https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2017/08/01/anne-theriault/sylvia-plath-and-the-nhs/

I started subscribing to Poem A Day some months ago –  out of curiosity and to add some variety to the daily deluge of spam and work emails – one of the first poems to catch my eye was The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens. It had a powerful effect on me for reasons which I found beyond analysis, or at least beyond my comprehension – I think partly the justaposition of words and the images evoked by them trigger memories/emotions that would not have surfaced otherwise. Anyway, it was good to come across this article in the New Yorker.

How an introverted insurance executive in a three-piece suit created some of the most radiant poetry of the twentieth century.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens

“The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.”    George Washington

The report below was sent to me by a (British) colleague living in the US together with some suitably profane comments.  Must admit that I never remember being confronted by swearing in public houses in the UK, even back in the old days (1960s) in the East End of London.

I did notice the presence of swearing in films – it is a matter of taste how much you consider this gratuitous, or an acceptable part of cinema verite. However, I must admit that after a hard day in the lab or the clinic, I did not always appreciate having to listen to coarse or violent language when trying to relax and watch a movie; so I found myself appreciating the bleeps in public broadcasting channels in the USA (I lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years in the 1980s) protecting my auditory cortex from upsetting sounds – visual cues equally upsetting I guess, but one can glance away/shut your eyes.

However, I think there has undoubtedly been a change in societal norms, and the frequency and volume of public swearing has increased.  As my wife pointed out, the line between everyday speech and cussing has become blurred and for some swearing has become an inseparable part of routine speech.

A dictionary definition of the repetitive use of the f word refers to it as a “meaningless expletive”, but of course it depends on what you  mean by “meaning” and the repeated use of meaningless expletives is redolent with all kinds of meaning.

As for the ban in pubs, insisting on a degree of public courtesy is unexceptional and, I guess, to be welcomed, but hope this does not become a legal or bureaucratic imperative.

I’ll finish with this quote from Scottish actor, Peter Capaldi, who played the extremely foul-mouthed but inventive political adviser in “The Thick of It”

“There is no such thing as too much swearing. Swearing is just a piece of linguistic mechanics. The words in-between are the clever ones.”  Peter Capaldi

British Pubs Ban Swearing, Are Accused of Having %$&# for Brains  Source: WSJ  By Joe Parkinson and  Georgi Kantchev  Aug. 3, 2017

Seeking to woo families, one of Britain’s major chains posts signs threatening to eject profane patrons. ‘I’m lucky they didn’t beat me up.’ One afternoon last week at The Cock Tavern, Allan Gow and Callum Herod were on a rant about how “bollocks” shouldn’t be classified as an unacceptable word. The 18th-century pub, close to London’s Oxford Street, recently banned the use of expletives, and the two former military men were voicing objections. “You just can’t ban swearing in a place where they serve alcohol,” said Mr. Gow, 63, over a pint of Organic Lager. “That’s bullshit.” “Tell whoever issued this ridiculous policy,” said Mr. Herod, 64, “to go stuff themselves.”

Samuel Smith Old Brewery, the 250-year-old brewery that operates The Cock Tavern and more than 200 other pubs across Britain, in April instituted a “zero-tolerance policy” against swearing-the first time, pub historians say, a British pub chain has sought an official ban. The pubs’ “landlords,” as the British call tavern operators, have been instructed to refuse orders from foul-mouthed drinkers and have begun ejecting some patrons who refuse to curb their cursing. That ban may or may not include “bollocks,” British slang for testicles and nonsense. A Cock Tavern bartender declined to comment on the word.

Landlords said the edict, which wasn’t publicly announced, was communicated by Samuel Smith’s in an April memo they said doesn’t list unacceptable words. “Where do you draw the line?” asked a landlord at a Samuel Smith’s pub in Northwest London. “Is ‘bloody’ a swear word? It’s quite confusing.” Samuel Smith’s didn’t respond to inquiries. Other bars clamping down on cursing include Wetherspoon’s, the U.K.’s largest pub chain, which last year expanded its management training to help landlords muzzle their more loquacious patrons, stopping short of a ban. “The hierarchy of pub conversation is like the Ten Commandments,” said J D Wetherspoon PLC Chairman Tim Martin. “There’s a word or two that are completely off limits, but the general rule is you don’t swear at people.”  Some independent landlords are taking their own irreverent approaches, with one popular sign demanding: “No Bloody Swearing!” The anti-profanity push, intended to lure families, is the latest chapter in a decadeslong shift in British drinking culture that has transformed thousands of traditional beer houses into bijou bars and gastropubs-establishments serving high-end food and craft beer.

Many of those changes have been popular. But the move to call time on swearing has prompted searching questions on whether pub culture and colorful language-cornerstones of British cultural life-should ever be separated. The English are proud of the range of their profane vernacular. A popular book is “Roger’s Profanisaurus,” a 624-page dictionary of about 12,000 profanities that commentators say is a whistle-stop tour of the most disgusting expressions the language has to offer.  Moreover, “the British pub is an institution where people go to enjoy themselves, an informal place where class and salary are forgotten,” said Tom Stainer of the Campaign for Real Ale, or CAMRA, an organization that says it represents 187,000 beer drinkers around the world. “We don’t need rules to restrict that.”  Petr Knava, a 29-year-old public-health worker and longtime Samuel Smith’s patron, promised to unleash a barrage of blasphemy at the pubs to protest “this shitmonkey of a decision,” which he calls “arse-backwards twattery.”  Sam Eeles, a 31-year-old software engineer, was working his way through the “The Sam Smith’s Challenge”-a tour of the brewer’s three dozen pubs in London-when he and his friends were repeatedly reprimanded for swearing. “It feels like you’re sitting in your grandma’s lounge,” he said, “after you’ve been told to watch your language.”

Samuel Smith’s, whose website boasts of its “uncompromisingly Victorian” traditions-its pubs are known for Victorian-era décor and cheap drinks-has kept tight-lipped on the reasons for the ban. Several Samuel Smith’s pubs visited by The Wall Street Journal displayed signs reading: “We wish to inform all of our customers that we have introduced a zero-tolerance policy against swearing in all of our pubs.”

Melissa Gillespie, a 20-year-old bartender at The Horse and Groom in London’s Fitzrovia District, polices the ban by first pointing to the sign or holding it aloft. Formal warnings follow. She said she hasn’t kicked anyone out. “Regulars come here to take pictures of the sign because they can’t believe we would implement it,” she said. “One man I showed the sign said he couldn’t stop swearing because he had a chronic case of Tourette’s. I wasn’t sure how to react.” At the Widow Cullens Well, a Samuel Smith’s pub in the English East Midlands city of Lincoln, manager James Piazza said he recently had to eject a “massive group of 17 blokes” for repeatedly swearing. “I’m lucky they didn’t beat me up.”

Molecular biology is now delivering in spades – dramatic expansion in the number of new drugs – monoclonal antibodies, small molecule inhibitors. This potential therapeutic largesse is no longer amenable to the randomised controlled trial comparing a standard treatment to a novel agent – too many new drugs, too many targets, not enough time. This has resulted in a remarkable and innovative approach which depends on collaboration between pharma, clinicians and academic institutions in assessing multiple diseases and treatments through ‘basket trials’. Excellent review in NEJM by Janet Woodcock and Lisa M Lavange.

Review Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Master Protocols to Study Multiple Therapies, Multiple Diseases, or Both

Source: Master Protocols to Study Multiple Therapies, Multiple Diseases, or Both — NEJM

By Richard Conniff
http://e360.yale.edu/features/the-nitrogen-problem-why-global-warming-is-making-it-worse

Neither climate change nor ISIS have political polarity, but people’s responses certainly do – as detailed in this survey from Pew Research Centre reported in Mother Jones.  People around the world consider climate change to be a top security threat—and in some cases the biggest threat, according to a survey published Tuesday by Pew Research Center. The poll surveyed 42,000 adults in 38 countries and asked them to prioritize eight types of perceived threats, including concern about the economy, cybersecurity, climate change, and ISIS.

ISIS and Global Warming Are Considered Top Security Threats by Most of the World