Category Archives: 2004

11/19/2004 – Made to Run

Made To Run

For years I have watched other runners as they go by me (and to be sure, with my galumphing pace this is the only way I experience other runners while I am out “running”). It has always struck me that humans are built to run. Many runners seem to float along with an effortless rhythm, others thump along, and others, with joints not so symmetrical in their functioning, just keep running.

A few months ago I saw a note (the reference now lost in my foggy memory) that some scientists posited that human beings had actually run large prey animals to ground because very few animals are built to run distances. So, the notion goes, humans could simply exhaust prey by outrunning them over the long distance. At the time I saw this note, I thought that it seemed to be a pleasing notion, but wondered about how these scientists could demonstrate that, in fact, this was a mode for human hunting?

Yesterday, The New York Times ran an article, “Running Extra Mile Sets Humans Apart in Primates’ World” (https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/science/running-extra-mile-sets-humans-apart-in-primates-world.html) by John Noble Wilford, that adds new fuel to this notion that long-distance running is an important step in the evolution of human capabilities.

“Endurance running, unique to humans among primates and uncommon in all mammals other than dogs, horses and hyenas, apparently evolved at least two million years ago and probably let human ancestors hunt and scavenge over great distances. That was probably decisive in the pursuit of high-protein food for development of large brains.

The apparently crucial role of running in human evolution has been largely overlooked in previous research. But today, the two scientists, Dr. Dennis M. Bramble of the University of Utah and Dr. Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard, report in the journal Nature that their analysis of the fossil record found striking anatomical evidence for the capability of prolonged running in the Homo genus, beginning about two million years ago.

By two million years ago, Dr. Bramble and Dr. Lieberman noted, early species of the Homo family, notably Homo erectus, had long, slender legs for greater strides. They had shorter arms and a narrower rib cage and pelvis. Their skulls included features to help prevent overheating. A ligament attached to the base of the skull kept their heads steady as they ran.

Although tissues do not fossilize, traces of muscle and tendon attachment points on bones of early species revealed an extensive network of springy tendons along the back of the legs and feet, including a well-developed Achilles tendon that anchored calf muscles to the heel bone. Tendons served to store and release elastic energy during running but were not needed for ordinary walking.

And there was the gluteus maximus, the muscle of the buttocks. Earlier human ancestors, like chimpanzees today, had pelvises that could support only a modest gluteus maximus, nothing like the strong buttocks of Homo.

“Have you ever looked at an ape?” Dr. Bramble said. “They have no buns.”

Dr. Lieberman, a paleontologist, explained: “Your gluteus maximus stabilizes your trunk as you lean forward in a run. A run is like a controlled fall, and the buttocks help to control it.”

The scientists compiled a list of 26 traits connected with running that early Homo specimens exhibited. It was a result of 13 years of research that started with watching pigs running on a treadmill.

“Dennis and I noticed how the pigs can’t hold their heads still while running,” Dr. Lieberman recalled. “Any good human runner keeps his head still because of the nuchal ligament, a tendon in the back of the neck.”

The scientists learned that all accomplished running animals, modern or fossil, had a mark in the skull where the nuchal ligament had been. They found it in early Homo specimens, but not in Australopithecus, the genus that lived more than three million years ago and included the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton.

“That was an epiphany for us,” Dr. Lieberman said.

Dr. Philip Rightmire, a paleoanthropologist at Binghamton University in New York, said the Bramble-Lieberman hypothesis was “a pretty compelling picture of the importance of running in human evolution, and overall, I’m very impressed.”

Here is a graphic that accompanied the NYT’s article showing anatomical features associated with the innovation towards running:

I will follow up with a visit to Nature, the journal where the original research has been published.

Run, run, run……

11/18/2004 – The Level of Political Discourse: a visit to the Federalist Papers

The Level of Political Discourse: a visit to the Federalist Papers

Recently I re-read parts of the Federalist Papers, the articles written by Hamilton, Jay and Madison in support of the approval of our constitution in 1787 and 1788. The strongest reaction to my brief re-visit is that the level of public discourse a little over 200 years ago was enormously higher than today. These articles, frankly written to influence the general public and published in the newspapers of the day, clearly take their audience seriously. There is no talking down, dumbing down, to use a more current phrase. Let me illustrate this with a quotation from one of the papers:

The Federalist No. 47
The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts

New York Packet
Wednesday, January 30, 1788
[James Madison]

To the People of the State of New York:

HAVING reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government, and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts.

One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.

The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu. If he be not the author of this invaluable precept in the science of politics, he has the merit at least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the attention of mankind. Let us endeavor, in the first place, to ascertain his meaning on this point.

The British Constitution was to Montesquieu what Homer has been to the didactic writers on epic poetry. As the latter have considered the work of the immortal bard as the perfect model from which the principles and rules of the epic art were to be drawn, and by which all similar works were to be judged, so this great political critic appears to have viewed the Constitution of England as the standard, or to use his own expression, as the mirror of political liberty; and to have delivered, in the form of elementary truths, the several characteristic principles of that particular system. That we may be sure, then, not to mistake his meaning in this case, let us recur to the source from which the maxim was drawn.

(You can read the rest of this online at http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa47.htm)

Clearly the rhetoric here is elevated, even ornate, by today’s standards, nevertheless, still eminently readable and accessible. Madison expected the average reader to integrate knowledge of the British Constitution, Montesquieu, and Homer (to pick just the references in the passage quoted above. What can we say of today’s political discussion?

 

11/16/2004 – Colin Powell and Loyalty

Colin Powell and Loyalty

 

Colin Powell’s resignation yesterday as Secretary of State has produced an expected tsunami of blather. Much is made of his early “opposition” to the Iraq war and his loosing struggle to influence Bush foreign policy. In almost the same breath, we also hear about what a loyal team-player Powell is, always accompanied by comments about Powell’s long military career where such loyalty is required.

The last thing the US needs is more government officials who are loyal to a President. When large decisions are made, and going to war is such a large decision, moral and ethical values should be much more important than loyalty to a President. Loyalty to what is right and what is right for the larger America and the world is loyalty we should applaud.

We still have one former Secretary of Defense running around the world writing books and giving speeches that include the lines that he could not speak out about a war he knew to be wrong out of loyalty to a President. That war cost over 55,000 American lives and probably a million or more Vietnamese lives.

Is Colin Powell the next Robert McNamara? Are we going to hear in some overblown biography in ten years that Powell opposed the war, knew it was the wrong thing to do, but he couldn’t speak out because of “loyalty”? We need government officials who believe they have a duty to the larger public and will take action when they believe fundamental government policies are wrong.

11/9/2004 – Coincidence or Harbinger?

What do the following states have in common besides all having voted for Bush last week?

Texas, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, West Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas, South Carolina,Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana.

These are the bottom fifteen states in health care system performance among the 50 states for 2004. Can you guess the order of the list? Which state is 35th and which is 50th?

For the source of this data and the rest of the report click over to the United Health Foundation.

 

11/8/2004 – Get Out The Vote

Get Out The Vote – next time

 

In the aftermath of the Bush victory there has been lots of discussion about the size of the voter turnout and the relative effectiveness of the Bush campaign’s get-out-the-vote organization. One simple fact needs to be focused on: even with a turnout of 116 million in 2004, roughly 97 million potential voters did not show up. Americans are still not involved in the election process.

Here is one concept for the next quadrennial presidential circus:

Lets have a get-out-the-vote campaign that focuses on the secular vote.

Going door-to-door, you could ask a basic diagnostic question. For example, “Do you believe that the Bible is the literal word of God?” If you get a “Yes”, then move on to the next door. If you get a “No” response, then point out to the potential voter that the fundamentalists are pushing their religion into schools, government, the Supreme Court, your bedroom, music, TV, and movies, to mention a few of their targets.

With 97 million people not participating in our politics, even at the level of voting, there is plenty of room to develop a significant new base of action.

11/2/2004 – Delusions of the Overlords

Delusions of the Overlords

 

I ran across these statements in the November 4, 2004 New York Review of Books in a Tony Judt review “Dreams of Empire”:

“……When Donald Rumsfeld assured his troops in Baghdad that ‘unlike many armies of the world, you come not to conquer, not to occupy, but to liberate, and the Iraqi people know this’  he was decidedly unoriginal. That’s what the British General Stanley Maude said in Baghdad ninety-seven years earlier (“Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators”) – not to mention Napoleon Bonaparte’s proclamation upon occupying Alexandria in 1798: ‘Oh Egyptians… I have not come to you except for the purpose of restoring your rights from the hands of oppressors.’ “

10/28/2004 – US Drug Laws Drive Narco States – “Cocaine Republics”

US Drug Laws Drive Narco States – “Cocaine Republics”

 

While waiting in the car at the airport this morning I heard a report on NPR by John Burnett, “Central America’s ‘Cocaine Republics'” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4117988) that reminded me of a point (see October 8, 2004 entry) I made about US drug laws supporting a global system of production and distribution that provides 24/7/365 service throughout the US.

Burnett reports that there is so much money flowing through this system that drug traffickers use “throw-away boats and weapons”. And further reported that the Columbianization of Guatemala is quickly turning that country into another narco state. The money completely overwhelms the political, police, and judicial systems.

One correction I might make to my earlier comment is that the issue is broader than US drug laws, it is really the entire developed (thats where the money is) world’s approach to drug usage.

Clearly, making drugs illegal is and has been totally ineffective at reducing or even controlling their use.

The net results of these laws is to create the environment in which capitalist methods of production and distribution are supported by an artificially high price for the drugs to produce a drug system that is comprehensive in its distribution and sales capabilities.

A second result is the imprisonment and destruction of thousands and thousands of persons for drug use and participation in the drug distribution system.

A third result is the creation of an international drug “enforcement” regime that is now a well-entrenched bureaucracy fed by billions of dollars annually.

A fourth result is the corruption of entire societies, from top to bottom, through the flows of moneys available to the narcotics industry. And, we should not doubt that many US local, state, and national police and drug “enforcement” agencies are also corrupted by this money.

We need to change our whole approach to drug use. The present legal and policy approaches are supporting the drug production and distribution system, while not reducing use.

 

10/13/2004 – Do We Need This Market?

Do We Need This Market?

Recently I heard a report on NPR that included the information that international currency transactions now exceed TWO TRILLION DOLLARS PER DAY. This seemed astonishing to me since the US GDP is around $12 trillion PER YEAR. After doing a bit of Googling, I have discovered varying estimates that 95% to 98% of these transactions are currency and interest speculation. And, many see this speculation as not just unproductive but deeply involved in financial crises like those involving Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Southeast Asia, just to mention some recent crises.

This speculation serves no productive purpose except to allow speculators to extract their pounds of flesh. No new products or services are funded or created by this. No people are made healthier or better educated by this activity. Economists don’t even argue vigorously that this speculation adds liquidity or responsiveness to the financial system. Many, though, see how these massive flows can easily destabilize national economies in a manner that leaves them defenseless.

Not surprisingly, I am not the first to notice this speculation. George Soros has made billions engaging in it; activist groups lobby against it; and academics write papers. James Tobin, the eminent economist, made suggestions in the early 1970s and again later to reform the international monetary system in part to discourage this destabilizing activity. You can find his paper here: http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/glotax/currtax/original.htm.

For those of you who still think that a market is a wonderful self-regulating engine of rational allocation I can only point you to Charles Kindleberger’s book: Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, New York: Basic Books, 1978, revised and enlarged, 1989, 3rd ed. 1996. In fact, even if you lived through the Dot Com boom and were left thinking that markets might not be so rational, this book is a must read and a trip through a history not covered in your standard history or economics courses.

10/13/2004 – Another good deed from a US ally.

Another good deed from a US ally.

Just in case you missed this tidbit from the BBC website. I guess the mixture of oil and religious nonsense explains why the US continues to support this repressive regimes among the many all around the world?

“Saudi women barred from voting”

The Saudi interior minister has said women will not be allowed to vote in the country’s municipal elections starting in February 2005. In response to a question about women’s getting the vote, Prince Nayef bin Sultan said simply: “I don’t think that women’s participation is possible.” An election law published in August did not explicitly ban women from voting. This led many campaigners for women’s rights to hope for a substantial breakthrough for Saudi women. The Associated Press quotes an unnamed Saudi election official as saying that the main reasons for barring women from the election were administrative. The official told AP that there were not enough women electoral staff to run women-only voter registration centres, while only a fraction of women in Saudi Arabia had photo identity cards.”

10/8/2004 – 9/11 and other distractions

9/11 and other distractions

 

The Quadrennial Presidential Circus has refocused my thinking on how overblown and distracting all of the noise about 9/11 and Bush’s Iraq adventures have become. 9/11, in and of itself, is just a tiny flea bite on an enormous elephant. Certainly we should scratch a bit and seek to crush the flea, that goes without saying. But, the current policies are clearly headed in the wrong direction and obscuring much more important matters.

Although it would be nice to find Osama bin Laden and his brethren, the Bush approach is leading us away from increased security:

• A tramp ship floating into Boston Harbor with a nuclear device purchased in Russia nestled amidst its otherwise innocuous cargo. There are thousands and thousands of nuclear devices and tons of nuclear material floating around the former Soviet Union’s successor states. No one can be sure who is in charge or for how long? Where are the policies and programs to control and irradiate nuclear arms?

• Repeat the first scenario but instead the device is loaded into one of the millions of containers that float into US harbors every year without any system in place to inspect them.

• The US continues to support the activities of our client-states Israel and Egypt, thus, on the one hand, supporting Israel’s ongoing expansion, and, on the other hand, propping up a dictatorial regime in a core Muslim country. In general, we should be looking closely at exactly what kinds of regimes we are propping up, e.g. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Columbia.

• With the US a lead source, the world is afloat in armaments of every description. Virtually every developed country is making money from this arms trade. Other players include our client-state Israel, Brazil, Russia and China.

• The US is busy deploying a so-called antimissile system allegedly to shoot down missles from “rogue” states. China and Russia are very likely looking at this as an opening in a new US-inspired arms race.

• US drug laws support a global system of production and distribution that provides 24/7/365 service throughout the US. This drug production system is only possible because our drug laws support astronomically high prices while clearly failing completely to even marginally reduce the rate of comsumption.

I could go on. 9/11 was an unpleasant, tragic, symbolically huge event. In response, the Bush administration, supported by the whole politico-media machinery of our life, has chosen policies that are proving unsuccessful on their own terms while distracting us from larger more significant issues.