Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Aaron Sorkin; Genius, Elitist Snob
12-9-2010
Let me say at the beginning that I think Aaron Sorkin is a creative genius. He created and wrote West Wing, which I consider to be one of the best television series of all time—it featured a liberal, democratic president and very progressive staff and cabinet, and I still loved it. He’s done several other shows as well, all of them noted for their intelligent, fast-paced dialog and fascinating characters.
So when I add that he appears to be a disingenuous, small-minded, hate-motivated bed-wetting elitist, you can tell it is with love and concern.
Recently Sorkin took Sarah Palin to task over her “Reality show” in which she shot a caribou. He described the incident as the “first moose ever killed for political gain.” Apparently, Sorkin is not sufficiently well-acquainted with the natural world that he can distinguish a caribou from a moose. Having seen both, I can assure you this failure is troubling on several levels.
I am not what I would describe as a Palin fan. I harbor no animosity towards her, and find most of the mindless criticisms and caricatures offensively motivated by irrational feelings of sour grapes—which is odd when one considers she lost—but I find it hard to imagine a scenario in which I would vote for her. However, Sorkin’s diatribes seem both pointless and ill-conceived. I imagine spittle flying from his lips while he so causally uses his gift as character assassination.
For example, he refers to the footage of Palin killing the caribou as a “snuff film.” He’s in the movie business. He should know better. The term snuff film has a specific definition, and it is vile enough that to use it as he did speaks volumes to his own bigotry. For those of you who might not know, a snuff film is any movie in which a human being is actually killed—murdered—for the pornographic content and for profit. By definition, this can only occur with humans. We can argue until the cow comes home (hopefully unharmed) about the morality of killing animals, but murder for sexual prurience and profit cannot be ascribed to the killing of animals under any circumstances. (Unless there is a new fetish of which I am unaware.) To accuse Palin—or anyone else—of such a thing is mean-spirited and small-minded.
Sorkin goes on to say the following:
He described Palin as "deranged", a "witless bully" and a "phony pioneer girl". He also said The Learning Channel, the US cable network, "should be ashamed of itself" for broadcasting her "truly awful reality show".
He does make one valid point—as far as I can tell all reality shows are “truly awful.” Personally, I see no evidence she is deranged. And from what vast left field does he get “witless bully?” “Phony pioneer girl” is the worst though. Mrs. Palin grew up hunting and fishing, and that can be, and has been, easily and thoroughly proven. Her lifestyle has been—comparatively speaking—one of a semi-rugged, outdoors, independent woman. I get the sense that Sorkin may be secretly envious of her masculinity—a trait which he is obviously lacking. Like most people who haven’t the stomach to hunt, he tries to turn it into a venal act. Which is nonsense of the highest order. Let’s put both in the wilderness with a rifle, a knife, some matches and fishing line, and see who comes out smelling like a rose, shall we?
Palin, not the sort to run and hide, shot back.
"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation.”
Sorkin, in a fascinating display of unconscious guilt, manages to step right into her obvious point. He retorts:
"I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather ... I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical,"
Seriously, he might as well just admit he wants to have sex with his mother while he’s at it.
There are in fact important distinctions between Palin and Sorkin, but he has managed to completely miss them. He hates her politics. He hates her lifestyle, her independence and lack of sophistication. He hates her celebrity and popularity. In his perfect world someone like Sarah Palin would not even exist. In my perfect world, I would rather never have seen a single episode of West Wing if it meant never having to listen to this kind of drivel. I like my drivel better.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
IGM Denver International Airport
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Denver International Airport
12-5-2010
Is anyone else curious about the history of the Denver International Airport? I think it’s time for a little old-fashioned paranoia.
Once upon a time the city of Denver had a perfectly nice, functional, modern airport called Stapleton. Remember? Then, suddenly, without much warning and against massive protests from the locals, who said things like “but we already have one!” And “that’s a helluva lot of money for something we don’t need!” the state, and the federal government (Congress was in collusion) announced the new one. We were all told it would be the best, most efficient, statest-of-the- art airport in the whole world. It was rammed through in record time despite all the protests.
The new airport is smaller than Stapleton. Fewer gates, terminals, runways, etc. And it is built under a tent. But the land it is on takes up half of Colorado. It cost five times what it was supposed to. People complain constantly of the place making them sick—headaches, stomach problems. They complain of odd vibrations and high-frequency sounds. The super-modern baggage-handling system sends luggage into the Wickenburg Triangle with depressing regularity. Entire construction teams were routinely fired as soon as they finished their part of a project and new ones were brought it. The upshot of that was no one had any idea what the overall plan was, or what the blue-prints looked like. (Except the big bosses.) The heavily-fenced property is under ridiculously overkill security measures. And there are dozens of concrete formations dotting the unused land, which resemble mini-cooling towers, or air vents.
Remember that scene in Independence Day when Judd Hirsch tells the President (As they enter the underground sections of Area 51) “you don’t really think they spent five hundred dollars on a toilet seat, a thousand on a hammer do you?”
No one wanted that airport built. It wasn’t needed. It was so far over budget that they could have built five or six of them. And they took ten times the land they could possibly have ever needed. Does that suggest anything to anyone?
OF COURSE IT DOES! Obviously, there is a huge underground base of some kind down there, probably with aliens living in secret luxury. Or preserved in big bottles. Odds are tunnels connect it to Cheyenne Mountain and Area 51. Maybe others.
As you know our government has dozens of secret bases like this, scattered around and under the country, doing all kinds of nefarious but cool research on things like the 19th chromosome of the human genome, element 115, anti-gravity, alien technology, light, immortality, genetic engineering for super-soldiers, and why Barbie remains so popular.
I think it’s time we ask congress to fess up and share some information. Our government is up to something. The deficit, the rate of spending, and the disappearance of hundreds of billions of dollars is not an accident, and not the result of poor book-keeping. They’re UP TO SOMETHING. I mean, c’mon . . . thirteen trillion? Really? That’s a lot of toilet seats.
Here’s a clue. Years ago John and Dever and I went to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and spent the weekend. (Nothing Brokeback was going on) When the Ranger asked us if we had a good time, John said yes, but we were disappointed to not have seen any UFO’s. The Ranger apologized, saying the “machine was broken.” True story. I think it speaks for itself. You should take the trouble to visit Chaco Canyon, the premier Anasazi site in the country. And when I say trouble, I mean it, but it’s well-worth the effort. It’s probably more other-worldly than Stonehenge. And I’m pretty sure there is a tunnel underneath it leading to the Denver International Airport.
Thanks to Rhani at Anomalies-Unlimited. Check the site out.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Denver International Airport
12-5-2010
Is anyone else curious about the history of the Denver International Airport? I think it’s time for a little old-fashioned paranoia.
Once upon a time the city of Denver had a perfectly nice, functional, modern airport called Stapleton. Remember? Then, suddenly, without much warning and against massive protests from the locals, who said things like “but we already have one!” And “that’s a helluva lot of money for something we don’t need!” the state, and the federal government (Congress was in collusion) announced the new one. We were all told it would be the best, most efficient, statest-of-the- art airport in the whole world. It was rammed through in record time despite all the protests.
The new airport is smaller than Stapleton. Fewer gates, terminals, runways, etc. And it is built under a tent. But the land it is on takes up half of Colorado. It cost five times what it was supposed to. People complain constantly of the place making them sick—headaches, stomach problems. They complain of odd vibrations and high-frequency sounds. The super-modern baggage-handling system sends luggage into the Wickenburg Triangle with depressing regularity. Entire construction teams were routinely fired as soon as they finished their part of a project and new ones were brought it. The upshot of that was no one had any idea what the overall plan was, or what the blue-prints looked like. (Except the big bosses.) The heavily-fenced property is under ridiculously overkill security measures. And there are dozens of concrete formations dotting the unused land, which resemble mini-cooling towers, or air vents.
Remember that scene in Independence Day when Judd Hirsch tells the President (As they enter the underground sections of Area 51) “you don’t really think they spent five hundred dollars on a toilet seat, a thousand on a hammer do you?”
No one wanted that airport built. It wasn’t needed. It was so far over budget that they could have built five or six of them. And they took ten times the land they could possibly have ever needed. Does that suggest anything to anyone?
OF COURSE IT DOES! Obviously, there is a huge underground base of some kind down there, probably with aliens living in secret luxury. Or preserved in big bottles. Odds are tunnels connect it to Cheyenne Mountain and Area 51. Maybe others.
As you know our government has dozens of secret bases like this, scattered around and under the country, doing all kinds of nefarious but cool research on things like the 19th chromosome of the human genome, element 115, anti-gravity, alien technology, light, immortality, genetic engineering for super-soldiers, and why Barbie remains so popular.
I think it’s time we ask congress to fess up and share some information. Our government is up to something. The deficit, the rate of spending, and the disappearance of hundreds of billions of dollars is not an accident, and not the result of poor book-keeping. They’re UP TO SOMETHING. I mean, c’mon . . . thirteen trillion? Really? That’s a lot of toilet seats.
Here’s a clue. Years ago John and Dever and I went to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, and spent the weekend. (Nothing Brokeback was going on) When the Ranger asked us if we had a good time, John said yes, but we were disappointed to not have seen any UFO’s. The Ranger apologized, saying the “machine was broken.” True story. I think it speaks for itself. You should take the trouble to visit Chaco Canyon, the premier Anasazi site in the country. And when I say trouble, I mean it, but it’s well-worth the effort. It’s probably more other-worldly than Stonehenge. And I’m pretty sure there is a tunnel underneath it leading to the Denver International Airport.
Thanks to Rhani at Anomalies-Unlimited. Check the site out.
Monday, November 8, 2010
IGM The Writing Process
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Writing Process
11-8-2010
There is a writer, I know of—I’m a fan—who writes backwards. He’s a famous one, with awards, and millions of books sold, and even an academy award for a screenplay. But how does he write backwards? He explained it in one of his novels, through a character who is also a writer. He has to have the last sentence, has to hear it and feel it, before he can start. And then he writes backwards, so the first sentence is the last one he writes. And it takes him a long time. Years. He’s only written twelve books in his career. I’ve written more than twice that in the last ten years. And he has this strange habit of writing sentences, or fragments of sentences, and tacking them up on a board where he can see them and think about them. I guess when he has enough sentences he can write a paragraph, and then a chapter—backwards. Once he knows the whole story, and is familiar with the characters, he can start writing, filling in. That’s what he says at least.
It was nice to find out that this technique was an accident; just the way he started doing it and it became a habit, and then a process. At first he thought it was an immature phase, but it turned out to be the way he writes.
I’m pretty insecure about my writing, and it is a little comforting to discover that famous writers sometimes feel that way too, and wonder if their ‘method’ might be off kilter or out of bounds. It doesn’t bother me that this writer is much better than I am. He writes, I write, we both do our best and hopefully get what we are looking for out of the experience.
On the other hand, my ‘method’ is so different from his, and from any other method I’ve read about, that my insecurities come raging forward again, and I worry that I’m missing something, that my writing is hampered or limited by my method, or lack thereof.
The truth is, I don’t have a method that I am aware of, based on any known and accepted process used by professional writers.
I start writing when it feels like the right time to start. Sometimes I’ve had the idea for months or years, and sometimes I’ve had the idea for five minutes. And a few times—two that I remember for sure—I’ve started with no idea in mind at all.
I’ve started several with only a title because I liked the way it sounded and knew something would come if I began writing. Car Dancing and Evil Alien Artifact were both written that way. For Car Dancing, I had the title and a one sentence description of the main character. For Artifact, all I had was the title, which was a throw-away line from That 70’s Show, and a vague idea that I wanted to do a send-up of sci-fi stories. Another book was worse. I started The Seaweed Bar and Grill with no title, no plot, no characters and not a single idea as to what it might be about. That was on purpose; I had just finished reading a book by Thomas Pynchon and took it as a challenge to try and write something blind, because it felt like that’s what he did—even though I knew this wasn’t true. He’s just a genius and can do things like that. So I just put my fingers on the keyboard and started, and things came, and a few pages later the title magically appeared (although I didn’t know it at the time). It’s one of my favorites. I have no idea if it’s any good or not. I was trying to see if it was possible to write with no pre-conceived ideas, and make the story entirely character driven, rather than by plot. I guess it is.
I never plot anyway. I don’t know how. That is the secret of my ‘method.’ I’ve never taken a writing class. I’ve never attended a writers conference, or gone to a writers workshop, or joined a writers group, either real or virtual. As a writer, I have three things going for me. One, I love doing it, and always have. It comes easy. Two, I’ve read thousands of books across a wide range of types, styles, authors, genres and subjects. And three, I have a pretty good imagination. But I don’t know process. I don’t know how to plot a story—I’m not sure I even know what that means. I don’t know how to build a character. And I don’t know how to write backwards. For me, knowing the end of a story, and what will happen in each chapter and in what order, before I start, would ensure that I never start. Why write it if I know how it’s going to end? At some point in the writing, I usually figure it out, but sometimes that doesn’t happen until I’m on the last page. I knew how Car Dancing would end by the time I was half way through, and I spent the last half trying to prevent it, change it, but I couldn’t. Stories and characters are powerful. Inevitable.
In other words, I’m an ignorant writer. Or an innocent one. But good or bad, talented or a hack, I love it. Nothing makes me any happier than sitting there, typing away, caught in a continuing moment of discovery. I start at the beginning and characters show up as I need them, and things happen that surprise me, shock me, make me happy and sad and angry. I’m telling myself a story I haven’t heard before, and that’s my method. I have an audience of one.
Now I’ve written at least thirty books, and can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I read things writers have said about writing and I don’t get it. For them it is a struggle, a horrible, lonely, excruciating experience. For me it’s just the opposite. I love everything about it, can’t wait to go somewhere everyday and write. I love how every time I sit down, not know what’s going to happen, something comes. And I never get writers block—I just work on something else, or don’t write that day. The only thing I worry about now is this: since my heart attack, I worry about having enough time to get them all out and onto paper. I’m working on it though; unlike my backwards-writing hero, I write pretty fast. Probably because I don’t know what I’m doing.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Writing Process
11-8-2010
There is a writer, I know of—I’m a fan—who writes backwards. He’s a famous one, with awards, and millions of books sold, and even an academy award for a screenplay. But how does he write backwards? He explained it in one of his novels, through a character who is also a writer. He has to have the last sentence, has to hear it and feel it, before he can start. And then he writes backwards, so the first sentence is the last one he writes. And it takes him a long time. Years. He’s only written twelve books in his career. I’ve written more than twice that in the last ten years. And he has this strange habit of writing sentences, or fragments of sentences, and tacking them up on a board where he can see them and think about them. I guess when he has enough sentences he can write a paragraph, and then a chapter—backwards. Once he knows the whole story, and is familiar with the characters, he can start writing, filling in. That’s what he says at least.
It was nice to find out that this technique was an accident; just the way he started doing it and it became a habit, and then a process. At first he thought it was an immature phase, but it turned out to be the way he writes.
I’m pretty insecure about my writing, and it is a little comforting to discover that famous writers sometimes feel that way too, and wonder if their ‘method’ might be off kilter or out of bounds. It doesn’t bother me that this writer is much better than I am. He writes, I write, we both do our best and hopefully get what we are looking for out of the experience.
On the other hand, my ‘method’ is so different from his, and from any other method I’ve read about, that my insecurities come raging forward again, and I worry that I’m missing something, that my writing is hampered or limited by my method, or lack thereof.
The truth is, I don’t have a method that I am aware of, based on any known and accepted process used by professional writers.
I start writing when it feels like the right time to start. Sometimes I’ve had the idea for months or years, and sometimes I’ve had the idea for five minutes. And a few times—two that I remember for sure—I’ve started with no idea in mind at all.
I’ve started several with only a title because I liked the way it sounded and knew something would come if I began writing. Car Dancing and Evil Alien Artifact were both written that way. For Car Dancing, I had the title and a one sentence description of the main character. For Artifact, all I had was the title, which was a throw-away line from That 70’s Show, and a vague idea that I wanted to do a send-up of sci-fi stories. Another book was worse. I started The Seaweed Bar and Grill with no title, no plot, no characters and not a single idea as to what it might be about. That was on purpose; I had just finished reading a book by Thomas Pynchon and took it as a challenge to try and write something blind, because it felt like that’s what he did—even though I knew this wasn’t true. He’s just a genius and can do things like that. So I just put my fingers on the keyboard and started, and things came, and a few pages later the title magically appeared (although I didn’t know it at the time). It’s one of my favorites. I have no idea if it’s any good or not. I was trying to see if it was possible to write with no pre-conceived ideas, and make the story entirely character driven, rather than by plot. I guess it is.
I never plot anyway. I don’t know how. That is the secret of my ‘method.’ I’ve never taken a writing class. I’ve never attended a writers conference, or gone to a writers workshop, or joined a writers group, either real or virtual. As a writer, I have three things going for me. One, I love doing it, and always have. It comes easy. Two, I’ve read thousands of books across a wide range of types, styles, authors, genres and subjects. And three, I have a pretty good imagination. But I don’t know process. I don’t know how to plot a story—I’m not sure I even know what that means. I don’t know how to build a character. And I don’t know how to write backwards. For me, knowing the end of a story, and what will happen in each chapter and in what order, before I start, would ensure that I never start. Why write it if I know how it’s going to end? At some point in the writing, I usually figure it out, but sometimes that doesn’t happen until I’m on the last page. I knew how Car Dancing would end by the time I was half way through, and I spent the last half trying to prevent it, change it, but I couldn’t. Stories and characters are powerful. Inevitable.
In other words, I’m an ignorant writer. Or an innocent one. But good or bad, talented or a hack, I love it. Nothing makes me any happier than sitting there, typing away, caught in a continuing moment of discovery. I start at the beginning and characters show up as I need them, and things happen that surprise me, shock me, make me happy and sad and angry. I’m telling myself a story I haven’t heard before, and that’s my method. I have an audience of one.
Now I’ve written at least thirty books, and can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I read things writers have said about writing and I don’t get it. For them it is a struggle, a horrible, lonely, excruciating experience. For me it’s just the opposite. I love everything about it, can’t wait to go somewhere everyday and write. I love how every time I sit down, not know what’s going to happen, something comes. And I never get writers block—I just work on something else, or don’t write that day. The only thing I worry about now is this: since my heart attack, I worry about having enough time to get them all out and onto paper. I’m working on it though; unlike my backwards-writing hero, I write pretty fast. Probably because I don’t know what I’m doing.
Friday, November 5, 2010
IGM Construction
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Construction
11-4-2010
Nita and I did something different today. We got up really early (see, already different) dressed in layers because it was chilly and drizzling, and drove into Rochester. A good-sized city which has not escaped the “downturn.” We avoid Rochester.
We made our way to one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, where every third house is abandoned and boarded up, even the pets are armed, and met several people we didn’t know—and a few we did—to build a house. Yep . . . Habitat for Humanity.
Our Stake (an ecclesiastical entity which consists of several congregations) has formed a partnership with the Third Presbyterian Church of Rochester to raise both money for, and donate time to, the construction of several houses.
Small, unassuming homes in which owners invest their own sweat-equity, move in and begin paying the mortgage. Indentured servitude (volunteers) keeps the price down. The plan is 100 new homes that will resurrect the neighborhood—take it to a tipping point where interest will turn to investment and a rebirth will occur.
Why would we do that, you might ask? Well, we’re retired. Most people go to work all day every day. It’s hard to say no. And it is a legitimately good cause. So far, we are a veritable PSA for Habitat and charity work, right? Now for the splash of reality.
Remember when I said it was raining? Not hard, but long enough to soak the ground. And it was cold. Upstate New York is like, fifteen feet from the arctic circle.
One house is up and they are hanging sheetrock. That wasn’t our house, that was just where we met. Then we drove a few blocks to the other house. And when I say house, I mean a large, rectangular hole in the ground, bordered by piles of mud, with a concrete footing and a huge pile of gravel at the bottom.
I looked at the supervisor, one-half of a identical twin team, and said:
“We’re unskilled volunteer labor. What are we going to do with a hole in ground? Fill it?” Well, sort of, it turns out.
The wooden forms were still in place. They are held in place by big nails the size of small spears which have been pounded into the ground with industrial pile-drivers and then nailed to the 2x12 forms—below the ground line. I don’t know how they did that. Our first job was pulling the forms, which meant pulling the two-foot spikes, which meant finding and pulling the nails . . . you get the picture. We were covered in mud after fifteen minutes. But we got the forms pulled. Then it was time to lay a black plastic pipe covered in fabric around the outside edge of the footing. It’s for drainage I’m told. But the key word here is drain. Which means the tubing (About 6 inches in diameter) has to start low then steadily ascend to the other end, or vice-versa. Whatever. Which means digging. Then shoveling gravel over it to hold it in place, then spreading the huge pile of gravel (Left over from those stables Hercules cleaned) into an even layer of gravel instead of a pile of gravel. That was when I went into a fugue state. I would move two or three shovels-full of gravel, and then wake up a few minutes later having gone bye-bye. I was exhausted to the point of . . . well, a few times I idly entertained the possibility that I was closing in on another heart attack. My body was resting whether I wanted to or not. But we finished the gravel while I joked about working harder than everyone else.
Did I mention the wall forms? Next to the giant hole were stacks of steel and something-else modular forms, two by eight feet and very heavy. They needed to be in the hole. Apparently this was a good job for unskilled volunteers. So four of us began to relocate the forms. We made six stacks about five feet high. Then one of the supervisors had the clearly inappropriate idea of taking us from unskilled to semi-skilled volunteers. He showed Nita and another guy how to assemble the forms. They made four corner sections. We had to carry them to the corners and stand them up. Then he showed us how to attach the two-foot sections together. They wanted us to make walls! The forms were for the concrete basement walls. So five of us began assembling wall-forms.
Oh, I forgot. Somewhere in there the Roach Coach showed up (How do they always find us?). I bought a Pepsi, Nita fed me two tuna sandwiches (with potato chips inside—yum!) along with half a banana and several Ibuprofen. I was a new man. It is scary how much better caffeine can make you feel. I wasn’t exactly a human dynamo—mostly I stopped feeling like an imminent heat attack, but I managed to find a groove and work steadily-if-not-heroically until quitting time. I am happy to say we got the entire outside half of the form built—all the way around the footing. Wow!
Truthfully—we had a blast. I’d attach a photo of the wall in the giant hole, but I don’t know how to get it off my phone. (Newell, you may now invoke the “Dork” word.) Neither of us have been that dirty in decades. We all had not just a sense of accomplishment, but a sense that it meant something as well. Some family, the working poor, with whom most of us can identify and/or sympathize, will get a new home in a few months. We interacted with several people from the very scary neighborhood, and they all were glad we were there and told us so. I feel this reduces the chance of being shot on the job. Which is good, because we’re going back. Tomorrow. I recommend it.
This evening, neither of us can move, and everything hurts. But it’s a “good” hurt, in the same sense that Vegas heat is a “dry” heat.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Construction
11-4-2010
Nita and I did something different today. We got up really early (see, already different) dressed in layers because it was chilly and drizzling, and drove into Rochester. A good-sized city which has not escaped the “downturn.” We avoid Rochester.
We made our way to one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, where every third house is abandoned and boarded up, even the pets are armed, and met several people we didn’t know—and a few we did—to build a house. Yep . . . Habitat for Humanity.
Our Stake (an ecclesiastical entity which consists of several congregations) has formed a partnership with the Third Presbyterian Church of Rochester to raise both money for, and donate time to, the construction of several houses.
Small, unassuming homes in which owners invest their own sweat-equity, move in and begin paying the mortgage. Indentured servitude (volunteers) keeps the price down. The plan is 100 new homes that will resurrect the neighborhood—take it to a tipping point where interest will turn to investment and a rebirth will occur.
Why would we do that, you might ask? Well, we’re retired. Most people go to work all day every day. It’s hard to say no. And it is a legitimately good cause. So far, we are a veritable PSA for Habitat and charity work, right? Now for the splash of reality.
Remember when I said it was raining? Not hard, but long enough to soak the ground. And it was cold. Upstate New York is like, fifteen feet from the arctic circle.
One house is up and they are hanging sheetrock. That wasn’t our house, that was just where we met. Then we drove a few blocks to the other house. And when I say house, I mean a large, rectangular hole in the ground, bordered by piles of mud, with a concrete footing and a huge pile of gravel at the bottom.
I looked at the supervisor, one-half of a identical twin team, and said:
“We’re unskilled volunteer labor. What are we going to do with a hole in ground? Fill it?” Well, sort of, it turns out.
The wooden forms were still in place. They are held in place by big nails the size of small spears which have been pounded into the ground with industrial pile-drivers and then nailed to the 2x12 forms—below the ground line. I don’t know how they did that. Our first job was pulling the forms, which meant pulling the two-foot spikes, which meant finding and pulling the nails . . . you get the picture. We were covered in mud after fifteen minutes. But we got the forms pulled. Then it was time to lay a black plastic pipe covered in fabric around the outside edge of the footing. It’s for drainage I’m told. But the key word here is drain. Which means the tubing (About 6 inches in diameter) has to start low then steadily ascend to the other end, or vice-versa. Whatever. Which means digging. Then shoveling gravel over it to hold it in place, then spreading the huge pile of gravel (Left over from those stables Hercules cleaned) into an even layer of gravel instead of a pile of gravel. That was when I went into a fugue state. I would move two or three shovels-full of gravel, and then wake up a few minutes later having gone bye-bye. I was exhausted to the point of . . . well, a few times I idly entertained the possibility that I was closing in on another heart attack. My body was resting whether I wanted to or not. But we finished the gravel while I joked about working harder than everyone else.
Did I mention the wall forms? Next to the giant hole were stacks of steel and something-else modular forms, two by eight feet and very heavy. They needed to be in the hole. Apparently this was a good job for unskilled volunteers. So four of us began to relocate the forms. We made six stacks about five feet high. Then one of the supervisors had the clearly inappropriate idea of taking us from unskilled to semi-skilled volunteers. He showed Nita and another guy how to assemble the forms. They made four corner sections. We had to carry them to the corners and stand them up. Then he showed us how to attach the two-foot sections together. They wanted us to make walls! The forms were for the concrete basement walls. So five of us began assembling wall-forms.
Oh, I forgot. Somewhere in there the Roach Coach showed up (How do they always find us?). I bought a Pepsi, Nita fed me two tuna sandwiches (with potato chips inside—yum!) along with half a banana and several Ibuprofen. I was a new man. It is scary how much better caffeine can make you feel. I wasn’t exactly a human dynamo—mostly I stopped feeling like an imminent heat attack, but I managed to find a groove and work steadily-if-not-heroically until quitting time. I am happy to say we got the entire outside half of the form built—all the way around the footing. Wow!
Truthfully—we had a blast. I’d attach a photo of the wall in the giant hole, but I don’t know how to get it off my phone. (Newell, you may now invoke the “Dork” word.) Neither of us have been that dirty in decades. We all had not just a sense of accomplishment, but a sense that it meant something as well. Some family, the working poor, with whom most of us can identify and/or sympathize, will get a new home in a few months. We interacted with several people from the very scary neighborhood, and they all were glad we were there and told us so. I feel this reduces the chance of being shot on the job. Which is good, because we’re going back. Tomorrow. I recommend it.
This evening, neither of us can move, and everything hurts. But it’s a “good” hurt, in the same sense that Vegas heat is a “dry” heat.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
IGM: The Great Climate Change Debate
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Great Climate Change Debate
9-15-2010
Link: http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
I suppose I’ve written a dozen pieces on this topic by now. And today I feel vindicated. A good friend sent me a link to a website put up by Burt Rutan. I could write an IGM just about Burt—he’s one of my heroes. Burt is an aeronautical engineer and a living legend. If I were given to hyperbole—and I am—I would say that in the last 30 or 40 years he has been responsible for more true innovation in the aviation industry than all the giant conglomerates combined. You know those vertical tips at the end of nearly every wing in the commercial airline industry? Burt Rutan. Space Ship One—the first private vehicle to take a human into space? Burt Rutan. He is a genius of the first order, and a maverick—probably why I like him so much. Burt decided to look into the whole “Global Warming-Climate Change” issue from the viewpoint of an aeronautical engineer as opposed to a scientist. Why?
My focus is on an Engineering Approach – where
data are critical and there are consequences for
being wrong; not the Scientist approach – where a
theory is the product and it can be right or wrong
without repercussions.
In other words, airplane designers are held to incredibly high, rigorous standards because when they are wrong, people die. The engineers and pilots rely heavily on accurate meteorological and climate data, which inform their designs and innovations. They must have good data.
So Burt decided to study the contentious issue for himself. I have looked at about 10% of the site so far, and it is blowing me away. Why? Because everything I have been saying for years—all the way back to the Ozone Scare of the 70’s—from a completely common-sense standpoint, using very little research—turns out to be true. And this guy did his homework. His research is comprehensive and thorough. He is brutally honest and frank while remaining professional and polite. And he does not equivocate. He interprets the data from the viewpoint of an engineer, whose life—and the lives of millions of others (and that is literally true) depends on his being right.
I am putting the link in this IGM, and I sincerely hope you at least go to it and scan the information. It is chock-full of graphs and raw data, but he explains it all simply and informally. Anyone still in the Human-Caused Climate-Change camp, or anyone with lingering doubts, absolutely needs to review this information. You owe it to yourselves.
When you get to the site you will be given two choices; a PDF version, and a PowerPoint version. I clicked on the PDF version and read it. It looks like this: Adobe pdf version - 3.7 megabytes
It will take a while, so don’t hurry. I haven’t tried it yet, but the PowerPoint version might be fun. it is vitally important that as many people as possible see this information. Pass it on if you feel like it.
At the end of this memo is a very brief synopsis of his conclusions. But we need to read the critique itself to understand why he makes these observations, comes to these conclusions, and makes these recommendations. The countries of the world—including our own—are about to bankrupt the planet, permanently cripple the global economy, and increase the death-rate and poverty exponentially, based on spurious data and self-serving agendas. It is vital that we prevent this from happening, and being informed is how we do it. We’ve all heard about the 2,500 scientists who signed the petition claiming global warming is a real, immediate, and relevant threat. How many of us have heard about the 31,000 scientists who signed a petition espousing the opposite point of view? You will find that in this report.
Who are we going to believe? That’s what it comes down to. For myself, I choose the world-class, brilliant engineer/innovator over the room-temperature IQ, career politician tobacco farmer.
By Burt Rutan:
Observations
• The only “evidence” that humans cause global warming comes from computer models. The creator of the model can make it show whatever he wants, by adjusting parameters.
• Man has not demonstrated an ability to change global temperatures, nor to forecast future climate conditions.
• It would be desirable to have more atmospheric CO2 than present, to increase crop yields and forest growth. This would save tens of millions of lives next century.
• The warming experienced in the last century and the warming expected in the next, did not and will not cause a net increase in extinctions or weather calamities.
• We do not know the important stuff - what causes the dangerous drop into the major ice ages or what causes the cyclic return to the brief interglacial warm periods.
• Is the debate over? "It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
Conclusions
• The CAGW agenda is supported with deceptively altered science. In spite of recent, human-caused atmospheric CO2 increases, there is nothing out of the ordinary happening with our climate.
• Climate Change is real. The earth has been naturally warming since the “Little Ice Age”, with cooling cycles.
• Fossil fuel use adds a small % to an important trace gas, that is not only beneficial, but is the essence of life itself.
• We cannot burn fossil fuels to prevent the next ice age; the greenhouse gas effect is far too weak for that.
• Current fuels will become naturally constrained by cost as they become scarce. Government taxes are not required.
• If Man, in the future, achieves a capability to change global temperatures, he will likely use that technology to warm the planet, not to cool it.
• Manmade global warming is over. It existed only in the minds of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed media and opportunistic eco/political-activists.
Recommendations
• Recognize that, in terms of cost and human lives, the Government efforts to constrain use and increase the cost of energy are orders of magnitude more important than the certification of a new airliner.
• We cannot assure airline public safety by using a computer model to predict airline safety; we must do extensive testing under real conditions and pay attention to all the results.
• Require an engineering task as rigid as the certification of an airliner. Apply that task to the “theory of climate modification by man”. Mandate that “engineering certification” be done before governments can impose taxes, fees or regulations to constrain our use of any product to fuel our energy needs.
• Engineers do listen to scientists and use their work to help them plan the testing/validation needed to complete their certification goals. However, using scientists to direct airliner certification, would be as disastrous as scientists proposing theories to direct National or World energy policy.
Link: http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Great Climate Change Debate
9-15-2010
Link: http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
I suppose I’ve written a dozen pieces on this topic by now. And today I feel vindicated. A good friend sent me a link to a website put up by Burt Rutan. I could write an IGM just about Burt—he’s one of my heroes. Burt is an aeronautical engineer and a living legend. If I were given to hyperbole—and I am—I would say that in the last 30 or 40 years he has been responsible for more true innovation in the aviation industry than all the giant conglomerates combined. You know those vertical tips at the end of nearly every wing in the commercial airline industry? Burt Rutan. Space Ship One—the first private vehicle to take a human into space? Burt Rutan. He is a genius of the first order, and a maverick—probably why I like him so much. Burt decided to look into the whole “Global Warming-Climate Change” issue from the viewpoint of an aeronautical engineer as opposed to a scientist. Why?
My focus is on an Engineering Approach – where
data are critical and there are consequences for
being wrong; not the Scientist approach – where a
theory is the product and it can be right or wrong
without repercussions.
In other words, airplane designers are held to incredibly high, rigorous standards because when they are wrong, people die. The engineers and pilots rely heavily on accurate meteorological and climate data, which inform their designs and innovations. They must have good data.
So Burt decided to study the contentious issue for himself. I have looked at about 10% of the site so far, and it is blowing me away. Why? Because everything I have been saying for years—all the way back to the Ozone Scare of the 70’s—from a completely common-sense standpoint, using very little research—turns out to be true. And this guy did his homework. His research is comprehensive and thorough. He is brutally honest and frank while remaining professional and polite. And he does not equivocate. He interprets the data from the viewpoint of an engineer, whose life—and the lives of millions of others (and that is literally true) depends on his being right.
I am putting the link in this IGM, and I sincerely hope you at least go to it and scan the information. It is chock-full of graphs and raw data, but he explains it all simply and informally. Anyone still in the Human-Caused Climate-Change camp, or anyone with lingering doubts, absolutely needs to review this information. You owe it to yourselves.
When you get to the site you will be given two choices; a PDF version, and a PowerPoint version. I clicked on the PDF version and read it. It looks like this: Adobe pdf version - 3.7 megabytes
It will take a while, so don’t hurry. I haven’t tried it yet, but the PowerPoint version might be fun. it is vitally important that as many people as possible see this information. Pass it on if you feel like it.
At the end of this memo is a very brief synopsis of his conclusions. But we need to read the critique itself to understand why he makes these observations, comes to these conclusions, and makes these recommendations. The countries of the world—including our own—are about to bankrupt the planet, permanently cripple the global economy, and increase the death-rate and poverty exponentially, based on spurious data and self-serving agendas. It is vital that we prevent this from happening, and being informed is how we do it. We’ve all heard about the 2,500 scientists who signed the petition claiming global warming is a real, immediate, and relevant threat. How many of us have heard about the 31,000 scientists who signed a petition espousing the opposite point of view? You will find that in this report.
Who are we going to believe? That’s what it comes down to. For myself, I choose the world-class, brilliant engineer/innovator over the room-temperature IQ, career politician tobacco farmer.
By Burt Rutan:
Observations
• The only “evidence” that humans cause global warming comes from computer models. The creator of the model can make it show whatever he wants, by adjusting parameters.
• Man has not demonstrated an ability to change global temperatures, nor to forecast future climate conditions.
• It would be desirable to have more atmospheric CO2 than present, to increase crop yields and forest growth. This would save tens of millions of lives next century.
• The warming experienced in the last century and the warming expected in the next, did not and will not cause a net increase in extinctions or weather calamities.
• We do not know the important stuff - what causes the dangerous drop into the major ice ages or what causes the cyclic return to the brief interglacial warm periods.
• Is the debate over? "It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.”
Conclusions
• The CAGW agenda is supported with deceptively altered science. In spite of recent, human-caused atmospheric CO2 increases, there is nothing out of the ordinary happening with our climate.
• Climate Change is real. The earth has been naturally warming since the “Little Ice Age”, with cooling cycles.
• Fossil fuel use adds a small % to an important trace gas, that is not only beneficial, but is the essence of life itself.
• We cannot burn fossil fuels to prevent the next ice age; the greenhouse gas effect is far too weak for that.
• Current fuels will become naturally constrained by cost as they become scarce. Government taxes are not required.
• If Man, in the future, achieves a capability to change global temperatures, he will likely use that technology to warm the planet, not to cool it.
• Manmade global warming is over. It existed only in the minds of grant-seeking scientists and academics, ratings-obsessed media and opportunistic eco/political-activists.
Recommendations
• Recognize that, in terms of cost and human lives, the Government efforts to constrain use and increase the cost of energy are orders of magnitude more important than the certification of a new airliner.
• We cannot assure airline public safety by using a computer model to predict airline safety; we must do extensive testing under real conditions and pay attention to all the results.
• Require an engineering task as rigid as the certification of an airliner. Apply that task to the “theory of climate modification by man”. Mandate that “engineering certification” be done before governments can impose taxes, fees or regulations to constrain our use of any product to fuel our energy needs.
• Engineers do listen to scientists and use their work to help them plan the testing/validation needed to complete their certification goals. However, using scientists to direct airliner certification, would be as disastrous as scientists proposing theories to direct National or World energy policy.
Link: http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
IGM Space, Not Competition
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Space, Not Competition, drives Evolution
8-24-2010
There is another intriguing story this evening in Daily Tech.com. It seems some upstart PhD candidate at the University of Bristol is turning paleontology on its ear with a “renegade theory” that has the entire club in an uproar.
Sarda Sahney, after re-examining the fossil record (really? All of it? I’m impressed) with several other people, including her senior advisor, is proposing that the driving force behind evolution is available space, rather than competition. Ever since Darwin, scientists have assumed that competition among species is what pushed the changes in species. But Ms. Sahney believes otherwise.
Here comes our second relevant quote of the day!
Ms. Sahney and her group's principle investigator, Professor Mike Benton, examined the fossil record and came to the conclusion that organisms made the biggest leaps when they were exposed to an uncolonized space -- somewhere devoid of competition.
Without going into any detail as to how this process might work, (because, I’m guessing, they have no idea) she sees the increase in time and safety presented by areas empty of other species, as the prime mechanism for large and faster evolutionary jumps. Of course lots of other paleontologists and evolutionary biologists don’t agree. It is risky and unpopular to take any path contrary to Darwin. Professional suicide in fact. (Watch “Expelled” by Ben Stein.)
So now we have the big debate, which will no doubt rage for years. Space or competition. Which in return, I suppose, comes down to pressure, or lack of pressure.
But I’m going to propose a third alternative. I have developed a brave and radical new theory. And why not? I have just as much chance of being right as they do. They may be basing their ideas on one—one-one hundred thousandth of the available fossil record, but I’m basing mine on practical logic. Which is a special and rarified branch of logic having to do with things like balanced meals, rights-of-way, common sense, and UFOlogy.
Here goes. Changes in species occur from neither competition nor empty areas devoid of other species. alterations occur as the result of annual design changes similar to clothing or automobiles. Yearly demographic studies are made which followed trends in popularity, practicality, and cultural considerations. Committees will meet and brain-storm the next models, approve the best ideas, and send them on to marketing. Marketing will look at yearly sales reports, geological and long-term climate trends, and approve or disapprove the new batch of prototypes. Final designs would be sent to tooling and manufacturing, where the new models would be put together, built, made, created, brought to life, recorded, and given stamps of approval from various and sundry government agencies.
From there the new models would be crated and shipped to their chosen locations, released, monitored for quality assurance, and forgotten. A huge wrap party is held, and then the whole process starts over again.
As a side note, the delivery vehicles used, look like massive versions of Douglas DC-8’s. They arrive here after a journey of dozens of light years from an auxiliary industrial complex in the Galactic Confederacy. The CEO of the Earth Fauna and Flora Manufacturing Corporation, or EFFMC, is the former tyrant-ruler Xenu. During his tenure as CEO design considerations were bases primarily on Thetan aesthetics.
Hey, it could happen.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Space, Not Competition, drives Evolution
8-24-2010
There is another intriguing story this evening in Daily Tech.com. It seems some upstart PhD candidate at the University of Bristol is turning paleontology on its ear with a “renegade theory” that has the entire club in an uproar.
Sarda Sahney, after re-examining the fossil record (really? All of it? I’m impressed) with several other people, including her senior advisor, is proposing that the driving force behind evolution is available space, rather than competition. Ever since Darwin, scientists have assumed that competition among species is what pushed the changes in species. But Ms. Sahney believes otherwise.
Here comes our second relevant quote of the day!
Ms. Sahney and her group's principle investigator, Professor Mike Benton, examined the fossil record and came to the conclusion that organisms made the biggest leaps when they were exposed to an uncolonized space -- somewhere devoid of competition.
Without going into any detail as to how this process might work, (because, I’m guessing, they have no idea) she sees the increase in time and safety presented by areas empty of other species, as the prime mechanism for large and faster evolutionary jumps. Of course lots of other paleontologists and evolutionary biologists don’t agree. It is risky and unpopular to take any path contrary to Darwin. Professional suicide in fact. (Watch “Expelled” by Ben Stein.)
So now we have the big debate, which will no doubt rage for years. Space or competition. Which in return, I suppose, comes down to pressure, or lack of pressure.
But I’m going to propose a third alternative. I have developed a brave and radical new theory. And why not? I have just as much chance of being right as they do. They may be basing their ideas on one—one-one hundred thousandth of the available fossil record, but I’m basing mine on practical logic. Which is a special and rarified branch of logic having to do with things like balanced meals, rights-of-way, common sense, and UFOlogy.
Here goes. Changes in species occur from neither competition nor empty areas devoid of other species. alterations occur as the result of annual design changes similar to clothing or automobiles. Yearly demographic studies are made which followed trends in popularity, practicality, and cultural considerations. Committees will meet and brain-storm the next models, approve the best ideas, and send them on to marketing. Marketing will look at yearly sales reports, geological and long-term climate trends, and approve or disapprove the new batch of prototypes. Final designs would be sent to tooling and manufacturing, where the new models would be put together, built, made, created, brought to life, recorded, and given stamps of approval from various and sundry government agencies.
From there the new models would be crated and shipped to their chosen locations, released, monitored for quality assurance, and forgotten. A huge wrap party is held, and then the whole process starts over again.
As a side note, the delivery vehicles used, look like massive versions of Douglas DC-8’s. They arrive here after a journey of dozens of light years from an auxiliary industrial complex in the Galactic Confederacy. The CEO of the Earth Fauna and Flora Manufacturing Corporation, or EFFMC, is the former tyrant-ruler Xenu. During his tenure as CEO design considerations were bases primarily on Thetan aesthetics.
Hey, it could happen.
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Acidic Oceans
8-24-2010
Well, they’re at it again. Some fool-hardy scientists, more full of themselves than a bloated mosquito, have released findings from yet another research project involving Computer Models. This time we are being warned that the oceans are becoming more acidic and IT’S OUR FAULT!
Here’s the relevant quote:
According to this research, a decrease in pH means an increase in acidity. In 1750, the global mean ocean surface pH was at 8.2, and now it is at 8.1. If carbon dioxide emissions are not cut, the researchers' simulations predict that the pH could decrease to as low as 7.7 by 2100. On the other hand, if carbon dioxide emissions are controlled, the simulations predict that the pH won't fall below 8.0 by 2100. Research indicates that there will be an emissions peak in 2016, then it will decrease by five percent each year after.
Fascinating. No, really. Translated, it means “we know next to nothing about ocean acidity and it’s phases, but this model makes it sound as if we do.” I wonder how many factors they were able to program into their model. 10? 50? 100? And I wonder how they chose these factors? By committee? The head of the project? An RPG die? These are important questions because we know on the face of it that the vast majority of factors involved in a process as complex and lengthy as this one, remain undetected, unthought-of, and unknown.
Let’s be nice and give them 100 factors. This is a lot for a computer model, but they’re getting better at it all the time. Now let’s estimate (a technical term meaning “speculate”) that there are actually 10,000 +or -. I’m guessing it is more likely to be greater by a factor of ten, but that’s just me being cynical. How accurate a picture are we likely to get with a ratio like that?
Here’s a handy analogy. One hundred reasons (evidences) to commit murder are probably sufficient for a conviction, and are all the police would bother discovering. But for a forensic psychologist, or sociologist, enough digging, research, experimenting and hypotheses would likely reveal a lifetime of complex interconnections and decision-paths leading up to the murder, which would offer a completely new and different story. Much more thorough, and useful, from a predictor standpoint, as well as medical, in terms of treatment and prognosis. But she probably still did it.
Once again, I have no complaint with modeling complex systems on cool Macs, with those sleek design features. They are a useful tool, a powerful weapon in the arsenal of science. But they are not reality. Not the real thing. And they do not inform to the extent that they should be substituted for reality, especially by really smart people who should know better.
The modeling is fine. It should be combined with lots of other things in order to make educated guesses on the way to that elusive goal of “actually knowing.” And it’s okay to come and say, “hey, this is what we’re studying, and this is why, and this is what we think might be happening, but it could be this as well.” Instead, the preferred method these days is to release the findings prematurely, and in isolation, to some faction of the press, in this case usually an online geek-parade like Daily Tech. (I love Daily Tech.) One wonders what the actual motive is for such behavior. It is hardly professional. Has little to do with the scientific method. Is often politically-motivated. Absolutely inappropriate. And smacks of a new kind of über-geek narcissism.
And as long as they keep having the bad taste of doing it this way, I’m going to keep calling them on it. (Until I’m proven completely wrong by a precocious ten-year old.)
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Acidic Oceans
8-24-2010
Well, they’re at it again. Some fool-hardy scientists, more full of themselves than a bloated mosquito, have released findings from yet another research project involving Computer Models. This time we are being warned that the oceans are becoming more acidic and IT’S OUR FAULT!
Here’s the relevant quote:
According to this research, a decrease in pH means an increase in acidity. In 1750, the global mean ocean surface pH was at 8.2, and now it is at 8.1. If carbon dioxide emissions are not cut, the researchers' simulations predict that the pH could decrease to as low as 7.7 by 2100. On the other hand, if carbon dioxide emissions are controlled, the simulations predict that the pH won't fall below 8.0 by 2100. Research indicates that there will be an emissions peak in 2016, then it will decrease by five percent each year after.
Fascinating. No, really. Translated, it means “we know next to nothing about ocean acidity and it’s phases, but this model makes it sound as if we do.” I wonder how many factors they were able to program into their model. 10? 50? 100? And I wonder how they chose these factors? By committee? The head of the project? An RPG die? These are important questions because we know on the face of it that the vast majority of factors involved in a process as complex and lengthy as this one, remain undetected, unthought-of, and unknown.
Let’s be nice and give them 100 factors. This is a lot for a computer model, but they’re getting better at it all the time. Now let’s estimate (a technical term meaning “speculate”) that there are actually 10,000 +or -. I’m guessing it is more likely to be greater by a factor of ten, but that’s just me being cynical. How accurate a picture are we likely to get with a ratio like that?
Here’s a handy analogy. One hundred reasons (evidences) to commit murder are probably sufficient for a conviction, and are all the police would bother discovering. But for a forensic psychologist, or sociologist, enough digging, research, experimenting and hypotheses would likely reveal a lifetime of complex interconnections and decision-paths leading up to the murder, which would offer a completely new and different story. Much more thorough, and useful, from a predictor standpoint, as well as medical, in terms of treatment and prognosis. But she probably still did it.
Once again, I have no complaint with modeling complex systems on cool Macs, with those sleek design features. They are a useful tool, a powerful weapon in the arsenal of science. But they are not reality. Not the real thing. And they do not inform to the extent that they should be substituted for reality, especially by really smart people who should know better.
The modeling is fine. It should be combined with lots of other things in order to make educated guesses on the way to that elusive goal of “actually knowing.” And it’s okay to come and say, “hey, this is what we’re studying, and this is why, and this is what we think might be happening, but it could be this as well.” Instead, the preferred method these days is to release the findings prematurely, and in isolation, to some faction of the press, in this case usually an online geek-parade like Daily Tech. (I love Daily Tech.) One wonders what the actual motive is for such behavior. It is hardly professional. Has little to do with the scientific method. Is often politically-motivated. Absolutely inappropriate. And smacks of a new kind of über-geek narcissism.
And as long as they keep having the bad taste of doing it this way, I’m going to keep calling them on it. (Until I’m proven completely wrong by a precocious ten-year old.)
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Ground Zero Muslim Center
8-16-2010
President Obama has had a few things to say about this proposed (and when we say “proposed,” we mean “foregone conclusion) Islamic Studies Center near Ground Zero, in New York. Here is a good sampling:
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama said in remarks at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."
See full article from DailyFinance: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/president-obama-backs-muslim-center-near-ground-zero/19593495/?icid=sphere_copyright
I have to agree with him this time. He is absolutely right. This is America, and we have a sacred trust, and obligation, to hold the 1st Amendment sacrosanct. We cannot equivocate on this.
The Republicans are blasting the President on his statements, but the criticism rings hollow to my ears—after all, it’s an election year.
They are yelling at the wrong person. Obama, were he an actual American, and real President, would have found himself caught between the rock and the hard place on this issue. As president, he would rightfully have had to take just the stand that he has, and suffered the unpopularity and polling hits, content to be on the right side of the issue. As an American, he might have been conflicted, upset, even disgusted at the dilemma. But he is not—as far as I am concerned—a “real” American, nor a “real” President. (well, I might have to rethink that last one—he does live in the White House).
Because of who he is, (rather than who he portrays himself to be), I don’t think he had one second’s problem taking this stand, and making these statements. In fact, there are a lot of people, Obama apparently included, who believe Islam should have additional rights over those guaranteed by the Constitution. Rights no one else seems to have.
The President has shown no real evidence that he is a religious man. Which is fine. (And please don’t mention Rev. Wright’s “church.” That place is to religion what pornography is to sex.) But if he is religious, we can be confident that he is Muslim. (Which is fine as well, but I wish he’d be upfront about it). And he is still the wrong one to be yelling at. The conservative pundits have it wrong. (Or maybe they’re being cagey. Maybe they’re yelling at him because they think he’s being duplicitous and using his high office to further the cause of Islam. None of which is relevant to my thesis.)
No, the people the Republican’s should be yelling at are the Muslim’s who made the proposal. They have the right to worship when, where, and how they please. But the proposal itself is beyond the pale of bad taste. It is the single most insensitive thing I have ever heard of, with the possible exception of the Holocaust. They should not have asked. Having asked, New York had the right to deny it. They didn’t. They fast-tracked it—despite the fact that the same committee has been keeping a Greek Orthodox Church waiting 9 years for permission to effect repairs to damage caused by the 9-11 collisions.
They aren’t yelling at the Muslims who want to build at ground zero because they are afraid. They are afraid because a lot of Muslim’s (not all, by any stretch) are insane as measured by western standards. Of course, now that all values, standards, cultures, and civilizations are equal, there’s nothing anyone can do on that front.
They are afraid that extremist jihadists will come and kill them, and their families, and then kill a few thousand innocents just because. Remember—it is better to be dead than an infidel. No one wants a Muslim mad at them. So they are yelling at the President. It’s kind of like how we yell at Iran because we know North Korea is listening.
The fact that the proposal hasn’t been withdrawn is provocative. Just as the proposal itself was provocative. I do not for a moment think it was made innocently, out of a desire for peace and reconciliation. If that were the case, the Ground Zero Muslim Center would have been taken off the table long before now.
So what should we do? Nothing. As Americans, they have the same rights you and I do. But remember, this thing will be a blight to most Americans. An insult too extreme to be ignored, or suffered. And once finished, and open, security will cost millions. Not just internally, but think about all the money NYC will have to pay out every year protecting the place from people less genteel and sophisticated than you and I.
I hope America gives the place a chance to prove it’s sincerity as a place of peace, hope, and brotherhood. And I hope they do prove it. Really.
But I’m not holding my breath.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Ground Zero Muslim Center
8-16-2010
President Obama has had a few things to say about this proposed (and when we say “proposed,” we mean “foregone conclusion) Islamic Studies Center near Ground Zero, in New York. Here is a good sampling:
"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country," Obama said in remarks at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. "That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."
See full article from DailyFinance: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/president-obama-backs-muslim-center-near-ground-zero/19593495/?icid=sphere_copyright
I have to agree with him this time. He is absolutely right. This is America, and we have a sacred trust, and obligation, to hold the 1st Amendment sacrosanct. We cannot equivocate on this.
The Republicans are blasting the President on his statements, but the criticism rings hollow to my ears—after all, it’s an election year.
They are yelling at the wrong person. Obama, were he an actual American, and real President, would have found himself caught between the rock and the hard place on this issue. As president, he would rightfully have had to take just the stand that he has, and suffered the unpopularity and polling hits, content to be on the right side of the issue. As an American, he might have been conflicted, upset, even disgusted at the dilemma. But he is not—as far as I am concerned—a “real” American, nor a “real” President. (well, I might have to rethink that last one—he does live in the White House).
Because of who he is, (rather than who he portrays himself to be), I don’t think he had one second’s problem taking this stand, and making these statements. In fact, there are a lot of people, Obama apparently included, who believe Islam should have additional rights over those guaranteed by the Constitution. Rights no one else seems to have.
The President has shown no real evidence that he is a religious man. Which is fine. (And please don’t mention Rev. Wright’s “church.” That place is to religion what pornography is to sex.) But if he is religious, we can be confident that he is Muslim. (Which is fine as well, but I wish he’d be upfront about it). And he is still the wrong one to be yelling at. The conservative pundits have it wrong. (Or maybe they’re being cagey. Maybe they’re yelling at him because they think he’s being duplicitous and using his high office to further the cause of Islam. None of which is relevant to my thesis.)
No, the people the Republican’s should be yelling at are the Muslim’s who made the proposal. They have the right to worship when, where, and how they please. But the proposal itself is beyond the pale of bad taste. It is the single most insensitive thing I have ever heard of, with the possible exception of the Holocaust. They should not have asked. Having asked, New York had the right to deny it. They didn’t. They fast-tracked it—despite the fact that the same committee has been keeping a Greek Orthodox Church waiting 9 years for permission to effect repairs to damage caused by the 9-11 collisions.
They aren’t yelling at the Muslims who want to build at ground zero because they are afraid. They are afraid because a lot of Muslim’s (not all, by any stretch) are insane as measured by western standards. Of course, now that all values, standards, cultures, and civilizations are equal, there’s nothing anyone can do on that front.
They are afraid that extremist jihadists will come and kill them, and their families, and then kill a few thousand innocents just because. Remember—it is better to be dead than an infidel. No one wants a Muslim mad at them. So they are yelling at the President. It’s kind of like how we yell at Iran because we know North Korea is listening.
The fact that the proposal hasn’t been withdrawn is provocative. Just as the proposal itself was provocative. I do not for a moment think it was made innocently, out of a desire for peace and reconciliation. If that were the case, the Ground Zero Muslim Center would have been taken off the table long before now.
So what should we do? Nothing. As Americans, they have the same rights you and I do. But remember, this thing will be a blight to most Americans. An insult too extreme to be ignored, or suffered. And once finished, and open, security will cost millions. Not just internally, but think about all the money NYC will have to pay out every year protecting the place from people less genteel and sophisticated than you and I.
I hope America gives the place a chance to prove it’s sincerity as a place of peace, hope, and brotherhood. And I hope they do prove it. Really.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: A New Sensibility
8-6-2010
We drove over to a big, brand new Good Will store today (yes, we shop at thrift stores) and we saw two reserved parking spaces we had never seen before. They were not for handicapped cars, (I think it’s irresponsible to let handicapped cars on the road anyway) instead, they were for environmentally aware cars-slash-people. The ink was green, and it said:
Preferred Parking
Parking for Environmentally Friendly and/or fuel efficient vehicles only.
Took me completely by surprise. But it did elicit one or two questions. Like . . . who decides which vehicles are friendly to the environment? What is the minimum allowable level of friendliness? And what is the criteria (if any) for fuel-efficiency in this particular parking lot?
I did not see an attendant standing by to offer helpful consultation as to who might qualify for these coveted spots, so close to the entrance to a thrift store. I did not see a list of acceptable makes and models, which would have been helpful. Nor did I see a comprehensive list of attributes and characteristics which would render a given person acceptable.
We were driving a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan. It has a six cylinder engine and gets around 20 MPG. I doubt that would qualify. But we had 6 people in it, which brings passenger MPG up to 120. Do you suppose that would qualify?
I didn’t really want to park in one of the spaces anyway, because I can’t think of anything more pretentious and disingenuous than setting aside parking places for such meaningless, unquantifiable reasons. I mean, think about it—there is no discernable criteria involved in the message. As close as anyone could get is something like; “If you think of yourself as an environmentalist, or if you drive a hybrid, or electric car, or gas or diesel engine that gets pretty good mileage, or if you really like trees and clean air, or if you believe in Gaia, or are maybe pagan—but only the good kind—or you think the stock holders of BP should be taken out and shot, or you liked “Free Willy”, or “Ferngully”, or are really sad about Katrina, or think Obama and Biden are doing enough for the planet, or you believe in only wearing natural fibers, or are a vegan, or . . . well, you get the picture. All of the above please feel free to petition for an environmental parking space. (Hey, shouldn’t such a space be grass, rather than paved? And if it is grass, should anyone really be driving on it?)
Here’s what bothers me about this. Someone had to have had the idea to do this, and their internal censor must have actually let it pass. Not only that, they had to have talked to someone else about it, and everyone had to have agreed it was a good idea—not in the sense that there was any kind of reasoning for it—because clearly, as written, there was not—but because it would make everyone involved in creating the policy “feel good” about themselves, as well as whoever decided to park in a space. It’s all about feeling good these days. Remember when it was about being good, or doing good? Now . . . all we gotta do is feel good, and we’re part of the in crowd.
I saw this happen in the public schools too. For years the growing focus was on kids feeling good, until finally, every minute of instruction time was geared towards the students “feeling good” about themselves, until there was no academic rigor left, no scholarship, no sense of achievement—no need in a world where feeling good about oneself is the ultimate goal.
And now we can do it while we park our cars. Feel special. Feel exclusive. As long as we are kowtowing to the PC world of the newest sensation, the latest craze . . . the self-esteem addict.
It’s a brave new world boys and girls.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: A New Sensibility
8-6-2010
We drove over to a big, brand new Good Will store today (yes, we shop at thrift stores) and we saw two reserved parking spaces we had never seen before. They were not for handicapped cars, (I think it’s irresponsible to let handicapped cars on the road anyway) instead, they were for environmentally aware cars-slash-people. The ink was green, and it said:
Preferred Parking
Parking for Environmentally Friendly and/or fuel efficient vehicles only.
Took me completely by surprise. But it did elicit one or two questions. Like . . . who decides which vehicles are friendly to the environment? What is the minimum allowable level of friendliness? And what is the criteria (if any) for fuel-efficiency in this particular parking lot?
I did not see an attendant standing by to offer helpful consultation as to who might qualify for these coveted spots, so close to the entrance to a thrift store. I did not see a list of acceptable makes and models, which would have been helpful. Nor did I see a comprehensive list of attributes and characteristics which would render a given person acceptable.
We were driving a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan. It has a six cylinder engine and gets around 20 MPG. I doubt that would qualify. But we had 6 people in it, which brings passenger MPG up to 120. Do you suppose that would qualify?
I didn’t really want to park in one of the spaces anyway, because I can’t think of anything more pretentious and disingenuous than setting aside parking places for such meaningless, unquantifiable reasons. I mean, think about it—there is no discernable criteria involved in the message. As close as anyone could get is something like; “If you think of yourself as an environmentalist, or if you drive a hybrid, or electric car, or gas or diesel engine that gets pretty good mileage, or if you really like trees and clean air, or if you believe in Gaia, or are maybe pagan—but only the good kind—or you think the stock holders of BP should be taken out and shot, or you liked “Free Willy”, or “Ferngully”, or are really sad about Katrina, or think Obama and Biden are doing enough for the planet, or you believe in only wearing natural fibers, or are a vegan, or . . . well, you get the picture. All of the above please feel free to petition for an environmental parking space. (Hey, shouldn’t such a space be grass, rather than paved? And if it is grass, should anyone really be driving on it?)
Here’s what bothers me about this. Someone had to have had the idea to do this, and their internal censor must have actually let it pass. Not only that, they had to have talked to someone else about it, and everyone had to have agreed it was a good idea—not in the sense that there was any kind of reasoning for it—because clearly, as written, there was not—but because it would make everyone involved in creating the policy “feel good” about themselves, as well as whoever decided to park in a space. It’s all about feeling good these days. Remember when it was about being good, or doing good? Now . . . all we gotta do is feel good, and we’re part of the in crowd.
I saw this happen in the public schools too. For years the growing focus was on kids feeling good, until finally, every minute of instruction time was geared towards the students “feeling good” about themselves, until there was no academic rigor left, no scholarship, no sense of achievement—no need in a world where feeling good about oneself is the ultimate goal.
And now we can do it while we park our cars. Feel special. Feel exclusive. As long as we are kowtowing to the PC world of the newest sensation, the latest craze . . . the self-esteem addict.
It’s a brave new world boys and girls.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
IGM Settling IN
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Settling In
8-3-2010
Nita and I took a walk today. I may have mentioned to some of you that Aubrey (and now we) lives a ten-minute walk from the Palmyra Temple. I estimated that from looking at Google Earth, but I missed by a little. We walked to the Temple this morning and it took 25 minutes . . . but it was a pretty country road with so much green it hurt the eyes, and wonderfully old and quaint homes lining the lane—which is actually a state highway, but you can’t tell to walk along it.
The Temple is beautiful. Small, compared to many others, but set on a grassy hill, with the usual immaculate grounds full of dazzling flowers. A Nita paradise.
And since the Joseph Smith farm was a few hundred feet away, which meant the Sacred Grove was right around the corner as well, we walked over there and into the forest to meander the paths and see if we could feel some residual spirit still lingering from the Visitation. Maybe. How would I know?
We walked around the grove for an hour, and at some point the spirit backed-off in order to let sweaty exhaustion take center stage. By the time we found our way out, I was so tired I called Aubrey and asked her to come rescue us—which she did. Good girl, Aub.
I have been chastised for not mentioning how beautiful it is here—and it is, truly. But I am not recovered yet from my marathon trip, nor am I acclimated to the elevation, humidity, and flora-induced claustrophobia, so my appreciation is lackluster at best. Maybe it will improve this fall. I’m not optimistic though—everyone knows I have a huge, raging bias against all things eastern.
We’re supposed to be here though. I have no doubt of that. Now I just have to figure out why.
Our cottage is wonderful. Aubrey and Greg took it down to the floorboards and studs and fixed, upgraded, or replaced everything. Way too much work and money spent, but we love it. Small, but cozy. And we live ten feet from them, connected by an enclosed “breezeway,” and their house is big and old—1870 I’m told. The light in their house is buttery, and their kitchen-dining area is the kind one envisions for the Celestial Kingdom; all about family and love and modern conveniences. And they have a new dog—Meggie—a Australian Shepherd, and she is wondrously alive and happy. Newell, you would love her.
So I guess we’re really here. I know we’re supposed to be, but I wish I knew why.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Settling In
8-3-2010
Nita and I took a walk today. I may have mentioned to some of you that Aubrey (and now we) lives a ten-minute walk from the Palmyra Temple. I estimated that from looking at Google Earth, but I missed by a little. We walked to the Temple this morning and it took 25 minutes . . . but it was a pretty country road with so much green it hurt the eyes, and wonderfully old and quaint homes lining the lane—which is actually a state highway, but you can’t tell to walk along it.
The Temple is beautiful. Small, compared to many others, but set on a grassy hill, with the usual immaculate grounds full of dazzling flowers. A Nita paradise.
And since the Joseph Smith farm was a few hundred feet away, which meant the Sacred Grove was right around the corner as well, we walked over there and into the forest to meander the paths and see if we could feel some residual spirit still lingering from the Visitation. Maybe. How would I know?
We walked around the grove for an hour, and at some point the spirit backed-off in order to let sweaty exhaustion take center stage. By the time we found our way out, I was so tired I called Aubrey and asked her to come rescue us—which she did. Good girl, Aub.
I have been chastised for not mentioning how beautiful it is here—and it is, truly. But I am not recovered yet from my marathon trip, nor am I acclimated to the elevation, humidity, and flora-induced claustrophobia, so my appreciation is lackluster at best. Maybe it will improve this fall. I’m not optimistic though—everyone knows I have a huge, raging bias against all things eastern.
We’re supposed to be here though. I have no doubt of that. Now I just have to figure out why.
Our cottage is wonderful. Aubrey and Greg took it down to the floorboards and studs and fixed, upgraded, or replaced everything. Way too much work and money spent, but we love it. Small, but cozy. And we live ten feet from them, connected by an enclosed “breezeway,” and their house is big and old—1870 I’m told. The light in their house is buttery, and their kitchen-dining area is the kind one envisions for the Celestial Kingdom; all about family and love and modern conveniences. And they have a new dog—Meggie—a Australian Shepherd, and she is wondrously alive and happy. Newell, you would love her.
So I guess we’re really here. I know we’re supposed to be, but I wish I knew why.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
IGM Wives and Daughters
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Wives and Daughters
7-8-2010
I have three daughters, and a son. This will be mostly about my wife and daughters, but I promise to say something nice about Grah in the future. It will be easy to do.
For forty years, off and on, at random moments, I will catch a glimpse of Nita, and she will take my breath away. My heart jumps in my chest. It still happens. She surpasses my understanding. Her beauty is inextricably tied to who she is, and her character cannot help but shine through into the outer world.
This is not always the case with human beings. (I will use Lindsey Lohan as exhibit A).
Perhaps I am able to see something no one else does. Although she has always been well-regarded by males, who have hovered around her with silly, surreptitious and hopeless longing.
And ever since my daughters became young women, and now simply women, the same thing happens, occasionally, when I look at them. It amazes me how much a momentary glance can speak so much of them to me. I see dedicated mother, and caregiver, student, teacher, artist, devoted wife (and girlfriend), and so many other things.
I see good. Honor, integrity, sacrifice—all the same things I have always seen in Nita. And in my daughters, the gestalt of these traits combine to create a rare kind of beauty often missing in the faces of women internationally known for a different, and lesser, kind of splendor.
Each has her own peculiar aspect. A radiance, an ethereal, inner glow that manifests with a turn of the head, in a stray beam of light, or a gentle shadow.
Aubrey, with decades of wisdom and love beyond her years in her eyes. A kind of celestial countenance shining through.
Jessica with that naturally blonde hair, that skin, and those eyes, with a mother’s love burning eternally in them.
Chani, with her crazy make-up and hair color of the week, that sparkle, that elfin smile.
And Nita, with . . . everything. Forever eyes. A whole set of smiles only I ever see. A tenderness and dedication beyond reason, beyond imagination.
A man should not be allowed such fortune; it is unfair to those with lesser beauty in their lives. But there it is, and nothing I can do about it.
And already I can see the same exquisite grace growing like a special blessing in my granddaughters. Naomi, the Gelfling Princess, Ellie, the wide-eyed gypsy-girl, Caroline, my perfect little shadow, with a smile that defines mischievous, Salem, the dark-eyed gift from another dimension, Cecily, whose beauty is so radiant, and intense, she retains its perfection even when frowning, or crying, or angry, and Tesla, so small and new, and already extraordinary, with the same other-worldly looks of her sister.
When—no, if—I find myself in a personal interview with Heavenly Father, the first thing I will ask Him is, why me? What did I do to deserve such singular people in my life, to be so well-loved by such completely beautiful women and girls? I don’t have a clue, but it must have been something pretty good.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
IGM Connectivity
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Connectivity
6-19-10
Has anyone else noticed the radical speed with which our culture is allowing itself to be changed by emerging technology? We are in the midst of so much upheaval, from so many fronts, that I suspect most people are not comprehending the nature of the paradigm shifts. Plural. And neither do I.
Today, for the first time in known human history (I include that caveat because we have no idea what the level of technical civilization was prior to the Flood) we are in a state of unending, consistently mind-boggling, emergent technology. We have no time to assimilate, consider, or become familiar with implications before we are again inundated with the next wave. And as far as I can tell, no one is monitoring any of this, other than a few über techno-geeks writing for obscure online magazines. And my son.
What brought this situation to my admittedly scattershot attention, was a recent event on my Facebook account.
In fact, let me regress for a moment. I am a 60 year old American male, one of the last people born in the 40’s. I was old enough to remember the first television we ever got. I am one of the last of the Beatles and Beach Boys generation. And I have a Facebook account.
Back to the future.
So, a few days ago, I got an email, inviting me to be ‘friends’ with someone. Most of us have experienced that annoying little game. (How many times have you received friend requests from people you do not know?)
It took me a minute. Her name was familiar, but did not ring any bells for a moment. Then it hit me. René. She was my first girlfriend when I went to Glen Burnie High School, in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in 1966-68. For those of us addicted to calculation (which does not include me), that is 44 years ago. And now we are in a position to reconnect. I almost always say yes to friend requests . . . and I don’t even know why. To be polite? Maybe it had something to do with that song, Walk Away René, which was popular when we were going steady. (Who did that? Was it the Left Bank?)
In the old world, people we knew half-a century ago, would be long-gone, forever and properly relegated to the obscure past, half memory, half fiction. In no sense are any of us the same people we were at seventeen, even though that kid still lurks in the hinterlands of our subconscious. So why bother?
I think the reason may be deceptively simple; because we can. Because technology makes it too easy. We do it, and don’t even question why. Well, some of us do. A lot of us. And for my childrens generation, it is much worse. They are immersed in the world of cyberspace. My grandchildren will no doubt be living in Tron.
So I clicked on the SUBMIT button, or whatever it is, and let René back into my life, if only peripherally. I liked René. She was cute, and insecure. A little too skinny—could’a used a few pounds . . . And she broke up with a senior to go with me. And then I broke up with her. Why? Who knows? I was young and stupid, and insensitive. And I took things like girlfriends very seriously, despite my total lack of cool, and my ultimate cluelessness. I was the only high school jock in history who wasn’t popular—not that I cared.
Another regression: I didn’t ‘date’. I was terrified of girls, and mesmerized by the mystery at the same time. Consequently, I either had a ‘girlfriend’, with whom I was hopelessly in love, or nothing at all. I didn’t do casual. I fantasized about marrying every one of them, and living happily ever after, in a cave, while I protected them from dragons and evil boys. Oh, what? Like you didn’t?
Back to the future.
So what do we talk about? How many bases we got to? (Just one—repeatedly.) Obama? Religion? Our lives? And what possessed her to ask in the first place? What kind of morbid curiosity would compel someone to reconnect with a high school boyfriend after all this time? (well, other than Gloria, who seems to make a habit of it. ) It’s not like I stayed in the area, or that we kept in touch. I haven’t seen, or talked to, or much thought about René for over forty years. Which is not meant to be a criticism, I was just getting on with my life, as I’m sure she has been. And admittedly, I’m sure I posses that same morbid bent. I’m still looking for Kay.
The point: Everything is changing, before our eyes. Connectivity is becoming a proper noun. I Googled Gadianton Robbers last night, and only got to Gadian—before the suggestions popped up and Gadianton Robbers was the first one. That’s a pretty obscure reference, and Google not only had it, but had it number one. Go ahead, try to Google something that doesn’t hit. Try and find a name on Facebook. (XKCD has a great cartoon about that. I’d send it with this IGM if the content wasn’t questionable.)
As an example, did you know that most photocopy machines (post about 2003) now have hard-drives in them? It speeds up the process. The first scan sends all the info to the hard drive, which then sends it to the copy brain, making it unnecessary to scan again and again, saving time. Think about all the documents you’ve scanned as a matter of course. All the personal information. Copy machines are storing it all. Who has access to it? No wonder people are trying to opt out of the grid, get off the net.
I can’t help but wonder where it’s all going to lead. Of course, it’s all fodder for a writer of speculative fiction, good and bad, but still . . . what happens when everything we are, and everything we know, and think, and do, is public knowledge, accessible to everyone? And how will it change the social dynamic when we all have ten thousand friends, and have not met any of them?
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Connectivity
6-19-10
Has anyone else noticed the radical speed with which our culture is allowing itself to be changed by emerging technology? We are in the midst of so much upheaval, from so many fronts, that I suspect most people are not comprehending the nature of the paradigm shifts. Plural. And neither do I.
Today, for the first time in known human history (I include that caveat because we have no idea what the level of technical civilization was prior to the Flood) we are in a state of unending, consistently mind-boggling, emergent technology. We have no time to assimilate, consider, or become familiar with implications before we are again inundated with the next wave. And as far as I can tell, no one is monitoring any of this, other than a few über techno-geeks writing for obscure online magazines. And my son.
What brought this situation to my admittedly scattershot attention, was a recent event on my Facebook account.
In fact, let me regress for a moment. I am a 60 year old American male, one of the last people born in the 40’s. I was old enough to remember the first television we ever got. I am one of the last of the Beatles and Beach Boys generation. And I have a Facebook account.
Back to the future.
So, a few days ago, I got an email, inviting me to be ‘friends’ with someone. Most of us have experienced that annoying little game. (How many times have you received friend requests from people you do not know?)
It took me a minute. Her name was familiar, but did not ring any bells for a moment. Then it hit me. René. She was my first girlfriend when I went to Glen Burnie High School, in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in 1966-68. For those of us addicted to calculation (which does not include me), that is 44 years ago. And now we are in a position to reconnect. I almost always say yes to friend requests . . . and I don’t even know why. To be polite? Maybe it had something to do with that song, Walk Away René, which was popular when we were going steady. (Who did that? Was it the Left Bank?)
In the old world, people we knew half-a century ago, would be long-gone, forever and properly relegated to the obscure past, half memory, half fiction. In no sense are any of us the same people we were at seventeen, even though that kid still lurks in the hinterlands of our subconscious. So why bother?
I think the reason may be deceptively simple; because we can. Because technology makes it too easy. We do it, and don’t even question why. Well, some of us do. A lot of us. And for my childrens generation, it is much worse. They are immersed in the world of cyberspace. My grandchildren will no doubt be living in Tron.
So I clicked on the SUBMIT button, or whatever it is, and let René back into my life, if only peripherally. I liked René. She was cute, and insecure. A little too skinny—could’a used a few pounds . . . And she broke up with a senior to go with me. And then I broke up with her. Why? Who knows? I was young and stupid, and insensitive. And I took things like girlfriends very seriously, despite my total lack of cool, and my ultimate cluelessness. I was the only high school jock in history who wasn’t popular—not that I cared.
Another regression: I didn’t ‘date’. I was terrified of girls, and mesmerized by the mystery at the same time. Consequently, I either had a ‘girlfriend’, with whom I was hopelessly in love, or nothing at all. I didn’t do casual. I fantasized about marrying every one of them, and living happily ever after, in a cave, while I protected them from dragons and evil boys. Oh, what? Like you didn’t?
Back to the future.
So what do we talk about? How many bases we got to? (Just one—repeatedly.) Obama? Religion? Our lives? And what possessed her to ask in the first place? What kind of morbid curiosity would compel someone to reconnect with a high school boyfriend after all this time? (well, other than Gloria, who seems to make a habit of it. ) It’s not like I stayed in the area, or that we kept in touch. I haven’t seen, or talked to, or much thought about René for over forty years. Which is not meant to be a criticism, I was just getting on with my life, as I’m sure she has been. And admittedly, I’m sure I posses that same morbid bent. I’m still looking for Kay.
The point: Everything is changing, before our eyes. Connectivity is becoming a proper noun. I Googled Gadianton Robbers last night, and only got to Gadian—before the suggestions popped up and Gadianton Robbers was the first one. That’s a pretty obscure reference, and Google not only had it, but had it number one. Go ahead, try to Google something that doesn’t hit. Try and find a name on Facebook. (XKCD has a great cartoon about that. I’d send it with this IGM if the content wasn’t questionable.)
As an example, did you know that most photocopy machines (post about 2003) now have hard-drives in them? It speeds up the process. The first scan sends all the info to the hard drive, which then sends it to the copy brain, making it unnecessary to scan again and again, saving time. Think about all the documents you’ve scanned as a matter of course. All the personal information. Copy machines are storing it all. Who has access to it? No wonder people are trying to opt out of the grid, get off the net.
I can’t help but wonder where it’s all going to lead. Of course, it’s all fodder for a writer of speculative fiction, good and bad, but still . . . what happens when everything we are, and everything we know, and think, and do, is public knowledge, accessible to everyone? And how will it change the social dynamic when we all have ten thousand friends, and have not met any of them?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
IGM The NASA Islam Connection
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The NASA Islam connection
7-6-2010
In a surprise move right out if the old “Bat-**** insane” playbook, President Obama has given a brave new mandate to the new head of NASA. According to an article in Google News, which quotes the new space boss, Obama told him in no uncertain terms that NASA’s number one priority now, will be improving relations with Muslims, and Islamic nations.
I don’t know about you, but when I read something like that, I experience a moment of severe cerebral short-circuiting.
“What? . . . . I mean . . . WHAT?”
But then, after I thought about it for a moment, it made perfect sense. Because, what else would NASA be doing, right? After all, they are the National Space and Aeronautic Administration, which puts them at the forefront of relations-building with nations and cultures which can barely figure out a flush toilet, much less conceive a need for, and design, a commode that works in zero gravity.
The obvious question I suppose, is, why would Obama list such a thing as a priority at all, much less for NASA, the least likely of all government agencies to have anything to do with our relations with Islam? Is it possible the President has a soft spot for Islam? Could it be that he considers himself a Muslim? Lots of people have been making that claim lately, and this certainly bolsters that radical possibility. Not that being Muslim in any way disqualifies him from being President—that’s not what this country is about.
Here’s the thing: Contrary to popular belief, and Charlie Rangel, NASA’s annual budget is miniscule. Things like this need to be put into some kind of perspective. Human and Social Services, as an example, spends NASA’s budget about every nine days. With that in mind, who in their right mind would task the National Space agency to spend hundreds of millions of its very limited budget, building good relations with Muslim—or any other—countries? I mean, seriously . . . . . how are they supposed to even do something like that?
“And this is a spacesuit . . . it’s air tight!”
“Behead the infidel!”
I’m not suggesting that good, or better, relations with Islam is a bad, or unnecessary thing. On the contrary, I’m sure improvements in that area would be wonderful. What I am suggesting, is that it might be less than appropriate for a high-tech, scientific organization, which does things in space, for America, to be our good-will ambassador to third-world countries. Don’t we already have agencies and organizations designed for just such things?
One wonders what the President has in mind. Maybe we can partner with Afghanistan to put poppies in orbit. Or go in with Iran to help them improve their long-range ballistic missile program, or accelerate their nuclear ambitions, or even give them a heads up on superior, heat-resistant and ablative material so they can make better tents.
I mean, if this is a good idea, why not task the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get together with the people of Indonesia and the Sudan and do little compare-and-contrast sessions on culture and religious traditions? Muslims would love that, right?
The next thing we know, someone from NASA is going to say the wrong thing, or misinterpret some innocent Jihadist remark, and we will find ourselves with a Fatwa against astronauts, and all “devil-spawned” satellites. Then we’ll be in a pickle. We’ll have to put the entire NASA program in orbit, just to keep it safe. And that will work, because one thing we can count on is that the current iteration of Islam will never have the technical, cultural, or philosophical wherewithal to get off the ground, much less into space.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The NASA Islam connection
7-6-2010
In a surprise move right out if the old “Bat-**** insane” playbook, President Obama has given a brave new mandate to the new head of NASA. According to an article in Google News, which quotes the new space boss, Obama told him in no uncertain terms that NASA’s number one priority now, will be improving relations with Muslims, and Islamic nations.
I don’t know about you, but when I read something like that, I experience a moment of severe cerebral short-circuiting.
“What? . . . . I mean . . . WHAT?”
But then, after I thought about it for a moment, it made perfect sense. Because, what else would NASA be doing, right? After all, they are the National Space and Aeronautic Administration, which puts them at the forefront of relations-building with nations and cultures which can barely figure out a flush toilet, much less conceive a need for, and design, a commode that works in zero gravity.
The obvious question I suppose, is, why would Obama list such a thing as a priority at all, much less for NASA, the least likely of all government agencies to have anything to do with our relations with Islam? Is it possible the President has a soft spot for Islam? Could it be that he considers himself a Muslim? Lots of people have been making that claim lately, and this certainly bolsters that radical possibility. Not that being Muslim in any way disqualifies him from being President—that’s not what this country is about.
Here’s the thing: Contrary to popular belief, and Charlie Rangel, NASA’s annual budget is miniscule. Things like this need to be put into some kind of perspective. Human and Social Services, as an example, spends NASA’s budget about every nine days. With that in mind, who in their right mind would task the National Space agency to spend hundreds of millions of its very limited budget, building good relations with Muslim—or any other—countries? I mean, seriously . . . . . how are they supposed to even do something like that?
“And this is a spacesuit . . . it’s air tight!”
“Behead the infidel!”
I’m not suggesting that good, or better, relations with Islam is a bad, or unnecessary thing. On the contrary, I’m sure improvements in that area would be wonderful. What I am suggesting, is that it might be less than appropriate for a high-tech, scientific organization, which does things in space, for America, to be our good-will ambassador to third-world countries. Don’t we already have agencies and organizations designed for just such things?
One wonders what the President has in mind. Maybe we can partner with Afghanistan to put poppies in orbit. Or go in with Iran to help them improve their long-range ballistic missile program, or accelerate their nuclear ambitions, or even give them a heads up on superior, heat-resistant and ablative material so they can make better tents.
I mean, if this is a good idea, why not task the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get together with the people of Indonesia and the Sudan and do little compare-and-contrast sessions on culture and religious traditions? Muslims would love that, right?
The next thing we know, someone from NASA is going to say the wrong thing, or misinterpret some innocent Jihadist remark, and we will find ourselves with a Fatwa against astronauts, and all “devil-spawned” satellites. Then we’ll be in a pickle. We’ll have to put the entire NASA program in orbit, just to keep it safe. And that will work, because one thing we can count on is that the current iteration of Islam will never have the technical, cultural, or philosophical wherewithal to get off the ground, much less into space.
Monday, June 21, 2010
IGM YouTube
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: YouTube
6-21-2010
I spend an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube videos, listening to music. Mostly, I go for stuff I already know, memory lane, as it were, but I’ve been known to venture off into uncharted territory as well. I never intend to spend that much time. I always have a specific video or song in mind, but as I’m listening/watching, that damn string of useful suggestions to the right of the screen beckons me like a Siren, and I click on another, and another, and suddenly it’s like whoa! Here’s a suggestion for someone else, and I haven’t heard that one in forever, or yikes! I didn’t know those two people ever sang together, etc., etc., and before I know it I’ve been up half the night, lost in a kind of musical reverie.
Sometimes I run across a real gem, hitherto unknown to me. Like when I looked for David Wilcox because I wanted to hear The Eye of the Hurricane song, and discovered this insane Canadian of the same name—a middle-aged madman, blues guitarist of extraordinary talent. Most of the new ones, however, come from my children, and most of those from Chani, because she is CONNECTED. I get my fix of weird from Grah, who finds stuff so esoteric that even the internet is surprised. Like The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, or Depapepe. (Is that right? I’m not online right now.) I listen to a lot of Chani’s stuff, with her band, Rubik’s Hotel, and some Crowd of Small Adventures, and Hungry Cloud, because my second cousin (or first cousin once-removed, I can never remember), Jack Wilcox, the Human String Bean, fronts them both. (For those of you lucky enough to have seen Thor at the Bus Stop, Jack is the Milk Strider.)
A few nights ago, I got an itch to hear “In My Room,” by the Beach Boys. It maybe my favorite song by them. So I got on YouTube and found it and listened, and loved it again, and then how could I not listen to “Little Deuce Coup, and then there was “Surfer Girl,” Brain Wilson’s favorite of his melodies, and on it went, "Good Vibrations", "Be True to Your School", until I found an interview with Brain. Brian Wilson is one of my hero’s, and a universal cautionary tale. I listened to an interview from the 60’s, with Mike Douglas, and then a long one from the 90’s. Brain is fried. His mind is gone, his brain burned to a crisp—which he readily admits in the second interview. Drugs, and poor mental health, combined to destroy one of the most creative and brilliant musical minds of our century. Oh, he’s still articulate, in his own way (and by that I mean he was never articulate), but he has trouble concentrating, and is the king of non-sequiturs. He wanders, and has a tendency to protect himself by breaking into song at odd moments.
Here’s this perfectly normal California kid, with a gift from God, who at 16 puts together a band of his brothers, a cousin, and a family friend, and somehow brings normally talented teenagers up to the levels of greatness by the time he is 19. And they let him, They listen to him, because his brain is on fire with melodies, and harmonies, and arrangements both manically complex, and angelically sophisticated. Then—because of issues with an overbearing and physically abusive father, his own innate emotional instability, DRUGS, and a manipulative, greedy, despicable, Svengali-like therapist—he is brought down into a living hell for decades. And through all of it, he manages to write and arrange—and produce—some of rocks most enduring anthems. He couldn’t perform live, though. Six months after their first big hit, which I believe was “Surfin’ USA,” he was home in bed, where he stayed for three years. In the interview with Douglas, Brain sounds like a PSA against drugs. He describes the many times he took (among others) LSD, and how wonderful it was, but what it did to him as well. He was very frank, very candid. Then, in the newer interview, the guy asks him if he ever took LSD. Brian says “oh sure,” and goes into some random, wandering diatribe, then suddenly stops. “At least I think I did,” he says, then looks off into space. “Maybe not . . . I’d have to ask somebody.” He looks at the camera. “I don’t remember.”
I probably listened to 30 songs that night, thinking about all of this, dismayed, and amazed at what he did, what he went through, and curious about what might have been under different circumstances. Then, towards the end of the long interview, he mentioned his two older daughters, Carnie, and Wendy, whom he barely knew while they were growing up, and I was off into a search for Wilson Phillips.
As you may recall, they were a female trio from the 90’s with a few good hits. Carnie and Wendy were Brian’s girls, and the other one, Chynna, was the younger daughter of Papa John and Michelle Phillips, who founded the Mama’s and the Papa’s. How she survived her father’s bizarre lifestyle is anyone’s guess. But those girls could sing. It was top-notch pop music, with a legacy unparalleled in music history. Nothing profound, but “hold on just one more day,” is a fine sentiment for a song, evoking all kinds of possibilities. I listened to all the stuff of theirs available, watching them, trying to imagine the dynamics in which they had grown-up, and were formed, and the serendipity that might have brought the unlikely pairing to fruition.
Maybe the reason I spend so much time doing that, reading about all these people, listening to them, and wondering about them, is because of the emotions it makes me feel. Music—even obviously commercial music—has a strong effect on me. Musicians fascinate me. What they do is so hard, and requires so much time and commitment before anything can really begin. I know just enough about that to make me particularly susceptible to the struggle, and the miracle of talent at that level. Hell, even the 1910 Fruit Gum Factory had talent. And although it makes me nauseous to admit it, even the Rolling Stones have talent.
We often marvel at how easy and effortless they make it look. But most of us don’t delve deeply enough to discover the years of sacrifice, of obsessive practice, repetition, and compulsive dedication it takes to be one of the great ones. Eddie Van Halen says he locked himself in his bedroom with one of Eric Clapton’s albums, and a guitar, and didn’t come out for three years—essentially his adolescence—until he could play every note of every song perfectly. You wanna see extreme skill? Go to Youtube and call up a band called Dragonforce. You won’t like them. They are a “speed metal” band, “shredders,” but they have a unique sound. Watch part of a video, listen to the drums and the lead guitars. It is impossible to play that fast, much less complex arrangements that fast, that perfectly, for that long. I can’t even describe the speed. You have to experience it. It makes one wonder where the limit is. What can’t humans do? Remember the 5 minute mile? The unbreakable barrier? Now housewives run faster than that, in sneakers, on concrete. And usually really ugly outfits . . . . nothing personal, housewives.
Sometimes people wonder how I can possibly know some of the stuff I do. Especially about music. First of all, I don’t know all that much compared to someone who really does. It’s easy to impress people who don’t know anything about something. And second of all, I can’t help it. I remember it. (Actually, my memory is terrible, chaotic. Except in a few narrow areas. ) I’ve read the back of every album I’ve ever owned (a lot), I’ve read countless articles, books, biography’s, I watch documentaries endlessly, heck, I used to subscribe to Rolling Stone—who does that? and I was a music major for a while. And now that YouTube is around, well . . . it’s even worse. I get to see them too. Ultimately, it comes down to curiosity.
It’s like the people who think I’m a pretty good musician. I know better. They usually only think that because they aren’t one at all. I think we all experience that. Yeah, I write better than people who don’t write, but I’m not kidding myself. I’m no Mark Helprin or Cormack McCarthy. I’m not even Larry McMurtry or Tom Clancy, or Anne Rice. Such is the nature of talent, of “the gift”. It is an infinite spectrum, a river into which we are all dipped, like Achilles. Some are dipped deeper than others. And like Achilles, something about the experience often renders us tragic, as well as gifted. Look at Brian Wilson.
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: YouTube
6-21-2010
I spend an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube videos, listening to music. Mostly, I go for stuff I already know, memory lane, as it were, but I’ve been known to venture off into uncharted territory as well. I never intend to spend that much time. I always have a specific video or song in mind, but as I’m listening/watching, that damn string of useful suggestions to the right of the screen beckons me like a Siren, and I click on another, and another, and suddenly it’s like whoa! Here’s a suggestion for someone else, and I haven’t heard that one in forever, or yikes! I didn’t know those two people ever sang together, etc., etc., and before I know it I’ve been up half the night, lost in a kind of musical reverie.
Sometimes I run across a real gem, hitherto unknown to me. Like when I looked for David Wilcox because I wanted to hear The Eye of the Hurricane song, and discovered this insane Canadian of the same name—a middle-aged madman, blues guitarist of extraordinary talent. Most of the new ones, however, come from my children, and most of those from Chani, because she is CONNECTED. I get my fix of weird from Grah, who finds stuff so esoteric that even the internet is surprised. Like The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, or Depapepe. (Is that right? I’m not online right now.) I listen to a lot of Chani’s stuff, with her band, Rubik’s Hotel, and some Crowd of Small Adventures, and Hungry Cloud, because my second cousin (or first cousin once-removed, I can never remember), Jack Wilcox, the Human String Bean, fronts them both. (For those of you lucky enough to have seen Thor at the Bus Stop, Jack is the Milk Strider.)
A few nights ago, I got an itch to hear “In My Room,” by the Beach Boys. It maybe my favorite song by them. So I got on YouTube and found it and listened, and loved it again, and then how could I not listen to “Little Deuce Coup, and then there was “Surfer Girl,” Brain Wilson’s favorite of his melodies, and on it went, "Good Vibrations", "Be True to Your School", until I found an interview with Brain. Brian Wilson is one of my hero’s, and a universal cautionary tale. I listened to an interview from the 60’s, with Mike Douglas, and then a long one from the 90’s. Brain is fried. His mind is gone, his brain burned to a crisp—which he readily admits in the second interview. Drugs, and poor mental health, combined to destroy one of the most creative and brilliant musical minds of our century. Oh, he’s still articulate, in his own way (and by that I mean he was never articulate), but he has trouble concentrating, and is the king of non-sequiturs. He wanders, and has a tendency to protect himself by breaking into song at odd moments.
Here’s this perfectly normal California kid, with a gift from God, who at 16 puts together a band of his brothers, a cousin, and a family friend, and somehow brings normally talented teenagers up to the levels of greatness by the time he is 19. And they let him, They listen to him, because his brain is on fire with melodies, and harmonies, and arrangements both manically complex, and angelically sophisticated. Then—because of issues with an overbearing and physically abusive father, his own innate emotional instability, DRUGS, and a manipulative, greedy, despicable, Svengali-like therapist—he is brought down into a living hell for decades. And through all of it, he manages to write and arrange—and produce—some of rocks most enduring anthems. He couldn’t perform live, though. Six months after their first big hit, which I believe was “Surfin’ USA,” he was home in bed, where he stayed for three years. In the interview with Douglas, Brain sounds like a PSA against drugs. He describes the many times he took (among others) LSD, and how wonderful it was, but what it did to him as well. He was very frank, very candid. Then, in the newer interview, the guy asks him if he ever took LSD. Brian says “oh sure,” and goes into some random, wandering diatribe, then suddenly stops. “At least I think I did,” he says, then looks off into space. “Maybe not . . . I’d have to ask somebody.” He looks at the camera. “I don’t remember.”
I probably listened to 30 songs that night, thinking about all of this, dismayed, and amazed at what he did, what he went through, and curious about what might have been under different circumstances. Then, towards the end of the long interview, he mentioned his two older daughters, Carnie, and Wendy, whom he barely knew while they were growing up, and I was off into a search for Wilson Phillips.
As you may recall, they were a female trio from the 90’s with a few good hits. Carnie and Wendy were Brian’s girls, and the other one, Chynna, was the younger daughter of Papa John and Michelle Phillips, who founded the Mama’s and the Papa’s. How she survived her father’s bizarre lifestyle is anyone’s guess. But those girls could sing. It was top-notch pop music, with a legacy unparalleled in music history. Nothing profound, but “hold on just one more day,” is a fine sentiment for a song, evoking all kinds of possibilities. I listened to all the stuff of theirs available, watching them, trying to imagine the dynamics in which they had grown-up, and were formed, and the serendipity that might have brought the unlikely pairing to fruition.
Maybe the reason I spend so much time doing that, reading about all these people, listening to them, and wondering about them, is because of the emotions it makes me feel. Music—even obviously commercial music—has a strong effect on me. Musicians fascinate me. What they do is so hard, and requires so much time and commitment before anything can really begin. I know just enough about that to make me particularly susceptible to the struggle, and the miracle of talent at that level. Hell, even the 1910 Fruit Gum Factory had talent. And although it makes me nauseous to admit it, even the Rolling Stones have talent.
We often marvel at how easy and effortless they make it look. But most of us don’t delve deeply enough to discover the years of sacrifice, of obsessive practice, repetition, and compulsive dedication it takes to be one of the great ones. Eddie Van Halen says he locked himself in his bedroom with one of Eric Clapton’s albums, and a guitar, and didn’t come out for three years—essentially his adolescence—until he could play every note of every song perfectly. You wanna see extreme skill? Go to Youtube and call up a band called Dragonforce. You won’t like them. They are a “speed metal” band, “shredders,” but they have a unique sound. Watch part of a video, listen to the drums and the lead guitars. It is impossible to play that fast, much less complex arrangements that fast, that perfectly, for that long. I can’t even describe the speed. You have to experience it. It makes one wonder where the limit is. What can’t humans do? Remember the 5 minute mile? The unbreakable barrier? Now housewives run faster than that, in sneakers, on concrete. And usually really ugly outfits . . . . nothing personal, housewives.
Sometimes people wonder how I can possibly know some of the stuff I do. Especially about music. First of all, I don’t know all that much compared to someone who really does. It’s easy to impress people who don’t know anything about something. And second of all, I can’t help it. I remember it. (Actually, my memory is terrible, chaotic. Except in a few narrow areas. ) I’ve read the back of every album I’ve ever owned (a lot), I’ve read countless articles, books, biography’s, I watch documentaries endlessly, heck, I used to subscribe to Rolling Stone—who does that? and I was a music major for a while. And now that YouTube is around, well . . . it’s even worse. I get to see them too. Ultimately, it comes down to curiosity.
It’s like the people who think I’m a pretty good musician. I know better. They usually only think that because they aren’t one at all. I think we all experience that. Yeah, I write better than people who don’t write, but I’m not kidding myself. I’m no Mark Helprin or Cormack McCarthy. I’m not even Larry McMurtry or Tom Clancy, or Anne Rice. Such is the nature of talent, of “the gift”. It is an infinite spectrum, a river into which we are all dipped, like Achilles. Some are dipped deeper than others. And like Achilles, something about the experience often renders us tragic, as well as gifted. Look at Brian Wilson.
Friday, June 18, 2010
IGM The Perception of Reality
Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Perception of Reality
6-18-10
I've been thinking about a statement one of my responders made, concerning the recent series of guest blogger contributions, and how some of us reacted. The statement was;
"The problem isn't corporate America, it is corrupt government."
Some of us took umbrage with that. But could it be possible that it isn’t either-or, but that they are both right? That the problem is corporate America, and corrupt government? At which point, the next question should be; "which fosters which?" Is one responsible for the other? If we look at a family metaphor, in which the behavior of the parent is modeled by the child, we could argue that the private sector takes its cues from the government. On the other hand, if a government is weak enough, it will kowtow to the pressure and demands of corporations. It isn't difficult to find examples of either. We need look no further than Mexico to see what can happen when powerful companies (in this case an Oligarchy) run roughshod over the government. Now, with drug cartels, it is even worse.
But what if government and corporate America are the same thing? Can a case be made for such a cabal? We may be assuming that one entity maintains a higher level of ethics that the other. Some of us think big business is more moral, and some of us think government is more moral. But what if neither can be considered moral? What if our situation is on a par with the Book of Mormon, where the Gadianton robbers become more powerful than the government, and have infiltrated the government at all levels? What if criminals sit in the "judgment seat," and we have essentially become them? And how do we know?
On the other hand, is it possible, in any kind of practical way, to assign concepts of morality to non-corporeal, non-sentient entities, which exist only in a legal sense? Can a government be moral or immoral? Can a corporation? Or can such considerations only be assigned to human beings, who work in and for these organizations? Is there a tipping point at which too many amoral or immoral people render the organizations behavior immoral?
Could a case be made for sufficient corruption, greed, and ineptitude on the part of both systems? For example, the entire country is divided as to where to place the blame for the BP oil spill. Is it a corporate or government responsibility? How would each of us answer this question: would the oil spill be more likely to not have happened if BP were more ethical, or if the government were bigger--exercised greater control and oversight?
Can presumed authority overcome dedicated greed?
Can corporate ethics overcome governmental corruption? I repeat my question from an earlier IGM; why did BP have no reliable and effective contingency plan in place for such an event? And, conversely, why did the government not require such a plan and/or technology? And if government did require it, why did they not know it was not in place and functioning?
We could chose from far too many examples besides the oil spill, but why bother?
How do our mind-sets gravitate to one set of assumptions or another? What is the process?
And if everything happens more or less in a causative vacuum, how would we ever arrive at any kind of explanation? Of course, perhaps it doesn't work that way. Maybe the world isn't ruled by coincidence and randomness. Maybe there is no such thing as a coincidence. But if that is true, how do we trace the inevitable pattern of necessary events which lead to all other events? Is all that really just a matter of opinion?
It might be interesting to take some kind of poll, find out where we agree and disagree on specific issues, and basic principles. And remember, issues and principles are not the same thing. Issues have no principles; but principles define and control issues. The oil spill is a perfect example. Was the explosion and resultant spill the result of a failure of issues or of misapplied principles? Does that even make sense?
And we need to remember that it appears as if the application of principles to specific issues can be wildly divergent, even when we adhere to the same basic principles. For example, we all believe in the necessity of laws, and protecting the public interest, and the necessity of incarceration for people who violate said laws and interests. But how we deal with the specific issues involved is often varied. Some of us accept the concept of the death penalty, some do not. Some insist on rehabilitation, and others insist that rehabilitation is ineffective and largely useless. Look at how we argue over such fundamental things like the Bill of Rights. There is no disagreement on their importance and desirability, but get more than three people together and how we interpret those Rights, and apply them, is all over the map. Why is that?
To quote Steve Stills, “there’s something happening here . . .” But do any of us agree as to what is happening, and why it’s happening?
And for those of you who have no idea what a Gadianton Robber is, I guess you’re just going to have to read the Book of Mormon. How sly is that?
--
You don't use science to show that you're right; you use science to become right.
XKCD
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: The Perception of Reality
6-18-10
I've been thinking about a statement one of my responders made, concerning the recent series of guest blogger contributions, and how some of us reacted. The statement was;
"The problem isn't corporate America, it is corrupt government."
Some of us took umbrage with that. But could it be possible that it isn’t either-or, but that they are both right? That the problem is corporate America, and corrupt government? At which point, the next question should be; "which fosters which?" Is one responsible for the other? If we look at a family metaphor, in which the behavior of the parent is modeled by the child, we could argue that the private sector takes its cues from the government. On the other hand, if a government is weak enough, it will kowtow to the pressure and demands of corporations. It isn't difficult to find examples of either. We need look no further than Mexico to see what can happen when powerful companies (in this case an Oligarchy) run roughshod over the government. Now, with drug cartels, it is even worse.
But what if government and corporate America are the same thing? Can a case be made for such a cabal? We may be assuming that one entity maintains a higher level of ethics that the other. Some of us think big business is more moral, and some of us think government is more moral. But what if neither can be considered moral? What if our situation is on a par with the Book of Mormon, where the Gadianton robbers become more powerful than the government, and have infiltrated the government at all levels? What if criminals sit in the "judgment seat," and we have essentially become them? And how do we know?
On the other hand, is it possible, in any kind of practical way, to assign concepts of morality to non-corporeal, non-sentient entities, which exist only in a legal sense? Can a government be moral or immoral? Can a corporation? Or can such considerations only be assigned to human beings, who work in and for these organizations? Is there a tipping point at which too many amoral or immoral people render the organizations behavior immoral?
Could a case be made for sufficient corruption, greed, and ineptitude on the part of both systems? For example, the entire country is divided as to where to place the blame for the BP oil spill. Is it a corporate or government responsibility? How would each of us answer this question: would the oil spill be more likely to not have happened if BP were more ethical, or if the government were bigger--exercised greater control and oversight?
Can presumed authority overcome dedicated greed?
Can corporate ethics overcome governmental corruption? I repeat my question from an earlier IGM; why did BP have no reliable and effective contingency plan in place for such an event? And, conversely, why did the government not require such a plan and/or technology? And if government did require it, why did they not know it was not in place and functioning?
We could chose from far too many examples besides the oil spill, but why bother?
How do our mind-sets gravitate to one set of assumptions or another? What is the process?
And if everything happens more or less in a causative vacuum, how would we ever arrive at any kind of explanation? Of course, perhaps it doesn't work that way. Maybe the world isn't ruled by coincidence and randomness. Maybe there is no such thing as a coincidence. But if that is true, how do we trace the inevitable pattern of necessary events which lead to all other events? Is all that really just a matter of opinion?
It might be interesting to take some kind of poll, find out where we agree and disagree on specific issues, and basic principles. And remember, issues and principles are not the same thing. Issues have no principles; but principles define and control issues. The oil spill is a perfect example. Was the explosion and resultant spill the result of a failure of issues or of misapplied principles? Does that even make sense?
And we need to remember that it appears as if the application of principles to specific issues can be wildly divergent, even when we adhere to the same basic principles. For example, we all believe in the necessity of laws, and protecting the public interest, and the necessity of incarceration for people who violate said laws and interests. But how we deal with the specific issues involved is often varied. Some of us accept the concept of the death penalty, some do not. Some insist on rehabilitation, and others insist that rehabilitation is ineffective and largely useless. Look at how we argue over such fundamental things like the Bill of Rights. There is no disagreement on their importance and desirability, but get more than three people together and how we interpret those Rights, and apply them, is all over the map. Why is that?
To quote Steve Stills, “there’s something happening here . . .” But do any of us agree as to what is happening, and why it’s happening?
And for those of you who have no idea what a Gadianton Robber is, I guess you’re just going to have to read the Book of Mormon. How sly is that?
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You don't use science to show that you're right; you use science to become right.
XKCD
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