Chrissy has a theory – more a superstition really and like all superstitions it is right enough of the time that confirmation bias can provide sufficient proof to keep it viable. Her theory is that you can follow people dragging luggage – luggage people – to the train station and alternatively, you can follow them to the center of town.
You can see the flaw in this thinking, since it is confirmed by observation of people going either direction, but it sort of works to make you feel more comfortable. And people dragging luggage indicates that you are probably near a hotel or a train station.
Her other luggage people theory is probably true, although not easily testable. She thinks that the proliferation of wheeled gear and backpacks had cut into the business of taxi drivers. This makes sense.
You can drag wheeled luggage a fairly long way. It can be a little annoying when sidewalks are rough and it is a lot annoying to drag across cobblestone streets, as they have in old town Cordoba, but it works. We dragged our luggage from the train station to our hotel, a walk of about 25 minutes, accompanied by the click-clack of the luggage wheels, and by the sight and sound of others doing the same.
Seems like a lot more old people are travelling these days and walking with wheeled luggage and backpacks. I suppose that they are people like us who learned the travel business as poor college kinds and now return to the habits of youth. Not all the way, of course. Now we stay in actual hotels and can afford to eat in decent restaurants. I recall first time I travelled overseas, when I went to Germany, I spent a lot of time looking around for a place to sleep and the options included youth hostels or isolated park benches, not nice hotels. I also ate so little that I lost about ten pounds in my month in Germany. Unfortunately, I will not be losing any weight this time. In fact, I expect to come back more “robust,” since eating good food and drinking beer is a bigger part of travel pleasure when you have a little more money.
My picture is my usual drinking picture. I posted Chrissy at the same spot yesterday. Next are luggage people in Granada, followed by olive groves taken from the train between Granada and Cordoba. It can be very arid in this part of Spain. Some of the land looks like Arizona, complete with prickly pear and agave imported from the new world. In places with enough water you find miles and miles of widely spaced olive trees. Next is a picture of the Marisa Hotel, for Mariza. Last is another night street scene. More people pack the streets at 9pm than 9am.
They say that the Alhambra is the must see attraction in Granada. But only so many people can go in each day. Tickets sell out. That is why I signed us up for the three hour tour in advance. Chrissy & I got to the meeting place well in advance, but no guides showed up. When we inquired and looked closer at the electronic ticket, I learned that I had signed up for the right date and time, but the wrong month. We probably will not come back on October 21.
I immediately began the rationalization process. I messed up big time, but …
We did get to have a beautiful, if arduous, walk to get up to the gate, through a wonderful hardwood forest. And we did have a couple of beers in a pretty place. And we did get to walk around the walls and contemplate the ephemeral nature of earthly power. And there were lots of nice sights in the city on the way around. And it was still enjoyable. And Chrissy was very understanding of my folly. I usually do a good job of double checking these things. Crap.
We will have to get a book and read more about it. The trip has made me want to learn more about Spain in general and Andalusia in particular.
Walking around Seville made me think about what makes some cities more walkable, pleasant and livable than others. Seville is certainly one of the most pleasant cities I have ever seen. I could see lots of the characteristics of a livable city. Buildings should integrate with life on the streets. In fact, the building itself is much less important than the relationship it creates in the community. Of course, attractive buildings are often better, but not always.
Buildings in Seville tend to be open to the outside. Most people like the merger of indoor and outdoors and Seville has that in abundance. In fairness to more buttoned-up cities, this works well because of the climate.
You also need density. This is something that we don’t do well in the USA. One reason is that we tend not to like it, but another is related to our building regulation. The narrow streets and lack of access that make a place like Seville so attractive are usually illegal in the USA. And a big factor of a nice city is that few of its iconic buildings were built between around 1935 and 1965. Let’s not start on the malevolent influence guys Le Corbusier, suffice it to say that Seville did not suffer that.
We visited some of the parks as well as the great buildings of the Alcazar and the Cathedral. The Alcazar is a royal place. The Moors built the first part on Roman foundations and their influence is still dominant. After the reconquest, the Christian monarchs build on that, sometimes literally on top. We did the guided tour. The guide would often point to the different “layers” of a building. You can see in one of my pictures, the Moorish middle floor with a renaissance layer on top built by Charles V.
Speaking of Charles V, recall the he was born in Flanders – in Ghent, now part of Belgium. In addition to being King of Spain, he was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (most now Germany, Austria, Northern Italy and the Czech Republic. His family was the famous Austrian Hapsburgs. Spain in those days was part of great empire spread across the world and it got influences from all over.
All the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. We are in Cordoba today and the city comes to life after dark, same as I wrote about Seville. My first four pictures are from around Cordoba at night. Last one is for Dorothy & Barbara. Lots of cats around here. Seem well fed and content.
What have the Romans ever done for us? Carthaginians were the first empire builders to show up. The Romans pushed them out and held onto Spain for more around 700 years. Spain was among the most Roman of the provinces. Emperors Trajan & Hadrian were born in Spain, as was the philosopher Seneca. The Romans had the first dominant influence on Spain. They gave it the name & language. The Empire collapsed in the 5th Century, but the culture and people hung on. And there were constant reminders of the old Empire. Nobody ran the lands of the old empire better than the Romans had for at least 1000 years. It must have been humbling to see the “rhetoric in stone” of that great empire.
You see the Roman bridge in my picture. It has been repaired many times, but the general structure has endured. Romans built to last. They showed their power in stone. We easily see how Roman affected our own Western culture and institutions but we sometimes forget that Rome was the major influence on every subsequent civilization in its former Empire and through those outside it. Orthodox and Islamic Civilizations are heirs to Rome and anybody who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French or Romanian is speaking a language evolved from Latin.
I am very much a fan of Rome. I know of their many faults and their brutality, but I also know that for their time there were none better, and there were none better for a long time after. The Roman genius was in governing and assimilation of the ideas of others. They absorbed, assimilated and passed along the great cultures of the ancient world. Our civilization is heir to all that and we are heirs of the Romans.
I thought about these things as I admired the Roman bridge in the pictures. You can see me with the bridge and river in the background. On close inspection of the bridge, notice how they built the upstream supports at sharp angles to deflect the water and rounded the downstream ones to support the structure and slow the flow. They built for the centuries.
Many churches in southern Spain were once mosques, that were once churches that were once Roman temples. History is layered here. I think it is useful to think of a kind of time line to show the really long years were are talking about. Roughly: — 500 years as Roman temples — 400 years as Christian churches — 500 years as Muslim mosques — 700 years as Christian churches
Some of the people in Cordoba evidently object to their Cathedral being called a mosque, since it has not been one for more than 700 years, since 1236. On the other hand, lots of people still call it a mosque and if you search on internet, that is what you find.
When you visit the cathedral, you see the layers, not only layers of Muslim and Christian but layers among Muslim and Christian. It never ended. The Muslim rulers who build the famous arches you see in my pictures and have seen in so many pictures were wise and tolerant rulers. They were replaced by others not so good, and you can see it in their construction. As you get farther away, the construction gets cheaper and more slip-shod. When Christians reconquered this place, they left most of the Muslim things there, but added Christian symbols. They also added more features, so you have influences through the Renaissance and in the Baroque.
It was not always Muslim v Christian. The Umayyad Muslim rulers in Spain were often on good terms with the Byzantine Christians, since they shared a common enemy in the Muslim rulers of Syria, who had murdered the family of the Umayyad ruler and forced them to flee to Spain in the first place. The Byzantines sent skilled artists to help decorate the place. So Christians decorated the Muslim mosque. After the reconquest, the Christian rulers employed Muslim artists to decorate part of their cathedral, so Muslim artists decorated the Christian church.
It is all very beautiful and the diversity hangs together well, as you can see in my pictures. The decorations and forms are very similar. You can easily tell the difference, however, in that Christians often depict human or animal forms, something Muslims never do.
It gets hot in Seville and so people have adapted by doing more in the morning and at night. It was not that hot today, but the night was still very wonderfully pleasant.
Spaniards eat their evening meal very late. We were on that time-table because we were jet lagged. The result is that we hit the restaurants at around 9pm, the peak time. All the tables outside were taken, even thought there were so many spots. We wanted to eat outside, so we ended up in our own hotel courtyard.
My other pictures are from around town at night. The movie theater near my house when I was a kid was called the Avalon. It was in the Moorish style and the main auditorium featured a Moorish courtyard, complete with fake stars in the sky. I know it was corny, but I liked it. Seville is like the real thing. Truly an enchanting place.
Tired from jet lag and a full day. Will write more tomorrow. For now, I will note the Seville is a delightful city, certainly one of the most pleasant I have ever seen.
Evidently, it was the set for many movies and TV shows, including “Game of Thrones” where it was the headquarters for Dorne.
Another of my book pairs is “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe” and “Talking to Strangers,” the latest Malcolm Gladwell book. Of the two, “Skeptic’s” is the better book, but “Talking to Strangers” is maybe more entertaining and will sell more copies. Both contain lots of things that people aware of developments subjects like information flow, persuasion and biases already know, but the books do a service by making these things more easily digestible for a general public. The scientific method Skeptics is more wide ranging. It does not have a dominant theme, doesn’t claim to have one, beyond the skeptical method, which is a form of the Western scientific method. Always assume that you do not know everything and work to disconfirm what you think is true. We too often fall victim to confirmation bias. The authors talk a lot about this and other informal logical fallacies. We live in an uncertain and contingent world, but that does not mean we need to question everything all the time. The authors make a distinction between philosophical skepticism and scientific skepticism. Scientific v philosophical skepticism The former is something like Rene Descartes, “cogito ergo sum” – I think therefore I am – you have to derive everything from first principles. As the authors point out, Descartes was living at the very start of the scientific revolution. People commonly believed all sorts of myths and were generally living in error most of the time. Medicine was bloodletting. Chemistry was alchemy. Astronomy was astrology and most lines of true inquiry were forbidden by religion, tradition or generationally developed indifference. In other words, there were few reliable sources. Today we have had science at work for centuries. They have figured out lots of things. Science, of course, continues to develop, but you would be insane to demand a return to first principles for most things. Better to see farther by “standing on the shoulders of giants” who went before. For all our science, however, people fall for lots of the old superstitions. Some people still believe in ghosts, astrology, alternative medicine, alien encounters and all manner of conspiracy theories. These are not always just harmless story telling. The authors are very tough about this. They think we need to confront these errors all the time. I don’t know about that. You would get pretty tired doing that and your protestations would be unlikely to have the desired outcomes. But I think we have to be vigilant and aware. Let’s repeat again – scientist agree GMOs are safe A few places were the errors have serous negative impacts in the triad of truth and consequences – climate change, GMO safety and vaccinations. Scientists are very clear about all three. Climate change is happening with human inputs. GMOs are safe and vaccinations save lives. The interesting thing here is that you get a political division on truth and doubt. People who deny climate change are mostly on the right side of the political spectrum. GMO hysterics tend to be on the left. Anti-vaccination people encompass the cognitively challenged on both ends, but for an unexplained reason attract lots of celebrities, whose physical beauty hides and ugly mind. Let me talk about the GMOs, since that is the one where scientific opinion most diverges from average man-on-the-street view. Let’s first be clear. Almost everything we eat, or drink is genetically modified. The big ears of corn, large watermelons and fresh carrots do not exist in nature. And the turkeys, cows and chicken we favor would not last a day “out there.” And let’s not even talk about those hairless cats and little dogs that cannot even climb a flight of stairs on their little and barely functioning legs. Pigs would do well if they got out, as evidenced by the fact that they do in real conditions. Most of our crop plants and animals, however, just are not fit enough to survive in the survival of the fittest. Most scientist think GMOs are safe, at least as safe as plants and animals in general. Most natural and organic plants are full of toxins that the species has been developing over the eons of evolution in a hope to avoid being eaten. We, in turn, have developed ways to tolerate many of them. It is an arms race. In fact, GMOs may be SAFER than organism developed in other ways, since we are reasonably sure of what is in the GMOs. GMOs are heavily regulated. Ordinary plans not. Misinformed not just ignorant The public is more misinformed about GMOs than about any other field of science. Worse, the general public is seriously Misinformed not merely uniformed, an important distinction. The public is misinformed because well funding campaigns by various interest groups and professional luddites. More’s the pity, since GMOs can mean LESS not more pesticide and herbicide use. The big and glaring exception to this is round-up ready crops and that is the one anti-science crusaders focus on, with some justification, BTW. Yes, I take this personally. These science-phobes harm the forest and trees I love. It leads them and the public to oppose very useful research into oranges that resist “greening,” a disease the is an existential threat to citrus, hemlocks or ash trees that can resist their respective bugs, and my personal favorite American chestnuts that are not killed by the blight. We could be planting those chestnuts today – now – if not for the luddites, but I have written elsewhere about that. The Naturalistic Fallacy Some of this is related to the “naturalistic fallacy.” Simply stated, it holds that what is natural is good. There is some kind of plan that we can understand. It is often associated in the popular mind with a concept of sin, and a strong nature philosophy can have aspects of the old fire-and-brimstone religion. Whenever you hear someone imply that humanity will be punished for violating nature, you know you have run into this idea big time. Yes, I love nature and sometimes fall for the naturalistic fallacy. Then I recall that nature does not love me. Many of the thing, even in “my” own forest are trying to kill me or would do under many circumstances. None of the foods we commonly eat are natural. A possible exception are raspberries and blackberries. I find them wild on the farm and they seem pretty much the same as the ones in Harris Teeter. The great David Hume identified a version of this, assuming what IS is what OUGHT to be, but you can find antecedents. You can take it all the way back to Lucretius “De Rerum Natura.” Things emerge; they are no ordained. It is very appealing to think we live in a basically friendly world if only us humans would let it be what it should. This just is not true and none of you reading this believe it really. Who would let their toddler wander alone in the woods to do as she pleased and eat what she found? BUT we feel we believe it and it affects our thought. I could go on about “Skeptics,” but maybe you should just read it. It is worth the time. Talking to Strangers Malcolm Gladwell is both admirable and annoying. I eagerly read his first book – “Tipping Point.” It was very familiar, however, since what he wrote about influence in his book was much how we practiced public diplomacy. The ideas and techniques were well known among those who worked on such things, but Gladwell stated it better and simpler and kind of made is sound like he made it up himself. Format of many voices This book is a different. It is very different in format in that he narrates and then has audio recordings of speeches and statements sprinkled in. It makes it seem more like their own words, because it is, but you can tell that there is significant selection bias. We cannot tell when people are lying, but most of us think we can Gladwell’s main theme is that we are too can be fooled when we are talking to strangers because we pick up on non-verbal ques that sometimes are inappropriate. This can be dangerous when we are dealing with cross-cultural encounters and it is disastrous when someone is actually lying or maybe believes something that is objectively false. Most of us think that face-to-face encounters are better. If we look the person in the eyes, we think we can determine honesty. This just is not true. Some people can lie better than others can tell the truth; others convince themselves something is true when it is not. In both cases, they are very credible and most of us are fooled. Trust is an advantage to you and society Much of our credulity comes from a perfectly reasonable prejudice. We like to believe that telling the truth is a default option and most of the time it is, at least reasonably so. The clerk at McDonald’s will usually not try to steal your money, and despite the stereotype most people in the professions are honest. This is not to say they are always right or even always honest, but you are probably better off in life if you give the benefit of the doubt, since you will get ripped off less often if you have the better attitude than you will lose friends and annoy people so much that they don’t want to help you. Nobody likes distrustful people. Surly or nasty are the words that comes to mind. Talking face-to-face does not work better and sometimes it is worse Because we want to believe people, and because most of the time people are being reasonably honest, we fall prey to those who are not. It is a reasonable trade. Gladwell doesn’t offer any real alternatives beyond the usual checks. He does say, however, that in cases where people are trying to deceive us, we may be better off NOT talking to them face-to-face. Machines using algorithms can often make better judgements by using just the facts of a case. I have long believed this about of consular visa appointments. This would also go for things like loan applicants, credit checks etc. Applicants need to meet the vice-consul, who talks to the person for a few minutes, often in a language they have trouble understanding and makes a judgment. The judgement is often good. Okay. But it may be that the judgement is not improved and may be harmed by the face-to-face meeting. We love and trust the contact, however. The Hitler example makes sense this time Gladwell goes right to the top with the Hitler example. The British signing a “peace for our time” with Hitler is often consider the biggest single prewar mistake. Historians have parsed that over and over. Gladwell brings the trust perspective. Hitler was very charismatic in person. Chamberlin was just fooled by that. Guys who met Hitler face-to-face tended to know him LESS well than those who just read what he wrote and said. Hitler was very clear in writing his goals. People just did not want to believe what he wrote and people who saw him in person were most beguiled. Gladwell really cannot stick to a theme. This is mostly a good thing. His tangents and stories are fun and often as enlightening as the main them. You cannot kill yourself by breathing natural gas In one of them he talks about suicide, taking the famous Sylvia Plath – “The Bell Jar” as an example. Plath was mentally unstable and talked of suicide a lot, so many people assume that her death by her own hands was inevitable. She carefully sealed up her room, put on some nice clothes and turned on the gas. She was dead not long after, and she left a nice-looking corpse. Would she really have killed herself if that method was unavailable? It was important to her that her suicide be painless and “beautiful”. She did not want to be disfigured or humiliated even in death. Gas was an easy choice. When she committed suicide, they used town gas in UK, where she was living. Town gas is made from coal. It is impure and full of carbon monoxide, which is what did her in. Gassing oneself was a popular way of suicide for women, probably for reasons similar to Plath’s. A few years after Plath’s unfortunate incident, UK switched over the natural gas. Natural gas is much cleaner. It is mostly pure methane, which will not kill you. That is one reason why it burns with almost no soot or carbon monoxide. Of course, it produces carbon dioxide CO2 as a byproduct of combustion, but CO2 is not toxic. If you are in a room with nothing but CO2, you will suffocate, not because the CO2 is killing you, but from lack of oxygen. However, the room must be sealed tighter than most rooms can be sealed by ordinary people. Had she used natural gas as her method, she would have woken up with a headache, but still be alive. Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse I didn’t know this about gas, and I didn’t believe it, so I checked. It is true. Of course, it is still a good idea not to leave the gas on and carbon monoxide is produced by incomplete combustion, so you still need good ventilation in your house. And don’t bring the that charcoal grill inside. The incomplete combustion does create carbon monoxide. So, what happened to the suicide rate? Presumably, if young women were going to kill themselves anyway, they would find ways to do it, even if messier. Well … no. Suicide rates dropped by about 1/3. W/o the convenience and neatness of gas, lots of people just couldn’t be bothered to kill themselves. It is not always futile to take away options. People calculate costs, even in very serious matters and even when they do not know they are doing it. This goes for crime too. Contrary to popular myth about super criminals, most criminals are stupid, at least dumber than the average guy. Crime really doesn’t pay for most people and stupid people are less likely to figure that out as readily. They are so stupid, however, that they cannot do some figuring, and when it is harder to do a crime, people do less crime. We sometimes here people questioning simple expedients like locking doors. “If they really want to get in, they will find a way,” they say, and they are right. But the simple precaution deters lots of people. They just don’t bother being crooks if being a crook is too hard. Criminals are lazy too, or at least lazier than the average guy. I can recommend both books. They are interesting, informative and entertaining. What more can you want in a book?
I tend to finish books in related pairs. This is because of Amazon/Audible marketing, and it works. When you buy one, you get the ad, “Customers who viewed this item also viewed.” Often there is a related book that looks similarly interesting. My pair this time was a biography of the great George C Marshall – “George Marshall Defender of the Republic” – and an autobiography of James Mattis – “Call Sign Chaos.” The two generals are similar in their integrity and the fact that both needed special Congressional permission to become Secretary of Defense. George C Marshall, one of the greatest men I visited his home in Leesburg and my kids HS was named for him. He was almost a local guy around here. And I read a lot about him, recently including “China Mission” about his time in China and “The Marshall Plan,” but this was the first time I read a full-length biography. This one is good. The author frequently references other biographies, so you get the feeling of the scholarship. Marshall himself refused to write his on memoirs. He didn’t want to cash in on his fame. Marshall was a truly honorable man. He came from a relatively humble background, not poor and he was related to John Marshall but not rich. He studied at VMI, not West Point. He was a guy with great potential from an early age. His big break came in World War I when he told the truth to power in the form of General John Pershing. He was a relatively junior officer and people thought it a career risking thing to do, but Pershing was impressed and became Marshall’s mentor. Getting a mentor and being one There are details of Marshall’s personal life. They are interesting, but it was not of great interest. His personal life was remarkable for being so unremarkable. He was just a steady guy who always did his duty. It was tough going in the years between the wars for career officers. Marshall just stuck to it, exhibiting exceptional organizational aptitude and superb ability to spot and develop talent. He became chief of staff of the Army in 1939. FDR tried his trademark charm on Marshall, calling him George. This is was the only time. After that he called him General Marshall. Marshall always gave good and honest advice and – like Pershing – Roosevelt wanted and needed that. Not political leadership I was rather more interesting in Marshall’s time as Secretary of State, but I learned a bit more about his time during the war and as Secretary of Defense. And I learned a lot about the inside game in Washington. Marshall was above politics and that sometimes got him in trouble with politicians, but his integrity was such that he could play a unique role. He disagreed with political leaders on occasions, but he soldiered on. For example, Marshall opposed the use of atomic bombs, but never made a public case after the decision was made. He deferred to political leadership. Marshall, famously, never voted so that he would not be on a political side. The book was inspiring. It is refreshing to read about a man so honorable, competent and – let’s use the word – great. Jame Mattis James Mattis did not have the deep impact of George Marshall. It is a little unfair to juxtapose them. Mattis is truly exceptional and in almost. any comparison except with Marshall, he would come out on top. In many ways, I got more from the Mattis book. I “knew” Marshall well before I started the book, but this was the first time I got to know Mattis. Not the first time I met him. I met him in Iraq. I knew he was a great leader, but I didn’t appreciate at the time how great. We ate with him at the chow hall. I squandered my opportunity and asked him nothing that I can recall. Mattis is more a self-made man. He came from a humble background, like Marshall, but maybe more so. In his early life, he got in trouble with the law, but always worked to learn from experience and books. He was/is a self-taught scholar. I like the about him. Leadership Two things stand out in this book for me. The first is his general management philosophy. He believes in boots-on-the-ground knowledge and in pushing responsibility to the lowest competent level. He believes that leaders’ job is to prepare subordinates. In this, he is much like Marshall. Prepare people for all they need to know and then let them decide within their competence. We used to call it “train and trust.” I do not recall Mattis using that precise term, but that is that it was. Iraq The other great part was his assessment of our policy in Iraq from 2006 until around 2012. He talked about the Surge, of which I was a small part, and about our victory in Iraq. Yes – victory. We had the capacity to change the whole region. The future did not need to resemble the horrible past. We blew it in 2011. We paid a high price and those who had trusted us paid a bigger one, sometimes with their lives. I am not haunted by many things in my life. Among the things that still bother profoundly me is my behavior in Iraq. I think I acted honorable and did my duty to the United States, and I thought it was in the interest of Iraq too. I told our friends what I believed, that the USA would be there for them until the situation stabilized. I was mistaken and it cost our country and theirs, and them. Young men die I also think of Aaron Ward. He was killed in Hit in 2008. I did not know him well, but I came to think of him until now. Hit was mostly peaceful. Ward came out of his vehicle and reached to his toes to stretch. He was killed when a bullet went through his helmet. We do not think that the shooter intended to kill him. Our belief was that they wanted to injure to show that we still needed to invest money in Hit. Colonel Malay made it a priority to investigate the issue, but we never found the truth and had only our suspicions. Aaron Ward joined up in a time of war and went as a volunteer into a war zone. I think his sacrifice affects me more because I think of Alex. Aaron liked to lift weights and saw the Army (he was military police) as a way to get some good training. He died a young man with his potential wasted, his beautiful songs unsung. Heavy burdens of command I respect men like Mattis and Marshall who send men into battle knowing that some will not make it. It is a horrible choice. Mattis wrote that he feels as if each Gold Star Marine is his son or daughter. George Marshall lost his stepson Alan Brown in the fighting in Italy. Theirs is an unbelievable burden. Better to read about it than have to live it.
