Solar Power is Not as Easy as it Looks

Adding the first increment to the grid is far easier than adding the last, if we want to decarbonize electricity. Review of "Taming the Sun", by Varun Sivaram

Global warming is no longer a future problem, but a now problem, and getting rapidly worse. We need a total societal focus on extricating ourselves from fossil fuels. Putting aside the brain-dead / know-nothing ideology of the current administration, the world is broadly, if grudgingly, onboard with this program. What is lacking are the political will and technical means to get there. California now gets 29% of its electricity (including imports from other states) from renewables, of which 10% is photovoltaic (PV) solar power. The grid operator shows a pleasing daily graph of solar power taking over one-third of electricity demand around mid-day.

A typical day on California's power grid. at mid-day, and fair portion of the state's power comes from solar power (teal). But come sundown, many other plants need to ramp up to provide for peak demand.

 
Varun Sivaram's book is an earnest, somewhat repetitious though well-written and detailed look at why this picture is misleading, and what it will really take to go the rest of the way to decarbonization. Solar power has very bad characteristics for electrical grid power- the grid operator has no control over when it comes in, (it is not dispatchable), and it all tends to come in at the same time of day. While this time (mid-day) is typically one of heavy usage, it is not the peak of usage, which comes during the transition to cooking and evening activities, from 5 to 7 PM. This means that not only does the rest of the grid have to work around solar's intermittency, but the rest of the grid has to constitute a full fleet of power plants for peak needs- solar will not reduce the need for either baseline or peak power capacity.

This is extremely disappointing, and means that adding the first 10% of solar to the grid is relatively easy, but adding more becomes increasingly difficult, and offloads rising expenses to other parts of the system. We do not have the technical means to economically address these issues yet. Solutions come in two basic forms- energy storage, or alternative modes of non-CO2 emitting generation.

Storage technologies by current capacity and capability. Pumping water uphill into reservoirs is the only existing method of storing power in grid-scale amounts over long periods.

Storage is easy to understand. If we could only bottle all that solar electricity somehow, all would be well. Even if we can't save summer power for winter, but save it only for a few days, we could build enough solar generation capacity (at the current cheap and falling prices) to cover our needs at the lowest production time of year, and throw away the excess the rest of the year. This assumes that, over a suitably large geographic area, there will not be so much extended cloud cover that this could not be reasonably planned. But such storage technology simply does not exist yet. The diagram above mentions some of the major candidates. The best known are chemical batteries, like lithium ion. This is how off-grid and home backup systems manage the intermittency of solar power. But these are expensive, which is why it is cheaper to buy power from the local utility than to go off-grid, and also cheaper to build a grid-tied solar system than go off-grid. The most mature grid-scale storage technology is hydropower- pumping water back uphill into a reservoir. This is obviously not available in most places where storage is needed.

Where various storage technologies are in development.

Other methods like flywheels, raising and lowering rocks, etc. are all on the drawing board, but not yet in practical deployment at grid scale, or even demonstrated to be economic at that scale. Making fuels like hydrogen or hydrocarbons from solar energy is another prospect for storage, but again are not currently economical. Hydrogen has been touted as the all-around fuel of the future for many uses, but is so difficult to handle that, again, it is far from currently practical. Getting there will take money and effort. 2050 is when we need the power sector substantially decarbonized, world-wide (if not sooner!). It sounds far off, but it is only about 30 years- a very short time in power technology terms. The scale needed is also gargantuan, so we need these solutions to get off the drawing board as soon as possible- there is no time to waste.

The alternative methods of no-carbon generation are currently wind and nuclear, with CO2 storage (sequestration) from fossil fuel plants as a further option. Carbon sequestration is not a new technology, and is something that would be directly motivated by a carbon tax, though it is also phenomenally wasteful (as are many of our more adventurous methods of producing fossil fuels, like tar sands)- a fair fraction of the energy produced goes right back into compressing and pumping the CO2 back underground. Wind is also getting to be a mature technology, and shares with solar the problem of intermittency, so is not a solution for dispatchable or baseline power. Sivaram does note at length, however, that a helpful technology for both solar and wind is long-distance DC transmission, which would allow rich sources, like the plains states, or the Sahara, to be connected to heavy users.

The dream of the next generation of nuclear power, which has not been demonstrated at grid scale.

That leaves nuclear power as an important element in future power systems. Generation IV nuclear power promises cleaner, proliferation-proof, more efficient, and more sustainable nuclear power. China has several programs in development, as does the US. Again, as with all the other necessary technologies for a fully sustainable grid, these are not mature technologies, and need a great deal of research and development to come to fruition. I will not even delve into fusion power, which is not demonstrated terrestrially in principle, let alone development.

The point of all this, as made at some length by Sivaram, is that the key to getting to a decarbonized future (for electricity, the easiest energy sector to deal with) lies not simply in scaling up the PV present into a glorious future. Rather, it lies in further intensive research and development of a variety of complementary technologies. The next question naturally is: will the private sector get us there, even if there were a carbon tax? The answer is- unlikely. The Silicon Valley model of venture capital is not well-suited to the energy sector, where innovation comes in small increments, the regulatory weather is heavy, and the scale in time and capital to money-making deployment is huge. There needs to be continued, and vastly expanded, government direction of the research, along with much other public policy, to address this crisis.

• Fed still fighting the last war, or the one before that, or a class war. But good policy it is not.
• IRS heading towards total impunity.
• Justice is in peril.
• What a year...

World of Warlords

Why does the US keep funding warlords? And then wonder why "those people" are always fighing each other? Review of Ronan Farrow's "War on Peace".

What went wrong? We have asked ourselves that after countless foreign debacles, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. Why does every intervention turn to ashes, and every good intention end in embarrassment and hatred? Ronan Farrow, celebrity diplomat and journalist, has an answer. Though he has been through a rough family life, Farrow is a smart cookie, and after starting with an absurdly puffy profile of Richard Holbrook, the book eventually settles down into sharp vignettes of American policy and institutions gone awry, and a case for rebuilding our diplomatic capabilities. Part of the war of the title is being waged on the State Department, conducted by the military and successive presidents ending up with our absurdly anti-State current executive. But it is facile to call that a "War on Peace", as though State is our Department of Peace. It is, rather, our reserve of strategic, long-range thought and professional experience in international affairs, and arm of American power, whether advancing that power dictates peace, war, or cold war.

"There are two types of military dispute, the one settled by negotiation and the other by force. Since the first is characteristic of human beings and the second of beasts, we must have recourse to the second only if we cannot exploit the first." -  Cicero, as quoted in the book. Which is incidentally ironic, given the relentlessly bloodthirsty culture and methods of Rome.

The Pax Americana of the post-war era has served us very well, not to mention most other countries. It has been a time of dramatically improving living conditions, rising population, and governance. It has been built on overwhelming conventional power, combined with formal alliances with countless partners and soft leadership by a system both prosperous and just (more or less) which others can aspire to. The outstanding example of this is China, which in its emulation of our mode of production has lifted itself out of dire poverty over the last four decades, and done so very peacefully.

On the other hand, we have made countless blunders when trying to force conditions to our favor more actively. Iraq is a shining example. We destroyed a country only to belatedly realize we had no idea how to run it or whom to hire to do the job. Then we skidaddled prematurely, leaving behind chaos. We have stuck more persistently with Afghanistan, (up to the present moment, at least), but remain in a quagmire of epic proportions with a government that is hopelessly corrupt, filled with warlords. This is where Farrow's book starts to come into the picture. Why so many warlords? Why all the corruption, and why is the facade of democracy so thin?

Afghan president Ghani, trapped in a power structure full of warlords, armed militias, and corrupt elements.

Going back to the start of the war in 2001, we used existing forces that were already arrayed against the Taliban, namely the warlords of the Northern Alliance. Integrated with a US air campaign, they quickly swept the field. But then, in the absence of other alternatives, we kept turning to them to run things, and kept arming them and turning to them again. The CIA and the military led the way, partnering with whoever could supposedly provide the goods- that is men and power, to use our guns and intelligence. But it was always a rotten deal, buying long-term dysfunction for short-term convenience. After World War 2, would we have turned to extremist militias to run Germany and Japan, just because they were most enthusiastic to kill their enemies? Funding and arming the most extreme elements of a society is certainly the best way to get those arms used, but not always the best way to rebuild that society.

Indeed much of our foreign policy over the last few decades has consisted of arming our motley friends. Pakistan is exemplary in this regard. We have been shipping them billions of dollars of military aid since 1955. And what do we have to show for it? A country that is one of the leading state sponsors of terrorism, which is in perpetual cold war if not armed conflict with both of its neighbors India and Afghanistan, whose clear policy is to destabilize Afghanistan, and which lies to us and the world without compunction. And which has blithely acquired nuclear weapons along the way, subjecting the whole world to the spectre of extreme Islamist takeover of a cataclysmic arsenal.

It has not been a very successful policy, whatever benefits the CIA may think it has gleaned over the years. The worst part is that all this aid has strengthened the military as the leading institution of Pakistan, leading to innumerable coups, overwhelming political power even when a general is not serving as president, as well as economic and media power, to the atrophy of civic life and democracy. The best that we could do at this point is to issue a heartfelt apology to the Pakistani people that we have contributed to the militarization of their society, cut all military aid, and focus on continuing constructive dialog with everyone in the region, especially India.

Similarly, in Central and South America, we have spent far too much time and money chasing leftist mirages with right-wing funding, helping to cause the chaos that is now driving so many migrants to our borders from El Salvador, Guatamala, and Honduras. Instead of dramatic stunts of cruelty at the border, we would be much better served setting up a region-wide peace and governance process to help these countries regain stability and democratic institutions. Where is that effort? Nowhere to be seen in this administration. Farrow describes a long-term trend by which the military and the intelligence/security complex in Washington has gained power and money, versus our organs of diplomacy and long-term intelligence, which have atrophied. Nation-building became a dirty word. So now we are now dealing with a series of unbuilt nations, several of which we have unbuilt ourselves. Fear has gained over reason, much to the detriment of our domestic institutions, not to mention our approach to world affairs.

One might even say that the US has become one of the greatest terrorist regimes in the world, engaging proxy wars and armies across the globe often to rather dubious ends and resulting in vast "collateral" damage. It is our lack of expertise and inability to understand other cultures and conditions that leads to the horrors/blunders of Vietnam and Iraq. And that can not be fixed with more know-nothing "strength" from dotards, or with ever higher military budgets and military "aid" packages to anyone willing to throw their own people under the bus of American interests. We are the policeman of the world, at least for the moment. The question is whether the model we pursue is one of SWAT-style military policing, or one of community policing. The former breeds problems on both the short and long terms, while the latter solves them.

And one can note that these practices and attitudes do not stay safely abroad, far from our own culture. The militarization and warlordism of our foreign policy sees its reflection in the growing domestic mania for guns, security, walls, and the installation of a would-be warlord in the White House. While the most grievous harms of this administration may be the diminishment of our network of international relationships and influence, US society is being corroded internally as well by the pessimistic, fearful, and ignorant tenor of the security state.

• Leslie Gelb on early administration's thorough ignorance of Vietnam, and the Pentagon Papers.
• Do men have a hormone problem that makes them unfit for high office?
• International investing, particularly in China, is fraught with peril / predation.
• Market power, the power of incumbency, and economic sclerosis.
• Why good times lead to bad lending.
• How is that https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/conservative-economists-tax-cut-forecasts-by-j--bradford-delong-2018-12trickle-down coming along? And in France?
• Why not jail a US CEO?
• Being unemployed in Australia.
• Notes on deregulation.
• Remember how bearing false witness is a sin against god?

Screwy Locomotion: the Spirochete

How do spirochete bacteria move?

Getting around isn't easy. Some of our greatest technological advancements have been in locomotion. Taming, then riding, horses; railroads, automobiles, airplanes. Microorganisms have been around for a long time, and while flying may be easy for them, getting through thicker media is not, nor is steering. The classic form of bacterial motion is with an outboard motor- the flagellum. The prototypical bacterium E. coli has several flagella sprinkled around its surface. Each flagellum is slightly helical, thus forming a languid sort of propeller, which if turned along its helical axis, (at roughly 6,000 rpm), can propel the bacterium through watery media. Turning multiple flagella in this same direction (counter-clockwise) encourages them all to entangle coherently and unite into a bundle. It turns out, however, that bacteria can easily switch their motors to the opposite direction, which causes the flagella to separate, and also to flail about, (since for a left-handed helix, this is the "wrong" direction), sending the cell in random directions.

A typical bacterium with multiple flagella, which will cooperate in forming a bundle when all turned in the same direction, consonant with their helicity (i.e. counter-clockwise).

These are the two steering options for most bacteria- forward or flop about. And this choice is made all the time by typical bacteria, which can sense good things in front (keep swimming forward), or sense bad things in front / good things elsewhere (flail about for a second, before resuming swimming). The flagellar base, where the motor resides, uses both ATP and the proton motive force (i.e. protons that were pumped out by cellular respiration, or the breakdown of food). The protons drive the motor, and ATP drives the construction of the flagellum, which is itself a very complicated dance of self-organization, built on the foundation of an extrusion/injection system also used by pathogenic bacteria to inject things into their targets.

Animated video describing how the flagellum and its base are constructed.

But sometimes a bacterium really needs to get somewhere badly, and is faced with viscous fluids, perhaps inside other organisms, or put out by them to defend themselves. One human defense mechanism is a DNA net thrown out by neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. Spirochetes have come up with an ingenious (by evolution, anyway!) solution- the inboard motor. This is not a motor sticking out of the bottom, but a motor fully enclosed within the cell wall of the bacterium.

Choice of directions (small forward or back arrows) that are dictated by the rotation of the flagella (blue). One set of flagella originate at the rear, and a second set originates at the front. Only if they turn in opposite directions (top two panels) does the spirochete swim coherently, either forward or back. 

How can that work? It is an interesting story. Spirochetes, as their name implies, are corkscrews in shape. In mutants lacking flagella, they instead relax to a normal bacterial rod shape. So they have flagella, but these are positioned inside the cell wall, in the periplasmic space. Indeed they form the central axis around which the corkscrew rotates, with one set of (approximately ten) flagella coming from the rear and another set from the front, each ending up around the middle. If each set rotates as hard as it can, they drive their respective ends to counter-rotate, in reaction. If the front motors (of which there are several) turn their flagella counterclockwise, as viewed from the back, they will, in reaction, drive (and bend) the nose into a clockwise orientation. If the back set of motors run clockwise, driving their flagella counterclockwise (also as seen from the back), then the rear part of the bacterium counter-rotates in clockwise fashion, and the coordinate action drives spiral bending and an overall drilling motion forward.

Video of a non-spirochete bacterium with its flagellum stick to the slide, causing the tail to wag the dog.

Video of spirochete bacteria in motion.

On the other hand, if the motors on the opposite ends of the bacterium go in the same direction, then the flagella induce opposite, instead of coordinate, counter-rotations, and the bacterium doesn't tumble randomly, as normal bacteria do, but contorts and flexes in the middle, with a similar re-orienting effect. This ability incidentally shows the remarkable toughness of these bacteria, considering the lipid bilayer nature of their key protective membranes. These bacteria can also easily reverse direction, by sending both sets of motors in reverse, operating very much like little drills. How this exquisite coordination works has not yet been worked out, however.

Reconstruction, drawn from electron microscopy, of one end of a spirochete, showing the motor orientations, the sharp hook/base of the flagellum, the membrane and cell wall structure, and one of the signaling proteins (MCP), which transmits  a sensory signal to dictate the direction of motor rotation.

One thing that is known, however, is that spirochete motors are massive- almost twice the size of E. coli motors, with special outside hooks to propagate power through the tight turn inside the periplasmic space. It is interesting that these motors can be scaled up in size, with more subunits, and more proton ports for power, as if they were just getting more cylinders in a (fossil fuel-burning) car engine.

Structure of the Borrelia flagellar motor, showing the stator (blue), which is attached to the membrane and stabilized against rotation; the rotor (yellow spokes and teal C-ring), and the gateway ATPase complex which unfolds and transmits the structural components (proteins) into the central channel from which they build the machine.

All this is in service of getting through messy, gelatinous material. The model for most of this work is the spirochete responsible for Lyme disease. The characteristic red ring seen in that infection is thought to track the progress of the spirochete outward and away from the original tick bite site, in relation to the immune system catching up via inflammation. But such viscous environments are quite common in the organic muck of the biosphere, including biofilms established by other bacteria. So the evolutionary rationale for the superpowers of spirochetes is probably quite ancient.

• EPI has a comprehensive solution for righting the inequality ship.
• John Dingle also has a solution.
• "Entitlements" are OK- on the importance of social insurance. Remember, the military is always insolvent, from a budgetary perspective.
• Sleazebags to the end.
• On the types of epilepsy.
• A persistent cycle of resource extraction, incumbent interests, regressive politics, and non-development. Let's not go there ourselves.
• A lesson in jazz.

Psychodrama of the Reformation

Luther's personal demons drove the split of European Christendom. A second post from "Fatal Discord", a double biography of Luther and Erasmus, by Michael Massing.

It is hard to believe, but Martin Luther was ridden with self-doubt. That is what drove him to become a monk, to confess his sins for hours a day, and to search for a way out through the scriptures and other theological writings. When he came across Augustine, he underwent a sort of conversion experience which seems to have led to a decade-long burst of energy, rebelling against the Catholic church and pouring out a prodigious flow of theses, tracts, and books on his new evangelical theology, including a full German translation of the Bible. (It is worth noting parenthetically that in these early days of printing, the pamphlets and books brought out by Luther and his adversaries were easily as intransigent, abusive, and uncivil as our current twitterverse, an atmosphere that may have had something to do with the brutal wars that ensued.)

"Now, in reading Augustine himself, Luther found nothing about free will, good works, or doing one's best. Instead, he found stern pronouncements about human wickedness, divine majesty, and undeserved grace. If Augustine was correct, the selfish urges and prideful thoughts that were continually welling up in him represented not simply his own personal failings, but ingrained features of human nature. As forbidding as Augustine's theology might seem to others, Luther took great comfort in the idea that his fate was not in his own hands."

The issue was free will. If god creates everything, rules all, and sees all time, then how much power do humans have? None, obviously. It was John Calvin who took Luther's position to its full extent, arguing for full pre-destination of everyone's fate, with a decided minority pre-destined (elected) to enter heaven, and all others going to hell. The Catholic church, despite Augustine's influence, took the more practical route of claiming some free will, such that prayer, putting money in the collection plate, feeding the poor, and even buying indulgences, would all be put on the sinner's tab when they got to the pearly gates.

Opening page of Matthew from the Luther Bible, 1534.

It is difficult to run a society without rewards for good behavior, so while the Catholic church did not go the whole way to Pelagianism, it did run a middle course, rewarding (in the next world, at least!) good works, while also holding god to be super-powerful, just not all-powerful. Luther's epiphany that faith alone saves, and that good works count for nothing, solved his personal dilemma, and fueled his world-shaking rebellion. But it also left his parishoners with little incentive to do good works, or even to attend church. Luther was faced with continuing apathy through his later years in Wittenberg, reduced to berating his dwindling flock for its moral and religious laxity.

It was in the peasant's rebellion, starting about seven years after his electrifying theses, that the problems of Luther's theology really became apparent, causing self-doubt and confusion to creep back in, gradually sapping Luther's confidence, productivity, and influence. The peasant's revolt was driven by a new crop of preachers more extreme than Luther. If rebellion against the Catholic church for its worldly excesses and oppression was permissible, why not rebellion against the landowners and lords whose oppression was even worse, and whose theological support far weaker? And if all believers are priests, and all can read and interpret the bible, then why listen to the doctors of theology from Wittenberg? Luther was aghast at what he had unleashed, and turned completely around to support the nobility in this bitter and ugly fight, full of unspeakable tortures and massacres.

Luther continued to collaborate closely with the temporal authorities for the rest of his career, and the Lutheran church became a state-affiliated chuch, ridden with many of the same compromises and theological perplexities that characterize the Catholic church, and which Luther had originally thought he had escaped. The energy of the reformation would re-emerge in the Calvinists, Puritans, Methodists, Quakers, and countless other sects of which there are now many thousands. Purity is always energizing, but neither practical nor defensible in what is, in reality, a godless and complicated world. In the end, the attentive tolerance of humanism regularly turns out to be the better solution.

• Machines are winning.
• Think of the bees.
• Paul Ryan- a fraud, just not a very good one.
• The story of abortion.
• More on Russia and our sleazebag in chief.
• Apparently lying isn't so easy.
• Coding is not for everyone, and is not the same as literacy.

The Peregrinations of Humanism

What happened to the project of Erasmus? What used to be solidly Catholic turned into atheism, aka "secular humanism".

Have there ever been non-secular humanists? Yes, virtually all were Catholic back when humanism was truly in flower, in the 1400's and 1500's. There have even been humanist popes! Humanism was a big theme of the Renaissance when Western intellectuals turned their attention to the languages and authors of antiquity with new vigor. The preceeding movement of scholasticism had built on an earlier encounter with Aristotle and Neoplatonism, which led to the founding of many universities and reached its peak in the output of Thomas Aquinas. But scholasticism was more concerned with conforming Aristotle to Catholicism and making a show of reasoned logic / dialog, (dialectic), rather than truly plumbing the depths of Aristotle's profound corpus and methods. They knew he was the intellectual giant of antiquity and far beyond their own achievements. Only with humanism was Europe ready to deal more deeply with the ancients.

This was a time when scholars started hunting in earnest for manuscripts hidden in cloister libraries, and encountered both manuscripts and scholars fleeing the now-defunct Byzantine empire. These scholars improved their Latin based on a wider familiarity with these sources, and started learning Greek and even Hebrew. Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the greatest of these hunters and scholars, and turned his learning into (among many, many other projects) a newly corrected edition of the Bible, with Greek facing the Latin, the first time the Latin Bible had been (intentionally) revised in over a millennium. This story is told in the outstanding book, Fatal Discord- a parallel biography of Erasmus and Martin Luther.

Luther obviously runs away with the show, and the book, by fomenting a fundmental revolution in Western culture. Author Michael Massing suggests that Europe faced divergent paths, Erasmus representing the more liberal, reformist, and moderate course, which could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Luther read Erasmus's new bible and other writings, was also inspired to learn Hebrew, and based much of his revolution on Erasmus's ideas. But Erasmus never renounced the Catholic church, and hated warfare above all other forms of waste and injustice. He was in this a humanist to the core. Luther was more of a fundamentalist, standing on Sola Scriptura- of his interpretation, naturally- come hell, high water, or martyrdom.

So what is humanism, after all? In a theological sense, it is attention to and learning from diverse aspects of the current and past world, in contrast to assuming that one's scripture contains all knowledge. If the world, humans, and human reason are all made by god, then this wider field of inquiry is not only permissible, but essential, to fully appreciate her work. On a pedagogical level, humanism became the program that Erasmus set up based on his thrilling scholarship- the learning of Latin foremost, from the great classical authors, and then Greek as well, along with rhetoric, grammar, and some logic- the Latin trivium, in short. While revolutionary in the fields of biblical studies, higher criticism, and philology generally, this program eventually fossilized into the "liberal" education in the classics that was standard through the 19th century, plaguing young minds with dead languages, long after Latin had lost its role as the universal intellectual language of Europe.

And on an ethical level, humanism is the sense that truth and scholarship must be beneficial, over their opposites, and that, in line with the rest of renaissance sensibility, human achievements and flourishing are the measure of social and theological systems. While the neoplatonists where quite consonant with the abstract, ethereal concerns of the Catholic church, other authors and ideas from antiquity were much less so, and the humanists, Erasmus as a prime example, turned into a somewhat skeptical if not critical community within the church, urging reform from the bloated, corrupt, militaristic, and intellectually lazy institution it had become.

This breakdown became evident in the confrontation with Luther. In response to his copious tracts, books, and theses detailing the problems of the church, its response was simply to assert that he was wrong, and that any opposition to the pope and tradition was inadmissible. The Catholic church failed to make a serious intellectual case, and it would take decades, if not centuries for it to do so. Book burnings were the first response, followed by the Index of banned books, which featured not only those of Luther, but those of Erasmus as well. This spelled the inevitable end of humanism in the Catholic church, since skepticism and intellectualism are incompatible with hierarchy and fealty.

Humanism had a much longer career in Protestant lands, with their greater freedom and diversity. Charles Darwin came within a hair's breadth of becoming an Anglican minister, and mostly viewed his naturalist interests in the positive light of god's work on earth. But they inevitably parted ways even here, as the mechanisms of nature gradually revealed themselves to be anything but divine. Now one hardly hears about religious humanism, as humanism has become synonymous with thorough theological skepticism and this-world ethics. What would Erasmus say? The EU has named its internal student exchange program after him, in honor of his pioneering role in promoting pan-European projects and intellectual community. He would have been appalled at the way the Protestant reformation bled Europe and led to ceaseless division. But I am sure he would still be in the intellectual, cosmopolitan vanguard, which remains humanist today.

• The Panama Papers is still a story.
• Who wins in Sears bankruptcy? A microcosm of American inequality.
• Making America corrupt again.
• US keeps throwing the Afghan government under the bus.
• Putin's poodle on Ukraine.
• Aging is being reversed.

The Problem With Atheism

Bernard Mandeville and the impossibility of getting along without lying.

We live in a little cloud of lies. From the simplest white lie and social protocol for hiding unpleasantness, to the universal belief that one's own family, city, country are better than the other ones, untruth is pervasive, and also essential. Vanity, optimism, a standard set of cognitive biases.. are opposed to the reality principle. The economic commonplaces which are, as Keynes noted, unknowningly derived from some defunct economist. Our unconscious is resolutely irrational. Euphemism, humor and swearing are ways to refer to truths that are difficult to bring up in straightforward fashion. But more serious truths are the more deeply hidden. Such as death, the final stop on everyone's trip. Full-on honesty and truth? No one wants that, or could live with it.

Many thinkers have plumbed these depths, from Machiavelli to Freud. Bernard Mandeville was one, profiled in a recent BBC podcast. His most enduring (and brief) work was the Fable of the Bees, which portrays a society much like Britain's, rife with greed, ambition, corruption, and crime. Due to moralist complaints, god decides to make this hive moral and good, upon which everything promptly goes to pot. The economy, previously held up by a love of luxury, collapses. Courts and lawyers have nothing to do, clothing fashions fail to change. The traders leave the seas for lack of demand, and the military succumbs for lack of population. The hive ends up resembling one truly composed of bees, and goes to live a hollow tree, never to be heard from again.

"Those, that were in the Wrong, stood mute,
And dropt the patch'd vexatious Suit.
On which, since nothing less can thrive,
Than Lawyers in an honest Hive."
... 

"Do we not owe the Growth of Wine
To the dry, crooked, shabby Vine?
Which, whist its shutes neglected stood,
Choak'd other Plants, and ran to Wood;
But blest us with his Noble Fruit;
As soon as it was tied, and cut:
So Vice is beneficial found,
When it's by Justice lopt and bound;"

His point, naturally, was that vice is both natural and to a some extent the underpinning of national greatness and economic vitality (given some beneficial management). Greed is good, as is irrational optimism and ambition. Mandeville was also a famous anticlericalist in his day, but that is another story. It was a classic contrarian point, that what we fight tooth and nail to vanquish or hide has, in reality, a role to play in the national character and success, for all its embarrassment. And that we routinely lie, to ourselves above all, to hide the truth of reality so that we can go on our way from one day to the next.

"My aim is to make Men penetrate into their Consciences, and be searching without Flattery into the true Motives of their Actions, learn to know themselves."
- Bernard Mandeville, in Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness.

What is our most florid and communal lie, but religion? This is the salve of social togetherness, moral self righteousness, and imaginary immortality. It is the finely tuned instrument that addresses alike our private fears and social needs. And atheists know it is completely, utterly wrong! But what is the point of saying so? Religions have been corrupt, abusive, greedy and murderous from time immemorial- they have many faults. But untruth is not a flaw.. it is the reigning feature of this imaginative confection, providing the credulous a full belief system to support a positive and hopeful self-image, (not to mention conventional authority!), so important to happiness, providing the more skeptical an endless labyrinth of theological puzzles, while providing even the most skeptical or apathetic a social institution to call home.

So why go around ripping the clothes from believers, crying that their cherished narratives of meaning are senseless- that they should go forth theologically naked? It is a serious question for atheists, going to the heart of our project. For Freud, after all, repression had a positive function, and was not to be comprehensively cleared away, root and branch, only pruned judiciously. Lying is indeed integral to mature social functioning. Clearly, untruth is not, by itself, an unacceptable portion of the human condition. This implies that atheists need to be generally gentle in approach, and selective in what they address directly- the most significant outrages and injustices perpetrated by religions, of which there is no shortage. When religions invade the territory of science, making bone-headed proclamations about biology and geology, that clearly crosses such a line. And likewise when religions insinuate themselves into governmental institutions, bent on seeking power to foist their beliefs and neuroses on others.

The so-called arrogance of atheists consists of their opposing / exposing the cherished verities of others as false. Such arrogance is of course not unknown among religious believers and zealots either, and for much more modest cause. The secular state settlement of the West has forced religions to forego armed conflict and state violence in the pursuit of their truths and enemies. Atheists should take a page from this success to lead by example and humor, rather than frontal assault, even rhetorically.

• BBC to continue spouting religion.
• Silicon valley has its religion as well- a sort of Stockholm syndrome.
• But lies in politics.. is there no limit?
• Hate is in the textbooks, in Saudi Arabia.
• Euro countries are not independent.
• 5G to rule them all.
• Heredity counts for a lot.. more than parenting.
• The labor market could run much, much better.

Three Rings to Rule Them All

Condensins, cohesins, and SMC5/6: a family of ring-shaped protein complexes that keep chromatin organized, compacted, and generally under control.

Each of our cells contains a meter of DNA, scrunched up to microscopic proportions. This DNA is particularly visible during mitosis, when it is neatly condensed into chromosome brushes, which get pulled and segregated in the remarkable ballet of cell division. We also know that topoisomerases, which can cut this DNA, either nicking on one strand to allow unwinding, or on both strands to allow strand passage (to uncatenate or untangle as needed), are central players in keeping this mess under control, at least in a passive sense. But obviously, to make neat chromosomes, and for countless other tasks, some of which will be described below, more than topoisomerases are required. Another class of proteins called SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes) supplies some of the lariats, knots, and other rope tricks that are needed to keep our nuclear DNA going in the right direction, and has been the focus of quite a bit of recent progress.

Bacteria generally have one SMC protein, but we have six, paired into three functional ring-shaped complexes: condensin, cohesin, and SMC5/6  (no clever name, unfortunately). They were originally found to function, respectively, in the condensation of mitotic chromosomes, in the cohesion of sister chromatids, and in DNA repair. The SMC proteins pair up to form large rings, of about 50 nm, have an ATPase activity which has been recently found to function as a motor along DNA, and associate with a bunch of other proteins to regulate their activities. It is generally believed that the rings they form can encircle one or two strands of DNA, to provide the pairing and looping functions to be described.

Cartoon of how cohesin encircles both daughter strands of replicated DNA, to keep them paired until the critical separation point in mitosis.

For example, cohesins glue together daughter strands after DNA synthesis, so they do not float apart, but can be carried along as pairs into mitosis, and then separated at the right time (anaphase) with a dose of protease which cleaves the cohesin ring. Mutant cohesins cause DNA tangling and loss of proper segregation at cell division, leading to mutations and thence to death, cancer, etc. But having sister DNAs close together is convenient for other reasons as well. If one gets a mutation, homologous repair can use one strand of the good copy to directly invade the bad one, and after excising the bad portion, encode the repair. In fact, the various SMC complexes have somewhat overlapping functions, so some can fill in for defects in the others.

Electron micrographs of purified condensin, showing the structure of a ring with large blobs (containing ATPase and other accessory proteins) at one end (customarily the bottom) and a smaller blob on the other side where the two SMC proteins also dimerize (called the "hinge" region). Bar is 100 nm.

Condensin is the main driver of chromosome compaction, looping, and transcriptional domain establishment. Ultrastructural studies of mitotic chromosomes have long shown that mitotic chromosomes are composed of loops- variably sized and perhaps of multiple levels. Condensin has perhaps been the best studied of the SMC family, with beautiful recent work (also here) showing that it forms loops by pumping DNA through its ring structure. In the experiment shown below, a single molecule of DNA, fluorescently labeled, was attached to a surface at both ends. Then a flow was set up in the ambient fluid, towards the top right. When cohesin protein (purified from yeast cells) was added, along with ATP, it selected a site on the DNA, then started forming a collar and pumping out the free portion of the DNA, forming a little loop. At the end of the experiment, several minutes down the line, this cohesin complex spontaneously let go, allowing the DNA back into its original state, waving freely in the flow.

A single DNA molecule in a fluid flow cell, anchored at two points (red circles), shown through time as it is bound by one codensin molecule, which forms a little pumped loop within a few seconds.

Such looping is not only relevant for mitotic chromosome structure, but also for transcription. Genes are driven by regulatory protein binding sites, "enhancers", that can be very far from the core coding portion of the gene- often tens of thousands of base pairs away. How does such an enhancer know which gene it is supposed to enhance? It has gradually become clear that genes are surrounded by a zone of isolation with "insulator" DNA sites on the boundaries. Cohesins have recently been shown to be key creators of these zones, binding to the boundary sites and pumping out the intervening DNA, isolating one loop from its neighbors, at least with respect to processively scanning searches by DNA binding proteins, and also with respect to mega-complex fomation by the enhancers of each zone.

The SMC5/6 complex is proposed to facilitate replication by keeping the daughter strands close so that that topoisomerase II can come in and relieve topological tangles.

The SMC5/6 proteins perform yet another function, of facilitating replication. Like cohesins, this complex forms rings around recently replicated DNA. The replication fork is itself enormously complex, but as it works, (probably stationary, being fed in sewing machine fashion), the DNA going in and coming out is continuously writhing about to accommodate its helical twist. Imagine a sewing machine working on fabric with an intense twist of one full turn per ten stitches- it would be quite a challenge to operate. Most of the stress can be accommodated on both sides, incoming and outgoing, by continuously nicking and relaxing by topoisomerase I. Yet it is thought be helpful to keep the two daughter strands in close proximity, to allow stand-passing topoisomerase II to undo more serious tangles, and also to prepare for the long-term use of cohesin which keeps the daughter strands together through interphase and into mitosis.


What is known about how the SMC proteins actually operate? That is still a work in progress. In order for condensin to form DNA loops, it needs at least two functions- an anchor to hold on to one region of DNA, and an ATP-using pump that scrunches the neighboring DNA and feeds it through its ring structure. The anchor is quite well characterized. It needs to be relatively agnostic about the sequence it binds to, but once attached, it must stay put while the rest of the molecule does its work. This is accomplished with a special knotting portion of one of the accessory proteins attached near the ATPase portion of the complex. These proteins form a positive charged groove, ready to bind DNA. Once bound, there is also an unstructured extension of one of these proteins (in green below) that comes down to lock the DNA in place, prompting the authors to call it a "safety belt". This structural shift does not require ATP, but is required before the ATPase nearby can become active.

Structural cartoon of two accessory proteins of condensing (yellow and beige), which form the anchor. This binds DNA non-specifically, and once bound, gets locked in place by a unstructured protein extension and also licenses the ATPase to begin operating to pull neighboring DNA through the ring. The topology of the shown DNA/chromatin is likely wrong.

What is the ATPase doing? It has just recently been shown that it really is a DNA translocase, (partly as shown above), after some years of doubt. It is also remarkably efficient, traversing at a rate of ~70 basepairs per second, and only using two ATP per second, thus covering about 35 bp per ATP. It must be using the length of its ring to make jumps of some kind- a mechanism more reminiscent of actin or kinesin than of typical DNA/RNA translocating enzymes. Researchers working in this field have proposed a couple of models. One is that the ring separates at the base (right, below) to allow the two ATPases of the paired SMC protein complexes to "walk" alternately along the DNA, taking long strides of up to 50 nm. This obviously risks losing whatever is being enclosed in the ring, so is problematic. The second idea (left, below), is that the extended, coiled portions of the SMC proteins somehow fold and unfold in response to ATP hydrolysis at the end, allowing the complex to take half-steps while rigorously keeping the ring closed. It would be difficult to envision how this mechanism works in detail. It may be that more than one ring cooperate, to resolve some of these coordination issues.

Rings composed of two SMC proteins (red, blue) are proposed to walk along DNA using their ATPase activity by two alternative mechnisms. Note that the SMC molecules with blobs on the ends are not symmetrical. The ATPase and other significant accessory proteins and activities of the complex are all on the lower (striped) blob of each SMC protein, while the other blob represents a much simpler "hinge" region of the proteins which dimerize but have no other known functions.

• Capitalism vs community.
• What is wrong with the EU.
• Learning and flexibility as the red/blue divide.
• One electric utility keeps causing devastating fires in California.
• Canada helps parents keep working.

Fight For the Biosphere

The Story of the Earth Liberation Front: If a tree falls.

What is sacred? No one lives without deep values, whether conscious or unconscious. When I recently travelled to a small midwestern town, I was struck by its devotion to its institutions of reproduction- the high school, the church, the football game, the picket fences. Small town American is under perpetual siege from the outside, from the Amazons, Wallmarts, cheap drugs, bombarding media, and changing values. From capitalism in general, though no one would put it that way. Getting young people to stay instead of heading out to the big city or the coast is one challenge. Another is facing a flow of poorer immigrants who do want to come, but who drop the bottom out of the local labor market and are difficult to assimilate. The FOX and Sinclair propaganda channels harp constantly on "traditional values", as though applying a magic incantation against change (even as they and the right end of the political spectrum work to remove what fetters are left on capitalism, and to destroy the public goods & institutions that these communities rely on). No wonder Trump found a fearful and responsive electorate.

But everyone has their god- communists worshipped the sacred revolution, into whose maw millions were fed. And into the bargain had their trinity of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. To others, capitalism is a glowing, sacred value, and to some extent for good reason. The adoption of capitalism in China has brought about the most massive and rapid transition out of poverty, ever. (Even though the means to get there has been ecocidal technology.)

But these major ideologies and religions are weakening in our time. People are becoming disaffiliated with the cultural structures and institutions that used to cultivate sacred values, whether those of explicit religion or of its various modern ideological substitutes. The balance is often made up, on a personal level, by "nature". This is our instinctive and "natural" religion- the groves of the pagans, the auspicious birds and other animal spirits, the awesome scale and impurturbability of the surrounding vista, not to mention our own mystifying biology.

A fairy ring in a wooded grove.

The dedication to conservatism that pervades small town America is deeply in conflict with respect to this deeper set of values, as well as being counter-historical. A mere six or seven generations back, these lands were peopled by Native Americans, before being invaded by pioneers. These pioneers found, in their westward expansion, an undreamt-of natural abundance of game, fertile soil, and plant and wildlife of all sorts, which they promptly set about chopping down, shooting, poisoning, and generally extirpating. The illusion of stasis upon which rural Americans are so intent on staking their politics belies tectonic shifts to their natural surroundings and supporting ecosystem.

For the world is on fire. It is not just the loss of wolves, and the invasion of exotic species, and the relentless spread of pesticides, and countless other piecemeal assults that are degrading what we imagine to be perennial nature. It is global warming that is making nature itself a shadow of her former self. California has been literally on fire the last couple of years. Seasons are palpably shifting. Droughts are spreading. The Arctic sea ice is dwindling. Corals are dying en masse all over the world. Wildlife has been halved over the last half-century. Forests continue to be burned and clear-cut.

Those who see the sacred in nature are deeply appalled and affronted by all this. In the late 90's and early 00's, the Earth Liberation Front formed to take direct action against this desecration, not just by protesting, but by attacking those responsible for the clear-cutting, especially of old growth forests. The Northwest is full of roads that have a thin screen of trees to shield the innocent driver from vast clearcuts hidden behind. What are called "National forests" are in reality more tree farms than forests.

El Dorado "national forest"

The documentary "If a Tree Falls" is a moving story of a fight in defense of sacred values, against the modern Maloch of the timber industry. Whether this fight is noble or not is one of the themes of the piece. But the timber cutters have another set of values, more in line with the conventional property and rapine program of American capitalism, and get to brand the ELF activists as "terrorists".

The irony of the ELF actions is sadly unmistakable, using fossil fuels like diesel oil to burn down the buildings of the forest destruction complex, (i.e. the forest service and the timber companies), which will be immediately rebuilt using yet more timber. The bulk of the film profiles one of the last holdouts from Federal investigation and prosecution, Daniel McGowan. A pudgy, unprepossessing terrorist indeed, he gradually comes into focus as unshakable in his deep sense of sacred values which are in total opposition to the established order. Likewise, the prosecutors and investigators are profiled at some length, embodying their dedication to the values of law and order under the existing system. Yet they are visibly uncomfortable with what those values ultimately stand for and accomplish in this case.

Capitalism is fundamentally amoral, and exists to serve whatever we as private people want to have. It is a tool, not a value system. If we want houses made of wood, it supplies that wood, no matter the incidental cost to public lands and the animals and plants that live there. If we want electrical power, it will burn the coal to supply that power, and transmit it over fragile lines that regularly cause devastating conflagrations in high winds, abetted by global climate heating. We can not blindly trust capitalism to safeguard our long-term interests, let alone our sacred values, from our short-term needs. That is the work of government. And the last people to whom we can entrust that government are those who own and benefit from the capitalist system.

• Conservation vs conservatives.
• Pakistan shows who its friends are.. the Taliban.
• "Free speech" in Europe is a little different than in the US.
• The media is not so great in Britain, either.
• Facebook remains a cesspool. 
• Burn it up. The destruction of social trust favors Republicans.
• Fellow sleaze, in a completely illegal appointment.
• The US excels in diagnosing and treating rare diseases.
• Economic graph of the week... Left cities are economically more equitable, which is perhaps not saying much.

Economic mobility in various cities, vs overall employment growth.

Inequality Spelled the End of Rome

Historian Michael Grant pins the blame for the decline and fall of Rome on economic and social inequality.

We have never had a government by the rich, and for the rich, quite like today. How this could come to pass as a response to one of the most severe financial panics in our history, to financial mass malpractice, and to the Occupy movement, is quite curious. It is perhaps a testament to the innate temperamental conservatism, coupled with the extraordinary power of money in our media and political system. Where are we headed? One way to think about it is to look to history.

Fabulous relief from a late Empire sarcophagus. Rome was about power.

Rome ruled the Mediterranean for roughly five hundred years, from its scrappy beginnings assimilating neighboring city states on the Italian peninsula to its wimpering end at the hands of successive Germanic armies. Some of its greatest gifts were for politics- running a durable, elitist political system with extremely complicated rules, operating a likewise complex legal system, and treating foreign and allied powers with harshness, but also substantial generosity. Throughout its time, inequality was the rule, including slavery at the very bottom. The system was run by and for those at the top- the senators, landowners, and slaveholders. But at the beginning, there was a great deal of civic virtue- it was a republic, and ambition for the public good / growth of the empire often coincided with personal ambition. But defending a static or contracting multi-continent empire is not as much fun. Increasingly, the rich relieved themselves of taxes and public responsibilities, and the burden of supporting the enormous empire fell on the lower classes, in the form of tax-farming.

This is briefly outlined by Michael Grant in his book "A Social History of Greece and Rome". He stresses at some length that the lower classes- the slaves, the ex-slave freedmen, the poor and middling classes- lived quite miserably, and were treated miserably by the system. But they had no political organization or power, and no consciousness of themselves as a class. They were inert, apart from a few riots and revolts which were always local affairs, driven by desperation rather than principle or organization. This has been true through history. Democracy and other revolutions from below are generally not led from below, but by a faction of the rich, engaged in their customary occupation of competing for power at the top. Our founding fathers were not Scots-Irish hillbillies, but colonial aristocrats disaffected from their fellow lords and peers back in Britain.

So Rome was always nervous about its poor and its slaves, but never faced an organized revolution, let alone a Marxist intellectual critique. This allowed progressively worse treatment as time went on, to the point that free Romans chose to become virtual serfs under large landowners rather than face the tax collectors and military recruiters on their own, leading right into the conditions of the medieval period. A state rests on the allegiance and service of its members. If the rich couldn't be bothered to fund its needs, and the poor were hounded to the point of desperation, of what is such a state made?

"Christian writers, too, support the poor, sometimes with passion, but the effect was one again, in practice, non-existent. The destitute had to be content with the assurance that their plight would stand them in good stead in the next life. Christianity, like to many other institutions, has been blamed for its contribution to the fall of the western Roman empire- because it perpetuated the internal social rifts. And there may be something in this, although the main contribution of faith was to establish a focus of loyalty which was not the imperial court, and was not, in fact, of this world. But the fall of the empire was complex. External pressures played a major part. Internally, the main cause was not Christianity, but the gulf between the rich and the poor whom the rich exploited." - Michael Grant, in A Social History of Greece and Rome

What Americans think inequality of wealth should be like, compared with what they think it is, compared (top) with what it actually is. In fact, the top 1% owns over 40% of the wealth and gets one fifth of all income.

While we in the US have only had such antique social extremes in the slave-holding South, the current level of inequality is, in quantitative terms, astonishing and alarming. The trend of our current administration of giving gargantuan tax breaks to the rich, along with countless other gifts of relief from public good regulations, worker rights, and criminal enforcement, means that we are headed not just back through the New Deal into another gilded age, but possibly well beyond. It is hardly the land of the free if so many are economic slaves to others, with homeless beggars on every corner. As Rome evolved from an aristocratic Republic into a more frankly royal Empire, we seem headed in a similar direction, under a new Octavian who has no patience for the weak, the losers, civil society, democracy, or civility. The state exists for winners. Why anyone (who is not rich) follows him is beyond me, but then the lessons of history are usually learned only by those who don't need them.

• Other theories about Rome.
• Making America great would mean... being more like Europe.
• One consequence of inequality? Murder.
• The euro is dying.
• Wildlife is dying.
• Climate change is causing hunger, and not just for other animals.
• Unfinished business in healthcare- the public option, real negotiation, fair pricing.
• Trump and the "sheriff's star". Even Bill Kristol makes a comment.
• Sleazy fraud.
• Free speech? Not for workers.
• How the Fed thinks.

Native Americans and Genetics

A fraught story.

The recent profusion of DNA studies of human lineages have clarified a lot about human history- where we came from and where we have travelled over the millennia. All this depends on samples from native populations- the ones we came from. It is only apparent that we came out of Africa if there are stable African populations that constitute the source and retain the vast diversity of our oldest homeland. But what if the natives do not want to be sampled? What if they are woke to the colonialist and genocidal legacy of the science / scientists doing the sampling, and want no part of it?

That is what happened, in part, in the recent flap over Elizabeth Warren's announcement of Native American heritage. Native South or Central American, that is. As told by a couple of experts, the lab that performed the analysis could not get permission to use North American samples, so used DNA from populations elsewhere in the Americas. Since Warren is herself from North America, indeed Oklahoma, and since the history of native peoples throughout the Americas is known to be relatively recent, expanding over last 15,000 years at the outside, the method is clearly valid in inferring, indirectly, some North American native ancestry for Warren.

So why the guff she caught from the Native American community? It was quite puzzling to hear their representatives trying their hardest to pour cold water on her claim, as though they were getting talking points from the FOX propaganda channel. Despite her not claiming to be a tribal member or wanting to be, they trotted out their arcane rules for membership, which certainly wouldn't accept anything so white as DNA testing. But lo and behold the tribe- the Cherokee in this case- use fractional blood relations determined from a list compiled by white people of the US government back in 1902. There are no good answers here, after half a millenium of disposession, destruction and abuse, but denying the obvious is not one of them.

The deeper issue is the appropriation and objectification of Native Americans and their culture by others, from here to Germany and beyond. Playing cowboys and indians, putting on Karl May dramas, naming sports franchises ... we have a very fraught relationship of romanticization and trivialization, little of which has anything to do with real Native Americans, particularly those living today who wish to be custodians of their own culture even while still suffering under the various debilities of their treatment by the dominant culture. I was part of this myself, in the Boy Scouts, which still play at being Indians, mortifyingly enough. Then the history of eugenics, and the plundering of native treasures, archeology, and burials, etc. has put so-called scientists in a particularly bad light.

This forms the backdrop of the notorious fate of the Kennewick man, an archeological find that led to bitter, drawn-out controversy. The almost complete skeleton, found in Washington state at the Columbia river, was 9,000 years old, and by morphology was more similar to other peoples such as the Jomon aboriginal people of Japan than native Americans. Ironically, it was DNA testing that confirmed affinity with Native Americans after all, after which the remains were given to the local Native American nations, including the Umatilla, which buried them at an unpublished location. From the native perspective, this fed into the narrative that their history is eternal and static, meaning that any pre-Columbian artifacts or remains found on what is currently their land is associated with their culture in some way, despite the thousands of years that may have passed and migrations that may have happened, and thus presents the right of possession and cultural use. One gets the distinct impression that Native Americans do not really want to know their own deep history, preferring a religious narrative of having been forever in the Americas, instead of having wandered in a few thousand years before the Europeans did.

From a scientific perspective, the episode was a travesty of political correctness, as a 9,000 year old skeleton could have no imaginable cultural connection to the current inhabitants of the area, while being an inestimably rich source of knowlege about this early post-glacial time of North American settlement. This antiscience attitude is perhaps a fair harvest for all the harms and hurts inflicted over the last few centuries, science being one of the most domineering and distinctive expressions of Western culture. Still, the loss to general knowledge rankles.

One Cherokee representative spoke of how irritating it is to repeatedly meet people who claimed to be part Cherokee, expecting some positive pat on the head. But those people wouldn't dream of moving back to the reservation, or taking part in Cherokee culture, as is undoubtedly true of Elizabeth Warren as well. It is a "heritage" without practice and of dubious significance. Nor may they be alive to the sense of loss and injury this represents, as such blood mixing may not have been voluntary, but the result of rape and rapine of various sorts.

Nevertheless, it would seem advisable for Native Americans to get off their metaphorical high horses and be more welcoming to the diversity that exists in the US. Even if the pride that Warren feels in her minuscule Native American ancestry is somewhat false, romaticized, and lacking in practice/practical effect, it is still pride, unmistakably, rather than its opposite. Citizens of the US generally take pride in vibrant Native American cultures and take steps through the government to help them, via direct aid, educational assistance, gambling concessions, and other benefits, after and in compensation for, the deeper history of genocide, reservation confinement, ethnic cleansing, and cultural extermination. The relationship is surely a difficult, guilty one. No one wants to alter the definitions that American Indian nations have developed for their formal membership. But their wider membership of genetic descendants is also a positive asset, in pursuit, not of assimilation, but of friendly relations with the wider, shared culture.

• Stiglitz on inequality.
• Meanwhile, the Taliban may not be popular, but they are persistent.
• Class action? Good luck.
• What are you if you enjoy lying? 
• Homelessness is a growing crisis of inequality and government sclerosis.
• Now for some nice piano.
• And some nice paintings.