Category: Culture

Rebecca Stott

Speaks on BBC Radio 4 this week.

Let me offer you Rebecca Stott’s website.

Now I am going to republish that site because it is the only way I can think of to spread the word more widely.

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Rebecca also writes for radio. She has been a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radio Four over the years.

Her radio essay ‘Reflections on My Mother’s Kenwood Mixer’, a homage to her mother’s gritty resilience in times of trouble, promoted scores of people on Twitter and Facebook to share stories about Kenwoods and their own steely mothers. Her essay ‘On Waiting’, tells the story of being marooned with her daughters at dusk in a bus-stop in remote Norfolk during a Covid lockdown. Her essay ‘House Clearing’ tells the story of the strangeness of dismantling her mother’s house after she had moved into a carehome. And her final essay for the programme, ‘On Migration’, describes an astonishing ten days in which hundreds of wild geese flew across the skies of her home town, as well the story of the great philosopher Aristotle study of migrating birds whilst himself a migrant in flight for his life on the island of Lesbos.

You’ll find a link to Rebecca’s Private Passions episode here too. A kind of Desert Island Discs without the Desert Island…. and with the extraordinary composer Michael Berkeley in the interview seat.

Also here is her five-part series commissioned by Radio Four in 2025 called Beautiful Strangeness. You can find the link below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002fv7z/episodes/player

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Being the age I am, Rebecca’s Beautiful Strangeness programmes spoke to me in a way that I find difficult to put into words but nonetheless the series did.

Perfect!

‘Tolly’ finds something really special

I’m indebted to George Monbiot for this article, and ‘Tolly’ as a nickname for Iain Tolhurst.

Many articles from people that I follow online pass through my ‘inbox’.

But there was something special about a recent article by George Monbiot that was published in the Guardian on December 5th and I have great pleasure in republishing it here, with George’s permission.

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Shaking It Up

Posted on 7th December 2025

A eureka moment in the pub could help transform our understanding of the ground beneath our feet.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 5th December 2025

It felt like walking up a mountain during a temperature inversion. You struggle through fog so dense you can scarcely see where you’re going. Suddenly, you break through the top of the cloud, and the world is laid out before you. It was that rare and remarkable thing: a eureka moment.
For the past three years, I’d been struggling with a big and frustrating problem. In researching my book Regenesis, I’d been working closely with Iain Tolhurst (Tolly), a pioneering farmer who had pulled off something extraordinary. Almost everywhere, high-yield farming means major environmental harm, due to the amount of fertiliser, pesticides and (sometimes) irrigation water and deep ploughing required. Most farms with apparently small environmental impacts produce low yields. This, in reality, means high impacts, as more land is needed to produce a given amount of food. But Tolly has found the holy grail of agriculture: high and rising yields with minimal environmental harm.

He uses no fertiliser, no animal manure and no pesticides. His techniques, the result of decades of experiment and observation, appear to enrich the crucial relationships between crops and microbes in the soil, through which soil nutrients must pass. It seems that Tolly has, in effect, “trained” his soil bacteria to release nutrients when his crops require them (a process called mineralisation), and lock them up when his crops aren’t growing (immobilisation), ensuring they don’t leach from the soil.

So why the frustration? Well, Tolly has inspired many other growers to attempt the same techniques. Some have succeeded, with excellent results. Others have not. And no one can work out why. It’s likely to have something to do with soil properties. But what?

Not for the first time, I had stumbled into a knowledge gap so wide that humanity could fall through it. Soil is a fantastically complex biological structure, like a coral reef, built and sustained by the creatures that inhabit it. It supplies 99% of our calories. Yet we know less about it than any other identified ecosystem. It’s almost a black box.

Many brilliant scientists have devoted their lives to its study. But there are major barriers. Most soil properties cannot be seen without digging, and if you dig a hole, you damage the structures you’re trying to investigate. As a result, studying even basic properties is cumbersome, time-consuming and either very expensive or simply impossible at scale. To measure the volume of soil in a field, for example, you need to take hundreds of core samples. But as soil depths can vary greatly from one metre to the next, your figure relies on extrapolation. This makes it very hard to tell whether you’re losing soil or gaining it. Measuring bulk density (the amount of soil in a given volume, which shows how compacted it might be), or connected porosity (the tiny catacombs created by lifeforms, a crucial measure of soil health), or soil carbon – at scale – is even harder.

So farmers must guess. Partly because they cannot see exactly what the soil needs, many of their inputs – fertilisers, irrigation, deep ploughing – are wasted. Roughly two-thirds of the nitrogen fertiliser they apply, and between 50% and 80% of their phosphorus, is lost. These lost minerals cause algal blooms in rivers, dead zones at sea, costs for water users and global heating. Huge amounts of irrigation water are also wasted. Farmers sometimes “subsoil” their fields – ploughing that is deep and damaging – because they suspect compaction. The suspicion is often wrong.

Our lack of knowledge also inhibits the development of a new agriculture, which may, as Tolly has done, allow farmers to replace chemical augmentation with biological enhancement.

So when I came to write the book, I made a statement so vague that it reads like an admission of defeat: we needed to spend heavily on “an advanced science of the soil”, and use it to deliver a “greener revolution”. While we know almost nothing about the surface of our own planet, billions are spent on the Mars Rover programme, exploring the barren regolith there. What we needed, I argued, is an Earth Rover programme, mapping the world’s agricultural soils at much finer resolution.

I might as well have written “something must be done!” The necessary technologies simply did not exist. I sank into a stygian gloom.

At the same time, Tarje Nissen-Meyer, then a professor of geophysics at the University of Oxford, was grappling with a different challenge. Seismology is the study of waves passing through a solid medium. Thanks to billions from the oil and gas industry, it has become highly sophisticated. Tarje wanted to use this powerful tool for the opposite purpose – ecological improvement. Already, with colleagues, he had deployed seismology to study elephant behaviour in Kenya. Not only was it highly effective, but his team also discovered it could identify animal species walking through the savannah by their signature footfall.

By luck we were both attached, in different ways, to Wolfson College, Oxford, where we met in February 2022. I saw immediately that he was a thoughtful man – a visionary. I suggested a pint in The Magdalen Arms.

I explained my problem, and we talked about the limits of existing technologies. Was seismology being used to study soil, I asked. He’d never heard of it. “I guess it’s not a suitable technology then?” No, he told me, “soil should be a good medium for seismology. In fact, we need to filter out the soil noise when we look at the rocks.” “So if it’s noise, it could be signal?” “Definitely.”

We stared at each other. Time seemed to stall. Could this really be true?

Over the next three days, Tarje conducted a literature search. Nothing came up. I wrote to Prof Simon Jeffery, an eminent soil scientist at Harper Adams University, whose advice I’d found invaluable when researching the book. I set up a Zoom call. He would surely explain that we were barking up the wrong tree.

Simon is usually a reserved man. But when he had finished questioning Tarje, he became quite animated. “All my life I’ve wanted to ‘see’ into the soil,” he said. “Maybe now we can.” I was introduced to a brilliant operations specialist, Katie Bradford, who helped us build an organisation. We set up a non-profit called the Earth Rover Program, to develop what we call “soilsmology”; to build open-source hardware and software cheap enough to be of use to farmers everywhere; and to create, with farmers, a global, self-improving database. This, we hope, might one day incorporate every soil ecosystem: a kind of Human Genome Project for the soil.

We later found that some scientists had in fact sought to apply seismology to soil, but it had not been developed into a programme, partly because the approaches used were not easily scalable.

My role was mostly fixer, finding money and other help. We received $4m (£3m) in start-up money from the Bezos Earth Fund. This may cause some discomfort, but our experience has been entirely positive: the fund has helped us do exactly what we want. We also got a lot of pro-bono help from the law firm Hogan Lovells.

Tarje, now at the University of Exeter, and Simon began assembling their teams. They would need to develop an ultra-high-frequency variant of seismology. A big obstacle was cost. In 2022, suitable sensors cost $10,000 (£7,500) apiece. They managed to repurpose other kit: Tarje found that a geophone developed by a Slovakian experimental music outfitworked just as well, and cost only $100. Now one of our scientists, Jiayao Meng, is developing a sensor for about $10. In time, we should be able to use the accelerometers in mobile phones, reducing the cost to zero. As for generating seismic waves, we get all the signal we need by hitting a small metal plate with a welder’s hammer.

On its first deployment, our team measured the volume of a peat bog that had been studied by scientists for 50 years. After 45 minutes in the field, they produced a preliminary estimate suggesting that previous measurements were out by 20%. Instead of extrapolating the peat depth from point samples, they could see the wavy line where the peat met the subsoil. The implications for estimating carbon stocks are enormous.

We’ve also been able to measure bulk density at a very fine scale; to track soil moisture (as part of a wider team); to start building the AI and machine learning tools we need; and to see the varying impacts of different agricultural crops and treatments. Next we’ll work on measuring connected porosity, soil texture and soil carbon; scaling up to the hectare level and beyond; and on testing the use of phones as seismometers. We now have further funding, from the UBS Optimus Foundation, hubs on three continents and a big international team.

Eventually, we hope, any farmer anywhere, rich or poor, will be able to get an almost instant readout from their soil. As more people use the tools, building the global database, we hope these readouts will translate into immediate useful advice. The tools should also revolutionise soil protection: the EU has issued a soil-monitoring law, but how can it be implemented? Farmers are paid for their contributions “to improve soil health and soil resilience”, but what this means in practice is ticking a box on a subsidy form: there’s no sensible way of checking.

We’re not replacing the great work of other soil scientists but, developing our methods alongside theirs, we believe we can fill part of the massive knowledge gap. As one of the farmers we’re working with, Roddy Hall, remarks, the Earth Rover Program could “take the guesswork out of farming”. One day it might help everyone arrive at that happy point: high yields with low impacts. Seismology promises to shake things up.

http://www.monbiot.com

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George Monbiot puts his finger precisely on the point of his article: “While we know almost nothing about the surface of our own planet, billions are spent on the Mars Rover programme.“

A worldwide myth.

An incredible fact, as in the truth, that almost nobody will accept.

Until the 22nd November, 2025, that is last Saturday, I believed this lie. A lie that spoke of the dangers, the hazards, the imminent end of the world as I believed it; as in Climate Change!

Very few of you will change your minds, of that I’m sure.

Nonetheless, I am going to republish a long article that was sent to me by my buddy, Dan Gomez.

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Latest Science Further Exposes Lies About Rising Seas

By Vijay Jayaraj

It’s all too predictable: A jet-setting celebrity or politician wades ceremoniously into hip-deep surf for a carefully choreographed photo op, while proclaiming that human-driven sea-level rise will soon swallow an island nation. Of course, the water is deeper than the video’s pseudoscience, which is as shallow as the theatrics.

The scientific truth is simple: Sea levels are rising, but the rate of rise has not accelerated. A new peer-reviewed study confirms what many other studies have already shown – that the steady rise of oceans is a centuries-long process, not a runaway crisis triggered by modern emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).

For the past 12,000 years, during our current warm epoch known as the Holocene, sea levels have risen and fallen dramatically. For instance, during the 600-year Little Ice Age, which ended in the mid-19th century, sea levels dropped quite significantly.

The natural warming that began in the late 1600s got to a point around 1800 where loss of glacial ice in the summer began to exceed winter accumulation and glaciers began to shrink and seas to rise. By 1850, full-on glacial retreat was underway.

Thus, the current period of gradual sea-level increase began between 1800-1860, preceding any significant anthropogenic CO2 emissions by many decades. The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 critical review on carbon dioxide and climate change confirms this historical perspective.

“There is no good, sufficient or convincing evidence that global sea level rise is accelerating –there is only hypothesis and speculation. Computation is not evidence and unless the results can be practically viewed and measured in the physical world, such results must not be presented as such,” notes Kip Hansen, researcher and former U.S. Coast Guard captain.

New Study Confirms No Crisis

While activists speak of “global sea-level rise,” the ocean’s surface does not behave like water in a bathtub. Regional currents, land movements, and local hydrology all influence relative sea level. This is why local tide gauge data is important. As Hansen warns, “Only actually measured, validated raw data can be trusted. … You have to understand exactly what’s been measured and how.”

In addition, local tide-gauge data cannot be extrapolated to represent global sea level. This is because the geographic coverage of suitable locations for gauges is often poor, with the majority concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. Latin America and Africa are severely under-represented in the global dataset.  Hansen says, “The global tide gauge record is quantitatively problematic, but individual records can be shown as qualitative evidence for a lack of sea-level rise acceleration.”

A new 2025 study provides confirmation. Published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, the study systematically dismantles the narrative of accelerating sea-level rise. It analyzed empirically derived long-term rates from datasets of sufficient length – at least 60 years – and incorporated long-term tide signals from suitable locations.

The startling conclusion: Approximately 95% of monitoring locations show no statistically significant acceleration of sea-level rise. It was found that the steady rate of sea-level rise – averaging around 1 to 2 millimeters per year globally – mirrors patterns observed over the past 150 years.

The study suggests that projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which often predicts rates as high as 3 to 4 millimeters per year by 2100, overestimate the annual rise by approximately 2 millimeters.

This discrepancy is not trivial. It translates into billions of dollars in misguided infrastructure investments and adaptation policies, which assume a far worse scenario than what the data support. Because we now know that local, non-climatic phenomena are a plausible cause of the accelerated sea level rise measured locally.

Rather than pursuing economically destructive initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the basis of questionable projections and erroneous climate science, money and time should be invested in supporting coastal communities with accurate data for practical planning to adapt to local sea level rise.

Successful adaptation strategies have existed for centuries in regions prone to flooding and sea-level variations. The Netherlands is an excellent example of how engineering solutions can protect coastal populations even living below sea level.

Rising seas are real but not a crisis. What we have is a manageable, predictable phenomenon to which societies have adapted for centuries. To inflate it into an existential threat is to mislead, misallocate, and ultimately harm the communities that policymakers claim to protect.

This commentary was first published by PJ Media on September 10, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.

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I shall be returning to this important topic soon. Probably by republishing that 2025 Study referred to in the above article.

I hope that you read this post.

Thank you, Dan.

We humans are still evolving.

An article in The Conversation caught my eye.

We must never forget that evolution is always happening.

So without any more from me here is that article.

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If evolution is real, then why isn’t it happening now? An anthropologist explains that humans actually are still evolving

Inuit people such as these Greenlanders have evolved to be able to eat fatty foods with a low risk of getting heart disease. Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images

Michael A. Little, Binghamton University, State University of New York

If evolution is real, then why is it not happening now? – Dee, Memphis, Tennessee

Many people believe that we humans have conquered nature through the wonders of civilization and technology. Some also believe that because we are different from other creatures, we have complete control over our destiny and have no need to evolve. Even though lots of people believe this, it’s not true.

Like other living creatures, humans have been shaped by evolution. Over time, we have developed – and continue to develop – the traits that help us survive and flourish in the environments where we live.

I’m an anthropologist. I study how humans adapt to different environments. Adaptation is an important part of evolution. Adaptations are traits that give someone an advantage in their environment. People with those traits are more likely to survive and pass those traits on to their children. Over many generations, those traits become widespread in the population.

The role of culture

We humans have two hands that help us skillfully use tools and other objects. We are able to walk and run on two legs, which frees our hands for these skilled tasks. And we have large brains that let us reason, create ideas and live successfully with other people in social groups.

All of these traits have helped humans develop culture. Culture includes all of our ideas and beliefs and our abilities to plan and think about the present and the future. It also includes our ability to change our environment, for example by making tools and growing food.

Although we humans have changed our environment in many ways during the past few thousand years, we are still changed by evolution. We have not stopped evolving, but we are evolving right now in different ways than our ancient ancestors. Our environments are often changed by our culture.

We usually think of an environment as the weather, plants and animals in a place. But environments include the foods we eat and the infectious diseases we are exposed to.

A very important part of the environment is the climate and what kinds of conditions we can live in. Our culture helps us change our exposure to the climate. For example, we build houses and put furnaces and air conditioners in them. But culture doesn’t fully protect us from extremes of heat, cold and the sun’s rays.

a man runs after one of several goats in a dry, dusty landscape
The Turkana people in Kenya have evolved to survive with less water than other people, which helps them live in a desert environment. Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images

Here are some examples of how humans have evolved over the past 10,000 years and how we are continuing to evolve today.

The power of the sun’s rays

While the sun’s rays are important for life on our planet, ultraviolet rays can damage human skin. Those of us with pale skin are in danger of serious sunburn and equally dangerous kinds of skin cancer. In contrast, those of us with a lot of skin pigment, called melanin, have some protection against damaging ultraviolet rays from sunshine.

People in the tropics with dark skin are more likely to thrive under frequent bright sunlight. Yet, when ancient humans moved to cloudy, cooler places, the dark skin was not needed. Dark skin in cloudy places blocked the production of vitamin D in the skin, which is necessary for normal bone growth in children and adults.

The amount of melanin pigment in our skin is controlled by our genes. So in this way, human evolution is driven by the environment – sunny or cloudy – in different parts of the world.

The food that we eat

Ten thousand years ago, our human ancestors began to tame or domesticate animals such as cattle and goats to eat their meat. Then about 2,000 years later, they learned how to milk cows and goats for this rich food. Unfortunately, like most other mammals at that time, human adults back then could not digest milk without feeling ill. Yet a few people were able to digest milk because they had genes that let them do so.

Milk was such an important source of food in these societies that the people who could digest milk were better able to survive and have many children. So the genes that allowed them to digest milk increased in the population until nearly everyone could drink milk as adults.

This process, which occurred and spread thousands of years ago, is an example of what is called cultural and biological co-evolution. It was the cultural practice of milking animals that led to these genetic or biological changes.

Other people, such as the Inuit in Greenland, have genes that enable them to digest fats without suffering from heart diseases. The Turkana people herd livestock in Kenya in a very dry part of Africa. They have a gene that allows them to go for long periods without drinking much water. This practice would cause kidney damage in other people because the kidney regulates water in your body.

These examples show how the remarkable diversity of foods that people eat around the world can affect evolution.

gray scale microscope image of numerous blobs
These bacteria caused a devastating pandemic nearly 700 years ago that led humans to evolve resistance to them.
Image Point FR/NIH/NIAID/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Diseases that threaten us

Like all living creatures, humans have been exposed to many infectious diseases. During the 14th century a deadly disease called the bubonic plague struck and spread rapidly throughout Europe and Asia. It killed about one-third of the population in Europe. Many of those who survived had a specific gene that gave them resistance against the disease. Those people and their descendants were better able to survive epidemics that followed for several centuries.

Some diseases have struck quite recently. COVID-19, for instance, swept the globe in 2020. Vaccinations saved many lives. Some people have a natural resistance to the virus based on their genes. It may be that evolution increases this resistance in the population and helps humans fight future virus epidemics.

As human beings, we are exposed to a variety of changing environments. And so evolution in many human populations continues across generations, including right now.

Michael A. Little, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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This was published for the Curious Kids section of The Conversation.

However, I believe this is relevant for those adults as well who are interested in the subject. I’m in my 80’s and find this deeply interesting.

Death – it comes to all of us!

Irrespective of our believe.

There are only two days in our lives when we live for less than twenty-four hours: the day we are born and the day when we die!

I was born in November, 1944 and that makes me eighty-one. I was born as a result of an affair between my mother and my father. The family genes favour girls over boys, as in seven girls for every boy, and the son is normally the first born. My mother lost her first child, it was a boy. Then my mother had a second baby. Surprise, surprise, it was another son – me!!

I say this as an introduction to a post on The Conversation.

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Americans are unprepared for the expensive and complex process of aging – a geriatrician explains how they can start planning

It’s important for older adults to plan for their care as they age. Maskot/Maskot via Getty Images

Kahli Zietlow, University of Michigan

Hollywood legend Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead in their home in February 2025. Hackman had been living with Alzheimer’s and depended on Arakawa as his full-time caregiver.

Disturbingly, postmortem data suggests that Arakawa died of complications from pulmonary Hantavirus several days before her husband passed. The discordant times of death point to a grim scenario: Hackman was left alone and helpless, trapped in his home after his wife’s death.

The couple’s story, while shocking, is not unique. It serves as a warning for our rapidly aging society. The U.S. population is aging, but most Americans are not adequately planning to meet the needs of older adulthood.

As a geriatric physician and medical educator, I care for older adults in both inpatient and outpatient settings. My research and clinical work focus on dementia and surrogate decision-making.

In my experience, regardless of race, education or socioeconomic status, there are some universal challenges that all people face with aging and there are steps everyone can take to prepare.

Aging is inevitable but unpredictable

Aging is an unpredictable, highly individualized process that varies depending on a person’s genetics, medical history, cognitive status and socioeconomic factors.

The majority of older Americans report a strong sense of purpose and self-worth. Many maintain a positive view of their overall health well into their 70s and 80s.

But at some point, the body starts to slow down. Older adults experience gradual sensory impairment, loss of muscle mass and changes in their memory. Chronic diseases are more likely with advancing age.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46% of adults over age 75 live with at least one physical disability, and this proportion grows with age. Even those without major health issues may find that routine tasks like yard work, housekeeping and home repairs become insurmountable as they enter their 80s and 90s.

Some may find that subtle changes in memory make it difficult to manage household finances or keep track of their medications. Others may find that vision loss and slowed reaction time make it harder to safely drive. Still others may struggle with basic activities needed to live independently, such as bathing or using a toilet. All of these changes threaten older adults’ ability to remain independent.

The costs of aging

Nearly 70% of older Americans will require long-term care in their lifetime, whether through paid, in-home help or residence in an assisted living facility or nursing home.

But long-term care is expensive. In 2021, the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program reported that the average hourly rate for in-home care was US$27. An assisted living apartment averaged $4,800 per month, and a nursing home bed cost nearly double that, at a rate of $276 per day.

Many Americans may be shocked to discover that these costs are not covered by Medicare or other traditional medical insurance. Long-term care insurance covers the cost of long-term care, such as in-home care or nursing home placement. However, what is covered varies from plan to plan. Currently, only a small minority of Americans have long-term care insurance due to high premiums and complex activation rules.

I am not aware of any high-quality, peer-reviewed studies that have demonstrated the cost effectiveness of long-term care insurance. Yet, for many Americans, paying for care out of pocket is simply not an option.

Medicaid can provide financial support for long-term care but only for older adults with very low income and minimal assets – criteria most Americans don’t meet until they have nearly exhausted their savings.

Those receiving Medicaid to cover the costs of long-term care have essentially no funds for anything other than medical care, room and board. And proposed federal financial cuts may further erode the limited support services available. In Michigan, for example, Medicaid-covered nursing home residents keep only $60 per month for personal needs. If individuals receive monthly income greater than $60 – for instance, from Social Security or a pension – the extra money would go toward the cost of nursing home care.

Those who don’t qualify for Medicaid or cannot afford private care often rely on family and friends for unpaid assistance, but not everyone has such support systems.

A nurse helps an older man shave.
Older adults may end up needing help with day-to-day personal care. Klaus Vedfelt/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Planning for the care you want

Beyond financial planning, older adults can make an advance directive. This is a set of legal documents that outlines preferences for medical care and asset management if a person becomes incapacitated. However, only about 25% of Americans over 50 have completed such documentation.

Without medical and financial powers of attorney in place, state laws determine who makes critical decisions, which may or may not align with a person’s wishes. For instance, an estranged child may have more legal authority over an incapacitated parent than their long-term but unmarried partner. Seniors without clear advocates risk being placed under court-appointed guardianship – a restrictive and often irreversible process.

In addition to completing advance directives, it is important that older adults talk about their wishes with their loved ones. Conversations about disability, serious illness and loss of independence can be difficult, but these discussions allow your loved ones to advocate for you in the event of a health crisis.

Who’s going to care for you?

Finding a caregiver is an important step in making arrangements for aging. If you are planning to rely on family or friends for some care, it helps to discuss this with them ahead of time and to have contingency plans in place. As the Hackman case demonstrates, if a caregiver is suddenly incapacitated, the older adult may be left in immediate danger.

Caregivers experience higher rates of stress, depression and physical illness compared with their peers. This is often exacerbated by financial strain and a lack of support. It helps if the people you will be relying on have expectations in place about their role.

For instance, some people may prefer placement in a facility rather than relying on a loved one if they can no longer use the bathroom independently. Others may wish to remain in their homes as long as this is a feasible option.

Connecting with available resources

There are local and federal initiatives designed to help aging adults find and get the help they need. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently launched the GUIDE Model to improve care and quality of life for both those suffering from dementia and their caregivers.

This program connects caregivers with local resources and provides a 24-hour support line for crises. While GUIDE, which stands for Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience, is currently in the pilot stage, it is slowly expanding, and I am hopeful that it will eventually expand to provide enhanced coverage for those suffering from dementia nationwide.

The Program for All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly helps dual-eligible Medicare and Medicaid recipients remain at home as they age. This program provides comprehensive services including medical care, a day center and home health services.

Area agencies on aging are regionally located and can connect older adults with local resources, based on availability and income, such as meals, transportation and home modifications that help maintain independence.

Unfortunately, all of these programs and others that support older adults are threatened by recent federal budget cuts. The tax breaks and spending cuts bill, which was signed into law in July 2025, will result in progressive reductions to Medicaid funding over the next 10 years. These cuts will decrease the number of individuals eligible for Medicaid and negatively affect how nursing homes are reimbursed.

The government funding bill passed on Nov. 13 extends current Medicare funding through Jan. 30, 2026, at which point Medicare funding may be reduced.

Even as the future of these programs remains uncertain, it’s important for older adults and their caregivers to be intentional in making plans and to familiarize themselves with the resources available to them.

Kahli Zietlow, Physician and Clinical Associate Professor of Geriatrics & Internal Medicine, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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This article is a wakeup call for me, because I have no plan in place.

While I think about death more frequently than I used to, the fact that I don’t have plan is naive: I must get myself to a stage where I have a plan, and soon! I guess I am not the only person in their 80s without a plan!

Connections across the miles

This world of blogging opens up incredible connections!

Recently I had a ‘Like’ from someone that I hadn’t come across before. As is my response to such events, I went across to their blog site to thank them by adding a ‘Like’ to their blog site. Then I found it was about street dogs and I started reading their posts. I was blown away by the integrity of the author and he was blogging from Kabul!

I am only going to republish three of the stories today but will be coming back with more.

Panagah Amn

A humanitarian project in Kabul dedicated to building a safe shelter for stray and injured animals.

The shelter is in its early stages, and with your support, we can bring it to life. 

Our goal is to provide food, medical care, and protection.

Panagah Amn is a small but passionate initiative dedicated to helping stray and injured animals in Kabul, Afghanistan. Our shelter was born from a deep sense of compassion and responsibility toward the many dogs and cats suffering in the streets without food, medical care, or shelter.

We welcome support from individuals and organizations who share our vision. Together, we can build a safer world for all living beings.

Staying with their website, I want to share these pictures with you.

He Died Waiting for Kindness

He had no name…
Perhaps because no one had ever paused for even a moment to ask him:
“What is your name, silent little angel?”
The cold of the night had settled over the road, and the car lights passed one after another beside his blood‑stained body…
No one slowed down.
No one turned their head to see his pain.
As if he were invisible — like a dry leaf pushed aside by the wind.
But he was not invisible…
He felt the pain, he felt the fear, and with every fading breath, he swallowed the loneliness.
His body lay on the gravel, his eyes half‑open, as if he was still waiting…
Waiting for someone who, just once, would look at him with kindness.
When I arrived, the blood was still fresh…
If I had reached just 20 minutes earlier, maybe…
Maybe I could have saved him.
Maybe I could have whispered:
“You are not alone… I am here.”
But it was too late.
He had already chosen to leave the pain of this earth and return to the sky…
To the arms of the angels — where no cars would ever drive past his heart again.
No one was even willing to lift his tiny body from the road…
As if he had no worth.
As if a life filled with silence and waiting meant nothing.
But to me, he mattered.
I lifted him from the road…
Not as a stray dog, but as a soul who deserved to be farewelled with dignity.
I buried him…
With shaking hands, yet with a heart that wanted — at least once — for someone to be kind to him.
In that moment, he taught me something…
Despite his wounds, despite his pain, his eyes were still full of kindness.
His gaze seemed to say:
“I wish everyone were like you…”
But the truth is:
I wish everyone were like him non‑judgmental, gentle, with a heart that remained free of hatred, even in the final breath.

 If this story touched your heart… please don’t stay silent.
For him, it’s already too late…
But there are still hundreds of “him” breathing on our streets,
and each one needs just one kind human for their life to change.
Please…

 Be the voice of these silent angels.

oooo

I wish everyone was like you.

 It was Friday… As every week, I set out with an 8-kilogram bag of food to visit those whom the world has forgotten, yet I have never been able to forget them…
From afar, the scene I saw made my heart tremble. Little puppies ran toward me with excitement and hope, so happy as if the entire world had become kind to them with just this one meal. Some were so hungry they could barely run, yet with shining eyes, they looked at me, as if saying: “You came… today we are saved.”
Amid all the sounds, joy, and excitement, my eyes fell on one—a gaze silent yet screaming a thousand cries…
A dog, thin, wounded, and trembling… standing in the middle of the road, afraid, yet hopeful. Fear kept him from approaching… as if he had come close to kindness many times before, only to be met with stones, kicks, and cruelty. And he had every right to be afraid… truly.
As I stepped closer, I saw something no animal lover ever forgets: his ears were gone… both torn off. The scars on his head were still visible… and his leg was injured, probably struck by stones multiple times. Yet… despite all this pain, despite all the suffering… he was still calm. He didn’t bark, growl, or attack… he just looked.
He had been hurt by humans… yet he still had hope in them.
I gently placed the food on the ground. He took a step back… fearful, hesitant. Then, with utmost caution, he came forward, took a bite, and stepped back again, as if saying: “Forgive me… I’m not used to someone treating me kindly.”
I wished I could approach, clean his wounds, and show him that not all humans are cruel. But he ran away… not from me, but from memories that resembled “me.”
But that gaze… that final look that still lingers in my heart like a dagger… eyes full of tears, untold words, gratitude, and fear… as if saying: “Thank you… for a meal. Maybe today is not my last day.”
As he walked away, his legs trembled… not only from hunger, but from life… from loneliness… from being forgotten.
On my way back, this question kept turning in my mind like a painful melody:
Until when? Until when must voiceless animals suffer from human cruelty? Until when will every meal be their only hope for survival? Until when will we just watch?
In Kabul, there are hundreds of animals like him. Some die from hunger, some from stones thrown by children and adults, and some like him… with wounds never healed, yet when they see a morsel of food, gratitude shines in their eyes.
I am alone… but my dream is big.
I want to build a shelter: a place where no animal dies from hunger, cold, disease, or violence. A place where they can learn once more that humans can be kind.
But this is impossible without your support. We need a sponsor, a foreign donor, or a compassionate organization to take the first step. Perhaps you know someone… perhaps your introduction could save a life.
If you can help, collaborate, or want to get in touch with us, please contact us via the email on our website. You can be the hope for an animal’s tomorrow… with a subscription, a referral, or a small step of support.
Sometimes, saving the world is impossible… but saving “a world” for one animal is possible. And perhaps today, it is our turn to change the world for one of them.

oooo

 ooOOoo

Dogs are so precious. What some humans do is beyond Jean and me, and, thankfully many thousands of other people.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that stray street dogs exist.

I won’t pontificate but the message is clear.

Thank you, Dr. Mateullah Abrahemi.

Let me copy some more text about the founder:

Dr. Mateullah Abrahemi, the founder of Panagai Amn in Kabul, is a committed and compassionate advocate for stray animals, especially street dogs. With a deep belief in the right to life and welfare of these vulnerable beings, he strives to provide them with a safe shelter, food, medical care, and kindness.

His efforts are not limited to dreams and ideas; rather, he takes practical, well-planned steps to improve the living conditions of these animals. With valuable experience in animal care, Dr. Abrahemi has now launched the Panagai Amn project, aiming to expand his efforts into a comprehensive support center.

He meticulously handles financial and logistical planning, designs a multilingual website via WordPress, manages resources, produces video content, and builds international communication bridges to attract more support for the cause.

Throughout this challenging journey, when many of his requests for assistance from organizations remained unanswered or were met with rejection,

As previously mentioned, I am going to share these images on, I hope, a weekly basis.

Thank you, Mateullah.

The Science of Sleep.

Exploring the connection between rest and health.

This is a one-hour video (as in a YouTube video) from an accredited US healthcare educator.

That is all for today. Just to add that sleep is so important.

‘When we turn the clocks ahead this spring, we’ll lose an hour of sleep—but for many Americans, poor sleep is a nightly problem. Lack of sleep takes a toll on physical and mental health, increasing risk for chronic conditions like high blood pressure and obesity. Our expert panelists will unpack the latest research on rest, including how social and environmental factors can impact our sleep. They’ll explore the connections between race, sleep, and health disparities. And they’ll share advice on how to improve sleep quality for better overall health.’

The Truth about Gods, part two

The concluding part of this essay by Patrice Ayme.

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Endowing aspects of the universe with spirituality, a mind of their own, is stupid in this day and age, only if one forgets there are natural laws underlying them. But if one wants to feel less alone and more purposeful, it is pretty smart.    

Patrice Ayme

Here is the inventor of monotheism: Nefertiti. Once a fanatic of Aten, the sun god, she turned cautious, once Pharaoh on her own, backpedalled and re-authorized Egyptian polytheism. (The sun-God, Sol Invictis, was revived by Roman emperor Dioclesian 17 centuries later, in his refounding of Romanitas and the empire. His ultra young successor and contemporary, emperor Constantine, used the revived monotheism to impose his invention of Catholicism. Funny how small the conceptual world is.)

***

The preceding part (see Part One yesterday} contains many iconoclastic statements which made the Articial Intelligence (AI) I consulted with try to correct me with what were conventional, but extremely erroneous, ill-informed data points. AI also use the deranged upside down meta-argument that it is well-known that Christianism is not like that, so I have got to be wrong. Well, no, I was raised as a Catholic child in two different Muslim countries, and also in a Pagan one; the Muslim faiths I knew as child were as different from Suny/Shiah faiths as Christianism is, overall, from Islamism. In other words, I know the music of monotheism. So here are:

***

TECHNICAL NOTES: 

[1] To speak in philosophical linguo, we capture two civilizational “ontologies” (logic of existence):

  1. Polytheistic-personal: relational, distributed, ecological.
  2. Monotheistic-fascistic: hierarchical, authoritarian, abstracted.

[2] Paganus, in a religious sense, appears first in the Christian author Tertullian, around 202 CE, to evoke paganus in Roman military jargon for ‘civilian, incompetent soldier‘ by opposition to the competent soldiers (milites) of Christ that Tertullian was calling for.

[3] ‘FAIR OF FACE, Joyous with the Double Plume, Mistress of Happiness, Endowed with Favour, at hearing whose voice one rejoices, Lady of Grace, Great of Love, whose disposition cheers the Lord of the Two Lands.‘

With these felicitous epithets, inscribed in stone more than 3,300 years ago, on the monumental stelae marking the boundaries of the great new city at Tell el Amarna on the Nile in central Egypt, the Pharaoh Akhenaten extolled his Great Royal Wife, the chief queen, the beautiful Nefertiti.

Nefertiti (‘the beautiful one has come‘) co-ruled Egypt with her older (and apparently famously ugly, deformed by disease) husband. Egypt was at its wealthiest. She was considered to be a DIVINITY. All her life is far from known, and revealed one fragment of DNA or old text at a time. She ruled as sole Pharaoh after her husband’s death, and seems to have offered to marry the Hittite Prince (as revealed by a recently found fragment: ”I do not wish to marry one of my subjects. I am afraid…” she confessed in a letter to the amazed Hittite emperor.). She apparently decided to re-allow the worship of the many Egyptian gods, and her adoptive son and successor Tutankhaten switched his name to Tutankhamen). Both her and Tutankhamen died, and they were replaced by a senior top general of Akhenatten who both relieved the dynasty from too much inbreeding (hence the deformed Akhenaten) and too much centralism focused on the sun-disk (‘Aten’)  

[4] Those who do not know history have a small and ridiculous view of FASCISM. Pathetically they refer to simpletons, such as Hitler and Mussolini, to go philosophical on the subject.. Google’s Gemini tried to pontificate that ‘labeling the structure of monotheism (especially its early forms) as ‘fascistic’ is anachronistic and highly inflammatory. Fascism is a specific 20th-century political ideology. While the author means authoritarian and hierarchical, using ‘fascistic’ distracts from the historical and philosophical points by introducing modern political baggage. It would be clearer and less polemical to stick to ‘Hierarchical’ or ‘Authoritarian-Centralized.‘

I disagree virulently with this cognitive shortsightedness of poorly programmed AI. The Romans were perfectly aware of the meaning that the faces symbolized (they got them from the Etruscans). So were the founders of the French and American republics aware of the importance of fascism and the crucial capabilities it provided, the powerful republics which, in the end, succeeded the Roman Republic (which died slowly under the emperors until it couldn’t get up); those two republics gave the basic mentality now ruling the planet.

Fascism is actually an instinct. Its malevolent and dumb confiscation by ignorant  morons such as Hitler and Mussolini ended pathetically under the blows of regimes (the democracies on one side, the fascist USSR on the other) which were capable of gathering enough, and much more, and higher quality fascism of their own to smother under a carpet of bombs the cretinism of the genocidal tyrants. It is actually comical, when reading old battles stories, to see the aghast Nazis out-Nazified by their Soviet opponents (discipline on the Soviet side was a lethal affair at all and any moment.) Or then to see SS commanders outraged by the ferocity of their US opponents. At Bir Hakeim, a tiny French army, 3,000 strong, buried in the sands, blocked the entire Afrika Korps and the Italian army, for weeks, under a deluge of bombs and shells, killing the one and only chance the Nazis had to conquer the Middle East. Hitler ordered the survivors executed, Rommel, who knew he was finished, disobeyed him.   

***

Early Christianism was highly genocidal. The Nazi obsession with the Jews was inherited from Nero (who, unsatisfied with just crucifying Christians (64 CE), launched the annihilation wars against Israel) and then the Christians themselves. There were hundreds of thousands of Samaritans, a type of Jew, with their own capital and temple (above Haifa). Warming up, after centuries of rage against civilization, the Christians under emperor Justinian, in the Sixth Century, nearly annihilated the Samaritans; a genocide by any definition.

Later, by their own count, at a time when Europe and the greater Mediterranean counted around 50 million inhabitants, the Christians, over centuries, killed no less than 5 million Cathars from Spain to Anatolia. Cathars, the pure ones in Greek (a name given to them by their genociders), were a type of Christian). In France alone, in a period of twenty years up to a million were killed, (not all Cathars, but that accentuates the homicidal character). As a commander famously said: ”Tuez les tous, Dieu reconnaitra les siens” (Kill them all, God will recognize his own). The anti-Cathars genocide drive in France, an aptly named ‘crusade‘,  something about the cross, lasted more than a century (and boosted the power of the Inquisition and the Dominicans). The extinction of Catharism was so great that we have only a couple of texts left. 

Want to know about Christianism? Just look at the torture and execution device they brandish, the cross. Christianism literally gave torture and execution a bad name, and it’s all the most cynical hypocrisy hard at work. 

And so on. To abstract it in an impactful way, one could say that much of Christianism instigated Nazism. That’s one of the dirty little secrets of history, and rather ironical as the dumb Hitler was anti-Christian, and still acted like one, unbeknownst to himself, his public, and his critiques; those in doubt can consult the descriptions of the Crusades by the Franks themselves, when roasting children was found to relieve hunger.

Chroniclers like Radulph of Caen (a Norman historian writing around 1118) described it vividly: “In Ma’arra our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled.” Other sources, such as Joinville, Fulcher of Chartres and Albert of Aachen, corroborate the desperation and brutality, though they express varying degrees of horror or justification.   These acts were not systematic policy but extreme responses to the hunger and chaos of war, and they were preserved in Frankish narratives as part of the Crusade’s grim legacy. (There were also cases of cannibalism in WW2).

Christianism, when not actively genocidal, certainly instigated a mood, a mentality, of genocide; read Roman emperor Theodosius I about heresy. Here is the end of Theodosius’ famous quote: ‘According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We order the followers of this law to embrace the name of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, we judge them to be demented and ever more insane (dementes vesanosque iudicantes), we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the PUNISHMENT OF OUR AUTHORITY which in accordance with the will of Heaven WE SHALL DECIDE TO INFLICT.‘

The ‘Men In Black‘ of the Fourth Century destroyed books, libraries and intellectuals, ensuring the smothering of civilization, as intended (destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria, the world’s largest library) around 391 CE. Contemporary writers like Eunapius and Libanius lamented the ‘rage for destruction’ of the Men In Black. Some non-Christian texts were preserved in monasteries, true, but the point is that Christianism made possible the destruction of non-Yahweh knowledge. This is the problem king David himself already had, the fascism, the power obsessed little mind of Yahweh. Monasteries were often built with a covert anti-Christian mentality, things were complicated. When queen Bathilde outlawed slavery (657 CE), her closest allies were bishops, yet she had to execute other, slave-holding bishops. She also founded and funded four monasteries. Soon the Frankish government passed a law enforcing secular teaching by religious establishments.

The uniforms of the Men In Black were copied later by the Dominicans (‘Black Friars’) who led the genocide of the Cathars, in co-operation with the Inquisition, also dressed in black, and then the SS. Luther. Saint Louis expressed explicitly that nothing would bring them more joy than Jews suffering to death. Saint Louis was more descriptive, evoking a knife planted in the belly of the unbeliever and great pleasure. In Joinville’s Life of Saint Louis (c. 1309), Louis recounts a story of a knight who, during a debate with Jews, stabbed one in the belly with a dagger, saying it was better to “kill him like that” than argue theology.  Louis presented this approvingly as zeal for the faith, and wished he could partake. Although he warned, he wouldn’t do it, that would be illegal. With a faith like that Louis IX could only be canonized in 1297 CE. And, following Saint Louis’ hint, the Nazis removed his legal objection by changing the law in 1933, when they got to power.

Luther gave multiple and extensive ‘sincere advices‘ on how to proceed with the genocide of the Jews in his book: ”The Jews and their Lies”. Here is a sample: “If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over, with the words, ‘I baptize thee in the name of Abraham.” 

But Musk’s AI, ‘Grok’ informed me that its basic axiom was that Christianism was never genocidal, but instead ‘suppressive‘. Then it thought hard for ‘nine seconds‘ to try to prove to me, with biased context, that I had exaggerated.

I had not.  

***.  

The entire church was into assassination madness, glorifying in its own cruelty; the chief assassin of Hypatia, a sort of Charlie Manson to the power 1000, was made into a saint: Saint Cyril. Cyril’s minions grabbed Hypatia who had just finished giving a lecture, dragged her in the streets, and stripped her clothing, and then stripped her of her own skin, flaying her with oysters shells, causing her demise. She was the top intellectual of the age. Hypatia met her torturous end in 415 CE. Cyril was made into a saint 29 years later, in 444 CE! With saints like that, who needs Hitler?

Not to say Catholicism was useless; the jealous and genocidal, yet loving and all-knowing Yahweh was always a good excuse to massacre savages and extend civilization on the cheap. The Teutonic Knights, finding the Yahweh fanatics known as Muslims too hard a nut to crack, regrouped in Eastern Germany and launched a very hard fought crusade against the Prussian Natives, who were Pagans. After mass atrocities on both sides, the Teutons won.

The Franks embraced the capabilities of the cross, fully. Having converted to Catholicism, they were in a good position to subdue other Germans, who were Arians (and that they did, submitting Goths and Burgonds, Ostrogoths and Lombards). Three centuries later, Charlemagne used Christianism as an instrument to kill Saxons on an industrial scale, in the name of God, to finally subdue them, after Saxons had terminally aggravated Romanitas for 800 years, driving Augustus crazy. 

Charlemagne, in daily life, showing how relative Christianism was, and its true Jewish origins, used the nickname ‘David’ for king David, the monarch who refused to obey Yahweh, who had ordered David to genocidize a people (petty, jealous God Yahweh then tortured David’s son to death). 

Charlemagne lived the life of a hardened Pagan, with a de-facto harem, etc. More viciously, Charlemagne passed laws pushing for secular, and thus anti-Christian education. Following in these respects a well-established Frankish custom. Charlemagne knew Christianism was a weapon, and he was careful to use it only on the Saxons; internally, there was maximum tolerance: Christians could become Jews, if they so wished.

PA

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I found the full essay quite remarkable. Jean has heard me rattle on about it numerous times since I first read the essay on November 2nd. I sincerely hope you will read it soon.

Finally, let me reproduce what I wrote in a response to Patrice’s post:

Patrice, in your long and fascinating article, above, you have educated me in so many ways. My mother was an atheist and I was brought up in likewise fashion. But you have gone so much further in your teachings.

Your article needs a further reading. But I am going to share it with my readers on LfD so many more can appreciate what you have written. Plus, I am going to republish it over two days.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


The Truth about Gods, part one.

A brilliant essay by Patrice Ayme.

Patrice writes amazing posts, some of which are beyond me. But this one, The Personification Of The World, PAGANISM, Gives Us Friends Everywhere, is incredible.

My own position is that my mother and father were atheists and I was brought up as one. Apart from a slip-up when I was married to my third wife, a Catholic, and she left me and I thought that by joining the Catholic church I might win her back. (My subconcious fear of rejection.)

My subconscious fear of rejection was not revealed to me until the 50th anniversary of my father’s death in 2006 when I saw a local psychotherapist. Then I met Jean in December, 2007 and she was the first woman I truly loved!

Back to the essay; it is a long essay and I am going to publish the first half today and the second half tomorrow. (And I have made some tiny changes.)

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The Personification Of The World, PAGANISM, Gives Us Friends Everywhere

Abstract: Personification of the world (polytheism/paganism) is more pragmatic, psychologically rewarding, and ecologically sound than the hierarchical, abstracted structure of monotheism, which the author labels “fascistic.” [4]

***

Switching to a single fascist God, Ex Pluribus Unum, a single moral order replacing the myriad spirits of the world, was presented as a great progress: now everybody could, should, line up below the emperor, God’s representative on Earth, and obey the monarch and his or her gang. The resulting organization was called civilization. Submitting to God was the only way Rome could survive, because it provided a shrinking army and tax base with more authority than it deserved.

However peasants had to predict the world and it was more judicious to personalize aspects of it. The resulting logico-emotional relationship had another advantage: the supportive presence of a proximal Gods… All over!.[1]

*** 

personification

/pəˌsɒnɪfɪˈkeɪʃn/ noun

1.the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

***

Before Christianism, Gods were everywhere. When the Christians took over, they imposed their all powerful, all knowing Jewish God. Some present the Jewish God as a great invention, symbolizing some sort of progress of rationality that nobody had imagined before. 

However, the single God concept was not that new. Even Americans had it in North America, as the chief of God, the Aztecs, had a similar concept, and even Zeus was a kind of chief God. Zoroastrianism had Ahura Mazda, who did not control Angra Manyu, but still was somewhat more powerful. The Hindus had Vishnu and his many avatars.

Eighteen centuries before those great converters to Christianism, Constantine, Constantius II, and Theodosius I, there was an attempt to forcefully convert the Egyptians to a single God. Pharaoh Akhenaten’s monotheistic experiment (worship of Aten) caused turmoil and was erased by his immediate successors.

According to the latest research it seems likely that the famous Nefertiti became a Pharaoh on her own, after the death of her husband, and retreated from monotheism by re-establishing Egyptian polytheism [3]. In the fullness of time, the infernal couple got struck by what the Romans, 15 centuries later, would call damnatio memoriae. Their very names and faith were erased from hundreds of monuments

Shortly after the Aten episode, there was another confrontation between polytheism and monotheism. The colonizers of Gaza were apparently Greek, of Aegean origin, and, as such, over more than a millennium of conflict with the Jewish states in the hills, Greek Gods confronted Yahweh. The Greeks obviously did not see Yahweh as a major conceptual advance, as they did not adopt Him (until Constantine imposed Him, 15 centuries later).

While the area experienced enormous turmoil, including the permanent eclipse of Troy after the war with Greece (see Homer), and later its replacement by Phrygia, then followed by the Bronze Age collapse, then the rise of Tyre, and the Assyrian conquest, the Greeks survived everything, and their civilization kept sprawling (the early Christian writings were in Greek).

Ultimately, the lack of ideological bending, the obsession with pigs and other silliness, helped to bring devastating Judeo-Roman wars. By comparison, the much larger Gaul bent like a reed when confronted with the Greco-Romans, absorbing the good stuff. Mercury, the God of trade, preceded Roman merchants. Gaul didn’t take religion too seriously, and went on with civilizational progress.

The lack of elasticity of the single God religion of the Jews brought their quasi-eradication by Rome; Judaism was tolerated, but Jewish nationalism got outlawed. By comparison, the Greeks played the long game, and within a generation or so of Roman conquest, they had spiritually conquered their conqueror. Christianism was actually an adaptation of Judaism to make Yahweh conquer the heart and soul of fascist Rome.

***

To have Gods everywhere? Why not? Is not the Judeo-Christian God everywhere too? Doesn’t it speak through fountains, and the immensity of the desert, and the moon, and the stars, too?

***

Yahweh, the Jewish God Catholic Romans called “Deus” was deemed to be also the ultimate love object. Yahweh had promised land to the Jews, Deus promised eternal life of the nicest sort – To all those who bought the program. 

Christians were city dwellers and their power over the countryside and barbarians came from those who had imposed Christianism, the imperial powers that be (at the time, more than 90% of the people worked in agriculture). Already as a teenager, Constantine, a sort of superman born from imperial purple, terrified the court which was supposed to hold him hostage. Such a brute and excellent general could only get inspired by Yahweh’s dedication to power.

The country dwellers, the villagers, disagreed that they needed to submit to a God organized, celebrated and imposed by the all-powerful government (god-vernment?). In classical Latin paganus meant ‘villager, rustic; civilian, non-combatant’. In late imperial Latin it came to mean non-Judeo-Christian (and later non-Judeo-Christo-Islamist) [2].

Christianism found it very difficult to penetrate the countryside, where the food was produced. It never quite succeeded (Even in Muslim Albania, Pagan rituals survived until the 20th century; much of the cult of saints is barely disguised Paganism).

Peasants knew that power was distributed throughout nature, and they had to understand those powers, thus love them – That enabled them to predict phenomena.

Peasants could ponder the mood of a river, and even predict it; flooding was more of a possibility in some circumstances, and then it was no time to indulge in activities next to the river. Peasants had to guess the weather, and the earlier, the better. Peasants had to know which part of the astronomical cycle they were in, to be able to plant crops accordingly; that was not always clear just looking outside, but the stars would tell and could be trusted to tell the truth.

We can be friends to human beings, and sometimes it’s great, but sometimes we feel betrayed and abandoned. But a mountain or a sea? They will always be there, they are not running away, they are never deliberately indifferent, and generally exhibit predictable moods. It is more pragmatic and rewarding to love them more rather than an abstract Dog in Heavens. Call them Gods if you want.

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Part two will be published tomorrow.

I am publishing the notes, on both days, so you can look them up now rather than waiting another day.

TECHNICAL NOTES: 

[1] To speak in philosophical linguo, we capture two civilizational ‘ontologies’ (logic of existence):

  1. Polytheistic-personal: relational, distributed, ecological.
  2. Monotheistic-fascistic: hierarchical, authoritarian, abstracted.

[2] Paganus, in a religious sense, appears first in the Christian author Tertullian, around 202 CE, to evoke paganus in Roman military jargon for ‘civilian, incompetent soldier‘ by opposition to the competent soldiers (milites) of Christ that Tertullian was calling for.

[3] ‘FAIR OF FACE, Joyous with the Double Plume, Mistress of Happiness, Endowed with Favour, at hearing whose voice one rejoices, Lady of Grace, Great of Love, whose disposition cheers the Lord of the Two Lands.‘

With these felicitous epithets, inscribed in stone more than 3,300 years ago on the monumental stelae marking the boundaries of the great new city at Tell el Amarna on the Nile in central Egypt, the Pharaoh Akhenaten extolled his Great Royal Wife, the chief queen, the beautiful Nefertiti.

Nefertiti (‘the beautiful one has come‘) co-ruled with her older (and apparently famously ugly, deformed by disease) husband, Egypt. Egypt was at its wealthiest. She was considered to be a DIVINITY. All her life is far from known, and revealed one fragment of DNA or old text at a time. She ruled as sole Pharaoh after her husband’s death, and seems to have offered to marry the Hittite Prince (as revealed by a recently found fragment: ”I do not wish to marry one of my subjects. I am afraid…” she confessed in a letter to the amazed Hittite emperor). She apparently decided to re-allow the worship of the many Egyptian gods and her adoptive son and successor Tutankhaten switched his name to Tutankhamen. Both her and Tutankhamen died, and they were replaced by a senior top general of Akhenatten who both relieved the dynasty from too much inbreeding (hence the deformed Akhenaten) and too much centralism focused on the sun-disk (‘Aten’).  

[4] Those who do not know history have a small and ridiculous view of FASCISM. Pathetically they refer to simpletons, such as Hitler and Mussolini, to go philosophical on the subject. Google’s Gemini tried to pontificate that ‘labeling the structure of monotheism (especially its early forms) as ‘fascistic’ is anachronistic and highly inflammatory. Fascism is a specific 20th-century political ideology. While the author means authoritarian and hierarchical, using ‘fascistic’ distracts from the historical and philosophical points by introducing modern political baggage. It would be clearer and less polemical to stick to ‘Hierarchical’ or ‘Authoritarian-Centralized’.

The beautiful moon, but …

… does it make us sleepless?

As has been mentioned previously, my dear wife and her Parkinson’s means that we go to bed early and get up early the following morning. Thus a recent item on The Conversation fascinated me and it is shared with you now.

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Does the full moon make us sleepless? A neurologist explains the science behind sleep, mood and lunar myths

How much does the moon cycle affect sleep? Probably less than your screen time at night. Muhammad Khazin Alhusni/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, University of Pittsburgh

Have you ever tossed and turned under a full moon and wondered if its glow was keeping you awake? For generations, people have believed that the Moon has the power to stir up sleepless nights and strange behavior – even madness itself. The word “lunacy” comes directly from luna, Latin for Moon.

Police officers, hospital staff and emergency workers often swear that their nights get busier under a full moon. But does science back that up?

The answer is, of course, more nuanced than folklore suggests. Research shows a full moon can modestly affect sleep, but its influence on mental health is much less certain.

I’m a neurologist specializing in sleep medicine who studies how sleep affects brain health. I find it captivating that an ancient myth about moonlight and madness might trace back to something far more ordinary: our restless, moonlit sleep.

What the full moon really does to sleep

Several studies show that people really do sleep differently in the days leading up to the full moon, when moonlight shines brightest in the evening sky. During this period, people sleep about 20 minutes less, take longer to fall asleep and spend less time in deep, restorative sleep. Large population studies confirm the pattern, finding that people across different cultures tend to go to bed later and sleep for shorter periods in the nights before a full moon.

The most likely reason is light. A bright moon in the evening can delay the body’s internal clock, reduce melatonin – the hormone that signals bedtime – and keep the brain more alert.

The changes are modest. Most people lose only 15 to 30 minutes of sleep, but the effect is measurable. It is strongest in places without artificial light, such as rural areas or while camping. Some research also suggests that men and women may be affected differently. For instance, men seem to lose more sleep during the waxing phase, while women experience slightly less deep and restful sleep around the full moon.

Young adult woman lying in bed wide awake, staring out the window toward a bright light.
Sleep loss from a bright moon is modest but measurable. Yuliia Kaveshnikova/iStock via Getty Images Plus

The link with mental health

For centuries, people have blamed the full moon for stirring up madness. Folklore suggested that its glow could spark mania in bipolar disorder, provoke seizures in people with epilepsy or trigger psychosis in those with schizophrenia. The theory was simple: lose sleep under a bright moon and vulnerable minds might unravel.

Modern science adds an important twist. Research is clear that sleep loss itself is a powerful driver of mental health problems. Even one rough night can heighten anxiety and drag down mood. Ongoing sleep disruption raises the risk of depression, suicidal thoughts and flare-ups of conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

That means even the modest sleep loss seen around a full moon could matter more for people who are already at risk. Someone with bipolar disorder, for example, may be far more sensitive to shortened or fragmented sleep than the average person.

But here’s the catch: When researchers step back and look at large groups of people, the evidence that lunar phases trigger psychiatric crises is weak. No reliable pattern has been found between the Moon and hospital admissions, discharges or lengths of stay.

But a few other studies suggest there may be small effects. In India, psychiatric hospitals recorded more use of restraints during full moons, based on data collected between 2016 and 2017. In China, researchers noted a slight rise in schizophrenia admissions around the full moon, using hospital records from 2012 to 2017. Still, these findings are not consistent worldwide and may reflect cultural factors or local hospital practices as much as biology.

In the end, the Moon may shave a little time off our sleep, and sleep loss can certainly influence mental health, especially for people who are more vulnerable. That includes those with conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or epilepsy, and teenagers who are especially sensitive to sleep disruption. But the idea that the full moon directly drives waves of psychiatric illness remains more myth than reality.

The sleep/wake cycle is synchronized with lunar phases.

Other theories fall short

Over the years, scientists have explored other explanations for supposed lunar effects, from gravitational “tidal” pulls on the body to subtle geomagnetic changes and shifts in barometric pressure. Yet, none of these mechanisms hold up under scrutiny.

The gravitational forces that move oceans are far too weak to affect human physiology, and studies of geomagnetic and atmospheric changes during lunar phases have yielded inconsistent or negligible results. This makes sleep disruption from nighttime light exposure the most plausible link between the Moon and human behavior.

Why the myth lingers

If the science is so inconclusive, why do so many people believe in the “full moon effect”? Psychologists point to a concept called illusory correlation. We notice and remember the unusual nights that coincide with a full moon but forget the many nights when nothing happened.

The Moon is also highly visible. Unlike hidden sleep disruptors such as stress, caffeine or scrolling on a phone, the Moon is right there in the sky, easy to blame.

A woman staring at her cellphone while lying in the dark.
Screen-time habits are far more likely to have detrimental effects on sleep than a full moon. FanPro/Moment via Getty Images

Lessons from the Moon for modern sleep

Even if the Moon does not drive us “mad,” its small influence on sleep highlights something important: Light at night matters.

Our bodies are designed to follow the natural cycle of light and dark. Extra light in the evening, whether from moonlight, streetlights or phone screens, can delay circadian rhythms, reduce melatonin and lead to lighter, more fragmented sleep.

This same biology helps explain the health risks of daylight saving time. When clocks “spring forward,” evenings stay artificially brighter. That shift delays sleep and disrupts circadian timing on a much larger scale than the Moon, contributing to increased accidents and cardiovascular risks, as well as reduced workplace safety.

In our modern world, artificial light has a much bigger impact on sleep than the Moon ever will. That is why many sleep experts argue for permanent standard time, which better matches our biological rhythms.

So if you find yourself restless on a full moon night, you may not be imagining things – the Moon can tug at your sleep. But if sleeplessness happens often, look closer to home. It is likely a culprit of the light in your hand rather than the one in the sky.

Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ooOOoo

Ever since I have been an adult I have wondered what the purpose was of daylight time and standard time. The University of Colorado have the history of the time change and, as I suspect, it was brought about by the war; World War I.

Here’s part of that article:

It was first introduced in Germany in 1916 during World War I as an energy saving measure, according to CU Boulder sleep researcher Kenneth Wright. The U.S. followed suit, adopting DST in 1918. Initially implemented as a wartime measure, it was repealed a year later. 

Daylight saving time was reinstituted in 1942 during World War II. The next couple decades were a free-for-all, when states and localities switched between DST and standard time (ST) at will. To put an end to the clock chaos, Congress finally passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized daylight saving time and its start and end dates across the country — with the exception of Hawaii and Arizona, which opted to keep standard time year-round.