Abbey Road may be "iconic", but "the best of all time"...?

Much is being made of the 50th anniversary of The Beatles Abbey Road album, released (in the UK, at least) on 26th September 1969. Many superlatives are being bandied around on radio stations and in the online and printed press. Many people seem to think it is the best album ever. It's certainly one of the most famous albums ever, and one of the few that justifiably fits into the much overused "iconic" category. But "all time great"? I don't know.
It's not particularly deep, not particularly experimental or revolutionary. It's much less influenced by John Lennon than previous albums, relying more on the (lesser) song-writing talents of McCartney and Harrison and (God forbid!) Ringo Starr. There are perhaps a handful of great songs on it - "Come Together", "Something", "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" maybe come into that category, maybe even "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight". But some of the other well-known cuts ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "Octopus's Garden", "You Never Give Me Your Money", I'm looking at you) are far from great. Even that rather dum-de-dum-de-dum song about the weather, "Here Comes the Sun", hasn't aged well, despite its fame. And there is a lot of rather uninspired filler - who can sing along to "She Came In Through tbe Bathroom Window", "Mean Mr. Mustard", "Polythene Pam" or "Her Majesty"?
Even the album cover is usually described as "iconic". Well, maybe - iconism is a strange thing - but really, when you look at it, it's just as pedestrian as it subject matter. The Beatles did knock out some good ditties in their time (although I was never a big fan, even as a kid), but not that many of them appear on this album. And extolling an album for its disjointedness and unevenness - making a virtue of a failing - is just plain perverse my view. If you want a more critical review to counteract the more general back-slapping and adulation, try this one.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just a jaded old sexegenarian, but - hell, this is supposed to be the apotheosis, the sine qua non, of my era - but I just don't feel it. I have a suspicion that it is most famous for being Fab Four's last studio album - so people just assume it must be the best. It was certainly not universally lauded when it first came out, before people knew that the band was soon to split. But, me, I find it a bit of a slog to listen to (I have tried, just today). Sorry.

Those fancy silken tea-bags? Bad idea

So, you know those fancy, white, pyramid-shaped, silken tea-bags you always thought were a bad idea? Well, it turns out that they are in fact ... a bad idea. Although possibly not for the reasons you might have thought.
I always assumed that they were actually made out of silk, or some similar kind of material, and I always thought how wasteful and unnecessary that was. Call me naïve, but I'm sure I wasn't the only person surprised to find out recently that they are made of plastic (PET or nylon).
And the reason this has all come to light is because a recent study at McGill University has shown that, when you make a cup of tea with them, a whole host of microplastics (and even smaller nanoplastic) slough off them, into your tea, and thence down your throat. And not just thousands of them, but BILLIONS of them in each cup of tea, more than in most other sources of microplastics in foods.
Now, thus far, there is no compelling evidence that ingesting this level (or any level) of microplastics is actually bad for human health, although my intuition is that a link to health problems WILL eventually surface. The same study looked at the behaviours of water fleas in that level of plastic contamination, and the water fleas started to swim more slowly and erratically, and physically started to balloon up. So something bad is happening there, and more research is called for. What we do know is that they do eventually end up in the environment, ultimately in
 the oceans, and we already nknow that that IS an issue
Anyway, fancy silken tea-bags - bad idea.

Is Joker any more likely to engender copycat violence than any other violent movie?

It does seem somewhat unfair that Joaquin Phoenix is being grilled by the media on whether the gratuitous violence in his latest movie, Joker, movie might lead to copycat real-life violence. He was forced to flee one interview in confusion when questioned about copycat violence, apparently having never even considered the possibility before.
The only reason the possibility is being even mooted is cause of the cinema shootings a few years ago (12 people were killed in a cinema in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises). Yes, there is a plot connection between Batman and the Joker, but that is about as far as it goes. The US Army has apparently been put on alert for possible "incel" (involuntary celibate) shootings during the early days of Joker screenings this month, and they claim to have encountered possible planned threats on the "dark web" where these kinds of people hang out. The Joker character is considered to be the kind of bitter and sociopathic caracter that incels could easily identify with.
There are many other movies and TV shows out there just as violent (and some even more so), with absolutely no connection to Batman, that are surely just as likely to elicit copycat violence as Joker. And let's not even start on video games...
I do wonder why movies feel the need to pander to what is surely a rather limited demand for more and more excessive violence. Interesting character studies and disturbing plots are one thing (well, two, I guess), but is the ultraviolence really necessary to put those elements across? I think not. And people would still flock to see Joaquin Phoenix tackle the Joker character regardless.
Having said that ... do these media people have nothing better to cover in their movie star interviews?

Marine heatwave: another new concept, courtesy of climate change

Today, I was introduced to the concept of a "marine heatwave". As you might imagine, it is a period of unusual intense heat, much like a normal heatwave, but in ocean water.
The context was that the Big Island of Hawaii is currently suffering such a marine heatwave. Apparently, it suffered one in 2015 as well, and the coral reefs off the east coast are still in the process of recovering from the devastation that one wreaked on them. The current event may prove even worse, with ocean temperatures 3.5°F (!about 2°C) above typical values for the season. That might not sound like much, but over a period of three or four months, the marine heatwave of 2015 showed just how much damage a small sustained temperature increase can inflict on a sensitive ecosystem like a coral reef. And remember, this particular reef is still in the process of recovery from four years ago, and is still in a stressed state.
 Evidence of significant bleaching has already been recorded, and it is only expected to worsen in the months to come (coral bleaching is not just a matter of aesthetics, it is the first step towards the ultimate death of the reef as a vibrant and viable ecosystem).
And of course you know why this is happening. Yes, that good old climate change. More specifically, a persistent low pressure region and weakened winds over the North Pacific between Hawaii and Alaska, caused by unusually warm ocean temperatures, caused by ... climate change.
So, there you have it: marine heatwave. Get used to the term.

Why are monarch butterfly populations booming?

If, like me, you've enjoyed seeing so many monarch butterflies around, particularly this year and last, then you might want to thank ... the weather in Texas.
The monarch migration, which has been described as one of the natural wonders of the world, is coming to a head here in southern Canada as, after several generations of butterflies have lived and died over the last few months, one particularly long-lived generation sets off on the epic 4,000 km trek down to the mountains of Central Mexico (with much lesser populations heading for the Yucatan Peninsula, Cuba and coastal California).
After a couple of decades of poor (and worsening) numbers, resulting in an estimated plunge of 80%, last year and this year have seen a large uptick in recorded estimates. There was a 144% increase between 2017 and 2018 alone, although bear in mind that this is 144% more than what was a very low (and unsustainable) baseline. This year's figures won't be available until the Mexican government/WWF count towards the end of the year, but they area at least anecdotally, expected to be good (which bodes well for our trip to these them in Michoacan, Mexico, next February). Having said that, the monarch still remains on the "special concern" list - not actually endangered, but in danger of becoming endangered.
So what has changed in the last couple of years?
A dinner party guest of ours recently insisted that it was all down to human agency, that people have been planting more milkweed (the monarch's favourite, but not exclusive, food, and the only plant on which they lay their eggs), and the banning of various pesticides like neonicotinoids (a known threat to various pollinators and other insects). This all sounded convincing enough when expressed in an authoritative tone, but it also seemed a bit too simplistic to me, too good to be true. As I suspected, the proposed ban on neonics in Canada has not yet been implemented, and a final review on the proposal is not expected until the end of 2019. The province of Ontario has introduced regulations reducing the acreage treated by neonics, but a complete ban would cone under federal jurisdiction. A ban on neonics in the USA is even further away from reality (an Obama-era ban on neonics around National Wildlife Refuges was reversed by one, Donald Trump). So, a (non-existent) ban on neonics is clearly not the reason for the current resurgence in the monarch population.
Well, the latest theory is that monarch numbers are most sensitive to the weather, and in particular the spring weather in Texas, which is usually the first egg-laying port of call on the monarch's multi-generational northward migration from the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico. Warm weather in early spring in Texas, creating prime conditions for milkweed growth, is strongly correlated with good summer numbers of monarchs in Canada, and vice versa. Last year's weather has been described as "Cinderella weather" by one scientist, and a "fluke of weather by another, hence the large surge in monarch numbers.
So, scientists are cautiously optimistic over the prognosis for the monarch butterfly, and it is good to know that they are able to rebound so impressively when the conditions are auspicious. But it would only take a couple of years of poor weather, particularly severe storms, to decimate their numbers all over again, which in an era of global warming seems more than likely. In fact, the twin threats of climate change and habitat loss remain the greatest challenges to the monarch's survival (among other effects, increasing carbon dioxide levels may be making milkweed too toxic for even monarch caterpillars to tolerate, and warmer temperatures are encouraging migrating monarchs to venture further and further north, leading to more dangerous migrations). And the other thing is, we still need to be planting and encouraging milkweed, because the bottom line is: no milkweed, no monarchs.

Beyond Meat missed the boat on environmentally-friendly packaging

A friend brought over a store-bought package of Beyond Meat burgers to share today - I don't buy them myself because I find other veggie burgers just as tasty, as well as cheaper and healthier - and I was somewhat disgusted by the amount of unnecessary packaging they came in.
Within the outside plastic film is a cardboard layer with all the branding and blurb. Then, another clear plastic film around a BLACK non-recyclable plastic carton. And, inside that, another layer of completely unnecessary wax paper, and then some actual food.
For a supposedly environmentally-friendly product, that an awful lot of non-environmentally-friendly packaging.

Deep breath: dressing up as a black character is not the same as minstrelsy

Here I go, risking my neck again. I know this is something I have written on several times now, but it keeps raising its hoary head and, at the risk of being branded racist, I do believe it is important and something that the political correctness movement, so necessary in so many other respects, may have got wrong, or at least got out of perspective.

Justin Trudeau is the latest to be pilloried for wearing what the press is calling "blackface", or sometimes "brownface", when someone managed to unearth a photo of him from eighteen years ago at a school pageant dressed up as a black character from Arabian Nights, complete with turban and black make-up. The press is having a field day, and opposition politicians are predictably playing it up for all they are worth. Trudeau himself immediately abased himself and apologized profusely for this youthful indiscretion (the photo dates from more than a decade before he even thought of going into politics), because that's just what you have to do for damage limitation in matters of this kind. This comes out just a month before a tight general election. Coincidence? I think not - someone with a grudge has been saving this up for an opportune moment.

Anyway, political considerations aside, this issue of blackface is a perennial one, and in recent years it is the kiss of death for any politician or personality fingered by it (and there have been several, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey being just two in recent months). You may say, and quite rightly too: blackface is a racist holdover from the minstrelsy shows of yesteryear in which white people dressed like caricatures of black people for purposes of entertainment, demeaning, shaming and dehumanizing them in the process.

This is what blackface looks like

Yes, I am familiar with minstrelsy, bizarre concept though it is. How could I not be? Every single article on the subject runs over the long, sordid history of the tradition, in more or less detail. My father used to love the Black and White Minstrel Show in the UK back in the 1960s, because he loved the music and the dancing. I'm pretty sure he never even thought about the fact that these were white people dressed up as black people, and neither did I, truth be told, even though I hated that "old people music" with a vengeance. Frankly, I'm not sure that the minstrel shows I saw ever actually "dehumanized" black people - I'm not entirely sure what that means in this context - but they sure stereotyped and caricatured them, in much the same way as other shows caricatured other individuals and segments of society. Hell, stereotypes and caricatures are what much of comedy is based on, even though I'm more of a subtle wordplay kind of guy myself. Anyway, I digress.

The main problem I have is that there is a difference between somebody dressing up as a stereotyped, even exaggerated, black person to deliberately portray them as a figure of fun, and somebody dressing up as a specific individual from fiction or from real life, often in a spirit of emulation or even adulation. Blackface is a very specific traditional performance genre, which does indeed have racist roots, but which has all but been eradicated today. Using make-up, including black and brown make-up, for other purposes is not the same thing at all. For example, someone dressed as Black Panther for Comicon, someone dressed as Muhammed Ali or Usain Bolt (or Dianna Ross or Rihanna) for a fancy dress ball, or a kid dressed as an indigenous princess (yes, I know, there's no such thing) or Snoop Dogg for Halloween. Or, for that matter, Justin Trudeau dressed as a character from Arabian Nights for a school fundraiser. Call it freedom of expression, call it what you like: what it is not is hate speech (or "hate dressing" if that is even a thing).

Indeed, this is not blackface: this is someone dressed up as someone they're not. People do it all the time, and they are usually not trying to demean or dehumanize anyone. A big part of the problem, I have realized, is the use of the word "blackface" out of context. As soon as the word is used, any conversation or debate is closed down, and battle lines are drawn. We are suddenly talking about a taboo subject. Look what happened to Megyn Kelly when she tried to talk about the subject last Halloween.

I am also aware of, and generally sympathetic to, the difference between intent and effect. Maybe it shouldn't be the case and maybe it should, but the effect on a viewer, their perception of what is occurring, always trumps any intent, well-meaning or otherwise, on the part of the perpetrator. So, then the question arises as to whether these perceptions have not become skewed over time by the political narrative around them.

Now, I am not black, and so am not in any position to make definitive pronouncements on this. But just take a more or less random example from today's paper, a Canadian woman of Malaysian background recounts her first experience of Canadian racism: a couple of white girls were discussing their summer and their tans, and one asked the other, "Am I as dark as her yet?", referring to the Malaysian woman. Racist? I would argue probably not - just a couple of silly girls overly concerned their looks, aspiring to have as "good" a skin colour as the unknown woman. There was no intent to demean or "dehumanize" (yes, I know, intent-effect!). But the Malaysian-Canadian woman clearly sees it as racist (or at least does so now - she doesn't record her reactions at the time). Should she? Is this politicization for the sake of it? Is it a heartfelt personal reaction, or an attitude influenced by the curent political Zeitgeist? I'm not saying I know better than she; I'm just putting an unconfortable question out there.

I don't know how many people of colour are offended by a young Trudeau dressing as a black Arabian Nights character for the entertainment of children. I would be interested to know, but I have not been able to find much analysis on the subject. Interestingly, in some interviews of random Canadians recorded by the BBC, most of the people of colour interviewed say that they don't really care about it, that's it's essentially a non-issue, and the only instance of outright outrage came from a middle class white woman. The reaction in Trudeau's home riding of Papineau seems to be equally sanguine, at least anecdotally, among both black and white respondents, with many expressing the view, contrary to what many press articles are asserting, that cultural sensitivities have indeed evolved over the last 18 years. Georges Laraque, a black ex-NHL player who went to the same school as Trudeau, says he doesn't remember anyone dressing in blackface, even in those days, but would have just laughed along if he had, adding that, in his view, blackface is only racist when it is used to amplify or satirize African-American stereotypes. This sounds like a reasonable line to me, but is it representative of black attitudes (outside of the highly-politicized or media-orientated classes)? I don't know.

If Trudeau had dressed as a woman, would women be offended? If he had dressed as a slightly whiter character from Arabian Nights, would slightly whiter people be offended? Is whiteface (yes, there is such a thing) racist? I don't really know, and we are not likely to find out in the current climate of taboo around the whole subject. But can we at the very least agree to separate out the idea of minstrelsy blackface from the more innocent practice of dressing up?

Kaillie Humphries' exercise in chutzpah and hubris

Love her or loathe her, Kaillie Humphries is a larger-than-life character and a genuine Canadian superstar within her rather esoteric winter sport of bobsleigh. She won back-to-back Olympic medals in 2010 and 2014 with brakewoman Heather Moyse (who hardly ever gets a mention, not having  Humphries' star-power and "dominant personality", as I have seen it described) and a bronze in 2018 with another brakewoman, Phylicia George, hanging on her coattails.
She has probably won many other competitions too, over the years, but no-one would know about that unless they were aficionados of this rather obscure sport. Because, as regards bobsleigh, the Olympics is it, the Olympics is (literally) the gold standard. No-one really cares what a bobsleigher does outside of the two or three weeks of the Winter Olympics, once every four years.
And that's important because, as Ms. Humphries continues her high-profile fight against Bobsleigh Canada, one has to be aware that it is Canada (and Bobsleigh Canada in particular) that has made her what she is today. Bobsleigh is not a sport you can practice in your backyard: Ms. Humphries has undenyably benefitted hugely from Canada's bobsleigh infrastructure and coaching. And now she wants to take all that she has become and put it in the services of ... the United States, no less. The opposition, the rivals.
Ms. Humphries recently married an American bobsleigher, hence, presumably, her desire to compete for America and not, say, Switzerland. She would still have to get her US citizenship fast-tracked somehow, and she would still have to qualify for the US team, but she seems confident that that can be achieved (and she is nothing if not confident, perhaps over-confident - she once tried out for the Canadian men's team, although she didn't actually do very well). Bobsleigh Canada says they are happy to continue with her as a Canadian competitor, despite her apparent desire to sever all links, but the atmosphere must now be decidedly frosty.
Ms. Humphries even took Bobsleigh Canada to he courts over all this - the "real" courts, that is, not the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada; that is her style - although the courts have just ruled against her. And she is still continuing with an emotional and mental harassment case against her Canadian coach, which is obviously something that needs to be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately. But it is pretty clear that this is all about her. She wants to win at any price - the national pride that motivates so many other Olympians just doesn't come into it. And she might find that, in a sport like bobsleigh in particular, she needs more than chutzpah and a penchant for self-aggrandisement. As Cathal Kelly points out in the Globe and Mail, no-one likes a turncoat.