Cholera: London, 1854

It's curious how these things happen. My mention yesterday of the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe set me off on a journey that led all the way back to mid-nineteenth century London. After making my blog entry, Ellie and I joined our neighbor for the morning's exercise walk around the hill and it turned out that she had just finished reading this book... I asked if I could borrow it, and I'm already a third into the fascinating story that it tells.

"The Ghost Map," by the journalist and popular science author Steven Johnson, is a scary and totally gripping ride into the past--and one that makes you glad to have been born into a place and time where flush toilets and good sewer systems make life infinitely more livable, in the quite literal sense of that word. I spent the afternoon yesterday wandering the streets of a London whose stench and squalor is barely imaginable today, though Johnson does almost too good a job in helping us imagine it. It's, um, vivid. The descriptions of the biological waste of two and a half million human beings jammed into a small space--and of the primitive methods then available for its disposal or recycling--leave the reader holding his nose and gasping for a breath of clean air. Drawing liberally on the resource of work by Dickens and other contemporaneous writers, Johnson takes us on a tour of the riverbanks and the overflowing cesspools that were the primitive and ineffectual sewage system in those bad old days, and introduces us to the "night-soil men" whose (relatively well-paid) task it was to collect the human waste and transport it out to the countryside to be recycled by farmers in the form of manure. These descriptions, while offered with great zest for the telling detail and a wry sense of humor, are certainly a challenge for the squeamish.

They're also a lesson for the contemporary world, since Johnson usefully wanders off to explore their meaning in the broader, continuing contexts of ecological science and urban planning. I've just arrived at the point where he begins to discuss the relationship between sanitation and health. By today's standards, the paucity of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge at the time of Johnson's story is nothing short of astounding, with opiates being the favorite means of treating all kinds of ailments and disease. Letters from newspapers of the day suggest that home remedies, folklore, and simple quackery vied for medical credibility, along with academically trained physicians and workman "surgeons"---who operated until well into the 19th century without the benefit of anesthesia. One particularly hair-raising passage narrates the performance of a mastectomy in agonizing detail.

This being a story about a cholera epidemic, Johnson is at pains to prepare the reader for its onslaught with a brief and pithy introduction to the microscopic life of bacteria and their skillful work of survival in biological environments, drawing the parallel between the action in this infinitesimal micro-world and that in the macro-world of human beings and their crawling cities. (The effect of the cholera bacterium, as I understand it, is to deprive the intestine of its normal functioning to preserve water and thus to drain the body of its liquids, leading to a rather swift and nasty death from dehydration.) Nothing of this is understood by the scientists and medical professionals of the time, leaving them defenseless in the face of imminent disaster.

Thus far in my reading, Johnson has introduced the reader to what I take to be his two main protagonists, a doctor and a clergyman, whose observational powers and devotion to empirical method will--I presume--pave the way for an eventual understanding of the disease. I have to say, despite the intestinal discomfort as I read, that this is a totally compelling story, a page-turner, rich in historical, social, and scientific information and in evocative description. Its subtext is as relevant today as it was some one hundred and fifty years ago: the interdependence of all living things--including those sneaky bacteria--and the absolute necessity of vigilance when it comes to the survival of our species in a world of infinite and often dangerous complexity.

There, more than you ever needed to know about nineteenth century London. Now, back to my book...

Stealing America

My friend Bill forwarded this link to the website of Stealing America, a movie about electronic voting and its susceptibility to error and outright fraud. After what happened in the last two presidential elections, NOW might be a good time to start insisting on adequate protections. It was the hanging chads and other egregious failures in Florida that brought us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves; and shenanigans in Ohio and elsewhere that led us deeper into the mire. I for one am grateful for the reminder that, this time, we must not allow ourselves to be caught napping.

On the political front, also, I checked out the New York Times this morning, and found virtually unanimous criticism of the Palin selection; this article may help explain why. The story of her petty tyrannies as mayor of Wasilla reveals an attitude toward executive power that is frankly pretty scary. I don't see how McCain can get away with this one. I'm sure she will rally the forces at the convention tonight, but am doubtful she can stand much further scrutiny in less adulatory circles. I could be wrong, of course--as I often am!--but I think McCain has served himself a large helping of Baked Alaskan trouble for dessert.

Having watched the effect of Gustav on the Republican convention, I now wonder what the imminent arrival of three other tropical storms on our shores might have on delegates who are not predisposed to dismiss the contribution of human activity to climate change. Will the timing of these successive events change any minds, shift any positions? Is the Earth's voice loud and persuasive enough to compete, in the minds of doubters, with what they believe to hear as the voice of God? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

For myself, a disbeliever in deities of all colors and stripes, the dual voices of science and reason are powerful enough. It dismays me to see the current Republican candidate pandering once again to the voices of unreason, who find a way to twist each manifestation of failure into a token of success; who bend their dearly-held principles to fit the contingencies of the moment; and who find justification for their inanities in the supposed approval of an infinitely malleable God.

I heard, today again, the argument that the parties are essentially "the same"--that whichever way you turn, you find mendacity and abuse of power, self-righteousness and intolerance of the opposition. I understand that this argument comes from years of disillusionment and disenchantment. But a look at the policies of each party--and the tone of their politics--suggests to me otherwise. They are not "the same," and the preponderance of fanatical ideology rests clearly on the other side. Bush spoke last night (via satellite, courteously disinvited from his Party's party!) of the "angry left." Does that imply a beatific state of tolerant equanimity on the right?

And finally, watch even a few minutes of the convention as cameras pan across the sea of faces and you can hardly help but notice the nearly universal homogeneity--and its stark contrast with what we saw last week in Denver. Should this not be of pressing concern to us, in a country that prides itself on its founding insistence that all [men] are created equal, and which preaches equality of opportunity for all?

No, these parties are not "the same." Prefer one or the other, as you will. Or neither of them. But I won't be persuaded that they are "the same."

Pictures & Words

A propos of nothing in particular, some readers may remember our once-resident, sometimes curmudgeonly, always interesting Taoist, Carly. I miss his gadfly presence here on The Buddha Diaries, where he never failed to catch me on my frequent lapses in intelligence. I mention him because he recently sent me this link to some amazing pictures from space, reminding me of how awesome is this universe in which our Earth occupies such an infinitesimally tiny place. The pictures are so beautiful and so powerful that they speak for themselves, without the need for puny commentary from me.

And while I'm in the appropriation business, (I realize this is a lazy man's blog, this Thursday morning: forgive me) here's something I received yesterday from a friend. It's probably making the rounds, but I had not seen it elsewhere and it's smart and funny, and it gave me a few needed chuckles. Here goes:

The GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY is now in the planning stages, the Library will include:

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has yet been able to find.

The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

The Tax Cut Room, with entry restricted only to the wealthy.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

The Economy Room, which is in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room, after you complete your first tour, they make you to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty, but very warm.

The Supreme Court Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

Additionally, the museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Admission: Republicans - free; Democrats - $1000 or 3 Euros

Four and a Half Billion Years...

... so science tells us, since the birth of our lovely planet.



Beautiful, no? Another two billion, give or take, before it dies--assuming that our troublesome species doesn't find some way to blow it to smithereens before then. Now, I'm no judge of the exactitude of the science, but I'll buy into the general premise. Those billions seem more credible to me than the few odd thousand allowed by the Bible literalist crowd, not to mention the scant few left before their purported Rapture. "Modern man" has been around for a mere 40,000 to 50,000 years, so far as I can tell--the blink of an eye in the history of the planet. It's only 2,500 since the Buddha walked the byways of India with his followers, and a handful more than 2,000 since Jesus did the same in the Holy Land. So much for the stories we tell ourselves to assure our significance in the grand scheme of things.

And our little planet in relation to the vast universe? A grain of sand is surely immense in comparison. Like everything else, it is born, it ages, and it dies.

All of which, on New Year's Eve, offers me a healthy serving of humble pie. I tuned in last night to the History Channel's How the Earth Was Made and was awed by this two-hour program about the story of the planet. What a perspective this science offers on those things that seem of the most lasting importance to us, and on the brevity of our little lives! How short the journey that we take, from our arrival on Earth to the time of our departure! With the reminder of those immeasurable reaches of time and space that surround us on all sides--and off into the past and future--how infinitesimal this right-now moment seems! And yet, how wonderful and vital, since it's all we have.

So, well, it's goodbye to 2007, just one more added to those four and a half billion! We do, I think, learn more about our species as we go. Our consciousness continues, amazingly, to expand. There's still time enough for us to fulfill the better aspects of the human potential, rather than the worse, and I certainly plan to continue my own efforts to be that better, wiser and more generous person in the coming year. I'm also comforted by knowing that there are many, many more like me, and that we are in conversation with each other in numerous ways.

Thanks for joining me. I'll see you all in 2008...! Happy New Year's Eve!

Our House; Oh, and the iPhone...

Ellie hosted a meeting of professional women in the arts in our house last night, and it was a pleasure to see how well our new place worked to entertain a large-ish group of people. They arrived before sunset and enjoyed the daytime view of Hollywood from our balcony over wine and hors d'ouevres, then strolled in the garden before returning to the balcony for dinner around the big teak table there, staying on through the dusk into darkness, and well into the night.

I, meanwhile, was joined by the sole male guest--a friend and the husband of a member of Ellie's professional association. We sat and chatted together over dinner and throughout the evening, ending up with a long exposition from him about one of the great passions of his life: the Yiddish language--its history and practice, and its persistence despite the devastation of the Holocaust and the consequent diaspora of the twentieth century. A fascinating story. As one who studied languages and philology many years ago at university, I was able at least to contribute some interesting questions...

We talked, too, about the city and the undergraduate program I directed--also many years ago!--in which we took students for a full semester and immersed them in all aspects of art in the city of Los Angeles. Our first day, which started at four in the morning at the fruit and vegetable markets and lasted the full length of the day, was called "The City as Art" and involved a fast-paced, multi-vehicle tour of corners of Los Angeles that most students had never visited or known about--from the sublime to the ridiculous. We ended up at Forest Lawn cemetery, admiring the prim, fig-leafed copy of Michelangelo's David and the ghastly stained glass version of Leonardo's "Last Supper," viewed to the sound of pious organ muzak.

Interesting, though. My friend pointed out that many young people literally don't know where they are these days, In the geographical sense. The newest generation have grown up with navigation systems in their cars, so they drive without the faintest idea as to where they're going except as an electronic concept projected on those little screens. Without the digital assist, they would be lost. By the same token, we wondered, how many young people grow up with having to understand the basic principles of math? He told me that young employees in his office are astounded by his ability to work out mathematical problems in his head.

To what extent, I wonder, are we in the process of stultifying the human brain with our reliance on those marvelous digital gadgets? Are we at risk of sacrificing our own circuitry by outsourcing it to our machines?



It's today, is it not--or tomorrow--that the much-touted iPhone makes its public appearance. Predictably, there will be mobs of people storming the Apple stores to lay their hands on one. Another piece of miniaturized gadgetry that does everything but fly us to New York... How long will it be before everyone on Earth requires the help of such a device to ascertain where he is? Then we'll all be permanently lost.

When Georgie Met Carly

Georgie met Carly, Carly met Georgie. No, not THAT Carly—not the one who regularly posts comments on The Buddha Diaries. He’s the imposter. He merely BORROWS the real Carly’s name. The real Carly, the one I’m referring to this morning, is, like Georgie, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel—both fine examples of the breed—and they got together for the first time Sunday. A momentous occasion. I would have mentioned it yesterday, but for the fact that it was a day of blog silence.

Anyway, our George was on his best behavior. He did his usual lunge, on first sight of another dog, just to assert his authority. George, being small by nature, has something of a Napoleon complex, and feels the need to display his manliness in such circumstances. Or his male dogliness. But, as he did in short order with Carly, he soon reverted to his usual charming self and Carly proved delightful company. It’s a great breed. Ellie and I have lived with them for twenty years now—three of them in succession, and usually overlapping, though now we have only George. I have known the breed since childhood, and as a teenager, I was not a little besotted with the freckle-faced daughter of a local dignitary who had five of them, a veritable menagerie of Charlies, in their country home in the neighboring village.

Anyway, we mere humans took both these superior Cavaliers for a walk up in the hills by Griffith Park. A great surprise, for Ellie and me, to discover a little paradise there which we had never known about, in thirty-five years of living in this area—an isolated grove of pine trees with a carpet of alpine grass and wildflowers and lovely bursts of sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees. Scattered here and there, great sandstone boulders half-buried in the ground, a wonderful invitation to sit in meditation. So distant, even though so close to the city, you could easily imagine yourself for a moment in Yosemite.

Enough for today. I have had computer woes since six o'clock this morning, including a frustrating half-hour on the telephone with my "service provider." My Internet connection has been unreliable for weeks now, and I'm getting ready to throw the whole damn electronic nightmare in the fish pond. Second thoughts, no: cruelty to fish. Definitely un-Buddhist. Take a breath. Buy a new router. I'm beginning to conclude that the router is the source of all my problems. I'm online now without it, and the problems have disappeared. More later. Or tomorrow... DV, as my mother used to say. (Deo Volente, that is. Latin for "God willing.") If I believed in D...


Photo Credit

A (Brilliant) Mind in Space; and the Cultural Revolution

What a pleasure to see those pictures of Stephen Hawking delighting in the experience of weightlessness. I can only begin to imagine how it must have felt, after forty years confined to his wheelchair, for him to be released from the bonds of gravity, if only for a few fleeting seconds. I'm proud to say that we have a (very!) tenuous association: Stephen Hawking C.H., C.B.E., Ph.D., Hon Sc.D., F.R.S., is the current incumbent of the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at my old Cambridge College, Gonville & Caius (pronounce, please "keys.") Well, not much kudos to me, perhaps, but I can bathe in a little reflected glory, no? I am awed by the fact that the human mind is capable of the kind of brilliant imaginative flights that Hawking has taken in his researches in cosmology, black holes and quantum gravity, and doubly awed when it comes from a man who has had to struggle with such a pitiless debility as ALS.

On another front, I drove out to Riverside yesterday, where I was privileged to meet with another man who has made an important contribution to our human species. Li Zhensheng is a photographer whose superb documentation of both the aspirations and the ignominies of Chairman Mao's "Cultural Revolution" in communist China remained hidden for decades and were eventually revealed to the world in a remarkable book called "Red Color News Soldier." The exhibition of Li's work at the California Museum of Photography at UC Riverside is a selection from some thirty thousand images shot by Li in the ten years of the revolution: at the beginning, he assured me, they were taken to celebrate the promise of a revival of the genuine communist spirit, a true hope for the future of the country under new leadership; but soon began to reflect the misery, the political and social constraints and the paranoia that a new tyranny engendered.

Li proved to be a wonderful interview subject. To listen to the flow of a language, not a single word of which I understood before the translator took over, was itself a remarkable experience. Add in the communication through the eyes, through the body language, through the peculiar process of triangulation with the translator, and the process becomes delightfully oblique and subtle, and requires a special sensitivity and attention. We ranged easily between the intense and the light-hearted and managed, I thought, to achieve a nice relationship. Our session lasted three times longer than I had anticipated--and only partly due to the translation process. I'm looking forward to reviewing the digital recording of our session.

After my additional, much briefer interviews with the museum director Jonathan Green, and the exhibition curator Robert Pledge--who has devoted years of time and energy to bringing Li's archive to the attention of the world--I sat for lunch at a sunny table on the Riverside mall with my hosts and the cheerful young Chinese student who was Li's diligent translator for his visit here. Li was busy taking pictures with his digital camera the entire time--throughout the interview, as well as over lunch--and after lunch a woman who had been observing us from an adjacent table offered to take a group picture that would include us all. Li happily accepted, delighted with the unsolicited offer from a stranger: such a thing, he said, could not have happened in China, where social mores dictate a certain reticence. Which led us into a discussion of how Robert had introduced the Western hug to the community of Chinese photographers... All in all, an entertaining moment. Our thoughtful new friend from the next table was surprised to learn she had been taking photographs of one of the world's great photographers!

Water on Mars

Did you hear they'd discovered huge amounts of water on Mars? Buried in all the news of yesterday was that tiny item, that the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter had found a stash of ice at one of the poles about 11 kilometers deep--a resource that would cover the entire planet, if unfrozen, with thirty-six feet of water! I predict that over the course of the centuries to come--assuming that there are some for us Earthlings--this discovery will prove more important to the history of humankind that all of the disasters cooked up by our current president.



We know the story of how life as we know it crawled out of the water--at least those of us who don't believe that God created the world and all its creatures in a single week six thousand years ago. We also know that all life forms (is that true--all?) depend on water. But I'm thinking more about the future, when our species might well need that water for its own extraterrestrial survival. When we bolt the hole we have polluted beyond habitability, will we be seeking other places to despoil? Knowing us, I think we might. And all that Martian water could certainly come in handy.

That's all for today. Back to the taxes. Have a good weekend, all!

The Earth Is Flat

Where are their heads? I suspect they may be ensconced in that proverbial nether region where, it's often reported, the sun don't shine. I refer, regrettably, to the leaders of several Christian groups who, according to an article in today's New York Times, "have sent a letter urging the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington to stop speaking out on global warming." "We have observed," the letter says, "that [the Reverend Richard] Cizik (the Association's vice-president) and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time." Like abortion. And homosexuality. And the need to promote "the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

As though global warming were not THE great moral issue of our time! But then, the Times reports, "they are not convinced that global warming is human-induced or that human intervention can prevent it."

It's intolerable to me that such men (mostly, yes, men) in leadership positions publicly deny--and presumably teach their flocks to deny--what has been demonstrably proven to the satisfaction of the vast majority of scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of our Earth. To deny the facts of evolution is one thing. That's plain nutty, but not dangerous--except, of course, in that it promotes ignorance as an article of faith. But to deny what science has shown to be a looming and imminent threat to our species is not only ignorant, it's folly, and folly of the worst, most dangerous kind. It's willfully suicidal--and we know what evangelicals think about the sanctity of life, so it's also deadly hypocritical.

I have not known Buddhists to promote ignorance. Indeed, the opposite, for "enlightenment" is the goal. Is there, somewhere, some sect of Buddhists who still insist that the world is flat and deny the work of scientists devoted to expanding the understanding of our species and the world we live in? Do their leaders exercise the dire influence of these American evangelicals? If so, I'd like to hear about it...

Meantime, forgive my Saturday rant. I'll say no more. Instead, let me note down here a piece of a dream from last night. (The rest of it, alas, is forgotten.)


TWO EGRETS

I am energized, at the top of my form. Ready to go. I find myself running with exquisite ease along the top of a levee, a sandy path. I run "like the wind", hardly touching the ground. I am elated. On reaching a break in the levee where tidal water flows through the breach, I dive in without hesitation and cut effortlessly through the water until I reach other other side. Only now do I begin to sense the danger. The tide is rushing back in, the water flowing so fast that it stirs up mud from the bottom and, looking back, I realize that it would be foolish to attempt the return swim. In gathering darkness, I hear a voice. It says, "Are those herons?" I look around and spot two tall, white birds standing side by side in a patch of reeds, quite beautiful and serene. "No," I hear myself say. "Those are not herons. They are egrets."