Category Archives: History

Merched Llanbadarn

gan Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320-1370)

Plygu rhag llid yr ydwyf –
pla ar holl ferched y plwyf!
am na chefais, drais drawsoed,
onaddun yr un erioed,
na morwyn fwyn ofynaig
na merch fach, na gwrach, na gwraig
py rusiant, py ddireidi,
py fethiant, na fynnant fi?

Py ddrwg i riain fewiael
yng nghoed twylldew fy nghael?
Nid oedd gywilydd iddi
yng ngwal dail fy ngweled i
ni bu amser na charwn,
ni bu mor lud hud a hwn
anad gwyr annwyd Garwy-
yn y dydd ai un a dwy
ac er hynny nid oedd nes
ym gael un no’m gelynes
ni bu Sul yn Llanbadarn
na bewn, ac eraill ai barn
a’m wyneb at y ferch goeth
a’m gwegil at Dduw gwiwgoeth.

More info on Dafydd here and here:

Dafydd ap Gwilym is recognized as one of the most innovative European poets of the Middle Ages. His refined and erudite verse introduced a unique brand of poetry into the turbulent society of Wales during the aftermath of its loss of independence. While drawing on the contemporary elements of bardic poetry, his themes of love and nature embedded in original metric forms was a revolutionary technique. Though his work is relatively obscure outside of Wales today, largely due to difficulties in translation, Dafydd is still recognized as a radical poet of great significance in his era.

Makes me long to return to Wales, or at least conjure up some native Welsh speakers to better understand.

StarTrek episode banned for mention of terrorism?

Someone asked me if I had seen the episode of Star Trek where Data (an android) says that terrorism can be successful. I had never heard of this, let alone seen the actual episode. A quick search only uncovered a basic reference to “The High Ground“:

The three different factions were clumsily but accurately shown: the misunderstood but bloodthirsty rebels, the well-intentioned but brutal government, the idealist but hypocritical Federation-slash-symbolic-America. However, it all fell apart in a worthless, soporific ending: the Starfleet officers scratched their heads, said “Gee, why don’t you just stop killing each other?” and flew off to the Never-Neverland System at Warp Nine.

I understand this episode was originally banned by the BBC since Data mentioned that terrorism did work sometimes, and listed the Irish Republican Army’s victory of 2012 among his examples.

Here are my questions, then: How does this old (1990) episode stand up to modern, post-September-Eleventh sensibilities?

Couldn’t the network just edit out the one line, or is the whole episode too controversial? Note the date. Any more data (pun not intended) out there?

BioDiesel trumps Ethanol

A new study reaches the same conclusion that I have been harping about for some time:

The first comprehensive analysis of the full life cycles of soybean biodiesel and corn grain ethanol shows that biodiesel has much less of an impact on the environment and a much higher net energy benefit than corn ethanol, but that neither can do much to meet U.S. energy demand.

Ok, the first part was what I was referring to, not the latter part.

With regard to demand, it should be noted that biodiesel can be made from numerous sources including fish oils, nut oils, vegetable oils, as well as waste oil and grease from restaurants, oils from meat and tannery plants, etc. and not just from soybeans. In other words, biodiesel can be a form of recycling products that otherwise would be put into landfill or worse.

Also, demand is often confused by a false dichotomy. We do not have to switch completely to Ethanol or Biodiesel tomorrow. In fact, mixing biodiesel using “splash blend” (e.g. just pouring a few gallons into your tank of petro-diesel) reduces the immediate need for high amounts while still allowing a significant benefit in terms of lubricity (eliminating the need for other more harmful additives like sulfur) as well as safer emissions. You will notice an immediate difference when you put only a few gallons of biodiesel into your tank as the engine gets quieter and the exhaust becomes sweeter smelling and smoke-less.

The fact is a gradual transition from 100% petroleum diesel to 90/10 or 80/20 is perfectly acceptable to the engines available today and yet still hugely beneficial to the environment. Production would thus only need to ramp up gradually rather than be a complete switch-over. Besides, we all know that bio-diesel technology for production and refinement is in the very baby stages of advancement. Remember portable computers of the 1980s? That’s what biodiesel production technology is like today. Ten years from now we should see amazing things by comparison, IF the government is clever enough to allow, or even help, the market to develop.

Back to the news, here is an even more important finding:

The study showed that both corn grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel produce more energy than is needed to grow the crops and convert them into biofuels. This finding refutes other studies claiming that these biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide. The amount of energy each returns differs greatly, however. Soybean biodiesel returns 93 percent more energy than is used to produce it, while corn grain ethanol currently provides only 25 percent more energy.

Still, the researchers caution that neither biofuel can come close to meeting the growing demand for alternatives to petroleum. Dedicating all current U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12 percent of gasoline demand and 6 percent of diesel demand. Meanwhile, global population growth and increasingly affluent societies will increase demand for corn and soybeans for food.

The authors showed that the environmental impacts of the two biofuels also differ. Soybean biodiesel produces 41 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than diesel fuel whereas corn grain ethanol produces 12 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. Soybeans have another environmental advantage over corn because they require much less nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides, which get into groundwater, streams, rivers and oceans. These agricultural chemicals pollute drinking water, and nitrogen decreases biodiversity in global ecosystems. Nitrogen fertilizer, mainly from corn, causes the ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico.

41%! That’s huge. The environmental and fuel experts may soon conclude that Ethanol, although a good additive to help reduce dependence on foreign oil in the interim years, is definitely not the right solution long term. However, that being said, many people complained that Microsoft produced poor quality products in the 1980s that were insecure and harmed consumers and yet one of its predecessors (UNIX) has only just finally started to be recognized more widely as a superior architecture. Within the next few years, virtually all computerized personal devices, let alone personal computers, will have some form of UNIX or UNIX-like operating sytem on them.

As a funny aside, I recently heard a story about an older gentleman in a beginning UNIX class who said “hey, these commands are all just like DOS” to which the instructor laughed and said “no, other way around. It’s the other way around”. And so, perhaps someday after billions of consumer money has been unwittingly invested into Ethanol in order to try and get its emissions down and energy up someone might say, “hey, this Biodiesel stuff is just like Ethanol”…

Labor Day History

This transcript from the PBS NewsHour does not mince words when it comes to the origins of today’s American holiday:

The movement for a national Labor Day had been growing for some time. In September 1892, union workers in New York City took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of the holiday. But now, protests against President Cleveland’s harsh methods made the appeasement of the nation’s workers a top political priority. In the immediate wake of the strike, legislation was rushed unanimously through both houses of Congress, and the bill arrived on President Cleveland’s desk just six days after his troops had broken the Pullman strike.

1894 was an election year. President Cleveland seized the chance at conciliation, and Labor Day was born. He was not reelected.

Hmmm, well actually 1896 was the election year, but never-mind that. Cleveland did in fact dispatch 10,000 federal troops in response to the 1894 Pullman strike.

Interesting to note, then, how the US Department of Labor portrays that period and the origins of Labor Day:

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

I find this quote ironic for two reasons.

First, it plays down the fact that conflict seems to be the reason that the holiday was born.

Second, this is quote is by one of the most influential pro-labor organizers in American history, Samuel Gompers. I think Gompers was more professing his preferred vision of how the holiday should be celebrated, rather than where it came from.

In fact, there is an important lesson in this story that might be obscured completely if we do not consider the nature of the conflict and how it was resolved. The Voice of America points out that Cleveland justified the use of federal troops against American citizens with a loophole in the law:

America’s constitution says federal troops cannot be sent to a state unless the state government asks for them. And no state government had asked for them.

President Cleveland met with his cabinet to discuss the railroad companies’ request. They finally agreed to send federal troops to Chicago — where the strike had started — to enforce federal postal laws. The troops would protect trains carrying mail.

Imagine if President Bush sent troops into New Orleans in order to ensure the mail was delivered on time? And so I suspect that the backlash against the President’s interpretation of the Constitution and the use of federal troops for domestic peacekeeping is what built public momentum and support for the laborers to a point where Labor Day was born.

Incidentally, Cleveland was also the President who put America onto the gold standard, referred to by some as the “yellow brick road”. Strange people later changed Dorothy’s footwear to ruby, while originally silver slippers were the only things that could take her back to reality. Alas, that’s a story for another day…