Author: Milan

Wooster’s greatest perils: the eligibly unwed

Jeeves: And if, in consequence, Mr. Winship should lose the election…

Wooster: I imagine democracy would survive the blow Jeeves.

J: The talk in the servants’ hall Sir is that Lady Florence has informed Mr. Winship that if he does not win the electon their engagement will be at an end.

W: Good God! You mean, Florence will once again be roaming the land thirsting for confetti and a three-tiered cake.

J: Indeed Sir.

W: And she may once more turn her attention to faithful old Wooster.

From Jeeves and Wooster season 4 episode 6 “The Ties that Bind” starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.

Undergoing immune response, and contemplating cultivating another kingdom

Yesterday I got my COVID-19 booster, so I am taking it easy today even though I’m not experiencing bad side effects.

One new project in development is to try growing mushrooms at home, perhaps King Oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) and Reishi (Ganoderma lingzhi) to start. Years ago I read Mycelium Running and was thoroughly intrigued. As a first step, I want to try a couple of ‘ready to fruit’ kits. If that works well, I want to try sterilizing growth substrate like flour, millet, or straw and then using liquid culture.

Michael Bliss on writing books

Students who weren’t too overawed by the reputations and accomplishments of the college’s senior members could find them useful in more practical ways. At one High Table, Jane Freeman, who was just beginning to write her thesis and feeling daunted at the prospect of tackling what was essentially the writing of her first book, found herself sitting next to the historian Michael Bliss. Knowing that he had by then (1994–5) published eight full-length books, she thought, “Somebody who has written this much really must have a method. He must know how to do it.” So she asked him “whether he had a structure when he was writing a book, whether there was any particular way he went about it.” What he said in reply was “a revelation” to her. He said, “Well, when you’re writing professionally, which you have to do as an academic, it’s your job. And so I sit down a 9 o’clock and I finish at 5, and I write every day.” And he went on, “If you’re cramming as you do for an undergraduate course paper, you can’t maintain that over time. If you’re going to be writing every day for months and years, if you’re going to stay at it and do other books, you have to find a rhythm you can maintain.” That advice helped her, she said, “to have a paradigm shift between the cramming student who stays up half the night and tries to meet a deadline and someone who sees writing as her profession.”

Grant, Judith Skelton. A Meeting of Minds: The Massey College Story. University of Toronto Press, 2015. p. 406–7

Related:

Grant on the Massey College quad

Robertson Davies once told a group of architects that they were “the designers of the scenery against which we act out the drama of our personal lives.” Ron Thom seems to have taken this observation to heart in designing the college’s public rooms and especially the quadrangle, which, with its elegant clock tower, rectangular pools, splashing fountains, irregular walls of old gold and cinnamon brick, flagstone walkways, and pleasant lawns, has a captivating, ever-changing beauty. Shadowy morning light gradually gives way there to the direct sun of noon, the angled shadows of afternoon and evening, and the dark of night, the passage of the hours marked by the clock, by the striking of the bell, and by the flow of fellows to and from meals, classes, offices. As the seasons change, so too does the colour palette, the fresh green of spring slowly darkening into the fall, replaced in turn by the clean white of winter’s new snow. The quadrangle invites quiet contemplation from the Common Room and from residents’ windows, permitting unobtrusive observation of others’ lives. Indeed, this outdoor living room is perhaps the most observed space in the college.

Grant, Judith Skelton. A Meeting of Minds: The Massey College Story. University of Toronto Press, 2015. p. 312

Related:

Covid in winter 2021–2

Partly in response to the predictable wave of infections from increased contact and travel during the comparatively unrestricted Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, Ontario has an exploding case count and is re-imposing restrictions on businesses and individuals.

I am fortunate in that all the work I need to get done is at home anyway. 2022 is the year the PhD must be completed, so the priority is getting a new draft shortened to the desired length and re-organized as directed as swiftly as feasible.

Related:

Canada if the US collapses

The most disturbing thing about the January 6th riot and Trump coup attempt has been the reaction of American politicians. Despite being witnesses and targets of the attack, politics as usual has persisted, including Trump’s dominance of the Republican party.

This suggests a substantial danger that Americans in power will choose the victory of their tribe over the other above the endurance and peace of the union.

In today’s Globe and Mail, Thomas Homer-Dixon writes:

By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.

During my international relations undergrad, profs often told us about how for most of Canadian history the biggest threat to Canada’s sovereignty has been invasion from the south. If mass political violence does erupt in the US — likely accompanied by a mass sense that the federal institutions of the supreme court, congress, and the presidency do not hold legitimate power over the whole US populace — it’s hard to believe that the US-Canada border would be respected in the uproar.

Of course it’s undiplomatic to talk in public about what will happen if your neighbour and strongest ally falls into civil war or ceases to be a democracy. Nonetheless, given the pathologies in American politics and society, it’s something Canadians must consider with growing seriousness and urgency.

The Economist on fossil fuel abolition

I have written before about The Economist‘s inconsistent positions on climate change and fossil fuels. When writing about science or climate change specifically — and in most of their leading editorials — they stress the potential severity of the crisis and the need to take action. In their broader coverage, however, they tend to prioritize economic growth and to celebrate fossil fuel discoveries as potential boons.

In a recent issue, they included some strong and convincing language on how fossil fuel abolition is ultimately a means to protect human prosperity:

The UNFCCC and its COPs, for all their flaws, play a crucial part in a process that is historic and vital: the removal of the fundamental limit on human flourishing imposed by dependence on fossil fuels.

…

The main reason the UNFCCC and COP process matters is that the science, diplomacy, activism and public opinion that support it make up the best mechanism the world currently has to help it come to terms with a fundamental truth. The dream of a planet of almost 8bn people all living in material comfort will be unachievable if it is based on an economy powered by coal, oil and natural gas. The harms from the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide would eventually pile up so rapidly that fossil-fuel-fired development would stall.

…

In the long run, therefore, the only way to keep growing is by leaving fossil fuels behind. That requires Asian countries, in most of which emissions are still surging, to forgo much more by way of future emissions than the countries of the developed world, where emissions are already declining.

…

Anyone who dreams of a reprieve for fossil fuels must be disabused. It suits Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, Scott Morrison, prime minister of Australia, and Joe Manchin, a senator from West Virginia, never to speak of an end to the fossil-fuels age. But for them to duck the responsibility of planning a transition is rank cowardice. True, oil and gas cannot vanish overnight, but their day is closing. And coal’s day must be done.

This strikes at at least three crucial points: it is acting on climate change and not ignoring it which provides the best guarantee of long-term prosperity; states will need to find a contraction and convergence solution where pollution falls rapidly in rich states which poor states find a development path where their per capita pollution never gets nearly so high; and that for the sake of equity we will need much more energy at the global level, highlighting the need to actually build climate-safe options at an unprecedented rate.