Obvious Questions

Excerpted from the New York Times (February 24, 2020)

"....
Why are conspiracy theories gaining traction? We’ve reported on the belief in unfounded claims about the origins of the virus: Some say it came from a lab in Wuhan, while Russian actors have spread a theory alleging the U.S. is behind the outbreak.

Conspiracies are the first thing some people go to when they face something new and scary. This happened with Zika; people rejected the truth that the virus caused microcephaly and blamed pesticides or genetically modified mosquitoes. But in medical school they teach you: If you hear footsteps, assume it’s horses, not zebras. That is, try the obvious diagnosis first.
...."


The obvious question here is why are there equines walking around in hospital corridors.

Thanksgiving

The leaves have only been on the ground for a few weeks, as summer finally ended in the American southeast. A yellow butterfly,  a common pat size, floated by. It landed on a brown leaf, one of many covering the ground.

Consider the Squirrels

They toil a lot. In the morning waves, they are a gray foam.

Like words. Words do not have a one to one correspondence to our observed world. Never have, never will. Hence Western philosophy.

The squirrel a hawk grabbed, the squirrel that was dropped, or fought free, has a white oval on its side, and for a while a red eye within this shape.

Seeing him we celebrate. He has a narrative. Though we cannot number his fleas, note the dissymmetry of his nostrils, or file his form, we love him. Could he know, he would fear us more than he does some birds. We rejoice in his distance, whatever freedom is.

Are words a similar violence? Must our appreciation of the particular, be built on a scar?

Is all individuality bubbles in a tide? ....

of the ongoing, ever, canoodldrum

....
Words
are
trellises
.....

The Royalty of Words

Defenses of royalty in our modern world seem absurd to many, particularly intellectuals. I myself have found some, but here is a new one. (We are talking about this class of people as it appears in modern Europe.) If you see the external world as a reflection of hidden terrains, then you could say that royalty functions on a social stage as words do for an individual person. You have one figure representing many, and there is a unique attention paid to that one person, say, Queen Margarethe of Denmark. Her speech has a certain power, but it is NOT that dynamic of original forces, but merely a reflection, which is certainly diverse from the gears that run things, personally, and beyond. A constitutional monarch is every person's verbal talent. My picture is meant to point to the power of words, which is not the same as any truth value they might have. Words assert an authority which they do not actually have, and yet, there is something about the linguistic dimension which is remarkable.

The power of dirt

cit

https://neurosciencenews.com/dirt-fat-anxiety-14108/?


NEUROSCIENCENEWS.COM

Healthy fat hidden in dirt may fend off anxiety disorders - Neuroscience News


q

Summary: 10(Z)-hexadecenoic acid, a fatty acid found in the soil based bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae, interacts with immune cells to inhibit pathways that drive inflammation and increases resilience to stress. Researchers say the findings could bring us one step closer to developing a microbe-based “stress vaccine”.

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

Thirty years after scientists coined the term “hygiene hypothesis” to suggest that increased exposure to microorganisms could benefit health, University of Colorado Boulder researchers have identified an anti-inflammatory fat in a soil-dwelling bacterium that may be responsible.

The discovery, published Monday in the journal Psychopharmacology, may at least partly explain how the bacterium, Mycobacterium vaccae, quells stress-related disorders. It also brings the researchers one step closer to developing a microbe-based “stress vaccine.”

....

Upton Abbey

Of course I watched Downton Abbey-- in case you ever need proof against imputations of any saintly stature on my part.

The ending of the last episode, where a sister marries a titled fellow is the climactic logic of the whole series, and thereby a revelation of contemporary values. Think about that a minute--- the 21st century, and marrying someone with an aristocratic bumper sticker, is the summit of human accomplishment?

Or so I once thought. Could Fellows actually have been hinting at a subtler vision wherein verbal complexities unite and push forward human understanding of our universal precipitous condition? 'Title' then might be pointing to verbal reality itself, and 'marriage', the present moment, which must assume an illusory completeness, actually shredding in the breath of speaking.

Surely I joke...