Category Archive

Harry Potter: Good vs. Evil  

By Shlomo Maital

    The death of British actor Michael Gambon, who played Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, led me to research the incredible phenomenon of J.K. Rowling’s seven Harry Potter books.  Let’s run the numbers.

      The first Harry Potter book, Philosopher’s Stone, was published in 1997.  Since then, the seven Harry Potter volumes published over the decade 1997-2007 have sold 600 million copies, and the Harry Potter ‘franchise’ is estimated to be worth $25 billion.  These books, about Harry, the boy who didn’t know he was a wizard, originated when Rowling was on a delayed train, and came up with the idea during her four-hour wait.  She says the main theme is ‘death’ – because she wrote the first book just after her mother passed away.

    Rowling, a single mom, had a baby and wrote the first book mostly while sitting at a café and rocking the carriage.   Initially she listed her name as Joanne Kathleen Rowley. But the publisher said it was too ‘gender specific’ and this might deter teenage boys from reading it.  So she used the initials, J.K.

        The Harry Potter books have been translated into 85 languages.  They feature a black-and-white conflict between good (Harry) and evil (Voldemort). 

        Rowling smashed several set-in-stone assumptions, including the notion that kids won’t read 350-400 page books.  Wrong.  They will.  And their parents will enjoy reading the books to them, if appropriate.  The author says she has been writing stories since she was six years old.  She went from being an impoverished single mom, to being a wealthy author who wrote the best-selling books of fiction in history – second to the Bible.

         My take-away from Harry Potter, I guess there are two. 

One —  In life, alas, evil is often not clearly black-and-white, as in Harry Potter, but mostly grey.   Unlike Harry vs. Voldemore. 

Two: people – kids and adults – love a great story.  Weave one, and you can be as famous and beloved as J.K. Rowling.

Tigst Assefa: Remember the Name!  

By Shlomo Maital

     Comedian Rodney Dangerfield had a running theme:  “I can’t get no respect.”  Often I feel women athletes have the same theme.  

     Take the Ethiopian marathon runner Tigst Assefa.  She just broke the world record for the marathon, completing the Berlin marathon in an astounding 2 hours 11 minutes 53 seconds.  That means she ran 26.2 miles in an average time of 5 minutes and 3 seconds per mile.  She knocked a full two minutes off the previous record.  Yet attention to this feat in the media was sparse, to say the least.   

      Running a mile in five minutes, or a kilometer in 3 minutes, means running 100 meters in 18 seconds, and doing this 420 times!  What an athlete!   What is most amazing, is that Tigst’s stellar event was 800 meters!  She has moved up from 800 meters, to 42,000 meters!  

      Tigst’s time is faster than the best of Ethiopian male long-distance runners, Abebe Bikila, the first African to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games, two-time Olympic champion of this event at Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964, and the first Ethiopian world record holder.  She ran the second half-marathon much faster than the first half, picking up her pace to smash the world record. 

      The men’s marathon record is now held by the legendary Kenyan,  Eliud Kipchoge, considered to be the greatest marathoner ever. He won Berlin for the fifth time in his career, hanging on to win 2:02:42.  He set the men’s world record in Berlin in 2022 with a time of 2:01:09. 

        In athletics, most elite women perform about 10% or more, worse than men.  Tigst Assefa’s record is just 9% below Kipchoge’s record. 

         Israel’s female marathon runner Lonah Korlima Chemtai Salpeter won the bronze medal at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.  She got very little acclaim or media attention.  Alas.

         I ran two marathons in my life:  New York, 1985, in under four hours. I undertrained, didn’t bother drinking at all during the race, and ended up limping the last few miles with a terrible leg cramp and leaning on the finisher ahead of me when I felt faint.  In Boston, 2006, it took me over five hours.  But hey, I was 64.

     Finishing a 26-mile run or jog is hard.  Thousands do it.  For me, it taught me a life lesson – if you persist through pain and suffering, you can achieve good things. 

      Thanks, New York and Boston.  And especially – Thanks Tigst!  You deserve a front-page headline.    

Finding the Non-Obvious: The Kids Know

By Shlomo Maital

Prof. Susan Gelman

   We have known for decades, for certain, that five-year-old kids are geniuses in creativity tests.  We also know, alas, that on average, the Torrance creativity scores fall sharply as we grow older.  This is a massive loss of a precious national resource: Innovative skill.  It appears to be largely a function of how our schools work and teach.

   In the latest American Psychologist (July-August 2023), Univ. of Michigan Psychology Professor Susan Gelman sheds light on the issue.  In her lead article,  “Looking Beyond the Obvious”,  she asks, ‘how do we come to appreciate the non-obvious nature of the world around us?’   And she reports her finding that “the non-obvious and abstract concepts are also central in early thought  .. by three or four years of age”.

     We used to think that very young children thought concretely,  in the ‘here and now’…but Gelman reports that for kids, this is NOT more cognitively basic than non-obvious abstraction. 

       “A contrast between appearance and reality generates exploration and discovery”, Gelman asserts. As adults we opt for appearance, failing to question a different reality underlying it.

          Creativity is generating ideas both novel and useful. Novel generally implies non-obvious.  We adults favor the familiar, the certain, it saves the effort of constantly making choices and getting used to new things.  And hence, we fail to invest effort in the non-obvious. 

       Kids? They do it all the time.  Partly because they have not yet learned what is obvious,  we haven’t yet taught them the rules.  In school, they will be taught what is true, right, obvious, proven…. And downgraded when seeking strange new paths.

        What can be done by us adults, based on Gelman?   How about this —  seek the non-obvious. Daily. Do ordinary daily things differently. Listen to different music. Try different foods.  Try wearing red for a change.  Accustom your brain to non-obvious choices. 

       Later, when you face some tough life choices, your brain may be better equipped to find better, happier non-obvious choices. 

Why People Do Not Praise Bidenomics  

By Shlomo Maital

(Washington Post cartoon)

    The US economy is performing better than any of the other large wealthy industrial nations.  Yet, Americans, in polls, do not seem to think so.

     Why?  

     Economists can trot out all the numbers they want.  In the end, people will believe what they believe, and why they believe it.  NYT columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics,  has a good explanation.  I agree with it.

     Inflation implies rising prices.  You pay more for everything.  Let’s say, the rise in prices more or less slows, as it has in the US lately.  Good, right?

     No.  Not good.  Gasoline is $4 a gallon.  Beef is way up.  Everything is more expensive – except the wages I earn. 

     We have long memories on prices–  because, for years, prices in the US were stable, and then suddenly, began to rise during COVID.  Even if prices stop rising,  they are still much higher than they were once.  And people remember.  It is the level of prices people use as their yardstick, rather than the rate of change. 

     So, don’t count on Bidenomics getting high grades from the American people.  When gasoline was, say, $3 a gallon for a decade, and then jumped to $4,  well, that’s bad news.   That gives Biden a D minus, no matter what the inflation rate becomes today and tomorrow.  

     Is there a remedy?  I doubt it.  Our views on the economy are highly subjective, ridden with biases and misperceptions that are hard to dispel.  It would be a shame, if a worthy President failed to be re-elected, falling to an unworthy one.  It could happen.  Lots of us are worried. 

  Thoughts on Good and Evil

By Shlomo Maital

   At the onset of the Jewish New Year 5784,  in the 10 days leading up to Yom Kippur,  our thoughts turn to an inward look at our deeds and our selves – a kind of soul accounting.  I was helped in this process by a Hidden Brain podcast, an interview with psychologist Elliot Aronson. 

     Elliot Aronson is 91.  He was a student both of Leon Festinger (Stanford) and Abraham Maslow.  Festinger pioneered the theory of cognitive dissonance, and Aronson published breakthrough studies on it. 

      Cognitive dissonance occurs when we believe in two ideas or propositions, which cannot both be true.  The dissonance between them creates discomfort – and we try hard to resolve it.  For instance,  1. “I am a good person”   and 2.  “I have done hurtful things to others, including those I love”.  Good people don’t do hurtful things.  Right?  So ?    We find a rationale for those hurtful things.   We rationalize bad behavior.

      Aronson’s brilliant experiments had students do a boring task, then asked them if it was interesting. If they were paid $20 for it, they responded, no it was boring, because —  they clearly did if for the money. If they were paid $1 for it, they responded,  yes, it was interesting!  Because if they didn’t do it for the money – well, it must have been for the interest.  And these subjects told other students the experiment was interesting!   There is no end to the lengths we go in rationalizing behavior, to dispel dissonance.

     For the days up to Yom Kippur, there is another way.  Yes, I AM a good person.  And yes, good people do hurtful things.  It is part of life, part of having free will and choice part of learning and growing.  And as my Rabbi explains,  God did create everything, including evil, so good AND evil must play a role in our lives, together, and it is often not easy to distinguish between them.   Long term, evil sometimes works out well, though not always. 

     Aronson used his brilliance to impact the world. He invented the jigsaw classroom, to deal with bullying.  (I recall being bullied by big guys. I think most kids experience this).  The idea was simple.  You get kids to work in diverse teams.  The proposition: This kid is brown, black, yellow, Jewish, scrawny, small, dumb…. Is dispelled, the dissonance reduced, when he or she is part of team, each given a piece of a problem to solve (hence, jigsaw), and the team works together, leading to:  we are all part of a team, pretty good, pretty smart, pretty similar.  Bullying is sharply reduced.

     By the way —  creative people are known to tolerate very high levels of cognitive dissonance.  They can hold two contradictory ideas in their heads for a long time, without trying to resolve it.  Ultimately, it leads them to great pathbreaking ideas – like those of Festinger and Aronson.

    May this year bring all of us to heightened self-awareness, that we ARE good people, and that there is massive good in the world, even though we often cannot see it clearly.   

America Is Not a Democracy

By Shlomo Maital

    The US often portrays itself as the global defender of, even paradigm of, democracy. 

     Writing in the New York Times Op-Ed section, Michelle Goldberg suggests this may not be the case.   Consider this:

      “Republicans have won the popular vote in only one out of the last eight presidential elections, and yet have had three Electoral College victories.”

       This includes President George W. Bush, 2000,  and Donald J. Trump, 2016, who lost to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes, yet became President. This is because of the weird electoral college, which gives great power to smaller states.

       “The Senate gives far more power to small, rural states than large, urbanized ones, and it’s made even less democratic by the filibuster.”

        Senate crackpots can halt legislation by talking endlessly on the floor of the house, and ‘closure’ (vote to end it) has not been accepted in the protocol.

       “An unaccountable Supreme Court, given its right-wing majority by the two-time popular-vote loser Trump, has gutted the Voting Rights Act.”

        This act gave voting rights to all,  Republicans have amended it to destroy it.  The Supreme Court now has a 6-3 majority of conservatives, including Justices who during confirmation hid their true views and prevaricated (lied).  They include two justices who travel widely at the expense of wealthy tycoons who have cases before the court.

        One reason Republicans keep radicalizing is that, unlike Democrats, they don’t need to win over the majority of voters.  Because of the twisted system of ‘democracy’ in the US, giving power to small Republican states,  Republicans can support causes like banning abortion, against the opinion of the vast majority of Americans.

       Democracy?   It’s broken.   

Seniors: Do Hard Things

By Shlomo Maital

      Following up on my previous blog, about Dan Buettner’s documentary on Blue Zones, where seniors live to 100 and more, in good health and fully active —  One thing in common, among Blue Zones in Costa Rica, Loma Linda CA, and Okinawa —  these centenarians do hard things. Like the cowboy centenarian in Costa Rica, herding cattle on horseback.  Or gardening, walking, running, preparing food, caring for others…

      So, we live in a friendly community, where, for instance, I am always offered a seat on the train or bus.  Even against my will.  This is nice.  But as a senior, it is important to resist the inexorable scheme of modern life to make things easy.  And to permanently reside in my incredible Danish leather armchair, which puts me to sleep. 

       Try to do hard things daily.  Long walk.  Bit of heavy lifting.  Just as much for mental exercise as physical – not to grow soft in the head.  Not to succumb to pampering an older body, because that is a slippery slope.  I’ve even returned to jogging — not far.

        Jewish people are about to observe the New Year on Friday,  5784.  It is a time when we make resolutions for the coming year.  Mine is to do one hard thing daily.  Just to keep in practice. 

        Want to try it? 

Okinawans: Living to 100

By Shlomo Maital

   Consider the Japanese island of Okinawa.  It has five times more centenarians, per capita, than the US.  Documentarian Dan Buettner visited the island to find out why – and produced an interesting Netflix documentary film on it. 

    It includes some things we can use – not necessarily to reach 100, but to live full and healthy lives longer.

     One of them is  “hara hachi bu”,  in Japanese.  Literally, eight out of 10.  It is recited before meals by Okinawans,  and it means:  stop eating when you are 80% full.  Not totally stuffed, but 80%.    We need 2,000 calories daily. Americans consume 3,200.  Partly because the food industry slyly engineers high-caloric foods.

     Okinawans eat little meat, even little fish, but mostly legumes, especially sweet potatoes, which are typhoon-proof, as they grow in the ground.   They eat foods like tofu, vegetables, etc., that are low calorie, and high density. 

      But there is a social aspect.  There are ‘moai’ communities.  Moai  are informal helping communities, neighborhoods, that combat loneliness and deprivation.  A small sum of money is raised, for needy cases.  Nobody is alone, or depressed, without the community coming to help. 

       Hara Hachi Bu.  And moia.  Can we emulate the wise Okinawans?

        Incidentally, they suffered terribly during WWII.  200,000 people were killed.  Many lost family.  They appear to feel an obligation to live long and well, in honor of those who died young.

Life as a Train Ride

By Shlomo Maital

         I recently took the train to Tel Aviv, to meet a friend.  Half the seats face forward, half backward.  On the train, I chose a seat facing backward, rather than what most riders prefer – a seat facing forward, in the direction of travel.   In Tel Aviv, a friend recounted a similar train ride, seated facing backward.

     He noted that when you face backward, you see far more of the landscape.  Your eye fastens on a feature of the landscape, and follows it as it recedes.

      When you face forward, you look out the window and try to look ahead, but the scene recedes quickly and changes every second. 

      In short – looking back gives you a clearer view of what is outside,  than looking forward.

      This is true of life.  We try hard to look into the future, but as on the train, it is very hard to see clearly.  Best we can do, is to have faith, be resilient, optimistic and deal with what life brings us from a foggy future.

      But at the same time, as with a train ride,  we can look back and see clearly what worked, what didn’t, what we did right, what we did wrong —  and constantly learn and improve.

      Jewish people celebrate the New Year 5784, which falls on the evening of Friday Sept. 15.  As always, we look forward, into the future, but mainly, we look backward, at our deeds, and do a spiritual reckoning. 

     Kierkegaard once said that this is the tragedy of life – we live life forward, but learn life looking backward.  Perhaps it is not a tragedy —  but rather an opportunity.

The Beauty of Our Butts

By Shlomo Maital   

    I am endlessly fascinated by human evolutionary biology – how we have become who we are, through Darwin’s natural selection.  In my next reincarnation, I would like to be like Daniel Lieberman, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

    Lieberman was featured on an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Radio Lab.  The topic:  Human ‘butts’.  Our behinds.  Our gluteus maximus.

    What in the world is interesting about our butts?  A lot.

     It turns out that evolution has given us a precious gift – the ability to run, with the vital help of the largest muscle in our body, our butts.  Here is how Prof. Lieberman explains it:

     “So butts are not only, you know, beautiful, and they’re helping me sit on this chair right now, but—but the butt is, of course, the largest—the gluteus maximus, its technical term, is the largest muscle in the human body. And when we’ve done electromyographic studies, so yes, I have been paid to put EMGs on the rear ends of—of people, and we do it very discreetly and very carefully and modestly, but nonetheless when we do that, what we find is that the gluteus maximus fires twice in every stride. Once and most importantly, and most—to prevent the trunk from pitching forward. So every time you hit the ground when you’re running, your upper body wants to fall forward.   

    “Running is a controlled fall. Very different from walking. And so your gluteus maximus fires just before your body’s about to—your trunk is about to pitch forward and make you hit your nose on the ground, and it helps pull your trunk backward.

    “And the other time the gluteus maximus fires is when your leg is swinging forward when you’re in the air, and it helps decelerate the leg so that you bring your leg down onto the ground. So the gluteus maximus plays a very important role when you’re—when you’re running, and turns out to barely be active when you’re walking. And, you know, you don’t need the fancy equipment in my lab to figure this out. You can just do this yourself at home. Just walk around the room and hold your butt and, you know, clench your kind of butt. And—and when you’re walking your butt will just stay kind of normal, right? It’ll stay kind of, you know …”

     OK.  This is doubtless a lot more than you need or want to know about your butt, right?

     But it’s still amazing, how evolution has shaped us – including the key part we sit on, without which we could not run or even jog, without falling.