Named for: King Mswati (formerly Swaziland, also KaNgwane after King Ngwane)
Capital: Mbabane (executive); Lobamba (legislative) interesting that they differ
Long/Lat: 26.3 S/31.3E, 19 hours/ 10,000 miles East of Castro Valley
Population: 1.3 million, 20x Castro Valley, concentrated in cities.
Size: 6700 sq mi, 370 CVs
Avg temp in April: 74 F/21 C, but 50 F at night. Multiple climates.
Median household income: $2,800, very poor
Ethnicity: 84% Swazi/10% Zulu
Main industries: Sugar, agriculture
Eswatini, formerly called Swaziland, is almost an enclave. An enclave is a territory surrounded entirely by another territory. Lesotho—also in South Africa—and San Marino are enclaves. An exclave, by the way, is a piece of a territory stuck inside someone else’s, like if you built your castle walls all around the barn outside my house. The Nakhchivan region in Azerbaijan is an exclave, but we’ve already passed “A.”
How could an enclave—or even just a small country—exist among all the big ones? We saw this before with Andorra: tension. And there is a lot of tension in Eswatini.
Swazi is the Anglicized version of Eswatini. Most of it lies within South African borders, with multiple terrains.Continue reading “E is for Eswatini”
If you believe in magic, come along with me We’ll dance until morning till there’s just you and me And maybe, if the music is right I’ll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night And we’ll go dancing, baby, then you’ll see How the magic’s in the music and the music’s in me
The Lovin’ Spoonful
The illustrious blogger Fandango has posed the question today: Do you believe in magic? Quite a can of worms, isn’t it? This is partly a question of definition and categorization, taxonomy as much as philosophy. What’s just as interesting is the blurred lines between religion, magic, expertise, intuition, evidence, and conclusions without evidence, and how they lead people to take actions that are self-contradictory.
The question was instigated by a recent incident in a Tennessee Catholic school where the pastor removed the Harry Potter series from the elementary/middle school library because: “These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.”
Well, as Hermione might say, Revelio!
The most knowledgeable wizard from Harry Potter. Photo from Warner Bros.
Is it a Natural Law If I Don’t Know it Exists Yet?
But first, definitions are required if we’re going to talk about magic and belief. Belief refers to a personal conviction which can either be backed up by facts or not. Belief can be based on unseen evidence. I believe that antibodies and quarks exist because scientific studies have identified them and described how they work. I don’t have to see them. Belief can also occur without evidence. I believe that people have experienced things not yet explained by science, such as dreaming about things that occur in reality but outside the dreamer’s knowledge.
Magic, according to Merriam-Webster, is the art of producing a result …through human control of supernatural agencies or of the force of nature. Hmmm. So what is supernatural? Beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law. (I’m excluding stage magicians here, who perform amazing tricks through explainable but complicated processes such as hidden doorways or misdirection.) What this definition points out is that magic, in essence, is something that occurs which is unexplainable. Let’s also add: CURRENTLY unexplainable.
My yoga teacher told us a few weeks back that we should refrain from drinking cold water, either with meals or at any other time. This led to a pointed rebuke from another long-time student who had an extensive nutritional background, and the merry debate went on until the instructor ended with, “Well, this was what they told me in a physiology class that I’m taking.”
I remembered this exchange reading last week in the NY Times about a study which showed people often cling to ideas which conflict with scientific consensus and common sense. Further, that those who often feel strongest are often the least knowledgeable. Although this seems counterintuitive , almost surreal, we have seen this in action. In fact, this conundrum seems to be one of the most pressing problems of our time, one which, despite the ready availability of good information, persistently leads to the opposite. Case in point: reactions to the Mueller report. Case in point: the recent outbreak of measles, which ought to have been eradicated in the U.S. Case in point: see my post about eating cheese.
Why do easily validatable yet unsubstantiated ideas get so easily disseminated and supported? Perhaps it is a function of our response to the Information Superhighway which gives us 1) too much information 2) sometimes delivered by the unscrupulous which leaves us to be 3) overly reliant on people we (think we) can trust. Because 4) you can drink cold water.
