Mencken period seems more to be about a cynical than a thoughtfull style).

However, Dhoutat is very much on the right track:

But as with Chesterton, the two faces of Solzhenitsyn were really one face: His witness against Communism emerged from the same ground as his critique of Western liberalism. When Hitchens writes that the great dissident's "mixture of attitudes and prejudices puts one in mind more of Dostoyevsky than of Tolstoy," he's absolutely right. But it's not a coincidence that Russia's two most eloquent and prophetic critics of utopian radicalism - Dostoevsky who attacked it in its infancy, and Solzhenitsyn who helped usher it into extinction - were both standing outside Western liberalism, while so many people inside liberalism busied themselves making apologies for terror and mass murder. Which is why Solzhenitsyn, like Chesterton, isn't important despite his deviations from "the current consensus of liberal good will." He's important because of them - because his deviationism allowed him to see things that others were blind to, and because reading past giants who stand foursquare outside the current New York Times/New Yorker consensus provides an opportunity to interrogate one's own premises, and ponder the ways in which contemporary deviationists might be right, and the contemporary consensus wrong.

One does not need to be a prophet to know which face Dhoutat will be met with.

Vesalius vs. the rib

I have for some time looked at the story of the 16th century anatomist Vesalius who allegedly was persecuted for insisting that men did not have one rib fewer that women.

This is ofte connected to the myth that medical science was held back because the church did not allow the dissection of corpses.

In reality dissection was permitted in Medieval Europe - it was other cultures (the Greeks, Romans and Muslims) that forbade it. Galen's authoritative description of anatomy was in stead based on animals anatomy. As did this not quite match human anatomy, doctors long imagined there to be some errors in their own findings (which mostly was done by assistants anyhow), as Galen was too clever to be wrong.

Medical science seems more hold back by a well deserved respect for the genius of Galen, than from any other single factor.

Anyone interested in medieval medicine could do worse than check out Mondino de’ Luzzi (1270-1326) who wrote a textbook on the dissection of corpses. And the illustration above shows a public dissection in the 1300's.

What about Vesalius and the rib?

The story is told like this by the notorious mythmaker A.E. White in his book on the "Warfare" between science and theology:

"Still other enroachments upon the theological view were made by the new school of anatomists, and especially by Vesalius. During the Middle Ages there had been developed various theological doctrines regarding the human body; these were based upon arguments showing what the body, ought to be, and naturally, when anatomical science showed what it is, these doctrines fell. An example of such popular theological reasoning is seen in a widespread belief of the twelfth century, that, during the year in which the cross of Christ was captured by Saladin, children, instead of having thirty or thirty-two teeth as before, had twenty or twenty-two. So, too, in Vesalius's time another doctrine of this sort was dominant: it had long been held that Eve, having been made by the Almighty from a rib taken out of Adam's side, there must be one rib fewer on one side of every man than on the other. This creation of Eve was a favourite subject with sculptors and painters, from Giotto, who carved it upon his beautiful Campanile at Florence, to the illuminators of missals, and even to those who illustrated Bibles and religious books in the first years after the invention of printing; but Vesalius and the anatomists who followed him put an end among thoughtful men to this belief in the missing rib, and in doing this dealt a blow at much else in the sacred theory. Naturally, all these considerations brought the forces of ecclesiasticism against the innovators in anatomy."

The story is given more twists in a page about P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library's most valuable book:

"Prior to Pope Sixtus IV's decision at the end of the fifteenth century authorizing human dissection for scientific purposes, "to touch with a scalpel the dead 'image of God' was reckoned impious theology." Sixtus' decree opened the stage for experimentation. As professor of anatomy, Vesalius enjoyed an international reputation that drew huge crowds to the lecture halls. Instead of hiring assistants to handle the cadavers, as was customary in his time, Vesalius personally demonstrated all dissections. He was an irrepressible showman, whose classes were as riveting as theatrical productions."

"With characteristic vigor, Vesalius probed into traditionally held beliefs and, like Galileo, engaged in a lifelong struggle against the established authority. In the "Adam's Rib Controversy" Vesalius contested Church doctrine by proving that the male and the female of the species have an equal number of ribs. He also disputed the "indestructible bone" theory, which had stated that after death, human beings are left with one bone from which a new body is formed at the Resurrection. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, Vesalius finally left Italy to become medical advisor to the kings of Spain, Charles V and Philip II, but his spirit was broken."

Some also insist for some peculiar reason that it instead was the Hellenistic Galen who hold the view (and not the Church based on the Bible

):"Vesalius also disproved the Galen theory that men had a rib less than women and Aristotle's theory that the heart was the body's centre of mind and emotion believing instead that it was the brain and the nervous system."

At one place we are told that

"Another scientist of the renaissance was Vesalius, who was an expert in dissection. He found hundreds of mistakes in the accepted book on anatomy, written by Galen in the second centuryi Apparently Galen had used animals to develop his human anatomy book, while Vesalius used human cadavers. Vesalius, new book on anatomy was denounced by leading teachers, with one scientist proclaiming that he would rather stick with Galen and be wrong than change and be right!

Vesalius was proclaimed a heretic because he could not find certain bones required by the orthodox religion of his day. None of his cadavers had a missing rib, which Adam had supposedly passed on to all of his male descendants, and the "resurrection bone" could not be located, a legendary bone which was supposed to start the restoration of the body at the resurrection. He also failed to locate the soul in the bodies he examined. Discouraged, he destroyed his notes and wasted the rest of his life, but his early book on anatomy was as revolutionary as the work of Copernicus."

Now, it is in fact true that Vesalius writes about the rib:

"It is commonly believed that men lack a rib on one side, and that men have one rib fewer than women. This is plainly absurd, even if Moses did say in the second chapter of Genesis that Eve was created by God out of Adam's rib. Granted that perhaps Adam's bones, had someone articulated them into a skeleton, might have lacked a rib on one side, it does not necessarily follow on that account that all men are lacking a rib as well. Aristotle attributed only eight ribs to humans, and was ready to allow that certain members of the race of the Turduli were born with only seven ribs on each side, provided he established this on the actual testimony of some suitable authority. But as in the latter instance Aristotle was willing to support his opinion only with the testimony of others, it is also not unlikely that in the former instance he ascribed eight ribs to man on hearsay evidence, and in this manner wrongly handed down to us something he had not seen. For if we discover that he was suppositious so many times concerning the fabric of man, what judgement shall we make about the rest of his research into animals?" (The Humani Corporis Fabrica, Bk. I Chapter 19)

However, what he says is that it is "commonly believed", not that most doctors believed it, or that the church had made some kind of doctrine out of it.

And there is in fact little trace of him being persecuted by the Inquisition or anyone else. The story seems in short rather unsupported.

What then is the real story here?

No doubt it may have been a common belief (among at least uneducated people) that Adam had one rib less. Popular prejudices is hard to avoid. However, I can't find any documentation of the Church or Galen really holding or teaching this. Vesalius's book never even was on the Index of books one should not read.

My tentative conclusion then, is that this is another myth. However, if anyone does know more about this, feel free to dissect my rib case.

Doonesbury reporting

Some news stories are rather more telling than others.

Gary B. Trudeau’s classic comics Doonesbury, has recently had a series about Iraqi Christian refugees. A rather clueless Fox News correspondent covers the story of an Assyrian family who were unable to live longer in Iraq, like so many tens of thousands - or more.

Read a comment about it here, with a few select comic strips.

Trudeau has again managed to find a rather different angle than traditional American news coverage, even if places like Christianity Today have been doing it for years.

Hopefully both Obama and McCain enjoys political comics more than they do the present presidential politics.

Carl against Germany and Turkey

As promised elsewhere, here are Stuart's and mine reports on the Carl Palmer Band playing both Oslo and (incredible enough) elsewhere in Europe a few weeks ago.

Dentist drill demolition

Afraid of going to the dentist?

Listen to some great advice from Jeff Wilkin here.

How to avoid the grinding sound of the drill?

Man, that drill — there is no sound like it in science or nature. If the science-fiction boys ever decide to do a movie with mosquitoes the size of basketballs, I guess they’d sound something like that drill. And once the drill has found its mark, and jackhammers out bad tooth or old fillings ... well, those pleasant sounds used to bounce all over my head.

No longer. Whenever dental fireworks are planned now, I take consultants with me. Keith Emerson has made the trip. So has Chrissie Hynde. On Tuesday, it was John Kay.

They’re musicians — musicians associated with loud, rock’n’roll music. I’ve learned that earfuls of “Karn Evil 9,” the long and pretentious keyboard and percussion piece blared and blasted by Emerson, Lake & Palmer during the early 1970s, is the perfect antidote for any drill work. A CD goes into my portable player, earplugs go into the ear and I receive a loud audio welcome back to the show that never ends.

I know the drill is there, but the sounds of demolition can’t compete with Emerson’s Hammond organ. Seems like the louder the music is, the quicker the procedure goes. And if you are following the lyrics or the beat, you’re not thinking too much about the sound and fury below the ears.

Personally, I can vote for this also being usefull in other circumstances.

Like when wanting music to really listen to.

A rigid Anti-Semitarian?

The latest New Yorker takes up the old canard about G.K. Chesterton at heart really being a racist and anti-semite.

"Chesterton wasn’t a fascist, and he certainly wasn’t in favor of genocide, but that is about the best that can be said of him".

How nice.

Especially about a man who may have deserved a Nobel Peace Prize in the 1930's for trying so hard to make the world understand the dangers of eugenicm and ideological racism. Something he then had been doing for over 30 years.

Still, it is hardly unexpected that such allegations pop up. One reason is of course that there are some rather nasty clichés and comments about Jews in his writings. We are seing more than hooked noses. Some of his writings are also coloured by him not feeling particularly well about a group of Jewish financiers after a political scandal where his beloved brother did some revealing journalism - though lost a court case (the notorious Marconi Scandal) for vilification.

However that may be (and it is safe to say he lately has been acquitted on most counts), I think there are deeper or perhaps more unconscious motives. It may have something to do with keeping GKC's views and arguments at arms length. It may even more be tied to the mania of mediocrity. Great people of course must be belittled. And as they (and the rest of us) all have their small (not to mention big) secrets, it is not difficult to do. At least if one is into shallow readings of their works.

It is also in a somewhat free world legal to speculate if it has something to do with not a few modern media's lack of interest in portraying conservative (or more precisely classical) Christians as some kind of heroes.

Now, the Chestertonians answers back. Read about it here, and even more here (Dale Ahlquist as so often to the rescue).

What better way to comment upon racial inferiority , than GKC himself?

About all those arguments affecting human equality, I myself always have one feeling; which finds expression in a little test of my own. I shall begin to take seriously those classifications of superiority and inferiority, when I
find a man classifying himself as inferior. It will be noted that Mr. Ford does not say that he is only fitted to mind machines; he confesses frankly that he is too fine and free and fastidious a being for such tasks. I shall believe the doctrine when I hear somebody say: " I have only got the wits to turn a wheel." That would be real, that would be realistic, that would be scientific. That would be independent testimony that could not easily be disputed.

It is exactly the same, of course, with all the other superiorities and denials of human equality, that are so specially characteristic of a scientific age. It is so with the men who talk about superior and inferior races; I never heard a man say:" Anthropology shows that I belong to an inferior race." If he did, he might be talking like an anthropologist; as it is, he is talking like a man, and not infrequently like a fool. I have long hoped that I might some day hear a man explaining on scientific principles his own unfitness for any important post or privilege, say: " The world should belong to the free and fighting races, and not to persons of that servile disposition that you will notice in myself; the intelligent will know how to form opinions, but the weakness of intellect from which I so obviously suffer renders my opinion manifestly absurd on the face of them: there are indeed stately and god-like-races but look at me! Observe my shapeless and fourth-rate features! Gaze, if you can bear it, on my commonplace and repulsive face!

"If I heard a man making a scientific demonstration in that style, I might admit that he was really scientific. But as it invariably happens, by a curious coincidence, that the superior race is his own race, the superior type is his own type, and the superior preference for work the sort of work he happens to prefer.
(From The Outline of Sanity (1926), Collected Works page 168-69)

This book is also worth checking out, see quotes here.

As a Norwegian it saddens me that Gilbert did not get a Nobel Prize in 1933. Not the least as it went to another one of those political correct persons who later are proven deadly wrong.

Which in some decades are rather more difficult to forgive than in others.

Moog in Montreal

Carlo, a friend of mine, went to a work related conference in Montreal last week, and used the opportunity to visit some of the sights.

As a hobby musician and professional music fan (which of course means he knows all about Keith and Bob) he was pleasently suprised to see this piece of art at the Gallerie Yves Laroche in Vieux Montreal.

Not the least as the artist (whoever it is) seems able to draw proper hands - and that perhaps even without having studied with a certain Norwegian guardian of tradition.

Stay tuned for more about this piece.

PLP DVD 2C

As I have finally been able to sit down and watch Pär Lindh Project's (PLP) latest offering, Live in Poland, the verdict is simply that few lovers of adventurous music (or progressive rock (or neo-baroque as Pär calls it)) will regret doing the same.

This is pure Pär, in a set of great instrumentals with William Kopecky on bass(es), and Svetlan Raket on drums. While he is not as daringly modern in his choice of classical influences as Keith Emerson (and definitely not as wild), he is a head and shoulder or two above most of today's keyboardplayers.

Subtle elegance and carefull electronicity, or in short Rick Wakeman meets Jordan Rudess. Pär mentions in an interview Bach, Beethoven, Mussorgsky & Wagner as the classical composers he finds closest to prog, and it shows in his performance.

It is fun and rather impressive to see how much he enjoys playing Hammond, synths and piano (and moving quickly between them, not to mention the classic Emerson stunt of playing one with each hand while looking straight ahead). Not to mention a good ragtime thrown in for fun. No knives or daggers, though.

While the opening number may be a bit hard to get into (especially if you're not familiar with Mussorgsky), the rest of the show flows along with the neo-baroque flame kept very strongly alive.

The track list:

1. Night on Bare Mountain (incl. The Black Stone)
2. Baroque Impression
3. Mundus / Veni Vidi Vici Medley
4. Suite in Progress
5. Montagues & Capulet
6. Bill's Solo
7. Gradus ad Parnassum

There is also an interview with Pär. And a deluxe edition with a CD as well.

Some snips here.

Pär's homesite is well worth a look - make sure to check out the interviews (including the stuff about The Nice and Keith).

Go get!

Facebooks

The old "tell me what you read and I will tell you who you are" (or perhaps more often want to be), is getting ever more risky and relevant with the forces of Facebook.

Joe Queenan hits the nail somewhat on the head with his serious tongue-in-cheek analysis of the perils of public self revelation.

But of all the personal information disclosed on Facebook -- and that includes those exquisitely pretentious quotes about the meaning of life -- it seems to me that the section with the greatest potential to catch up with people down the road is "Favorite Books."

Precisely. And what do people read?

My daughter, who graduated from Harvard in 2006, is constantly drawing my attention to the preferred reading materials of her classmates, ostensibly the future leaders of America. She does this not only because surveying the stratospheric level of post-adolescent glibness is more fun than a barrel of monkeys, or watching the Lakers, but because she believes that American society as a whole has a right to know what lies ahead as the best and the brightest move into leadership roles. By the looks of things, it is not going to be pretty.

The most striking thing about the Favorite Books section is the lack of hesitance to identify less-than-immortal books -- "The Godfather," "The Notebook," "The Da Vinci Code," assorted trash by David Baldacci -- as rave faves. This, coupled with the alarming popularity of the voluble crypto-fascist Ayn Rand, strongly suggests that the Ivies may not be getting the job done, culture-wise, these days.

If not for Ayn Rand it would seem that students almost are like most people. Which is not exactly big news:

I'm not suggesting that young people today are dumber or less sophisticated than their forebears. I am merely saying that because previous generations lacked the technology to make their callowness available for all to see, they have been spared the pain of being ceaselessly reminded of the indiscretions of an intellectually derelict youth.

That is why some of us prefer ceaselessly to remind everyone of the indiscretions of an intellectually derelict middleager, by writing blogs.

Before my daughter went to Harvard, I thought that everyone at the school was a ruthless, Machiavellian schemer who played the game of life like six-dimensional chess, cunningly plotting each move decades in advance. The Favorite Books section of Facebook suggests otherwise. No one whose favorite book is "The Da Vinci Code" is thinking six moves ahead.

It is a rare treat to see the human condition summed up so well in one sentence. Seems like it is not only his daughter who is reading Chesterton.