Obsidian Wings

Medicine's blind spot

by liberal japonicus

The previous post was an invitation to talk about history and society. However, I found this article quite interesting and thought it might spark some interesting thoughts

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00333-9/fulltext

Medicine could arguably be described as man's greatest achievement beating out other fields of endeavor because it must have been a lot harder to present new theories because the old ones were so tied to our physical state. It also might be our greatest achievement because we can do so much despite knowing so little. Sending one object to meet another one to a point precisely in space and time is all a question of having the right math, medicine is still full of blind spots and things we have no idea about, yet we stumble along.

But the opinion piece above reminds us of those blind spots, and that our ability to do some things is predicated on ignoring other things is a rather systematic way. Which linked it to this piece

https://aeon.co/essays/africas-ancient-scripts-counter-european-ideas-of-literacy

As the example of Bourdieu shows, even the most intellectually committed, even the smartest – perhaps especially the smartest – of us can all too easily overlook the script of those lives, the language that might remain hidden for too long.

Juneteenth

by liberal japonicus

We are just starting back to face to face classes and still under social distancing so my teaching is still rather constrained, which, strangely enough, means that I'm much busier. So I think I would have been much more plugged into reading about and trying to transmit information to students about this new holiday had this been normal times. But of course, these are still not normal times.

I'm betting that most folks here know more about Juneteenth and its history, but I think this, by Henry Louis Gates, who you may remember from this, but who is a scholar who is trying to negotiate the very tricky balance between separatism and embrace, might be a good link for catching up

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-is-juneteenth/

I think there are several ironies to point out, but for me, one that stands out is that juneteeth can be seen as a holiday that began in Texas, and spread out thru the rest of the country. The local becomes general and it starts in a place one probably would not expect.

More stuff at juneteenth.com/

To finish up, here is a passage from Ralph Ellison's 2nd unfinished novel, which was published first as Juneteeth and later as Three Days Before the Shooting...

The secretary, a young Mississippian, sighed. Obviously these were Southern Negroes of a type she had known all her life--and old ones; yet instead of being already in herdlike movement toward the door they were calmly waiting, as though she hadn't said a word. And now she had a suspicion that, for all their staring eyes, she actually didn't exist for them. They just stood there, now looking oddly like a delegation of Asians who had lost their interpreter along the way, and were trying to tell her something which she had no interest in hearing, through this old man who himself did not know the language. Suddenly they no longer seemed familiar, and a feeling of dreamlike incongruity came over her. They were so many that she could no longer see the large abstract paintings hung along the paneled wall, nor the framed facsimiles of State Documents which hung above a bust of Vice-President Calhoun. Some of the old women were calmly plying their palm-leaf fans, as though in serene defiance of the droning air conditioner. Yet she could see no trace of impertinence in their eyes, nor any of the anger which the Senator usually aroused in members of their group. Instead, they seemed resigned, like people embarked upon a difficult journey who were already far beyond the point of no return. Her uneasiness grew; then she blotted out the others by focusing her eyes narrowly upon their leader. And when she spoke again her voice took on a nervous edge.

happy Juneteenth

good day, bad day

by russell

Time for a fresh thread.

A bad day, I think we can all agree, is when a whale tries to eat you while you're diving for lobster.  A good day is when the whale figures out that 'human in a dive suit' was not what he ordered, and spits you back out.

A good day is when you get together with friends again, after over a year of not being able to see each other except on Zoom.  A less-than-good day is when the occasion of the reunion is the memorial service for one of those friends, gone way too young at 49.

Painter, sculptor, print-maker, potter, seamstress, lover of color and shape and texture, collector of strange and unusual and wonderfully odd things, world traveler, mentor and house parent to a generation of high school students, owner of a mischievous wit.  A person who lit up any room she ever entered. Long time companion and wife of another dear friend, who now finds the world strangely uninteresting and gray.

She will be missed.  Her memory will be a blessing.

I enjoy most things about aging, at least so far.  I can put up with the increasing accumulation of nickel-and-dime physical ailments and the petty memory lapse BS.

But I hate losing my friends.

A bittersweet end to a difficult year.  

We think we have time, but all we really ever have is now.  Whatever is in your mind and heart to do, start now.