Timey Wimey

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, AKA that big unlit spot in between South Korea and China that starves its own people, has decided to reset its clocks to a time zone it used prior to Japanese invasion in the early 20th century.

On Aug. 15, the 70th anniversary of the nation's liberation from Japan in World War II, North Korea will turn its clocks back 30 minutes to be at Greenwich Mean Time +8:30. One might think that this would not involve much work, given the level of technology North Korea currently enjoys, as there would be fewer clocks than in more advanced nations. But considering that a significant percentage of DPRK clocks probably are hand-wound, it'll probably even out.

The CNN story notes that North Korea already uses its own calendar, dating from the birth of founding dictator Kim Il Sung in 1912 and calling that year one. The Korean word translated "year" is Juche, so we are actually in Juche 104. Again, while you might think that this would create some confusion, much of North Korea lives like large parts of the world did in AD 104, so the gap is not as wide as it could be.

As for freedom from the cult of personality surrounding said founder, his son and now grandson, well, that's not yet on the calendar even though it'll probably get here someday.

Fiction and Non

In Reconstruction-era history, "the Redeemers" were conservative-thinking, pro-business Democrats in the South who worked to defeat Republicans and African-Americans who had taken political office immediately after the Civil War. Although Ace Atkins' stories of ex-Army Ranger Quinn Colson share a locale with those folks -- rural northern Mississippi -- the redeemers of his book's title are probably two men who look to gain some redemption from a man they believe cheated them.

The pair, Mickey and Kyle, seek revenge against Larry Cobb, a man who sued Mickey almost out of business and stiffed Kyle on a large contracting job. Mickey knows how to get into Larry's safe and recruits Kyle along with a professional safecracker to commit the robbery, which nets far more money than it should as well as some incriminating evidence Larry probably shouldn't have committed to paper. That evidence helps to point the finger at Tibbehah County crimelord Johnny Stagg, who had thought he solved his problems when his hand-picked candidate defeated Quinn in the sheriff's election. But the robbery goes bad, Johnny's partners want assurances Larry's evidence will go bye-bye and Quinn as a private citizen is no less of a pain than he was as a lawman.

Redeemers is the fifth Colson book and allows for some payoff to several storylines that have built over the course of the earlier novels. Atkins maintains his sharp character development and careful plotting, but this fifth book is well under the standard set by earlier ones. Atkins is a southern native and current Mississippi resident, so he has an edge on a lot of writers in offering authentic rural southern flavor. He's employed that well for an air of realism in the Colson books, but for whatever reason in Redeemers he sets his Faulkner to stun and layers the rural color on so thick his readers have to mentally stop and cough every few pages. Nearly every character at one point travels to some rural chain restaurant or independent convenient store with some semi-illiterate cutesy name for a meal that would make the First Lady's eyes roll back into her head as she swooned 'pon the fainting couch. There are daddies, mamas, granddaddies and whatnot every time you turn around, and although I didn't literally count I'd be surprised if the book goes 10 pages without Atkins writing the word "titties." And of course there is a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, which is without fail referred to as "the Piggly Wiggly."

It's hard to say what prompted this spate of terminal Tennessee Willliamsitis; perhaps Atkins saw the praise of the authenticity of earlier books and thought he should double down, or perhaps he was worried that his continuing the Boston-based work of Robert B. Parker's Spenser would cause his kudzu gland to atrophy.

But it's not hard to say what the choice does to Redeemers. It wrecks it, and gives Atkins a lot of ground to make up if there is to be a sixth Quinn Colson novel.

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Almost 30 years ago, economist and Stanford professor Thomas Sowell published a book outlining what he sees as some of the reasons we have different political views in society. The 1987 A Conflict of Visions was reprinted in 2002 and revised in 2007, but the basic thesis remains the same.

Sowell believes that the root of political differences can be found in ideology -- which is not by itself a new claim to make. His identification of those ideologies, however, is not exactly the same as we often see in fights between conservatives and liberals or progressives. Sowell sees one group as holding what he calls an "unconstrained" view of human intellect and ability, which means that they believe people -- some of them, anyway -- are smart enough to figure out the best answers to all current problems and make them happen. The other group holds a "constrained" view of human intelligence and nature. These people think that attempting to address problems without paying attention to the accumulated wisdom and understanding of preceding generations is a bad idea. Human beings can't know everything and can't necessarily find the perfect solution to any problem, let alone all of them.

Generally, folks who operate with an unconstrained vision of humanity fall into the liberal or progressive camp. Those who hold to a constrained vision will tend to be more conservative. Sowell points out that very few people hold to pure views at either end and are more likely to have a mix of beliefs.

Having laid out his understanding, Sowell then goes on to address a few of the social and political questions usually on our mind in terms of these competing visions. Anyone who reads him regularly knows he holds to the more constrained vision of human capabilities, but he generally does a pretty fair job of explaining both sides. The book tends to drag as Sowell gathers perhaps too many different examples of the two visions, but overall it's a good way to start thinking about our modern political differences and where they come from.

Those who share much of Sowell's thinking can obviously benefit from his discussion of different political and social arguments, but even people who disagree with Sowell about which vision is a more accurate description of the world would be well-served to take some time to explore one way of understanding why they believe what they believe. After all, taking a long-held belief out for a spin and seeing what it may or may not still have under the hood is rarely a bad idea.

To Be or Not to Be

Over at the long-post blog, there is a long post on how Schrödinger's cat might say something about the mind of God. You may ask yourself, "Why would I want to read that," which is OK, because I was asking myself a similar question about writing it while I did so.

Why Read? Why Read This?

In last month's Commentary magazine, literature professor Gary Morson writes about why undergraduates might not like to take literature courses.

He suggests that a lot of the dissective, theory-based and politically-drenched study of literature done today turns students off -- not that they necessarily disagree with the ideas produced by the dissection or theory criticism, but that those ideas are often things they already know. So there's no point in taking the class. Morson recalls a student who took a course on Huckleberry Finn she did not enjoy, and he asked her what she learned about the book. "We learned it said slavery is bad," she said. Morson said he thought that if you didn't know that before you read Huck Finn, then you needed something more than a literature course.

The article is long but worth the read. In summary, Morson says that the purpose of the best literature is to help people break free of what he calls "the prison of self" in order to see something about the world in a different way than we do as we sail on through our lives. The authors who create the most fully realized, fully authentic characters help us identify with them so that we might imagine what we would do in their shoes, or even what they might do in ours. Of course they are doing what the author wants them to do, but if the author is consistent in his or her vision of humanity and the humans that make it up, then those actions can be worth mulling over.

I'd agree (which I'm sure would relieve Morson no end were he ever to learn of it). In this space, I often review genre novels and other "mind candy" books because 1) I read a lot of them on the treadmill and 2) nobody's paying me to write big thinky pieces on big thinky books, so I only do that when I get a hankerin' to. And some of the highest-level genre fiction has something to say about humanity and its situation just as much as does any fine literary fiction; the Sir John Fielding mysteries from yesterday's post are good examples.

But I still like to wade into one of the great classics, even if it's only a few pages at a time at night before nodding off. I may have started Les Miserables when I was 43 and not finished it until after I turned 44, but I did finish it and I like to hope I'm the better for the slog. How would I react were I the unjustly accused Jean Valjean? Or Bishop Myriel? Would I be the rigid legalist Javert? If so, how would I respond when I found my legalism could not explain the world I saw? What would Valjean or Myriel or Javert do when confronted with this particular problem in my life? Which one would I want to be more like?

Although I love a lot of genre fiction, I never find myself asking what would I do if I were Captain Kirk. Not because I would not want to be Captain Kirk -- his social life is far better than mine, especially if you include interspecies romance, and he never fails to save the galaxy. But because I know what Captain Kirk is going to do: Make time with the green gal and kick some Klingon Sa'Hut. I read about him because I know he's going to win and I want to ride along, not because I want to know how he interprets human existence. I read Louis L'Amour because I know that bad guys who cross Sacketts become late bad guys and I like watching them lose. The paths of the vile villains and cunning sorcerers stop when they cross the mighty thews of the grim Cimmerian Conan, who deals out his wrath with a great and contagious gusto (It really is best to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women! Who knew?)

But I would ask those questions of a Karamazov brother or the nameless prisoner of the Chateau d'If or of Sidney Carton or Macbeth or Samantha "Sam" Hughes. I wouldn't do it, of course, if I didn't know how, and when I was 18 or 19 years old, I didn't. Morson's point is not enough literature courses teach students this empathic jailbreak from the cell of the self, and so they see no reason to repeat the dry parsing and culture-matching that happens in too many classrooms.

(As a postcript, it is worth noting that Professor Morson teaches at the beacon of wisdom and knowledge that is Northwestern University. Interestingly, the other Big 10 school in Illinois, known primarily for being a hotbed of Communism and the real-world example of  Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Hellmouth," also made the news recently, as the "top party school" in the United States.

Judge for yourself. And choose wisely)

Mystery and Suspense!

Sir John Fielding was a real person, the man who created the first London police force in 1750 with his brother Henry. Although blind, he served as magistrate in London after his brother's death and continued to develop some of the methods modern police forces still use, such as keeping files of criminal records.

Journalist Bruce Alexander Cook, writing as Bruce Alexander, began a series of mysteries featuring the "Blind Beak of Bow Street" and the young orphan he begins to train as an investigator and lawyer, Jeremy Proctor. Blind Justice was published in 1994 and followed by nine other Sir John Fielding mysteries before Cook's death in 2003. Rules of Engagement was partially complete, and Cook's widow Judith Aller and writer John Shannon finished it and used it to finish the series as well, publishing it in 2005.

Lord Lammermoor has leapt to his death from the Westminster Bridge and the coroner has ruled "death by misadventure." But his good friend, the Lord Chief Justice, can't accept the ruling and asks Sir John to investigate, which he and Jeremy do. They find themselves following a shadowy trail through those who follow the science of Anton Mesmer and trying to crack open secrets hidden in the highest levels of English society.

The mystery has Cook's usual ear for period dialogue, careful research and old-world touches such as addressing the reader directly now and again. The resolution following, which is probably the part undertaken by Aller and Shannon, has some of the flair but not the flow of the rest of the novel. But the pair are to be thanked for offering some resolution for the characters rather than leaving them hanging, and they do a better job than many might.

All eleven volumes are delightful reads, full of historical detail, Georgian features, fun characters and twisty mysteries. Rules doesn't sit at the top of the heap, but it is a satisfactory and proper conclusion to the Fielding series which leaves readers in the way it should: Sad the show is over but very very glad they came.

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John Gilstrap's tales of Jonathan Grave, a former super-secret commando and currently an off-the-books rescuer of hostages and the like, can be frustrating. Gilstrap's great at creating main characters that you like and want to read about, and in 2015's Against All Enemies, he even gives some depth and dimension to his villain. He writes great action scenes, crisp dialogue and funny buddy bickering.

But he also can be very talky and Enemies has that quality on 10,000 candlepower display -- his heroes actually share many of the views of the villains who want to overthrow the government but their commitment to the rule of law and their ability to spot the flaw in the overthrow plan keep them on the side of the good guys. Which they tell us, over and over again.

So when Grave and his main partner, Boxers, track down a former colleague who's gone rogue, and find he's less of a problem than the people he was seeking out, they have to suss out the proper course of action even though it won't necessarily be the legal one. That lets them lecture various and sundry characters, including each other, on why what they're doing is right.

Gilstrap also throws in some left turns in a couple of characters for what seems to be no real reason other than he can, which jars the narrative and actually leaves a sour taste on what should be a much more satisfying finale. More than once, Grave and Boxers have provided a high-octane and satisfying thrill ride, but with Against All Enemies, as with too many of the series, there are enough stumbles to make you wish someone would have tinkered with the motor a little bit more.

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Technically, 1971's The Throne of Saturn is a thriller or a science fiction novel and not a mystery. But if you've ever read author Allen Drury's 1959 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Advise and Consent, you might just scratch your head about how both books could come from the same brain.

In the late 1970s, satellites discover that the Soviet Union is well along in a planned manned mission to Mars. Under presidential pressure, NASA steps up its own planned Mars mission and under even more pressure, selects an astronaut crew based on public opinion. This puts Dr. J.V. Halleck, then America's only black astronaut, on the mission, as well as press darling and astronaut-disliked Jazz Weickert. Veteran Conrad Trasker and Pete Balkis complete the crew. Sabotage and racial tension continually threaten to derail the mission, and when the crew start testing equipment on the moon, all of these problems boil over in a deadly climax.

Drury's style in both books is pretty straightforward and unadorned, what you might expect from someone whose beginning years as a writer were spent reporting. His energetic anti-Communism remains as well, and his attention to the sordid details that underlie the public lives of well-known people. In Advise, those well-known people were politicians, while in Throne, they're astronauts and NASA personnel. Perhaps that's one source of Throne's problems: The idea of a seamy soap opera going on behind the scenes of the players on the Washington, D.C. stage stretches no credulity -- especially in a post-Clinton, post-Sanford age. But placing astronauts and bureaucrats in the same costumes is a much looser fit, and Drury puts as many love affairs, unrequited love affairs and extramarital affairs into the later manuscript as the former.

Halleck is a bizarre caricature of a black activist; it's difficult to believe operating at his level of permanent outrage would qualify for the astronaut program or be the only African-American astronaut, especially given Drury's conjecture of a permanent U.S. manned space station. The mission commander has the hots for Halleck's wife and actually conducts an affair with her, the wife of his subordinate officer. And the heavy, heavy hand with which Drury writes his politicans and protestors makes them cartoons as well, and not in a good way. While his own political thinking helped Drury give a focus to Advise, it only hamstrings Throne. The cover describes Throne as "A Novel of Space and Politics," but in truth it should be a "A Novel of Space, Unrealistic Politics and a Lot of Ridiculous Peyton Place Retreads."

Can You Specify the Chaos?

In mathematical terms, chaos describes situations that start out almost identically but while following the exact same processes, wind up in wildly different places.

One of the frequently used descriptions is "the butterfly effect," which shows hows something as small as the air disturbed when a butterfly flaps its wings can cascade into a storm on the other side of the planet. It means that the same air movements that fuel or even intensify storms are intimately interconnected and can be affected by even the smallest changes.

As this story at Science a GoGo points out, the measure of chaos is something called the Lyapunov exponent. If the Lyupanov exponent of an equation or system is positive, then that means that the very similar starting points will diverge widely over time. This doesn't even have to be that complicated. Think about two cars leaving from a parking lot at the same speed, with one traveling north and the other north by northwest. They begin right next to each other, but even though their paths differ by just 22.5 degrees, after just a few minutes they are already some distance apart.

But, as that same story notes, the Lyupanov exponent method tests for chaos in solutions to a model or an equation, rather than in the equation itself. In other words, current definitions don't offer a way to determine if a particular model is always going to produce chaotic solutions, unless it involves four or more preschoolers and a supermarket checkout candy display. That one will always be chaos.

The sneaky chaos models were ones that often involved what are called "forced systems," which are systems that tend to chaos but which continue to have external forces acting on them that might tend to reduce the level of the chaos. Water flowing through a pipe is an example. Suppose you had some water and you knew the position of every molecule of H2O in it. If you set that water flowing, it isn't very long before the math of predicting where the molecules will go gets so complicated as they bounce off each other and whatnot that you have a completely chaotic system. But water flowing through a pipe forces some limits on the system. While you may not know where any one molecule is going to be, you've got a pretty confined space for it to operate and so there are a lot of places it won't be.

So mathematicians at the University of Maryland who go by the name "The Chaos Group" decided on another definition, which would include those kinds of systems. If their suggestion takes hold, then it could offer scientists a good way of checking to see if a system responds to some level of control. One of the features of a completely chaotic system is that there is no way to anticipate every result of an input, as every change makes more changes, which make more changes, and so on.

The new definition and the possibility of controlling chaotic systems to some degree could lead to some interesting developments. But it probably won't mean controlling the weather, which is unfortunate for us but pretty good news for that stinkin' butterfly, since smashing him wouldn't help get rid of the storms.

Unknown Words?

You've probably heard the saying, "It's all Greek to me," which people sometimes say when speaking about a word or phrase or something that makes no sense to them. It can kind of imply a double level of confusion for us English speakers, since not only are the words some o' them furrin' constructions, they're even in a different alphabet than we're used to!

According to this bit at The Washington Post, the phrase has a Latin origin, which maintains the double layer of "huh?" because Romans used the letters we've come to use and Greeks didn't.

The diagram answers a question that you might or might not have thought of -- if we say, "It's all Greek to me," then what do the Greeks say?

University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman did some digging into different languages to see what language they referenced as being so completely unintelligible that all unintelligible statements might as well be said in it. Turns out a lot of languages inherited that Latin phrase about the mystery of Greek, including the Poles, Portuguese, Norwegians, Swedish, Spanish, Persians (modern-day Iran) and Dutch. Some of those groups also use other languages as their fallback incomprehensibilese. The Macedonians, who are kind of cousins to the Greeks, suggest that stuff they don't get is all Spanish to them, so the Spanish are kind of returning the favor by aiming their shrugging at the Greeks.

The Greeks lay their confusion off on the Chinese. So do a lot of others. The Chinese say that stuff that makes no sense comes from Heaven, which is kind of ratcheting up the game a couple of notches.

All of this, of course, is stereotyping. Greek letters are actually very easy to understand, or else drunken undergraduates would not be able to memorize the Greek alphabet whilst pledging fraternities or sororities. And any American knows senseless gibberish has only once source: Washington, D.C.

(H/T Leah Libresco)