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On the Nov. 5 Election
By Shlomo Maital
David French is a near life-long Republican, person of faith, Christian, who writes in today’s on-line New York Times about his “Nine Years of Being Never Trump”.
He makes a simple point. I find it worth repeating. As an Israeli, I am reluctant to write about US politics and elections. But French’s insight applies to my own country – and virtually every democratic country.
Basically: When you vote, what is the question?
Is it, hmmm, whom do I hate? Trump hates the Democrats. They are the enemy within. Maybe if he is elected he will sic the US military on them, arrest them all. If you hate Democrats, you must love Republicans. All of them. Including the deranged. And vote for them.
But maybe the question is, whom do I love? Do you love your country, and the people who live in it? Do you love the people of the world, including the poor, the ill, the downtrodden, the oppressed – and are willing to share you incredible good fortune with them? If so, vote for those who share your value.
I belong to a Conservative congregation here in Israel. Our name is drawn from the Bible precept, love thy neighbor as thyself. We try to practice it. It works pretty well. But, I admit, in my country, it is having a rather hard time at present. Hard to love those who want to kill you, even if they are neighbors.
Whom do you hate? Or – whom do you love? I think this is a simple guide to how to vote. Love trumps hate. Always. On Nov. 5, too.
The Secret of Life: 3 Proteins
By Shlomo Maital
Have you ever wondered: How in the world do those little sperms – cells with big heads and wriggly tails – manage to get into the ovum, the female cell produced by the ovaries? Cells have thick walls. They have to – otherwise, really bad stuff could get int. COVID, for instance, gets into cells, because it has a huge long spike, a spear, and it pokes its way into the cell, and ‘persuades’ the cells in our body to produce copies of itself. But the little sperm? They have no spike.
But what DO they have? Writing in the New York Times, October 17, Elizabeth Preston explains clearly and movingly a new finding, that solves the mystery.[1]
A Google company, DeepMind, developed software, AlphaFold, whose principal developers shared the Nobel Prize this year for chemistry – a rare event in which the Nobel for science is given to a group of researchers from a business, rather than to scholars from a university or lab. Using AlphaFold, scientists at a research institute in Vienna have discovered the nature and structure of the three key proteins in the head of the sperm, that act as ‘keys’ to combine with a protein in the ovum cell wall and ‘unlock’ it, to enter, fertilize it – and generate a zygote, a fertilized ovum ready to reproduce. Proteins are driven by genes, and they control our lives. They have very complex ‘folded’ structures that are really hard to decipher — until now.
And – here’s the clincher. Those 3 proteins – they are shared by a huge variety of living things – humans, yes, and ….zebrafish. Those lovely striped black and white fish. Same 3 proteins on their testes (sex organs).
Does this make you think, that we humans are not really at the head of the food chain, but instead, PART of an amazing ecosystem with which we living things share many things, including those key (double meaning) proteins? Does this make you feel a bit humble, as it does me?
Picture that obstreperous sperm, outracing a million rivals, reaching the ovum, knocking politely on the door – no answer. Knocks again. No answer. Whips out the keys (3 proteins), turns the key in the lock, wriggles inside – and creates a new life, or the start of it. And then? Those two helixes of interlocked DNA, they separate, one stays, the other moves on to the divided cell… and the process continues.
There is incredible beauty in the creation of life – and those 3 proteins have unlocked only a very tiny part of it.
[1] Elizabeth Preston. “Sperm can’t unlock an egg without the ancient molecular key”. NYT Oct. 17.
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust: “Recompose”
By Shlomo Maital
Katrina Spade is an architect, who co-founded Recompose. It’s about human composting. If you’re put off by the very idea – best not to read on. But trust me – it makes sense. This is based on Katrina’s TED talk.
So, what’s wrong with cremation? Half of all US funderals today are cremations, and that is forecasted to rise to 75% or more.
“Cremation destroys the potential we have to give back to the earth after we’ve died. It uses an energy-intensive process to turn bodies into ash, polluting the air and contributing to climate change. All told, cremations in the US emit a staggering 600 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.”
What’s wrong with ordinary burial in a plot/cemetery?
“All told, in US cemeteries, we bury enough metal to build a Golden Gate Bridge, enough wood to build 1,800 single family homes, and enough formaldehyde-laden embalming fluid to fill eight Olympic-size swimming pools. In addition, cemeteries all over the world are reaching capacity. Turns out, it doesn’t really make good business sense to sell someone a piece of land for eternity.”
So, how does “Recomposing” or “Recomposting” work?
“Inside a vertical core, bodies and wood chips undergo accelerated natural decomposition, or composting, and are transformed into soil. When someone dies, their body is taken to a human composting facility. After wrapping the deceased in a simple shroud, friends and family carry the body to the top of the core, which contains the natural decomposition system. During a laying in ceremony, they gently place the body into the core and cover it with wood chips. This begins the gentle transformation from human to soil. Over the next few weeks, the body decomposes naturally. Microbes and bacteria break down carbon, then protein, to create a new substance, a rich, earthy soil. This soil can then be used to grow new life. Eventually, you could be a lemon tree.”
Katrina’s company has the family come with a pickup truck, and gather the decomposed soil. That’s how it becomes a lemon tree, pecan tree… or a lovely flower bed of petunias. Would you like to visit your departed loved one, at a bed of smiley-face petunias? Rather than at a cemetery, rows on rows of cold stones?
So, hand on your heart. Wouldn’t you like to become a lemon tree after death? And your loved ones pluck lemons and say, thanks, Dad! Every year. And then make lemon meringue pie.
By the way: I found this stat startling. A cremated body puts a quarter-ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. Really!
Nobel 2024: Take Chances
By Shlomo Maital
Alfred Nobel
The Nobel Prizes 2024 for physics, chemistry and medicine have been awarded. Here they are:
Physics: John Hopfield, “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”, Geoffrey Hinton“for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks;
Chemistry: David Baker, “for computational protein design”, Demis Hassabis “for protein structure prediction”
Medicine: Victor Ambros, “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation”; Gary Ruvkun, “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation”
There is a rare link. AI was a key tool used to discover the structure of proteins (the secret of life, and how DNA impacts our lives), and indirectly to help decipher microRNA. And another link. The winning scientists mostly left their comfort zones, to venture into new and risky fields, simply because they were curious. And they did so mainly against the best advice of the ‘experts’.
Take calculated risks, as General George Patton urged, before he did so in World War II and saved the Allies from the German Battle of the Bulge.
Good advice.
Cultural Intelligence (CQ): Why We Need It More Than Ever
By Shlomo Maital
Cultural intelligence (CQ) is an individual’s ability to function effectively in culturally diverse settings, and to get along with those different from oneself. It was introduced by London Business School professor P. Christopher Earley and Nanyang Business School professor Soon Ang in 2003.
David Livermore has written a book, entitled “The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy”, describing four key components of CQ: drive, knowledge, strategy and action. It is based on Earley and Soon’s four concepts: motivation (CQ Drive), cognition (CQ Knowledge), meta-cognition (CQ Strategy), and behavior (CQ Action).
The four capabilities stem from the intelligence-based approach to intercultural adjustment and performance.
So, we began with IQ, intelligence. Then, EQ, feelings and emotions. And now, CQ, cultural. Reason and rationality. Dealing with the ‘other’. Each has primacy according to the times and the context.
In the US, increasingly, people have lost trust in government and governmental institutions. Gallup reported that in 2022, “this year’s poll makes new lows in confidence for all three branches of US federal government; Supreme Court (25% trust it), Presidency (23%) and Congress.” What Gallup did not ask is – do we trust each other? The answer seems to be, alas, no.
Within the workplace, frictions develop between those who support the right (Trump) and the left (Biden/Harris). Neither side trusts the other. It reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s old satirical song, The Merry Minuet:
“They’re rioting in Africa, They’re starving in Spain, There’s hurricanes in Florida, And Texas needs rain. This whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans, The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch — And I don’t like anybody very much.”
The Merry Minuet was written in 1955. That was an era of harmony. Notice how apt the words are (‘hurricanes in Florida”). Somehow, great satire has a way of coming true. Alas.
Do We REALLY Need Those SUV’s and Trucks?
By Shlomo Maital
Did you know: over 7,500 pedestrians were struck and killed in the US in 2022 – a new high? And did you know: some 80% of new vehicles are either trucks or SUV’s?
Hey, is there a connection? There is, according to the NPR program Living on Earth.
Ford F150 trucks have grown in the past 30 years, they are 800 pounds heavier and 7 inches higher. And they are the #1 best-selling truck.
Those SUV’s? Do we REALLY need an SUV to drive to the corner grocery store? They are gas guzzlers and do huge damage when they strike pedestrians. And both trucks and SUV’s have blind spots, because of their size. So there IS a link between what vehicles we buy and all those pedestrian deaths.
A study experts conducted showed that some 1,100 pedestrian deaths could have been prevented, had we just bought normal-size vehicles, as the Europeans do.
Why do Americans buy those huge vehicles? Here is a theory. In a rather chaotic world, we seek to buy things that convey power, strength, safety. Maybe, maybe an SUV is safer in a crash than an i10 Hyundai. But safer for whom? For the driver? Sure. But not for the pedestrians who are struck and killed. Is it MY safety I seek? Or my safety and the safety of those trying to cross the street, when a F150 smashes into them by making a right turn and simply not seeing, say, a 5-year-old, trying to cross, with the light, in a school zone..and completely invisible to the driver. This is a true case.
I am frequently upset when capitalism at its worst manipulates consumers into buying things they don’t really need, playing on our worst fears. How come the Europeans do not buy huge trucks and massive SUV’s? And why should we?
As the song goes: When will they ever learn?
A Short History of our Global Chaos
By Shlomo Maital
Historian Yuval Noah Harari writes fascinating histories of everything, in 500-800 pages. His latest, Nexus, is a history of information networks – and a diatribe against AI, in some 581 pages.
I will try to emulate him – but in 400 words. How did the world get into such a terrible chaotic mess?
In July 1944, the US convened the Allies at Hotel Mt. Washington, in Bretton Woods, NH, to rethink the architecture of world trade and finance. The result: An open system, with zero or low tariffs, and more or less free flow of information, capital, technology and even people.
The result was a stupendous wealth-creating machine that drove global growth, especially in Asia. Americans at the time had all the money. Their willingness to buy stuff from Japan, China and other Asian nations drove rapid growth.
The number of global billionaires grew by an order of magnitude.
But alas, many nations and many people living in them were left behind. The rich-poor gap grew, within countries (especially within the US), and among countries.
Result: Migrants in poor countries poured across oceans and jungles, toward the rich countries, to find a better future for their kids. The left out and forgotten in the rich countries turned to the far right.
Result: Backlash. Far-right politicians, riding the wage of anti-migrant sentiment. In the U.S., in Germany, France and the UK – and with autocrats emerging in Hungary, Russia, China, and perhaps even Poland.
Rather than an open global wealth machine, we have a divided world, them against us, West against East, with terrible wars in Sudan, Ukraine and Israel.
What did we do wrong? A few policies to share some of the enormous wealth with the have-nots could have done wonders.
Did we learn anything from this huge mistake? I don’t see a great deal of soul-searching or intense analysis.
As the song goes: When will they ever learn?
(312 words).
Mayor Michelle Wu, Super-Star
By Shlomo Maital
Consider Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston. Daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she was the first Asian American woman to serve on the Boston City Council, from 2014 to 2021, and she was its president from 2016–2018. She is the first woman and first non-white person to have been elected mayor of Boston. And at 36 years of age, she is also the youngest person elected to the position in nearly a century.
On November 2, 2021, Wu won the mayoralty election with over 64% of the vote, a whopping margin even for pro-Democrat Boston.
The other day, she was piano soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, conducted by Keith Lockhart, and played George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, to rapturous cheers.
All this, while running Boston – and to boot, Michelle Wu is pregnant, expecting another child. She is the mother of two boys.
According to Wikipedia, “When Wu was in her early twenties, having recently graduated from Harvard University, and living in Boston and working for Boston Consulting Group, her mother developed severe mental illness and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Wu returned to the family home in the Chicago suburbs to care for the mother and raise her two youngest siblings.”
Wu secured medical care for her mother, and she also opened a teahouse, hoping her mother might recover enough to run it. Eventually, she entered Harvard Law School and relocated with her mother and youngest sibling to Boston.
At Harvard, she became a close friend of Elizabeth Warren, now Massachusetts Senator.
As soloist, when she completed the last bars of Gershwin’s amazing piece, she put her face in her hands with emotion — she confessed that as Mayor of Boston, a city of 650,000, she does not have enough time to practice.
Michelle Wu, Super-Star, for President of the United States?
Grievance Identitarianism
By Shlomo Maital
WHOM do I complain to about YOU?!
Today’s New York Times Op-Ed carries a piece by a Princeton University (my alma mater) professor, a Conservative right-wing thinker, advising students with similar views on how to survive in a liberal left-wing institution.
Avoid “grievance identitarionism”, he counsels.
What in the world?
Identitarionism is an ideology in which people act and think and speak, only according to the group or tribe with which they identify. Grievance identitarionism is identity determined through shared grievances, peeves, wrongs, grudges and insults.
Does this sound familiar? It seems to describe many white male Republican voters. Don’t get me wrong. This group has lots of grievances. Democratic administrations sold them out, by opening the floodgates to cheap Chinese goods, at a time when China didn’t buy much from the US, thus destroying the livelihood of many factory workers.
The current vitriolic Presidential campaign seems to pit grievance identitarionism (spell-check keeps outlining that ghastly word in red!) against the Kamala politics of joy and hope. The outcome is not clear. Grievance is a very strong emotion. And Trump knows viscerally how to tap into it, into the very worst of our darkest emotions.
There is a message in all this. If you build a global wealth machine, and leave out huge parts of it dooming them to languish rather than thrive, you will in the end sooner or later get grievance – migrants, violence, and far-right candidates who speak lies and still win elections. Worldwide.
All this mess could have been prevented with a little foresight. Foresight and common sense seem scarcer than hens’ teeth these days.
Destroying Truth Simply to Gain Attention
By Shlomo Maital
Cartoon: Psychology Today
Alexander Petri, in an Op-Ed in the Wahsington Post, September 17, 2024, recounts these words by a Trump favorite:
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” — Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance
Words matter.
When you slander a hard-working community, like Springfield, Ohio, with a bald lie (Haitian immigrants ther steal and eat dogs and cats), you bring far-right marches, bomb threats against schools, and personal harm and risk to thousands of innocent people.
Lying is one thing. Very bad. But justifying lying, in order to draw attention????
Is politics today about gaining attention at all cost, by floating the most unbelievable, sensational, hurtful, stupid, bald-faced lying attacks on human beings?
J.D. Vance has an even chance to become Vice-President of the United States, and in 2028, President.
Will we ever again believe a word that comes from his mouth – including, as a wag once said, ‘the’ and ‘and’?
Is truth in America doomed? Are we doomed in the foreseeable future to invented stories by J.D. Vance?
Eating dogs?
You couldn’t make it up…
Or could you? J.D. could.
TIMnovate 