What are the strengths and weaknesses of humans as a species?

May 23rd, 2023 by Roger Darlington

“Humans are an exquisitely intelligent and capable species of ape. Our physiology has been fine-tuned for efficient long-distance running; our hands are elegantly dextrous for manipulating and making; and our throats and mouths give us astonishing control over the sounds we make. We are virtuoso communicators, able to convey everything from physical instructions to abstract concepts, and to coordinate ourselves in teams and communities. We learn from each other, from our parents and peers, so new generations don’t have to start from scratch. But we’re also deeply flawed, physically and mentally. In many ways, humans just don’t work well.

We’re also riddled with defects in our biochemistry and DNA – data-corrupted genes that no longer work – which means, for instance, that we must eat a diet more varied than almost any other animal to obtain the nutrients we need to survive. And our brains, far from being perfectly rational thinking machines, are full of cognitive glitches and bugs. We’re also prone to addictions that drive compulsive behaviour, sometimes along self-destructive paths.”

These are the opening paragraphs of a long read article in the “Guardian” on human use of recreational drugs with particular reference to the historic opium trade in China.

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A review of “All Quiet on The Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque

May 18th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

Having seen both the American (1930) and German (2022) film versions of this famous novel, I thought that it was time to read the original work (1929) in an excellent English translation (1994) by Brian Murdoch.

The novel contains less narrative but more reflection than the films and has lost none of its power and punch. Yet the book ends not with a bang but a whimper: “there was nothing new to report on the western front”. Indeed the title that we all know came from an English translation in 1929 which Murdoch has chosen to keep because it has “justly become part of the English language”, but he explains that a more literal translation of Remarque’s German title would be “Nothing new on the western front”.

The viewpoint is that of 19 year old student volunteer Paul Bäumer. Remarque describes the debilitation of lack of food, water and sleep, the ubiquity of rats and lice, and even the degradation of excretion. He presents a brutally graphic description of how bodies can be ripped apart in different ways by shells, shrapnel and snipers. But he highlights “the best thing that the war produced – comradeship in arms” and asserts that “you can cope with all the horror as long as you simply duck thinking about it – but it will kill you if you try to come to terms with it”.

After the publication of his stunning novel, Remarque was exiled from Nazi Germany and deprived of his citizenship, but today all German school children study his writing and honour his name.

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How processed food is killing us

May 17th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

“Strange as it may seem, food has replaced tobacco as the leading cause of early death globally. Each year, more people die in America from illnesses caused by poor diet than were killed fighting in every war in US history combined. In the UK the situation is equally dire.

Officially, the health effects of food are entirely due to its nutritional content – the amount of fat, salt, sugar and fibre it contains. The current system leaves it up to you to read the detailed information on the pack and decide how much to eat based on recommended values, and if you have children you’ll need to know the values for them too.

This is nigh-on impossible for most people – but even if you were able to calculate exactly how much fat, salt and sugar you were consuming in each mouthful, you would still be neglecting one vital determinant of health – how the food was processed.”

This is the opening of a “Guardian” article on processed food.

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Do aliens know that we’re here? They should.

May 15th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

Aliens on nearby stars could detect Earth through radio signals leaked from the planet, new research suggests. Scientists from The University of Manchester and the University of Mauritius used crowd sourced data to simulate radio leakage from mobile towers to determine what alien civilisations might detect from various nearby stars, including Barnard’s star, six light years away from Earth.

The research, published in the “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal”, found that only more technologically advanced civilisations would be able to detect the current levels of mobile tower radio leakage from Earth. However, as most alien civilisations are likely to have more sensitive receiving systems and as we move towards more powerful broadband systems on Earth, the detectability of humans from other intelligent beings will become more and more likely.

Professor Mike Garrett, Team Leader of the project and Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at The University of Manchester, said: “I’ve heard many colleagues suggest that the Earth has become increasingly radio quiet in recent years – a claim that I always contested.

“Although it’s true we have fewer powerful TV and radio transmitters today, the proliferation of mobile communication systems around the world is profound. While each system represents relatively low radio powers individually, the integrated spectrum of billions of these devices is substantial.

“Current estimates suggest we will have more than one hundred thousand satellites in low Earth orbit and beyond before the end of the decade. The Earth is already anomalously bright in the radio part of the spectrum; if the trend continues, we could become readily detectable by any advanced civilisation with the right technology”.

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A review of the Korean-set film “Return To Seoul”

May 14th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

This is a work that underlines the international nature of modern film production. It is set in South Korea and filmed there and in Romania. The story concerns a French-Korean woman but it is written and directed by a French-Cambodian man. The dialogue is in both French and Korean with some English. The funding is even more diverse. And it was the Cambodian entry for the Best International Feature Film at America’s Academy Awards. But the subject matter – the struggle for personal identity – is a universal theme and rightly the work has spoken to audiences around the world.

Davy Chou was inspired to make the movie by the experience of his friend, a French-Korean adoptee called Laure Baoufle, who is credited at the end. The central role is taken by another French-Korean adoptee, but a young woman whose previous work has largely been as a visual artist and here makes her acting debut. It is a tour de force performance in which she is rarely off the screen and portrays a wide palette of emotions.

The film starts with the arrival in South Korea of Frédérique ‘Freddie’ Benoît in the bustling city of Seoul apparently “by accident”. Whether or not this was her original intention, she decides to try and connect with her biological parents, but will they want to see her after an interval of 25 years? If they do, how will they and she respond? The narrative jumps from a long ‘present’ section to two years later, then five years further on, and finally one year later. This eight-year period ought to be enough to clarify things but the ending is still enigmatic.

We are used to protagonists, perhaps especially young, female ones, being sympathetic characters, but Freddie by turns is amusing, engaging, irascible, manipulative and even cruel while always being insecure, confused and selfish. Yet her story – shot with cinematic flair and striking music – is never less than mesmerising.

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A review of the new Japanese film “Plan 75”

May 11th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

In 1973, there was a film called “Soylent Green” which depicted a future Earth (it was set in 2022!) in which rapid population growth and deficiences in supply of food had combined to necessitate that the working classes be provided with artificial nutrients and voluntary euthanaesia. There is a very moving scene where an aged character played by Edward G Robinson takes part in assisted dying to the music and imagery of his choice.

In 1976, another fearsome vision of the future was offered in “Logan’s Run” where, in a post-apocalyptic society with scare resources, those reaching the aged of 30 (I was 28 at the time of viewing) are required to take part in a death sequence that they are told will lead to reincarnation. Michael York plays a character called Logan who goes on the run.

Now we have the Japanese film “Plan 75” which is set in a near future where the Japanese government offers financial and social incentives to anyone aged 75 or over who will sign up to an euthanasia programme. It is no accident that the film is set in Japan and is presented in such coldly realistic terms: almost 40% of the country’s population is over 60 and the average longevity of its citizens is 87 for a woman and 81 for a man.

The film is written and directed by a middle-aged woman called Chie Hayakawa and she has chosen a slow and subtle presentation with no drama or tears. We see the Plan 75 programme through the eyes of three characters: an unemployed and lonely woman of 78 who volunteers for the programme (she is played movingly by the veteran 81 year old actress Chieko Baisho), a young staffer on the programme who starts to see things differently when a relative comes forward for euthanasia, and a middle-aged woman from the Philippines who sorts out the belongings of the deceased.

Many people – including me – would support a legal option of assisted dying with appropriate safeguards, but envisage this as an opportunity to die with dignity when pain and suffering are the alternative realities. We don’t want the old or the ill to feel unwanted or unsupported but, as this film underlines so poignantly, this is too often the case when lack of support and absence of companionship can make life feel like little more than a waiting room for death.

PS: I am 75 next month.

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Do you do Wordle each day?

May 10th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

Wordle is a bit like life. Each day, it looks impossible. But most days, you find the answer. And there is always tomorrow.

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A review of the movie “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3”

May 8th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

I’m a loyal fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), so I wasn’t going to miss this 32nd contribution to the long-running and ever-sprawling saga. Also the Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG) characters have always been the funniest in the MCU and this volume was billed as their final one as the current team.

There was three years between the first two movies and then six between the last one and this one, so it’s been almost a decade in which Quill, Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket have become like friends with other many characters joining along the way.

Director and writer James Gunn always loads up his superhero movies with multiple characters and storylines with acres of action sequences and tons of loud music (often at the same time), so I frequently struggle to follow all that is going on and to remember all the relationships between the different characters but, this time, the central theme is clear and appealing: Rocket – always my favourite character – is dying and to save him the team has to tackle Rocket’s creator, a character called the The High Evolutionary.

In the process, we are given Rocket’s back story and meet more cute animals than you’ve ever seen in a MCU movie. It’s mayhem, it’s mad, but it’s a blast.

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A review of the book “A Duty Of Care” by Peter Hennessy

May 6th, 2023 by Roger Darlington

I used to know Peter Hennessy in the 1970s when I worked for the Wilson/Callaghan Labour Government and he was the Whitehall Correspondent of the “Times” newspaper. He is now a Professor of Contemporary British History and a crossbench member of the House of Lords. Like many of us, he has thought about the impact of the global pandemic on Britain but, in his case, he has actually written short book on the subject. His central proposition is that, following the production of Sir William Beveridge’s fundamental report of November 1942 and the implementation of most of its far-reaching recommendations by a succession of post-war governments, the impact of the Covid-19 has shown the need for a similarly comprehensive and radical social settlement for post-Covid Britain.

The first two-thirds of Hennessy’s narrative is a summary of why and how the Beveridge reforms came about. For Hennessy, the package as whole constituted what he calls “a duty of care” which government has for its citizens and he singles out the National Health Service as “the closest we have ever come as a country and a people to institionalizing altruism”. He sees the decade or so of Margaret Thatcher as a regrettable break with that post-war consensus which augured in the slimmed-down benefits system of the 2010s. He laments Brexit which he insists “carved great chunks out of our national solidarity” and he worries about the possible departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom. In short, he wants to see a more modern and inclusive duty of care.

The final third of the book argues the case for, and indicates some desirable outcomes from, a new Beveridge-like review. He lists 15 government reviews of defence/foreign policy in 71 years and highlights that, by dramatic and neglectful contrast, “we haven’t mounted a single national welfare strategic exercise since Beveridge reported in 1942”. The background to such a review should be a public inquiry into how Britain handled the Covid crisis: “It needs to be one of the greatest, most incisive and authoritative reports of modern times”. Then what we might call Beveridge Part 2 would need to address the long-term funding of our health and care systems and the role of education, training, housing, and transport systems in reducing the present unacceptable inequalities in our society.

It is a highly laudable aim but Hennessy is very thin on specifics. Behind the sound and thunder of party politics, this is what the next general election will really be about.

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Which countries have the freest media and which nations have the most controlled media in the world?

May 3rd, 2023 by Roger Darlington

You can find the answers, according to the organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF), here.

Out of 180 countries, top is Norway and bottom is North Korea. The UK is 26 (on a par with South Africa) and the USA is 45 (on a par with Tonga).

Media freedom is in dire health in a record number of countries, according to the latest annual snapshot, which warns that disinformation, propaganda and artificial intelligence pose mounting threats to journalism.

This year’s World Press Freedom Index reveals a shocking slide, with an unprecedented 31 countries deemed to be in a “very serious situation”, the lowest ranking in the report, up from 21 just two years ago.

Increased aggressiveness from autocratic governments – and some that are considered democratic – coupled with “massive disinformation or propaganda campaigns” has caused the situation to go from bad to worse, according to the list, released by the advocacy group RSF.

Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)

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