MyStory – Page 8 – mystoryorhistory

From Peanut Butter and Jelly to Artificial Intellegence

December 10, 2019March 28, 2020mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

Wilhelm Hester [Public domain] — Animal intelligence with human overlords.

In so many little ways our country has changed in my life time. I often think of my wife’s grandfather who grew up as a Mississippi farm boy in the early 1900’s. He once tried to explain to me the work differences between oxen, horses and mules. I could not help but think of the recent tug-of-war demonstration Elon Musk put on with his new electric Cybertruck and a Ford F-150. Who would have thought 20 years ago that an electric truck could take on the Ford, Chevy and Dodge gas guzzling giants in a tractor pull. I can imagine constructions workers bantering with each other in a bullying way over beers on which pickup truck was better for hauling or towing but I am sure electric trucks never entered the debate. In our information age this would be equivalent of techno geeks pontificating on the qualities and drawbacks between computing capabilities of Notebooks, Macs, Microsoft or any devices with an operating system.

But Paw, as we called him, lived long enough to see the beginning of the computer age. He saw it but never really experienced it. He grew up fighting in the Great War and spent a year in France. Something new for a lot of country boys living in the Roaring 20’s with The Great Gatsby which would soon turn into To Have and Have Not during the Great Depression. If they lived long enough, they saw the world go from prices stamped onto products to scanning bar codes at the grocery store check-out line. They literally went from horse-and-buggy to landing on the Moon and the Space Shuttle.

That generation is all but gone. I am not sure if they had nickname except maybe “old fogies,” a term, which now, could be considered close to a hate crime or in the same category as a gender or racial slur. I am not sure if the newly coined, “okay boomer” is descriptive or derogatory. The debate is on.

We boomers, too, have seen a thing or two and as of late it seems like things are moving a lot faster than plodding team of oxen on a Mississippi dirt road in August. I have seen it go from where a smart man carried a pocket knife with two blades and a can and bottle opener folded in there somewhere. The more sophisticated man’s knife would have a cork screw on it for that bottle of Chardonnay casually consumed on picnic blanket under a shade tree with your best girl. That was a time before pop top cans and twist off bottle caps. Wine always had a cork and did not come in a box. I would not be surprised that in the very near future somebody comes up with some sort of app to open tough tightly lidded or shrink-wrapped products. I mean how many people today even carry pocket knives. But their phone is loaded with apps that can book a flight, pay for the flight, and then get them on the plane.

Francis Flinch [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)] — The Swiss Army Knife: Soldatenmesser 08, Militärsackmesser with multiple mechanical apps.

Who thought life could get better than pop top cans, and twist off Coke bottles? But it does. Just look at our old rotary dial phones with party lines. The first rotary phone came out in 1892 but it was not until 1963 that we went from dialing to push buttons. As Sonny and Cher would sing: and the beat goes on. Those land lines are still around but have been replaced with multiple iterations of wireless smart phones. Gone are long distance operators and rollover minutes.

According to the website SimpleTexting the first smart phone was an IBM Simon Personal Communicator It came out in 1994 and looked like a slim version of a World War II walkie talkie. It could send and receive emails and faxes and “It even featured standard and predictive stylus input screen keyboards.” I have a feeling I should know what that is but don’t. When it comes to this sort technology, even 1994 era stuff, I’m swimming in the shallow end of the techno pond.

Bcos47 [Public domain] — The world’s first smart phone IBM’s simple Simon Personal Communicator.

The smart phone, in my opinion is a perfect example of peanut butter and jelly innovation. Before there could be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the world needed sliced bread. The basic ingredients for the sandwich were present. Just like there have always been radio waves. It just took technology awhile to catch up. It is the old “what ya gonna do with it” innovation that has made America always great.

Peanut butter was around in the early 1890’s and was actually considered couture and not a food staple of the masses. Bread has been around for centuries. However, it took sliced bread to bring all three ingredients together. In 1928. Otto Rohwedder brought in the new age of sliced bread with the first automatic bread slicing machine. An invention that gave us the modern Deli and maybe even ushered in the concept of fast food.

By Kbrose - Personally created photograph., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30751224 — The late 1920’s Western Electric’s Model 102 B1 hand telephone with E1 handset with no Apps.

It is really is insane to compare the smart phone to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Maybe it is more like the clock radio, which came out in the 1940’s. Combine the average alarm clock with a radio and life just gets better. The smart phone, like the clock radio and the sandwich, was out there just waiting to be developed. It just took some innovation to bring them together. For instance, the first iPhone came out in June of 2007. We are now up to 11 models and 5Gs. Phones with cameras and instant communication and apps that do just about everything for us but tie our shoes. People don’t go out of the house without the damned thing plastered to their faces or some sort of ear piece pushed into their ears. States have had to enact laws to curb people from using their smart phones and driving at the same time. A non alcoholic DUI. We love our smart phones. Now the peanut-butter-and-jelly science is leading us to the innovation of a smart car.

Discostu [Public domain] — The Nokia 3210 , The “noisy cricket” considered by some to be one of the most popular and best phones Nokia made.

I do not think my first mobile phone had any Gs. It was a little analogue device that my wife called a noisy cricket. A neat feature was the various animal sounds you could choose for ring tones. I liked the Dolphin. The little thing was about the size of the hand phaser that Captain Kirk zapped Klingons with in Star Trek. It did everything my landline did without a wire but with text messaging and a voice mailbox. Texting gave me the opportunity to communicate with people and not have to actually talk to them and the voice mail box meant I didn’t have to answer the phone at all. One drawback though, was the noisy cricket had no emojis. It is hard to imagine a time without emojis. Who could live in world devoid of such creatures. It hearkens back to the dark ages when a P & J sandwich was waiting to come between two pieces of Wonder Bread.

Siqbal [Public domain] — Sliced bread. It brought peanut butter and jelly together.

But life does get even better than sliced bread. Today’s technology allows us to call anybody within radius of a cell tower and a satellite link. And if that is not enough we can now talk to people face-to-face. But what is really great, is we can talk to the phone itself. I cannot count the times I have screamed at some dumb insubordinate machine thinking that my tirade would bring it into some sort of compliance with my wishes. Now the phone is like Aladdin in a lamp. It is science and Arabian fantasy brought together—another peanut butter and jelly moment! It is almost like having your very own Genie. I think it would be neat, though, that when you summon Suri or some other so-called artificially intelligent speaking machine that they answer with, “Yes. Master. Your wish is my command.” The reason I say this is I just do not trust machines to comply with my wishes.

I first ran into this at an early age. My dad always thought I was lazy because I could never get any of his lawn mowers to start. Yes, my motivation to get one started was low but I really think I was meant to live in the age of the hammer and sickle, the era of real bricks and mortar. In a time when they actually stacked one brick on-top-of-two. A time when the goat took care of the lawn. A time before bricks and mortar was not meant to differentiate between a store front business and an online business.

As an “Okay, Boomer” I grew up reading dystopian novels like Alex Huxley’s Brave New World, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984. “Big Brother is watching.” My luck with dumb machines and a my dystopian view of them has created a deep distrust of machines that goes beyond any sort belief in the deep state. It concerns me that a machine with artificial intelligence can out-think me. It raises some real concerns because it really does not require much effort to out-think me. I have never fired on all synapses and now machines that can process information faster than me is the norm. And I am not just talking about playing computer chess.

User:Cryteria [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)] — The face of Hal.

I am not sure where things are going. Because what boomer can forget the recalcitrant, malfunctioning artificial intelligent computer HAL 9000 in the Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. When commanded by a space-walking astronaut to “open the pod bay doors” to let him back into the space ship, HAL responds with a cool mechanical voice: “Sorry Dave I cannot do that.” What the heck do you mean you cannot do that? HAL was going to leave Dave’s human butt out in deep space because he, HAL, had a better grip on what was going on with their mission. And I use the word their because at what point will we start cohabiting the planet with smarter-than-human machines?

It goes beyond traffic lights telling us when we can go and when we should stop. Machines that have a better so-called understanding of what is going on are taking the peanut butter and jelly sandwich innovation and putting it in the realm of cognitive mental mischief. We may be setting ourselves up to a real dystopian moment. To paraphrase the classic Blues song: It ain’t no fun when the Robot’s got the gun.”

https://simpletexting.com/where-have-we-come-since-the-first-smartphone/

https://www.seriouseats.com/2007/04/the-history-of-the-peanut-butt.html

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-31/pastrami-rye-full-length-history-new-york-jewish-deli

Novembers to Remember

November 7, 2019November 29, 2024mystoryorhistory2 Comments

As the nation gears up from an impeachment inquiry to an full blown on House investigation we have to wonder if is something about November that instigates radical political changes. It must be something in the fall air, the Earth’s rotation or the tilt. The changing of the temperatures, in the Northern Hemisphere not only has the leaves turning colors and falling to the ground but people turning red and blue. Maybe it could be just knowing that winter is getting ready to roll in and people, animals and plants know whatever has to get done needs to get done before the cold weather sets in.

Here in the United States, our national elections are a biennial event. Much like plants that come to foliage one year, drops their seeds the next and then flower; so it is with our presidential elections. We experience a two year campaign season that works its way into a frenzy during the dog days of summer with conventions and then culminates into the parties turning the their mad dogs loose onto the electorate. Despite the elections being every two-to-four years, campaign season is now a continual growing season. Even plants need a break and go dormant. But impeachment is like the 50 year drought, or the sudden warm snap that could even lull Punxsutawney Phil out for a day on the town.

Since the framers of the Constitution lived in an agrarian society, maybe they planned for a fall pre-winter election and post-winter inaugurations with a dormant period to let the season do its thing. A sort of governmental sowing of seeds. A time to cage hostile feelings or create a season of contemplative planning to decide what to plant in the upcoming political season. Despite putting impeachment into the Constitution, I am sure it was not meant to be used for Presidential pruning. A nation, however, like the farmer reaps what it sows and we really planted a hybrid.

However, whatever gets planted, the fabric of our representative democracy is intertwined in such a way that a November election is not too far off to initiate the change needed to rectify injustices. For instance, in the 1960s it was Civil Rights laws that brought people to march and demonstrate for full equality. Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act. It was the Vietnam War that brought about the belief if you are young enough to fight for your country you should have the right to vote. Hence, the 26h Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 years. Our outlet for resolving these issues is our biennial elections. But what happens when these elections gives a bad yield?

As the longest running representative democracy, these seasonal elections have served us well to relieve and begin the process of implementing solutions to pressing public problems. Democracy, unlike other forms of government takes a little more time and work to get things done. And, in the view of many, it never gets it right. But it gets it close enough to right so that we do not end up out in the streets in mob rule. We usually get a workable balance between populism, reform and regulation.The two-year election cycle gives us time to sort things out, plant a few seeds and see what sprouts. Lately, though we are lucky if we get a crop in the field.

I would hardly say that today’s fall-season elected officials are like plants. This might be insulting to most plants or the common weed in your backyard. Although, some politicians are well established dandy lions that seem to proliferate in all seasons–even the 50 year drought. But there are some similarities. Plants need rich soil to thrive. Politicians need some rich backers with deep pockets; a few, however, can actually self-fertilize–just look to the previous eight years of Florida’s governor’s office. Florida is a place were just about any invasive can thrive all year long. Some plants prefer sunlight and others shade. Politicians are similar in that some bask in the bright lights of the media enjoying their time behind the podium while others prefer to move about in the shaded areas of public service doing their deeds behind closed doors.

But before we lose that rustic fall scenery and the trees become bare, the clocks get turned back and the skies turn a darker shade of gray, issues come forward and events occur that it some, cases cannot wait for the winter thaw. In America, we are not immune to governmental up-evil. Like most countries around the globe, we have endured our share of struggles, social injustices that have resulted in civil disobedience. and in some cases just plain flat-out widespread rioting; we have endured various economic and natural catastrophes, as well as terrorist attacks and even a full blown Civil War. But in most cases we believe in the power of the ballot over the bullet. Hence, an impeachment clause to the Constitution.

But November in other parts of the world may not experience the growing and nurturing effects of biennial governmental gardening that our elections provide and instead find far more fiery ways to curb their enthusiasm. There is always somebody who wants to take a short cut. They end up taking an ax to the tree trunk; or maybe they are just an overzealous gardener madly hacking away at whatever looks like a weed; or they start a scorched earth policy of burning the entire field and end up eradicate everything like a bunch of Bolsheviks.

Wikimedia Commons Scan from: "Сталин. К шестидесятилетию со дня рождения." Москва, Правда, 1940. — Stalin and Lenin: The original Red Scare Duo.*

For example, it was November 7, 1917 when Bolsheviks took to the streets in what would eventually turn into a scorched earth policy. It was earlier in the year, however, that the Imperial St. Petersburg army garrison abandoned their posts and joined striking workers that exposed Russia to radical change. Workers who wanted “socialist reforms” forced Czar Nicholas II to abdicate. The Bolsheviks seized the moment. In November they overthrew Alexander Kerensky’s Provisional Government. Lead by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known in the West by the notorious one-name moniker: Lenin, they set up The Council of People’s Commissars.

Unfortunately the seeds of democracy never took. Alexander Kerensky would bolt to the West and remain in exile for the rest of his life. Sadly, the Bolsheviks were less forgiving when it came to the current Romanov’s. In less than a year after toppling the Provisional Government, in what could be described mildly as the culmination of centuries of Romanov exploitation, a manifesto of peasant dissatisfaction with the extravagant, and sometime maniacal, monarchical rule ended with the execution of Nicholas and his entire family. Thus bringing forth the Soviet Union and a radical form of socialism and an economic system we know as communism.

Wikimedia Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije — Mussolini and Hitler; Fascist fanatics.

Another November to remember occurred six years later almost to the day that the Bolsheviks took power, Adolf Hitler and his burgeoning fascist movement took to the Bavarian streets in a failed coup. Inspired by Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party March on Rome in late October of 1922. A march that toppled the teetering Italian Kingdom and brought Mussolini and his Brown Shirts into power. An energized Hitler, encouraged with his fellow fascist’s success, decided he could overthrow the Bavarian government in what came to be called the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and his Nazi cohorts stormed the Buergerbraukeller where Bavarian leaders were meeting, in an attempt to kidnap them, while other Nazis tried to capture key governmental offices.

The two-day Putsch failed in gunfire. Sixteen Nazis and four policemen were killed. Hitler managed to slink off, hiding in a friend’s attic. He was arrested three days later. Hitler was charged with high treason, and was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison but only served eight months.

From der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/34-11-09.htm — Hitler and fellow Nazis return to their failed Putsch in 1934*

Hitler’s form of Fascism would eventually come to power in 1933 eradicating those who did not see the goals of his thousand year Third Reich, a sort of make Germany better again movement. This unchecked fanaticism would bring war to Europe and start World War II killing millions and leaving Europe in ruin. To avoid any consequences for his fascist fanaticism Hitler would commit suicide.

Other monumental November changes happened, in 1519 when Hernan Cortes captured the Aztec capital and Emperor Montezuma ending one of the “New World’s” established civilizations. And in a November closer to our times, a military coup killed South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. The assassination of Diem and his brother signaled a deeper United States military involvement in South Viet Nam that would officially end with the fall of Saigon in 1975. It would take several biennial elections, demonstrations and four students killed at Kent state to bring about a political end to this unpopular war.

Benjamin Franklin by artist Joseph Siffred Duplessis, oil on canvas, 1785, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery — Franklin knew keeping a Republic would not be easy.

Our election cycle was created by men who wanted to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” for posterity. After leaving Independence Hall where the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution, a Constitution that bound us together in a firm Republic, to replace the go it alone attitude of the Articles of Confederation; Ben Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got–a Republic or a Monarchy?” To which Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The key to keeping a Republic is remembering what it stands for. In the closing paragraph of the Declaration of Independence the signers stated their support for independence by putting a “firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence” and that “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives and Fortunes and our sacred Honor. ”

Our November elections can be a messy time because democracy is messy. But it is a time when we pledge to each other our mutual support because it sure beats Conquistadors riding into town searching for gold. It is better than Bolsheviks imposing a collective social order. And it is better than Nazis forcing their way into government like mobsters.

Elections might not settle every issue at any given time but if we are guided with the concepts in the Preamble of our Constitution with the belief that we can continually “form a more perfect Union” and not a create chaos out of division , we will be able to keep our Republic. It is unfortunate but maybe necessary at times that we need to review an election. Say what you will about impeachment but the Constitution does give Congress a backdoor to tend to democracy’s garden.

*This photos have been edited by the powers to be at the time either cropping individuals out or simply removing them.

“Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed.”

October 18, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

In all this yammering about impeachment lately certain things become obvious yet misinterpreted. Forget about the simple truth–that slithered out the room a long time ago. There does seem to be some “truth” to the statement recently made that we don’t believe in the truth but in facts. I would think that facts build to the truth but I guess it all depends on how you stack them: end-to-end, one- on-top-of-the-other or sideways. And if we really want to get iffy maybe take the facts off into another dimension and alternate universes and reality altogether.

Take Adam and Eve for instance. God dropped them into the Garden of Eden and gave them carte blanche. He gave them run of the place with one rule: Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil “for when you do you will surely die.” I honestly feel that God was the first Libertarian. The Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University says that a classic libertarian’s “perspective is that (of) peace, prosperity and social harmony.” Libertarians “are fostered by ‘as much liberty as possible’ and ‘as little government as necessary’.” It sounds like paradise: no government, basically no rules to follow and no taxes to pay. But you know somewhere somehow it was going to get screwed up and Adam and Eve set the standard. The old saying if it is too good to be true…

Man, despite God’s good graces, has made things much more complicated through the millennia’s endless rules and regulations. A large portion of the world’s population once believed that you could go to hell by eating meat on Friday. God created a couple of innocents to roam freely in Eden. But once God created man his creation sort of went off the rails or maybe it was when he created the serpent. According to the Bible it took just three chapters starting from “in the beginning” and basically one chapter in the Book of Genesis for Adam and Eve to meet up with the serpent and see their lives completely transformed. After that meeting with the serpent, there was no way to make the Garden of Eden great again.

History, however, is full of crafty, sinister, and evil individuals who can mesmerize the masses with their malevolence. It may have started in the Garden with the beguilement of Adam and Eve. However, it did not stop there. The art of the deal gave us great concepts like the Pharaohs were Gods. When that one did not float anymore somebody came up with the “Divine Right of Kings.”

We have seen outright brutal dictators like Hitler at his Nuremberg Nazi rallies. We have seen Stalin and his mass purges that sent millions off to Siberia never to be seen or heard from again.

Charles de Steuben [Public domain] — Napoleon’e triumphant return from his Elba exile. Making France great again.

The French zealously followed Napoleon off on European conquest and domination that scorched Europe for decades. The word chauvinist comes from a faithful soldier, Nicholas Chauvin, in Napoleon’s Grand Armee and his undying devotion and patriotism to the “Little Corporal.” And we have seen the less sinister swindlers and con artists like Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi and Victor Lustig. Lustig once sold the Eiffel Tower–twice! And even managed to con Al Capone out of $50,000. Talk about bravado and playing to somebody’s fantasies and getting away with it. It sort of reminds you of being able to stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shooting people and not losing votes. Even Al Capone could not get away with that.

So where did these reptilian people come from? In Genesis we are told that “the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.” Now the Bible does not give us an actual timeline on how long Adam and Eve were in Eden before they met with the serpent. It seems like one day God was taking a rib from Adam and the next thing you know he and Eve are having breakfast with the serpent.

But after their meeting with the snake, things changed for the worse. Often in life, we meet that one person or thing that can inspire the worst in us. For Adam and Eve it was the serpent telling them the tree in the middle of the garden has great fruit, the very best. “Don’t worry about God. I have a great relationship with God. We get along great and he is doing great things with Eden. God is somebody I can deal with. Besides, He is a great guy.”

William Blake [Public domain] — “Better to shun the bait than struggle in the snare.” ― William Blake

Christians may call it original sin but I really think it was the original beguilement. When God created the world, and let us put aside for a moment the old argument of Creationism v Evolution, and assume that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We can all agree it would have been a great place to raise your kids, a sort of nirvana neighborhood. However, the pair got played. After catching the serpent’s art of the deal they went right over the fence with the “No Trespassing” sign on it. The sad part is Adam and Eve knew they had been conned. Probably the same way Al Capone felt when he was fleeced for 50 Gees, just like the voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania who never had any real ring time with a fast con developer who may now be suffering from buyers remorse.

And how did Adam and Eve know they crossed that line? The found themselves hiding naked in the bushes mending fig leaves together. It would be safe to say that most of us have been found in similar situations only with our clothes on: Caught red-handed at the proverbial cookie jar. Most of us know not to take the boss’s parking spot; don’t eat somebody’s lunch left in the refrigerator. Yet there is always one of us who for whatever reason does not get it. Or maybe, like the snake, they just don’t care. From that time on I think all of mankind has been the subject of being beguiled by slippery ideas and catchy phrases

Today we can catch somebody “red handed,” on tape, live on camera saying exactly what they did. God did not need all the technical gadgets used today to catch a thief. He could see for himself that Adam and Eve were in their new fig leaf attire. This was not red-handed. More like bare-assed naked.

The pair did not have cock-n-bull story. Being innocents they had no idea how to lie their way out the situation. That would be an art learned and honed through time. And although buses were not around yet, Adam threw Eve right under the apple cart saying she gave him the apple, In turn, Eve pointed the finger at the snake. No loyalty here as we witness crap going down hill by the bucketful. You have to give the pair credit they did not cry and moan or seek legal advice because there was none to be had. (A fixer would have to come much later.) They took their eviction on the chin.

However, God went from being a libertarian to puritanical vengeful God as in Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Adam and Eve lost their interest-free credit card. It was strictly cash. They were now being held “over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire.”

In our modern day thinking we are quick to blame the victims and Adam and Eve are not exempt. How can two people be fooled by a talking snake saying that if they ate from this tree things would be great, they would be perfect. The serpent was able to play on the their vanity and a belief that somehow they were being left behind. It is not too hard to imagine somebody getting away with selling the Brooklyn Bridge or the Eiffel Tower. After all, the world is full of people trying to sell something bigger and better that glitters in gold.

I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion.”

As for the snake, he did not fare much better than our pair of innocents. Think about it. What crime did the serpent commit? What are the facts? If you think about it, the snake did not even eat the so-called apple, no proof at all. This could have been the first witch hunt or rattlesnake roundup. I can see the snake now saying the conversation he had with Adam and Eve about the tree of knowledge was perfect, He may have even suggested there was no sort of quid pro quo. Maybe he complained that God was not on the up and up with the tree in the middle of the garden. He just suggested that if the pair ate from the tree of knowledge the Garden of Eden would be great. He possibly could turn heavenly opinion around. He could have told God . “Hey God I am really a great guy, very intelligent, brilliant. I have one of the best brains around. It is not my fault Aimless Adam and Eyesore Eve are two not so bright people, ugly people who also are very stupid. There was no real collusion here because they are not very smart. Besides, they’re no angels.”

All of this brings us back to the facts. Some say facts are the truth. Maya Angelou said, “There is a world of difference between the truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.” This leads us to Mark Twain and what he said that fits today’s world of so-called fake news: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” Or it is your lie you can tell it anyway you want.

The Bible does not record what the talking snake said to God , if anything, after the tree incident. And for sure God would not buying anything the serpent was selling. He condemned the the snake to a life of crawling on his belly and eating dust for the rest of his days.

https://theihs.org/who-we-are/what-is-libertarian/

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12809/smooth-operator-how-victor-lustig-sold-eiffel-tower

“Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, And mark that point where sense and dulness meet”

September 14, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

I always have to laugh when comedians make jokes about the inappropriate uncle who opens his mouth and jumps right into the water with the sharks. He has no idea about political correctness, he is a conspiracy nut and can go on for hours about the Illuminati’s attempt at controlling the world. In some cases he just lacks the social graces of correctness: whether it be political or just plain manners. It could be something as simple as loudly passing gas at the Thanksgiving table or pontificating his archaic views on race and gender equity. He is not a person we give permanent markers to. We would like to assume that during his lifetime he has picked up a little knowledge and avuncular wisdom. But think about it, despite his claims of being a know-it-all, his accumulation of little bits of knowledge has him swimming in the deep end without floaties. In reality this little bit of wisdom and knowledge along the way has made him more of wise ass than a wise old owl. And this is not necessarily a good thing.

In today’s world of tweets, trolls and bots it may be hard to sort through all the ambiguous forms of misinformation, fake news and alternate realities. As Steely Dan sings: “You been tellin’ me you’re a genius since you were seventeen In all the time I’ve known you I still don’t know what you mean … The things you pass for knowledge I just can’t understand.” Anybody with a social media account and the power of likes can pass along all sorts of “knowledge.” For instance, any yahoo who sits back and watches a couple hours of say the Weather Channel’s coverage of a hurricane and looks at a few weather maps may soon feel like an expert forecaster. He has his own mike to the world: Give me the Sharpie. I’ll explain where this sucker is going.

Michael Dahl [Public domain] — Alexander Pope: Critic at large

However, little increments of knowledge over time have moved the ball forward in a lot of areas of our lives. We have gone from the gravitational pull of Newton’s apple falling to Einstein’s gravitational curving of space. These guys dealt with a lot of knowledge in small but deep depths of the unknown. Not long after the apple beaned Newton it was Alexander Pope who is credited with “a little knowledge (learning) can be a dangerous thing.” Pope is attributed this little phrase from his 1709 An Essay on Criticism. Through the centuries this phrase has been interpreted to mean that having a little knowledge on a subject is a dangerous thing, which it is. Sometimes we take it to mean no knowledge. Actually, it is a little bit of knowledge that emboldens us to make statements beyond our depth of knowledge that puts us in with the circling sharks.

In today’s world with information so available any idiot can look erudite for a moment. And then it goes off the rails. The world is full of those with just a tincture of understanding. They move through the universe with permanent markers and Twitter accounts (and blogs). We can see them on any episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, too. We have witnessed the meticulous and well thought out stupidity of the imbecile making the calculations that will take him from the roof to the trampoline and then into the pool only to end up in the neighbor’s hedges hung up on a fence. And somehow they escape from their idiocy laughing with just an embarrassing bruise. What this proves is that a little knowledge can be dangerous. Our jumper’s concept of going from the roof to the pool showed that he had a little knowledge on some of Newton’s laws of physics but did not really understand how to apply them.

By Jitze Couperus - Flickr: Supercomputer - The Beginnings, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19382150 — The CDC 6600: Where is the camera?

Like Newton and Einstein, there are the people who know a whole lot about something and have spent their lives investigating that little area of knowledge that most of us, present company including, know very little about. It should come as no surprise then that Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, came up with a law that bears his name in 1965. Moore said “ the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years, though the cost of computers is halved.” Computer capability and speed have increased exponentially. According to Extreme Tech the first supercomputer, the Control Data Corporation (CDC) was released in 1964. “The CDC 6600 was actually fairly small — about the size of four filing cabinets. It cost $8 million — around $60 million in today’s money.” And we complain about the quality of the camera and the rising cost of a new iPhone.

You now might ask, what does this have to do with your wacky uncle. Well that uncle has more computing power in his fat fingers and capability than say an astrophysicist like Vesto M Slipher. According to Sonoma State University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Slipher directed the Lowell Observatory from 1916 to 1954. This was in an era before supercomputers. Slipher “discovered reflection nebulae and confirmed the existence of interstellar dust and gas.” Did the universe fart and then slowly left the galaxy several billion years ago and we are just now finding out? He was also “the first to measure the enormous radial velocities of spiral nebulae, showing that most were receding from the solar system and providing important support for the then-controversial view that they were far outside our Galaxy.”

Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency) Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, V. Rubin et al. — The spiral galaxy Messier 98 about 45 million light-years is estimated to contain about a trillion stars, and is full of cosmic dust and an abundance of star-forming material.

But wait a minute, here is where a little knowledge can be dangerous. According to an August article in the Scientific American “cosmic dust found in Antarctic snow was likely birthed in a distant supernova millions of years ago. The dust’s interstellar journey eventually brought the material to Earth, where scientists discovered the ancient grains.” As somebody might have said in the 1960s: far out. Maybe these Antarctic researchers found the residue of Slipher’s cosmic fart. More than likely I am way over my head in cosmic swirl.

Right now I am treading into the world of the wacky uncle. Or as Pope writes I am launching out beyond my limits. I am out in the deep end because I cannot tell you the difference between a spiral nebula or supernova. But there is a way: just “Ask the Astronomer.” He might tell you that a supernova is the passing gas of a massive star in its final million years of life. A planetary nebula is result of a low mass star fizzling out.–the cheek sneak. From what I can gather the cosmic dust bunnies of a nebula can be recycled into, say, a newer star. But really, what do I know? I am just a guy with a Sharpie and a brain fart who cannot find a hurricane’s cone of uncertainty. Or to quote Pope:

Some have at first for wits, then poets pass’d,
Turn’d critics next, and prov’d plain fools at last;
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

https://pages.experts-exchange.com/processing-power-compared

Click to access Pope.pdf

I know you are but what am I. He called me everything but an American

August 14, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

United States Congress [Public domain] — Douglas was not called a “Red.” Just pink.

It appears that our political discourse of late has come down to playground name calling. Politics has always been about trying to paint an opponent in a poor light. Richard Nixon painted former actress, Helen Gahagan Douglas, as the “Pink Lady” in the 1950 California Senate race for her liberal views and Hollywood connections. In the era of McCarthyism, the moniker stuck and Nixon went to Washington.

This was the beginning of the Cold War, the atomic bomb and “the Red Scare.” There was a deep seated fear of an international communist take over. Former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill has already given his “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in 1946. He said that an iron curtain was being built across Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic Sea.

In Asia in 1949 Mao Zedong finishes his “Long March” and finally chases the Chinese Nationalist off the mainland establishing a communist regime in China. A year later Kim Jong un’s granddaddy charges past the 38th parallel into South Korea. It was time of paranoia. People were finding top secrets stuffed into pumpkins and were looking under their beds for “Reds”. But we have to remember they also were looking to the sky and seeing flying saucers, too. There was no talk about Green Cards for these possible illegal aliens invaders.

Today, invading Earthbound alien caravans are crawling to our borders. Inside the border government officials are rounding up illegals. The increased political chatter is setting social media off like a game of laser tag as opponents paint each other as racists, Nazi, white supremacists homophobes or some sort of misogynist. Spotting a racist, for instance may have taken more physical observation and at times more difficult. A white robe and a hood could easily hide their identity even when marching in plain site. But nobody questioned their hooded beliefs as being un-American.

Sometimes one way to tell a “fellas” beliefs is the stories they tell. Who among us has not snickered at an ethnic joke at one time or another. The classic joke: “Three men walk into a bar one…” When I was a kid I remember a book in novelty store in the mall called “Race Riots.” It seemed no ethnic or nationality was spared from the one-and-two line jokes. Just admitting that I once looked at such a book (never mind laughing at the jokes) could set me up as a racists today. My Mediterranean heritage, however, would keep me out of the “white supremacist” group, though. Once in the ’80s exiled Iranians took me for one of them. They were calling out to me in what I assume was Persian as I was leaving National Airport in Washington DC. They kept following me with pamphlets about the Shah. I called back to them that “I am an American!”

User Kvasir of wp:en [CC BY 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)] — So who are you and where are you from?

So what is an American. How about the quintessential American guys who wrote the Constitution. I have not made a study of the 55 delegates from 12 states that attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Yes, only 12. Rhode Island chose to sit this out. But I would venture to say that if you asked the delegates to fill out a Survey Monkey describing themselves they may not have considered themselves Americans. They would have more likely called themselves Pennsylvanians or Virginians. If you look at the federated document they produced at that conventions it is laced with “states’ rights.” They guarded their individual state’s interest like a junkyard dog snarling through a chainlink fence. Rhode Island was so adamant about not participating, they were the last to ratifying the Constitution. When they got around to it, it was already a done deal.

So who were these 55 delegates. In the first Census they would have fallen into the category: Free White males over 16. There were no National Socialist at the time and there was no gender gap. In fact, the Constitution did not address citizenship except to say it was up to Congress to determine and not the President. Citizenship back then was based on good old English Common law. Basically, who’s your daddy was and, yes, where did you come from. Which brings us to the modern day chant of “send them back.” If that were the case, most of us would be booking flights back to the old country. But with the grounding of the 737 Max this might take more than an Executive order. In reality it took the 14th Amendment to define who a citizen was.

Howard Chandler Christy [Public domain] — Nobody was asking how inclusive this group was. But they did get the job.

Today we have made it a “federal case” on the questions dealing with citizenship–who is an American–being proposed on the upcoming 2020 Census. According to the United States Census Bureau the first Census in 1790 asked six simple questions:

The number of free White males aged:
- under 16 years
- of 16 years and upward
Number of free White females
Number of other free persons
Number of slaves

It is interesting to note that government was not interested in the age breakdown of free White females, slaves or the ambiguous group of “others.” Were the White males who put the 1790 Census together racists? By 18th Century beliefs no, but by 21st Century standards, probably. Things change.

The same might be said of the people who put together the 1990 Census where there were 32 questions. Gone are the “other free persons” questions. They were replaced with more specific questions like if somebody was Hispanic or of Spanish origin . They also wanted to know if somebody was lame, lazy or just crazy. Although it was not put in those terms. Question 17 asked if this person has “a physical, mental, or other health condition that has lasted for six or more months and which limits the kind or amount of work this person can do at a job?” Talk about tagging somebody. If the argument can be made that Robert E. Lee was a racist, it could be argued by today’s standards that the 1990 Census Bureau raced passed several “don’t ask don’t tell” questions. If you answered yes to that question today you might have just sunk your future chance to avail yourself of your Second Amendment rights. Forget about that assault rifle you want. You might not even qualify for one of those rubber suction-tipped bow and arrow sets with the fake feathered headbands.

It just seems like we have come light years from the simple six question from 230 years ago to now. For instance, in 1790 it was black or white, free of slave–and the occasional “other.” Today questions go deeper dealing with race and native origins. I think Census Bureau computer might short circuit if it got a response saying a person was a Black Jamaican with German origins. There might not even a box to check on that one.

But people want to know more than just the obvious. I went to a Miami Dolphin Monday Night Football game once. The Fins were playing the Bills back in the Jim Kelly and Dan Moreno era. The Bills owned the Dolphins back then. My brother and I had to hustle to get to the bus taking us to the stadium after work. We showed up at Joe Robbie Stadium in business casual. The gal decked out in Dolphin colors that I was sitting next to gave me the evil eye as I made my way to my seat. No small talk. She bruskly asked, “who are you rooting for.” She wanted to know who I was. Because sitting next to a possible Bill fan that night was not something she paid a ticket for. The Dolphins lost 26-20. It is easy to tell who we are are at a football game.

It is not so easy other times. The way are tagging and slapping coats of paint on each other today we could be many things. And as one of national motto states: E pluribus unum or Out of many one. Granted, there are some seriously dangerous people lurking around there that need to be called out. One thing we should be called is American. It will always be easier to label someone as the “pink lady” or a “Red.” But it seems like we are falling into some sort of national: I know you are but what am I!

Birthday Greetings Bottle of Time

April 1, 2019March 26, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

Moving the clocks forward to Daylight Savings Time, and a couple of recent birthdays in my family, made me think of how we as humans try and manipulate time. Man has always tried to coordinated the past with the present and on off into the future. What started out as the ancients watching the phases of the moons and stars; or dragging boulders around to see what kind of shadow was cast by the sun, ended up in creating various sorts of cosmic calendars used to measure large chunks of time. The problem with early calendars is they were probably not very portable and they were out of whack with human concepts of time compared to celestial events.

It is this movement through time across space that has caused us problems. It seems that our human activities, such as birthdays are slightly out of sync with the cosmos. According to Stanford University Gravity Probe B “space consists of 3 dimensions, and time is 1-dimensional, space-time must, therefore, be a 4-dimensional object.” First off I have never looked at time or space as objects. Space by definition is “unoccupied”, hence empty. Oxford Dictionary has one definition saying space is “dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move.” I guess all things would include time.

And this does make some sense when we look at sayings like “out of time” as if it we were to say we are out of sugar. Then there is “times up.” If time is up it must have been moving. And we also have a human concept that there is finite amount of time when we say we are “wasting time” as if time were a rotting banana in fruit bowl. It gives you the idea that time is some sort of commodity that can be bought and traded but not touched, much like a bitcoin.

Amaury Sechet [CC0] — Time is money. A Bitcoin is worth $4,000. So what is time worth?

Here is where it starts to get hairy because physicist believe time is a continuum with “no missing points in space or instances in time.” Okay. So let’s add another wrinkle in time. They also, “consider our world to be embedded in” a 4-dimensional continuum “and all events, places, moments in history, actions and so on are described in terms of their location in Space-Time.” Are events then marked like yard lines on some never ending cosmic football field?

This is heavy-duty since I was having a hard enough time advancing my personal Space-Time Continuum ahead an hour with the shift to Daylight Savings. I have a hard enough time following a 1 dimensional line so dealing with a 4 dimension is a big “Ugh?”

All of this is more than I can fathom. I would assume a simple calendar is a 1 dimensional depiction of linear time. It made me think about one of my daughters and two sisters’ birthdays. Two are graced with having Leap Year birthdays and another was born on the 13th.

The 13th is unique because of its association with bad luck. It really has nothing to do with a calendar or the Space-Time Continuum except some mathematician has calculated past Fridays the 13th and projected on when future Fridays the 13th will occur. As a bad luck event, I know my sister has celebrated ten Fridays the 13th. As far as I know nothing truly evil has befallen upon her. It is entirely a human “thing” and unfair to say that when one day of the week and a number sync on a man-made calendar it is the cause of anything–good or bad. It is just plain absurd. I would assume that Friday the 13th really is just like any other event embedded somewhere on the 4 dimensional space-time continuum with any other numbered day.

Workshop of Virgil Master [Public domain] — The burning of the Grand Master of the Templars and another Templar. From the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis,

Some historians or “calendarists” for the lack of a better word, traced this “bad luck” event back to the year 1307, October 13th, a Friday. King Philip IV of France decided to raid the temples of the Knights of the Templar in search of supposed Templar riches. In reality it was only bad luck if you happened to be a Templar in the 12th Century and not somebody born decades or centuries later. (And for those interested the last time Friday the 13th fell in October it was in 2017. The next time this will happen is in 2023. Yes, somebody sat down and figured that out. )

It was also a time of Medieval reasoning. There was a belief that the Earth was flat and possibly one-dimensional. It was also believed that if you tortured somebody long enough you would ultimately get to the truth–the truth as you wanted it to be. Templar Knights were subjected to the rack, strapaddo and having their feet slather with lard and then put over an open flame in an effort to find the truth; or in this case where the Templar treasure was buried. Those that did not confess after all of this to their alleged crimes were eventually burnt at the stake. And no doubt at this point on their personal time continuum they wished desperately to be at some other point on the Space-Time Continuum. So yes, Friday the 13th could have resulted in a long day for those who wore a white mantle with a red cross on it. Somehow the day and number has stuck. Where on the space-time continuum I could not begin to say.

Maigheach-gheal and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. — Sundial on the south wall of St Mary’s Church near Kilmington, Wiltshire, Great Britain

But that was a time before Rolex or Timex. The sundial was more common. People would simply look up at the sky, particularly the night sky to check out the phases of the moon. I am sure the Mayans and Egyptians paid a night watchmen to chisel in his nighttime observations on some sort of Rosetta Stone every night as to what the moon was doing. The problem is while the moon was doing its thing so was the sun. Their celestial dances looked to be in step, but they were fractions of a beat off; and like two dancers starting off on the wrong foot it would take some sort of bunny hop to get them back in step. Today, that bunny hop would be adding a day to a year every four years.

The problem really centers around man’s fixation on controlling and syncing cosmic events to earthly events. According to infoplease.com”the purpose of the calendar is to reckon past or future time, to show how many days until a certain event takes place—the harvest or a religious festival—or how long since something important happened.”

This brings us to Leap Year. Now it is not my intent to make sense of how we keep track of the days of the years or how gravity can bend time and if you slingshot around the sun you will be in time warp–according to Captain Kirk. But just think about trying to sync all of your computer components. It seems simple. Instructions for most technical fixes today start with going to Settings. But I doubt very seriously that today’s astronomers looking deep into space will find, tucked away in some far off galaxy, a universal Settings App or restart button that allows for an earthly/cosmic reboot.

So we have an earthly rebut every four years. In this case February 29th. Past calendars based on the moon or a lunar calendar, which is little more than 29 days and adds up to a 354 day year is right off the bat 11 days out of sync with the solar year which measures time between vernal equinoxes; or just a tad more than 365 days. What to do with 11 days?

Fernando de Gorocica [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)] — Lunar calendar counting days from New Moon to New Moon.

All of this created havoc, particularly with the Romans, who had an empire to run and could not let a simple thing as days of the year get in the way. Trying to keep track of various earthly events tied to a lunar cycle became a complicated mess for the Romans as they added or subtracted months and days to the calendar trying to keep spring festivals in spring and not in fall. It is sort of like having Major League Baseball’s World Series slowly sliding into January and the Super Bowl running into June. Additionally, the Romans were a superstitious group and felt that months ending in even numbers were bad omens. Hence, their months could easily be 29 or 31 days long.

Julius Caesar came up with a fix but his calendar still needed yearly tinkering to keep the seasons straight. But still, it was somehow running like the Foxtrot: slow, quick, quick, slow over time. In an attempt to get things on track Pope Gregory XIII introduced his calendar in 1582. This calendar synced time with astronomical events tied to vernal equinox and the winter solstice. This is the most widely used calendar today but it still caused some problems particularly with its implementation. It went from a bunny hop to a kangaroo hop.

By Antonio de Leon y Gama - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/displayPhoto.pl?path=/service/rbc/rbc0001/2006/2006kislak2&topImages=0030r.jpg&topLinks=0030v.jpg,0030u.tif,0030a.tif,0030.tif&displayProfile=0, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8757487 — An ancient Mexican calendar.

The major problem occurred in the past with the shift from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian. Ten days had to be hopped over or dropped from the calendar in 1582. In 1752 when England switched to the Gregorian calendar it lopped off 11 days to catch up with the rest of Europe. They did this in in the beginning of September. Those people who were expecting a birthday or a payday between September 2nd through to the 14th were out of luck as those days were simply gone. But were did they go?

And how has all of this adding and subtracting affected where we really should be on the Space-Time Continuum. Did the Space-Time Continuum also shift or were these days sucked into a black hole and shot out through a wormhole into another universe or dimension. Did some alien race just find itself with an additional 10 or 11 days on their calendar? The question I have is how out of sync are we from the Space-Time Continuum? All of this tinkering with days of the year makes me wonder if February 29th really is February 29th. Could it be September 31st? Is there a possibility that we has humans are running behind or ahead of some sort of Universal clock and calendar–and how would we know?

Despite having the ability to chuck three astronauts towards the Moon at 24,ooo mph we are still moving pretty slow compared to the 186,000 mph that light travels. In time and reality we are traveling through the cosmic world no faster than our ancestors and we are still syncing the human concept of days of the weeks with a clock that runs slightly off kilter with a solar year.

Calendars are nebulous man-made creatures. They are based on celestial occurrences; but does that sync us to a 4 dimensional Space-Time Continuum? I guess this is something for some future physicist to figure out. That is if a near space object of substantial size impacts with the Earth and sends us back into the Neolithic age where we can start gazing at the night sky trying to figure out what day of the week it is.

https://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/q411.html

https://sciencing.com/difference-between-lunar-calendar-solar-calendar-22648.html

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/

https://digitash.com/science/physics/the-geometry-of-the-fourth-dimension-and-the-space-time-continuum/

https://www.britannica.com/science/Egyptian-calendar

https://www.infoplease.com/calendar-holidays/calendars/history-calendar

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.calendar.html

https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-calendar.html

Headless bodies, Ancient Gods and Subcompact Cars

February 1, 2019August 26, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

The other day I came across an article about a doctor ready to perform a head transplant. Evidently, a neurosurgeon feels like he can take the head off of a live human and place it on the a brain-dead body. Some people compare Dr. Sergio Canavero’s attempts at this type of operation kin to Dr. Victor Frankenstein. In fact, he may have already performed a transplant on a cadaver. They claimed it was the first successful head transplant. I am not sure how that qualifies as a successful transplant. If anything it qualifies him for a spot in Ripley’s. Believe it or Not! Museum in St. Augustine.

I must confess, though, I never read Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. I never saw Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, either. I have been to Ripley’s museum and saw the shrunken head and how head hunters made them. I also saw Mel Brooks’ movie Young Frankenst-eyen or was it Frankenst-een. This, however, makes me neither an expert to comment on Mary Shelly’s work or on neurosurgery. All I know about the novel is that Victor Frankenstein pieced together a monster out of spare human parts, where he got these parts I am not sure, I would assume he was skulking around a morgue or digging in fog shrouded-graveyard after midnight. Everything creepy happens after midnight.

Universal Studios [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — Boris Karloff as Frankenstein.

And somehow the good doctor managed to get this creature up right and moving forward through the magic of alchemy or an ancient form Saksamaa voodoo–if such a thing exists. So now, this hodgepodge of random parts comes alive. However, life is never that simple or easy. The monster ends up making a lot problems for everybody involved. All of this is probably very similar to the way General Motors put together the Chevy Vega.

Most people today may not remember the 1970s when Japan started its invasion of small cars into the United States. American automobile manufacturers were still making those big-assed land monsters with 427 cubic-inch engines (or 7.0 Liters today). These behemoths like the Ford LTD, the Buick Riviera, the Dodge Polaris, the Cadillac Coup de Ville and the Chevy Impala to name of few with their wide body and flashy chrome were parading the American dream down the highway. These biased belted-tire rides were the queens of the road back when gas was 30 cents-a-gallon. A family of five or six could easily fit into their confines of these crusiers.

The Vega, named after the fifth brightest star in the night sky, and a star just slightly more than 25 light years away, was undoubtedly one of the worst American cars made in the 1970s: along with the Ford Pinto and the American Motors Gremlin. These subcompact cars were designed to compete with the new small Japanese cars hitting the market. The VW Beetle, with its distinct, curved half-bubble shaped-body first arrived in the United States in 1949 and was a well-established site on the road.

Chevrolet pre-1978 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 971 Chevrolet factory photo AuthorChevrolet pre-1978 — 1971 Chevy Vega Hatchback Coupe

But like Frankenstein, the Vega, the Pinto and a host of other subcompact cars must have been created out of Detroit’s grave yard of left-over body parts. The fact that American auto manufacturers could not come up with a viable homemade subcompact car was a distinctive black mark on American engineering. Here is the country, in the midst of a space race, that designed three types of space capsules, with the Apollo capsule capable of carrying three astronauts 240,000 miles to the moon and back, This happened six times with two missions doing fly arounds of the moon. But yet, we could not put a four-passenger car on the street for under $2,100.

It was about this time that the first successful heart transplant took place in South Africa. Dr. Christian Barnard was able to take the heart of a 25-year-old woman and put it into a 53-year-old man. Louis Washkansky lived for 18 days with the woman’s heart dying not of heart failure, but from pneumonia. I am sure he had no problems accepting her heart. If he had lived there is no way of knowing how it would have changed him. Also, there were no real ethical questions considering that the woman, Denise Darvall was killed in a car accident and had just died. If there has been a debate about gender mismatch in organ donors it has not become a public social debate as to which bathroom the recipient would use if he or she ever made it to Charlotte, North Carolina.

John Quidor [Public domain] — Ichabod Crane trying to avoid losing his head.

However, lopping the head off of a viable human being’s body to attach it to another body recently deceased sounds morbidly funny and alien. And I would imagine a lot more complicated than tethering a pumpkin onto a headless body. Not to mention if the operation is not a success has the doctor committed a crime: murder. Unlike the heart transplant, it is the heart that is diseased and malfunctioning. In a head transplant, there is nothing wrong with the head. It is the body that is malfunctioning. Maybe it should be called a body transplant.

And here again what would society say if such a swap was also a sex change. This head body transplant brings up a whole lot of ethical, racial and gender issues. Suppose a doctor was to put the head of an African woman on an the body of a man from Southeast Asia. What is this new person’s nationality, forget about race and gender. It really goes beyond creepy and freaky.

To perform these types of operations maybe, we should consult ancient Egyptians records. From their hieroglyphics, it looks like they may have had some experience with this. The way they removed and preserved body parts the mummy makers office was like a NAPA auto parts store.

Jeff Dahl [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons — The jackal-headed god protector of the dead

FDRMRZUSA [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons — Horus keeping a hawkeye out for Egypt.

Maybe all of this is head transplant talk is an effort to revive some sort of ancient alien procedure practiced on Egyptians four or five thousand years ago. It has to be that some ancient alien race was looking for a place to run a few experiments on the locals and leave. This would easily explain Anubis, the Egyptian god who was the protector of the dead. He had the head of a jackal. According to Egyptian mythology, jackals were often seen around cemeteries. Logically, putting two-and-two together, Egyptians came up with jackals w because they were protecting the dead. I don’t know about that one. Maybe they were spirits of ancient aliens prowling around looking for body parts to make a god. Or maybe they were just hungry and looking for a mummy to chew on.

Then there was Horus. The god with the hawk’s head. This has to give new meaning to bird brain. This is a transplant I would pay to see. How you get a bird’s head on a human body is beyond me. Maybe just maybe, the “Ancient Aliens” series on the History Channel is starting to make some sense. Maybe Modern Marvels will take a crack at explaining the Vega.

https://www.redorbit.com/did-the-worlds-first-human-head-transplant-really-happen/

https://www.autonews.com/article/20111031/CHEVY100/310319922/the-vega-an-unmitigated-disaster

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4964018/

Not All Undefeated Seasons are Created Equal

January 11, 2019January 22, 2019mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

Now that the college football season is over with Clemson thrashing Alabama in the National Championship Game the speculation about next year’s season can begin. I am not a football expert by any means. I played a couple years in my youth and have, like a lot of people, spent a large portion of my lifetime in front of a TV watching the game. And yet somehow this qualifies me to be an expert on the game, which it really doesn’t. At best, like most Americans, it gives me the right to an opinion.

What really intrigued me about this year’s college football season was not that Clemson and Alabama played in the title game. I think that was a no brainier even for me to pick. My interest was with two other undefeated teams. One was fourth-ranked Notre Dame and the other was the University of Central Florida.

Thomson200 [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons — Alabama and Clemson, again.

It is not my intent to rehash the history of how College football determines who is in the champion is; or who should be in the championship game; or the methodology they use. However in the past, various polls have been used to determine who was the top team without any sort of playoff. This was like ending the season the way Wall Street might end the year on a Bull run. The polls are still instrumental, I assume, but how does one undefeated team like Notre Dame fall into a playoff spot and another like UCF keep tumbling off into space? Is it determined by who has the most “likes”?

As far as I can tell a selection committee makes that determination. Probably a group of intellectual types similar to the group that decided whether Plato is or is not a planet. Is Pluto a Power 9 planet or a dwarf planet now relegated to sub status among our solar system’s celestial players. The question, I would assume, is UCF a Power 5 team–a dwarf planet or a fast radio burst from a distant galaxy? Or is it a team that just toils in the distant corner of our own little football galaxy. They play in a non-elite conferences that is just not that good. I guess the they are a quick look shooting star.

The fate of UCF post season play is determined by a 13 member selection committee. A committee consisting of sharp-minded experts in the science of football. Members include former football head coaches, athletic directors and even a sports journalist and a former Secretary of State. They serve for three years determining which four college football teams get to play for the National Championship.

According to various websites, the selection committee forms its hypotheses based on observations and by gathering data through the 12 game regular season. They also make their picks on team records, head-to-head results and strength of schedules. Plus, they will compare how teams did against common opponents; and of course, the all powerful conference championships factor in.

The thing to remember is that not all schedules, records and conferences are created equal. But when are 12-0 records not equal? The American egalitarian belief of equality does not fully play out on the gridiron. To make it easier, I would assume, College Football has 10 major conferences but only five power elites, which almost automatically eliminates a large percentage of the more than 100 college football teams around the country. And rightfully so, but this gives the power elites a foot up on teams, like UCF, who do not play in these elite conferences.

It is here, in my mind, where Notre Dame and UCF pass some sort of orbital plane. Both teams have an arrogance in pushing their claims to playing in the championship. Notre Dame has a storied and rich College Football history that must hold some sort of sway on current football minds. UCF, however, not so much. UCF did not come into existence until 1963. By then Notre Dame had already won five National Championships.

But the college football world changed in 1990 when most major independent schools like Penn State, Florida State and the University of Miami began joining conference as College Football moved towards a playoff system to determine what teams qualified to play in the championship. But not Notre Dame. They are special. They are loosely affiliated with the Atlantic Coast Conference, a Power 5 but not completely bound an ACC schedule.

SSF [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — 1924, a time before instant replay. Notre Dame’s star backfield “The Four Horseman”: Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher.

But watching them play is like star gazing. Going out at night and looking at distant twinkling lights. We are use to light being instantaneous but the light from our nearest star, Alpha Centauri takes more than four light years to get here. The Sun’s light takes about eight minutes. When we watch Notre Dame play is like we are watching football from the past. It is the Four Horseman led by Knute Rockne running loose in the 1920’s. College Football has moved on yet Notre Dame is still playing to its past glory.

Then there is the University of Central of Florida. A school founded in Orlando. The land of Mickey Mouse and Shamu the Whale. A not so special football school, despite being the largest university in the state of Florida. It is bursting out of the shadow of Disney World. UCF is a team that has basically a protostar, a mass of swirling football nebulae. It has gone from a winless season to two undefeated regular seasons. This burst of light has created a Pluto type argument among football scholars. Is UCF a supernova team from a non-power five conference, a real contender?

NASA/JPL-Caltech [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — UCF might as well be playing on the newly discovered exoplanet, “UCF 1.01,” located 33 light years from any Bowl site here on Earth.

Unlike astronomers and astrophysicists, who deal with the cosmos and an infinite number of stars, football minds really have to observe a handful of teams throughout the season. At some point this gridiron group will have to translate their observations and data into a working theory that other football aficionados will believe. Much like the way Newton turned gravity from a theory to a law: what goes up must come down.

All stars over time eventually implode and so do football teams. Notre Dame’s recent 33-3 loss to Clemson in the Cotton Bowl is the most recent a example of it’s Bowl season’s implosion. Then there was their 42-14 implosion to Alabama in the title game in 2013. But they have not gone supernova. Notre Dame is like a low-mass star with plenty of life left in it but maybe not enough to outshine newer teams like UCF. Notre Dame has been around for a while and it knows it will shine brighter if it is the only star in the non-conference sky. It’s luminosity will be dimmer by several magnitudes if it has to toil as an upper-middle of the pack Power 5 conference team.

UCF, on the other hand, realizes that in order to get the selection committee to take them seriously they have to burn brighter and play with more intensity now. But like Notre Dame, if they were to join a Power 5 conference they might find themselves a 6-6 team struggling to be bowl eligible. Instead, they play in the back corner of the football universe, the American Athletic Conference, a non Power 5 conference where it might be easier to reel off 25 straight wins. Alabama reeled off 14 straight wins playing in the Southeastern Conference, arguably the best conference despite Clemson’s beat down.

The problem is that UCF had its moment much like Notre Dame. They both fizzled in their bowl losses. Although UCF’ played in an exciting game with LSU, a Power 5 team, and despite the 40-32 score, it was not really that close. But then neither was the National Championship game.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0831/Dynamic-duo-Twin-black-holes-fuel-quasar-closest-to-Earth

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20120718.html

“It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.”

December 6, 2018mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

François Topino-Lebrun [Public domain] — Romans getting personal.

For a while it was in vogue to quote from the “Godfather.” Usually quotes, pithy sayings or maxims can be read one way but often they can become murky and be turned around and interpreted both ways. I think one of the quotes from the Godfather falls into this category. When Michael Corleone is ready to avenge the attempted assassinations of his father he says: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.” But is that really true? It is very easy to believe that the Robert Mueller’s Russian investigation can be turned around and be interpreted by some as: “It’s not business. It’s strictly personal.”

Journalist Ellen Goodman wrote that “much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.” Today, we tend to think of a personal attack as a round of Twitter tweets fired across cyber space. But how about a time when personal attacks were “up close and personal” attacks.

Go into just about any Civics class in the United States and there is sure to be a mention of the Roman Republic, a sort of forefather of our Republic. But the Romans played politics for keeps. Arguments and disagreements, “fake news” and even claims of “fake news” could have dire consequences. First off, though, let’s not confuse the Roman Republic with the Roman Empire, which as the coachman in the Wizard of Oz says, is horse of a different color.

It took the Romans a couple of centuries to get their republic up and running and a couple of centuries to see it turn into an empire. Most historians would probably agree that the demise of the Republic started around 130 BC with Tribune of the Plebs Tiberius Gracchus and his brother Gaius Gracchus. These two brothers, as tribunes, proposed various land reform acts and other laws that would benefit the poor at the expense of the powers that be.

Jean-Baptiste Claude Eugène Guillaume [Public domain] — The brothers Gracchi

Both brothers became tribunes, an office that was created in 494 BC to give plebeians, Rome’s lower classes, a stronger say in government. By the second century BC, the position with its ability to veto and propose laws, became one of Rome’s most powerful positions.

Tiberius, not to be confused with the Emperor Tiberius, ran a foul with the Optimates, or “the best men” of the Roman Senate, with his agrarian reforms. Not to weigh in too deeply into ancient Roman history and politics, let’s just say that the established Roman Senate took his reforms as anti-business and as a personal affront. It may be hard at first glance to understand the workings of the Roman Republic, but the issues they were dealing with were not so much different than what we are dealing with today: land reform, taxes and citizenship. Our government just doled out a $12 billion bailout to farmers to offset losses from new tariffs. When was there a time we were not dealing with immigration and now some want a new interpretation on the 14^thAmendment in relationship specifically to people born here in the United States. And of course, just like the Romans, we bicker on who should be appointed or not appointed or elected to governmental positions.

The more Tiberius pushed his progressive reforms the more resistance he got. The Optimates decided enough was enough and took things outside the law and into their own hands. A group of senators gathered up a mob of their supporters, henchman and slaves; invaded the assembly where Tiberius was; and beat him and some of his 300 supporters to death. It is hard to determine if this was business or personal.

At the very least, it was murder. In some ways, it could be called a crime of passion because the Optimates were without a doubt enraged to the point of insanity with Tiberius. If that is the case, then this is personal. However, calling a mob together to kill someone takes planning and in that case, it is premeditated and then it has to be all business.

Brother Gracchus fared no better with the Optimates in his battle for reform several years after his brother’s beating death. What may have done him in, was proposing citizenship for some of Rome’s non-citizens. The politics of immigration and citizenship seem a messy affair in any age, but in Roman times it can get bloody. When one of Gracchus’ opponents was killed, the Senate took this as an opportunity to declare martial law. Soon, an armed group of Optimates was requesting Gracchus to appear before the Senate for a small question-and-answer get-together, no doubt as the guest of honor at another mob beat down. Gracchus refused. Seeing family history repeating itself, and being a good Roman, Gracchus fell on his slave’s sword. The killings, however, did not stop there. Several thousand of his supporters were rounded up and summarily put to the sword. I guess it could be said that this was strictly business.

At times, it becomes hard to tell if it is business or personal. It is easy to assume that in most cases it is a combination. Take Roman proscription. The Roman constitution allowed for a dictator to be appointed in dire circumstances. In 82 BC Lucius Cornelius Sulla became dictator. Sulla would head down to the Forum and post a list of individuals he deemed as enemies of the people. Once listed, the individual’s property could be seized without due process and most often they were murdered in the bargain. When the rule of law is supplanted by the needs of a few ruling elites, who find themselves in confusing times of crises, it becomes easy to get personal.

For instance, after Julius Caesar’s brutal assassination on the Senate floor, his trusted lieutenant Mark Antony and Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, consolidated their power over what was left of the Republic, and began hunting down those who were responsible for Caesar’s killing. With the rule of law co-opted or gone, it was not hard for Antony and Octavian to come to a mutual (list) understanding. They both had enemies and they both needed money.

They did not invent proscription, they simply made their enemies list known to an eager public willing to cash in on the crisis. Once a person was identified, for whatever reason, it could have been as simple as being on the losing side, hanging a yard sign out on your front portico or just saying the wrong thing to be considered as a treasonous act. Once listed or procscripted, anybody and everybody could become “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” Those so proclaimed an enemy of the public, if lucky, got out of Rome in hurry taking what they could and losing the rest. Those not so lucky like Cicero not only lost everything but their life, too.

Nathan Hughes Hamilton — Antony had an eye on Cicero

Cicero ran afoul of Mark Anthony. His sharp tongue and pen were aimed at Antony. He even quipped that they should have killed Antony with Caesar. In a series of 14 speeches called the Philippics, Cicero’s loathing of Anthony came out in full force. He attacked him as an enemy of the Republic. However, with the defeat of Caesar’s assassins, Antony and Octavian were able to completed their hold on what was left of the Republic. They now turned their attention to the less rebellious but quarrelsome Senate. For Antony, it was Cicero.

Anthony Majanlahti antmoose — Cicero in headier times.

Antony’s soldiers beheaded Cicero and brought his head and hands to Antony. The story goes that Antony’s wife, who was once married to one of Cicero’s longtime enemies, took Cicero’s head and opened the mouth piercing the tongue with her hair pin. His head and hands were later displayed on the Forum as a causal reminder to who was now in charge. I am not sure it can get any more personal than that.

All of this may seem absurd in the 21st Century Republic but President Richard Nixon’s staff compiled an enemies list that included shock jock Howard Stern, actor Paul Newman and several journalists.

It is safe to say that running a republic, like any form of government, can have its ups and downs. Our country has had its share of scandals and scoundrels that have pushed our Republic to excesses. President Ulysses Grant’s administration was hit with the Whiskey Ring Scandal and Crédit Mobilier. Warren Harding had Tea Pot Dome and of course the mother of all political abuses: Nixon’s Watergate Scandal.

Investigations have rooted out the evil doers and brought the rule of law into play. At best, investigations and follow up laws tried to set things back on course to avoid them in the future. But scandals are as assured to happen as Hailey’s Comet will surely swing back by. The difference is scandals are not so easily predicted. They unfold overtime and the process to sort them out is done over time, too, through investigation and not through proscription.

Robert Mueller’s investigation, to some is a witch-hunt. To those being investigated it might seem personal, a form of Roman proscription.To others, it is all business. Is it business or personal? Only time will tell.

Some websites to check out.

https://http://www.washingtonpost.com /wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/072874-1.htm?noredirect=on

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/cicero.html

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865591820/This-week-in-history-Mark-Antony-has-Cicero-assassinated.html

https://http://www.ancient.eu /article/95/the-brothers-gracchi-the-tribunates-of-tiberius–g/

https://http://www.ancient.eu /Tribune/

Its 20/20: Trump in 2020

August 7, 2018September 22, 2023mystoryorhistoryLeave a comment

It does not matter who the Democrats run for president in 2020. It does not matter if the Russians meddle in the election. Donald J. Trump will win a second term. There are five reasons why he will win. Six if you live in a flyover state and seven if you have stocked a block house with survival gear for the coming Apocalypse.

It has nothing to do directly with his Administration’s policies, those are side shows. It is not because he is the incumbent or the economy is humming at 5 percent. That is helpful. It has nothing to do with tax cuts and tariffs. Our country was founded on the belief of not paying taxes so tax cuts are nothing new. Tariffs, ask any high school student and they might remember the Smoot/Hawley Tariff. But I can almost guarantee with 90 percent accuracy that the name is all they will remember.

It is not immigration either. Pick up any history book and we can find a period of time were somebody did not care for those coming down the gang plank to the New World. Check out the Know Nothings of the 1840s. (see the June 2016 blog The Know Nothings Ride Again)

Wikimedia Commons — An old interpretation to Native Americans

President Trump will win because of the drama. It is a story, a TV show that practically writes itself with Donald Trump cast in the lead role. It is similar to the movie, The Natural when the “slimy reporter” Maxwell Mercy, tells the aging ball player, Roy Hobbs, whether he wins or loses he is going to make Mercy a great story.

In literature, there are five characteristics that make a good story good; just ask any middle schooler in a Language Arts class. They will be able to draw a graphic organizer depicting the basic character, hook, setting, plot, conflict with rising action and resolution. Some have added elements like theme, and point of view but let’s not complicate the matter more than it already is.

Now some critics will argue about which characteristic is the most important in driving a good story. Some say that believable characters are needed; others will say it is the conflict within the plot that drives a story. With this administration conflicts abounds. The storyline can jump from one tweet to another. One day it can be a crime drama with indictments being handed out and lawyers making all sorts of counter claims. It could be billed as a modern-day Salem Witch Hunt. “Dunk him! See if he floats!”

Wikimedia Commons , Joseph E., ca. 1837-1914, artist. — Salem Witch hunt trials.

Other days it could easily be a suspense romance with salacious love interests or an erotic romance playing out in public with hushed-jilted lovers and the stoic wife quietly standing by her man. Or is she?

It could be a story of man against man or then just as easily, man against society: the news media, portrayed as the enemy of the people and the murky conspiratorial “deep state” trying its best to destroy the hero and all the values the hero stands for.

The story also has an epic quest. Epic quests like in Star Wars make the story. Quests are necessary for a hero to flourish. The greater the evil threat the greater the hero. For it is the enemy that really defines the hero. What makes Luke Skywalker a Jedi? He turns Darth Vader, the “baddest” dude in the galaxy, from the dark side. From Darth Vader’s first appearance there was no need to explain how bad this guy was. We all knew it from the beginning. Who can argue with a hero’s epic quest to “make America great again.” Even if the causes of America’s demise are as nebulous as the gases pulsating from the Crab Nebula.

It would be hard to classify this administration’s show as a comedy; a lot of late night shows seem to find the lighter side of this administration. I am not sure if this show could be classified as a dark comedy, blue comedy or obscene comedy. It is definitely not a slap stick although it could be argued it has some of the same elements as the Marx Brothers’ movie Duck Soup. It is hard to deny that all of these comic elements are taking place.

Although it could hardly be called a spy thriller. It reads more like Smily’s People than the Bourne Identity, it does have a foreign intrigue to it. Maybe more like the Cohen Brothers movie Burn after Reading or maybe the Bond flick, From Russia with Love.

Wikimedia Commons Hugo Rheinhold's Affe mit Schädel (by Darwin Monkey) — Looking back into the future?

Others may see this as a tragedy; or an Armageddon film where dumbfounded scientist, generals and politician are completely surprised by the appearance of a large asteroid coming straight for earth. It could be some sort of cataclysmic weather-related event that will change the earth’s geo-economic powers into dying dinosaurs. An end game where the monkeys come down out of the trees and claim their true inheritance. It is the end of civilization as we know it. A real-life Planet of the Apes.

All of these elements make up many popular paperback books, movies and TV shows. The Trump Administration combines all of those elements. It defies a genre. So, what makes this different? Like any good book or a successful show, it is the believable characters. And ther are no shortage of these. There are Nazis, incompetent politicians, front stabbers, smarmy attorneys, babbling press secretaries, lurking women, bumbling family members and plenty of antagonists like the “Fake News,” The Supreme Leader (Iran’s Ali Khamenei). Or my favorite: Dear Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and Commander of the Korean People’s Army. Comic Book writers did not make this stuff up but it reads like a superhero battling evil. Just look in any “fake” newspaper. These characters secret villainy and conflict.

And then there is a hero: Donald J Trump. Although, some will argue that Trump does not fit the bill as the hero; and to many, he is completely miscast in role. But a story has to have a hero or an anti-hero to make the self-proclaimed quest to Make America Great Again a quest.

And just about every Sunday there is a new weekly hook to bring the audience back into to the drama. Trump, as the hero, gives people hope to believe in revenge for past wrongs; anticipation that mysteries will be solved; and that all the treachery of past adminstrations will be tamed.

Pundits and politicos may analysis this administration and pollsters may interpret the numbers on how popular the president is politically. But when it comes to selling soap, President Trump knows what the audience wants. And people are riveted to the drama.

Expect four more years in 2020. Just like the TV show LOST, where people had no idea of where the storyline was going, they tuned in, because they liked not knowing. The show, like this administration, practically writes itself. The problem, like LOST, is in the long run most viewers were disappointed in the ending.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/16/15633120/why-tv-shows-get-canceled-ratings-arent-everything

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/07/the-44-best-political-tv-shows-of-all-time.html?p=2

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/398502-trumps-job-approval-highest-in-latest-quarter-gallup

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/good-tv-show

http://www.thetvaddict.com/2011/04/19/the-secret-to-television-success%C2%A0why-some-tv-shows-are-succeeding-when-others-are-failing/

https://www.space.com/16989-crab-nebula-m1.html

https://absolutewrite.com/2010/10/19/the-3-most-important-elements-of-fiction-writing/

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/374941/what-makes-a-story-great/

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