All Saints: A Long Exile in Sydney

“What I want to tell you is so intimate, so veiled, so vague, that I fear I’ve occasionally been too precise. Forgive me.”

  Stéphane Mallarmé, April 1864

Sydney is at once a stereotype and piercingly its own, a mountain lion caught in traffic, a cumbia gliding through a hymn. It is a surfer’s sunset, a Southerly gust, a wildfire, a harbour howl, a glittering mural, a whispered hate, a body in a street. Like the men and women in John Hatton's parliamentary speeches, the city, a multicultural diary of splendor and hurt, is its own character: grisly, sinister, smooth, sly, urbane, verbose, sparse, fatalistic, celebratory, hopeful and occasionally as doomed as Nick Cave's songs peppered with bad seeds 

Ancestry® Debuts the World’s Largest Digital Archive of Searchable Online Obituaries and Death Announcements - Business Wire, October 28, 2019: “Today, Ancestry^®, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, is releasing the new Newspapers.com Obituary Collection and announcing an upgrade to its U.S. Obituary Collection, adding to what is now the world’s largest, searchable digital archive of over 262 million worldwide obituaries and death announcements, containing almost 1 billion searchable family members. “Obituaries are one of the most powerful and useful records for family tree building. They help novices get started and more advanced members unlock new clues in their family stories,” said Nat Natarajan, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Ancestry^Ⓡ. “We wanted to make it as easy and efficient as possible for members to search our millions of obituary records, but no existing tool met our standards. So our team of data scientists and engineers used AI to create our own innovative models unlike anything else currently available.” Using new sophisticated artificial intelligence technology, Ancestry updated its collection of US Obituaries by combing through millions of digital obituaries to key names, relationships and other facts so members can now easily search these records with just one click. And in the case of the Newspapers.com Obituary Collection, Ancestry data scientists developed a way to first locate individual obituaries in newspaper images among other articles and ads so the family history information could then be extracted and point users to the original newspaper page. By expanding and simplifying search capabilities, Ancestry continues to grow and give members access to the largest collections of digitized records available. The expansion of digitized obituary records allows consumers to fill in the gaps of an ancestor’s life story that may have been lost or unknown through the generations. This powerful connection can help bridge not just the past, but the present, by sparking meaningful connections and conversations among immediate family members as they learn important information about their ancestors…”

Press freedom is a necessary and important part of a democracy

 

Shu-Yi Oei (Boston College) presents Falling Short in the Data Age (Diane Ring (Boston College)) at Cornell today as part of its Faculty Workshop Series:

Humans are imperfect and do not always comply with the law, but the reality is that we are sometimes permitted to fall short of law’s requirements without consequences. This informal space to fall short and not be held accountable—which may arise from a confluence of information imperfections, resource constraints, politics, or luck—exists in addition to formal legal provisions that allow flexibility and discretion (such as tiered penalties or equitable provisions allowing leniency under specified circumstances). Fall-short spaces often pass unnoticed, but are in fact quite significant in intermediating the relationship between humans and the law.

Repressed Memories Are Back, Baby! The Stranger

Beware of Cranks

It starts like this:

The four impossible “problems of antiquity”—trisecting an angle, doubling the cube,constructing every regular polygon, and squaring the circle—are catnip for mathematical cranks. Every mathematician who has email has received letters from crackpots claiming to have solved these problems. They are so elementary to state that nonmathematicians are unable to resist. Unfortunately, some think they have succeeded—and refuse to listen to arguments that they are wrong.

Mathematics is not unique in drawing out charlatans and kooks, of course. Physicists have their perpetual-motion inventors, historians their Holocaust deniers, physicians their homeopathic medicine proponents, public health officials their anti-vaccinators, and so on. We have had hundreds of years of alchemists, flat earthers, seekers of the elixir of life, proponents of ESP, and conspiracy theorists who have doubted the moon landing and questioned the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

At a certain point in one's life, the deaths begin to accumulate, don't they?  Family members and relatives, close and distant.  Friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, classmates, neighbors.  In the public sphere, nearly every week brings news of the deaths of musicians, assorted entertainers, sports heroes, and other figures who one "grew up with."  (Ah, the vanishing rock stars, carrying away our youth!) 
One grieves to a greater or a lesser extent, but, on a purely self-interested level, one also begins to get the message.  Something along these lines:

     An autumn evening;
Without a cry,
     A crow passes.

Halloween is upon us, and with it comes the incessant smug chanting that “Halloween is simply Samhain renamed”, and other cries of a similar kind.

Folklore is often a bit rubbish.  All sorts of claims are made, of the wildest kind, and those who make them often take offence if you ask what evidence there might be for them.  The truth is that a good many customs are of very recent coinage.  I can personally attest that in England the custom of “trick and treat” was unknown in the 1960s and 70s.  I first encountered it in the mid-1980s, and it was evidently borrowed from American TV shows. 

But a claim that “Halloween is Samhain renamed” raises all sorts of questions.  Who renamed it, if so?  When?  In what country?

Of course these questions are never asked, and the answers never supplied.  This alone should make us very suspicious that an urban myth is involved.

Thinking about this led me to ask when All Saint’s Day is first attested.  After all, Halloween can hardly predate it.  This in turn led me into deep waters.  One of these was the Wikipedia page, which contained the following remarkable claim:

(1 Jan) The first day of January is when the Lamb was circumcised.
(6) The sixth is worshipped because of the theophany of Christ.
(10) Paul, the first inhabitant of the desert, occupies the 10th.
(17) Similarly, Anthony obtains the 17th.
(20) Sebastian is said to have obtained the 20th.
(21) Because of merits conspicuous to the world, Agnes is commemorated on 21st,
(22) and through martyrdom Anastasius is commemorated on the 22nd.
(1 Feb) The first day of February is just when Polycarp suffered.
(2) A nd Christ was offered to the temple on the 2nd.
(5) We celebrate Agatha’s feast day on the 5th,
(14) and also Valentine’s is assigned to the 14th.
(16) And then Juliana decorates the 16th with honour,
(24) and also, Mathias deservedly made the 24th a holy day by his virtue.
(12 Mar) Here Gregory gilds the 12th of March.
(20) Cuthbert obtained the 20th,
(21) after whom St Benedict follows on the 21st.
(25) Christ’s conception rightly enjoys the 25th.
(23 Apr) And George was taken from hence and flew to the stars,
by overcoming executioners, on the 23rd.
(24) Ecgberht, shining with due praise for his virtue,
dutifully ascended starry Olympus on the 24th.
(24) On the same day, Wilfrid the Bishop reached heaven,
rejoicing in being borne by the angelic host through the delightful heights.
(29) And Wilfrid, on the 29th, went into the heavenly court,
following him in time, but second to none in the flower of his virtues.
(1 May) James, the pious servant of the Lord, and also Philip
are worshipped with great honour on the first of May.
(12) The innocent Pancras followed on the 12th.
(18) On the 18th, Mark deserved to rest.
(5 Jun) June, on its fifth day, worships Tatberht’s soul
taken away from the world and carried through the heavens.
(5) And on this same day, Boniface the mighty warrior,
victorious over his enemies, departed to heaven through martyrdom.
(10) (June) treats Barnabas in the same way on the 10th.
(19) Gervasius suffered on the 19th,
(19) as did Protasius, and both were summoned to the eternal kingdom.
(24) And John the Baptist is to be revered on the 24th,
on this feast of his beautiful birth, in the glory of his crown.
(26) And through martyrdom, Paul rejoices on the 26th, and so does John.
(29) The teachers Peter and Paul are associated (with each other) on the 29th,
illustrious men whom the world illuminates with the greatest honour.
(25 Jul) On July 25th, a happy day,
James, the brother of John, is celebrated in the usual way.
(30) Abdon and Sennen consecrate the 30th by venerating it.
(6 Aug) Appropriately, August has its sixth day as the feast of Sixtus.
(10) On the 10th, the victor Laurence overcomes enemies.
(15) The holy Mother of God, it is agreed, has her feast on the 15th,
the day on which the Virgin was carried to the angelic hosts.
(25) St Bartholomew is put on the 25th.
(29) On the 29th, the martyr, John the Baptist, is worshipped.
(8 Sept) The Blessed Virgin Mary gave honour to the 8th of September,
the day on which she was born.
(14) Cornelius then made the 14th holy,
(14) and did Cyprian in the appropriate order.
(16) The chaste Eufemia obtains the 16th.
(21) And the delightful teacher Matthew occupies the 21st.
(22) Maurice the martyr together with thousands (of others) obtains the 22nd.
(27) Cosmas is put on the 27th, along with Damian.
(29) The dedication of the Temple of Michael makes the 29th holy.
(30) And the good translator Jerome sparkles on the day before (the 1st of Oct).
(2 Oct) Bosa, who is venerated on earth, as he rejoices on the heights of Olympus,
wishes to have the 2nd of October solemn.
(3) And it falls to the twin Ewalds to be worshipped on the 3rd.
(10) The master Paulinus rightly marks out the 10th.
(18) Luke the teacher is to be remembered on the 18th.
(28) Let us pay reverence to Simon and Jude on the 28th.
(1 Nov) As a jewel worn on the brow sparkles time and again, so November
at its beginning is resplendent with the praise given to all the saints.
(11) Martin ascended above the stars on the 11th.
(17) Thecla finished her life on the 17th.
(22) Cecilia deservedly left for heaven with praise on the 22nd.
(23) We happily venerate Clement’s feast on the 23rd.
(24) Chrysogonus in his mighty armour rejoices on the 24th.
(30) Andrew is properly venerated round the world the day before (the 1st of Dec).
(20 Dec) On the 20th (of Dec), similarly, Ignatius departed.
(21) Thomas began to ascend to heaven on the 21st.
(25) The Lord was born from the immaculate Virgin on the 25th.
(26) Through martyrdom, Stephen sought his reward on the 26th.
(27) On the 27th, the evangelist reached heaven,
the innocent John, borne by the protection of the angels.
(28) Through martyrdom, thousands of infants were overthrown on the 28th.
(31) We celebrate the Reverend Silvester, who is to be honoured throughout the
world on the day before (the 1st of Jan).