John Brown's Notes and Essays

image from article: A Galápagos tortoise . Deeper understanding of our genetic code unlocks an entirely new perspective on longevity. By Andrian Woolfson,  The Wall Street Journal , Feb. 26, 2021, 10: 12 am ET; book cover images from article  On arriving in London to seek his fortune, the rambunctious Scottish physician George Cheyne set about hobnobbing in coffee houses and taverns, where he ate “lustily” and swallowed down “much liquor.” Before long, he had ballooned to nearly 450 pounds. In a state of existential crisis and discerning that his mortality was in the balance, he published a self-help manual, “An Essay of Health and Long Life” (1724). In this bestselling treatise, he singled out tea, coffee, chocolate and snuff as being especially detrimental to the human condition . This seminal work, among others, spawned a tradition of books addressing the topic of longevity which continues to this day. While Cheyne and others contrived innumerable methods designed to mainta...

At the very least, outright nastiness seems to be a strike against a politician.  image (not from article) from By Joseph Epstein, The Wall Street Journal , Feb. 26, 2021 5:55 pm ET  Excerpt:  ‘Nice guys finish last,” said Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, whom no one ever called a nice guy. Apparently Durocher was talking about New York Giants manager Mel Ott, whose niceness “Leo the Lip” considered responsible for the Giants’ abysmal 1946 record.  But does being nice—decent, generous, kind—really reduce one’s chance for success? Does it do so in politics?  One doesn’t often think of the connection between politics and niceness. Disraeli, Gladstone, Churchill, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman—one can find many things to say about each, but niceness isn’t the first word that comes to mind. Some might even view niceness as a detraction in politics. Adlai Stevenson could never drop his modesty while pursuing presidential power. Would anyone cast a vote for p...

Radu Magdin, Modern Diplomacy , February 24, 2021; uncaptioned image from article Excerpt: [W]hy [is] social media ... becoming an emerging playground for sarcasm and open battlefield for a digital war of accusations and threats? One of founders of today’s Twiplomacy phenomenon is the former US president, Donald Trump, who proved to be, for better or worse, one of the most vigorous and captivating presences on social media among world leaders. What is striking in this is the gradual increase in the adoption of the new diplomatic style, known as the Wolf-warrior approach, which gained prominence in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and Chinese presence in the social media. This approach, which originated from a Chinese patriotic movie, in which the main mission of the warrior is fighting back foreigners, is characterized by a more aggressive and assertive style of conducting foreign policy. ...

By Paula Dobriansky, Ed Gabriel and Marisa Lino, Opinion Contributors, The Hill - 02/25/21 03:01 PM EST. [ Original article contains links. ] The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill  uncaptioned image from article As former Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition." His insight is reflected in recommendations we recently made to the State Department and U.S. Congress. We were asked by the Congress and the State Department to examine whether federally funded educational and cultural exchanges advance the foreign policy objectives of the United States. As part of our effort, we conducted over 125 interviews comprised of U.S. ambassadors and staff in embassies in more than 20 countries, as well as with exchange participants and alumni, current and former State Department leadership, officials from non-governmental organizations, Capitol Hill and other stakehol...

The professor and author hopes to expand humanities offerings on campus, even for scientists and engineers.  Andrew Delbanco, photographed at Columbia University, New York City, Oct. 7;  SEAN PRESSLEY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL   By Emily Bobrow, The Wall Street Journal ,  Dec. 18, 2020 11:49 am ET [ republished 2/27/2021 ] Andrew Delbanco recalls teaching a class about Abraham Lincoln at Columbia University several years ago and having a student challenge his regard for the Gettysburg Address. The young Black woman wondered how he could expect her to share his respect for a Civil War speech that never mentioned slavery. “That’s a really hard question,” Mr. Delbanco says.  He recalls answering her by first noting that Lincoln’s contempt for slavery was implied by his call for “a new birth of freedom.” He then explained that Lincoln was trying to rally the public behind the war before an election against a rival who was pushing peace, and “slavery wasn’t top of ...

An African country reckons with its history of selling slaves In Ouidah, Benin, a man walks past a statue of Francisco Félix de Souza, a major slave merchant who worked in the 18th and 19th centuries in what is now Benin and is considered the father of the city. The statue is covered with lights. (Jane Hahn/For The Washington Post) By  Kevin Sieff , The Washington Post ,  Jan. 29, 2018 at 3:24 p.m. EST OUIDAH, Benin — Less than a mile from what was once West Africa's biggest slave port, the departure point for more than a million people in chains, stands a statue of Francisco Félix de Souza [jb see ], a man regarded as the father of this city. There's a museum devoted to his family and a plaza in his name. Every few decades, his descendants proudly bestow his nickname — "Chacha" — on a de Souza who is appointed the clan's new patriarch. But there's one part of  de Souza's legacy  that is seldom addressed. After arriving here in the late 1700s from Brazil, ...

It’s astonishing how relentlessly Western philosophy has strained to prove we are not squirrels.   image from article, with caption:  Credit...Tim Enthoven  By Crispin Sartwell [;] Mr. Sartwell [ see ] is a professor of philosophy. The New York Times , Feb. 23, 2021, 3:00 p.m. ET If one were to read through the prefaces and first paragraphs of the canonical works of Western philosophy, one might assume the discipline’s primary question to be this: What makes us humans so much better than all the other animals? Really, it’s astonishing how relentless this theme is in the whole history of philosophy. The separation of people from, and the superiority of people to, members of other species is a good candidate for the originating idea of Western thought. And a good candidate for the worst. The Great Philosopher will, before addressing himself to the deep ethical and metaphysical questions, pause for the conventional, ground-clearing declaration: “I am definitely not a squir...