Contrariwise, I had some problems with this post at Open Culture, “40,000-Year-Old Symbols Found in Caves Worldwide May Be the Earliest Written Language”:

We may take it for granted that the earliest writing systems developed with the Sumerians around 3400 B.C.E. The archaeological evidence so far supports the theory. But it may also be possible that the earliest writing systems predate 5000-year-old cuneiform tablets by several thousand years. And what’s more, it may be possible, suggests paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger, that those prehistoric forms of writing, which include the earliest known hashtag marks, consisted of symbols nearly as universal as emoji.

The study of symbols carved into cave walls all over the world—including penniforms (feather shapes), claviforms (key shapes), and hand stencils—could eventually push us to “abandon the powerful narrative,” writes Frank Jacobs at Big Think, “of history as total darkness until the Sumerians flip the switch.” Though the symbols may never be truly decipherable, their purposes obscured by thousands of years of separation in time, they clearly show humans “undimming the light many millennia earlier.”

The symbols may be communication, they may store knowledge, and there may be commonalities among such inscriptions worldwide but these abstract signs and geometric symbols are emphatically not “written language”.

The commonality and wide distribution can be explained as what’s easy to do using stone implements and commonality in human experience and perception. I know of no evidence indicating that the drawings are representations of spoken language or intended to communicate abstract ideas.

That is, after all, how “language” differs from signing—sounds put together in novel ways and with a grammar to communicate ideas including abstract ideas as opposed to imitating animal calls, sounds, etc. They may be “proto-writing” as old inscriptions in China, Europe, and Africa are sometimes characterized but they aren’t “written language”. That was first developed, probably from one of more of these proto-writing systems, around 6,000 years ago give or take.

I was delighted with this post at The Harvard Gazette by Alvin Powell:

Human history is rife with contentions about the purity (and superiority) of the bloodlines of one group over another and claims over ancestral homelands.

More than a decade of work on ancient human DNA has upended it all.

Instead, Harvard geneticist David Reich said on Monday, increasingly sophisticated analysis of genetic material made possible by technological advances shows that virtually everyone came from somewhere else, and everyone’s genetic background shows a mix from different waves of migration that washed over the globe.

since it’s what I’ve been saying for decades. Here are some examples:

In Africa, studies have shown that different tribal and language groups have moved over time, displacing others and mixing genetically. Cameroon, an area associated with Bantu languages, for example, was occupied by an entirely different people 3,000 to 8,000 years ago, Reich said.

and

But ancient DNA doesn’t rule out culture change occurring without mixing. Carthaginians were long associated with sea-faring Phoenicians, but ancient DNA shows them more closely related to the Greeks with whom they competed economically.

“The big perspective change from ancient DNA study is that people living today are almost never the descendants of the people in the same place thousands of years before,” Reich said. “Human movements have occurred at multiple timescales, often disruptive to the populations that experience them, and these patterns were not possible to predict and anticipate without direct data.”

Another example is the Navaho and Apache in the American Southwest who originated in the Northwest in historic times. My own Swiss ancestors include in their own DNA inheritances from Near Eastern farmers, West Asian herders, and Western hunter-gatherers from more than 10,000 years ago.

The article also provides a little support for my belief that the Neanderthal and Denisovans are actually subspecies of Homo sapiens rather than distinct species.

The topic du jour on the “talking heads” programs today seems to be the “canceling” of Jimmy Kimmel. There’s also an enormous amount of conflation of freedom of speech with a right to a platform for one’s speech.

Has President Trump unwittingly managed to create a consensus for a restoration of the “Fairness Doctrine”? I.e “equal time”? It certainly sounds like that to me.

If I’m not mistaken the “Fairness Doctrine” was repealed in 1987. I thought its repeal was a bad idea—another example of how rarely I get what I want in terms of public policy.

The source of the information used in the graph above is USCIS (one link per year). I’ve posted on the subject of H-1B visas in the past. I don’t think much of the president imposing a $100K per visa fee on new H-1B visas. I do think that the Congress should act to impose such a fee and should consider making it apply to existing H-1B visas.

As the graph above illustrates this is about information technology. Particularly in information technology the evidence that the U. S. actually needs to import more workers isn’t particularly strong. Wages have been flat in the sector for more than a decade—you’d expect them to be rising if there were such a demand.

Furthermore, there are numerous anecdotes of U. S. IT workers being required to train their own replacements. If I’m not mistaken, a regular commenter here suffered just that fate.

That doesn’t even address the very high unemployment rate among U. S. IT workers at present, the many IT workers presently doing something else, or underemployment among IT workers.

The purpose of the H-1B program is to allow companies to get the workers they need not to boost their stock prices by pushing wages down. I’m open to alternatives other than imposing a $100K fee on H-1B visas but we need to do something about what’s actually happening. Then we should turn our attention to offshore outsourcing.

At The Hill communications prof Jeffrey M. McCall observes:

Illinois governor and obvious presidential candidate JB Pritzker said that ABC’s decision was “an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.” Schumer, Pritzker and the many other supposed champions of free speech, of course, blame President Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr for Kimmel’s fate, both of whom have publicly railed against the late-night “comedian.”

But Kimmel’s show wasn’t suspended because of Trump, Carr or the Big Bad Wolf. It was suspended because ABC and parent company Disney are in the business of generating audiences and advertising revenue.

The corporate bigshots have decided that Kimmel can no longer deliver viewers and generate commercial dollars to their satisfaction. The nonsensical comment Kimmel made about Kirk was likely one straw too many even for Disney’s broad corporate shoulders.

and

If ABC were so afraid of Trump and Carr, it would have long ago cancelled “The View,” another production of ABC News. The gabbers on that show over the years have said things just as, or perhaps even more, bizarre than Kimmel, yet ABC keeps airing that program, presumably because it can generate an audience and revenue. ABC has also kept George Stephanopoulos in his news anchor chair, even though Trump would love to see him booted, suing ABC and collecting a settlement because of George’s comments.

The “gender gap” probably provides some insurance for “The View”. He concludes:

Trump and the FCC basically have no levers to pull that would sanction ABC/Disney on content issues that Kimmel or anybody else at ABC might present. And if, by some long shot, the FCC did sanction ABC/Disney over content, it is a slam dunk that SCOTUS would side with the network. The justices know that the First Amendment allows for a wide range of crazy speech, even for guys like Kimmel, who want to mislead and disrupt.

That should sound hauntingly familiar since its quite similar to what I wrote here yesterday.

Interestingly, some of my show biz connections are telling me that Jimmy Kimmel jumped rather than being pushed. He knew he was on the way out and so decided to do so his own way—with a bang.

Inspired by Stephen Taylor’s post on U. S. political violence but not entirely satisfied with either its framing or analysis, I decided to do my own. The graph above is the outcome. I think that graphs provide a better understanding of trends than tables or written descriptions.

The definition of “right-wing” incidents are those motivated by “white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies” while “left-wing” incident are those motivated by “black nationalism, anti-police sentiment, communism, socialism, animal rights, environmentalism, anti-white ideologies, and other left-wing ideologies”.

I think that my dissatisfaction with that framing should be pretty obvious. Start with the fact that “right” and “left” as a means of characterizing political views is 200 years old now, stemming from seating in the post-revolutionary French legislature. Add that I find characterizing “black nationalism” as left while “white supremacy” is right is not only distasteful but, like a fan dancer’s fan, conceals as much as reveals. I’ve added a separate line for antisemitic violence. It’s certainly violence. Is it left violence or right? Sometimes left and sometimes right?

My sources are the ADL, CSIS, and Washington Post.

What I see is that incidents of political violence both “left” and “right” have quadrupled over the last 20 years while incidents of antisemitic violence have quadrupled in the last five years. That last began before Hamas’s 10/7 attack or Israel’s war against Gaza so they cannot be deemed causal. Whether “left”, “right”, or neither those are disturbing increases over relatively short periods. I don’t believe our society can tolerate a continuing trend of that sort.

I think that Marc Thiessen’s latest Washington Post column is worth considering:

The outpouring of hatred on the left has been shocking, with people taking sick joy in his death. For conservatives, the vile response to the killing of an activist who respectfully engaged those with whom he disagreed has been eye-opening: Many on the left don’t simply disagree; they support violence against those they disagree with.

That is not hyperbole. A YouGov poll conducted in the wake of Kirk’s killing asked Americans: “Do you generally consider it to be acceptable or unacceptable for a person to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose?” Ninety-one percent of conservatives said it was “always or usually” not acceptable, as did 90 percent of those who are “very conservative.” But only 56 percent of those who are “very liberal” and 73 percent of liberals said celebrating the death of someone with whom they disagreed was unacceptable.

It gets worse. YouGov asked: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?” Eighty-three percent of conservatives and 88 percent of those who are very conservative said political violence is never justified. That is, in my opinion, lower than it should be. But on the left? Only 68 percent of liberals, and 55 percent of those who are “very liberal,” said political violence was never justified. Seventeen percent of the former and 25 percent of the latter said it was sometimes justified — shockingly high numbers.

This poll is not an outlier. A survey from Rutgers University found that 56 percent of left-of-center respondents said the murder of President Donald Trump would be at least partially justified, while 50 percent said killing Elon Musk could be justified.

As I’ve been saying for some time, both Republicans and Democrats have serious problems but the problems are not symmetrical. In my opinion 10% of your supporters thinking that violence against your political opponents is bad. Anything approaching a majority thinking that violence against your political opponents as is the case with Democrats is not tolerable.

Mr. Thiessen continues:

These numbers should be a wake-up call. The acceptance, and even celebration, of political violence on the left is a serious problem for our democracy. And it is the responsibility of those on the left who don’t share that belief to take the lead in fighting this worrisome trend. To his credit, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) released a video in which he praised Charlie Kirk for engaging the other side, and declared that “every American, no matter what one’s political point-of-view may be, must condemn all forms of political violence.”

Many on the left like to condemn Trump’s rhetoric but conveniently overlook the dehumanizing rhetoric of their own leaders. President Joe Biden came to office promising to put his “whole soul” into “bringing America together.” Instead, he called Trump supporters “garbage,” declared that Republicans in Congress supported “Jim Crow 2.0” and compared them to racists and traitors such as Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Vice President Kamala Harris said she agreed Trump is a fascist and warned that his election would threaten our very democracy.

When politicians engage in this kind of rhetoric, they are saying that the other side is not simply wrong but evil. And when you declare someone is evil, that provides a justification for violence.

Such rhetoric from Democrats long predates Trump. During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to Nazis, saying they wanted to “round [illegal immigrants] up” and put them in “boxcars.” Four years earlier, a super PAC supporting President Barack Obama ran ads showing Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over the side of a cliff. In 2008, Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia) compared GOP presidential nominee John McCain to segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace. In 2000, the NAACP spent millions on ugly ads accusing George W. Bush of moral equivalence with white supremacists who brutally lynched James Byrd in 1998.

Many on the left will respond: What about Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence”? Fair enough. The Capitol riot was a disgrace. But what happened that day notwithstanding, support for political violence on the right is in the single digits. On the left, it is substantial.

The only solution I can come up with is for Democratic leaders to stand up and address their own supporters, with a simple message. Violence against those with whom we disagree is not justified. We don’t do that.

Will the (sort of NATO-like) mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan announced recently make any difference? What are its implications?

I see it as a sort of “shot across the bow” to Iran. Maybe to Israel, too, if Saudi Arabia has anything to fear from Israel which seems kind of dubious to me. Does it have other implications?

The editors of the Washington Post are outraged at ABC’s network-wide preemption of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night program:

Enter FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who sees things differently. On Wednesday, he suggested on a podcast that ABC affiliates that air Kimmel might lose their FCC licenses. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Hours later, Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely.

This government coercion violates the First Amendment. The government can’t block speech because it’s politically offensive. Nor can it do an end run around that prohibition by enlisting third parties to do the dirty work. You might think the FCC is a wholesale exception to this rule, given that it regulates broadcast television. You’d be incorrect. “The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest,’” noted an expert in 2019 — a fellow by the name of Brendan Carr.

The Trump administration didn’t invent the strategy of indirect censorship backed by regulatory threats. The Biden administration’s pressuring of social media companies to remove content was the subject of a lawsuit by state leaders in Missouri and Louisiana that reached the Supreme Court last year.

While the Biden administration used veiled threats against its corporate targets to maintain plausible deniability, Carr wielded the government’s coercive power openly. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” doesn’t leave much ambiguity. Carr is pledging to keep targeting television offerings he doesn’t consider in the “public interest,” but who will decide what that is? Carr, of course. The late-night shows are already unfunny; imagine how bad they’ll be with bureaucrats dictating content.

It was none other than Charlie Kirk who in a 2024 Supreme Court brief blasted the Biden administration’s use of “mammoth companies” to engage in censorship that “the Government could not do directly.” Now, Kirk’s death is an occasion for the Trump administration to do just that. Conservatives cheering the creation of novel censorship methods by the regulatory state would do well to consider what it will mean for them the next time Republicans lose the presidency.

I agree with the editors that Mr. Carr spoke improperly, imprudently, and, possibly, illegally. He should not have threatened ABC.

However, I also think that the editors missed a few things in their timeline. Within hours of Mr. Kimmel’s comments Nexstar, a major ABC affiliate group, announced that it was permanently preempting Mr. Kimmel’s program over the remarks. Shortly thereafter the Sinclair Group, another major ABC affiliate group announced, that it was doing the same. Then came Mr. Carr’s remarks.

My take is a little different from the editors’. I think that late night broadcast talk shows are a dying form. They’re not making money and losing viewership. There no real way to profitability for them. Disney/ABC was looking for an excuse to cancel Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Mr. Kimmel gave them one.

I also think that the editors are complaining about the wrong things at the wrong time. Mr. Kirk touched on it in his comment, cited by the editors. The graver threat to freedom of speech and of the press is the ownership of media outlets by large, publicly-held companies. Like it or not they are creatures of the government to a significantly greater degree than small, closely private-held companies are. And consolidation in media outlets has greatly accelerated in the last 20 years.

The editors should have started complaining 40 years ago when deregulation under Ronald Reagan relaxed ownership limits. Or when the “supergroups” began to emerge at the opening of this century, using “sidecar agreements” (LMAs/JSAs) to skirt FCC rules. The editors should know that. The Washington Post is different from the New York Times in that it’s not owned by a publicly-held company.