Auroras in Jupiter’s Atmosphere, captured by Hubble
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I was washing outside in the darkness,
the sky burning with rough stars,
and the starlight, salt on an axe-blade.
The cold overflows the barrel.
The gate is locked,
the land’s grim as its conscience.
I don’t think they’ll find the new weaving,
finer than truth, anywhere.
Star-salt is melting in the barrel,
icy water is turning blacker,
death’s growing purer, misfortune saltier,
the earth's moving closer to truth and to dread.
~ Osip Mandelstam, 1921; trans. Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin
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SOLZHENITSYN AND THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
~ The current Russo-Ukrainian War is about whether Ukraine is a sovereign nation or a part of Russia. Putin’s unveiling of the monument was a provocation that illustrated, once again, where he stood on that question. An interesting guest, however, also attended the unveiling and cheered on Putin: Natalia Svetlova Solzhenitsyn, the widow of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The link may at first seem unlikely but there is, in fact, common ground between the Soviet era dissident and the present-day dictator.
In 1973, Solzhenitsyn, a saturnine man with a shaggy beard, released a book that shook an empire. It threatened Brezhnev’s Soviet Union so much that just killing him would have been insufficient for the magnitude of his treason; he had to be exiled. Off he went, first to Zürich in 1974 and, two years later, to Vermont; the incendiary dissident had moved to the sleepiest state in America. And he lived there with his wife and children for nearly 20 years. When the Soviet Empire finally collapsed — something Solzhenitsyn confidently prophesied — he moved back home. The evil of Russian communism had been defeated.
Solzhenitsyn is the dissident writer-intellectual incarnate. He makes Orwell, Camus and Koestler look like pygmies. The scope of The Gulag Archipelago, his one large book, and the force of his small masterpiece, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, exposed the enormity of totalitarian dictatorship more powerfully than the essays and novels of those other writers. Born in 1918, he served during the Second World War — mythologised in Russia as the Great Patriotic War — as a captain on the East Prussian Front. He was arrested in 1945 for making a joke about Joseph Stalin and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag prison system, not in icy Siberia but in Kazakhstan.
The French loved him. The nouveaux philosophes intellectuals of the 1970s — the likes of André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy – recognized that communism was an unequivocally malign force. No ifs, no buts. The time of Jean-Paul Sartre and his Soviet apologism was over. The Americans, however, were more ambivalent. They accepted he was an important critic of what President Reagan would later call the ‘evil empire’. But Solzhenitsyn’s attitude to the culture of American liberal democracy — the affluent society — was also damning.
In a famous address in 1978 at Harvard University, for instance, he complained about the ‘film producers’ and ‘publishers’ who were poisoning the ‘younger generations with corrupting filth’. He intoned sarcastically: ‘Freedom! For adolescents of fourteen to eighteen to immerse themselves in idleness and pleasure instead of intensive study and spiritual growth.’ He was the cool dissident abroad; but in America he was the Russian version of the charismatic televangelist Pat Robertson.
The depth of anti-Westernisation rhetoric expressed by Solzhenitsyn is thus key to reading Putin. But the two men shared something else: a similar understanding of how the nation of Ukraine came into being. In an interview with the New Yorker’s David Remnick in 1994, Solzhenitsyn said it was Lenin who created modern-day Ukraine, a view Putin echoed in a speech just before he launched his invasion.
For Solzhenitsyn, Ukraine doesn’t correspond to ethnicity or culture or language. In his eyes it is an ugly mess. ‘I greatly respect the Ukrainian people; I have great sympathy for them,’ Solzhenitsyn said in the interview. ‘I myself am part Ukrainian. If you want to be separate, by all means go ahead please. But within the borders of the true Ukraine. The historical Ukraine, the place where Ukrainians really live.’ Solzhenitsyn was drawing a distinction between west Ukraine — the areas that were part of the historic regions of Galicia, Volhynia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia — and areas to the east of the country. For him, West Ukraine is the real Ukraine.
Meanwhile, he believed that the east (and the Crimean Peninsula, which was given to Ukraine in 1954) has such a large Russian-speaking population that it should never have been separated from Russia in the first place. Solzhenitsyn thought that the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while a good thing because it meant the end of communism in Russia, was also disastrous because it isolated more than thirty million Russian people in countries outside the modern Russian state — their homeland. It was like losing limbs to save a heart.
Putin, meanwhile, has famously described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century. Moreover, he seems to think not only that the modern-day state of Ukraine was badly conceived, and the interests of Russian speakers abroad need to be defended, but also that Ukrainians and Russians are essentially the same people: for Putin, Ukrainians are simply ‘Little Russians’. This seems to conflict with Solzhenitsyn’s assertion that ‘if you want to be separate, by all means go ahead’ but this respect for autonomy belies another side to the great Russian defender of liberty: he had a sentimental attachment to the Ukrainian people, and viewed any aspiration on their part for autonomy from the Russians as a tragedy.
As Serhii Plokhy puts it, Solzhenitsyn was the unofficial leader of the Russian nationalist intelligentsia. He lamented in The Gulag Archipelago that ‘in the Kyivan period, we constituted a single people, but since then it has been torn apart, and for centuries our lives, habits, and languages went in different directions’. Elsewhere, he writes on the issue of Ukrainian separation, ‘let them live and try it out for themselves. It will soon become apparent to them that not all problems are to be solved by separation’. He was hopeful that Ukrainians would soon see the light and recognize that they shared a destiny with Russians. Solzhenitsyn’s mother was from Ukraine.
On May 24, 2009, a year after Solzhenitsyn died, Putin visited the Donskoi Monastery in Moscow where the writer is buried and laid flowers at his grave. Putin was also visiting the grave of General Anton Denikin, a military leader of the White Army in the Russian Civil War. In an interview with a journalist named Larisa Kaftan on that day, Putin recommended Denikin’s diaries: ‘Denikin discusses Great and Little Russia, Ukraine. He writes that no one may meddle in relations between us; that has always been the business of Russia itself.’
In his diaries, Denikin stated that: ‘No Russia, reactionary or democratic, republican or authoritarian, will ever allow Ukraine to be torn away. The foolish, baseless, and externally aggravated quarrel between Muscovite Rus’ and Kievan Rus’ is our internal quarrel, of no concern to anyone else, and it will be decided by ourselves.’ Those in the West who blame NATO for the current conflict are, whether they accept it or not, echoing Russian nationalist propaganda, viewing the conflict as an internal quarrel which is being aggravated by external Western forces.
In December 2018, two years after celebrating Prince Vladimir of Kievan Rus’, Putin unveiled a monument in Moscow to Solzhenitsyn to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth. Solzhenitsyn’s widow was again in attendance. Putin praised him as a great patriot. Even in exile, he ‘did not allow anyone to talk dismissively and badly about his motherland’. Putin added that ‘he stood up against any expression of Russophobia’. For Putin, as we have seen over the past few weeks, defending the Russian nation means incorporating Ukraine; it is a fundamental part of the Russian body.
But what do Ukrainians think? According to a recent CNN poll, just prior to the invasion, two-thirds of Ukrainians disagreed with the statement that Ukrainians and Russians are one people. There is no region or age group where the majority of Ukrainians said they and Russians are one people. Even in the region of east Ukraine, with its large Russian-speaking population, only 45 per cent said the Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
On the more pressing question of whether Russia and Ukraine should be one country, the figures are even more stark. Some 85 per cent of Ukrainians said they should be two separate countries, and only 18 per cent of people in east Ukraine said they should be one united country. I think Putin’s barbarism — bombing civilians and destroying children’s hospitals — will only have reinforced the need to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Ukraine is a country with a complex past. This is reflected by its Jewish, Orthodox and Catholic religions; the fact that parts of the country were once ruled by the Russian Empire, others by the Kingdom of Poland, and still others by the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and the reality of its present-day Ukrainian and Russian-speaking populations. In the Second World War, the country was battered so much by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that the historian Timothy Snyder describes it, along with much of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, as the bloodlands.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is a Jewish man from a Russian-speaking family whose ancestors both served in the Red Army and were killed in the Holocaust.
Volodymyr is the Ukrainian version of Vladimir; Zelensky shares with Putin the same first name as the sacralized Grand Prince of Kievan Rus’.
But deep historical and cultural ties do not imply indivisibility. All countries are complex; but all countries are still countries. Ukraine is not a part of Russia. And Ukrainians and Russians are not the same people. On this, Putin and Solzhenitsyn are wrong and Zelensky is right. We have a word for when one group of people claims another group belongs to them even when the latter group asserts its independence: imperialism. ~
https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/solzhenitsyn-putin-and-the-historical-myth-making-that-drives-russian-imperialism/
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RUSSIA AND THE LACK OF SOCIAL TRUST
~ Russia’s main problem is the total lies of the domestic political class and the very low level of social trust resulting from it. People feel the penetrating everything around is fake and stop trusting whoever it is. Connections are broken, society is atomizing and degrading.
Navalny, in the sense of the sincerity of his faith, is a complete opposite of Putin and other Russian officials. He did the only thing a man could do to prove he was honest to the end - took up his cross and ascended to Calvary with him. This is the principle difference between Navalny and Putin, whose "faith" brought him only palaces, subjective and countless riches.
By doing what he does, Navalny is doing something that is not accessible to Putin or anyone else from the Russian establishment. He is writing an alternative history of the country. The one the Russian people will be proud of, not ashamed of. The Kremlin understands this and that is why they are all literally shaken at one mention of the name of the opposition.
I do not want to be too cocky, but in the current situation it would not be a great exaggeration to say that the presence of Navalny in Russia justifies its existence. Gives it hope anyway.
I, of course, expressed it somewhat metaphorically — after all, in addition to Navalny, there are Yashin and Kara-Murza in domestic politics, and a lot of other people who risk their lives on a daily basis to prove the sincerity of their faith.
In general, as they said in Russia: "No village stands without a righteous man.”
~ Abbas Gallyamov, quoted by M. Iossel
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ANOTHER DISSIDENT: ILYA YASHIN
Removing Vladimir Putin from power, he wrote, was a prerequisite to “avoiding the risks of a new world war”.
“As long as Putin retains power, war, or at least the threat of war, will be permanent,” Yashin said in written answers to questions from the Guardian, delivered by his lawyers this week. “This man has gone mad from unlimited power and impunity, he has become a slave to his maniacal ambitions.”
Yashin was sentenced last year to eight and a half years in prison for a broadcast on his popular YouTube channel in which he accused the Russian army of a massacre of civilians in Bucha.
It may take regime change before Yashin, 39, tastes freedom again. Some Russians have taken to coining the jail terms handed down to activists and dissidents as PPZh, an acronym for “while Putin is alive”. In Yashin’s case, he admits that his release date is “difficult to predict”.
“Obviously, I will have a chance to get out of prison if the government changes in Russia,” he said. But this is “not a question of today or tomorrow. It is clear that Putin’s goodwill cannot be counted on. He hates people who have publicly opposed military aggression in Ukraine and considers them enemies.”
Long before Yashin’s arrest last summer, he knew he was in danger. Police had told a girlfriend he was a “step away from prison”, while a lawyer had told him bluntly that “if I did not leave Russia in the coming days, I would end up behind bars”, he said. Friends and family spoke to him about emigrating. “But none of my family manipulated me with a feeling of guilt and urged me to run away,” he said. “And I am very grateful for that.”
Yashin appears at peace with his decision to follow the arduous path of a modern Russian dissident. A veteran of the protest scene that turned out on Bolotnaya Square alongside Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov in 2011, he has evolved from a whiz-kid of the Russian opposition to something like its grizzled wartime conscience. And he seems hellbent – through his own example now – to prove there is a solid bedrock of Russians who oppose the war against Ukraine.
Russia has detained 19,586 people for peaceful protest and anti-war positions since the beginning of the invasion.
“Why did I refuse to emigrate?” he wrote. “Because from the first day of the fighting, I understood that an anti-war voice should be speaking in Russia. It should speak as loudly as possible under the circumstances. Putin has done everything to silence the opponents of the attack on Ukraine. He intimidated Russians, he established military censorship, forced his critics abroad under threat of arrest. The Kremlin did its best to create the illusion of mass, total support for military aggression in Russian society. And I live here and I know that there is no total support, that many are against the war.”
It is a thesis to which Yashin will return as he descends deeper into Russia’s vast network of holding cells, jails and prisons. He has already been moved five times in the past eight months, including a trip to Udmurtia, more than 600 miles from Moscow. In the Bear, his fellow prisoners include generals, deputy ministers, wealthy businessmen and a few political prisoners. But his cellmates were all arrested on drug charges.
“Strangely enough, I very rarely meet sincere supporters of the war and Putin’s aggressive policy behind bars,” he wrote. “People here don’t really trust the Russian state at all, have faced injustice and are offended by the authorities.”
Those imprisoned for “economic” crimes are more likely to be vocal opponents of the war, he wrote, including businessmen, lawyers and other professionals. “The rhetoric of such prisoners is usually very radical: they have seen the system from the inside, know how rotten and corroded it is by corruption, consider themselves victims of this system.”
But there are others ready to go to fight despite rumours, Yashin said, of overwhelming losses and outrage that prisoners are being used as cannon fodder. As a rule, he said, they are either the very poor or the very desperate, those who have been given long prison terms for serious crimes and see war as “their only chance to gain freedom”.
On a prison train to Udmurtia, he said, he met a 48-year-old man serving a 20-year sentence for murder and robberies. He compared his decision to enlist as a mercenary to playing Russian roulette. “The stake in this game is life and freedom,” he said. “Moreover, with whom to fight and whom to kill, it does not matter to him … It’s like an animal instinct: just to break out of the cage, just to survive, just to get the sentence overturned.”
What were sometimes called the “vegetarian” years of Putin’s rule, the days before political assassinations, mass crackdowns and full-scale invasions, are over. Russia’s democratic opposition is deep in the weeds. Navalny, its most prominent figure, was nearly poisoned to death and has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
Yashin, for his part, suggested that with “empty hands” Russia’s opposition would be powerless to enact change from within. “There will be no opposition under Putin’s regime,” he wrote. “For the formation of a normal democratic system, its dismantling is required.”
Asked what the west could do to help, he said he thought it could “send a clear signal to the Russian people that it does not consider them an enemy”.
Russians needed an alternative to Putin’s imperialism, which brought death and poverty, isolation, corruption, arbitrariness, he added. “It would be a big mistake if the rhetoric and sanctions policy of the west degenerate into Russophobia.”
Remarks like these have put Yashin at odds with some of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters abroad. They have said millions of Russians are to blame just as much as Putin for the war. Yashin has always argued the opposite, that “our society has also become a victim of Putin”.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t idealise my people,” he wrote. “Yes, unfortunately we have allowed this criminal power into the Kremlin. People believed the propaganda, allowed themselves to be manipulated, did not control officials and security forces. All this is our responsibility. But this does not mean that the Russian people deserve to be defamed.”
In prison, Yashin said, he devotes his time to reading, answering letters from supporters and journalists, and recording his observations for a book. He makes small sketches that “are not very skilled from an artistic point of view but reflect the atmosphere of Russian captivity”.
Yashin has called the killing of Nemtsov in 2015 one of the two worst nights of his life. The other was Putin’s announcement of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Asked whether he thought his own life was at risk, he replied: “It is difficult to talk about this topic. After Nemtsov’s shooting at the Kremlin walls, Navalny’s poisoning, mass killings in Ukraine, you can expect anything from this government.
“But, to be honest, I try not to think about it. Just to keep from going crazy.”
Ilya Yashin in courtMemorial, Russia's
oldest and most prominent human rights organization and a 2022 Nobel
Peace Prize laureate, counted 558 political prisoners in the country as
of April 2023 — more than three times the figure than in 2018, when it listed
183.
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STALIN’S ROLE IN SECURING SOVIET VICTORY IN WW2
Stalin and Voroshilov
Stalin pictured in the 1930's with Soviet Marshal Voroshilov, a Stalin crony who was widely regarded as incompetent but who avoided the purges and whom Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, characterized as a “bag of shit.”
Very ironically, quite a bit of Soviet victory was due to Stalin, and this serves to underscore one of the great paradoxes of the this brutal dictator and his historical legacy.
To be sure, Stalin's sweeping purge of Soviet leadership ranks in the 1930's was noted by Hitler and was a major factor in the German dictator's decision to invade the Soviet Union years ahead of schedule. Among his generals, many of whom questioned the strategic wisdom of this invasion, Hitler likened the assault on the Soviet Union as kicking through a rotting door, so convinced was he of the acute damage that Stalin and inflicted on the Red Army.
A Knife Cutting through Warm Butter
That statement, seemingly brimming with hubris in the view of some on the Army General Staff, at least proved initially prescient in the summer of 1941, certainly to ordinary Germans. The initial assault into the Soviet Union seemed like a knife cutting through warm butter. Even Stalin was overcome with shock and apparently veered perilously close to a nervous breakdown, fleeing to his dacha outside of Moscow in sheer panic. When members of the Politburo called on Stalin to plead with him to re-assume the reins of leadership and to rally the troops and the Soviet people, he initially thought that they had come to arrest him.
This visit reflected the grim realization shared among key members of the Politburo: that only Stalin could rally the Soviet people in this desperate hour. It was a hard reality that spoke volumes about the paradoxical nature of the Soviet experiment, particularly as it was expressed by the Stalinist doctrine of “socialism in one country.”
Socialism in One Country
Stalin set out on the premise that the Soviet Union, built on shoddy, semi-feudal foundation of Tsarist Russia, had to be shored up, even transformed as rapidly as possible and across a sweeping scale, to form a safe harbor for global socialist revolution.
This involved the brutal transformation of agriculture through collectivization and even mass starvation of a segment of the farming population to create a centrally planned basis for securing sufficient amounts of foodstuffs. These were secured to feed the populations teeming into the emerging urban centers throughout the country to create the industrial infrastructure to withstand what Stalin characterized as the pervasive global threat from the hostile capitalist West.
This was accompanied by a brutal suppression of dissent, partly through the construction of a national network of work camps — the Gulag, as this camp complex came to be called — to which dissidents were consigned and that Stalin and his collaborators ultimately perceived as the basis for massive industrial output and infrastructural enhancement. The post-war nuclear and space programs were partly incubated within this inferno.
Stalin as the Great Vozhd [Leader, Führer]
All of this effort was centered on Stalin as the reat Vozhd, the Supreme Leader and architect of the greatest planned undertaking in history. And despite all of the failings associated with this system, it managed to post gains in several categories of industrial growth that ultimately helped tip the scales in the colossal struggle against Nazism.
One example that quickly comes to mind is the mass output of the T-34 tank, which was prone to shoddy factory workmanship but whose design was sufficient enough and the mass production of which large enough to counter the initial German advantage in armor.
Moreover, Stalin's techniques of brutal suppression were employed routinely in battlefield situations. Retreat was not an option. Underperforming officers, even generals were executed or packed off to the Gulag. Indeed, one of the most consequential Soviet generals of World War II, Konstantin Rokossovsky, who later was appointed both a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Communist Poland, bore the scars of his incarceration during the Great Purges of the 1930's: mutilated toes inflicted under torture. After the German invasion, Stalin saw fit release him and to avail himself of his martial talents.
Machinegunners were were placed immediately behind planned Soviet advances as a disincentive for retreat. Likewise, dissent in the ranks was brutally suppressed and cowardice was punishable by execution, one that often involved the accused being forced to strip himself of his uniform and boots, both of which were in short supply, moments before the firing squad delivered the coup de grâce.
Moreover, Soviet intelligence and propaganda not only had acquired a wealth of Western industrial and national security-related secrets but also had fostered substantial support for the Soviet undertaking among Western intelligentsia. This served to reinforce the image of Stalin as the great conduit not only of the Soviet experiment but also of global socialist prospects. And when the principal Western leaders, Churchill and Roosevelt met Stalin to map out an end to the struggle against Hitler, they no doubt were fully cognizant of the appeal of Stalin and socialism among many in their intellectual classes and even among their governing elites.
Prospects for Soviet Success under the NEP
There are two other points worth raising: First, if Lenin had lived another decade or if one on the Politburo closely aligned with him, such as Bukharin, had managed to carry on for another decade or so the New Economic Policy (NEP) emphazing marketization as a temporary stopgap measure on the road to socialism, it's conceivable that while the Soviet Union would have been more materially prosperous and its people far less tyrannized. Even so, it is also possible that the Soviet Union would have been considerably less equipped in industrial terms to withstand the German onslaught.
That Stalinization was able to hold the line against the Nazi onslaught despite the Soviet system's profound shortcomings and internal contradictions speaks volumes about the role that Stalin, a profoundly disordered and troubled man, in many respects, played in securing Soviet victory.
Second, but equally important, the Soviet Union could not have withstood the invasion without the stupefyingly immense aid provided by the Western Allies. Yet, the case could be made that Stalin's global standing, which he secured through brutal domestic measures as well as through foreign espionage and propaganda, accounted significantly for the West's looking to him as a leader with whom they could deal. It is entirely conceivable that no other Soviet leader could have commanded this level of respect and even trust among Western leaders.
A Legacy both Troubling and Fascinating
This is what renders the Stalinist legacy as fascinating as it is troubling — and, for that matter, why it account in large measure for why this Georgian tyrant still commands a following today in the successor country to the Soviet Union — Russia — one in which he imposed a level of brutality that Westerners in Stalin's era and the present day could scarcely comprehend. ~ Jim Langcuster, Quora
Andy Wiskonsky:
The complement to this theory is the underlying deep flaw to Hitler’s philosophy of war against Eastern Europe in particular — that Slavs were Untermenschen. Millions of Red Army troops surrendered to the advancing Wehrmacht because they didn’t want to support Stalin and his bloodthirsty band of bolsheviks. Many — if not most — of the soviet POWs could have been reorganized into effective combat troops in the fight against Stalin. Instead the Nazis essentially starved to death at least 3 million of the some 4 to 5 million Red Army troops that surrendered en masse 1941–1942.
Ben David:
I fear that you give far too much credit to Stalin. Stalin overlooked his espionage sources that gave him the exact date of the German invasion (Richard Sorge-Ramsay). He was not fully prepared even though warned on numerous occasions by various intelligence sources. He decimated his officer corps with his purges in 1937. He believed that Hitler would not attack him yet. In the summer of 1941 the German Army indeed sliced through Russia like a hot knife through butter. The Soviet Union almost collapsed. The German Army was at the gates of Moscow by December.
The Soviet Union was only saved by massive amounts of Western resources and equipment particularly American as well as diversionary attacks on Hitler’s empire such as Italy and France.
Stalin continued his poor tactics (human wave assaults) in the face of German firepower and didn’t care one bit about the lives of his soldiers. Ultimately the Soviet Union lost anywhere from 8 to 14 million men and another 11 million civilians. All the while he continued to send hundreds of thousands to the gulag.
Because of Stalin the Soviet Union almost lost without massive Western help. He was a monster who killed over 20 million of his own people before he was murdered by his own cronies [Beria poisoned him with warfarin] who feared that he was going to initiate a new wave of purges. He was already removing Jews from Society. So in the end, he may have led the Soviet Union to victory but it was truly a Pyrrhic victory. The Soviet people paid in an ocean of blood.
Ankit Singh:
The civilian populace actually thought of the German invaders as their liberators. But Hitler turned out to be a bigger genocidal maniac than Stalin even without the SS slaughtering millions of civilians and not just Red Army personnel with industrial efficiency, forcing the Soviet citizens to ultimately side with “the lesser of the two evils”.
In fact, the western aid too flowed into Russia due to the very fact Roosevelt understood that Stalin was the only man who could counter Hitler in his own coin, going by his ruthless background and “take no prisoners” philosophy. Elsewhere, majority of the Americans held the same racist views as Hitler and had he not gone to war with France and Britain, it's imaginable Roosevelt under civilian pressure might have collaborated with Nazi Germany in its war against the Soviet Union.
William Osborn:
Stalin deserves hardly any credit for the performance of the Soviet military in WWII. Stalin did more damage to the defense of the USSR than good. He was directly responsible for the pre-war purge of most of the competent Soviet military leaders, which enabled the shocking early success of the German invasion.
After first slumping into a deep depression over the Nazi blitzkrieg, Stalin eventually turned over to his generals the power to make tactical decisions without Stalin’s personal approval, and he generally acceded to the generals’ decisions on strategic matters, as well.
Marshal Zhukov is widely seen as deserving the lion’s share of credit due to Soviet military leaders during WWII. After he died, Zhukov’s daughter published some of his personal papers in recollection of the war. In them, Zhukov declared that Stalin had nothing to do with Soviet military successes during WWII.
Besides the contributions of officers like Zhukov, it was massive American materiel shipments that helped the Soviets to victory, as Stalin himself later admitted.
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A Russian joke: when the customer asked for coffee without cream, the reply was “we don't have cream, would you like without milk?” ~ Jack Scott
A Jewish joke: A fleeing Jihadist, desperate for water, was plodding through the desert when he saw something far off in the distance. Hoping to find water, he hurried toward the oasis, only to find a little old Jewish man at a small stand, selling ties. The Jihadist asked, “Do you have water?” The Jewish man replied, “I have no water. Would you like to buy a tie? They are only $5.” The Jihadist shouted, “Idiot! I do not need an over-priced tie. I need water! I should kill you, but I must find water first!” “OK,” said the old Jewish man, “It does not matter that you do not want to buy a tie and that you hate me. I will show you that I am bigger than that. If you continue over that hill to the east for about two miles, you will find a lovely restaurant. It has all the ice cold water you need. Shalom.” Cursing, the Jihadist staggered away over the hill. Several hours later he staggered back, almost dead and said, “Your brother won’t let me in without a tie!”
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KARMA HITS PUTIN'S POISONER
CHINA’S ECONOMIC WOES
~ At a Politburo meeting last month, China’s leaders referred to the economic recovery this year as “torturous”. You won’t often hear such candor coming from a Chinese Communist party institution, let alone such an elevated body. They were referring to current conditions, of course, but China’s problems reveal much that is systemically out of kilter in its economic and political system.
During the past few days, some of the statistics China has published have caused a stir. Consumer prices in July were lower than a year ago, suggesting it might be on the cusp of deflation, which reflects a chronic shortage of demand in the economy. And China’s foreign trade in the same month showed a sharp fall in exports due to weak global demand, with a sharper decline in imports signifying weakness in demand at home. There were murky factors affecting both but the message is that something more serious is amiss in China.
Indeed, China was widely expected to bounce back from the pandemic and there was a bit of a flurry early in 2023. Yet, consumption has generally been very subdued especially for big-ticket items such as cars and houses, and private investment, the backbone of China’s economy, fell in the first half of this year, for the first time since such data was published many years ago.
Private firms and entrepreneurs are not spending much on investment or on hiring people. Youth unemployment has topped 21%, or double what it is in the UK and almost three times the rate in the US. The annual graduation of 11-12 million students in the the summer is aggravating an already difficult situation because of the problems of finding suitable work, and also because the Chinese labor market has become one in which most jobs are in the lower-pay, low-skill, gig or informal economy compared with higher quality jobs in manufacturing and construction.
It would be wrong though to pin this all on the pandemic. Most things weighing on China’s economy have been building for several years, even while much of the world was wowed by China’s global brands such as Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent and TikTok, property was booming, and China was leaving its footprint all over the world through the “belt and road” initiative and its rising governance engagement with global entities such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization.
In spite of its unequivocal accomplishments and successes, China has, during the past decade or more, spawned a mountain of bad debt, unprofitable and uncommercial infrastructure and real estate, empty apartment blocks and little-used apartments and transport facilities, and excess capacity in, for example, coal, steel, solar panels and electric vehicles. Productivity growth has stalled, and China can unfortunately boast one of the world’s highest levels of inequality.
It is aging faster than any other country on the planet but with a skinny social security system in which most of its 290 million migrant workers are not eligible for most social benefits. Under Xi Jinping, moreover, it has also developed an increasingly repressive, state-centric and controlling governance system, both for political reasons and to deal with the effects of its failing development model.
These are testing times for Chinese citizens, especially the fabled rising middle class whose savings have mostly found a home in an outsized real estate sector which has now entered a period of structural decline. Most of the housing stock, overbuilding, collapse in transactions and weakness in prices are not in big agglomerations such as Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai, but in hundreds of smaller cities and towns that rarely make news.
China’s leaders have been vocal this year about strengthening consumption and about improving the business environment for private firms and entrepreneurs, who have been pressured or punished to align their commercial interest with the party’s political goals. We still await evidence that such rhetoric has substance.
In the coming weeks and months, we should probably expect the authorities to ease financial and budgetary policies, housing regulations, and borrowing caps to finance infrastructure. There might even be measures that look consumer-friendly but also fail to boost the income that alone can sustain higher consumption.
These things may give the economy a temporary lift over the winter but the underlying weakness of the economy and the greater authoritarianism that China features are now two sides of the same coin that seem irreversible, certainly for the time being.
It is a moot point whether this sort of China in the 2020s is a bigger threat to geopolitical stability than one in which it confidently strides the world stage and is able to brush aside liberal leaning democracies and reframe global governance in its interests. But a crucial one to get right. ~ George Magnus, author of:Why Xi’s China is in Jeopardy
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HOW TO BE MORE COMFORTABLE WITH DEATH
~ Are you troubled by the thought that life is just too short? Would you feel deeply uncomfortable walking through a cemetery? Have you ever experienced a jolt of panic upon realizing a celebrity has died? Does the thought of death itself often cause you significant distress?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, you are not alone. Having negative feelings in response to thoughts and reminders of death is something all humans must grapple with from a young age – and it is more intense for some people than for others. The term ‘death anxiety’ is commonly used to refer to the negative emotions one might have about death. It includes anxious feelings, of course, but these might coexist with feelings of dread, sadness or anger.
Just as people’s emotions about death can vary, so too does the specific focus of those emotions. For example, some people might be worried about their own death, while others are far more concerned about the eventual death of a loved one. One person might fear the concept of non-existence, whereas another might be terrified that dying will be painful. All of these different responses to death can be considered examples of death anxiety.
Age is one of the biggest factors related to death anxiety, although perhaps not in the way that you might imagine. People are often surprised to learn there is evidence that older adults tend to be less fearful of death. The fear of death seems to typically start in early childhood and peak in early adulthood.
Religiosity has a somewhat unexpected relationship with death anxiety. People who are either strongly religious or strongly atheistic are typically less anxious about death than those who are more agnostic or uncertain of their religious belief.
Gender is another relevant factor: women tend to score higher than men on questionnaires that measure death anxiety, as they do on measures of anxiety more generally. This might suggest that death anxiety is more commonly experienced by women, although it’s possible that women simply feel more comfortable with disclosing their emotions.
Whoever you are and whatever your background, if you frequently feel anxious about death, this Guide is intended to help you get a better handle on your thoughts and feelings – and to become more accepting of the idea of death as something you can live with.
When death anxiety becomes a problem
Charlotte says she has always been a worrier, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) as a teenager. She has a close relationship with her parents, and she’s terrified that she would not be able to cope if they were to suddenly die. She worries about a range of events, including car accidents, illness, natural disasters and violence. Charlotte often checks on her parents to make sure that they are safe, and gets very anxious if she sees a missed call from them. She would like to move out of home or travel overseas, but fears what might happen to her parents if she is away.
Helen suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and frequently worries that she might somehow harm the people she cares about. Before going to bed each night, she repeatedly checks that she has turned the stove off, fearing that a fire might start while she and her family are asleep. She also repeats certain phrases to herself because she feels it will somehow keep her family safe.
In short, death anxiety becomes problematic when it takes up a lot of your time, causes you distress or emotional pain, and stops you from living the kind of life that you would like to live. Research by my colleagues and I has shown that death anxiety can play a central role in many mental health conditions (including those noted in the above examples). However, even people who do not have such conditions may benefit from beginning to tackle their fear of death.
There are tested approaches for reducing death anxiety
I am often asked if death anxiety is simply incurable, given that death is inevitable and the fear of it is relatively universal. Fortunately, although we cannot prevent death itself, we can all change our attitudes toward death and the way we respond to it.
In research evaluating different treatments for death anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to lead to improvements. CBT involves identifying and addressing the unhelpful beliefs and behaviors that feed anxiety. If we take social anxiety as an example, the treatment might include challenging negative thoughts such as I’ll embarrass myself if I go to that party, as well as addressing behaviors such as excessively rehearsing conversations before a social event or avoiding such events entirely.
In essence, the CBT approach to death anxiety centers on developing more helpful and balanced ways of thinking about death, and changing your behavior so that you start to face the fear of mortality rather than running away from it.
WHAT TO DO
Identify distressing thoughts and beliefs about death
It is not things themselves that trouble people, but their opinions about things. ~ Epictetus, 2nd century CE
This deceptively simple quote illustrates a central teaching about death anxiety. It is not death alone that causes distress – if it were, each of us would have identical feelings about it. It is our thoughts and beliefs about death that cause us distress. This is why it is crucial to identify the ones that are feeding your own death anxiety. They might include intrusive thoughts about death that automatically pop into your head, or more deep-seated, persistent beliefs (eg, Death is unfair).
To help you identify some of your own thoughts and beliefs about death, you might ask yourself some of the following questions:
What is it about death that I think is so awful?
Are there certain types of death that I worry about more than others?
If I were to die, what do I think would be so bad about that?
If someone I care about would die, what would be so bad about that?
Below are some examples of common thoughts that can play a role in death anxiety:
Thoughts about your own death, eg, It will be horrible to never think or feel again; if I died, my family would have nobody to care for them; I need to leave a legacy before I die.
Thoughts about the dying process, eg, Dying will be very painful; I wouldn’t be able to cope if I were diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Thoughts about a loved one’s death, eg, I would never recover if ____ died; I couldn’t cope with watching a loved one die; I have to preserve all the memories of my loved ones in case they die.
Thoughts about needing certainty or control over death, eg, I need to do everything I can to prevent death; it’s up to me to keep my loved ones safe; I need to know for certain what happens after death.
Thoughts about death as a whole, eg, Life is too short; people shouldn’t have to die.
Writing down some of your thoughts or beliefs about death is a useful first step before proceeding to the next stage.
Scrutinize and challenge your death-related thoughts
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. ~ Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century CE
Thoughts are not facts. Rather than buying into distressing thoughts unquestioningly, it is important to practice holding them at arm’s length and looking at them through a skeptical lens. This is especially true for thoughts about death.
Once you have identified the thought(s) about death that are feeding your anxiety, the next step is starting to challenge them. By beginning to challenge your thoughts rather than taking them at face value, you can start to drain some of the power out of them. This can help you to feel less troubled by the thoughts, particularly if you come to discover that they are exaggerated or unhelpful.
What evidence do I have for and against the thought?
Weighing up the evidence can help you determine whether the thought is realistic or exaggerated. Make sure you are focusing on concrete, objective facts. For example, let’s take the thought Dying will be painful. Evidence against this thought could include the fact that, thanks to modern medicine, many people do not experience a lot of pain when they die. What about a thought such as I won’t be able to cope when my partner dies – how do we find evidence for or against that?
You might consider relevant evidence from your past, such as whether you have previously coped with difficult life events better than you had anticipated you would. You might also look to evidence from how other people cope, such as research showing that people commonly recover from the death of a spouse with enough time. The idea here is not to compulsively reassure yourself that everything will be fine. Instead, you are trying to rationally and deliberately weigh up the evidence to better judge whether your thought is true or simply the product of an anxious mind.
What would I tell a friend if they had that thought?
It can be quite difficult to challenge your own thoughts, particularly when your mind makes them sound so compelling. But we are often much calmer, more compassionate and more reassuring with our friends and their worries than we are with ourselves. So, imagine that a friend spoke to you about their own fear of death and how troubled they were by a thought they were having. What might you say to help them calm down, or to help them develop a more balanced perspective?
What would the calmest person you know say about this thought?
Is there someone you know who stands out as being generally calm, balanced and rational? If nobody in your personal life comes to mind, you can think of a TV or film character who fits this description, or an inspirational public figure. Whoever it is, they probably tend to think in a fairly helpful and rational way. Imagine what they would say if you told them about your distressing thought. Is there anything they might see differently? Say your thought is It will be awful never to think or feel again. Perhaps they might remind you that there will be no conscious you to experience that ‘awful’ feeling, or to feel anxious about it. Maybe they would reassure you that you’ve experienced similar states of non-consciousness before, such as when you’ve been under general anesthetic, or when you are asleep, and that death may not be so different from this.
Are you worrying about an outcome that you can’t control? If so, is there any point to this worry?
While you might be able to exert some control over certain aspects of death (for example, if you make an advanced care directive specifying end-of-life wishes), there are countless things over which you do not have control. Consider the thought My family wouldn’t be able to cope if I died. If you were to draw a circle representing things within your complete control, what aspects of this worry would be inside that circle? Very few, I suspect. Certainly the fact of your mortality, and the emotional response of your family when the time comes, would sit outside of your circle of control. If you can identify that the worry you’re experiencing actually serves little or no function, try cultivating indifference to what you can’t control. (You might quietly remind yourself I can’t really control that, so there’s no point in worrying about it.)
How does the thought make you feel?
It’s important to consider whether the thought is helpful to you or not. Take a thought such as Life is short. One person might find this thought motivating: it could help them to focus on making the most out of each day. For someone else, this same thought could provoke severe anxiety. It might stop them from being able to unwind and enjoy time with their loved ones, or leave them feeling paralyzed by dread. It is especially important to try to question your thought in cases like this. Try to imagine: how would your life be different if you were able to dismiss your death-related thought? Would you feel or act differently? Reminding yourself of the benefits of dismissing the thought – such as being better able to savor the present moment – could help provide the motivation you need to let it go.
Recognize any habits you might have that feed your death anxiety
Avoidance is one of the most common ways in which people deal with death anxiety.
Unfortunately, the more you avoid certain situations or reminders of death, the fewer opportunities you have to learn how to cope with the anxiety. If you avoid anything to do with death, it’s likely to only strengthen your sense that death is unbearable to think about. How can you possibly learn to accept something if you avoid thinking about it at every turn? This is why it is especially important for us to work on overcoming the urge to avoid.
Deliberately expose yourself to reminders of death
‘Study death always, so that you’ll fear it never.’ ~ Seneca, 1st century BCE
Two thousand years ago, Stoic philosophers such as Seneca already understood the importance of facing reminders of death in order to overcome anxiety about it. This practice has occasionally been referred to as memento mori, a Latin phrase that translates to ‘remember you will die’. Similar approaches have been used in other philosophical and spiritual traditions. Buddhism has also encouraged regular reflection on mortality and impermanence, such as through observing a corpse while it decays – an exercise that was much more accessible in ancient times.
Research has shown that these intuitions were correct: today we know that something called exposure therapy can effectively reduce death anxiety. Exposure therapy involves deliberately facing situations, places or images that remind you of what you fear. In general, it works by providing opportunities to learn to tolerate the anxiety that comes about when you face these things. In relation to death anxiety specifically, facing reminders of death also helps to normalize death and cultivate an acceptance of mortality.
Exposure therapy can often seem daunting. You might even be experiencing some discomfort right now simply reading about the idea. This is all completely normal and understandable – facing our fears can be a challenging thing to do, but is ultimately key to being able to live more fully. What’s more, it’s not uncommon for someone to find that their imagined idea of exposure therapy is more terrifying than actually doing the exposure tasks.
There are different approaches you might take with exposure therapy for death anxiety. One pathway would be to write out a list of situations you would typically avoid due to anxiety, to rank them from least to most difficult (this is known as an ‘exposure hierarchy’), and then proceed to put yourself in each situation after starting with the least challenging. Exposure tasks can also be chosen in a more random way, such as by drawing them from a hat – which can be helpful for learning to deal with the uncertainty and spontaneity that life itself often presents.
How mortality is acknowledged, or hidden, across cultures
One of the reasons death can be so difficult to face is that, for many of us, our cultures have not imparted helpful coping strategies or attitudes concerning death. In many Western countries, death sadly remains a taboo. When someone has experienced the death of a loved one, they are often expected to grieve quickly and quietly. People are frequently at a loss for what to say to the bereaved. The subtle (though unintentional) message is that we should not ‘dwell’ on those who have died.
Further, in much of the Western world, the dying are typically cared for in hospitals by medical professionals, or in aged care settings. Once dead, a person’s body will usually be dealt with by a funeral home. Both of these are relatively modern developments; for most of human history, family members shouldered the tasks of caring for the dying and preparing the body for burial. As a result, death now largely happens outside of the public eye, with a firm border between the dead and the living.
Many cultures, however, take a radically different approach. This includes, for example, encouraging people to maintain ties to their dead loved ones, such as through personal or communal rituals. In Japan, it’s been estimated that more than half of residents have an altar to their dead ancestors in their home, adorned with photos, ashes and memorial tablets. This is known as a butsudan, and it allows a person to regularly commemorate and connect with lost loved ones. In fact, having such an altar is associated with less psychological distress.
Japan is also one of several countries that commemorates the dead with an annual festival. Each year in Mexico during the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival, people gather at cemeteries, decorate the graves of their loved ones, and celebrate death as a natural part of life.
Certain religious faiths also encourage a more intimate role for loved ones in the burial process. In Islamic culture, it is the family members of the deceased who are usually responsible for bathing a corpse and draping it in its burial shroud. In Madagascar, the Malagasy people regularly reopen their family’s tomb, talking to the corpse and even parading it through the street.
While some of these practices might sound unusual to many readers, there is much to learn from them. When people are encouraged to maintain ties to their dead and to talk about (or even celebrate) mortality, it is far easier to face it. Societies should strive to normalize death rather than sweeping it under the rug. Only by bringing death into the open can we truly begin to grapple with it, and overcome our anxiety. ~ Rachel Menzies
https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-deal-with-death-anxiety-with-the-help-of-cbt?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
St. Jerome by Caravaggio; note the skull as a memento mori
Oriana:
What has helped me immensely is knowing what Epicurus said.
But another thought also occurred to me: Since I did not have a happy life, I will have a happy death.
I fully realize how irrational and inaccurate this thought is, but . . . it arrived, and I welcomed it. After living with it for a while, I wrote this poem:
A HAPPY DEATH
If I say my home is
poetry,
boo me off the stage.
If I say my home is
love,
show me to the door.
If I weep over Gypsies,
knife hidden in a boot,
tell me to go eat a rose.
There is a poetry-proof way
to find your heart’s home:
where do you want to die?
Not like Moses on a barren mountain,
nor wrestling with an angel
in a place of stone —
In my own bed I want to die,
in its warm scent of my warm sleep,
until the last slow breath,
the last glimpse of the world’s
hummingbird color.
I want to die in my own bed,
the one place where I don’t
feel I am a stranger.
Let my bed be my ship,
let my ship be my home.
*
Where is home? That question had a priority in my life, not the certainty of mortality.
Provided my mind stays sound, I still want to live a long time — simply because I am curious about what happens next. It’s not that I find life blissful, except for certain magic moments. It’s that I find life surprising.
The second reason I want to live is beauty. I crave beauty and get much pleasure from what beauty I see.
Another reason is the hope that now and then I can help a fellow human, which makes me happy.
And, as a friend once observed, there is an elemental joy in simply existing.
Mary:
Death is too far separated from the living in our culture. It happens not at home, among family, but most often in a medical setting, cold and unfamiliar, with the family at the edges, not the center of the experience. Medicine also has such a sense of power in peoples minds, that some seem to think death can be postponed again and again, that it is not the inevitable end we all will come to. Families want everything done, way past the reasonable, or even merciful, limits, where keeping someone alive can be a kind of punishment, refusing to allow a peaceful end. Extreme lifesaving measures can be painful and violent...breaking bones, piercing lungs, very often in a hopeless but insisted on effort to revive one far beyond revival. Death, no matter how determined and clever we are, is not optional.
We do not now attend to our own dead...the body is removed and embalmed, washed and dressed and made up to make a good presentation in the casket at the funeral home. All is regulated. No night long watch, or wake, but a few set hours for "visitation," and then the last ceremony, which lately might not be at the open graveside, but at a chapel in the cemetery...less chance of drama at the open grave, a more antiseptic farewell.
This distancing I think does all a disservice. People used to die at home, and be "laid out" there as well, sometimes on the dining table, after being washed and dressed in their clothes or shroud. It was an act of love and connection, a way to absorb and know the fact of death, substantial and real. In my work I have washed and prepared the bodies of the dead — it is an intimate and respectful act. Death leaves its own undeniable impression, not prettied up for presentation. The body is honest, it does not obfuscate or lie.
We have grown apart from the simple fact of death, hid it, denied it, given it small time and little space. Grief is expected to be brief and polite, people must "get over it." We don't want it lingering, taking up time and energy. This is painful and even brutal... demanding that we forget, move on, don't embarrass anyone with our unmannerly grieving.
I don't know that I fear death. It is hard to imagine one's nonexistence, but most have experienced the Nothing of anesthesia, a kind of dress rehearsal, and I know I have felt that break into Absence as a kind of comfort, without pain or obligation. I think we fear pain, or that we will lose courage, or frustration at missing how things turn out, part of our curiosity and love of surprises. But the Nothing is far more of a comfort than the religious notions of an afterworld full of either pain and punishment or celestial boredom.
Oriana:
I agree that experiencing anesthesia is an interesting preview of the Big Sleep. No pain, no worries. On the other hand, if god existed, the questions one could ask Him/Her . . .
But, looking at this world, the deity could not be a benevolent one (let Ivan Karamazov contemplate the suffering of innocent children; for me it’s enough to think of animals’ suffering). Imagine the laughter of Kurt Vonnegut’s “God the Utterly Indifferent.”
Heaven, for me, would have to include meaningful work.
*
“OPPENHEIMER” MOVIE REVIEWS
~ In the stunning eighth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, the series diverges from its main narrative to offer an extended scene of the first test of the atomic bomb at White Plains, NM in 1945. What follows is a kind of origin story for the Twin Peaks cosmos, culminating with scenes of demonic figures insinuating themselves into a picturesque desert town 11 years after the blast. As with all things Twin Peaks, and Lynch in general, what it all means is open for discussion, but it seems unlikely that tying a depiction of how evil enters the world to the dawn of the atomic age is mere coincidence. Born a year after the test, Lynch was one of the first of a generation that knew no world except one that could end in flames at the push of a button.
Christopher Nolan’s films have little in common with Lynch’s work but Oppenheimer, Nolan’s biopic of “Father of the Atomic Bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer, is pervaded with a similar sense of irreversibility, treating the Trinity test as a point of no return, an act once committed would forever change the world, and possibly set it up for destruction. Nolan’s films have long played with time, and Oppenheimer is no exception. But here, the flitting through the most eventful years of Oppenheimer’s life all feed into or empty out of that fixed moment, when the brilliant minds behind an extraordinary scientific project handed humanity a weapon of unthinkable power then lost control of what happened next.
Long a Nolan favorite, Cillian Murphy gives Oppenheimer its center of gravity, and its sense of graveness. In the film’s earliest scenes—chronologically if not always in placement—he already looks like a man burdened with an incalculable weight, as if he already understood that the ideas and formulas swimming in his head would have global consequences. Alarmingly thin (Murphy has cited late-’70s David Bowie as a physical model), restrained in expression, and with a low, deliberate manner of speaking that’s reminiscent of Peter Weller’s William S. Burroughs in Naked Lunch, Murphy’s Oppenheimer is an unnerving presence, but also a man of undeniable genius driven by a strong sense of what needs to be done at all times. That drive extends to his unwillingness to draw a line between his educational life and support for leftist causes that put him shoulder to shoulder with Communists, which sets the stage for his later troubles.
The intense focus, and Murphy’s exceptional work, make Oppenheimer work equally well as a study of a remarkably complex character whose greatest accomplishment would become his greatest (but hardly only) source of torment and as the story of that character’s journey through one the most transformative events in human history. Nolan makes Oppenheimer both biography and thriller. The nervy filmmaking and Ludwig Göransson’s intense score combine in an atmosphere of unrelenting dread. That’s, perhaps expectedly, true in scenes of Oppenheimer and an all-star band of mid-century scientific minds (played by, among many others, Michael Angarano, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Jack Quaid, Rami Malek, and Olivia Thirlby). But it’s employed just as effectively when the film navigates his sometimes-relationships with the women in his life, particularly psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) and his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt), a woman whose supportiveness of her husband could never be mistaken for weakness, in part because it seems to be stretched to its limit at every moment.
Every scene feels like a cataclysm waiting to happen, fitting for a film that builds, step-by-step, to the creation of a cataclysm machine. Oppenheimer both summons awe for what it took to build the bomb—including the construction of a whole, isolated community at Los Alamos—and for the changes it wrought. Even before the Trinity test, the film depicts atomic weaponry’s looming introduction as a divisive force, one that some (like Oppenheimer, at least initially) believed could end all wars and that others saw as an invitation for an apocalypse. It’s a story for which Nolan summons the full force of his skill at making movies of massive size—literally for those who see it in IMAX, but figuratively no matter what the format—but also the much smaller story of a man who redirected history then found himself crushed by the world he helped create. —Keith Phipps
https://thereveal.substack.com/p/in-review-oppenheimer-barbie
AS DENSE AS A BLACK HOLE
~ As dense as a black hole, Oppenheimer condenses hundreds of pages from American Prometheus into a single film, filled with enough recognizable actors to populate a small town. Even at three hours, the drama doesn’t waste a moment, keeping the audience rapt for its entirety. Christopher Nolan’s adaptation narrows the scope of the doorstop biography and largely focuses on two periods in the wildly interesting life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” Yet those two periods are momentous enough to have shaped not only Oppenheimer, but also the broader world. The centerpiece is, unsurprisingly, the atomic bomb testing by the Oppenheimer-led Manhattan Project in 1945, but Nolan places equal weight on the 1954 hearing that found the physicist’s loyalty to the United States in question during the Red Scare. Nolan gives both events their due in this film that is both challenging and immensely entertaining.
That seeming dissonance is one of many in Oppenheimer, especially as it depicts the man himself, played by Cillian Murphy. The key theme echoes quantum superposition, the principle that a particle can be in two places at the same time. Similarly, Nolan’s film posits that people can be two opposing things at once: Robert Oppenheimer is a genius who is naive to the workings of the world, a theoretical physicist whose signature discovery wreaks a massive physical impact on the world, and the creator of the nuclear bomb who only wants peace. No one here is purely good or evil, and Nolan’s film is neither a hagiography nor a condemnation of this controversial figure. Oppenheimer is decidedly anti-atomic bomb (in case you were wondering), but its take on its primary subject is more nuanced.
Murphy is surrounded by literally dozens of recognizable actors; listing everyone whose face you know would consume my entire word count (and confound my editor). Most significant are Emily Blunt doing a crisp Mid-Atlantic accent as his wife, Kitty, also a study in contradictions; Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, the prickly chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission; and Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, the gruff general presiding over the Manhattan Project. But Oppenheimer has a deep bench, with special shout-outs deserved by Florence Pugh in a small role as Jean Tatlock, Robert’s troubled lover; David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi, his friend and fellow scientist; and Alden Ehrenreich as a senate aide. Most characters get just a line or two, and keeping all of them straight is an intellectual feat roughly on level with grasping the basics of quantum physics.
Oppenheimer is Nolan’s longest film, and in many ways, it’s his most ambitious. Though more structurally straightforward than Tenet, it refuses the traditional biopic route of telling Robert’s story in linear fashion. Instead, though it primarily focuses on his Manhattan Project years and his later security clearance struggles, it also offers glimpses of other key moments in his life as well as the senate confirmation hearing of Downey’s Strauss, bouncing between these times with speed and ease. Nolan shifts between black-and-white and color cinematography, changing film stock and aspect ratios frequently; the only constant is that it’s consistently gorgeous.
Select moments lack subtlety, and some of the metaphors are rendered a little too clearly. Yet Nolan requires so much of the audience with this epic drama that it’s a forgivable sin to occasionally make things a little easy on them. But as much as Nolan asks of the viewer, he provides equal rewards. What may be most remarkable in this film about the making of the atomic bomb is the humor woven throughout, as well as the warmth. Oppenheimer the man may not have always understood the people around him, but Oppenheimer the movie is full of humanity and real emotion.
Nolan rarely misses, and Oppenheimer is the director working at his best in a film with big explosions and even bigger ideas. This is a complex look at a complicated man, but Oppenheimer unequivocally establishes that this is a story worth telling—and that Nolan was the perfect filmmaker to do it.
https://crookedmarquee.com/review-oppenheimer/
~ Oppenheimer ends on the troubling idea that some things transcend condemnation or forgiveness—they simply become a fact of life, and not just for their creator. It doesn’t matter whether Oppenheimer wanted to watch the world burn or to prevent that immolation from happening; he started the fire, and he had to live with that. So do we. ~ Adam Nayman, conclusion of his review in https://www.theringer.com/movies/2023/7/21/23802231/oppenheimer-review
~ This movie resembles a nightmare that torments not only the protagonist, but all of humanity. A horror that still lives and that finds a perfect representation in Cillian Murphy's haunted eyes. ~ Pablo Villaça https://cinemaemcena.com.br/critica/filme/8604/oppenheimer
~ Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER demands that we consider the father of the atomic bomb’s life in context, the which he does with stunning clarity considering the paradoxes the film considers. Like the quantum world revealed by the new physics that Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) brought to the United States between the world wars, things can work even if the underpinnings of why defy rational explanation. That can mean a relationship between adults, or the construction of a bomb that will change the world even if the math behind it doesn’t work.
Searching for the reality behind it is, as opined by a character, fruitless, even if it is a fascinating intellectual exercise. And that is what Nolan has constructed here, a peerless intellectual thriller told with urgency and embracing the paradox until it resolves into a bittersweet poetic sort of justice proving Einstein’s (here an an avuncular Tom Conti) conjecture that God does not play dice. ~ Andrea Chase, https://www.killermoviereviews.com/movie/oppenheimer/
~ One of the most stirring things about this excellently dense and jumpy biopic is that Nolan never tries to reconcile his subjects’ contradictions. If anything, he realizes the futility of trying to know the unknowable. Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer? ~ Tatsam Mukherjee, https://thewire.in/film/the-many-sides-and-dilemmas-of-oppenheimer-father-of-the-atomic-bomb
And here is a rare negative review:
~ Oppenheimer is an important historical biography with many memorable moments about J. Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist who helped create the atomic bomb in 1945 in World War II. He is portrayed, well, by Cillian Murphy.
However, at three hours, Oppenheimer as a whole falls short of the sum of its pleasing parts. Perhaps the best scene is of the first bomb test, “Trinity.”
There is a countdown. There is a big, red button. Gradually, sight and sound gimmicks build the tension and enhance the dramatic impact. From the theater chair next to me, I heard a woman stifle a sob.
But after this climax comes another hour of story about how poorly Oppenheimer was treated by politicians not convinced of his loyalty. After the pinnacle moment of the Big Bang, it’s an awfully long epilogue.
His demise is presented more effectively in the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, upon which this film is based. It fleshes out Oppenheimer’s youth and family background to try to explain his peculiar intelligence.
Some of Oppenheimer is filmed in black-and-white, adding another layer of gray to the picture’s mood. Among a stellar cast, Matt Damon steals a couple scenes as a gruff general ostensibly supervising Oppenheimer.
Other characters issue ominous proclamations like, “Genius is no guarantee of wisdom”; and “A prophet can’t be wrong. Not once”; and “Nobody knows what you believe. Do you?”; and “Only history will judge us”; and “Is there a chance that when we push that button, we destroy the world?”
The screen frequently shows Oppenheimer smoking, his lit cigarette burning like a fuse on a bomb — or on his career. Or, perhaps, he’s just blowing smoke. In addition, we see a jumbled timeline of flashback sequences that worked much better long ago in Citizen Kane. ~ Joe Lapointe
https://www.metrotimes.com/arts/lapointe-barbie-wins-over-oppenheimer-but-both-are-worth-a-look-33745294
Here is a passage from a review in The New Yorker:
The crux of “Oppenheimer” is, of course, the tension between the abstractions of physics and the brutal exigencies of war, between the freewheeling researcher and the project manager pursuing worldly goals, between the man of principle and the man whose work is directly responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. Oppenheimer, who is Jewish as well as a leftist, fervently devotes himself to the creation of an atomic bomb because he knows that Nazi Germany is far ahead in developing one and he assumes that Hitler won’t hesitate to use it. Once Germany surrenders—in May, 1945—he gets a shock: work on the bomb not only continues but accelerates. This mission drift poses a moral crisis for Oppenheimer that determines the course of the rest of the film, and of his life. It becomes clear that joining the Manhattan Project has left him tragically compromised, committed to creating a weapon of unparalleled destructiveness while having no say in how it will be used. ~ The New Yorker, July 26, 2023
Misha Iossel:
My quick take on Oppenheimer: huge, loud, visually powerful, aims to overwhelm viewer on a sensory level, structurally somewhat weak and more than a little unsubtle, way too reliant on dialogue and overt "telling" to propel the storyline, uses explosions and blasts of music to set off a series of flashbacks all rolled into the rather flimsy "surface" of the plot. Brilliant actors in cameo roles. Overhyped, on balance, I would suggest — and the reason for that, I suspect, is because everyone in the West is keenly aware that right now, for the first time since the dawn of the modern era, a former superpower of a rogue nation, the Nazi state of our time, unspeakably ugly in its deathbed agony as an erstwhile empire, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and ruled by the worst and most soullessly evil kind of human mutants history has ever known, is openly and with endless recklessness threatening the world with total nuclear annihilation. Given that context — and only in that context — the hype is justified.
Memorable (and apparently, historically accurate) dialogue:
Oppenheimer: Mr. President. I believe there is blood on my hands.
Harry Truman [offering him a white pocket handkerchief]: You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? You didn't drop the bomb, I did. Hiroshima isn't about you.
Harry Truman: [after Oppenheimer leaves] Don't let that crybaby back in here.
[I can’t find the link right now, but basically Misha recommends the movie, an accurate-enough historical document of the development of the weapon that changed the world.]
Rebecca Solnit:
I too was underwhelmed by this jumble of too many names and talking heads and too much dialogue spread too thin across too much history.
Susan Schibanoff:
I just saw it and then read the NYT article on all the stories it left out such as the 5 generations of New Mexicans in a 50 mile radius of the test blast who weren't told in advance, still suffer elevated cancer risk, and are not eligible for compensation. Oppenheimer's angst pales in comparison.
Oriana:
The movie is indeed very dense — so packed with detail, including the basic science of nuclear fission and fusion, that indeed it would take a second viewing to comprehend it all. And I think very few people would be willing to see for the second time a three-hour movie that is so intellectually and emotionally overwhelming.
That extraordinary density is often singled out by critics as most the obvious flaw of Oppenheimer. Not that it makes it fail. It’s the kind of flaw that could have been avoided through editing. However, which details would I want to remove? I have trouble answering that, because personally I found it all fascinating. Well, maybe the scenes with Niels Bohr could be left out. Maybe. I wasn’t bored for a single minute, but some viewers apparently were.
The scenes with Kitty, Oppenheimer’s wife, didn’t hold me as much as the work on the Manhattan Project. Maybe those should have been cut. Again, maybe. I certainly wouldn't cut the scenes with Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer's great love, Jean Tatlock: a doomed, tormented woman who ends up committing suicide (though there is still some suspicion that she was murdered by the FBI because her Communist ties endangered the secrecy of the work on developing nuclear weapons).
I admit that the movie was indeed overwhelming, but I didn’t mind being overwhelmed. While there is an emotional power to minimalism, I like a feast of abundance. It makes the movie more realistic, showing us not only the scientists (including a disarmingly charming Einstein), but also the military and the politicians, including a callous President Truman, who, unlike Oppenheimer, appears to be devoid of empathy.
I also liked the fact that the movie doesn't present Oppenheimer solely as "the father of the bomb." We also learn, be it in passing, about his contributions to modern physics: further development of quantum mechanics, and predicting the existence of the positron, neutron stars, and black holes, though those terms were not yet in use. Since the Manhattan Project eclipsed all else, Oppenheimer as a theoretical physicist still tends to be ignored.
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THE CARNAC STONE CIRCLE IN BRITTANY, FRANCE
~ Stretching 4km along the coast of Brittany and consisting of more than 3,000 menhirs (man-made, often tapered, stones erected in prehistoric times across Western Europe – not unlike those Obelix from the Asterix comics made a career sculpting and delivering), the Carnac Alignments represent the largest group of man-made standing stones in the world. Like Stonehenge, their purpose, what they represent and who placed them are mysteries shrouded in theory and legend. Yet, their place as one of the most important sites of European prehistory is undisputed.
"There are plenty of interesting theories, some with examples that seem to fit in certain circumstances, but there's always more to disprove them than to prove them," he told me. "The Carnac Alignments are not straight, they meander and follow a ridge that separates the coastal plain from the interior, land-based world, likely acting as a kind of symbolic border between the two. Of course, it did not prevent people from passing between them, but it marks a geographical separation between land and sea that isn't random." Kneeling next to a menhir with serpentine carvings at its base that sparked its own set of theories, he added, "But, its ceremonial or religious significance is open to interpretation.”
"The idea [of menhirs representing soldiers] extends to Celtic heroes defeated on the battlefield," explained Wendy Mewes, the author of many books about the landscape, history and legends of Brittany. She added that parallels between the legend of Saint Cornély and longstanding Breton mythology still resonate today. "Not far away in Quiberon, a menhir has been used for the 'modern' war memorial.”
The Carnac Alignments are made up of several distinct sections of standing stones, now divided by land, trees or roads – although there are theories they were once unbroken. The most famous of these sections are called Le Menéc, Kermario and Kerlescan, which are also the best-preserved examples of these long lines of menhirs. However, there are also a number of dolmen (stone burial chambers), some of which predate the menhirs and combine to make this an extraordinarily dense megalithic site.
The area covered by the Carnac Alignments is too big to truly appreciate from ground level. To gain a greater perspective, Agogué took me to another of the area's most interesting features, roughly 1.5km from the rows of stones. The Saint-Michel tumulus, a huge, grass-covered mound that looms over Carnac, is the largest grave mound in continental Europe, built roughly 6,700 years ago. We walked through the dark, cramped passages and chambers within the tumulus itself, which are currently closed to the public, and Agogué pointed out where valuable relics, including polished stone axes and items originating from Italy and Spain, were found.
Due to the corrosive acidity of the soil, very few artifacts have been found at Carnac outside burial tombs.
Given this open pool of conjecture, it's unsurprising that myths and legends swept in to fill the void. Stories of goblin-like creatures called Korrigans, or of stone soldiers going to drink from a stream on Christmas Eve and crushing anyone in their path may sound like dark fairy tales, but these early attempts to explain the unknown created a sense of awe that has helped preserve the site.
The Menhirs Libres (Free Menhirs) is a Carnac-based group that states they advocate for the wishes of the local residents. Concerned about the commercialization of the site and the implications more visitors may have, a spokesperson said, "The campaigns to attract visitors focus on the dream, the mystery, the beauty of the site without visitors at sunrise or sunset. The photos and videos never show the reality of overcrowding in summer with traffic jams on the roads and cars parking anywhere possible." The group believes that with better organization, the flow of tourists could be managed between the different sections of the Alignments to avoid high concentrations in particular areas.
Regardless of the site's future management, the Alignments stand as a monument to human inspiration and ability. With technology now at our fingertips, there are few things that can't be found with our phones. But here, on this stretch of remote French coastline, it's refreshing to be presented with a genuine mystery that has persevered for millennia. ~
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220914-carnac-alignments-brittanys-mysterious-standing-stones
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GOATS FOR WEED CONTROLS
~ The peace of an otherwise quiet summer weekend is often muddled by the sound of lawn mowers and leaf blowers. In Los Angeles’ business district, an old-fashioned method of ground control provides an alternative soundtrack — the munching of goats.
In a steep hillside city park on Bunker Hill, right next to the world’s shortest railway, 120 goats are about to be deployed. "Oh my gosh, they're so cute," Nate Giddings says as he makes his way to work in a nearby skyscraper.
There are baby goats and mama goats, but they're all hungry goats. This natural landscaping crew was trucked in from a farm in San Diego. Their assignment: mowing down the unruly growth of brush on these 2 1/2 acres.
"I've never seen them used for this," Giddings says. "I think it's hysterical.”
The Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles thinks it's smart — not to mention ecological. This is the third year in a row the agency has hired a herd to tend this unwieldy land.
The goats belong to Johnny Gonzalez, who says they get an undeserved bad rap. "Goats are great survivalists," he says. "They learn to survive on meager means, so people tend to think of them as doing something destructive. But the goats allow the natural plants to take hold and pretty much do away with all the invasive weeds and grasses."
They also entertain thousands of passersby in the process.
For these few days, Bunker Hill has become a mix of the fiercely urban and charmingly bucolic. Just ask Finney, one of several homeless men who sleep here. Today, he's right beside where the goats are working, and he likes how they make the big, busy city more human.
"They make everybody smile. Normally people come and go here to the Metro. It's so nice to see people stopping and smiling and laughing," he says. "It creates this kind of warmth, this unity. People talk about it, you know.”
And the goats save the city $3,000 over the environmentally unfriendly alternative of weed killers and weed whackers.
But no matter how good a job they do, the goats won't have this gig forever — the site is slated to be developed into an office tower. ~
https://www.npr.org/2010/07/09/128411947/weed-whacking-goats-will-work-for-food
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SO HOW MANY STEPS A DAY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO WALK?
~ New research challenges the common idea that people need to reach a threshold of 10,000 steps per day to improve their health.
Walking just 4,000 steps per day is associated with a lower risk of death, according to the analysis published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
The research pooled the results of 17 studies that looked at the health benefits associated with step counts across six countries. The least active people in the studies took around 4,000 steps per day and still saw a reduced risk of death from any cause. The more steps people took, the lower their risk of dying.
Each extra 1,000 steps per day was associated with a 15% reduction in a person's overall risk of death, according to the research.
The analysis included people who took as many as 20,000 steps per day and did not find an upper limit to the health benefits of walking. Younger adults saw a greater reduction in the overall risk of death compared to older adults, the results showed.
“The main message is that we should have as many steps as possible and we should start as early as possible in order to have the highest health benefits,” said Dr. Maciej Banach, the study’s lead author and a cardiology professor at the Medical University of Lodz in Poland.
The studies that his team analyzed included almost 227,000 participants in total, most of whom were generally healthy, and followed people for an average of seven years. The participants came from Australia, Japan, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
When looking at the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease in particular, the researchers found that walking at least 2,337 steps per day lowered the risk, with each extra 500 daily steps associated with an additional 7% reduction in risk.
The study suggested that for people under age 60, walking between 7,000 and 13,000 steps per day lowered the overall risk of death by 49%. For those ages 60 and older, walking 6,000 to 10,000 daily steps lowered the risk by 42%.
The notion that 10,000 steps is the crucial daily quota is a misconception, though it is a healthy target, according to Amanda Paluch, an epidemiologist and kinesiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“It’s not an all-or-nothing situation,” she said. ~
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FULL FAT DAIRY LOWERS DEATH RISK
By counting whole-fat dairy as a protective food, the new PURE Healthy Diet score strengthened the relationship between healthy eating and heart disease in a large study.
For individuals with and without cardiovascular disease (CVD), higher intake of protective foods (i.e., PURE diet score ≥5 points out of 6) compared with lower intake (diet score ≤1 point) was associated with lower risks in the PURE cohort spanning five continents with a median follow-up of 9.3 years, reported Andrew Mente, PhD, of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and colleagues:
All-cause mortality: HR 0.70 (95% CI 0.63-0.77)
CVD: HR 0.82 (95% CI 0.75-0.91)
Myocardial infarction: HR 0.86 (95% CI 0.75-0.99)
Stroke: HR 0.81 (95% CI 0.71-0.93)
Unlike previous diet scores, the PURE Healthy Diet score does not penalize eating red meat. With a maximum score of 6, the PURE score simply awards one point each for above-median consumption of fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, and whole-fat dairy.
PURE was found to be slightly more predictive of composite events than the Mediterranean, 2010 and 2015 Healthy Eating Index, and DASH diet scores — and substantially more predictive than the Lancet Planetary diet score, Mente and colleagues noted in the European Heart Journal.
”These findings suggest that an inadequate level of consumption of key healthy foods is a larger problem than over-consumption of some nutrients or foods (such as saturated fats or whole-fat dairy and meats — all of which are consumed in lower amounts with a lower diet score) for mortality and CVD risk around the world," the authors wrote.
"On this basis, given the low intake of fats and especially saturated fat (i.e., whole-fat dairy) among people with the lowest diet score ... current targeted dietary guidance limiting the consumption of saturated fat and dairy in many populations of the world may not be warranted," they suggested.
Their results are in line with recent evidence showing that dairy may protect against high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome.
The new PURE score takes out the meat intake component that had been part of a prior dietary quality score from the PURE investigators. In 2018, they had reported that balanced consumption of various food groups, assessed by that older score, was linked to reduced CVD.
In their latest report, Mente and colleagues again stressed "variety and moderation" in a healthy diet. Whole grains and unprocessed meats may still be consumed in moderation, or about one serving daily, they recommended.
However, data for the new PURE score really only support targeting other foods, argued Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, of Tufts Medical Center in Boston, in an accompanying editorial.
”The net health effects of unprocessed red meats remain uncertain — a high priority area for further investigation," he wrote. "Based on current data, the authors' findings and conclusions appear sound, providing evidence that unprocessed red meats are not a priority target for health to either avoid (as strongly emphasized by the EAT-Lancet report) or to include (as strongly emphasized by 'paleo' and 'keto' diets).”
Acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to healthy eating across cultures, Mente's group asserted that the PURE Healthy Diet generally translates to an eating pattern including:
Fruits and vegetables: 4-5 servings daily
Legumes: 3-4 servings weekly
Nuts: 7 servings weekly
Fish: 2-3 servings weekly
Dairy: 14 servings weekly
A PURE score of 4 is the threshold for healthy eating beyond which there are modest additional gains in heart health and survival, they found. Thus, vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike may reach this score by consuming as many food groups as possible out of the six.
In the PURE cohort of 147,642 people on five continents, the mean PURE Healthy Diet score was 2.95.
Findings from this group were echoed across five independent cohorts: the ONTARGET, TRANSCEND, and ORIGIN trials; and the INTERHEART and INTERSTROKE case-control studies.
"This was by far the most diverse study of nutrition and health outcomes in the world and the only one with sufficient representation from high-, middle- and low-income countries. The connection between the PURE diet and health outcomes was found in generally healthy people, patients with CVD, patients with diabetes, and across economies," Mente said in a press release.
Even so, Salim Yusuf, MBBS, DPhil, also of McMaster University and PURE's principal investigator, stressed that associations were strongest in areas with the poorest-quality diet, where calorie intake was low and dominated by refined carbohydrates. "This suggests that a large proportion of deaths and CVD in adults around the world may be due to undernutrition, that is, low intakes of energy and protective foods, rather than overnutrition. This challenges current beliefs," he said in a statement.
The PURE authors acknowledged that their observational study design left room for residual confounding. They also relied on self-reported diet data being accurate, coming from food frequency questionnaires.
"Ideally, large randomized trials are essential to definitively clarify the clinical impact on events of a policy of proposing a dietary pattern in populations. While such trials are difficult and expensive to conduct, they are justifiable given the important public health impact of clarifying the health effects of diet," they wrote.
For now, Mozaffarian suggested that guideline recommendations to avoid whole-fat dairy should at least be re-evaluated.
"Investigations such as the one by Mente and colleagues remind us of the continuing and devastating rise in diet-related chronic diseases globally, and of the power of protective foods to help address these burdens," he noted.
"It is time for national nutrition guidelines, private sector innovations, government tax policy and agricultural incentives, food procurement policies, labeling and other regulatory priorities, and food-based healthcare interventions to catch up to the science. Millions of lives depend on it," he concluded. ~
https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/dietnutrition/105394?xid=nl_mpt_morningbreak2023-07-10&eun=g2215341d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBreak_071023&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_Daily_News_Update_active
MaryLynn Kay:
I see lots of patients who have ‘undernutrition’, but are overweight. Most of their calories come from soft drinks and packaged foods.
Laurel G:
Hooray!! Now I can continue drinking whole fat milk and eating whole fat yogurt as I have my whole life without remorse. :) (cardiac calcium score=0, US of carotids clear at 60 years of age!)
Oriana:
Goat cheese, gouda and mozarella are my favorites. Good-tasting food is part of the joy of life, something we can't have too much of. I'm tempted to say that I never found a cheese I didn't like, but then I remember blue cheese (not the salad dressing, which is fine). Yes, I realize that the blue-cheese mold is harmless, but the way it looks takes away my appetite.
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DUPUYTREN’S CONTRACTURE AND NEANDERTHAL GENES
~ Fascia, the fibrous connective tissue that literally holds the body together, is one of the unsung heroes of human anatomy. The stringy, white substance – which is basically sheets of connective tissue held together with collagen – cinches together your muscles and organs so they can act as a unified whole.
On the palms of your hands, fascia has an important job, which is to create a rugged surface suitable for gripping. Without it, skin would slide around over bones, muscles and blood vessels, making it difficult, if not painful, to hold onto anything.
The palmar fascia enables an important part of human life, but it can limit life, as well. In the case of Dupuytren’s disease, the fascia slowly thickens and contracts, forming nodules and eventually cords of tissue that pull the fingers inward, trapping them. And in a recent scientific study, we may now know where the disease came from.
According to the new genetic analysis performed at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Neanderthal DNA is partly to blame for Dupuytren’s, which is genetically inheritable.
The condition most commonly affects the ring and middle fingers, which extend from the center of the palmar fascia, curling them back towards the palm. In severe cases, surgery can improve the range of motion but may not be able to restore it completely.
Scientists have identified a long list of risk factors for Dupuytren’s: Men are more likely to develop it than women, and the condition affects not just people of northern European descent but also Scandinavians. Certain medical conditions, including diabetes and seizure disorders, increase one’s risk as well, as does old age.
WHO IS MORE LIKELY TO GET DUPUYTREN’S?
The study drew on genomes from 7,871 people who had Dupuytren’s and found 61 genes related to the disease, including three that had come from the Neanderthals. Of those, two stood out as the second and third most important for predicting Dupuytren’s.
Early Homo sapiens mated with both Neanderthals and Denisovans, another extinct species, and the evidence remains in portions of our collective DNA, with some major exceptions. People from Sub-Saharan Africa contain little influence from Neanderthals, while genes from elsewhere contains about 2 percent passed down from the species.
The disease is most common in Northern Europe, where more Neanderthal influence is evident. One study that tracked Dupuytren’s over 60 years estimated that as many as 30 percent of Norwegians develop it over their lifetime.
“This is a case where the meeting with Neanderthals has affected who suffers from illness,” says the paper’s lead author, Hugo Zeberg in a press release, “although we should not exaggerate the connection between Neanderthals and Vikings.”
It is particularly common in truck drivers and men who work with vibrating tools.
Diabetics, smokers, and drinkers are at a higher risk of Dupuytren’s.
If you have mild Dupuytren contracture, you can protect your hands by:
Avoiding a tight grip on tools by building up the handles with pipe insulation or cushion tape.
Using gloves with heavy padding during heavy grasping tasks.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dupuytrens-contracture/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20371949
Fortunately, there exists an effective treatment called “needling,” as well as stretching exercises that keep hands healthy and flexible.
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CHRONIC INCIDENCE OF PAIN IS HIGH IN THE U.S.
New cases of chronic pain — defined as pain experienced on most days or every day over 3 months — occurred more frequently than new cases of other common chronic conditions, U.S. survey data showed.
Chronic pain incidence was 52.4 cases per 1,000 person-years, reported Richard Nahin, MPH, PhD, of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, and co-authors.
This was higher than the incidence of diabetes (7.1 cases/1,000 person-years), depression (15.9 cases), and hypertension (45.3 cases), the researchers said in JAMA Network.
Moreover, chronic pain was persistent: nearly two-thirds (61.4%) of adults with chronic pain in 2019 continued to have it in 2020.
The findings come from National Health Interview Survey data and are the first nationwide estimates of chronic pain incidence.
Recent NHIS data showed the prevalence of chronic pain in the U.S. was about 21%, affecting an estimated 51.6 million adults. High-impact chronic pain — pain severe enough to restrict daily activities— affected 17.1 million people.
"Understanding incidence, beyond overall prevalence, is critical to understanding how chronic pain manifests and evolves over time," Nahin said in a statement. "These data on pain progression stress the need for increased use of multimodal, multidisciplinary interventions able to change the course of pain and improve outcomes for people.”
The NHIS is a cross-sectional poll conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics. Nahin and co-authors evaluated 10,415 adults who participated in both the 2019 and 2020 surveys. Participants with chronic pain during both periods were considered to have persistent chronic pain.
The sample included 51.7% women. More than half of the study population — 54% — were ages 18 to 49. Most participants (72.6%) were white; 16.5% were Hispanic and 12.2% were Black. Most (70.5%) were not college graduates.
At baseline (2019), 40.3% of participants reported no pain, 38.9% reported non-chronic pain, and 20.8% reported chronic pain.
Of those without pain in 2019, the rate of incident chronic pain was 52.4/1,000 cases (95% CI 44.9-59.9). The rate of incident high-impact chronic pain was 12.0 (95% CI 8.2-15.8). Lower educational attainment and older age were associated with higher rates of chronic pain in 2020, regardless of pain status in 2019.
In 2020, rates of persistent chronic pain and persistent high-impact chronic pain were 462.0 and 361.2 cases per 1,000 person-years, respectively.
Of those reporting non-chronic pain in 2019, 14.9% had progressed to chronic pain at follow-up. Of those reporting chronic pain in 2019, 10.4% had fully recovered (were pain-free) in 2020.
"Although chronic pain is sometimes assumed to persist indefinitely, our finding that 10.4% of adults with chronic pain experienced improvement over time is consistent with previous evidence from studies in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K., which revealed rates ranging from 5.4% to 8.7%," the researchers noted.
The study did not include information about the underlying causes of pain and survey data were collected only twice across 2 years of follow-up, Nahin and co-authors acknowledged. It's possible that people experiencing new or persistent chronic pain or high-impact chronic pain were less likely to participate in the 2020 follow-up survey, which may have led to rates being underestimated. ~
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Non-Hispanic
white adults (23.6%) were more likely to have chronic pain compared with
non-Hispanic black (19.3%), Hispanic (13.0%), and non-Hispanic Asian
(6.8%) adults. The percentage of adults with chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain increased as place of residence became more rural. ~ CDC, November 2022
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ending on beauty:
This is where the serpent lives, the bodiless.
His head is air. Beneath his tip at night
Eyes open and fix on us in every sky.
Or is this another wriggling out of the egg,
Another image at the end of the cave,
Another bodiless for the body's slough?
This is where the serpent lives. This is his nest,
These fields, these hills, these tinted distances,
And the pines above and along and beside the sea.
~ Wallace Stevens, Auroras of Autumn
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