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Despite no one wanting to see conflict in Asia, the ranks of doomsayers and worrywarts seem to grow by the day. The specter haunting the continent is that of China's geo-political rise. Governments near and far are watching warily as the budding nondemocratic superpower asserts itself on the international stage, tacitly challenging a Pax Americana that has existed since 1945. Some countries are already locked in combustible disputes with Beijing: the region's waters have been roiled in recent years by standoffs over barren islands to China's south and east; Chinese relations with Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines all soured as a result.
(MORE: New Chinese Passports Set Off Nationalist Uproar in Asia)
The climate of tensions is thick enough to have drawn comparisons to a perilous moment a century ago. In separate opinion pieces this week, two former Asian foreign ministers likened Asia now to pre–World War I Europe, then strung together by a tangle of imperial enmities and alliances. The South China Sea — a pivotal, strategic body of water that China considers its "internal lake," much to the ire of its neighbors — is, like the Balkans a hundred years ago, the supposed tinderbox that could spark a larger regional conflagration, if not a full-fledged war. Here's Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister:
Like the Balkans a century ago, riven by overlapping alliances, loyalties and hatreds, the strategic environment in East Asia is complex. At least six states or political entities are engaged in territorial disputes with China, three of which are close strategic partners of the United States.
The perceived decline of Washington's Pacific supremacy, at least set against China's growing power, forms the backdrop to all the festering territorial disputes. The rules of the game are changing in the region and the uncertainty that creates raises the risk of confrontation. Yoon Young-kwan, a former South Korean Foreign Minister, points to another early 20th century parallel:
Back then, Great Britain's relative power was in decline, while Germany's had been rising since unification in 1871. Similarly, at least in terms of economic capability, the United States and Japan seem to have begun a process of decline relative to China. Major power shifts define eras in which key political leaders are likely to make serious foreign policy mistakes. Poor management of international relations at such critical junctures has often led to major wars.
(MORE: The Balkan Wars, a History of Violence)
I don't know of a Vietnamese fishing trawler named the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nor of a barren shoal called Sarajevo. Diplomacy is creaking along: Tokyo last week sent an envoy to hand-deliver a letter from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Chinese leader Xi Jinping; Xi agreed to consider a summit on territorial disputes. While talk of war is indeed alarmist, there are obvious reasons for concern. The main one is the hardening nationalism throughout the region. From Japan to India — and almost everywhere in between — bellicose rhetoric has been dialed up. China's new leader Xi has promised no compromise on his country's already absolutist claim to territories contested by others; some hawkish Chinese military officers can now speak of being able to "strike first" and wage "short, sharp wars."
You can hear in that burgeoning confidence echoes of late 19th century Germany. Historians have already connected the dots linking China's authoritarian state with that constructed by Germany's architect, the Prussian Otto von Bismarck. The proud nationalism of Kaiser Wilhelm II isn't out of place in contemporary China, where Beijing has made an art of whipping up nationalist flames in order to drown out other howls of protest. Don't be that surprised if the phrase Wilhelmine Germany makes its way back into newspaper editorial pages.
(MORE: Japan Boosts Defense Spending, More or Less)
Still, China's main agenda is a domestic one — the country faces tremendous pressures to maintain its whirlwind growth, close a yawning poverty gap and grapple with calls for more political openness. A muscular pose in foreign affairs can be an escape valve for tensions at home. In an interview excerpted in TIME's international edition last week, former Singaporean Prime Minister and elder Asian statesman Lee Kuan Yew spoke of the "reawakened sense of destiny" among China's people — what Lee deems "an overpowering force." He goes on:
Will an industrialized and strong China be as benign to Southeast Asia as the U.S. has been since 1945? Singapore is not sure … [Neighboring nations] are uneasy that China may want to resume the imperial status it had in earlier centuries.
And that's another episode in history none of China's neighbors want repeated.


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With time running out, U.S. officials are struggling to cope with the task of launching the new online health insurance exchanges at the heart of President Barack Obama's signature health reforms by an October 1 deadline.
The White House, and federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), must ensure that working marketplaces open for enrollment in all 50 states in less than 80 days, and are responding to mounting pressure by concentrating on three essential areas that will determine whether the most critical phase of Obamacare succeeds or fails.
"The administration right now is in a triage mode. Seriously, they do not have the resources to implement all of the provisions on time," Washington and Lee University professor Timothy Jost, a healthcare reform expert and advocate, told an oversight panel in the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
Current and former administration officials, independent experts and business representatives say the three priorities are the creation of an online portal that will make it easy for consumers to compare insurance plans and enroll in coverage; the capacity to effectively process and deliver government subsidies that help consumers pay for the insurance; and retention of the law's individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance when Obama's healthcare reform law comes into full force in 2014.
Measures deemed less essential, such as making larger employers provide health insurance to their full-time workers next year or face fines, and requiring exchanges to verify the health insurance and income status of applicants, have already been postponed or scaled back.
"The closer you get to the actual launch, the more you focus on what is essential versus what could be second-order issues," said a former administration official. "That concentrates the mind in a different kind of way, and that's what's happening here."
But the risk of failure in the form of major delays is palpable, given the administration's limited staff and financial resources, as well as the stubborn political opposition of Republicans, who have denied new money for the effort in Congress and prevented dozens of states from cooperating with initiatives that offer subsidized health coverage to millions of lower income uninsured people.
Any further delay could help Republicans make Obamacare's troubles a focus of their campaign in next year's congressional midterm elections and in the 2016 presidential race.
HHS denies that its strategy has changed and insists that implementation continues to meet the milestones laid out by planners 18 months ago.
"All of the systems are exactly where we want them to be today. They will be ready to perform fully on October 1," said Mike Hash, director of the HHS Office of Health Reform.
White House officials acknowledge the approach of the open enrollment deadline has put a greater emphasis on priorities. They describe the strategy as a "smart, adaptive policy" and assert that delayed or scaled-back regulations demonstrate better policy decisions or flexibility with stakeholders, rather than a need to minimize distractions.
Advocates point out that the reform, formally titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and informally known as Obamacare, constitutes the most sweeping healthcare legislation since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, large successful government programs for the elderly and the low income that also faced fierce political opposition when they were created in 1965. Both required years of work after their launch to refine implementation.
The administration has already delayed or scaled back at least half a dozen health reform measures since last year. These include regulations involving star quality ratings for insurance company plans, the choice of insurance plans for small-business employees and a requirement that state Medicaid agencies notify individuals of their eligibility for federal assistance.
Other efforts that could still be delayed include deadlines for some health insurers to get their plans certified by HHS as well as requirements for how the insurance exchanges provide customer service.
House Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders, warning of a "train wreck", have called on Obama to defer an essential task: the individual mandate, which requires people to have insurance coverage in 2014 or face penalties that begin modestly, but rise sharply by 2016.
But experts say it is the other essential tasks – establishing the high-tech capabilities necessary to process government insurance subsidies and create online shopping and enrollment for consumers – that could be most vulnerable with such a compressed timetable.
"The biggest hurdle is to get the systems up and running," said one health insurance official. "Nothing's happened so far that prevents you from being up and running on October 1. But there's virtually no margin for error."
The administration is working according to an ambitious schedule for testing a technology hub and its ability to transfer consumer data on health coverage, income, tax credits and other topics between federal agencies, insurance companies and states. The hub is already exchanging data between the necessary agencies.
A report from Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms says state-run exchanges are on track for a successful October 1 launch and have exceeded federal minimum requirements in some cases.
Failure to have adequate systems in place by September 4, when HHS is due to give insurers final notice about which health plans are qualified to be sold on 34 state exchanges run by the federal government, could delay open enrollment by days or weeks but still allow the law's core reform provisions to take effect on January 1, experts said.
Insurers will have several days in August to review plan data as it would be presented to prospective enrollees in side-by-side comparisons online. The administration also needs to test the system with a wider audience than the IT experts working on the exchanges to make sure they are consumer-friendly.
Michael Marchand, spokesman for Washington's Health Benefit Exchange, said the state's online marketplace had conducted frequent tests with the federal data hub, which had worked well so far. But any last-minute changes to the government's requirements to its operations could throw a wrench into the IT system, he said.
"If you start adding or removing lines of code it could bring the whole thing down," he said. "As you add or take away pieces, you have to re-test from the beginning."
Copyright © 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2013 Capitol Hill Blue

subset: commoncrawl


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You may have noticed, based on the number of posts, that I really like strawberries. I had been looking forward to strawberry season for a while and I built up a rather long list of things that I wanted to try. Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts and I had been thinking that a strawberry cheesecake ice cream would be good. The idea was pretty simple, a custard based ice cream with chunks of strawberries, cream cheese and graham cracker crust. Of course, if you happen to have a slice of cheesecake lying around you could just crumble it into the ice cream. For the crust I just made a simple graham cracker crust and crumbled it. I was a bit worried that the graham cracker crust crumbs would get crushed in the ice cream maker so I added them half way through the freezing process hoping that they would stick together better. The strawberry cheesecake ice cream turned out really well! You could taste and feel the difference in texture of the chunks of strawberries, cream cheese and the graham cracker crust.
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cups sugar
- 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup strawberries (cut into small pieces)
- 2 ounces cream cheese (chopped into small cubes)
- 1/4 cup crumbled graham cracker (gluten-free for gluten-free)
- Heat the cream, milk and sugar in a sauce pan until it almost boils, about 5 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to low.
- Add one tablespoon of the cream mixture to the eggs to temper them.
- Add the egg mixture to the sauce pan.
- Cook at low heat until it thickens and can coat the back of a spoon.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
- Chill the mixture in the fridge.
- Start freezing according to the instructions for your ice cream machine.
- About half way through add the strawberries, cream cheese and graham cracker crust crumbs.
Graham Cracker Crust
- 1/4 cup graham wafer crumbs
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter
- Mix everything in a bowl.
- Press the mixture onto the bottom of a baking pan.
- Bake in a preheated 350F/180C oven until golden brown, about 10-15 minutes.
- Let cool completely.
Strawberry Cheesecake Crepes
Strawberry and Cream Cheese Danish Braid
Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Roasted Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream
Strawberry and Mascarpone Crepes with Strawberry Syrup
Strawberries and Cream Cheesecake with Pretzel Crust


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Last week's Economist included an article ("Executive Pay: Money for Nothing?", in the Britain section) that begins:
Hard work builds character, and should be rewarded. But many Britons believe the link between graft and gain has broken down.
The word that struck me was "graft" -- in my AmE usage, it can only mean "corruption", not "hard work". (Other than horticulturally.)
The link between graft (AmE) and gain has, sadly, not broken down, of course.
My first thought was that certainly AmE has the 'hard work' sense of graft, since the phrase hard graft is known there. But is it the case that AmE and BrE are divided by graft?
The corruption sense of graft is listed in the OED as 'colloq. (orig. U.S.)'. Their first published citation for it is from an 1865 New York-based police gazette. West's Encyclopedia of American Law defines it as:
A colloquial term referring to the unlawful acquisition of public money through questionable and improper transactions with public officials.This sense of graft may or may not come from the 'work' sense of graft; the OED lists them separately and doesn't have an etymology it trusts for the 'work' sense either. The 'work' sense is also listed as 'slang' and the first citation is in the phrase hard graft in 1853. An 1890 Glossary of Words of County Glouster lists it as meaning 'work', so perhaps it has dialectal origins there. Neither of these senses of the word, then, seems to be terribly old, but because they're colloquial and dialectal, they'll have unwritten histories going back further.
Graft is the personal gain or advantage earned by an individual at the expense of others as a result of the exploitation of the singular status of, or an influential relationship with, another who has a position of public trust or confidence. The advantage or gain is accrued without any exchange of legitimate compensatory services.
Behavior that leads to graft includes Bribery and dishonest dealings in the performance of public or official acts. Graft usually implies the existence of theft, corruption, Fraud, and the lack of integrity that is expected in any transaction involving a public official.
So, how well-known are the senses in AmE and BrE? A quick look at our (chiefly AmE) go-to corpora, the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus (via Mark Davies' interface) can give some indication. First I looked at how much of the use of the noun graft in either corpus consisted of the phrase hard graft. For AmE it was only 6 of 640 (less than 1%), for BrE 28/145 (19%).
Taking a sample of 100 sentences containing a noun graft from each corpus, the use of particular senses breaks down as:
Sense | BNC (BrE) | COCA (AmE) |
work | 33 | 2 |
corruption | 14 | 29 |
tissue | 42 | 62 |
spade/shovel | 7 | 0 |
proper name | 0 | 6 |
?? | 4 | 3 |
So, the first thing to notice is that the 'work' meaning is indeed much more common in BrE. Both cases in the AmE sample were hard graft. Most of the 'work' uses in BrE were also modified by an adjective, but in addition to hard, there was honest, sheer, real, tireless etc.
Second thing to notice: the 'corruption' sense is hardly unknown in BrE--but about half as frequent as in AmE. In both corpora, tissue grafts (on trees, skin, veins, bones, etc.) are the most common kind of graft.
Third, the 'spade/shovel' sense is particular to BrE. The OED defines it as 'a narrow crescent-shaped spade used by drainers', and its only citation is from a 1893 Worcestershire dialect glossary. One of the corpus examples mentioned it as a Norfolk term--these are not particularly close to each other, but who knows what was really happening dialectally 100 years ago or what changed in the 100 years till the BNC. (I mention shovel because of the American tendency to use the term instead of spade, discussed back here.)
And then there are more people or at least more famous people named Graft in the US than the UK (probably the former, it's a German name).
The ?? cases were those that I couldn't really tell the meaning of in the little bit of text I was given (e.g. in the BNC: His father quarrelled with the Colonels over some detail of graft). I didn't go to the effort of looking at the larger contexts, which might have helped. But what this 3-4% of ambiguous cases tells us is that even though graft has lots of meanings, they don't cause too much difficulty in understanding the language. The people who originally heard/read those seven ambiguous cases in full context probably had no problem with it at all.
So, my initial reaction 'Americans know about 'work' graft' might only (or particularly) be true of Americans like me who hang around a lot of British people and are able to separate the word from the phrase hard graft. And it just goes to show, you shouldn't trust your memories of words and meanings you've "always" known, as those kinds of memories just aren't very good. Can anyone tell me: is there a name for that kind of false memory/familiarity? It's the opposite of the Recency Illusion, but I've not found a particular name for the 'I've always said it that way' illusion.
Wait, wait! A little message to Arnold Zwicky, and I have the answer: the Antiquity Illusion. I feel like there should be a corollary of it for the effect when one moves from dialect to dialect--i.e. the 'it is old, but not old for you' illusion. The 'native-speaker illusion', perhaps.


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Sony has a new flagship phone at CES called the Xperia Z, and it is pretty decent. The company has another one, called the Xperia ZL, that's also fairly nice. They're both roughly as okay as the flagship Ascend D2 phone that Huawei was showing off in another part of the room.
If my descriptors seem lacking, that's intentional. The truth is that none of these phones seem markedly better than last year's holiday handsets. They've got a few perks that some older phones don't, like 1080p displays and quad-core processors, but in real world use it's hard to see the added benefit.
When I sampled another new phone this morning, Pantech's Discover, the experience seemed practically as solid as Sony's and Huawei's flagship devices, despite a mere 720p display and a dual-core chip. The biggest difference is that Pantech's phone will sell for $50 on AT&T, starting this Friday. Huawei's and Sony's phones will likely be more expensive if they ever reach the United States.
This is the bitter reality for Android phone makers right now. The improvements in the latest, most premium phones aren't really that big of a deal. A 1080p display doesn't look much different from a 720p display at normal viewing distances. A quad-core processor doesn't provide much of a real-world benefit over a dual-core one. Photos from a 13-megapixel camera don't look significantly better than photos from an 8-megapixel one, and shutter lag on most good smartphone cameras dropped to near zero a year ago.
As a result my brain feels a bit mushy as I look at the latest phones from CES. In the context of quick hands-on demos, there aren't a lot of remarkable things to relay about the cream of the crop. At a glance, they're all just pretty good phones. (Okay, let's give the Xperia Z credit for one cool trick: It can survive up to 30 minutes dunked in water.)
Google is partly to thank–or to blame–for this situation. Ever since Android 4.0, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, Android phones have become a lot smoother and more polished. It's now hard to tell the difference between a phone with a top-of-the-line processor and one with the next-best thing. Software, for that matter, tends to be the source of most innovation in smartphones nowadays, and while Android phone makers tend to add some of their own software bells and whistles to their phones, I've yet to see any innovations from them on par with, say, Google Now.
This isn't only the case with Android. As I wrote last March, diminishing returns seems to have hit Apple's latest products as well. In general, spec boosts in mobile devices just don't have the same wow factor as they did a couple years ago, when an increase in display resolution or processing power produced noticeable differences to the average user.
There's a chance that some real innovation will happen at Mobile World Congress next month, where big shots like Samsung, LG and HTC may announce new phones. But I'm willing to wager the story will be a lot like it is here: A bunch of incremental improvements in tech specs that don't make much of a difference. That's not so tragic–there are worse things, after all, than a really solid smartphone with no defining traits. It's just kind of boring.
MORE:Check out TIME Tech's complete coverage of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show


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A security researcher has won investments of more than $9 million to incorporate a tightly policed section of the Internet reserved for banks, healthcare providers, and other groups that are regularly targeted in malware, phishing, and similar online attacks.
Alex Stamos, CTO of iSec Partners, said Internet addresses subscribing to the secure service would tentatively include the top-level domain of .secure, which his new venture has applied to operate. Websites, mail servers, and other services using .secure addresses would first have to agree to abide by a stringent set of requirements, including offering end-to-end encryption of most traffic and to follow a strict code of conduct. Artemis Internet Inc., as the new venture is called, has received about $9.6 million in backing from its parent company, NCC Group, a UK-based provider of secure IT services.
Anonymity and the Internet's free-wheeling ways have been great for free speech and innovation, but they also open the door to impostors and website operators with poor security hygiene. With plans by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to vastly expand the availability of top-level domains, security advocates have an opportunity to build the type of global network they've long dreamed of.
"This is our opportunity to make our mark and do something to improve the security of the Internet permanently while it's still a bit malleable," Stamos told Ars. "We have a chance to create a neighborhood on the Internet where security is required, and users know that. We have the ability since we're starting from scratch to have a floor."
Sites that wanted to be a part of this exclusive domain would have to undergo rigorous screening to verify their identity. Physical addresses, trademark registrations, articles of incorporation, and other legal documents would be reviewed by human beings. Upon approval, applicants would receive two-factor authentication hardware to register online. They would also be required to meet a minimum set of security practices, including end-to-end encryption of virtually all Web and e-mail traffic. Web data sent over the unencrypted port 80 could be used solely for redirection to HTTPS-protected addresses, and mail servers would be required to use what's known as opportunistic transport layer security, which uses the TLS protocol to encrypt data before sending it to destination servers.
Sites with .secure addresses could mandate even stricter controls if they want, and could rely on the service's domain name system to automatically enforce them with end users and other sites. For instance, sites could specify which authorities are or are not allowed to sign their SSL and TLS certificates, a measure that would prevent the types of certificate forgeries used last year to snoop on some 300,000 Gmail users, most of whom were located in Iran. Artemis is a member of the recently established Domain Policy Working Group that's working on a set of technical specifications that would allow domain owners to automatically enforce such measures. Additional members, which Stamos said includes "major Internet companies," will be disclosed in July.
Artemis will continually scan .secure addresses to see if they're hosting malware, phishing, or other nuisance sites, and those that are will be disconnected. Domain owners will be given a chance to clean up their operations and be reconnected, but repeat offenders will be banished.
The creation of a gated community on the Internet is a thought-provoking idea, and to be sure, the .secure domain isn't the first time it has been floated. In many ways, it goes against the ideals of inclusion that have made the Internet what it is today. At the same time, the Net's lack of accountability has often made it trivial for criminals to masquerade as banks and other trusted resources, and a lack of agreement about minimum levels of security that should be offered often allow hackers to penetrate site defenses. The service being floated by Artemis may be a way to let the free market create what so far has been out reach of Internet engineers and marketers.
A lot still has to happen before a TLD like .secure becomes a reality. Ars will be watching with interest to see if it can achieve the lofty goals it aspires to.


text:
This is my 3rd annual roundup of Canadian science blogs and the science blogging scene in Canada seems to be getting more lively (see my Dec. 31, 2010 posting and Dec. 29, 2011 posting to compare).
As I did last year, I will start with
Don't leave Canada appears to be gone as there hasn't been posting there since May 4, 2011. I'm sorry to see it go as Rob Annan provided thoughtful commentary on science policy on a regular basis for years. Thank you, Rob. (BTW, he's now the director of policy, research and evaluation at MITACS.)
Cool Science, John McKay's blog has been shut down as of Oct. 24, 2012,
Hi everyone. This will mark the final post of the CoolScience.ca site and it will be quietly taken offline in November. I will also be closing down the Twitter and Facebook accounts and moving everything over to my professional accounts that are all focused on communicating science, technology, engineering and medicine.
The Dark Matter science blog by Tom Spears, which I reluctantly (as it was a 'newspaper blog' from the Ottawa Citizen)included last year has since disappeared as has NeuroDojo, a blog written by a Canadian scientist in Texas.
Goodbye ish
Marc Leger's Atoms and Numbers blog's latest posting is dated Oct. 23, 2012 but the pattern here seems similar to Marie-Claire's (see the next one) where the posting is erratic but relatively regular (once or twice per month) until October of this year.
Marie-Claire Shanahan is posting less frequently on her Boundary Vision blog with the last posting there on Oct. 9, 2012.
The Bubble Chamber blog from the University of Toronto's Science Policy Work Group seems to be fading away with only one posting for 2012, Reply to Wayne Myrvold on the Higgs Boson.
Colin Schulz's CMBR blog hasn't had a new posting since July 13, 2012's 11 Things You Didn't Know About Canada. In any event, it looks like the blog is no longer primarily focused on science.
The Exponential Book blog by Massimo Boninsegni features an Oct. 24, 2012 posting and a similar posting pattern to Marie-Claire & Marc.
exposure/effect which was new last year has gone into a fairly lengthy hiatus as per its last post in January 30, 2012 posting.
Theoretical biologist, Mario Pineda-Krch of Mario's Entangled Bank blog is also taking a lengthy hiatus as the last posting on that blog was June 11, 2012.
Nicole Arbour's Canadian science blog for the UK High Commission in Ottawa hasn't featured a posting since Oct. 15, 2012's The Power of We: Adapting to climate change.
Gregor Wolbring's Nano and Nano- Bio, Info, Cogno, Neuro, Synbio, Geo, Chem… features an Aug. 4, 2012 posting which links to one of his nano articles, (Nanoscale Science and Technology and People with Disabilities in Asia: An Ability Expectation Analysis) published elsewhere.
Jeff Sharom's Science Canada blog highlights links to editorials and articles on Canadian science policy but doesn't seem to feature original writing by Sharom or anyone else, consequently, it functions more as a reader/aggregator than a blog.
The Black Hole blog which was always more focused on prospect for Canadian science graduates than Canadian science, hence always a bit of a stretch for inclusion here, has moved to the University Affairs website where it focuses more exclusively on the Canadian academic scene with posts such as this, Free journal access for postdocs in between positions from Dec. 12, 2012.
Returning to the roundup:
John Dupuis' Confessions of a Science Librarian whose Dec. 26, 2012 posting, Best Science (Fiction) Books 2012: io9 seems timely for anyone taking a break at this time of year and looking for some reading material.
Daniel Lemire's blog is known simply as Daniel Lemire. He's a computer scientist in Montréal who writes one of the more technical blogs I've come across and his focus seems to be databases although his Dec. 10, 2012 posting covers the topic of how to get things accomplished when you're already busy.
Dave Ng, a professor with the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia, is a very active science communicator who maintain the Popperfont blog. The latest posting (Dec. 24, 2012) features Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravaganza! – Day 24.
Eric Michael Johnson continues with his The Primate Diaries blog on the Scientific American blog network. His Dec. 6, 2012 posting is a reposted article but he has kept up a regular (once per month, more or less) posting schedule,
Author's Note: The following originally appeared at ScienceBlogs.com and was subsequently a finalist in the 3 Quarks Daily Science Prize judged by Richard Dawkins. Fairness is the basis of the social contract. As citizens we expect that when we contribute our fair share we should receive our just reward. When social benefits are handed out …
Rosie Redfield is keeping with both her blogs, RRTeaching (latest posting, Dec. 6, 2012) and RRResearch (Nov. 17, 2012).
Sci/Why is a science blog being written by Canadian children's writers who discuss science, words, and the eternal question – why?
Mathematician Nassif Ghoussoub's Piece of Mind blog continues to feature incisive writing about science, science funding, policy and academe.
Canadian science writer Heather Pringle continues to post on the The Last Word on Nothing, a blog shared collectively by a number of well known science writers. Her next posting is scheduled for Jan. 3, 2013, according to the notice on the blog.
A little off my usual beat but I included these last year as they do write about science albeit medical and/or health science:
Susan Baxter's blog Curmudgeon's Corner features her insights into various medical matters, for example there's her Dec. 1, 2012 posting on stress, the immune system, and the French antipathy towards capitalism.
Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders co-own two different blogs, Obesity Panacea, which is part of the PLoS (Public Library of Science) blogs network, and Science of Blogging which features very occasional posting but it's worth a look for nuggets like this Oct. 12, 2012 (?) posting on social media for scientists.
After posting the 2011 roundup,
I had a number of suggestions for more Canadian science blogs such as these four who are part of the Scientific American SA) blogging network (in common with Eric Michael Johnson),
Dr. Carin Bondar posts on the SA blog, PsiVid, along with Joanne Manaster. There's more than one Canadian science blogger who co-writes a blog. This one is self-described as, A cross section of science on the cyberscreen.
Glendon Mellow, a professional science illustrator, posts on The Flying Trilobite (his own blog) and Symbiartic: the art of science and the science of art, an SA blog he shares with Kalliopi Monoyios.
Larry Moran, a biochemist at the University of Toronto, posts on science and anything else that tickles his fancy on his Sandwalk blog.
Eva Amsen who posts on a number of blogs including the NODE; the community site for developmental biologists (which she also manages) but the best place to find a listing of her many blogs and interests is at easternblot.net, where she includes this self-description on the About page,
Online Projects
- Musicians and Scientists – Why are so many people involved in both music and science? I'm on a mission to find out.
- the Node – My day job is managing a community site for developmental biologists around the world. The site is used by equal numbers of postdocs, PhD students, and lab heads.
- SciBarCamp/SciBarCamb – I co-instigated SciBarCamp, an unconference for scientists, in Toronto in 2008. Since then I have co-organized five similar events in three countries, and have advised others on how to run science unconferences.
- You Learn Something New Every Day – a Tumblr site that automatically aggregates tweets with the hashtag #ylsned, and Flickr photos tagged ylsned, to collect the interesting bits of trivia that people come across on a daily basis.
- Lab Waste – During my last months in the lab as a PhD student, I made a mini-documentary (using CC-licensed materials) about the excessive amount of disposable plastics used in research labs. It screened in 2009 in the "Quirky Shorts" program of the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York.
- Expression Patterns – In 2007 I was invited to blog on Nature Network. The complete archives from 2007-2012 are now on this site.
- easternblot.net – Confusingly, my other science blog was named after this entire domain. It ran from 2005 to 2010, and can be found at science.easternblot.net
I believe Amsen is Canadian and working in the UK but if anyone could confirm, I would be much relieved.
Someone, who according to their About page prefers to remain anonymous but lives in Victoria, BC, and posts (somewhat irregularly, the last posting is dated Nov. 10, 2012) on The Olive Ridley Crawl,
I am an environmental scientist blogging about environmental and development issues that interest me. I prefer to be anonymous(e) because I work with some of the companies I may talk about and I want to avoid conflict of interest issues at work. This gets tricky because I am at the periphery of a lot of events happening in the world of my greatest expertise, persistent organic pollutants, endocrine disrupting compounds, their effects on health and the policy fights around chemicals, their use the controversies! So, I've reluctantly moved away from writing about what I know most about, which means this blog suffers severely. I still soldier on, though!
I was born, and grew up in India, so I am interested in all things South Asian and tend to view most all Western government and Western institution actions through a colonialist scratched lens! I am also becoming much more active about my feminism, so who knows what that will do to this blog. I have been meaning to write a monstrous essay about women, the environment and justice, but that's a task!
I used to live in Chapel Hill, NC with a partner of long vintage (the partnership, that is, not her!) and a crazy cat who thinks he's a dog. We moved to Victoria, BC in 2008 and I've been busy learning about Canadian policy, enjoying this most beautiful town I live in.
Why Olive Ridley? Well, the Olive Ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys Olivacea) nests on the coasts of Madras, India and I got my start in the wonderful world of conservation working on the Olive Ridley with the Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network. So, I do have fond memories for this beautiful creature. And yes, as my dear partner reminds me, I did meet her on the beach when I was doing this work.
Agence Science-Presse (based in Québec and headed by Pascal Lapointe) features three blogs of its own:
Blogue ta science : les billets dédiés aux jeunes.
Discutez avec notre expert : avez-vous suivi notre enquête CSI ?
Autour des Blogues : les actualités de nos blogueurs et de la communauté.
There's also a regular podcast under the Je vote pour la science banner.
genegeek appears to be Canadian (it has a domain in Canada) but the blog owner doesn't really identify herself (there's a photo) on the About page but no name and no biographical details. I did receive a tweet last year about genegeek from C. Anderson who I imagine is the blog owner.
There's also the Canadian BioTechnologist2.0 blog, which is sponsored by Bio-Rad Canada and is written by an employee.
These next ones were added later in the year:
Chuck Black writes two blogs as he noted in June 2012,
I write two blogs which, while they focus more on space than science, do possess strong science components and overlap with some of the other blogs here.
They are: Commercial Space and Space Conference News.
Andy Park also came to my attention in June 2012. He writes the It's the Ecology, Stupid! blog.
Something About Science is a blog I featured in an Aug. 17, 2012 posting and I'm glad to see blogger, Lynn K, is still blogging.
New to the roundup in 2012:
SSChow, Sarah Chow's blog, focuses on science events in Vancouver (Canada) and science events at the University of British Columbia and miscellaneous matters pertinent to her many science communication efforts.
The Canadian federal government seems to be trying its hand at science blogging with the Science.gc.ca Blogs (http://www.science.gc.ca/Blogs-WSE6EBB690-1_En.htm). An anemic effort given that boasts a total of six (or perhaps it's five) posting in two or three years.
The Canadian Science Writers Association (CSWA) currently features a blog roll of its members' blogs. This is a new initiative from the association and one I'm glad to see. Here's the list (from the CSWA member blog page),
Anne Steinø (Research Through the Eyes of a Biochemist)
Arielle Duhame-Ross (Salamander Hours)
Bob McDonald (I'm choking on this one since it's a CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] blog for its Quirks and Quarks science pr0gram)
Cadell Last (The Ratchet)
Edward Willett
Elizabeth Howell (she seems to be blogging again and the easiest way for me to get to her postings was to click on the Archives link [I clicked on December 2012 to get the latest] after doing that I realized that the images on the page link to postings)
Heather Maughan
Justin Joschko
Kimberly Gerson (Endless Forms Most Beautiful)
Mark Green (a CSWA member, he was born and educated in the US where he lives and works; ordinarily I would not include him, even with his CSWA membership status, but he writes a monthly science column for a Cape Breton newspaper, which has made me pause)
Pamela Lincez (For the Love of Science)
Sarah Boon (Watershed Moments)
Susan Eaton (she seems to be reposting articles written [presumably by her] for the AAPG [American Association of Petroleum Geologists] Explorer and other organizations in her blog]
Barry Shell's site (listed as a CSWA member blog) doesn't match my admittedly foggy notion of a blog. It seems more of an all round Canadian science resource featuring profiles of Canadian scientists, a regularly updated news archive, and more. Science.ca is extraordinary and I'm thankful to have finally stumbled across it but it doesn't feature dated posts in common with the other blogs listed here, even the most commercial ones.
Tyler Irving (I had no idea he had his own blog when I mentioned him in my Sept. 25, 2012 posting about Canadian chemists and the Canadian Chemical Institute's publications) posts at the Scientific Canadian.
I choke again, as I do when mentioning blogs that are corporate media blogs, but in the interest of being as complete as possible Julia Belluz writes the Scien-ish blog about health for MacLean's magazine.
Genome Alberta hosts a couple of blogs: Genomics and Livestock News & Views.
Occam's Typewriter is an informal network of science bloggers two of whom are Canadian:
Cath Ennis (VWXYNot?) and Richard Wintle (Adventures in Wonderland). Note: The Guardian Science Blogs network seems to have some sort of relationship with Occam's Typewriter as you will see postings from the Occam's network featured as part of Occam's Corner on the Guardian website.
My last blogger in this posting is James Colliander from the University of Toronto's Mathematics Department. He and Nassif (Piece of Mind blog mentioned previously) seem to share a similar interest in science policy and funding issues.
ETA Jan.2.13: This is a social science oriented blog maintained by a SSHRC- (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) funded network cluster called the Situating Science Cluster and the blog's official name is: Cluster Blog. This is where you go to find out about Science and Technology Studies (STS) and History of Science Studies, etc. and events associated with those studies.
I probably should have started with this definition of a Canadian blogger, from the Wikipedia entry,
A Canadian blogger is the author of a weblog who lives in Canada, has Canadian citizenship, or writes primarily on Canadian subjects. One could also be considered a Canadian blogger if one has a significant Canadian connection, though this is debatable.
Given how lively the Canadian science blogging scene has become, I'm not sure I can continue with these roundups as they take more time each year. At the very least, I'll need to define the term Canadian Science blogger, in the hope of reducing the workload, if I decide to continue after this year.
There's a rather interesting Nov. 26, 2012 article by Stephanie Taylor for McGill Daily about the Canadian public's science awareness and a dearth of Canadian science communication,
Much of the science media that Canadians consume and have access to is either American or British: both nations have a robust, highly visible science media sector. While most Canadians wouldn't look primarily to American journalism for political news and analysis, science doesn't have the same inherent national boundaries that politics does. While the laws of physics don't change depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on, there are scientific endeavours that are important to Canadians but have little importance to other nations. It's unlikely that a British researcher would investigate the state of the Canadian cod fishery, or that the British press would cover it, but that research is critical to a substantial number of Canadians' livelihoods.
On the other hand, as Canadian traditional media struggles to consistently cover science news, there's been an explosion of scientists of all stripes doing a lot of the necessary big picture, broad context, critical analysis on the internet. The lack of space restrictions and accessibility of the internet (it's much easier to start a blog than try to break in to traditional media) mean that two of the major barriers to complex discussion of science in the media are gone. Blogs struggle to have the same reach as newspapers and traditional media, though, and many of the most successful science blogs are under the online umbrella of mainstream outlets like Scientific American and Discover. Unfortunately and perhaps unsurprisingly, there is currently no Canadian science blog network like this. [emphasis mine]
Yes, let's create a Canadian science blog network. I having been talking to various individuals about this over the last year (2012) and while there's interest, someone offered to help and then changed their mind. Plus, I was hoping to persuade the the Canadian Science Writers Association to take it on but I think they were too far advanced in their planning for a member's network to consider something more generalized (and far more expensive). So, if anyone out there has ideas about how to do this, please do comment and perhaps we can get something launched in 2013.


text:
NetworkManager Bridging Support
NetworkManager should be able to configure bridge interfaces with commonly used options and recognize their existing configuration on startup without disrupting their operation.
- Name: Dan Williams
- Email: dcbw at redhat dot com
- Name: Pavel Šimerda
- Email: psimerda at redhat dot com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 20
- Last updated: 2013-03-19
- Percentage of completion: 50%
Detailed Description
A bridge connects two or more physical or virtual network interfaces to allow network traffic to flow between the two interfaces at a low level. Bridging is commonly used to connect Virtual Machines to the outside world; a bridge interface is created, to which a physical interface (typically ethernet) is assigned as a slave, and a virtual interface (typically TAP) is created and also assigned to the bridge as a slave, and then given to the Virtual Machine. Thus traffic from one or more VMs can be combined and sent out of the machine via the physical interface.
This setup is currently done either manually using ifcfg files and ifup/ifdown, or by a tool like libvirt/netcf. NetworkManager should be able to configure bridge interfaces and their slaves with the same functionality as provided by libvirt, and should recognize and not disrupt existing bridge connections when it starts up.
Benefit to Fedora
NetworkManager will provide a unified API for network configuration, giving a more consistent user experience. Users setting up bridged connections who also run NetworkManager will not need to take additional action to determine whether the bridge should be controlled by libvirt or by NetworkManager as the two will cooperate.
This feature requires changes to nm-applet, nm-connection-editor, gnome-shell, gnome-control-center and KDE counterparts to expose bridge interfaces and their connection information in the user interface. NetworkManager also needs updates to implement the proposed changes.
How To Test
Ensure that a bridge interface created by libvirt/netcf or the system initscripts is recognized by NetworkManager but not touched by it until either 'nmcli' or the network applet is used to change connections or deactivate bridge port interfaces.
User Experience
Both the UI tools (applets, connection editors, etc) and the CLI tools (nmcli) will be updated for the bridging configuration options. Users will see bridge interfaces in network indicators and be able to inspect their status through the applets or the command-line tools.
The changes should be limited to NetworkManager and it's associated tools, and should not require changes to libvirt, netcf, initscripts, or other external tools. NetworkManager should be able to cooperate with the configurations set up by these tools.
Contingency Plan
Ensure NetworkManager only controls bridge interfaces it is told to control via NM_CONTROLLED in ifcfg files. Tools that need bridging would have to continue to use the same tools as before.
Documentation will be drafted at Networking/Bridging.
Release Notes
NetworkManager now supports bridging functionality and cooperates better with existing bridging tools and configurations.


text:
Margison Brothers Printers fonds
- MsC-114
- Fonds
- 1910-1999
Fonds primarily contains examples of printed material created by the Margison Brothers Printers from 1959-1999. The fonds also contains some business records, including a cash book and sales tax information, as well as various printing-related publications. The fonds is divided into two series: Series 1. Printing Examples and Business Records, and Series 2. Miscellaneous Publications.
Margison Brothers Printers


text:
But hot DOG, Luella Bartley...I want to stick you in a sweatshop and force you to make me frilly and beautiful clothes at the cost of 2 cents an hour. My love for you is that genuine and sincere and caring.
That's as far as rebellion goes in my book. God I'm suburbian.


text:
The beginning of Passai being an overexaggerated (chinese) salutation?
Look for instance beginning of this video
(couldn't find any better Chinese greetings)
Can someone follow me?
The beginning of Passai being an overexaggerated (chinese) salutation?
Look for instance beginning of this video
(couldn't find any better Chinese greetings)
Can someone follow me?
I was taught the opening to Bassai type kata is the same as the opening to Jutte/Jion/Jinn, just downward.
When performed upwards as in Jutte/Jion/Jiin, its a salute to a higher ranking official, showing you honor them, when done downward its to honor your family.
Perhaps similar to the European handshake in which the right hand is open to signify that there is no weapon i.e a peaceful gesture containing a sign of strength.
A practical human gesture that through time has become a ritualistic gesture e.g. closing one's medieval war helmet visor prior to battle becomes a salute.
For a more practical point of view at one of Iain's seminars in Montrose, we explored the Jion/Jutte/Jiin upward movement by grabbing the throat whilst grasping the back of the head, as a counter to your assailant doing likewise.
Perhaps for the Bassai downward type it could be interpreted as a clasping hand & counter push against a cross hand grab, during a close proximity encounter.
I do see the similarity in the opening movement and the Chinese greeting. I would not be completely surprised if there is some relation. But, the practical thinker in me has to ask about the following movement from the kata. As it is commonly done, the left hand is covering the right fist and then makes only a minor change from this starting position in the following forward step. At the point of this forward step it seems obvious that we are within the practical portion of the kata, and no longer the greeting. I guess it is possible that the first two movements are unrelated as far as application goes but, I find that unlikely.
I also question the history of this movement as just a greeting. If it were simply a move based in Chinese culture, wouldn't the Japanese have altered it or removed it from their kata? In both the Japanese and Okinawan versions of Bassai/Passai that I have learned the opening is very similar and arguably resembles the salutation in the video.
Kyoshi, I think you are right:
This is one version of a Shaolin derived salutation, I have seen others where you step before the yin-yang salute. Also there are Shorin Passai where that "salute" is followed by dropping into horse stance. It is done differently to the video but it's there. This shouldn't be surprising though; Shorin is just the Okinawan/Japanese word for Shaolin.
It's certainly possible that it derived from the Chinese salutation--I've actually made that connection in my head before, but I know some kata that do something a little more like the Chinese salutation. To me, the beginning of Passai looks more like a "hands ready" position, and the movement thereafter is a practical technique rather than part of a saluation.
I was taught it is a greeting used to signify the return of the Ming, so a political/social sign used by the Monks and associated people of Shaolin.
In Chinese, the word Ming (?) means "bright" and comprises of the characters for the sun (?) and the moon (?), the two great sources of light and brightness. The signal consisted of the right hand as a fist, symbolizing the sun, and the left hand as an open palm, symbolizing the moon.
Taken from- http://ymaa.com/articles/history-of-shaolin-long-fist-kung-fu
Good read so far
I tend to read many books on the Chinese Arts Especially Chin Na and Chinese Wrestling to find the "secrets" of my Okinawan/Japanese Art. I still believe that Bassai is a complete fighting system created in China although the origins of the kata have died off
Regards to Salutations I find that its quite a method in its self, The freestylers and XMA'ists tend to have trophy on this one. Watching them on kata competition makes me laugh. For me not one part of the Kata is wasted. from the first stance to the last stance its all useful
But I'm the sort of Instructor who puts method into our basic Warm up exercises.
For me if I could only practice one Kata and one Kata only it would be Bassai (which one of the official 35 variants I'm not too sure of)
Is the beginning of Passai being an overexaggerated (chinese) salutation?
Shigeru Egami – a student of Gichin Funakoshi – in his book, "The heart of karate-do" does show and discuss the various hand positions at the start of kata and states:
"The practise of the kata should never be assumed to be a cut and dried matter. Consider, for example, the ready postures in various kata – that of the Heian kata, of Kanku, of Jutte, of the Tekki kata and so on are all different. Why should this be? It is tempting to assume that the ready postures of all the kata should be the same, but this is not the case. We may even ask whether in a martial art there is a fixed posture or whether a fixed posture is necessary. This seems to have some relation to yoga postures, but does it have any relation to the mundras of esoteric Buddhism?
According to the literature on the Chinese Tai Chi Chuan, the shape of the ready stance in Jutte is an expression of the unity of Yin and Yang. How did this posture come about and what function does it have? I know there are changes in function among the various kata, but I must confess I do not know the reason, nor why they change according to the kata. This is one problem, and there are many others, that I believe must be studied more extensively in the future."
For those who don't know, the "Jutte hand position" in the photos is exactly the same as Bassai, but just held higher up. This text would therefore seem to be very relevant.
The first thing to note is that many of the possible explanations that Egami puts forward as questions are now regarded as facts in some quarters. I for one have heard and read the "Yin-Yang" explanation cited as fact.
The bottom line here is that Egami is honest that he does not know what these hand positions represent. He does not know what, if any, purpose they have, nor does he know if the purpose has changed. As far as I'm aware (please correct if I'm wrong folks?) this is the only discussion on the starting hand positions we have in written form from a karate perspective. We can therefore conclude that we have no firm guidance from the past on this issue and hence any "facts" about the meaning of the hand positions at the beginning of karate kata are conjecture.
That established, we can only go with what we feel is the best explanation; and acknowledge that such explanations can only ever be a personal viewpoint and never proven fact.
I therefore choose to ascribe combative function to all "opening salutations" and I reject the idea they are greetings or symbolic gestures. The reason I do this is that I am of the view that as soon as you "open the door" to kata motions being non-combative it is possible to explain away the majority of the kata as being "symbolic" or "a strengthening exercise" or "good for balance" or a "non-combative body motion deigned to teach a body motion that can be used in combat" (an illogical contradiction, but nevertheless a popular "explanation"), and so on.
I firmly see all non-combative explanations of any part of kata as an easy "cop out" and I am therefore opposed to such "explanations" in my own research, training and teaching. Non-combative "explanations", grease up that slippery slope and quicken the demise of kata to a non-functional, purposeless dance in my view.
As for Bassai, I see the opening salutation as an attack to the wrist and hand should the enemy threaten or gesticulate with their hand i.e. poke your chest, point a finger, "give the bird", etc. The following motion – what is most frequently viewed as the "first move" in the kata, but in my view is the second – flows on from this by taking the body weight past and down and hence taking the enemy off balance (all on my Bunkai-Jutsu 2 DVD for those that have it).
That combative explanation fits the kata perfectly and it also sits well with my approach to kata; which does not accept that any motion is non-combative. If I don't have a good combative use for a motion, then I'll keep looking for a combative explanation as opposed to explaining it away as being somehow "symbolic".
There is zero evidence either way that would allow us to say with certainty if the "opening salutation" of Bassai was originally meant to be combative or if it was somehow symbolic. We simply don't know. So all we can do, as modern martial artists, is decide from a functional perspective what explanation we feel best serves our training goals.
For me, the combative approach provides function; whereas the symbolic approach does not. I therefore decide to go the combative route; but I acknowledge that others can legitimately choose to go another way because there is no evidence either way.
One other thing that Egami says in his book (on the page next to the pictures of the various "salutations") is:
"The techniques [of the kata] should not be practised simply so they can be performed in the kata. Since karate is a fighting art, each technique or movement, whether offensive or defensive, has its own meaning. The karate-ka should consider their meaning, how and why they are effective, and practise accordingly."
I totally agree. However, I also feel that the opening hand positions should be seen as an integral part of the kata. An effective combative explanation is therefore what I will seek.
All the best,
I therefore choose to ascribe combative function to all "opening salutations" and I reject the idea they are greetings or symbolic gestures. The reason I do this is that I am of the view that as soon as you "open the door" to kata motions being non-combative it is possible to explain away the majority of the kata as being "symbolic" or "a strengthening exercise" or "good for balance" or a "non-combative body motion deigned to teach a body motion that can be used in combat" (an illogical contradiction, but nevertheless a popular "explanation"), and so on.
I firmly see all non-combative explanations of any part of kata as an easy "cop out" and I am therefore opposed to such "explanations" in my own research, training and teaching. Non-combative "explanations", grease up that slippery slope and quicken the demise of kata to a non-functional, purposeless dance in my view.
One other thing that Egami says in his book (on the page next to the pictures of the various "salutations") is:
"The techniques [of the kata] should not be practised simply so they can be performed in the kata. Since karate is a fighting art, each technique or movement, whether offensive or defensive, has its own meaning. The karate-ka should consider their meaning, how and why they are effective, and practise accordingly."
I totally agree. However, I also feel that the opening hand positions should be seen as anintegral part of the kata. An effective combative explanation is therefore what I will seek.
All the best,
Quoted for truth! I absolutely agree.
Personally I think that where Chinese Kata have whole sequences as stylised salutations, we should perhaps consider those as the 'signature moves' of the style or family system with the subsequent Kata as the technique or strategem catalogue that is open to change and adaptation from generation to generation and teacher to teacher.
I very much regard many single Kata as intended to be fairly complete (or rather as complete as people felt they neede to be) systems in themselves when studied and drilled appropriately. Twenty years ago I might have laughed at this, but I find that the more I train the more different things I can reliably and effectively do with fewer movements.
John Titchen
Thanks Iain for that great contribution!
The reason why i thought so, was that the 2nd move of Passai is somewhat similiar to the 1st "opening" move of Kusanku.
If there could be a connection, maybe there would be other corelations throughout those katas. Im excited about this new idea.
I was taught it is a greeting used to signify the return of the Ming, so a political/social sign used by the Monks and associated people of Shaolin.
In Chinese, the word Ming (?) means "bright" and comprises of the characters for the sun (?) and the moon (?), the two great sources of light and brightness. The signal consisted of the right hand as a fist, symbolizing the sun, and the left hand as an open palm, symbolizing the moon.
Taken from- http://ymaa.com/articles/history-of-shaolin-long-fist-kung-fu
I attended a seminar with Patrick McCarthy last year in Ireland. The course focussed on Matsumura Bassai. He informed everyone that the salutation with the left hand enclosing the right fist was in reference to an eclipse. The corona, or left hand symbolising a return to brighter times. The explanation given above is in line with this explanation. I dont think that it is unthinkabale that opening kata hand positions could have their origins with other significant historical traditions. China is an ancient culture with a very turbulant history. Allegiances to gangs or dynasties could have been represented by something as simple as hand gestures. In India they called them "Mudhra`s" and are deeply symbolic and steeped in ritual. Different hand shapes represent different things. I dont see Martaial arts as being any different. Although as we know , things become re-interpretated to the host cultures needs and current thinking. This thread for instance, Iain is making his case for an understanding of the opening hand shapes and it could be understood as practical in a contemporary setting. I think all of it is relevant and certainly food for thought. Thankyou.
If there could be a connection, maybe there would be other corelations throughout those katas. Im excited about this new idea.
I have long had a theory that the opening movement(s) in kata might represent applications for the "opening" of a violent conflict. While some of the information recorded in kata is (in my opinion) for use once you are already in the fight, there should also be responses to likely opening attacks. What better place to put these than the beginning?
Many of my own applications have shown this to be the case in the katas I practice. Also, a number of the applications shown in Iain's DVDs would seem to hold to this theory. See his Naihanchi Shodan, Kushanku, and Passai for examples. There may be others as well.
If there is any truth to this threory then it only takes an understanding of how violence starts to find some of these applications. Shaking a fist in someone's face. A poke to the chest. A shirt grab followed by a probable punch. A step in with a swinging attack. All of these are common acts of violence that we see in the escalation into a fight. I think it only makes sense that katas recorded responses to this type of threat right away, progressing to alternative scenarios, likely failure points and backup techniques and the more complex tactics. Just as a math book begins showing simple problem solving skills and builds on those foundations into more complex problem solving.
Hope this isn't drifting too far off-topic. Just throwing an idea out there.
I agree completely with Iain, and in fact have heard him express this before while I was forming my ideas about bunkai, so it has coloured my own.
I do in fact have some bunkai based on the interpretation of Bassai that I practise.
We perform the opening move as similar to a chinese salutation, with the left enclosing the right but with the hands at face level (it sometimes performed with the hands at groin level in other styles). The next move is raising the right leg in the manner of a sweep to the left 45 degrees, and the hands pulled back as if you were going to swing a baseball bat.
One of my applications is similar to Iain's, it is a double handed grab of a leading arm, pulling to off balance, and the right knee driving into the upper leg of the opponent. It's followed up with a figure of 4 shoulder lock, the left leg crossing the back of the right leg to signify a take down - ie you position your left leg behind the legs of the off-balance opponent as you vigorously apply the lock and the opponent will go down.
My second application is simply hooking your hands behind the neck of the opponent and driving your knee upwards. Pretty crude stock standard MA stuff, but hey, that's what it looks like. And to me one of the beauties of kata is that it reminds you of techniques you may overlook, and the exploration of the applications of bunkai keep you engaged and thinking about possibilities. Even if you need to adapt the movements to make them work they still give you that compass.
Finally, I would say I find the opening move extremely useful in kumite, especially against opponents who have static guards. Simply grab their guard and follow with a mae geri, you find their reaction is very predictable - they always drag themselves into your kick. Or in actual fact they pull you in which adds potency to the kick.
Some good points being raised, here's something to consider-
'Kamaekata (Ready Stances)
Matsubayashi-ryu kata karate-do has 18 kata (forms). Each kata has a given ready stance which begins and ends every performance. The following are the three types of kamaekata (ready stances), and the kata that begin with them. In every case, the shoulders are relaxed and the eyes are fixed straight ahead.'
Page 57, The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do (Shorin Ryu) by Shoshin Nagamine, whos primary teachers were Ankichi Arakaki, Chotoku Kyan and Choki Motobu (all renowned 'practical' karateka of their day).
Nagamine then goes on to describe Shizentai Dachi, Musubi Dachi and Heisoku Dachi and the hand formations they have. (inc the Passai sun/moon positon).
Granted this is not concrete proof, but a very credible source from a legendry Okinawan Master who learned from some of the early/mid 20th cen greats.
Personally I feel Matsubayashi-ryu is 'modern' karate all ready, but thats another discussion! I also accept his book, whilst fab does not go into Bunkai or Oyo aside from the 7 formal Yakusoku Kumite of the Ryu, which I believe were methods put together based on the teachings of Choki Motobu- all of which start from shizentai dachi with hands in yoi positon.
Do we have even 1 example of an Okinawan Master using the opening/closing positons of classical kata as Bunkai, Oyo? I don't recall seeing any, but rest assured I shall now search.........
The use of symbolism, specific skill development and such like within kata is absolutly part of the classical line of karate I practice.
I, of course 'see' and accept the opening/closing hand positons can be put to practical application use however I firmly disagree that was their origonal function, proving that is another thing.
Hi All,
For those who have not seen it, here is an interesting piece by Jesse Enkamp where he shows forty-two possible combative applications for the hand position we have been discussing:
All the best,
Hi all,
i believe the hand postion makes a very effective close quarter strike, take a look and hope it is of interest.
Kind regards,
I know GKR has its detractors, but I know personally that some of their top instructors are just as passionate and knowedgable as anyone here. The videos below, made by Anthony Ryan (a fantastic karateka) are intended to give some history and background to Bassai Dai which they practise and is considered a key kata in their style, which is introduced at 5th kyu, and so its obviously pitched at that level. There is not much to disagree with, at least from a historical perspective, and I thought the idea of turning an opponent to expose more vulnerable points an interesting one, though I am not sure I agree with the interpretation of Bassai meaning "penetrating a fortress".
In any case its nicely done and if anyone has students wanting a potted history of the kata this isn't too bad:
1st part - history only:
2nd part that has some bunkai in it including an application of the salutation:
Hi All,
For those who have not seen it, here is an interesting piece by Jesse Enkamp where he shows forty-two possible combative applications for the hand position we have been discussing:
All the best,
Wow! When they say the interpretation of kata is infinite, I thought it was just a figure of speech!
Hi Stevenson,
great video on the history of Bassai-Dai, many thanks for posting, really interesting
Thanks Jason. I enjoyed your bunkai demo as well. In fact its similar to a Yuma Uke application we were exploring the other day. I hadn't thought of the similarity to Bassai Dai until I saw your video, although in reptrospect it seems really obvious....
Thankyou, pleased you liked it
had a nasty back injury when that was filmed so werent as good as i wanted it to be. if you are looking for a start to Bassai-Dai and if you have a copy of he Bubishi have a look on page 168 at the top, this may help
Kind regards,
Hi Jason,
I think you have done a better job with this presentation in general than the Bunkai you have shown before with the exception of the first strike.
I really, truly, cannot think of how thats going to stand up in reality I also strongly feel you would damage your hand and are also tying both hands up in a centre line strike, not a good idea IMO.
Striking round to the side of a supported head I would 'get' a little more. But based on the stance your in it doesn't make sense to me, but thats just me.
Striking round to the side of a supported head I would 'get' a little more. But based on the stance your in it doesn't make sense to me, but thats just me.
As regards Jion, I prefer top think of the "salutation" as being a location grip to the back of the neck while the "fist" seizes the throat. The "double block" – which is frequently regarded as the "first move" of the kata – works well as a counter against that attack with the lower arms sweeping away the hand on the throat before a grip can be securely established, and the "outer block" knocking the locating hand off the back of the neck. If you look at the opening move of the Hanashiro version of the kata (see picture) it really does look like that: perhaps other versions are more stylised? Either way it works well.
So the way I look at the kata is that the first move shows how to attack the throat (the "salutation") and the second move shows how to protect it (the "double block"). That seems logical to me and it fits the kata. The stepping back to clear a space to extend the enemy's arm and knock it off also makes sense to me.
Having cleared attack to your throat (using move 2), it is possible to attack you partner's throat (using move 1). Your partner could then counter your attack with move 2 and also attack you with move 1 … and hay presto you have a flow drill! Having stepped back to clear the attempted throat grab, you need to close the distance to get your own solid grip on the throat (which would be countered in the drill). In practice what tends to happen as this drill flows back and forth is the left leg goes back on the defence and forward on the attack; with the right leg moving a much smaller amount (when drilling it on the same side as it appears in the kata). You then see the "feet together stance" (or thereabouts) on the attack side, and the front stance or back stance (depending on the version of the kata) on the defence. This drill fits the kata, is logical, and leaves no part of the kata unused or unexplained. It's therefore my primary application.
The "double blocks" at forty-five degrees also flow on from the throat grab defence, by taking an angle and redirecting the gripping arm (the one that was on the back of your neck, but has just been knocked off, or at least knocked) to a position where the enemy can't spin in towards you because of your relative position and how their arm is held, you can the kick out the knee and punch. A little harder to get across in words, but very simple to do. Anyhow, that's my thoughts on the use of the "opening salutation" in regards to Jion.
All the best,
PS I'm hoping to get Bunkai-Jutsu 6 filmed sometime in the next twelve months which will cover my take on Jion.
Yes Iain, good stuff- I forgot wherever there's a closed fist we can be grabbing, particulary when it's supported.
I haven't really thought about this much as my view on the kata 'salutaions' is not primarily Bunkai related etc.
Hi Jim, thanku for your reply.
the demos i have posted in the past were filmed on a seminar/course, i was strapped for time etc.
As for reality, anything is possible, for example if an attacker is walking towards you in an aggressive manner with their hands by their sides, the 1st example i gave would make, as i see it and experienced make a good defence.
As for damaging the hands, daily use of the Makiwara would ensure to strenghen ones hands.
This is of course just one example of an opening application to Jion, there are of course many more.
Either way i hope the video was of some interest and thankyou for your post.
Kind regards,
Ok, this thread has discussed Bassai and Jion and touched on Kushanku. I'll ignore Naihanchi here because it's covered in great depth elsewhere. But, am I only person that learned Heian Yondan as starting with open rather than closed hands? My recent video attempted to explain this but I subsequently realised that actually it doesn't matter what position your hands are in to begin with to make the bunkai that I presented work. So really I'm no further along.
Hi Jason,
We can agree to disagree re the strike, be interesting to see what others feel about that aspect.
In regards to the opening salutation from Ji'in, Jion, Jitte I believe it is just that - a salutation. That is not to say we cant get an application from it: lets face it the ambiguity of our art and its appliction practices allows us to get application from just about anything (I once did a lesson on the applications of the Macarena dance without revealing the origins of the 'deadly art'). Dill got there first with the explanations of its origins - sun and moon fist is how I remember it first being described, with origins in the Ming dynasty if I recall correctly.
As far as the application of that salutation goes it makes next to no sense to me as a strike in its presentation. It is not dyanamic in any way at all (it is completely stationary!) and does not comply to any method of power generation (no hip rotation, body locomotion or extention or flexion of the arms)...you can adjust the solo representation only so far to fit the application practice to keep the relationship between solo and application strong, the changes in the video shown are pronounced and the relationship between solo and application is weak. Also, the impacting tool is quite weak on that angle of use (irrespective of conditioning) and doesnt fulfil on objective of gaining (at the very least) a significant gain before the assault continues.
If the posture were going to have an application it would make more sense as a default position from which to work. Iain's looks good, or it could be both hands wrapped around the back of the neck in a clinch (I remember Iain using taking this position and escaping using something from Naihanchi as one of his warm up exercises a few years back), and I think Rick Young in a BCA DVD ended up in the same hand position responding to a single arm grab or push in the Kali section of the DVD, though this movement and most others for the same posture are best recorded at the end of Chinte where the hops increase the intensity of application to around a dozen applications.
My 2c!
Ben www.irkrs-uk.com Koryu Uchinadi Kenpo Jutsu Shidoin Leeds, UK
My own conclusion after a lot of thought: Useless motion is Useless. :-)
For myself I feel it depends on the kata. I don't think the original starting postures had any application, but regardless of ryu, karate kata are not originals, they have all been modified by style founders and their teachers before them probably to before the forms left China. The temple kata, jion, jitte and Jiin, have no opening application in my opinion. They use a fairly standard and traditional salute common across Chinese arts. That said it is worth noting the usefulness of a greeting that holds both hands in front of you at chest height. Perhaps the Sun Moon salute was also a medieval fence. Though I am certain it started out as a Chinese salutation I believe Bassai was altered to have application that follow the theme of the kata, the same is true of Kanku dai and Chinto. It is a judgement call for each martial artist to make, but just as Ian fears opening the door to impractical uses of kata (though I agree with Jim that kata are a holistic exercise with components other than combatives), we can also go the other way and start drilling belt tying as practice for a bear hug defense, or worse go the 75 applications for low block route and never actually practice anything because applications are infinite (the most common excuse I've heard for sticking to traditional kihon centric syllabi in the face of years of available info on applications). I, of course 'see' and accept the opening/closing hand positons can be put to practical application use however I firmly disagree that was their origonal function, proving that is another thing.


text:
Dear Ben Stein:
I have heard that you have a movie coming out – a documentary, "Expelled – about how creation scientists (a.k.a., intelligent design theorists) are suffering from violations of their free speech rights in academia.
Naturally, I have not seen the documentary yet. Consequently, I am not going to raise any objections against the movie itself. However, I have read reports about its content and if true these reports indicate that the documentary will try to portray the claim that intelligent design is not science as a violation of freedom of speech.
I also suspect that you will hear a lot of objections based on the fact that you failed to properly understand what a scientific theory is, and I have no interest in repeating what they would say.
However, the film (or at least descriptions of it) bring up the issue of freedom of speech, which is a moral issue, and that is the sphere that I write in.
I want to begin by pointing that your legacy, as a result of your work on this particular project, will be the suffering and early death of countless people who otherwise could have been saved or benefited from advances in science.
I am going to have to say something about the nature of science to demonstrate this point. Science is involved in explaining and predicting real-world events. This includes real-world events that cause real-world death and suffering. The better we are at understanding the real world, the better we will be at avoiding the death and suffering that nature would otherwise inflict on us.
Science does this by comparing theories. Theory A predicts that under conditions C, that R will result. Theory B predicts that under conditions C, S will result. Scientists then set up or observe conditions C, and see if they detect R or S. If they detect R, they go with theory A. If they detect S, they go with Theory B.
Over time, they continually revise their theories. Theory A1 predicts that under conditions C1, R1 will result. Theory A2 predicts that under conditions C1, R2 will result. (The conditions have to be the same, or there is no way to rule out theories). They then try to detect R1 or R2, and refine their theories accordingly.
It is not the case that everything that scientists like to study has an effect on human death and suffering. However, the methods that they use to study nature in general are the same methods that they apply to those things that result in death and suffering. They are continually involved in refining their theories about things that cause human death and suffering. As a result of their work, we have become extremely good at avoiding human death and suffering – at least in those cultures that are wise enough to put these scientific advances to practical use.
Now, please, try for me to put the concept of intelligent design into the description that I wrote above about how to compare scientific theories. Come up with a condition C, and a result R1 or R2, that will tell us whether or not to accept Theory A or Theory B, where Theory B is intelligent design.
You will fail.
No scientist has yet been able to present a "Theory B" that includes a God variable that produces more accurate results under Conditions C than any comparable theory that lacks a God variable.
Intelligent design tells us nothing that we can use to better understand and cure cancer or Parkinson's disease. There is nothing it can tell us that can lead to the discovery of a way of preventing malaria that would have otherwise gone undiscovered. It will not provide us with food sources that can survive droughts to that people in arid parts of the world can feed themselves. It says nothing at all useful in determining the effects of different chemicals that we are putting in our air, our water, and our food to tell us whether they are poisonous or beneficial. It tells us none of the things that science tells us - things that protects our lives, health, and well-being.
So, what these people want to do instead of providing us with the fruits of their research is to force scientist to use another criterion – other than the criterion of coming up with a theory that better predicts results under given conditions. That criterion is the criterion of force - perhaps not the force of a gun to the head, but the force of legislation and social sanctions.
I want to repeat this in case a reader might skip the point of this post. Intelligent design has no 'condition C' with an R1 and an R2 where evolution produces one prediction, intelligent design produces another, and observation confirms intelligent design. If it did, it could count as science. In the absence of scientific evidence favoring intelligent design, its proponents want to introduce something other than evidence into the scientific process - political bullying. Under this system, a theory is viable to the degree that its proponents can use lies and distortions to manipulate the public into including it in the scientific discussion. That's what the movie 'Expelled' is - an propaganda instrument for the sake of rallying people into bullying science educators into including an idea that has absolutely no merit as science.
What is going to make a scientific theory "worth considering" on this standard is not whether its defenders can provide experimental evidence, but whether its defenders can get the government and the mob to threaten scientists who reject their views.
On this system, force replaces truth as a standard of truth.
Causing Harm
Part of the problem with introducing force as a standard of truth is that you will end up promoting systems that will do more harm than good. Intelligent design itself finds its home in a context that does a particularly poor job of predicting and explaining the causes of human death and suffering, and of helping people avoid death and suffering.
A scientist says that hurricanes are too large for us to be able to control where they go. However, by taking measurements of air speed, ocean temperature, pressure, the principles of evaporation and condensation of water, and the like, we can make increasingly accurate predictions of where hurricanes will strike and how best to avoid the worst consequences. The consequences suffered in New Orleans show the price to be paid by those who ignore science.
Theocrats want to argue that we can control the severity – even the existence of hurricanes by passing laws against homosexuality, putting prayer in school, and closing down abortion clinics. They have got the fanatical belief that these variables somehow influence the nature of hurricanes.
Now, we can test these types of claims. We can come up with theories that determine relationships between the frequency and course of hurricanes based on number of abortion clinics, presence of laws against homosexual acts, and the numbers of state-sponsored school prayers. Yet, in 400 years of science, these types of relationships do not hold up. The people who advocate these types of solutions will add to the total amount of human suffering (the suffering imposed on people as a result of these laws) without doing any good whatsoever.
We see from this that the type of thinking that surrounds intelligent design will cause death and suffering in two ways. First, there is the death and suffering surrounding the laws that those who think this way would impose on others – the diseases not prevented, the poverty promoted, the prohibitions that deny people the opportunity to realize important values in the brief lives they have.
Second, this way of thinking will result in more death and suffering than there would otherwise be because it will take attention from reason-based policies that show a scientifically provable effect of reducing death and suffering. People devoted to preventing harms from natural disasters through community prayers and repressive social laws are not devoting their energy to scientific research and understanding. People who are demanding that science yield to a 'political force as proof of scientific validity' way of thinking are not allowing scientists to discover those methods that truly do the best job of predicting and explaining real-world events.
Both of these pathways lead to death and suffering, and both pathways will be opened up by the false and irresponsible claims that, at least judging from the press reports, will sit at the heart of your documentary.
Fear Mongering
A standard political move these days would be to take an argument like the one that I gave above and use it to accuse the person who made it of 'fear mongering' – of trying to manipulate people through fear. President Bush suggests that staying in Iraq will harm our national interests, and he is immediately condemned for fear-mongering by those who do not want the public to even consider (and debate) the possibility.
So, let us take a look at fear mongering, and see whether the term would apply in this case.
Imagine a room with a table in the center, and a pitcher in the middle of the room that you know contains poison. A woman enters the room and fills a glass from the pitcher. If I were to warn her that the pitcher contains poison, it would not be wrong to think that I was attempting to manipulate her behavior – attempting to warn her against drinking from the pitcher. However, it would be wrong to accuse me of fear mongering.
In order to be guilty of fear mongering, it would have to be the case that I did not believe that the pitcher contained poison or that I adopted the belief irresponsibly based more on convenience than on evidence. Furthermore, I would need some motive to prevent the woman from drinking the liquid – a motive that the woman would probably not find persuasive. So, I make false or irresponsible claims about the harmfulness of the liquid in order to prevent her from doing something I have other reasons to prevent her from doing. This would be a case of fear-mongering.
The arguments that I gave above deflect any charges of fear mongering. Science is, as a matter of fact, involved in a practice of comparing theories by determining what the theory says will happen under conditions C, making observations about those happenings, and determining which theory most accurately predicted the results. This method is particularly important when the results provide information useful in avoiding human death and suffering. The type of thinking that surrounds and permeates intelligent design is a type of thinking that rejects this method. So, the type of thinking that permeates intelligent design is a type that will interfere with our abilities to prevent death and suffering.
That particular drink is poison, and a morally responsible person would warn others not to drink it.
Freedom of Speech
As a matter of fact, people who advocate intelligent design pretty much prove that they are incompetent in matters of science, in the same way that an engineer who advocates making a bridge out of common clay proves that he is an incompetent engineer.
The fact that the common clay bridge builder is able to rally his friends to beat up on (legislatively or socially) the steel-bridge builders if they do not give their friend an engineering license is no proof that the friend's engineering is sound. People can be forced to deny reality, but reality does not yield to individual stupidity. Give the common-clay bridge builder a license, and a lot of people are going to start suffering death and injuries in the collapsing bridges that result.
His 'opinion' that clay bridges are as sound as steel bridges is not enough to prevent clay bridges from collapsing.
However, let us assume that this engineer does not want to build clay bridges. He wants to teach at an engineering college where he will inform countless students that clay bridges are structurally sound. And when the engineering department denies him a position, he goes to court, claiming that they are violating his rights to free speech. Clearly, he has a right to stand before a bunch of students and tell them that common clay bridges are structurally sound.
By your standards, such a teacher must be permitted to teach that common clay is as good as steel, because refusing to do so would be a morally impermissible violation of that individual's right to freedom of speech. In fact, if we were to make your principle a universal law, as the moral philosopher Immanual Kant contends, any attempt to regulate the quality of teaching is a violation of free speech. No individual shall be denied a position in a university based on the quality of his research - but all individuals shall be permitted to teach whatever they want to whomever they want.
As I said, the policies and principles that appear in your documentary, at least as reported in the press, are clearly policies and principles that will lead to death and suffering.
I have no illusions that this letter will change the course of events. The documentary will play. People who would have otherwise studied and applied the principles of science to discover or at least understand how certain policies can reduce death and suffering, will instead pursue policies that promote death and suffering. The institution that best seeks to explain and predict the forces of nature that kill and maim individuals will be weakened, and death and suffering that could have been prevented, will not be prevented.
Of course, you will deny any responsibility for this. Unfortunately, reality does not care about what we believe. A person's unwillingness to accept reality does not change reality; a person's unwillingness to accept responsiblity for the harm he has done to others does not prevent them from being harmed.
These effects are real. You have made the world a worse place than it would have otherwise been, and some will pay with their lives. Hopefully, they (or those who survive them) will at least have the wisdom to know who is responsible for their situation.
Note: The National Center for Science Education also exposes a number of inaccuracies in its site, Expelled Exposed.