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If you have been closely following the affairs of the Andaman Islands, you will know that the North Sentinelese are back in the news of the world. On November 17th, an American Christian missionary named John Allen Chau bribed corrupt fisherman to take him to the forbidden island in the Bay of Bengal. As previously set forth in one of our most popular posts, the island is inhabited by the mysterious North Sentinelese, a stone age hunter-gatherer tribe of unknown language and customs which has spurned all contact with the rest of humankind. The North Sentinelese are bellicose and territorial and they want nothing to do with our networked world of technology, trade, and toil.
The natives, likewise, had no desire to hear John Allen Chau’s proselytizing, and they swiftly dispatched him with arrows and buried his body as quickly as possible (as is their known custom). North Sentinel island is part of India, although the islanders do not seem to recognize (or even know about) their citizenship, and the Indian authorities have been trying to recover Chau’s body. This strikes me as a grave error, since the islanders have demonstrated time and again that they do not desire visitors of any sort. Jesus can worry about his missionary’s final arrangements, thus saving the Indian police from savage battle and saving the islanders from measles, flu, smallpox, or goodness-only-knows what outside disease or influence which they are woefully unprepared for.
Despite ample incontrovertible evidence that the North Sentinelese do not want to integrate into the modern world, there are always arguments about whether the Indian government is operating a “human zoo” (undoubtedly the Sentinelese have some choice descriptions of the interconnected pan-global hive organism that the rest of us are part of, insomuch as they can conceive of it). It strikes me that they have made their choices plain. The worldwide fame/infamy which the North Sentinelese have gained in the last fortnight will quickly fade away, and we can go back to thinking of them as a peculiar alternate sect of humankind—when we think of them at all…
OK, yesterday I promised we would get to the space news. Clearly the real story is the earthlike planet right in our backyard (erm, relatively speaking). However it isn’t going anywhere right now so I am going to blog about it later when we have all had a moment to think about the real implications. The space story I am looking at today is closer to home, but still takes place out there in the black: back in October of 2014, NASA lost communication with Stereo B one of two paired spacecraft which orbited the sun from the distance of Earth.
The solar observatory spacecraft allow stereoscopic viewing of the sun. One spacecraft Stereo A was ahead of Earth on its orbit, whereas Stereo B trailed behind us. The two observatories allow us to study coronal mass ejections and other stellar phenomena. In 2011, the craft were 180 degrees apart from each other—allowing humankind to view the entire sun at once for the very first time (a truly remarkable milestone, when you think about it, which I heard nothing about at the time).
Sadly, however, in 2014, as part of an automation and attitude test, Stereo B began to spin. Mission controllers then lost contact with the craft which (because of the nature of its work) was on the other side of the sun! NASA has patiently waited till the orbital path of Stereo B carried it further towards Earth and has used the Deep Space Network, a networked array of radio telescopes to find the errant craft.
We are still working on figuring out what sort of shape the poor guy is in (and maybe rehabilitating the spinning observatory), however I feel the story is worth telling as a sort of reminder of the fleet of crafts we have up there, which we don’t think about very often.
The Ili pika photographed by Li Weidong in July 2014
Back during a week devoted to small furry herbivores, Ferrebeekeeper sketched in the general outlines of pikas—close relatives of rabbits. Pikas live in the mountains among high cliffs and alpine meadows where they practice a sort of rudimentary farming. They collect hay in order to dry and store it for the harsh mountain winters. You can read the general natural history here, however today we concentrate on a specific species of pika–the Ili pika (Ochotona iliensis) of northwest China. In 1983, a team of biologists and natural scientists discovered Ili pika in the rough and arid mountain terrain of western Xinjiang province. Then the animal was then not seen or documented by science again until last year (2014).
The Tian Shan Mountains, goodness help us…
During the intervening years nobody necessarily thought the Ili pika was extinct (unlike the Gilbert’s potoroo which was thought to be deceased until rediscovered against all hope), instead the pika was not seen because almost nobody went into the remote mountain fastnesses where it lives. Having said that, almost nothing is known about the Ili pika. It was rediscovered in the bleak Tian Shan mountains but conservationists fear that it may have been extirpated from the Jilimalale and Hutubi mountains (even bleaker mountains which are subject to human resource extraction).
Although we know little about the behavior or ecology of the Ili pika, we have pictures of it, and it is exceedingly adorable—like a cross between a terrier, a rabbit, and a tiny sage. It seems to have all of the charisma of the panda, the golden pheasant, the tragic baiji, and the gibbon. Perhaps Chinese mythmakers and cultural arbiters could surreptitiously slip it into the folklore pantheon. I would love to read some stories starring the Ili pika as a trickster or a magical mountain wise man.
I don’t know what this is but I found it on the internet and thought it was compelling
Hey! It’s the flag of Irsael: a blue Star of David on a white background between two blue stripes. What’s the story with all of that blue anyway? Well, like most stories involving Judaism, the story goes back a long, long way to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, where the high priests wore a robe dyed a deep midnight blue. In fact, this color, known as tekhelet, was a sacred color which appeared in temple hangings and in the twined fringes known as tzitzit which hang from the corners of Jewish prayer shawls.
A High Priest with Tekhelet Robe
The Tanahk (the sacred books of Judaism) are pretty specific about tekhelet. It is mentioned nearly 50 times and it is specifically and explicitly stated that the special blue dye must be made from a shellfish called chilazon (rather than from the less expensive indigo). And so it was for many lives of men. Unfortunately everything went wrong in the first and second centuries AD when the Roman Empire destroyed the temple, defeated a Jewish revolt and exiled Jews from Jerusalem. During this period of chaos and diaspora, the fine nuances of dyes were not of tantamount importance, and the way to make tekhelet were lost as was knowledge of exactly what sort of mollusk a chilazon actually is.
Oh, also, during travel, the Ark of the Covenant was supposed to be covered in a cloth of tekhelet
The Talmud demands that tekhelet be used for crafting the fringes of prayer shawls and it stipulates that counterfeit dyes must not be (knowingly) used. This has left devout Jews with a conundrum as to how to proceed. Since the Roman exile, Orthodox Jews have most commonly setteld plain white tzitzit, however there have also been several attempts to rediscover the mysterious chilazon and recreate tekhelet. In the late nineteenth century the Grand Rabbi Gershon Henoch Leiner researched the subject and proclaimed that the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, was the missing mollusk. The dye he created, however, did not seem to fit Talmudic descriptions and chemists later determined it was simply Prussian blue (although the holy man proudly wore his blue fringes, as did many of his followers).
Common cuttlefish – Sepia officinalis (photo by David Nicholson)
Hexaplex trunculus
Another Talmudic scholar cross referenced his ancient religious text with modern malacology texts and concluded that the chilazon was actually Hexaplex trunculus, a murex snail which is a close relative of Murex brandaris (the source of Tyrian purple). The dye which he created from the secretions of Hexaplex trunculus was also purple and thus did not seem to fit the bill. Only with the help of a chemist in the 1980s was it determined that the proper blue color could be obtained by exposing a solution of the snail slime dye to sunlight. So if you are an orthodox Jew (or a high priest of the Temple) you might want to look into getting some tekhelet clothing.
Actual Tekhelet dyed wool (probably…)
The Lost Crown of Henry VIII
Many of the most amazing historical crowns were destroyed during the tumultuous hurly-burly of history. This is a reproduction of the crown worn by the infamous Henry VIII, the powerful plus-sized king with many wives. The original was made either for Henry VIII or his father Henry VII and was worn by subsequent Tudor and Stuart monarchs up until it was broken apart & melted down at the Tower of London in 1649 under the orders of Oliver Cromwell (when the monarchy was abolished and replaced by the Protectorate). The original crown was made of solid gold and inset with various rubies, emeralds, sapphires, spinels, and pearls. After Henry VIII’s schism with the Catholic Church, tiny enameled sculptures of four saints and the Madonna and child were added to emphasize the monarchy’s authority over the Church of England.
Charles I of the United Kingdom (Charles Mytens, 1631)
Although the reproduction was not made with solid gold or natural pearls (which would be prohibitively expensive) it was painstakingly crafted by master jewel smiths using period techniques. The jewelers were able to recreate the original crown in great detail because many paintings and descriptions are available, including the amazing picture of Charles I by Daniel Mytens above. Charles I lost his head and the crown with his obdurate insistence on the absolute authority of the monarch—a point of view which Cromwell sharply disputed.
The Crown of Charlemagne, the coronation crown of French Kings for nearly a millenium (shown without cap)
From the era of Frankish Kings until the French Revolution, the kings of France were crowned with the so-called Crown of Charlemagne, a circlet of four gold rectangles inset with jewels. The crown was made for Charles the Bald, the Holy Roman Emperor who lived in the ninth century (who apparently needed an ornate head covering for some unknown reason). Four large jeweled fleur-de-lis were added in the late twelfth century along with a connecting cap ornamented with gems. A matching crown for the queen of France was melted down by the Catholic League in 1590 when Paris was besieged by the Protestant king Henry IV (before he was, you know, stabbed to death by a zealot when the royal carriage was stuck in traffic), yet the crown of Charlemagne survived France’s religious wars & was used in coronations up until 1775 when Louis XVI was crowned. The crown vanished during the French revolution and has never been seen since. A certain Corsican monarch crafted a replacement: the second Crown of Charlemagne was completely different and will be the subject of a subsequent post.
The Crown of Charlemagne (In a detail from “The Mass of Saint Giles” painted in 1550
Egyptian Blue faience ushabtis at the Louvre
In ancient Egypt the sky was a gleaming blue, the sacred lotuses had blue petals, the pharaoh’s battle crown was blue, beautiful women wore chokers made of blue stone, and, above all, the life-giving Nile was blue. The ancient Egyptians needed azure pigment to portray these essential elements of life within their sacred art, but the only natural blue pigments were from turquoise and lapis lazuli—semi-precious stones which were rare and expensive. To provide a sufficient supply of blue pigment for painting, jewelry, and sculpture, the Egyptians therefore invented the first synthetic pigment which today is appropriately known as “Egyptian blue” (well, it is also appropriately known as calcium copper silicate–CaCuSi4O10 or CaO·CuO·4SiO2—but I’m going to keep calling it Egyptian blue).
Egyptian Blue Faience Votive Cup with Cartouche of Amenhotep III, c. 1391 – 1350 B.C.
Egyptian blue was synthesized in the 4th Dynasty (c.2575-2467 BC) when the newly created pigment was first used to color limestone sculptures, beads, and cylinder seals. Its use became more prevalent in the Middle Kingdom, and then increased again during the New Kingdom when blue was used for the production of numerous everyday objects. Throughout the Hellenic and Roman age, Egyptian blue was a mainstay of the nascent chemical industry, and it found its way into all sorts of art, jewelry, crafts, and artisan wares. Then, in the fourth century the secret of its manufacture was lost. Only in the beginning of the nineteenth century did interest revive as the English and French pioneers of the chemical trade rushed to synthesize useful compounds. As one might surmise from the fact that the manufacturing process was lost for a millennium and a half, the method to make Egyptian blue is surprisingly involved. Citing a British Museum publication, Wikipedia describes it thus:
Several experiments have been carried out by scientists and archaeologists interested in analyzing the composition of Egyptian blue and the techniques used to manufacture it. It is now generally regarded as a multi-phase material that was produced by heating together quartz sand, a copper compound, calcium carbonate, and a small amount of an alkali (plantash or natron) at temperatures ranging between 800–1000 °C (depending on the amount of alkali used) for several hours. The result is cuprorivaite or Egyptian blue, carbon dioxide and water vapor…
The Egyptians were clearly people who took their pigments seriously, and thankfully so–the blue tints they crafted have lasted for thousands of years (and helped us find our way to synthesized pigments). It is strange to think of the subtle ways that the Nile still flows through our lives.
The mummy wrappings of Ankh Hor (21st or 22nd Dynasty, 1069-715 BC)
When I was younger and happier I worked as a drudge in an Investment Bank. Actually, remove the happiness from that first sentence—the place was one of the most toxic & unpleasant environments ever. Nobody there was happy. The bank sucked away human life force…and so I destroyed it from within! It’s gone now. You’re welcome, world.
That all sounds pretty bad-ass, but unfortunately this story reads less like a John Grisham thriller and more like a Russian folktale about a slow witted bumpkin who kills a sorcerer by accident. Although I worked at the investment bank, I was in no way an investment banker (thank goodness). The bankers and analysts were all stressed-out type-A personalities who spent 14-18 hours a day currying favor and staring at columns of numbers. A great many of them were hooked on amphetamines or other drugs.
I worked as a temp in the legal department where my job was to redline legal documents–a sort of grown-up “spot-the-difference” puzzle where one compares two nearly identical legal documents to see if the opposing bank has treacherously slipped new provisions into the contract (legal jobs tend to involve this kind of drudgery). I also helped update and distribute officers and directors lists—a task which was especially onerous since the officers and directors changed with blinding speed. Also the bank was really dozens of different legal entities and shell-corporations, each of which had its own board and officers all of whom overlapped considerably. I completed these monotonous tasks in a freezing cold plastic workstation visible to everyone from all sides. My only joy was to surreptitiously cut arctic animals out of post-it notes with a pair of office scissors. I had an entire Siberian ecosystem by the time I left.
The bank was on a 30somethingeth floor of a dull 80’s skyscraper in midtown. The bankers were forever trying to modify the office to suit the whim of the latest leaders (who were always changing—see above), so what should have been a simple series of embedded corridors was instead a shifting warren of slate-green upholstery, sharp glass edges, faux mahogany, injured egos, and construction detritus. The only constant (other than cold and fear) was an arrhythmic grandfather clock, which wheezed away the interminable hours. Once I was sent to deliver a document to an obscure department on the far side of the bank. On the way back, I got lost in a newly created hallway swathed with plastic sheets and plywood. As I scurried along the passage I heard loud impatient footsteps behind me. I turned and was horrified to see the president of the bank, a cold bossy woman, walking immediately behind me. Why was she walking so fast? How could I escape her? Then it occurred to me: there should be a doorway to the kitchen/breakroom ahead. I flung open the door to escape, but the president had ceased her rapid walking and was staring directly at me, her mouth hanging open in an “O” of surprise. With a touch of élan, I opened the door wider in order to let her pass (I was surprised she knew about the shortcut through the kitchen) and then I noticed the room beyond the door had pink tiles! It was the women’s bathroom! I screamed shrilly, dropped the door, and ran away down the hall. It was not my best career moment… fortunately a new president was appointed shortly afterwards, and then another new president after him!
Anyway you want to hear about the destruction of the bank.
Above the little cubicle I was stuck in, there was a big air vent. It roared incessantly all day, continuously delivering a stream of cold stale air on my shoulders. One day, when the legal department was unexpectedly empty, I decided to try to do something about the vent. Balancing precariously on top of my workspace I reached up into the evil grate and found a tiny rusted lever which would not budge, no matter how I pulled at it. Desperate not to be caught, I swung my whole weight at the lever. There was a rusty scream, a shower of dirty particles and a great dull “BOOM”. I sprang down into my chair and looked busy, as martinets in pinstripes manifested from nowhere, but I heard an alveolar shift up inside the ducts of the skyscraper. The hateful cold air was now directed somewhere else!
My moment of triumph it was short-lived. The top boss of the legal department (famous for OCD & prickly disposition) came back to find that her fancy office was unbearably cold. A normal person would have summoned the building engineers–who probably would have traced the problem back to the closed vent. Fortunately that was not the way she did business. Her first action was to have her paralegals find the contract with the building and flag the engineering/maintenance section. Armed with contractual righteousness, she called the property firm and ordered them to raise the temperature on the floor by 15 degrees.
The legal department was on the cold dark side of the building. The important bankers and financiers were portly men with window offices on the sunny side of the skyscraper. While the rest of the bank suddenly became hot, their offices became ovens. To lower the temperature, the bankers started working their way through successive levels of workmen, technicians, and engineers (I heard the angry conversations in the lobby) only to find that the temperature had already been changed by the legal department. Both sides then began a violent squabble about the thermostat.
"...maybe I should go. You guys settle this on your own."
One day I just didn’t go back to the bank—in fact that was the only job I quit outright with no other prospects. Later on I found out that, a few months after I left, the bank was gobbled up in its entirety by a huge New York capital management firm. Perhaps it is wrong not to assume that some other factor was responsible for that place’s demise (its dysfunctional office culture or rapidly changing leadership, for example…or maybe the wave of banking mergers in the nineties) but I think anyone who has worked at an office where everyone is fighting about the temperature can correctly assign credit to me.
A few weeks ago Ferrebeekeeper featured an introductory post concerning the power which population demographics exert over the affairs of people and nations. I would like to follow up on those ideas with a post concerning demographic cohorts in the United States (and in Western Europe, where history and shared culture have produced similar chronological categories). A cohort consists of a group of contemporaries, born together in a 15-25 year period, who have shared certain coming-of-age experiences and crises together. According to conventional thinking there are seven age-based cohorts still marching in the great parade of life here in the western democracies:
- The Lost Generation (born 1883 to 1900): Honestly only a few last representatives of the World War I generation remain alive, and they are now so old as to seem fabulously unbelievable–like unicorns or manticores. They earned their name in a horrible way. A whole generation of young men were conscripted to fight in the trenches of France–and they never came back from the mud beneath the big guns. Even in America, which entered the war late, a huge part of this generation was lost to Spanish flu. The last man to fight in the trenches died earlier this year. Soon everyone who ever lived in the shadow of the monstrous debacle that was World War I will be dead and the generation will truly be lost–but for now a few ancient grandmothers still survive.
- The Greatest Generation (born 1901 to 1924): This generation also came by its name through fighting in a World War. The abject awfulness of the Nazi and Japanese war machines gave Allied soldiers a moral clarity and purpose which other generations have lacked. Also this generation first mastered the atom, first ventured into space, and then presided over a time of unprecedented plenty and economic success.
- The Silent Generation (born 1924-1945): The oldest members of the Silent Generation participated in World War II along with the greatest generation and now pretend to be part of that cohort, but largely this was the generation slightly too young to go to war. They grew up in the depression–and they carry some of the hardheaded skinflint pragmatism of that time with them always.
- The Baby Boom (born 1945-1965): When the Second World War was won, the world lay in smoking ruins–except for America which was at the peak of its productive capacity. The brave soldiers came home, started businesses, and married the strong capable women working in the hospitals and factories. Then together they engendered a huge demographic bulge of newborns. The demographic weight of the boomers (combined with a certain self-absorbed focus on their special destiny) has put them much in the center of national affairs. They were the hippy generation who protested during the summer of love. They were the hard-charging yuppies of the eighties. They are the bulk of the government now. However the boomers are beginning to retire and this massive flux is going to upend everything in our nation.
- Generation X (born 1965-1981): Also called the thirteenth generation, this is my generation. We were born in the post-sixties hangover, when recession and malaise stalked the nation and then we came of age in the booming eighties and nineties as communication technology underwent unprecedented breakthroughs (and brought an unprecedented boom in productivity). My generation has always seemed a bit lost—a rain shadow cast by the demographic mountain of baby boomers. The conventional wisdom is that generation x is lackadaisical, cynical, and apathetic. We certainly do not have any moon landings or atomic bombs to our credit but we did have a hand in creating the new information age. Also our entire generational ethos has not been finalized. Our greatest masterpieces have not yet been painted.
- The Millennial Generation (born 1981-2002): This group is also known as the shadow boom or mini-boom because they are the children of baby boomers (and therefor have their own demographic power). The majority of our active duty service members are from this generation. They grew up surrounded by pagers, faxes, emails, and texts and they have the mentality to make sense of our networked world. When I was visiting my alma-mater a few years ago, I noticed that the students looked a lot happier and better-dressed than they did when I was a student. The bars and bathrooms were not covered in graffiti and everyone’s hair was neat. I think this generation really does have a different and more optimistic mentality then the two preceding it. Coming into the workforce during a crippling recession might jar the polite businesslike smiles of the millennial generation a bit, but based on their battlefield aplomb and their personal rectitude, we can expect great things.
- The New As-Yet-Unnamed Generation (2002-present): No golden-tongued wag has yet given a name to the generation who are currently children. Whenever I see this group featured in the mainstream media, it seems to be a pejorative article about how video games and environmental mercury are making them dull, but on an anecdotal level I have not found this to be true at all. The children I have met have all the grace, swiftness, brilliance, and innocence of children. They are bright and shiny as new-struck coins and I think it is appropriate that nobody has given them a name yet.
Of this list, I obviously have a preference for the first two generations and the last two generations. The lost generation and the greatest generation were badasses who came of age killing Germans with bayonets while building superweapons at home. The two most recent generations are good-looking kids who are polite, hard-working, socially conscious, and still possess nimble minds. Naysayers who complain about the bad pop music and bad attitudes of “kids these days” are out-of-touch curmudgeons who are not paying close attention to reality [well, popular music actually is pretty bad—ed.]. The millennials are alright and the unnamed generation are better than alright—they are adorable kids who could grow up to be anything.
Sadly, the three generations in the middle—the generations who are at their economic peak and are running the country–are a greedy, fumbling mess. It is popular to blame Chinese manufacturers, world trade, and globalization for the current economic turmoil, but there is a simpler reason for these bad times. The inability of government to work and the excesses of our financial sector reflect a deeper division in our society. A huge number of Americans are beginning to retire, and, as large swaths of the population change from productive members of society to retired (but politically active and materially successful) seniors, the nation’s economic timbre is sure to be diminished.
A quick look at the halls of congress or the directorship of large companies will reveal that the silent generation and the baby boomers may be retiring, but they have not given up the true reigns of authority. The great political movements of the past few years—the tea party and the “occupy Wall Street” protests snap into a much sharper focus if you look at the age of the respective participants. Wrestling control of the faltering nation from the hands of hard-bitten silent generation plutocrats and from a huge number of retiring boomers (who have always had things their way) falls to the indolent hands of generation x—people who would rather write blogs or paint weird paintings. I, for one, am looking forward to when the millennial generation can also rise to the halls of power. I also worry that demographic stalemate might mean we have to wait until then to enjoy a united and prosperous nation.
Journey of the Magi (Benozzo Gozzoli, 1461, fresco)
One of the metaphors commonly used to describe the entirety of humankind is the image of a parade. We hear it all the time and hardly think about it: the parade of nations, the march of progress, the triumph of man….I think it is a good image to hold in one’s head when thinking about people taken as a collective entity (and despite our pretensions of self-sufficiency, these days we are very much a super organism like a clonal colony or a hive of army ants).
Here’s how I picture it.
Imagine a new frontier (be it a virgin land, outer space, a scientific breakthrough, a manufacturing notion…anything). Out there today are theoreticians and dreamers who are trying to envision a way to use new resources and new ideas. Then suddenly someone has an epiphany based on a half-heard sentence, or a daydream, or a happy column of numbers and the true parade commences. First come the explorers—robotic probes, Ponce de Leon, bathyspheres, runners-of-the-woods, and lonely obsessive men in labcoats. Next are the early adapters: hipsters, the curious, the desperate, and the visionaries. The progress begins to swell as politicians, business leaders, and media stars proceed past. Upon the backs and shoulders of the multitude, the great and the mighty are carried like juggernauts as ticker tape falls down around them and they preen on top of gilded palanquins. Soldiers and legionnaires ride by frowning in their glittering armor. The middle class pass by in sensible cars and comfortable shoes holding the hands of children with happy smiling faces.
Next come rank upon rank of the underemployed and the working poor. They are struggling to get along beneath the yellow checks cashed signs and the shadow of the workhouse. Finally at the back of the parade are the old and the sick. The diseased and the lost are laboring to keep up. The wounded conscript is lying in the muck barely crawling forward as the parade leaves him further and further behind. A senile nonagenarian sits down in a rocking chair and never gets up.
And behind us all there is the detritus of our once great endeavors. The landscape is strewn with rubbish and cast-offs. A great winding pathway is built of garbage from gum wrappers to whale bone corsets to smashed bronze cannons to gnawed mammoth bones. Along the empty road there are old cities waning away to irrelevance and there are cities entirely lost—burned, abandoned, or buried in the sand–going back to ancient Eridu itself. And there is an endless trail of corpses slowly returning to the mud.
Ultimately the trail leads back to the dry highlands of eastern Africa, but where the parade is going is anyone’s guess. Picture it in your head dear reader. Smile and wave while the golden light shines on you and the horns play impossibly beautiful music tinged with sadness…
