Saturday, September 08, 2018

UK POLITICS: What We Did After Our Holidays

Political coincidences...

PM Theresa May's woeful weakness in EU negotiations has had the Tory membership enraged all summer and calling for her to go, so suddenly...

Our intelligence services have named two Russians who are definitely responsible for the Skripal poisonings, probably, you'll see, trust us, usual suspects etc...

Vigorous, thrusting young Jeremy Hunt announces approval for the NHS to use a massively expensive new drug treatment for child leukaemia, isn't it time he got an even bigger job?...

The Daily Mail print edition splashes a really important front-page story - "man has sex with woman", something like that - about Boris Johnson, once and future contender for the Premiership...

"The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript
Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn."
- T S Eliot

Mathematics - the crumbling foundation of US wealth and security, by Paddington

Let's start with a simple syllogism:

Modern society requires cheap energy and lots of technology to function.

Technology relies on basic science.

Mathematics is the language of science.

Civilization requires large numbers of technicians to maintain our technology, engineers to solve problems and develop new technology, and scientists to do both basic and applied research to develop new ideas.

Most of the higher-paying jobs now require higher levels of both Mathematics and applied technology.

Therefore, it is good for society as a whole, and the individuals concerned, if we improve Mathematics education.

Our politicians have gotten the gist of this logic several times in my life, beginning in 1957 with the Sputnik scare. Most of the American public saw the resultant Space Race as a matter of US pride. Those able to think knew that the USSR had the one-sided capacity to launch missiles at the US. What was presented as a bold exploration venture was an exercise in self-preservation.

Today, the fear is on the vulnerability of our many computer-based systems. It is just as real a danger as nuclear war, but not quite as obvious. The attitude seems to be that, “if it breaks, somebody else will fix it.”

There is also the small matter of repeated studies showing that success in any higher education is directly correlated with performance in College-level Mathematics.

This awareness led to several rounds of attempts at Mathematics teaching reform, at least four of which happened in my career as a Mathematics professor. I was even involved in a couple of them, trying to do the right thing.

We had the 'New Math' of the late 1960's, which attempted to put the subject on a firm theoretical footing. Next was the 'lean and lively Calculus' movement in the early 1990's, to have students learn 'deeper', using more graphical methods and less Algebra. Then came project-based teaching, which had students working in groups to 'learn' Science, Mathematics and English. Most recently, we have had the push for 'flipped' classrooms, in which students watch videos to teach the lessons, then sit in the classroom while the teacher helps them solve problems.

All of these reforms shared a few features:

The instigators were energetic, enthusiastic, honest and delightful, and were absolutely convinced that they held 'the answer'.

Every such approach wanted to use technology, starting in the 90's with graphing calculators, followed by laptops. Later it was computer Algebra systems.

Every approach ignored human nature.

Each approach showed initial gains, in what is known by Psychologists as 'The Novelty Effect'
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect ).

Each reform had an obvious flaw built into it.

The New Math failed in large part because the teachers didn't understand what they were teaching.

The graphical/Algebra-light Calculus left students able to generate (sometimes) correct answers, with no understanding of where they came from, and no ability to interpret them. In extreme cases that I experienced with some top students, they could no longer tell the difference between subtraction and division.

In the project-based models, students rarely learn anything significant, but get the impression that they have learned everything. That makes them ready for management, not so much for productive work.

The flipped classroom model ignores human nature. We learn by mimicry, for the most part. In teaching martial arts, I have noticed that, if you give verbal instructions, and do something else with your body to demonstrate, most students will attempt to do what you did, not what you said. Except for the most talented, people learn Mathematics in that way, by watching a teacher solve a problem, then solving several just like it, with numbers changed, then having more of the concept explained.

Every single reform ended up with worse results than when we began. Even more depressing is the fact that, instead of returning to the original ideas, the system just tried the next new model. When I started teaching in 1978, students either mastered their Algebra in Calculus I, or they failed. Now, the bad Arithmetic and Algebra has penetrated as far as Differential Equations (Calculus IV in some systems), because the bad habits are just so ingrained. I once had 2/3 of a class of Honors Calculus III end up with the equation '2x=3', then write 'x=3-2', so 'x=1'. And these were the select of their year.

Meanwhile, the Asian systems are churning out Engineers, while we busily criticize their education systems as not 'inspiring creativity'. There is some justification for this, and many in Asia agree. Students there are taught by rote, and not allowed to stand out. On the other hand, the successful have actually learned something. By contrast, I have met many students who have been labeled as 'creative' who consistently generate ideas and solutions which are as practical as oars on a spaceship.

There is a way to generate more people with talent in Mathematics and the subjects which rely on it: Select them at say age 12, and put them together in special schools. It reduces bullying, and their natural competition will drive them to succeed.

Friday, September 07, 2018

FRIDAY MUSIC: How Tango Took Off, by JD

"The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration. " 
“El Tango es la directa expresión de lo que comúnmente los poetas han tratado de definir en palabras como: la creencia de que la lucha puede ser un festejo”
- Jorge Luis Borges.
http://www.argentina-tango.com/index.htm

Tonight, Sept 7th, on BBC4 is the first ever Tango Prom. It is to be a celebration of the music and dance which came out of the low life bars and brothels of Buenos Aires.

In reality the tango began in Montevideo - Tango is a rhythm that has its roots in the poor areas of Montevideo around 1880. Then it was extended to other areas and countries. As Borges said: "...tango is African-Montevidean [Uruguayan], tango has black curls in its roots..." He quoted Rossi, that sustained that "...tango, that argentine people call argentine tango, is the son of the Montevidean milonga and the grandson of the habanera. It was born in the San Felipe Academy [Montevideo], a Montevidean warehouse used for public dances, among gangsters and black people; then it emigrated to underworld areas of Buenos Aires and fooled around in Palermo's rooms..." This also implies that different forms of dance were originated in the neighborhoods of Montevideo, Uruguay in the last part of the 19th century and in the early 20th century that was particular from that area and different from Buenos Aires. It consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions of Argentina and Uruguay. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_tango

I listened to the concert on Radio 3 on Tuesday night and it is a chronological presentation of the evolution of the styles of tango down the years including a little known side-track into Finnish Tango which proved to be one of the highlights of the show. The final number is the well known tune La Cumparsita (you will know it as soon as you hear it!) which was written by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez in Montevideo in 1919. Montevideo has a Tango Museum as does Buenos Aires.

I am looking forward to seeing the Tango Prom, it is difficult to see the dancers on the radio!

Meanwhile here is a selection, some of whom are featured in the Prom and some not. There was a comment beneath one of the videos I looked at which said-

1. Carlos Gardel
2. Astor Piazzola
3. Gotan Project

Can't argue with that assessment: Gardel was the first tango 'superstar' who added song to the music and dance, Piazzola revolutionised the music with his Nuevo Tango in the 1950s and wasn't immediately popular, the Gotan Project has brought the form right up to date for the 21st century by adding electronic/techno to the music but without losing the essential 'duende'!-

"hay milonga de amor
hay temblor de Gotan
este tango es para vos"



















THE SELMAYR SCANDAL: Straight and Crooked Law

'I'm a very qualified lawyer, that's why I feel very confident. The European Commission has broken no laws.' That was Mr Selmayr's response when doorstepped by the Daily Mail about his controversial nine-minute double promotion on 21 February this year, first to deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission, then to Secretary-General.

Selmayr is almost certainly right correct, but I shall come to his point later.

Dutch MEP Sophie in 't Veld  - featured in Daily Mail and Daily Express online editions - may splutter -



- but it merely shows that many who work inside the EU system do not understand how it operates, and to what end. They think that the EU stands for justice, brotherhood, democracy, openness and so on and expect its governance to reflect their illusions. One day it may; but not now.

The European Union is about power - not because its intentions are evil, but because it is trying to bind together very different countries into a single State. Such a project cannot succeed in a factious democracy. So in the European Union directives and legislation come from above and their Parliament is largely a talking shop and rubber stamping operation.

In some ways it is like Germany in 1871. Prussia - the permanent leader of the federation - centred power on the Kaiser, with the aristocratic Herrenhaus naturally inclined to support him. Representation in the lower chamber or Landtag was skewed towards economic power: one-third of seats went to representatives of the very richest and another to the middle-class; the last third gave a feeble voice to the masses - 82.6% of the population in 1849. Bills were proposed by the Kaiser - or, if it suited his purposes, not proposed; but certainly not by the commoners. The Constitution of Germany was, said Wilhelm Liebknecht, "eine fürstliche Versicherungsanstalt gegen die Demokratie" - a princely company providing insurance against democracy.

The EU manages its people in a similarly autocratic manner, and the chart below shows the flows of its power - and the source of its proposals:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Political_System_of_the_European_Union.svg



As with Newton's Third Law, antidemocratic force creates democratic reaction. The semi-suppression of the people fostered the development of the German Social Democrats; when the old German order fell apart in 1918 the new Weimar Constitution addressed the unfairness of the voting arrangements with a system of proportional representation. It was a disastrous solution: little could be decided among the squabbling factions, so that by 1933 the Chancellor could seize control in an "emergency" - tragically undefined by the Constitution and therefore open to his own judgment.

We are now seeing similar tensions between centre and periphery in the EU. If matters cannot be rectified within the system, it will ultimately face extra-systemic reactions and possibly end in tyranny, as the organisation seeks to preserve its existence.

Martin Selmayr is a lawyer; in German, a "Rechtsanwalt" - an authority, a manager, an advocate in law. The German for law is "Gerecht", its root "recht" or in English, "right." The soul of law is a sense of what is right (whose opposite is "wrong", a word rooted in the notion of twisting, like other "wr-" formations - wrist, wring, wry etc).

But law is also law as arbitrarily issued by the ruler ("le Roi re veult"), law that is written down and codified, law as procedure. So, technically, Selmayr's promotions by Junker (ratified by Commissioners attentive to their own advantage) were allowable within the letter of the EU's law; but not right, not straight.

Yet those rules have been fashioned for a purpose, one quite alien to the British sense of what is right, and also (it seems) coming as a surprise to some others in the EU who have misunderstood the destination to which they are heading. It is a rough and crooked road, leading to the termination of government by (and possibly one day, also of government for) the people.

Whereas the EU Constitution, like Prussia's, was designed to give power to the executive, the British Constitution - learning from centuries of bloody internal conflict - has evolved to restrain it. This is why we should leave the Union and should never have joined it in the first place: there is a total incompatibility between our respective political philosophies and habits.

Did Macmillan, Heath and the other conspirators who manoeuvred us into this federation not understand?
_____________________________________________

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6140383/The-arrogance-Junckers-Monster.html
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEX-18-1021_en.htm
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/a-very-eu-coup-martin-selmayrs-astonishing-power-grab/
https://www.politico.eu/article/martin-selmayr-became-eu-top-uncivil-servant/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_three-class_franchise

Thursday, September 06, 2018

One nation?

I'd like to suggest a topic, word it how you will: does the Labour Party actually work for the interests of the labouring person?

A genuine question - is there a plan for a thriving British economy rather than getting votes for benefits (and soft jobs for professional pols)?

Can Labour get away from the infighting and present a manifesto that is a credible alternative to the globalism foisted on us by both Conservatives and New Labour? Democratic and therefore not EU, and aiming at a sustainable economy, increased self-sufficiency in essential food and power, as the world heads for a long slump and peak cheap energy has passed?

Or is it just a case of either:

(a) one lot popping in when the other pops out, like the little man and woman in the weather house?

(b) Tweedledum and Tweedledee ripping the country into two, instead of saving it?

Monday, September 03, 2018

Fire!

Funny how buildings go on fire at times when no-one is supposed to be there - late at night, weekends... and especially school holidays -
https://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/reports/pdf/arson_in_schools.pdf

Glasgow's School of Art, near midnight on Friday 15 June 2018:



Liverpool's Littlewoods Pools building, Sunday 2 September 2018:



Brazil's National Museum - same time as Liverpool:



There's now a database of fires in UK heritage buildings:

https://www.fireprotect.me.uk/fires2018.html

And then there are the textile warehouses that combust when there's a recession...

And in Birmingham (UK) a decade or two ago I seem to recall empty warehouses on the ring road that were listed buildings but stood in the way of some local authority development plan and - whoof! up they went in flames, nobody caught.

I suppose that if I composed a pamphlet titled "Arson for Fun and Profit" I'd be in trouble?

Sunday, September 02, 2018

Is Ukraine to be the new Guernica?

Pic: South China Morning Post
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2162391/ukraine-peace-plan-ice-after-pro-russian-rebel-leader-killed-cafe
























Last Friday (31.08.18) Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the "Donetsk People's Republic" (in eastern Ukraine) was killed in a bomb blast, along with his bodyguard. It is claimed that the killers, who are still being hunted, work for the Ukrainian security service.

Unlike in the western part of Ukraine, the population of Donetsk is predominantly Russian-speaking and/or of Russian descent. The breakaway state declared its independence four years ago, but so far has only been formally recognised by South Ossetia.

Under the 2015 Minsk II agreement, Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany brokered a ceasefire and progressive demilitarisation. But the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has now cancelled ongoing treaty negotiations, claiming that the assassination is "an open provocation aimed at hindering implementation of the Minsk agreements" and linking it to the recent increase in US sanctions against Russia (announced 8 August) in the wake of the Skripal poisoning case in Britain, which has been blamed on Russia (denied by the latter and not yet forensically proven.)

The Kiev administration has failed to implement Minsk II and last year the United States was saying that the US did not wish to be limited by the agreement and suggested that Kiev should seek an accommodation directly with Moscow. Now the US special envoy for Ukraine has said that Washington could increase arms supplies to Kiev to buttress the country’s naval and air defence forces.

There is some evidence to suggest that the Ukraine has become a testing ground for Western weaponry. A "Ukraine based" firm called LimpidArmor has just announced the extension of a battlefield sensor system from fighter planes to tank warfare:

"The Land Platform Modernization Kit uses four cameras positioned strategically around the tank to create a seamless display of the environment surrounding the vehicle. Crew members wearing the HoloLens headgear would then be able to look around their environment without being hampered by the tank’s heavy armor while also not having to potentially expose themselves to enemy fire."

Although run by a Ukrainian, Mikhail Grechukhin, and conducting its research and development in Kiev, LimpidArmor's headquarters are in Walnut Creek, California. And in March this year the Ukrainian Defence Minister said that the US' supply of anti-tank missiles "opened the door for closer military cooperation in the face of Russian aggression."

Anti-Russian rhetoric was a major feature of Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign in 2016, to the extent that Russians were getting nervous. When Trump won, it appeared to be a chance to normalise relations and shortly afterwards he was tweeting "Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad!" But since then the US President has seemed to row back, perhaps in response to the sustained campaign by the Democrats to paint Russia as in collusion with Trump to get him his election victory.

Doubtless there is a deep geopolitical game being played, but aside from Mrs Clinton's disappointed hopes one has to wonder what the real motivation may be. Is it really a cold, then a hot war with Russia - now no longer a Communist country, thanks to its people who have every reason not to wish the return of the Reds?

Or is it to rehearse weapons and tactics for war - perhaps by proxy - against another, still Communist, mightier and clearly expansionist potential foe: China? If so, the increasing sophistication of China's defence capabilities ought to give the three-dimensional chess players of Washington pause for thought - see for example this article on the PRC's development of next-generation unmanned aerial vehicles.

Could the "military-industrial complex" (as Eisenhower called it) be endangering us with its hubris?

http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica


_________________________


  • https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2162391/ukraine-peace-plan-ice-after-pro-russian-rebel-leader-killed-cafe
  • https://sputniknews.com/world/201809011067667072-rusia-us-sanctions-dialogue/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_II
  • https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ukraine-idUSKBN19H19M
  • https://thenewsrep.com/107709/ukrainian-company-testing-f-35-style-helmet-to-see-through-tanks-in-combat/
  • https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=uk&u=https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimpidArmor&prev=search
  • https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-defence/ukraine-says-weapons-decision-heralds-new-era-of-cooperation-with-u-s-idUSKCN1GE27X
  • https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/
  • http://thesaker.is/chinas-dark-sword-uav-program/