Bus arguments, Boredom and Bunkum

At school I was bored. I can remember praying for earthquakes, floods or storms anything to dull the persistent mind-numbing of the classroom routine. Lightning storms at primary school where a source of great fear for almost all my classmates and they huddled under their desks with our young teacher, Miss Spencer's voice quivering that there was nothing to be afraid of. I meanwhile had my nose pressed to the window overjoyed that my prayers had been answered at last!

Later as an adult in Greece, I experienced earthquakes and found them much more disturbing than storms. The firm Earth beneath you should just not move and shake. Your mind is flummoxed by the sudden lack of a stationary frame of reference. I drove my children in the middle of the night to the ancient stadium for safety. It had stood for well over 2000 years through a multitude of earthquakes great and small. It seemed the wisest choice. I parked in the open far away from structures that could fall and waited for the aftershocks to stop. The first tremor is confusing and startling. You're not sure what is happening. The longer it goes on the more the fear swells. The after-shocks are almost scarier than the original shake as you are already jittery with foreboding.

Floods are a part of life in the Mediterranean. It's perverse really. I'm from Ireland where rain is like a permanent state of the weather. Not having rain is more unusual there. It is if a tap has been left flowing above. Usually, it is what we call a soft rain. A never-ending drizzle. Sometimes it can lash mercilessly in wind-driven whips. But in the Mediterranean floods follow the rain. Here rain feels like an open-ended bucket on your head. No gradual Irish soaking over hours of gentle drizzle. Instead, a torrent falls upon you as if a bath is emptied from above. Instantly soaked to the skin the excess of even more rain seems an overkill. But it continues unabated. Then suddenly the roads turn into rivers. Hard flowing rivers that are deepest near the pavements. There are common videos on the news of cars floating down roads like boats and pedestrians up to their thighs wading across junctions. It seems as if southern European infrastructures are designed only for sunny days. The sudden heavy storm is always bewilderingly unexpected despite its usual yearly appearance.

I still watch floods and storms nose pressed to the window. The sound of a good thunderstorm is I wondrous thing. Surely as soothing as the pitter patter of rain on an overhead canvas. You are delighted at being sheltered on such days and hug yourself in glee at such good fortune.  (I only realised today that people go sleep listening to such soundtracks)

Here on Malta I usually walk everywhere. Carless after a lifetime of driving I loathe waiting for buses. It takes me back to school longing for the final bell to end my misery. But when it rains the bus becomes a necessity. Yesterday, standing reluctantly at the bus stop, a young man in his 20s approaches me. He asks if a certain bus has already gone.  I lift my shoulder in a shrug and say "I'm not sure, I've just arrived”.He consults the timetable on the bus sign and is reassured. After being on Malta for six years I have no such confidence in the bus timetable. Sometimes they come early, occasionally late and often they are completely full so they drive past without stopping at all. Being impatient I have grown accustomed but not resigned to this. I am smouldering in resentment at having to wait. The young man introduces himself. He is wearing a suit and works for a real estate company and is from Eastern Europe.

The conversation develops and introduces his positive attitude theory. "You must see 'The Secret’ “ He tells me,”it explains everything about life!” He gives proof of this theory.  Apparently, he left his wallet on the bus by accident the previous week, with all his cards and money but did not cancel them. Instead, he used positive thoughts to will his wallet’s return. Sure enough, a week later it was returned by post to his address with all his cards including his bus card, ID and money. Positive thinking brings good things to his life and he says it is negative thinking that brings bad stuff to everyone else.

I beg to differ. I cite examples of Bangladesh where the plains that routinely flood are filled with the poor who are driven to occupy that place because they simply have no choice. It's the only place they can afford to live. These treacherous lands killed tens of thousands each year and no amount of positive thinking by any one of them will alter either the monsoon, the rains, the floods and the death that occur. 

He thinks the Chinese the Russians and the Americans are altering our weather with an instrument called HAARP. This can even influence creatures 80 km below the ground he tells me. Perplexed, I tell him I have never heard of this.  He shows me an internet description of HAARP on his iPhone. He has googled HAARP and it seems radio waves are the culprits and the article goes on at length about this powerful weather changing diabolical machine.

I am not convinced.I discuss the electromagnetic spectrum with him and speak of radio waves ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, UV,  gamma rays, x-rays, microwaves etc and point out that even the highest frequency waves (which are gamma waves) can be stopped by a couple of metres of concrete so how unearth can radio waves which are the lowest frequency manage 80 km penetration? Even the ionosphere can manage to reflect radio waves! My new friend is not convinced by my arguments. 

I point out that recent research has highlighted that people will routinely cling to false facts out of emotional attachment despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.  

A lack of education is understandable, all of us only know our own little mine of information but I am amazed that erroneous, crackpot theories spread faster and more effectively than facts.  When did the contagion of nonsense become the drug of common usage, shared widely with indiscriminate glee and mind-numbing enthusiasm?

I cite the example of vaccination deniers. He, however, is one of them! He is of the opinion that the big pharmaceutical industry has made up the usefulness of vaccines in order to weaken everyone's immune systems. As a result, he claims,  we are all more dependent on medicine but not cured. He gives the example of his dandruff. His doctor prescribed a medicated shampoo for the condition which stops the problem. "For this I pay money. Note, he does not heal me, he gives me the medicine to stop the problem but when I stop buying the shampoo the dandruff comes back. It's just a way for him to make money! It doesn't pay for him to cure me!”

I try to empathise with him. I say, ”Look, I have no sympathy with big pharmaceuticals. They spend millions on medicine for diabetes but refuse to fund Third World medicine needs because there's more money to be made from the affluent developed world. But smallpox was a killer, we're talking millions of dead over the millennium and with vaccines, we have wiped it off the face of the Earth. People have forgotten how many routinely died before vaccines. Those who choose not to have them survive because of the herd protection of the rest of us. They survive only on the altruism of others and if more for us followed their selfish example more of humanity will start dying again. Is that a wise choice?”

Our discussion has become more heated. I'm in really praying he does not bring up chemtrails or I shall lose the will to live! When did we have to start spending energy dismissing crackpot theories instead of tackling the really urgent problems facing humanity? I have to leave the bus and say my goodbyes. He's a nice young man.  I have three sons his age and feel benevolent towards him. He asks for my email when I get up to go. I hope he gets in touch. I may come across as a bit argumentative and in your face but I do mean well. My intent is not to offend but I do get a bit heated under the collar at times. If you happened to be on the bus yesterday as I pontificated my deepest apologies. I have a low boredom threshold and a lack of tolerance for pseudoscience.

PS Having blasted into my fellow bus traveller about radio waves incapacity to penetrate solid ground and waxed lyrical about Xray crystallography (wavelengths of X-rays are of the same order of layers of atoms within solids making them useful for determining the molecular shapes of crystals) elaborating that microwaves are used for mobile phones and Wi-Fi etc I get home eventually and look up HAARP.  Imagine my embarrassment to find that electromagnetic signals can be used to induce current flow in conductors within tunnels and these generate secondary EM fields which in turn can be used to determine some underground structures.  So my enraged response was perhaps incorrect?   In fact, the technique has been successfully used to detect tunnels in the Demilitarised Zone in Korea and tunnels crossing into the US from Mexico.  However, the notion that HAARP is some sort of military weapon to control the weather is like the chemtrails sheer rubbish.  That is the problem with science it is a tricky subject to get right and it much easier to misunderstand and go off on a tangent to the truth instead.  The perverse thing is the crazier the notion the more traction in the social media it is likely to get. 

For an account of HAARP and tall tales

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/16/weather-conspiracy-theories-scientifically-unjustifiable/?utm_term=.a1c5b7e069e1

For using HAARP to determine underground tunnels

Mackie, R. L. (1999). Imaging of Underground Structure Using HAARP (No. GSY-99/001). GSY-USA INC SAN FRANCISCO CA.

The Lord of the Rings - hidden truths

It is known that Tolkien based his character King Theoden of Rohan, in The Lord of the Rings, on a real historical character Theodoric I who was King of the Visigoths (418 - 451 AD).  He ruled a kingdom shown in orange below.  In order to make alliances with neighbouring kingdoms Theodoric married his daughters to rulers/heirs of these hostile peoples.  One to Rechiarus, King of the Suevi (shown in green) and another to Genseric's (King of the Vandals, shown in yellow) son, Hunnoric. Neither marriage ended in the good relations that Theodoric hoped for.  Rechiarus was a belligerent neighbour who made war on every single country around him including the Roman Empire.  He was eventually defeated by Theodoric's son on the battlefield.  The other marriage of his daughter to Hunnoric ended even more horrifically. 

This marriage in 429 AD between Genseric's heir Hunnoric (King of Vandals) lasted fifteen years and produced children.  But in 444 AD Hunnoric wanted to make an alliance with the Roman Empire by marrying Eudocia, daughter of the Emperor Valentinian III.  So he had his wife, Theodoric's daughter, mutilated by cutting off her nose and ears and then sent her back to her father.  Understandably, Theodoric was livid and took up arms against the Vandals and prepared an attack.  Genseric and Hunnoric, realising they could not withstand this assault, cleverly prevailed on Attila the Hun to invade Gaul.  This meant Theodoric had to focus on defending his country from this much-feared invader instead of taking revenge. 

These warriors were very feared and had unusual practices.  The Huns believed in artificial cranial deformation and used wooden planks/fabric to produce flat elongated conical cranial shapes in their babies from 1-6 months old.  Their appearance must have been frightening.  In addition, they scarred male children on the day of birth by slashing both cheeks with swords.

"For they cut the cheeks of males with a sword, that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds."

The similarity of Tolkien's story and that of Theodoric becomes clearer in the details of the battle. Attila advanced towards the city of Orleans burning and plundering all the way.  Theodoric got together an alliance of the tribes and managed to defeat Attila in the battle of the Catalaunian Plains.  In a scene very similar to that in The Lord of the Rings, where King Theoden in the battle of Pelennor fields fought against the King of the Nazgul and rode ahead of his men.  Theodoric was thrown, like Theoden, from his horse and trampled underfoot and killed.  

His son, Thorismud, pursued the enemy hungry for revenge and penetrated right into Attila's camp.  Like Eomer's reckless rush, in The Lord of The Rings, Thorismud had to fight his way out to safety.  The next day the body of Theodoric was found "where the dead lay thickest" and the warriors carried his body away with traditional songs and ceremony.  It was one of the only defeats of Attila the Hun.

It is to be expected that Tolkien, a professor of English at Oxford, would use not just historical sources including oral traditions, to enrich his tales but also ancient literature/poems dating from these periods.  It helped that Tolkien was familiar with many languages including Latin, French, German, Middle English, Old English, Finnish, Gothic, Greek, Italian, Old Norse, Spanish, Welsh and medieval Welsh.  His work was able to be enriched by tales from many ancient cultures and traditions. Tolkien's love of ancient myths combined with his deep religious faith to produce his conviction that mythology was a divine echo of "the Truth".  Whether these tales of ancient deeds, sometimes horrific, often time heroic, some fiction, some factual either add to the truth or distort it, is still an open question but they certainly add depth.  I must confess to my favourite scene in The Lord of Rings which talks about death so beautifully.

“Home is behind, the world ahead,

and there are many paths to tread

through shadows to the edge of night,

until the stars are all alight.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Rich Tit Bits

I am reading a wonderful book at present.  Entitled, “the best American magazine writing” 2011 it contains wonderful gems worth digesting indeed.  Michael Hasting’s piece “The runaway General” frightened me only because I’d already read the impressive piece before and was for a moment horrified that the book would turn out to be all too familiar.  But no, the rest were new to me and delightful in their range of topics and insights.  Jane Mayers wrote ‘Covert Operations’ and dealt with two wealthy brothers who have fought a furious war against climate change science and helped to seed the tea party movement.  They criticize political attempts to stop global warming as expensive, ineffectual and unnecessary.  The fact that their own company was named one of the top ten air polluters in the US might have had something to do with that.  In 1997 when the Environmental Protection Agency acted to reduce surface ozone, caused in part by emission from oil refineries, one of industry’s arguments put forward against this reduction was that smog free skies would result in more skin cancer!  Unbelievably, this argument was accepted by the Court.  You, really have to just shake your head in bewilderment at times!  Such is the funding strength of the two industrialists mentioned in the article that they even manage to colour the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History exhibits.  In a multimedia exploration of mankind and climate change, the human element in influencing such climate change is carefully whitewashed out.  Obviously, linking increases in carbon dioxide to fossil fuels would not hit the right note for these particular funders. 

It reminds me all too painfully of the new Giants Causeway Centre in Northern Ireland where the creationist belief finds its place in the display.  Please, let us be real!  In educational establishments that play, one hopes, a role in shaping young minds of the future can we try to avoid fantasy land, fake science or the polluter’s agendas.  The Giant’s Causeway was created by volcanic eruptions 60 million years ago, not by mystical giants laying down a bridge to Scotland and clearly neither is it consistent with the creationist’s claim that the earth is a mere 6000 years old.  The fact that increasingly educational programmes pussy foot around the truth to humour the rich or the religious is a worrisome sign.

This book challenges many other taboos including how we treat the dying in our medical system.  A must read article by Atul Gawande entitled ‘Letting Go’.  Scott Horton’s article on the three suicides in Guantanamo on June 9, 2006 is troubling.  It does seem highly suspect, as is claimed by American authorities, that the three could managed to have hung themselves, hands bound with rags down their throats.  I am only halfway through this book but it is toe curlingly good.  Well written, thoughtfully researched it feels like a long cool drink in the desert, refreshing, unexpected and rejuvenating.