*
GREETING THE FIRST SECRETARY
Again workers and schoolchildren
three-deep along the boulevards.
This time it was not
a cosmonaut,
not the Abyssinian emperor,
it was Brezhnev
who stood,
Caesar-in-chariot,
monolithic three-quarters profile,
in a long open
black car,
next to the nervous host —
himself a first secretary,
but how slight!
And Brezhnev an impassive mound.
His eyebrows
underlined his hat.
He stood heavy,
rotund,
flesh caped by a black coat.
Now and then, his pale
pudgy hand
flopped slowly up and down
like a disturbed mollusk;
he did not bother to smile.
We stomped our feet
in the chill;
at his passage, when signaled,
feebly clapping.
For news and documentaries,
they used a soundtrack
with its own hurrah
applause and shouts
of long live.
His huge dark back
took over the screen.
~ Oriana
*
WAS BREZHNEV CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, OR BOTH?
He was absolutely not corrupt in traditional sense. The only somewhat corrupt thing about him was about surrounding himself with loyal people and people expressing loyalty to both party and himself. However, this approach instead of real meritocracy was a real epidemic in post-Stalin USSR. It was all about loyalties.
He was not incompetent. In fact, he turned out to be more competent than his predecessor. However, he wasn’t young and did not trust even his loyal supporters enough to delegate many decisions. This resulted in immense piles of documents, projects and initiatives waiting for his personal approval.
It was physically impossible to cope with all that responsibility without delegating authority, especially for an old man in bad health. This resulted in many unnecessary mistakes, delays and overall excessive bureaucracy. Imagine CEO approving some 3-year old requests which were no longer relevant…
So, although the government system was totally centralized, in fact it had too many loopholes and inefficiencies. The only realistic way to combat inefficiencies was to “hack the system”.
So while Brezhnev was not corrupt personally (being fond of medals is not really a sign of corruption), his rule gave rise to corruption in USSR on too many levels — simply because it was very hard to implement any positive initiatives or do anything meaningful using “standard” means. ~ Ivan Novoselov, Quora
Faravid:
When he was kicked out by Brezhnev, Khrushchev said “I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution.”
Marko Trzun:
There is a joke about Khruschev instructing Brezhnev upon his retirement, it goes like this:
“Comrade Brezhnev, I’ve left you two sealed envelopes in my locked drawer, numbered 1 and 2. Here’s the key. Open only the first one when you get in critical problems with the Party, and lead the people well!”
Brezhnev, after a few years, gets into problems, opens the first letter, the letter says:
“Comrade Brezhnev, lay ALL blame on the previous government and me specifically, and proceed with your work as usual. Also, open the second envelope only when you get into the next critical problem with them, not earlier! Lead the people well!”
After several years, Brezhnev again gets uncomfortable in the party, opens the second envelope, which says:
“Comrade Brezhnev, sit down, write two letters and place them in sealed envelopes. Have a good rest of your life.”
It really goes with what Khruschev contributed the most :)
Orlin Stoyanov:
Imagine a CEO approving some 3-year old requests which were no longer relevant…
If only! Instead things get ignored for more than 10 far too often.
Dimitra Strata:
The one thing I remember him is kissing other country male leaders very passionately on the mouth.
I'm pretty sure the object of passion here was the German chancellor.
Michal Soucoup:
He was decidedly LESS capable that Kchruschev. His problem was NOT replacing people almost at all.
The problem with command economy is you have to actively look for incompetence and weed it yourself whereas in market economy marked will more or less do it for you.
If Brezhnev did not intended to do the weeding personally he should either empower others to do it for him or implement some sort of “up or out” policy for the plant managers.
James Varela:
In the 70s there was a popular joke about Brezhnev. He brings his mother from her small town to Moscow to visit him, and he sends the TU 144 a.k.a. the Concordski to pick her up and bring her to Moscow. Then he whisks her by ZIL limousine to his luxury apartment in Moscow, then he takes her to a very posh restaurant, where food that the average Soviet citizen could never even dream of being served. Then he takes her on a trip aboard his massive yacht, all the while the old woman just sits and looks and says nothing until Brezhnev finally says to her, Mama aren’t you going to say anything,? And the old woman replies, All this is beautiful, Leonid, but what are you going to do if the Reds come back?
Madi Connors:
He was a dimwit who was probably the single most responsible person for the downfall of the Soviet Union, because the Afghanistan misadventure ended detente and helped give Thatcher and Reagan leverage to enact policies that still leave both the US and UK damaged to this day. If Brezhnev had been competent, Putin would be a nobody now.
Daniel Lovasy:
Look at his medal ribbons — he must have been the most decorated person I have ever seen. There was a joke that he was awarded all the Soviet military medals there ever existed, except for two: the Heroic Soviet Mother and Heroic Soviet City. (To be fair, a lot of those medals were given for nothing, but they looked impressive.)
Umbrellaworker Wang:
Brezhnev was indeed responsible for the collapse of USSR. He was lucky enough to get the best opportunity, but he put his resources in the wrong place.
When Brezhnev came to power, the losses caused by WW2 were gradually recovered. The oil crisis led to an increase in oil prices, which brought a large amount of foreign exchange to USSR. USA also suffered huge losses in the Vietnam war and was willing to reach reconciliation with USSR.
However, Brezhnev did not take this opportunity to further develop the domestic economy, but instead invested massive resources in the arms race and geopolitical hegemony. Ethiopia, India, Egypt Cuba… any country that claimed to believe in socialism could receive Soviet aid. Tens of billions of economic and military aid were wasted in irrelevant countries and regions, hindering the further development of the Soviet economy.
Brezhnev also openly accepted bribes, making corruption a systemic problem. The black market economy, smuggling, and selling positions became common, which laid hidden dangers for the rise of oligarchs in the post-Soviet era.
USSR's actions around the world aroused fear in various countries, forcing USA, Western Europe, China and other countries to form an alliance to fight against USSR, worsening the Soviet Union's diplomatic environment. The US and the Gulf countries jointly suppressed oil prices, severely damaging the Soviet economy. The invasion of Afghanistan put huge pressure on USSR's finances, and the disorderly arms race also made the military-industrial complex an unstoppable interest group, hindering any reform that would be unfavorable to them.
Oriana:
Our applause was more a pantomime of an applause. But I did get a sinister impression: he was a massive weight in that huge black coat. He was Russia itself, crushing everything that moved. He was stasis: "Nothing is going to change for a thousand years." For a moment, it was hard to breathe.
But only after living in the US for a while I realized how different he was from Western politicians. Western politicians depend on getting votes, so they are always smiling, shaking hands, picking up babies — courting the potential voters. Brezhnev couldn’t care less. His immobile face was the face of absolute power.
And given what we know from history, that’s also the face of absolute evil.
No, I am not saying that Brezhnev was like Hitler. Rather, Brezhnev stood for a system in which no lives matter, and individuality is to be crushed in favor of collective obedience and mouthing of slogans.
*
Time for a detox:
”Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring." ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*
“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.
Organizations for writers palliate
the writer’s loneliness
but I doubt if they improve his writing.
He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness
and often his work deteriorates.
For he does his work alone
and if he is a good enough writer
he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”
~ Ernest Hemingway’s 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech
*
INSANE THINGS ABOUT GAZA
I was told that a friend had been to three Hamas bases. I asked him what he means by a base? Like a building they call a base?
Nope. He said Hamas has full army bases equipped with everything a normal base has including obstacle courses, shooting ranges, and more. They’re all over Gaza.
I was also told that they could not walk three feet without seeing a tunnel opening. Gaza is absolutely covered with tunnel holes. I was told that Gaza is literally duplicated under ground.
I was told that every single house, EVERY one, had weapons hidden somewhere. They didn’t enter a single house without some weapons somewhere.
I was told that none of the Hamas terrorists wear uniforms. They are all dressed in civilian clothes so when they’re killed, Hamas can claim they were innocent.
I was told that we have no idea to what extent they use human shields. Hamas terrorists open fire on IDF soldiers with one hand, while holding an elderly lady with the other. This is their most popular tactic.
I was told that they have not met a single innocent civilian there and every single person, even those who pretend they’re innocent in the beginning, are somehow connected to Hamas. Everyone there supports Hamas. [Oriana: Or else they are afraid to say anything against it. It's a rule of terror.]
I was told that there are days in which the IDF eliminates hundreds of terrorists.
I was told that it is widely known that if (when) Israel enters Rafah, it’s all over for Hamas. Everyone knows that hundreds, maybe thousands of them are hiding in Rafah hoping the world manages to stop the IDF from going in there. They’re banking on that.
I was told they keep finding books, from children books to text books, describing the history of the Jews, and general information about Jews explaining why they should be killed.
I was told that when an IDF soldier is killed, everyone there celebrates. Somehow they all know about it within minutes and firecrackers are their main method of celebration. Firecrackers and firing guns into the air. And of course, candies. They love giving out candies when a Jew is murdered.
I was told that Hamas terrorists in Gaza are like athletes or movie stars in other places. They are absolute heroes to the Palestinian people who have pictures of them on their walls and describe them as total rock stars.
And finally, the doozy. I was told that on every single computer they find in people’s homes in Gaza, there is porn everywhere. Every single computer has porn on it. But get this, in addition to porn, every single house has sex artifacts all over the place. Sex toys, sexy outfits, and more. All over the place.
All in all, seems like a solid society they’ve built over there in Gaza…
Israel is dealing with some seriously twisted and morally depraved human beings who are told from age zero that Jews are nothing more than animals that deserve to be killed wherever they are.
This society is rotten to the core and needs to be denazified from the ground up. Anything else will just be a bandaid on a society that needs open heart surgery.
Oriana:
I’m pretty sure I copied this from Quora. Is every assertion here true? My intuitive impression is that most of this is true.
Religion is a form of insanity, especially when it is extreme. So is extreme nationalism. Combine the two, and you get nothing but insanity.
As for porn on every computer, that’s typical of those who live with sexually repressive religion.
Also, the high unemployment levels mean that young men have no outlet for their energies. Military and para-military organizations provide a sense of purpose and meaningful activity.
Mary: THE PROBLEM IS ISLAM
If everything reported about the insanity in Gaza is true and accurate, there are no innocents. And the West cannot understand this because it doesn't understand Islam. Islam is not a harmless peaceful religion, as some defenders try to assert. Basic to Islam is the intent to aggressively conquer the world and all its peoples, erase all infidels and forcibly convert whoever is left to Islam. Jews in particular cannot be converted but must be eradicated entirely. Their genocide is called for as a sacred tenet. [“Kill them wherever you find them.”]
The West doesn't understand this — doesn't see, or want to see, that a religion can be evil in its basic prescriptions, leading to evil acts being construed as good, holy, and necessary. The horrors of October 7th were CELEBRATED with demonic glee by the Gazans, who were PROUD of Hamas' barbarism, delighted to witness the horrors so carefully and gleefully recorded by the perpetrators. If you will remember, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were celebrated in the same way, with wild abandon, praise to Allah, fireworks and candies and dancing in the streets.
We see civilians dying, children starving, and want to stop these immediately. Slaughter of the innocents is unacceptable to us. But this is all another tactic of Hamas, allowing them to continue in their genocidal purpose, by winning cease fires, for instance, that allow them to re-group and re-arm. What "the insanity in Gaza" shows is that there are no civilians — the whole populace, without uniforms, is part of the fighting force, supporting the extremists acts and ambitions.
This is something we in the West find almost impossible to credit, and impossible to contend against. We see the children, the infants, as innocents we are not willing to sacrifice as necessary collateral damage. However, Hamas does not concur. For them, the cost of genocide is willingly, even eagerly paid. Not only do they not shrink from the suffering and death of so many, they see it as fodder for their own propaganda.
Islam is the problem here, and we don't want to admit it. We don't want to be "Islamophobic," to appear to be prejudiced against any cultural or religious group. But I would argue that just as there can be evil dehumanizing ideologies so there can be evil dehumanizing religions. Think of the bloodthirsty gods of the Aztecs and the gross barbarity of their rituals...rivers of blood, mountains of sculls.
Islam not only dehumanizes Jews, it dehumanizes women, shuns scientific inquiry, and is perversely obsessive about sex. Its laws themselves are barbaric tribalism, like honor killings...anathema in the civilized world. All religions and all cultures are not equally valuable and worthy of honor, or even tolerance. The division between primitive tribalism and modern secular civilizations can only grow wider and more challenging the longer tribal culture is given legitimacy without change.
What can bring change at this depth and scale I don't know..but I'm sure it will neither be quick nor easy.
Oriana:
Italy, Germany, France, and the UK have a serious problem with their Muslim populations. Islam doesn’t tolerate other cultures; it wants to coerce everyone to convert to Islam.
If we are lucky, time will bring about a significant drop in oil prices, and thus less financial support to the imams and their indoctrination programs. This will certainly not happen tomorrow, but, if we are lucky, within our lifetime. Secularism and modernity go hand in hand.
As with the Christianity of our childhood, we may get nostalgic now and then about the beautiful music and art. We may admire the Gothic cathedrals. But deep down we know that religion does more harm than good, and this is especially true of Islam. Let’s be vocal about it every chance we get. I know this will be difficult since America in particular still can’t wrap its collective mind about the idea that religion — any religion, not only Islam — does more harm than good.
Apologists quickly point out to religious charities. No, these do not offset the harm, and besides, their positive works could be done by secular organizations. Ethics can be taught to the young in the secular context, using the golden rule for instance, rather than the carrot-and-stick inducements of religion. It’s the development of empathy that matters, and that appears to have close connection with non-abusive child rearing — not the harsh punishments advocated by the Islamic clerics.
*
LONGING FOR AUSCHWITZ [WARNING: disturbing descriptions]
Hamas’ assault on Israelis on Oct. 7 was not an act of war as we normally think of it but something far worse. We don’t have an adequate term for what occurred on that day, so people use words like “terrorism,” “barbarism,” “atrocity,” “depravity,” “massacre,” and so on. All are correct, and yet all fall short of capturing the annihilationist fury set loose at the Nova music festival and in the kibbutzim and small towns of southern Israel. The people attacked in those places were not only to die, but to die in torment.
In addition to the merciless torture, killings, slashings, burnings, beheadings, mutilations, dismemberments, and kidnappings, there were gang-rapes and other forms of sadistic sexual assault, including, according to some reports, the cutting off of women’s breasts, nails driven into women’s thighs and groins, bullets fired into their vaginas, and even intercourse with female corpses. Unimaginable? For most normal people, yes. But before going into Israel, the Hamas assassins were instructed to “dirty them” and “whore them.” And that’s precisely what many of them faithfully did.
If it were possible to encapsulate all the evil of that day in a single image, it would be that of the violent seizure of a young Israeli woman, Naama Levy, 19, barefoot, beaten, and bloodied, her hands tied behind her back, the crotch of her sweatpants heavily soiled, possibly from being raped, dragged by her hair at gunpoint into a Hamas car, and driven off to Gaza to suffer an unspeakable fate among her captors there. Her assailants filmed every second of her ordeal; and as one watches the clips of her being taken away, one sees crowds nearby loudly shouting “Allahu Akbar”—“Allah is the greatest”—a victory cry that offers religious sanction to the malign treatment of Naama Levy and countless others seized, slaughtered, and abducted on that horrific day.
Oct. 7, 2023 was the most destructive day of mass violence against Jews since the end of the Holocaust. The carnage carried out on that day, far from being a by-product of war, was a religiously sanctioned, orgiastic display of unrestrained Jew-hatred. One cannot begin to understand it if one ignores the Hamas Charter and other Islamist teachings that make Hamas the organization it is and inspires it to do what it does.
Hamas originates as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is and always has been a jihadist organization, which sees the existence of the State of Israel as an intolerable intrusion into the Domain of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and is committed to removing Israel by whatever means necessary.
The preamble to the Hamas Charter declares that “Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam obliterates it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The “Palestinian problem,” it affirms, “is a religious problem” and is not amenable to a negotiated political settlement. The only way to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” is through “jihad,” a holy war that is a “duty for every Muslim wherever he may be.”
Hamas and its allies are not looking for a two-state solution but a repeat of the Final Solution. Their brutally successful killing spree on Oct. 7 was an extravagant rehearsal for that larger goal, a genocidal one.
*
There will be no Jewish future worthy the name without the State of Israel. At present, something like 47% of world Jewry lives in Israel. That’s almost one out of every two Jews alive. Were Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and their allies ever to succeed in liquidating Israel, the loss would be immeasurable and irrecoverable. Most Jews still alive elsewhere would be physically imperiled, psychologically traumatized, and spiritually enervated to the point of collapse.
That might have been the Jewish condition after the Holocaust, were it not for Israel’s founding only three years after the liberation of the death camps—an act of collective revival that demonstrated a level of national resilience and spiritual rebirth almost without parallel in history. But far from recognizing the Jewish people’s reestablishment of national independence and political sovereignty in its ancient homeland in positive terms, some of Israel’s neighbors have seen the existence of the Jewish state as an intolerable affront that needs to be reversed.
Hamas set out to reverse it as forcefully as possible on Oct. 7. Its murderous deeds on that day were meant to debase and kill Jews and rally others to collectively put an end to the Jewish state, a strategic objective that recalls some memorable words of the Hungarian Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertész: “The antisemite of our age no longer loathes Jews; he wants Auschwitz.”
Today’s most passionate antisemites continue to loathe Jews and, for that very reason, want Auschwitz. If Israelis were not fully aware of those hateful passions before Oct. 7, they surely know them now. They also know that one Holocaust is one too many and are committed to doing whatever they must to make sure there will not be a repeat. They need and deserve all the support we can give them.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/longing-for-auschwitz
Oriana:
The West still has to fully understand that militant Islamists don't care about Gazans. What they want is to destroy Israel. The price for this murderous intent is very high. The resources that could be used to better the lives of Palestinians are used to purchase weapons.
Joe:
The main threat to Israel is indeed the terrorists in the Middle East. However, that is not the entire picture. Journalists need to consider how Netanyahu’s management of the Gaza War endangers Israelis as well as Jews around the world, especially in the long term. It is not only the Muslim Nationalists that threaten Israel, but the Christian Nationalists with whom Netanyahu has allied himself.
To ignore the dark, Jewish-Christian history is to imperil the tolerance that most Jews live today. Yet, journalists ignore this history, which has had peaks and troughs since Christians began persecuting the Jews soon after Constantinople made Christianity the religion of Rome. One of the peaks came in 1050 CE during the Inquisition. The church did not consider Jews and Muslims heretics and forbade the Inquisitors from prosecuting them.
However, the byproduct was that Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Christianity were tortured and murdered.
The next peak came during the Crusades. Christian armies invaded the Holy Land. Their purpose was to return it to Christian control by driving the Muslims out. The Jews in the Holy Land received the option of converting or facing torture and death.
Netanyahu’s allies include Holocaust deniers, the ex-president of the US, Donald Trump, the current prime minister of Hungary, Orban, the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, and Putin. These leaders may not be church-goers, but their supporters are Eastern Orthodox and Christian Nationalists. They want to bring about the Second Coming of Christ, and they believe that for this to occur, Israel must establish its Old Testament borders.
These groups believe the entire country will voluntarily recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and the Second Coming of Christ will begin once Israel reclaims the territory. 40% of American Christians believe these two events will happen by 2050. History tells us that when Jews do not voluntarily convert to Christianity, they endure torture and murder. Thus, the security of Israel is in jeopardy because its allies are friends with a dark agenda.
Oriana:
Alas, the most insane branch is Christianity will probably be the last to go — and I don’t mean disappear completely, but just dwindle enough to cease to be a threat. And radical Islam might last even longer than the most extreme Christianity. We know that persecuting a religion usually fails to eliminate it; it might even strengthen it.
I put my hope in education. The more children learn about other religions and mythologies, the more the most intelligent among them will come to see all religions as a human creation, and the less susceptible they will become to the blindly obeying religious leaders. I also fully favor deportation and other punishments for clergymen who preach hatred and especially murder. The message that this is not acceptable must be loud and widespread.
Greater equality for women should also be encouraged. Educated women will educate their children.
*
ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS: GIVE UP RELIGIOUS DREAMS TO RESTORE SANITY
Rabbi Ibtisam:
Several things need to happen that currently seem very unlikely:
1) A certain part of the Jewish population (not a majority, but sizable enough) needs to give up its stupid dream of wanting to settle the entire West Bank because of some messianic fantasy. We don’t need every square inch of ancient Judea to survive and it wasn’t part of the original plan, although some Zionists, usually the radicals among them, have always harbored this dream. Mainstream Zionism, however, has always been pragmatic and amenable to compromise, a word to which Arabs are allergic.
2) The vast majority of Palestinians need to give up their dreams of committing genocide against the Jews, abandon radical Islam and terrorism, disarm Gaza, and give up their delusions about a right of return. There is no right of return. A right of return will destroy Israel and they know it, and that is why it cannot be accepted, and if anyone ever tried to impose it, it’s just going to lead to another ethnic cleansing of Arabs, which no one wants. We. Do. Not. Mix. Well. See Lebanon, see Yugoslavia. People don’t magically get along when they hate each other’s guts.
3) Iran and some Arab states need to stop fueling the conflict and start helping actual “Palestinian refugees” live normal lives wherever they are. Keeping them as prisoners in camps until Israel is eradicated has so far done far worse to them than us just existing for 75 years.
Julea Baccam: THE PROBLEM IS ISLAM
There can be no peace with Islam….it's either submit or fight. Who would submit to such a warlord dictatorship?
I do not think peace is possible unless Islam changes its Supremacy teachings. What are the odds of that? Sad that all old “Palestine” is now invaded and ruled by Islam. But that is was their goal & their goal for the world. Peace with Islam/Israel is the least of the world problem. Islam is the problem. If they take Israel, all the rest of the world seems very possible for them. Meanwhile, they work on Nigeria, Uganda, India, France, Sweden etc.
Mike Siroky:
Israel's goal remained to survive as a Jewish state. The Arabs goal remained to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. But Israel moved to the right and after Menachem Begin, adopted a Zionism more akin to Jabotinsky [of the “Iron Wall” fame]. Israel became more proudly Jewish and less willing to compromise its security. Meanwhile the Palestinian Arabs became more proudly Muslim and adopted the Jihadist model of governance and war (see Hamas). Both sides moved to the right.
Since both sides, Israel and the Arabs, have become more true to their identities, one can look upon the situation as either less hopeful or more hopeful for a resolution. The cup is either half full or half empty. Only time will tell.
Giora Bendor: THE CULTURE OF DEATH VERSUS THE CULTURE OF LIFE
A culture of death does not mix well with a culture of life. Fanaticism on both sides is bad for coexistence. However, if the educational system of hate teaching is changed, then in forty or so years, there may be a chance for real peace.
Oriana:
IF. Yes, if only hate stopped being taught, starting at an early age.
*
DO RUSSIANS BELIEVE THEIR STATE TV?
And it doesn’t matter that the things that Russian leaders say are contradictory. Russians are masters of cognitive dissonance.
— We are not at war with the Ukrainian people, but only with the fascists.
— And who are the fascists?
— All of you. All Ukrainians.
— We do not have plans to occupy Ukraine.
— And what do you plan to occupy?
— All the land to the border with Poland.
— We respect the independence of Ukraine. But Ukraine must cease to exist.
During his visit to the Stavropol region, Putin shared valuable intel with the Russians: people who live abroad soon would be eating worms.
And then he blamed the USA for the collapse of food production in Russia in the 1990s.
Putin said that humanitarian aid supplies sent by the USA after the crash of the USSR, when stores were empty and Russians had nothing to eat, killed the domestic producers. “The other side of seemingly good intentions,” accused Putin.
Well, at least now you know: after the collapse of Putin’s regime, there is no need to help Russia — they don’t appreciate any help. ~ Elena Gold
*
PUTIN OR DOUBLE?
There seems to be something off about this version of Putin. He looks too soft, too kind. He looks like someone who hasn’t killed anyone.
Also, we know that Putin is paranoid, and fears being among ordinary people (other than vetted actors and/or FSB agents dressed as soldiers, workers, or whatever the situation calls for)
*
WHY THE ISLAMIC WORLD FELL BEHIND THE WEST
1. During the Crusades, Western crusaders took Arabic writings back to Europe to translate and learn from them. The Muslims were not interested in Western writings, in part because of their firm reliance upon the Koran and its strictures on the exclusion of other writings and because of their cultural superiority at the time. The transfer of knowledge tended to be one way.
2. Some Islamic rulers antagonized the Mongols by killing their ambassadors or trade representatives as spies. The Mongols retaliated in force, destroying the Khwarezmian Empire and later most of Baghdad, slaughtering many hundreds of thousands, destroying libraries, and devastating Islamic lands and infrastructure.
3. Europe was continually fighting wars in Europe, honing their military skills and prompting improvements in metallurgy, naval technology, and weapons. The early Caliphates and Ottoman Empire dominated the core Islamic regions and did not devolve into discreet nations with defensible borders or permit the evolution of governments within the Ottoman Empire.
4. Western kingdoms and empires colonized throughout the world, gaining valuable trade opportunities and building navies. Western commerce gave birth to industrialization.
5. Portugal found a sea route to bypass most of the Islamic world and establish direct ties to India, Southern Asia, and the Pacific islands. Other European powers followed Portugal in this direction. Muslim and Ottoman reduction of the Eastern Roman Empire was the conquest of a decaying power.
6. Islamic countries rarely established colonies or had much presence in the New World. The Islamic world looked inward after the initial vigorous Muslim conquests, while the Western world often looked outward.
7. The West was more advanced in the creation of universities. Although Islamic countries led in science before 1300 A.D., many Islamic scholars studied the Koran, in Arabic, not scientific literature written in many different languages. Western cultures eventually encouraged printing presses and widespread literacy. Islam was often limited to Arabic, more difficult to print, whereas Europe had many languages. Books other than the Koran and in non-Arabic languages were relatively rare in the Islamic world. The Ottoman Empire banned the printing press except for printing the Koran.
8. The Ottoman Empire and previous Caliphates stifled the development of nationalism and legal and banking systems, which European nations promoted, producing greater commercial, political, and military competition among Western nation-states.
9. European nations developed more mature political and governmental institutions and systems, including constitutional monarchies and the election of representatives. They were balanced by the Church, a separate institution, unlike most of Islam, which did not have a hierarchical structure or defined priesthood.
10. The more temperate climates of the West were usually more conducive to economic development than the more sub-tropical and desert climates of the Islamic world. Europe possesses many harbors and long coastlines. Europe fronted the Atlantic Ocean, Baltic, and Mediterranean, while Islam was centered on the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. The Fertile Crescent conquered by Islam suffered from salinization of the soil after millennia of irrigation.
11. Islamic countries always did a much better job of reducing or eliminating alcoholism, alcohol use, and theft offenses than did the West. This enforced moral superiority allowed Muslims to continue thinking of themselves as generally superior to the West.
12. Advancing Western powers developed the inclusive rule of law, which the Islamic world never did. Islamic women were tightly constrained and not free to fully participate in public, commercial, educational, and civic activities.
13. By the time most Muslims figured out that the Islamic world was behind the West in many aspects of science, technology, naval architecture, weaponry, government, and nationalism, it was too late to catch up quickly. Then, the pace of technological change increased exponentially, and it was virtually impossible to make up the difference. To this day, the Islamic world has very few research scientists compared to the West, Japan, and China. ~ John Dewar Gleissner, Quora
Marc Clamage:
The Mongols not only destroyed Baghdad, including the ancient library known as the House of Wisdom (they say the Tigris first ran red with the blood of 800,000 slaughtered civilians, then black with ink from the House of Wisdom), they also sabotaged key elements in the irrigation system which kept the Fertile Crescent fertile; that, along with the lack of people to maintain the canals due to depopulation, permanently ended the agricultural basis for any expansive Arab civilization. What was once among the most productive farmland on the planet was reduced to today's wasteland of scrub and desert.
The Mongol invasion of 1258 was an existential disaster from which the Arabs have never recovered.
Soumyadipta:
Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors. Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several decades and only gradually recovered some of its former glory.
Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using their leather covers as sandals. Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. The House of Wisdom (the Grand Library of Baghdad), containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Claims have been made that the Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed. Images of violence toward books appear in the 14th century; the tale of the destruction of books – tossed into the Tigris such that the water turned black from the ink – seems to originate from the 16th century. Michal Biran argues that this story was likely a literary trope to demonstrate Mongol barbarity.
Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed in abundance, sparing no one, not even children. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died. The Mongols in 1262 boasted to king Louis IX of France that they had killed two million in Baghdad, certainly an exaggeration.
The caliph Al-Musta'sim was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth would be offended if it were touched by royal blood.
Hulagu had to move his camp upwind of the city, due to the stench of decay from the ruined city.
The historian David Morgan has quoted Wassaf (who himself was born in 1265, seven years after the razing of the city) describing the destruction: "They swept through the city like hungry falcons attacking a flight of doves, or like raging wolves attacking sheep, with loose reins and shameless faces, murdering and spreading terror...beds and cushions made of gold and encrusted with jewels were cut to pieces with knives and torn to shreds. Those hiding behind the veils of the great Harem were dragged...through the streets and alleys, each of them becoming a plaything...as the population died at the hands of the invaders.”
Some modern historians have cast doubt on the vehemently anti-Mongol medieval sources. George Lane (SOAS), for example, doubts the Grand Library was destroyed, as the learned members of the Mongol command such as Nasir al-Din Tusi would not have allowed it, and that disease was the major cause of death. Primary sources state that Tusi saved thousands of volumes and installed them into a building in Marāgheh.
Initially, the fall of Baghdad came as a shock to the whole Muslim world. But after many years of utter devastation, the city gradually became an economic center where international trade, the minting of coins and religious affairs flourished under the succeeding Ilkhanate. The Mongol chief Darughachi was thereafter stationed in the city.
Andy McNish:
The Ottomans didn't permit the printing press to be used for much else than printing copies of the Koran. This severely limited the spread of new ideas and knowledge throughout the Empire.
There is also the larger matter of Islam’s rejection of secularity. All aspects of society are subordinate and subject to religious doctrine. And, certainly post golden age, this fed into the idea that all knowledge someone needed was to be found in the Koran. Not likely to be the most fertile ground for intellectual curiosity and embracing of the Scientific Revolution.
Janos:
There’s an answer on Quora arguing for the importance of glasses. Europeans mastered lenses while Arabs did not; therefore an Arab scientist with worsening eyesight (=most middle-aged) more or less became irrelevant, while an European just had glasses made and continued reading and writing (=working). Some scientists, of course, manage to go on even completely blind, but for the bulk of learned men and therefore general progress, it’s a serious obstacle.
Cyrus di Leon:
Which is fascinating considering that a Muslim named Ibn Al Haythem invented the Science of Optics.
Derek Egan:
To put the emphasis on Holy Scripture or the Quaran leads to stagnation. Science has rewarded us with a standard of living that nudges religion to a less than meaningful role in life.
Tom Sigado:
It's a generalization, and an unsupported hunch, but tribalism seems to be a limiting factor to growth and advancement. It seems that when Nations are formed, civilization moves forward, while tribal culture stagnates. North and South America come to mind before Europeans arrived. Feudal Europe before the Renaissance, Africa, Afghanistan. Competing nations had to pull resources from different groups and backgrounds, where tribal culture was more inward. The religious aspect, Islam and Mayan culture for example, more or less formed a massive tribe instead of a diverse population.
Paul Wellingslongmore:
I agree that an obsession with the Koran has cost the Muslim world dearly. Their overriding priority has clearly been to learn their bible and abide by its teachings, as best they can. Perhaps they have sacrificed their scientific and industrial potential, because in their view submission to Allah is always the highest priority.
Over the past 400 years some have seen the military, economic and industrial downside to this approach and sought to correct the balance. The Ottomans spent their last 100 years frantically trying, without success, to make amends — socially, culturally, scientifically. But it was too little too late.
Many Muslims today console themselves (perhaps delude themselves), that modern science is not antithetical to the teachings of The Prophet, and that the Koran contains all the science one needs, including much contemporary empirical knowledge about cosmology and embryology, only recently discovered in the West.
Islam was spared the horrors that accompanied the Reformation, but in a sense has ever since suffered as a result.
Alpel Karaka:
After reaching prosperity European populations grew very fast while Ottomans suffering from population decline. This ultimately reflected on their military power as they had to fight much bigger armies they used to encountering. This reflected their war revenues as well. As a result they couldn’t fund the technologies requiring big sums of money. That was the turning point. Yet they were still in the status of a super power up until to the mid 18th century until to the death of Sultan Mahmud I.
Saul Martino:
Islam’s absolutist and tyrannical religious authority overrides everything in favor of a religion that refuses to change as Muhammad himself had identified that updates and changes had been made to Christianity and to Judaism in the New Testament and in the transcribing of the Torah and other parts of the Jewish religion.
This unwillingness to bend compromise or rationalize anything was important in maintaining and stopping loss through apostasy or changing from the fundamentalist view of Islam which has its benefits but one of those negative parts of the trade-off is that they are unable to change as a society. This continues to this day where they cannot compromise they cannot change because the religion is too dominant over there entire lifestyle and it suffers no discussion or commentary or criticism whatsoever and will quash any dissenting voices violently. This also usually attracts huge levels of mob violence pretty quickly. It's very hard to innovate under these conditions.
Susanna Viljanen:
14. Women. Westerners treated women like human beings. Muslims treated (and still treat them) like something in-between domestic animals and furniture. Such society can never produce healthy families, which are the basis of the civil society, but will remain as a tribal culture.
Abdihakim Jama:
States in the Middle East generally do not have a lot of legitimacy. They were drawn up by imperial powers and the states generally use a lot of their money and manpower trying to control their populations who feel no loyalty to the state.
The Gulf states have largely circumvented this problem by bribing their populations with oil. If they did not have oil, they would have been thrown into civil war long ago.
Another reason for the lack of development is oil itself. That resource makes it feasible for states to exist without harnessing their populations. 2 out of 3 Saudi Arabians are employed by the government. According to civil service minister Khaled Alaraj, many Saudi government employees are really only working for an hour each day.
Saudi Arabians have really wasted their potential and are not employed in any meaningful capacity. Almost half (45%) of the government budget of Saudi Arabia is spent on paying salaries for all the people they employ on cushy but ultimately worthless jobs.
I assume that this is the same for basically all oil states in the Middle East.
There are good reasons for the lack of development of Arab/Islamic states but I think your argument is very low on the list. After all, nothing is actually stopping religious societies from becoming successful. Much of Europe was religious and they they became so successful that they dominated the world pretty much.
Arab societies have always been religious and they were the dominant power on the globe for many centuries.
Gregory N:
Western scientific and technological progress frequently was in spite of opposition from the Church authorities. The entire concept of scientific PROOF is anathema to religions that are founded on belief and faith where there is no proof. If the Koran states that there are 300 joints in the human body and medical science says that is wrong, what will be taught in Islamic madrassas?
Oriana:
Another geographical factor was that, not having to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, rougher by far than the Indian Ocean. The Muslim world did not develop heavy-duty ships. European ship designers faced the challenged of building ships strong enough to survive a storm in the Atlantic. This also taught them to design big armored military ships that proved useful for colonial conquest.
Indicus:
I believe the Muslim world was on its own path to a Renaissance/rational awakening similar to Europe which was cut short by the Mongol invasion. The outcome is clear for all the world to see.
Some of the most brutal Islamic invasions and cultural devastations of non-Muslims occurred after the Mongols retreated. Political Islam in the modern era probably is a byproduct of the cultural shift in the post-Mongol era that occurred centuries ago.
Abdihakim Yama:
Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science — The New Atlantis — The most significant factor was physical and geopolitical. As early as the tenth or eleventh century, the Abbasid empire began to factionalize and fragment due to increased provincial autonomy and frequent uprisings. By 1258, the little that was left of the Abbasid state was swept away by the Mongol invasion. And in Spain, Christians reconquered Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248. But the Islamic turn away from scholarship actually preceded the civilization’s geopolitical decline — it can be traced back to the rise of the anti-philosophical Ash’arism school among Sunni Muslims, who comprise the vast majority of the Muslim world.
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IS RUSSIA ON ITS WAY TO BECOME AN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?
~ According to official demographic results for 2023, only 1.264 million babies were born in Russia.
Fewer babies were born only in 1999 after the severe economic crises of the previous year — 1.214 million children. This was the absolute minimum since the Great Patriotic War (WW2) that caused deaths of thirty million Soviets.
However, this number hides the unrecognized truth — Russian women give birth to one child per lifetime while wives of migrant workers from Central Asian have three children on average.
There are now more Muslims in Yekaterinburg, a large regional center in the Urals, than in Marseilles.
This is the result of the record low number of babies in 1999 who grew up and twenty four years later still haven’t had that many children because the average age of marriage is 28 trending towards 30. You just can’t win in this game of musical chairs.
Therefore, without migrants from Central Asian “stan” republics, whose menial labor keeps Russian economy afloat the dire situation for the native population is comparable to mass famines and political purges of the 1930s.
Putin is actively making matters worse in the best Stalinist tradition and has already killed approximately 75,000 Russian men in Ukraine and forced a million people to leave the country.
Putin keeps asking Russians to have more babies but they as usual so exactly the opposite. He should have asked Russians to STOP having babies and then they would have more babies than migrant women to punish kleptocrats for wishing to genocide them because in Russia, birthrates rate YOU.
The silver lining is six hundred thousand conscripts born last year ready to fight Nazis in 2041, on the 100th anniversary of Great Patriotic War.
However, by the that time weaponry will be considerably more lethal and the next Putin will quickly run through the available biofuel and belatedly realize that there are no Russians left. They had all been expended by generations of Russians commanders with their meat attack tactics.
When Russian population is reduced to about 20 million, the authorities will recognize that the true value is not natural resources under the ground but infinitely resourceful human beings who live on the surface. ~ Misha Firer, Quora
Muslim praying in the streets of Moscow
Joshua Moran:
There are nearly 400,000 casualties, though. Maybe only 75k dead, but many of those that survived, are permanently maimed (mentally and physically)… and plenty are criminals that are out early, damaged from war, and adding more ills. I can’t imagine the brain drain is doing anything good, long term, either. Slava Ukraini.
Jan Veselý:
75 000 according to Russian officials, 400 000 dead according to independent sources.
Philippe S:
Don’t forget the 1 000 000+ young and usually bright Russians that fled the country since 2022 probably to never come back.
James G:
Again, the parallels with modern day America, each time I read one of these is, is nothing short of amazing.
1.2m births in a population of 144m in Russia (.8%)
In America, it’s 3.66m births in a population of 350m (1%)
So while technically America gives birth to more children than Russia, only by a very very small margin per capita — and 2023 was a banner year for childbirth in America — the first year in almost a decade with such high birth rates. Conversely, thanks to the Ukraine war, Russia’s population has declined.
Additionally, like Russia, at least 800,000 births in America come from legal/illegal immigrants. Our native population is being replaced.
One last point I would like to make. The West will never die. However, all of the western leftists would love nothing more than to convert us from our current constitutional republic into something very much resembling Soviet Russia.
Rich Ens:
Slightly more boys than girls are born each year. However, in the age 65 and up cohort, there are 225 women for every 100 men.
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GENERATIONS: THE HISTORY OF AMERICA’S FUTURE
~ Every generation is influenced by unique cultural events.
The resulting ideological differences lead to recurring crises, conflicts, and reconstructions.
It’s a compelling and marketable idea, but not without its flaws.
Ever heard of the phrase, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times”? Chances are you have. This catchy warning about the cyclical nature of history can be found in the most unlikely of places: internet memes, inspirational posters, and even embroidered onto sets of Etsy cushions.
Although generally attributed to author G. Michael Hopf’s post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Remain, the underlying idea probably originated with a 1991 book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. Written by William Strauss, a playwright, and Neil Howe, a historian and senior associate for the Global Aging Initiative’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Generations argues the development of human civilization is heavily affected by and even mirrors the transition between different generations of human beings.
According to the so-called Strauss-Howe hypothesis, as their train of thought is now known, history can be roughly divided into periods of 80 to 100 years. In each period, four generations compete for power, resulting in a crisis moment followed by radical social and political reconstruction. In the case of the U.S., such crisis points include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Second World War.
Aside from having at least some precedent in the field of sociology, the Strauss-Howe hypothesis or simply generational theory also appeals to common sense. Each generation is shaped by unique events and challenges, so it follows that their values would influence the events of their day. At the same time, the theory has drawn its fair share of criticism, with many claiming it’s more science fiction than science.
WEIGHT OF ANCESTORS
Although the topic has only attracted attention from scholars in recent decades, people have been talking about the importance of generations since the days of ancient Greece. When, in Homer’s Iliad, the Greek warrior Diomedes asks his Trojan foe Glaucus who he is, the latter doesn’t mention his age, sex, profession, or place of origin — instead, he gives a comprehensive overview of his entire family tree.
“Greathearted son of Tydeus,” he tells the Greek:
“Why do you question my lineage
As is the generation of leaves, so too of men:
At one time the wind shakes the leaves to the ground,
But then the flourishing woods
Give birth, and the season of spring comes into existence;
So it is of the generations of men, which come forth and pass away.”
Compared to the Christian Europe of medieval times, which emphasized the individual’s responsibility to live a morally upright life and enter heaven, the Homeric Greeks saw themselves first and foremost as the product of their forefathers, the fruits of their ancestry evident in their very person.
Even if they don’t accept every tenet of the Strauss-Howe hypothesis, many sociologists accept generation as one of the key factors explaining sociocultural change. In doing so, they follow the example of Karl Mannheim, a Hungarian scholar who argued generations are defined not by birthdays, but shared experiences that influence one’s values. Mannheim also argued that, for a generation to manifest, its members needed to actively acknowledge the experiences that influenced them — through books, news reporting, and other means of cultural production. It’s the same with self-fulfilling prophecies, really; only when a group recognizes itself as a group does it begin to act as one.
Of course, it’s one thing to say generations are shaped by history, and another to say they shape history in turn. And while academics are happy to admit that first bit, they continue to have strong doubts about the second.
PROBLEMS WITH THE STRAUSS-HOWE HYPOTHESIS
To some, generational theory is no more than pseudo-historicism blown out of proportion by the media, no more reliable than, say, the Phantom Time hypothesis, which makes the outrageous claim that Holy Roman Emperor Otto III added three centuries to the Gregorian calendar to make his own reign coincide with the year 1000 AD. (That’s another story, though.)
One of the biggest problems with the Strauss-Howe hypothesis is that generations are a subjective measurement, one that requires researchers to make gross generalizations about the individuals they study. It also operates on the questionable assumption, as the Forbes journalist Jessica Kriegel puts it, “that cultural events determine personality more than life experience and circumstance,” a claim many sociologists readily debate.
Strauss and Howe’s notably unacademic backgrounds should also ring some alarm bells. Bestselling writers first and scholars second, the duo has arguably masked their lack of expertise behind language compelling and marketable enough to turn Generations into a kind of media empire: the ninth book in the series, The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End, was released last year.
There are other problems. Generational theory holds that people’s worldview and behavior — decided by the era in which they were born — remain static throughout their lives. This is, of course, not the case, with numerous studies showing that things like religion, political beliefs, sexual preference, and even personality can change over a person’s lifetime.
Furthermore, Strauss and Howe’s aspiration to apply their hypothesis on a global scale ignores the undeniable fact that generations — if there even is such a thing as a generation — form at different times in different countries and cultures, making it impossible to summarize world history by lining up randomly selected grandsons, sons, fathers, and grandfathers.
The fourth turning
The terms of the Strauss-Howe hypothesis are vague enough to the point that anyone can cherrypick evidence and create a persuasive narrative around them. That said, Strauss and Howe’s is pretty persuasive. Their assessment of the four generations that make up American society (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and the Baby Boomers), for instance, goes as follows:
The Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, grew up in a time of nearly uninterrupted economic growth, making them both optimistic and idealistic.
Gen X (1965-1980), raised during the hardships of the oil crisis, turned against the capitalist-consumerist culture their parents embraced, forming countercultures.
Gen Y (that is, Millennials, 1982-1994) was born during another period of financial security, one that coincided with the advent of the digital world. The comfortable, sheltered environment in which they grew up, Howe says in The Fourth Turning — an environment of Apple computers, Power Rangers cartoons, and a collapsing Soviet hegemony — made them self-assured, attention-seeking, and perfectionistic — qualities that, in the far less secure world we call home today, manifest as stress, burnout, and generalized anxiety disorder.
According to Howe, Millennials will soon upend the conservative order put in place by the Baby Boomers, transforming the country in much the same way as the Revolutionary War or Civil War have done before.
Time will tell if Strauss and Howe are right.
https://bigthink.com/the-past/strauss-howe-generational-theory-revolution-america/
Oriana:
The way that young people seem glued to their iPhones, I can hardly seem them engaging in political action. And then there is the enormous cloud of ignorance and misinformation suffocating the country. Still, technology marches on. I suspect it's technology that is the critical factor. There is the need for new competencies, and the young are more adept at acquiring those competencies.
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ANOTHER LOOK AT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The French aristocracy pre-Revolution weren't the careless, luxurious bastards cruelly lording over everyone as they are made out to be. This is demonstrated most perfectly by the fact that many of the most prominent revolutionaries were, themselves, noblemen.
In the same vein, Louis XVI wasn't overthrown because he was a tyrant. He was overthrown because he was NOT a tyrant. If anything he was friendly, indecisive and soft-willed, more so than his war-minded predecessors Louis XV and Louis XIV. The Kings before him stayed reasonably popular. By going to war a lot and spending obscene amounts of money that would ultimately lead to the Kingdom's downfall, these rulers were generally rather respected by much of the population. Much like with the last Tsar of Russia, the King who ended up losing his head to the guillotine was a pretty chill, open-minded fellow open to reforms.
There’s this stereotype of these lavishly spoiled big spenders in powdered wigs, Marie-Antoinette telling the hungry should just “go eat cake”, completely removed from reality… and truthfully, this is bullshit. A ton of noblemen were social reformers, generous to the poor, conscientious and cared deeply for the common man. The revolutionaries who took over, quite a few of them were blue-blooded themselves. And were far worse than the elites they ended up killing. ~ Jean-Marie Valheur, Quora
Monica Mendez:
Wow, Jean! I never knew that since my school history text book and all the history books that I have read so far gave me the impression that all the revolutionaries who spearheaded the French Revolution either belonged to the middle class or the lower classes. Thanks for making me learn something new today. If what you said is true, my conviction that history is always the story of the victors has been strengthened. While I was reading this answer, I am reminded of the quote of a prominent African writer Chinua Achebe: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will always glorify the hunter.”
Atanas Arnaudov:
Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette make rather poor villains — a kind-hearted and deeply religious couple who clearly were devoted to each other and helped the poor and the victims of natural disasters.
Really shows you how good Republican propaganda was too, but no one outside of Paris despised them.
Michael Terrell:
Most of the leaders of the revolution weren’t noblemen. Instead, they were merchants, bankers, and wealthy artisans who were upset with their lack of social standing among the aristocracy. Basically, the only people who benefited were the rich who weren’t nobles.
Romain Clère:
Louis XVI was a passive guy. He was not interested in governing. Actually he was a pretty good craftsman — he was very interested in locksmithing. He was not really a social reformer either.
Dimitar Reeves Koparov:
Interestingly, similar logic can be applied to the end of the Soviet Union. The leader that oversaw the end of it was the one most open to reform and softening of the oppression.
Duke Ganote:
In “A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court,” Mark Twain wrote:
~ There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. ~
Rob Ford:
Louis XVI spent excessively, almost bankrupting the country. And the revolution was based on a historical context in which the gap between the rich and the poor in France had widened to a ridiculous degree.
The revolution wasn't just a changing of the guard. It ended the feudal system that had dominated European societies for centuries, overthrew the monarchy, and established civil laws and fairer representation of a wide variety of people in the political system.
It was messy and brutal, but necessary. The societies in which we all live in the West would not exist without it and similar events.
For real-world alternatives, witness Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or Iran today. At least three of these four societies have had their revolutions too, but they ultimately replaced one kind of dictatorship with another, because the people of these nations had not progressed sufficiently through education to understand and implement a fair and democratic society. Saudi Arabia is undergoing its own soft revolution of a kind now, but it's debatable how far it will go, with a dictator who dismembers his critics still in power.
Luke Hathertone:
The Sun King lived in a different time, when the aristocracy and the divine right of kings was utterly unchallenged. Louis XVI lived at a time when the Age of Enlightenment had transformed the European intellectual class, which included many aristocrats, and the middle class was much larger and more educated as well.
And yes, Louis XIV was a strong king, despite his destructive warmongering. Louis XVI was the wrong combination of incompetent and weak, much like Nicholas II.
Alan Parsi:
Kingdom had become the thing of the past. This revolution would have happened regardless of who the king was. Louis XVI just made it easier by being kinder than his predecessors.
Arthur Short III:
The one thing a theoretically absolute monarchy cannot survive is a decent, indecisive, kindly monarch in a time of trouble and crisis. Louis XVI would have been happier being a locksmith than being king, and would probably have lived far longer as said locksmith.
Nick Daniels:
Volcano eruptions in Iceland around about that time caused a “nuclear winter” scenario with crop failures all over Western Europe. The food riots that erupted in France, particularly in Paris, were very hard to put down and contributed significantly to the French Revolution.
Shaun Hanlon:
It was never about cake, it was about revenge.
Guy Nutting:
The French revolution was not about the poor. It was reasonably well heeled people grabbing power from the most wealthy. It was underpinned by the Enlightenment, which probably meant little to a subsistence farmer in the Dordogne.
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SMALL PLEASURES CAN PROVIDE MOMENTS OF RAPTURE
~ Rapture is a delight that turns us both towards the object of attention and towards oneself, resulting in a sense of freedom.
One day last week, I woke having slept well. The whole day ahead was free, giving me the sense that its time stretched infinitely before me. It was cold outside, but an intense winter sun streamed through the bedroom windows when I opened the curtains. I had, for obscure reasons, or perhaps for no reason at all, an urgent need to listen to some music and so, having made myself some coffee, I put on Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op 44. And then, wanting something less exuberant, I listened to Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, which then led me back to the poem by Mallarmé, ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’ (1876), that had inspired Debussy’s piece. The poem, like much of Mallarmé’s work, depends heavily on the sounds, the touch, the taste in the mouth, of the French language, and evokes a deep sense of sensuality – a sensuality that is also the poem’s main theme. I spent many hours that day lingering over Mallarmé’s poem, allowing, as best I could, the words to seep into me – and that really was the sensation I had, as if the words were entering into my flesh.
The hours I spent that morning I would describe as moments of rapture. They revolved around an engagement with some wonderful works of art, but I certainly would not wish to claim that it is only in such engagement that we can experience moments of rapture. There are many ways in which we can, and a great deal of these concern an attention to the small things of life – such as, for example, the wonderful winter light pouring through my windows on the morning in question, which was certainly part of my feeling then. And there are no doubt many ways of understanding the notion of rapture, as there are of any complex human experience. But, as I would like to understand it, at least as a point of departure for reflection, rapture is a particular kind of pleasure or delight that turns us in two directions at the same time: towards the object of attention, in which we are wholly absorbed, and towards oneself in a heightened state of consciousness. And with this comes a sense of freedom or liberation.
The key example of this is the kind of abandonment we can experience in sexual love, the deepest of our pleasures: in the act of sex, one is wholly absorbed in the other person, lost in the delight and excitement of being with them; yet, at the same time, one is acutely conscious of oneself as delighting in this, of oneself as experiencing all this. In his wonderful novel G. (1972), John Berger brings this out beautifully when he writes of G making love with Beatrice:
Her difference from him acts like a mirror. Whatever he notices or dwells upon in her, increases his consciousness of himself, without his attention shifting from her.
It is perhaps this extraordinary combination of attention to the other that is also attention to oneself that helps us understand the peculiar absorption we feel in sex. This is why, as Berger also writes, ‘the only poem to be written about sex [is] – here, here, here, here – now.’
The sense of rapture I experienced that morning with the music and the words of Mallarmé, though it may seem very far from sexual experience – and it is, of course, in many ways – is nonetheless characterized by the same sense of turning entirely towards the object, as I was lost in the music and poetry, my attention wholly absorbed by them, together with a heightened sense of myself as experiencing this, as delighting in the sounds.
And, as I suggested, crucial in these experiences of rapture is a sense of freedom or liberation: in such moments, we are freed from the travails of the self, its anxieties and worries, its woundedness and vulnerability, its foolishness – which is just our own particular version of the distressing and illimitable foolishness of human beings. We feel freed too from what Virginia Woolf called the ‘cotton wool’ of life – the banal activities with which most of life is filled. Moments of rapture are what Woolf thought of as ‘moments of being’, moments that light up our otherwise largely flat quotidian existence and release us into a kind of plenitude.
Woolf is right, of course. Most of life for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in parts of the world where we enjoy basic political and social stability – a precious rarity in human affairs – is taken up with such things, in Woolf’s words, as this:
“One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; writing orders to Mabel; washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding.”
At best, we simply forget these tedious practicalities; at worst, they leave us enervated, grinding us down. It is one of the dispiriting ironies of our contemporary bourgeois condition, of our ‘administered society’ as Theodor Adorno put it, that our lives are in so many ways drained of significance, lacking any kind of axiological destination or summation. This is the problem of the disenchanted, modern self that has been largely stripped of all transcendence and construed in naturalistic terms – at least for those of us who can no longer believe in the promises of the old religions.
Hence, in my view, the problems Western societies have with the endless forms of addiction that we have at our disposal – from drugs and pornography to the internet, smartphones and the reality TV that reflects back to us our own banality – as we go in search of release in moments of rapture from the flatness of our lives. But we know that these forms of escape are degraded forms of what we really long for, and leave us only more distressed than before. Even the appalling sight of catastrophic species depletion and the realities of global warming hardly touch us. As the philosopher Michael McGhee put it in Spirituality for the Godless (2021):
“It is no accident that the image of the house on fire is a climate emergency trope. And we are all inside: most of us in the Western world pacified, controlled, and absorbed in our games and diversions.”
As McGhee says, change, if there is to be any, must come largely from the inside because, as he puts it: ‘There is no one outside with more attractive options.’ In this, he aligns himself with many of the noblest spirits of modernity, those in rebellion against our modern condition and who offer us hope for moments of rapture that are not degraded. One of these is most certainly Woolf, who herself possessed a kind of rapturously mystical vision of the oneness of all things behind local appearances, expressed in many of her novels – perhaps particularly The Waves (1931) – and from which we might learn to look again at the world with fresh eyes.
I think here too of the highwire walker, juggler, pickpocket, magician, unicyclist, woodworker, horserider and writer Philippe Petit, most famous for his highwire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 7 August 1974. Interviewed for the documentary Man on Wire (2008), Petit said:
To me it’s really so simple that life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to rules. To refuse your own success. To refuse to repeat yourself. To see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. And then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.
Petit shows us how rapture can be connected with danger, in his case, extreme danger: he makes of that danger his rapturous delight and joy. But the point is not, of course, that this is what we should do – though we might. Rapture can be calm and meditative, as in my experience that morning, as well as found in experiences such as Petit’s. It is not a matter of seeking to imitate Petit. It is a question, rather, of trying to catch something in our own lives of the spirit of rapture in which Petit lives, making space for moments of rapture and, perhaps, turning ourselves around a little from the inside and living more in that spirit.
So perhaps there is some help from the outside after all. This is how I like to think of Petit, in any case: he awakens us to something better in ourselves, an openness to the rapture of life. In this, he is at one with some others – Woolf, but also Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, D H Lawrence and George Orwell among others. ‘We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos,’ wrote Lawrence in Apocalypse (1931). In a similar spirit, Orwell, speaking of Shakespeare, in 1947 wrote:
“Shakespeare was not a philosopher or a scientist, but he did have curiosity, he loved the surface of the earth and the process of life – which … is not the same thing as wanting to have a good time and stay alive as long as possible.”
Orwell was a very different man from Lawrence, but they shared a love of ‘the surface of the earth and the process of life’. Inflected in different ways, they offer us a sense of the rapture we can find simply in being alive, if only we can open ourselves to it.
There is in these individuals, and no doubt many others, an openness to the force and energy of life that is exemplary – and rapturous. This is not because they were always in a state of rapture; it would obviously be silly to suppose that, as we see from their lives. In any case, to be in such a state permanently, even supposing that this were possible, would surely be utterly exhausting and enervating: here, as elsewhere, we need variety in life. It is rather that they lead their life in a spirit of rapture; their life is colored through and through by such an idea. Be that as it may, it would be a mistake if we were to look at these thinkers and then go in pursuit of rapturous moments. Just as pursuing happiness is most likely to make it flee from our grasp, so the same is true with rapture. The point is that of being open to the relevant possibilities. This is no doubt largely a matter of cultivating a certain kind of sensibility.
Nietzsche, who spoke of himself as being like dynamite, and whose name is generally associated with the spirit of ‘philosophizing with a hammer’, in fact gave a great deal of attention to what he called ‘small things’: the moments of everyday life that can make life for us a source of joy – or a vale of tears. He recommends that we start each day by asking ourselves what we can do to make the day agreeable, and suggests that this depends greatly on how we approach and organize the small things of life – what and when to eat and drink, when to rest, what to read, when to take a walk and so on.
He is counseling us to slow down, notice things, pay attention. He is certainly right that most of us rush through life and miss the gentle rapture that can come from such attention to the world and ourselves. Human beings are, in general, very bad at seeing clearly what is good for them and acting in accord with that. I am probably no better than anyone else at doing it, but I hear Nietzsche’s voice and that of those others I have mentioned and many more – Michel de Montaigne, for example – gently pulling me back to my better thoughts and feelings. They recall us to the sources of delight in life – to its rapturous possibilities. ~
https://psyche.co/ideas/the-small-pleasures-in-life-can-produce-moments-of-rapture?utm_source=Psyche+Magazine&utm_campaign=7337d87865-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-a9a3bdf830-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
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“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche,
occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live
in the changing light of room,
not try to be or do anything whatever.”
~ May Sarton
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The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. ~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Julius Gaius Caesar
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DOGGERLAND
~ About 9,000 years ago Britain was connected to continental Europe by an area of land called Doggerland, which is now submerged beneath the southern North Sea.
Doggerland was a mix of marshes, swamps, wooded valleys and hills, and most likely inhabited by humans during the Mesolithic period (10,000 to 8,000 BCE). It was teeming with migrating wildlife and served as a seasonal hunting ground for humans.
However, as ice melted at the end of the last glacial period, sea levels rose and Doggerland eventually became submerged, cutting off the British peninsula from the European continent by around 7,000 BC.
Dogger Bank (shown on the map) briefly remained an island before submerging underwater. The area today is known among fishermen to be a productive fishing bank and is very shallow at only about 50 to 120 ft (15 - 36 m) deep.
Over the years fishermen from the North Sea have dredged up hand-made bone artifacts, textile fragments, paddles, dug-out canoes, fish traps, a 13,000-year-old human remain, a woolly mammoth skull and a skull fragment of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal. ~ Shiv Tandon, Quora
EUROPE’S LOST FRONTIERS
The only lands on Earth that have not been explored in any depth by science are those that have been lost to the oceans. Global warming at the end of the last Ice Age led to the inundation of vast landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people. These lost lands hold a unique and largely unexplored record of settlement and colonization linked to climate change over millennia. Amongst the most significant is Doggerland. Occupying much of the North Sea basin between continental Europe and Britain it would have been a heartland of human occupation and central to the process of re-settlement and colonization of north Western Europe during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.
Within this submerged landscape lies fragmentary yet valuable evidence for the lifestyles of its inhabitants including the changes resulting from both the encroaching sea and the introduction of Neolithic technologies. This inundated landscape cannot be explored conventionally; however, pioneering work by members of this project has led to the rediscovery of Doggerland through the creation of the first detailed topographic maps relating to human occupation in the Early Holocene. (The Holocene is the current geological epoch, beginning
approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period,
which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the
preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. Wikipedia)
Within the Europe’s Lost Frontiers project, world-leading innovators in the fields of archaeo-geophysics, molecular biology and computer simulation are developing a ground-breaking new paradigm for the study of past environments, ecological change and the transition between hunter gathering societies and farming in north west Europe.
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/archaeological-forensic-sciences/research/europes-lost-frontiers/
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CONSUME MORE FIBER FOR BETTER COGNITIVE FUNCTION
1) Fiber feeds beneficial microbes in the gut, improving the integrity of the gut lining.
2) A healthy gut prevents systemic inflammation.
3) Tamping down inflammation helps to optimize the brain, both for mood and cognition.
“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” ~ Andy Rooney
A new study has found that a simple prebiotic could boost beneficial bacteria in the gut and improve scores on a cognitive test in people over 65. This could be fantastic news to those worried about the seemingly inevitable descent into dementia as we age. The study, conducted by Clare Steves, Mary Ní Lochlainn, Kevin Whelan, and colleagues at King’s College, London, found that the people taking a prebiotic fiber had significantly better scores on a test called the paired associates learning test. This visual-memory test is often used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.
One of the authors, Mary Ní Lochlainn, said, “Those who received the prebiotic had half the number of errors on this test compared with the group that received a placebo.” She noted that the changes brought about by the prebiotic happened quickly. “We are excited to see these changes in just 12 weeks. This holds huge promise for enhancing brain health and memory in our aging population,” she said.
The researchers found that the prebiotic fiber boosted specific healthy bacteria, including Bifidobacteria. This is among the first bacteria we acquire as babies when we get milk. Mother’s milk contains Bifidobacteria, and gives us a jump start. Bifidobacteria produces short-chain fatty acids that both nourish and heal the cells lining the gut. Keeping your gut in the pink of health prevents bacteria and toxins from seeping into the bloodstream, where they get pumped to every organ in the body, potentially causing widespread inflammation.
Some of these fatty acids also make it to the brain, where they encourage the growth and repair of brain cells. As we age and consume less milk, our levels of Bifidobacteria slowly decline. But the standard American diet (SAD) also contains precious little fiber, which also reduces the amount of Bifidobacteria even more. By the time we’re 65, we have very little Bifidobacteria left, and its absence is felt in a thousand little ways from stiff knees to diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, and cognitive difficulties.
Studies like this often have a lot of noise, particularly because people are so variable, both genetically and microbially. But King’s College has a large group of twins they can tap for research, this cleans up the signal considerably, eliminating the genetic difference between subjects. Twins also have gut microbiomes that are more similar to each other, as compared with unrelated people. By giving one twin the prebiotic and the other a placebo, researchers were able to get clean results.
This wasn’t a large study, but the study of twins gives it some extra power. The study also comports with several other studies showing that consuming fiber—dietary and supplemental—is associated with better cognitive performance.
If a simple supplement such as fiber can help prevent cognitive loss, it points to a hopeful future for dementia and Alzheimer's. It also implies that we could benefit from foods with higher fiber. This includes veggies like asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, lentils, onions, and garlic. To satisfy the sweet tooth, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries are good sources of fiber as well.
Food manufacturers are still trying to learn this lesson, but for now, most processed foods are extremely low in fiber. And sadly, most Americans get over half of their calories from fast or processed food.
Knowledge is power, and now that you know how your gut microbes can keep your cognition at an optimal level, what are you waiting for? Eat a veggie. Maybe even try a fiber supplement. Today is a good day to start.
Bifidobacterium longum
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mood-by-microbe/202403/can-fiber-improve-cognition-in-the-elderly
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WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS MAY HELP TREAT ADDICTION
As drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic have become popular weight loss tools, some doctors and patients are also seeing a surprising side effect: diminished cravings for alcohol.
Megan Johnston started taking semaglutide, the active ingredient in several brands of weight loss drugs, last year to try to lose weight. The 38-year-old Arlington, Virginia, real estate agent said she gained 30 pounds during the pandemic, and was drinking more too.
"At my check-up last year I remember telling my doctor I was drinking upwards of 15 drinks a week," Johnston told CBS News.
She's severely cut back since then.
"Some weeks, none," she said of her drinking habits these days. "Last week was one. Maybe average three.”
Johnston is among many patients who've reported fewer cravings for alcohol while taking semaglutide for weight loss.
"If it turns out that this medication is safe and effective for treating addiction, just by dint of how many people are already taking these medications for other purposes, this would become really the largest and most widely used pharmacotherapy for addiction medicine that's ever been developed," said Kyle Simmons, the director of Oklahoma State University's Biomedical Imaging Center and a professor of pharmacology and physiology.
Simmons is running one of several clinical trials currently underway to examine whether semaglutide reduces cravings for alcohol.
He says the drug affects the brain and appears to remove the pleasure received from drinking alcohol. But he also made it clear, "We just don't know yet whether or not the medication is safe and effective for the treatment of alcohol use disorder.”
As with most medications, Wegovy and Ozempic also come with the risk of side effects. The most common, according to Ozempic's website, are nausea, stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea and vomiting.
"Chronic abdominal pain and unpredictable digestive symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, fullness or constipation can take a significant toll on your mood and energy levels," Laurie A. Keefer, an academic health psychologist and the Director for Psychobehavioral Research at Mount Sinai's Division of Gastroenterology, previously told CBS News.
Rarer but more serious side effects of Ozempic may include thyroid tumors, pancreatitis, changes in vision, hypoglycemia, gallbladder issues, kidney failure and cancer.
It's also unclear how these drugs might affect people after long-term use.
The drugs are also not cheap. In 2023, Wegovy was in short supply and cost around $1,300 a month.
Johnston, however, has been happy with the results.
"I went into it optimistic. Low expectations, and it certainly panned out for me," she said.
Johnston said she lost 45 pounds over seven months and cut her drinking by 75%.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ozempic-wegovy-alcohol-addiction-treatment/
Oriana:
These findings are not surprising. The new weight loss drugs are appetite suppressants; perhaps craving for cupcakes isn't so different from craving for alcohol.
Tea and coffee are natural appetite suppressants.
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EATING YOGURT MAY LOWER DIABETES RISK
The FDA said that it will not object to the use of a qualified health claim that eating yogurt is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, the the agency announced last Friday.
One study, published in BMC Medicine in 2014, which supported this claim, showed that every one serving of yogurt per day was incrementally linked with a 17% lower risk for development of type 2 diabetes (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.75-0.92). The same study failed to find a significant association between total dairy consumption and type 2 diabetes risk.
Of note, the association between yogurt intake and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes is based on yogurt itself as a food and not a particular nutrient or compound in yogurt, regardless of fat or sugar content.
"We know that a growing body of research suggests regular yogurt consumption could reduce your risk of developing one of the most significant and rapidly rising health ailments in the United States," said Miguel Freitas, PhD, Danone North America's vice president of Health and Scientific Affairs, in a company press release. "That's why we decided to submit a petition for this first-of-its-kind qualified health claim. Our hope is that this announcement will empower consumers with simple, actionable information they can use to help lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes through a realistic, easy-to-make dietary modification.”
The FDA considers 2 cups, or 3 servings, per week of yogurt to be the minimum amount to make this qualified health claim, so yogurt companies can word claims like the following: "Eating yogurt regularly, at least 2 cups (3 servings) per week, may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. FDA has concluded that there is limited information supporting this claim.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/endocrinology/diabetes/109004?xid=nl_mpt_Cardiology_update_2024-03-05&mh=788a5203e5c46eefe40bc9dd2371f76b?xid%3Dnl_mpt_Cardiology_update_2024-03-05&mh=788a5203e5c46eefe40bc9dd2371f76b&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Automated%20Specialty%20Update%20Cardiology%20BiWeekly%20TUESDAY%202024-03-05&utm_term=NL_Spec_Cardiology_Update_Active
Oriana:
The frequent objection here is that those who eat yogurt also tend to consume a good diet overall.
When it comes to blood sugar in particular, I am fascinated by the ability of berberine to lower fasting blood glucose. Add to this the ability to produce an amazing blood lipid profile, and you have a super-supplement that arguably outperforms metformin.
WHAT KIND OF YOGURT IS BEST?
Naturally present milk sugars (lactose) contribute to yogurt's carbohydrate (carb) count, which means it's impossible to have a zero-carb yogurt. If you have diabetes, look for Greek yogurt or Icelandic yogurt (also called skyr).
During the preparation of these types of yogurt, some of the whey is removed, leaving behind a thick, protein-rich product with fewer carbs than other types of yogurt. They also have lower levels of lactose than other yogurts. This makes them easier to digest, especially for people with lactose intolerance.
Greek yogurt has about 25% fewer carbs than plain yogurt. That difference doesn't take into consideration added fruit, flavoring, or sugars. Sticking to the lower-carb yogurt and keeping toppings to a minimum will allow you to build a snack that has between 10 and 15 grams of carbohydrates, which is ideal if you have diabetes.
Non-dairy yogurts such as those made with almond, coconut, or soy milk are available in low-carb varieties. Check labels carefully, though, since thickeners and sugar are often added to these plant-based yogurts to make them rich and thick.
Greek yogurt is generally the highest in protein. In fact, Greek yogurt has about 16 grams of protein per 6-ounce container. Most conventional yogurts, including those made from plant milk, have between 0 and 9 grams of protein per 6-ounce serving.
Protein and fat help slow the rate at which glucose enters the bloodstream.
Yogurt contains a mix of live bacteria and yeasts. They provide a range of health benefits, but they're considered especially helpful with digestive health.
A 2017 study reported that people with type 2 diabetes who consumed three 100-gram portions (3.5 ounces) of probiotic yogurt per day had lower blood glucose, cholesterol, and diastolic blood pressure than a matched set of individuals who didn't consume yogurt.
A 2021 review concluded that probiotics may have a glucose-lowering effect in people with type 2 diabetes. The effect appeared to be stronger in participants with poorly controlled diabetes and those not taking insulin.
For people with diabetes, plain Greek or Icelandic yogurt made from cow milk is ideal, but those crafted from the milk of goats and sheep are also great options. They tend to be lower in lactose and some research shows goat and sheep milk are less inflammatory than cow milk thanks to their different fatty acid profile. Goat milk is also higher in calcium than cow milk.
Yogurt (whether Greek or regular) has been found to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 14% if consumed daily, according to a 2017 review of studies published in the Journal of Nutrition.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/greek-yogurt-nutrition-1087149
Oriana:
If unsweetened plain yogurt doesn’t appeal to you, consider using a sweetener called ALLULOSE. research suggests that allulose has anti-inflammatory properties and may help prevent obesity and reduce the risk of chronic disease.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/allulose
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ALLULOSE MAY TURN OUT TO BE A POWERFUL TOOL FOR MANAGING DIABETES
Several animal studies have found that it may lower blood sugar, increase insulin sensitivity, and decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes by protecting the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas.
In a study comparing the effects of consuming allulose, cellulose, and a commercial diet in rats with insulin resistance, the allulose group had improved insulin sensitivity after 7 weeks.
Some research suggests that allulose may help increase the loss of fat, including unhealthy belly fat, which is also known as visceral fat. This type of fat is strongly linked to heart disease and some other health conditions.
In a study of 121 Korean adults, participants took 4 g or 7 g of allulose or a placebo twice per day for 12 weeks. The group taking the larger amount of allulose showed a significant decrease in body fat percentage and mass, including abdominal fat.
Another small study of 13 healthy adults found that taking 5 g of allulose before a meal appeared to lead to improved energy metabolism after they ate, which could help manage body weight.
Studies in rats and mice have found that, in addition to preventing weight gain, allulose seems to reduce fat storage in the liver.
Hepatic steatosis, more commonly known as fatty liver, is strongly linked to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
At the same time as allulose may promote fat loss in the liver and body, it may protect against muscle loss.
Allulose naturally occurs in small amounts in foods such as figs, molasses, and raisins. ~
ttps://www.healthline.com/nutrition/allulose#manage-blood-sugar
EVEN A LITTLE DAILY MOVEMENT HELPS REDUCE YOUR RISK OF DEMENTIA
~ You’ve probably heard it over and over: It’s recommended that you do about 150 minutes of physical activity each week to lower your risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
And if you, like me, read one-hundred-and-fifty minutes and immediately check out, never fear. Moving just a little every day can have a big impact over time, especially when it comes to your brain. Even short bursts of exercise—like scheduling a walking meeting or gardening during your lunch break—can go a long way when it comes to protecting your cognitive health as you age.
Movement, in any amount and at any intensity level, sends blood and oxygen to your brain, fights widespread inflammation (a precursor to many chronic conditions), and keeps your brain activity sharp and snappy. In the short term, that means better focus and memory, and in the seemingly far-off future, regularly moving your body can result in stronger cognitive function, and, ultimately, a lower risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Laura Baker, PhD, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, tells SELF that when it comes to your health, staying active is just as important as eating and sleeping well—and it’s one of the best things you can do to protect your brain. “It really doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re moving your body. Just move,” Dr. Baker says.
Why your brain loves physical activity
Studies consistently find that regular physical activity is closely linked to a lower risk of dementia. While there’s not yet a proven reason why movement reduces the chance of cognitive decline—a term that refers to memory loss and confusion that can be some of the first signs of dementia—scientists have narrowed down a few potential explanations for the association, Heather Snyder, PhD, the vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, tells SELF.
The first is that exercise promotes blood flow throughout the body, including the brain. Research has found that reduced blood flow to the brain and stiffer blood vessels that carry blood to the brain are closely linked to a greater risk of dementia. On the flip side, when blood (and the oxygen it carries) readily and freely travels to the brain, it functions better. “Simply stated, the brain is fueled by oxygen and so increasing oxygen (think: aerobic exercise in moderation) has been shown to help maximize mental acuity,” says Tamar Gefen, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.
Another leading theory is that physical activity promotes brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is a molecule that helps you learn and retain information. Higher levels of BDNF appear to help improve and protect cognition and cut your risk of dementia, says Dr. Snyder.
Finally, exercise can help reduce inflammation in the body, and experts believe this immune response is a major risk factor for dementia. Numerous studies have found that people with cognitive decline or neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s disease, have higher-than-normal levels of sustained inflammation in their brains. So, the less inflammation there is in your body, especially your brain, the more protected you may be against dementia.
How to move a bit more each day (and make the most of it)
There’s no precise formula for how long and frequently you need to exercise each day to lower your risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Some evidence suggests that doing just 10 minutes of physical activity daily can majorly improve your health. Ongoing research is exploring the question of the exact amount of movement that might benefit your brain most, Dr. Snyder says, but, for now, the key is to “do more than you are doing today.”
There are so many ways to go about this (ideas dropping in a few!), and if high-intensity workouts aren’t your thing, don’t sweat it. “It doesn’t have to be killing yourself at the gym,” says Dr. Baker. Her research team has done studies to back that up: In clinical trials, they found that all types of movement—including (but not at all limited to) stretching and balancing exercises, cycling, and working out on an elliptical—combat cognitive decline, says Dr. Baker.
If you prefer cardio, have a quick dance session in your office or do a speedy HIIT workout in your bedroom. If you like to take things slowly, squeeze in some yoga, gardening, or a short stroll (as few as 3,826 steps a day can make a big difference, research suggests). Even bowling made the list in one study connecting regular physical activity to a lower risk of dementia, as did household chores in another report.
If you’re tight on time, get creative. Park your car further away so you can walk a little longer to the grocery store, Dr. Snyder suggests, or take the stairs instead of the elevator, if you can. Dr. Baker recommends moving 20 to 30 minutes three to four times a week, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself if that feels daunting. Start slow and short, she says, and build up if and when you’re ready.
One way to level up your activity is to do it with someone else. “In addition to increased aerobic exercise, socializing has been shown to be correlated with lowered dementia risk,” says Dr. Gefen. Research shows that connecting with others (and even connecting with nature) is a powerful risk reducer when it comes to cognitive decline. Plus, if you make plans with another person, you’re more likely to follow through and stick with it (science says so!).
Find a strategy that works for you, Dr. Snyder says. Ideally, you want to enjoy it. If you pick up jogging and find it painful, or give stretching a shot and dread it the next time around, experiment with other activities until you find something that clicks. If you find a practice you dig but eventually get bored, mix it up.
“It’s gotta be something you like doing,” says Dr. Baker.
Just move a little here and there—not only will you feel sharper, calmer, and energized, but your brain, however many years from now, may thank you for it then too.
https://www.self.com/story/dementia-and-exercise
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ending on beauty:
All hushed and still within the house;
Without – all wind and driving rain;
But something whispers to my mind,
Through rain and through the wailing wind,
Never again.
Never again? Why not again?
Memory has power as real as thine.
~ Emily Brontë
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