“The theory of the evolution of man as known to scientists, then, must find a place for the emergence of man as a possessor of language as distinct from the so-called ‘highest’ species of anthropoid apes whose varied cries are not language (which implies thought) but only very fully developed conditioned reflexes. The gap between the highest anthropoid ape and the most ‘primitive’ man has not yet been bridged from this point of view of the emergence of language in what may be called ‘homo loquens,’ which is really the same thing as the familiar ‘homo sapiens.’ The hypothesis of some kind of creative act, therefore, may still be tenable in default of a better considering the origin of language.”

– Wrenn, p.6

There’s an instructive piece of circular logic here.

Language, he states, is a function of intelligence. The two concepts are inextricably linked in his and the popular mind. Homo Sapiens is Homo Loquensand vice versa; the two terms are equivalent. Both are also the defining characteristic which separates humanity as a species from other animals. Hence, any vocalisation produced by an animal cannot be language because animals are not the possessors of intelligence. Why else does he feel the need to re-enforce his point that the vocalisations of apes cannot be language because this would imply that they think?

But Wrenn has painted himself into a corner. He is at pains throughout the book to describe himself as an educated man and a scientist who studies language. He is a supporter of the theory of evolution, which (at the time) stated that change within and between species was a slow and gradual process. Yet to bridge the evolutionary gap between ape and human, and despite himself, he must admit the possibility of supernatural intervention. He accepts that the cause may be revealed to have been a “creative act” presumably by some external party.

Surely, the application of Ockham’s Razor to the problem leads to the conclusion that our currently accepted ideas of the exclusivity of intelligence and language cannot be correct? Isn’t it simpler to admit that animals possess intelligence (however we define it) and language (however we may define that term) than to call up visions of white-bearded gentlemen in the sky manipulating us?

This brings up another issue: is the idea we label intelligence really a binary concept. Is it really either present or absent in a species? If this is the case, how can we admit degrees of intelligence – individuals may be more or less intelligent than others – within the species. The problem for me with this idea is that we have no consensus definition of intelligence. If we cannot adequately define the term, how can we measure it? If we can’t measure it, it is the purest arrogance to make such statements about the differences between the human species and the rest of the animal world.

So, are animals intelligent? Do they posses language? In what degree? Until we have workable and agreed definition of both concepts, these questions will continue to prove difficult to answer.

(Of course, there was the embarrassing and pointless flailing about with swords by fat nerds in armour under the pretext of a tourney. I’ve spoken about them before and there’s no need to repeat myself.)

When we last went to the Abbey Festival six years ago, we didn’t have to wait in line for 40 minutes just to get the chance to pay out entry. We stood there watching holders of pre-purchased tickets cruise on by and into the event. Pre-purchasing tickets is a necessity next year. The only other complaint is that there was way too much to see in the one day we had available to us.

For me, the falconry and birds of prey spectacle was the highlight. A group in Melbourne (I forget their name. Link anyone?) presented a 30 minute piece showcasing the hunting talents of the kestrel, prergrin falcon, a couple of types of owl and a wedge-tailed eagle. The birds were put through their paces chasing furry lures, snatching them mid-flight and returning to their handler for a reward. The eagle was much bigger than I expected. The woman handling it appeared to have trouble at times lifting the animal on her arm. It’s wingspan was wider than she was tall. As a friend commented afterwards, it made every pet you’ve ever had seem small and worthless. I want one!

The jousting was, as always, lots of fun but I’m not entirely sure that it is a good choice for a modern spectator sport. People are too familiar with the Hollywood myth of spearing knights off their horses. The reality is a touch more prosaic. The aim of the participants is to break or preferably shatter the soft wood top metre or so of the lance against the other guy’s shield. This year included some international competition. One of the jousters hails from La Belle France. The other international was from New Zealand. The sound of horses thundering downt he list and the crack of lances breaking is just plain good fun.

The “Interview with Vlad the Impaler” was dead interesting. Steve Weier of the Order of Dracul impersonated the great man on the eve of battle to take the Principality of Wallachia for the third time in his long and bloody career. Vlad was outlining his life and reasons for his chroniclers, the auidence. Steve’s presentation left you with the impression of a man betrayed on every side. Vlad came across as a brutal and unsympathetic man but, at least, an understandable one. I reckon this interpretation of Vlad Tepes is probably accurate and definitely much closer to the mark than the mythic version we have inherited through popular culture.

Other events which were reported to be equally as good were:

• the archery in the far field,
• the demostrations by Prima Spada School of Fence,
• the seminar on spear fighting by the New Varangian Guard,
• the cannon firing by Historia Germanica and
• the medieval football game.

The archery and football were public participation events. There was also a bunch of hands-on workshops and activities in the encampments. More of this type of event is needed. Public participation spurs an interest history – something now terribly lacking.

I’ll be there next year without a doubt. If there’s any chance of it being as big as it was this year, I’ll be pre-purchasing a two day ticket.

The Italians turned away from a cutting style of swordplay way back in the days when two-handed (or hand-and-a-half) longswords were the common civilian and military weapon. The new style they adopted focussed on keeping steel between you and your opponents and the pointy bit always aimed at them. They soon realised that a lighter weapon was quicker and more maneuveurable than a longsword yet retained the ability to keep the point on-line, as we say. Over about a century, swords became thinner and lighter and the techniques they used changed to match and take advantage of the new weaponry. Gone were the large movements involved in swinging a 40+ inch blade with both hands in favour of a technique which relies on much quicker thrusts, geomoetry and blade angulation.

(But don’t think I’m going to get drawn into the stupid, stupid debate about cutting versus thrusting weapons.)

Here are the videos. They run 25 minutes in total.

Baby's First Photo

Kathi and I are having another baby. The bub is due to arrive around mid-January 2011. It’s too early to know whether it’s a boy or a girl.

Pauses for audience applause.

We’re excited and anxious like other expectant parents and, since our twin girls Charlotte and Marianne died 18 months ago, completely terrified. But this post isn’t about our baby, our missing angels or our co-mingled joy and terror. There are other parents in the same situation – having a baby after a stillbirth or neo-natal death – who need to know that they are not alone.

We’re having a baby and we’re thinking about bub’s first steps, first words, decorating the baby’s room, and all the other common dreams which pass through expectant parents’ heads. I don’t want anyone to think that we’re not experiencing that happiness which only new parents can feel. But our situation is different to the average. This is our third child but hopefully the first we bring home.

Charlotte Elizabeth and Marianne Patricia were born premature a little more than 18 months ago and lived for 11 and 12 days respectively. They were taken from us after a battle, fought for an amazing length of time for such little people, against Serratia Marcescans. Kathi held Charlotte in her arms when we turned off her life support. The next day it was my turn to hold to Marianne as she died. We cremated them together in the one tiny coffin and keep their ashes at home with us.

Charlotte Elizabeth - Day 3

Marianne Patricia - Day 3

These events colour our current experience in several ways.

First, we’re grieving a-fresh the loss of Charlotte and Marianne. Going through this pregnancy revives the memories and feelings we went through two years ago. They are again as new and as raw as they were then. The equilibrium we’ve struggled to achieve in the last 18 months has been completely upturned. We’re sure we’ll find a new equilibrium in time.

This is perfectly normal.

Second, we’re terrified of this baby dying as well, either in utero or shortly after. We know now only too well that there is no such thing as a safe or a sure pregnancy. Even afterwards, if/when we bring baby home, nothing is guaranteed. Doctors, nurses, counsellors quote statistics to us but they do not re-assure. A 99% chance of success means nothing because that implies a 1% chance of failure. When you’ve been part of the 1%, all of those little numbers seem incredibly large and pre-destined to occur.

This is perfectly normal.

Third, we are so fucking angry. We’re still and will forever remain angry about the deaths of Charlotte and Marianne. (To the god/goddess/demon/spirit/etc who killed my girls, I will find you and fuck you up. Be warned.) We’re angry that we cannot enjoy the growth milestones of our developing bub. Each monthly or fortnightly ultrasound or other test allows us a brief sigh of relief knowing that our bub still lives. Then the fear creeps in again. The happy Hollywood image of the pregnant couple lying in a field in the sun wondering what their child will become is all but unknown to us. More often than not, we are cowering in the dark imagining how our happiness will be shattered this time around.

This is perfectly normal.

To anyone who wants to comment with platitudes about trusting that all will be well, about finding strength to enjoy this precious time, about the miracles of modern medicine,  just don’t. You don’t understand and I sincerely hope you never do. Please keep your advice to yourself unless you have a bodycount of your own. Support, however, is very welcome – we need as much of it as we can get.

To anyone reading this who has buried a child and expecting another, take some solace from knowing that you are not alone. Please get in touch if you need to talk to someone who knows the score. Your feelings may be different from ours. Your thoughts are likely to be equally as wacky as ours yet still perfectly sane.

Here’s some books which may help.

• Pregnancy After Loss: A Guide to Pregnancy After a Miscarriage, Stillbirth or Infant Death
• Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Infant Loss
• Journeys: Stories of Pregnancy After Loss
• Stolen Angels: 25 Stories of Hope After Pregnancy or Infant Loss

Prepositions and Conjuctions

Check out the Les Conjonctions lesson on french.about.com.

• autant : en même quantité, au même degré, egalement, as much, as many, in proportion (d’autant)
• cependant : pendant ce temps, il signifie plus fréquemment néanmoins ou toutefois, while, meanwhile, nevertheless
• d’ailleurs : d’autre part, en outre, more over, besides
• jadis : il y a longtemps, formerly, long ago
• pourtant : malgré cela, néanmoins, yet, nevertheless, still, though
• tandis que : pendant que, au lieu que, while

Verbs

• avouer : convenir, confesser, reconnaître que l’on est coupable d’une faute, to confess, to admit
• demeurer : rester, avoir sa demeure, to live, to abide, to stay, to reside, to remain
• dérouler : développer ce qui était roulé, etendre peu à peu, to unroll, to unfold
• eclater : faire explosion, se briser par éclats, briller, produire un bruit éclatant, se manifester soudainement, to burst, to explode, to break out (se briser), to splinter (se fragmenter)
• (s’)écrouler : tomber, s’abattre, to collapse, to break down
• (s’)éloigner : mettre loin, aller loin, se séparer, to remove, to put off, to discard, to move away
• (s’)empêcher : mettre obstacle à, gêner l’exercise de, s’abstenir de, se retenir de, to prevent, to hinder, to impede, to preclude
• epaissir : rendre plus épais, devenir plus épais, to thicken, to deepen
• épargner : employer avec modération, supprimer, faire l’écomonie de, traiter avec indulgence, dispenser de, to save, to economise, to spare
• parvenir : arriver à destination, atteindre un but, to arrive, to reach, to get to, to come to, to attain

Adjectives and Adverbs

• davantage : plus, plus longtemps, more
• éteint : qui n’existe plus, qui ne brule plus, sans eclat, extinguished, extinct, (figurative) dull

Expressions

• à peine : presque pas, hardly
• autant dire que : you might well say that
• autant que : as much as
• d’autant plus : all the more
• d’autant mieux : all the better

The first people I encountered on the day was Contact Front, the Vietnam re-enactment group, walking through around the site in skirmish line in silence and communicating only by hand signals. This was actually quite confronting and I know there’s some debate over whether it’s too soon after the event for such a group.

Members of the Ludi Gladiatorii Romani were practicing knife fighting, under instructions and with dummy weapons, in their camp enclosure. This was interesting and I would have liked to have chatted with these guys to find out more about them but there was no one available who was not fighting.

In the main arena, any number of supposedly medieval groups in period costume flailed away at each other with swords in a thoroughly pointless display of stupidity. These guys know nothing of period fencing and many cannot even hold their weapons effectively. They are nothing more than drinking clubs who wear funny clothes.

Once this dross was cleared away, the Australian Napoleonic Association and similar groups gave a demonstration of fire and movement early nineteenth century style. The were using black powder muskets and, even though there was less than a dozen soldiers per side, the field was soon obscured by smoke as they by turns advanced or retreated in line and good order. Surprisingly, the French lost.

They were followed by Prima Spada School of Fence performing a skit about dueling in the Renaissance, starting with a insult given (almost) unintentionally in the street and proceeding to naked blades at dawn. Then they got silly and it dissolved into an all-out brawl.

The question I kept asking myself as I toured the site, the groups and watched the various events is what do these people want visitors to get out of their display. For the most part, I had trouble understanding or discovering what the lesson each group or display intended to me to learn.

There seems to be no value proposition presented to the audience other than “oh, look at the pretty costumes and the people acting silly.” There is nothing to draw people in and get them interested in history. The whole event is entire passive and a spectator sport. It’s just too easy to change channels and do something else. In short, everyone seemed happy just to say “we’re re-enactors and we’re here to stay” – like a pride march for history nerds.

And there’s the rub. From the apparent age of the re-enactors, they’re not here to stay for very long. Unless something is done to introduce new people into the fold, the entire re-enactment movement is liable to die a slow, withering death.

In order to avoid this fate, something needs to be done to, for instance, convert the public who attend History Alive and other events into paid up members of all groups which take their historical fancies. There needs to be more engagement with the public. There needs to be a program of getting the public involved, of teaching them about history, and of explaining to them what we find so cool about the past. We need to turn them into us.

Zombie Myths of Australian Military History

Title: Zombie Myths of Australian Military History
Author: Craig Stockings (editor)
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: University of New South Wales Press (2010)
Language: English

A fascinating look at the difference between received ideas and facts. It covers ten major historical myths across 200 years from the original settlement of the country by Europeans to our recent involvements in Southeast Asia and East Timor. It strives to show the reasons or circumstances which created and have sustained each zombie myth until it gained a life of it own and needs no more prompting. In many cases, the purpose for which the myth was created had to do with legal or propaganda value at the time.

Without giving too much away, here’s some highlights to whet your appetites:

The first chapter debunks the idea that there was no organised or violent resistance to colonisation from the indigenous peoples. There was. According to these accounts from the early days of Sydney, they were quite effective at instigating such a campaign of terror and resistance that significant military resources were devoted to ‘the problem.’ The issue for the government was that in admitting they were fighting a war, they admitted that the Aboriginal people held sovereignty over their land – denying the legal fiction of ‘terra nullius’ which allowed for colonisation in the first place.

The conversion of Breaker Morant from a criminal who murdered his prisoners in the Boer War to a hero and Australian legend paralleling Ned Kelly is largely the result of the actions of one disgruntled ex-Digger.

Several popular stories about World War One and Two are discussed including the the campaigns in Gallipoli and the Hindenberg Line, the sinking of the Sydney and Australian success in the Western Desert.

One of the best chapters looks at the propaganda campaign centring the imminent invasion of the country by Japan in 1942-3. Put simply, it was a fear campaign to galvanise the country into action and into a war economy. Japan had no plans to invade and the Australian (and US) governments knew this from about May 1942. This chapter is perhaps the best in the book and draws extensively on the Australian parliamentary record and captured Japanese documents to make its case. It details an amazing story from the initial fear of invasion through the intelligence and evidence collection operations until the realisation that the fear was unfounded and subsequent propaganda campaign.

The post world war chapters are fascinating and are bound to be controversial as they track our involvement in Southeast Asia in Vietnam and more recently in East Timor. Among the points of note are that as a country we fight wars for our own ends and to satisfy the demands of internal politics rather than being pushed into them by any perceived duty to external powers, that Vietnam was a war no different to any others we’ve fought and that our returning soldiers were treated no differently to those of previous wars.

Only in one chapter did I catch the faint sound of an axe grinding in the background and that did little to spoil my enjoyment of the book as a whole. This is a fascinating and well-research work which should be on the bookshelf of everyone with an interest in Australian history. (All citizens of this wide brown land, I’m looking at you.)

Gone was the dual English/French repetition of every statement by the the hosts (although the scoring remains bilingual). Most countries sang in English and those who did not sang in their native lingo. The only real clanger was Latvia whose entry only served to prove that Google translator is not foolproof:

“What for how we live? Only Mr God knows why.”

However, there was a visible difference between those who spoke English comfortably and those for whom it is definitely a secondary – as opposed to a second – language. In general, the further west the competitor’s country, the greater their command of the language and consequently the further east the country the less comfortable the competitor appeared to be with the language.

I suspect that the degree of facility with English displayed by a country’s entrants reflects the amount of trade the country maintains with the anglophone world – by which I mean the United States. Perhaps it is the influence of NATO membership.

Cultural Imperialism at Work

One feature of the colloquial English spoken was that it is very American. The expressions used, while common everywhere, have their origins in the US and, more to the point, on US television. As disturbing as this is in itself, it shows the degree to which that which passes for culture in the US has penetrated the continent of true western culture. I know from personal experience that I can always find topics of conversation with foreign language speakers in foreign languages by talking about ER, Supernatural and CSI.

To achieve this position of prominence, all it took was the gun-boat diplomacy of the British Empire in the nineteenth century, two world wars and 50 years if the threat of nuclear annihilation. So simple, anyone could do it.

I’m also not quite sure why I’m complaining about this. To my mind, as an overly educated yobbo, English is without doubt the greatest and best language in the universe and represents the highest of humanity’s achievement since the invention of fire. I guess I fear the loss of diversity. Learning other languages opens up whole new vistas on reality, different ways of looking at the world, and alternative point of view on both the common and the extraordinary. Living in a world of one language or even of a single predominant language is a terrifyingly shallow prospect.

Previous linguae francae include:

• French for diplomacy in the seventeenth century and in the realms of literature and culture off and on since the 1400s;
• Italian and German vied for dominance in the political sphere during the Holy Roman Empire (say AD 1200-1600);
• French, or more accurately Frankish (the original lingua franca) from about AD 700-1100;
• Medieval or Neo-Latin complicates this picture by remaining the language of the Church, science and education from the end of the Roman Empire until even Hungary dropped it as an official language in 1867;
• Greek and after it Latin from about the fifth century BC until the fifth century AD.

Alternative linguae francae of today include:

• Russian throughout much of Central Asia;
• Spanish in the Americas;
• Arabic is the common language of the Middle East;
• Portuguese, Italian and French in different parts of Africa;
• Italian is in the process of replacing Latin as the official language of the Vatican.

Only recently has Mandarin Chinese replaced Cantonese as the language of modern China and the Chinese ex-pat communities due to that country’s continued economic rise to power. Mandarin or Standard Chinese is my pick for the next lingua franca after the eventual demise from this position of English sometime in the far, far future.

Since they sit outside of WordPress, how then to use WordPress.com Stats to track visits to them? In this post, I’ll explain what I did to achieve this goal in two simple steps.

I’m pretty much going to re-hash Jeffrey D Allen‘s post on the same subject. His post dealt specifically with tracking visits to the WordPress-generated category pages. I’m looking at tracking static HTML pages (as opposed to WordPress pages).

WordPress.com Stats is a simply plugin which tracks all the info about visitors to that I’m interested in. It’s neither fancy nor comprehensive but what it does, it does well. The simplest explanation of what it does is that each time a visitor hits a page on your site, it runs a piece of javascript code which takes the details of the visit and tallies them with details of other visits. So, the solution to the problem is to add this piece of javascript to each static HTML page outside of WordPress that I wanted to track.

Create a Fake Pages

First, create fake pages within WordPress against which all the stats will be logged. This is a necessary evil. WordPress Stats cannot actually track visits to pages outside of WordPress so we trick it.  Fortunately, in my case, I can bundle all the legacy static HTML pages into half a dozen different categories and track hit on each category rather than on individual pages.

I suggest bundling less important pages into categories in this way and creating individual fake pages for any more important static HTML pages you want to track.

To do this, create a WordPress page and mark it as private. In this way, visitors to your site will never see it. The vital piece of information generated by this is the internal ID number of the page. You can find this by viewing the pages collection in the dashboard. Hover over the page title and the number appears in the status bar as something like ‘?p=921′. Note this down.

Edit the HTML Pages

The second step is the most tedious – editing the HTML pages to add the javascript code. On each page your want to monitor, add this code:

<script src="http://stats.wordpress.com/e-201018.js" type="text/javascript">
<script type="text/javascript">
st_go({blog:'yourBlogID',v:'ext',post: 'yourPageID'});
var load_cmc = function(){linktracker_init(yourBlogID, yourPageid,2);};
if ( typeof addLoadEvent != 'undefined' ) addLoadEvent(load_cmc);
else load_cmc();
</script>

Make sure that you replace yourBlogID with the ID of your blog which can be found by looking at the source code of any page on your blog (view source) and finding the code above at the bottom of the page.

Make sure you replace yourPageID with the ID of the WordPress fake page you created in step one.

That’s it. You are ready to go. Visits a couple of your static HTML pages then check that they appear in the stats.

Note: this code does not appear when you are logged in to your blog so that your visits don’t confuse the stats.

1. rational,
2. willing to solve the problem.

There’s a lot of really good information about on how to handle interpersonal or organisational conflict. You should learn at least the fundamentals in order to better succeed at whatever you turn your hand to. But there are certain triggers which should warn you that the other party won’t come to the party, as it were, whether due to entrenched belief, sheer bloody-mindedness or some manner of brain dysfunction, whether organic or drug-induced. In these cases, you will not be able to hold any kind of adult discussion about the problem. The best you can hope for is to get out of the situation with as little pain as possible.

So, look for these triggers, or ones that are similar, and act appropriately.

Trigger 1: Intentionally Malicious

“I hope your next baby lives. Otherwise you’ll oblige your family to attend another funeral not because they like you but just to be polite.”

There is no win situation for you here. There is no way to discuss anything rationally with this person. Surely, it is impossible that any rational human being can seriously think like this. The only logical purpose for saying something like this is to further the target’s internal suffering.

Appropriate Response: Cut all contact. No one has to put up with this.

Trigger 2: Lack of Basic Intelligence

“It’s been months since you children died. Why aren’t you over it by now?”

See the response to Trigger 1. These people are so devoid of basic human feeling or so emotionally stunted that there is point treating them as fellow human beings. There is simply no way you can get through to them on any level, let alone make them understand in even the remotest or most tangential manner what a world-shattering event you have been through.

Appropriate Response: Cut all contact. No one has to put up with this.

Trigger 3: Stunted Emotional Growth

“I had no problem getting pregnant with all of my children. What’s wrong with you that you can’t”

“You need to pray that god forgives your sins. Only then will he allow you to have a baby.”

See the response to Triggers 1 and 2. How any one can imagine that this is an appropriate comment (even if one believed it) is completely beyond comprehension. The idea that there may be a medical cause to your fertility problems is completely beyond them regardless of how many times you explain it. Although any persons who could say this deserves sympathy for leading such shallow and blighted lives, there is nothing to be gained from having any dealings with them.

Appropriate Response: Cut all contact. No one has to put up with this.

Trigger 4: Unwilling to Deal with Reality

“Stop writing about your grief on bereavement support forums. It’s so rude to talk about things which should be kept private.”

This one is much trickier to handle and requires fine judgement to know exactly which way to jump. For instance, you may think of using this as an opening into a discussion about the healing which can be achieved by externalising emotions and working through them. You may be able to discuss how important it is to know that others face the same difficulties as you and that you are not alone. You may be able to point out that by sharing your feelings you are providing the same service to others.

However, if you encounter this in combination with other triggers or come to realise that any education campaign you embark upon is going nowhere, you can be certain that you can never have an adult relationship with this person. These persons are so incredibly selfish that they cannot even admit that not all events in the world either a) revolve about them or b) match their tenuous grasp on reality.

Appropriate Response: Cut all contact. You don’t need the hassle.

Trigger 5: Just Plain Childish

“You said something bad about me. I’m going to tell everyone what you said so that they’ll all hate you too.”

Again, there is no win situation here. Although you may get some fleeting enjoyment from screaming “grow up, you dumb fuck!” down the phone, resists the urge. It only plays to their level. Most people grew out of this behaviour about the same time they grew out of kindergarten. This childish attitude is so staggering and so entrenched that nothing you can do will change it. Engaging with this type of grown-up baby sucks you inextricably into the black hole of their crazy.

Appropriate Response: Cut all contact. You don’t need the hassle.

While this list of triggers is not exhaustive, it should give you a fairly clear idea of the sorts of behaviours which signal a losing proposition for you. If two or more decades of living has failed to have any impact on them, what chances do you have? Realise that there is nothing you can do or say which can turn these sad and broken individuals into valid human beings and move on.

What triggers are missing from this list? Feel free to add them as comments.