Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Earthquake
We just had a small earthquake. Hope it wasn't a foreshock!
Update: it's not a foreshock. It's not on the San Andreas, and the fault is only capable of ~5.6 quakes, which this was [except we didn't feel more than a rumble because we are ~20 miles away]
Update: it's not a foreshock. It's not on the San Andreas, and the fault is only capable of ~5.6 quakes, which this was [except we didn't feel more than a rumble because we are ~20 miles away]
Chucricket
Chuckwalla woke up extra early this morning. I went in to check on her, and she pointed to the wall and told me there was a cricket there. She wasn't scared, just excited that there was a cricket in her bedroom!
There wasn't a cricket there.
So I tried to put her back to sleep but she kept on telling me there was a cricket on the wall.
So I checked again, and I noticed that there was a shadow coming from a street light passing through the top of a crib. It cast a long horizontal shadow with a very abstract insect-looking silouette--complete with 3 blocky legs--onto the wall. A cricket.
So I turned on the light and showed her that there was no cricket, it's just a shadow. She was a little disappointed but satisfied.
I wonder what being 20-months-old is like. The world must seem very different! I'm glad she knew the word for cricket and the concept of shadows, because otherwise I never would have been able to get back to sleep [I nearly didn't anyway].
There wasn't a cricket there.
So I tried to put her back to sleep but she kept on telling me there was a cricket on the wall.
So I checked again, and I noticed that there was a shadow coming from a street light passing through the top of a crib. It cast a long horizontal shadow with a very abstract insect-looking silouette--complete with 3 blocky legs--onto the wall. A cricket.
So I turned on the light and showed her that there was no cricket, it's just a shadow. She was a little disappointed but satisfied.
I wonder what being 20-months-old is like. The world must seem very different! I'm glad she knew the word for cricket and the concept of shadows, because otherwise I never would have been able to get back to sleep [I nearly didn't anyway].
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Desert Solitaire
Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey
I wish I had known what was going on when Edward Abbey's drunken and highly illegal wake was held per his request in Saguaro National Monument west of Tucson. I wouldn't have gone [I was 6. I wouldn't go now either.] but it was likely little more than a short hike from our house at the time, and it would be a nice memory to have.
I won't say much about this book. Ed Abbey is brash, manly, serene, enlightened, hilarious, gentle, ignorant, brave, humble, loud, brilliant, passionate, misguided, visionary, articulate, well-read, witty, opinionated, zany, compassionate, and most of all downright daft.
Solitaire is a superb book. It makes you feel, laugh out loud, get angry, become enlightened, scratch your head, and hopefully go outside. It is also a very important book.
If you haven't, read it.
Edward Abbey
I wish I had known what was going on when Edward Abbey's drunken and highly illegal wake was held per his request in Saguaro National Monument west of Tucson. I wouldn't have gone [I was 6. I wouldn't go now either.] but it was likely little more than a short hike from our house at the time, and it would be a nice memory to have.
I won't say much about this book. Ed Abbey is brash, manly, serene, enlightened, hilarious, gentle, ignorant, brave, humble, loud, brilliant, passionate, misguided, visionary, articulate, well-read, witty, opinionated, zany, compassionate, and most of all downright daft.
Solitaire is a superb book. It makes you feel, laugh out loud, get angry, become enlightened, scratch your head, and hopefully go outside. It is also a very important book.
If you haven't, read it.
Life of 4/1 - 4/3 + 4/5 - 4/7 + 4/9 - 4/11 + 4/13 - ...
Life of Pi
Yann Martel
I had to read this book because I needed some fiction to balance my literary diet. And I heard it was great. A story about a shipwrecked Indian boy spending 227 days afloat in a life boat on the Pacific ocean with an adult male Bengal tiger for company has to be good. Even if it is semi-allegorical and/or fableized.
But I was pretty disappointed.
It's not that the book didn't deliver the promised fun shipwrecked-with-a-man-eater excitement. It's just that the rest of the book was terrible. The book comes in three parts: A long-winded and dry prelude which lasts nearly a third of the book; the shipwreck and survival section, which takes up the bulk of the rest of the book; and the cadenza, wrapping up loose ends and applying a good Hollywood ending.
I'm surprised that many people got through the first third. I'm pretty thick skinned about plotless writing; I devour Jared Diamond and Edward Abbey. But this still tested my mettle. The problem is that Yann Martel tries his hand at pursuasive writing, completely forgetting that he's writing a novel and that he is a novelist. I itallicized that last sentence because that is all he appears to be. His arguments are so ludicrous; filled with naive generalizations, ignorant statements, and some of the worse logic I've ever seen in copyrighted publication. He just has no idea what he's talking about, but he still talks about it, Krishna only knows why.
The first and third segments have a bit of dialog. I had to put the book down occasionally during these parts and check the front cover just to make sure I hadn't accidentally started reading a George Lucas book [a classy literary reference if I've seen one]. The dialog was impressively contrived and laborious. I often pondered whether the author was trying to create a nightmarish world of stilted communication in order to do something the English professorial types would have fun with. But I decided against that. I think Yann Martel just lacks any subtlety at all, and doesn't really care whether his characters seem real.
On the issue of subtlety, I think that the lack of it destroyed an otherwise cute and gratifying surprise ending. Throughout the book the author felt need it to pound into our heads every time he did something he thought was clever, and the ending was no exception. He leaves nothing of the nearly-perplexing and interesting ending to the imagination. After being bludgeoned repeatedly throughout the book with banal psuedoreligious pandering, the reader deserves a gentle, subtle, thoughtful ending.
I grant fiction writers almost infinite freedom to stretch credulity with the setup of the plot. What's the fun of fiction if they can't? So I have no bones to pick about the fantastic nature of the story itself, it is the book's main draw. But I did find Yann Martel's extensions and details so outrageous that it detracted from the story. I think he intended the book to have a "choose for yourself" type ending, like K-PAX, but unlike K-PAX one of the possibilities is so impossible and fantastical that it isn't an option. So you're forced to choose the other option [and if you missed the choice, he has a clunky dialogue that forces you to interpret it this way]. It's just not fun, it leaves the reader with no space for imagination or intrigue.
So, I don't know what all the fuss is about. The book is fun-you should read it-but the claim on the back of my edition that Yann Martel is the "greatest living writer of the generation born in the sixties" is absurd. I'm not sure that he's the greatest author born in 1963 in Salamanca with the surname of Martel, but I'll need to do some more research before I can say that for sure.
Yann Martel
I had to read this book because I needed some fiction to balance my literary diet. And I heard it was great. A story about a shipwrecked Indian boy spending 227 days afloat in a life boat on the Pacific ocean with an adult male Bengal tiger for company has to be good. Even if it is semi-allegorical and/or fableized.
But I was pretty disappointed.
It's not that the book didn't deliver the promised fun shipwrecked-with-a-man-eater excitement. It's just that the rest of the book was terrible. The book comes in three parts: A long-winded and dry prelude which lasts nearly a third of the book; the shipwreck and survival section, which takes up the bulk of the rest of the book; and the cadenza, wrapping up loose ends and applying a good Hollywood ending.
I'm surprised that many people got through the first third. I'm pretty thick skinned about plotless writing; I devour Jared Diamond and Edward Abbey. But this still tested my mettle. The problem is that Yann Martel tries his hand at pursuasive writing, completely forgetting that he's writing a novel and that he is a novelist. I itallicized that last sentence because that is all he appears to be. His arguments are so ludicrous; filled with naive generalizations, ignorant statements, and some of the worse logic I've ever seen in copyrighted publication. He just has no idea what he's talking about, but he still talks about it, Krishna only knows why.
The first and third segments have a bit of dialog. I had to put the book down occasionally during these parts and check the front cover just to make sure I hadn't accidentally started reading a George Lucas book [a classy literary reference if I've seen one]. The dialog was impressively contrived and laborious. I often pondered whether the author was trying to create a nightmarish world of stilted communication in order to do something the English professorial types would have fun with. But I decided against that. I think Yann Martel just lacks any subtlety at all, and doesn't really care whether his characters seem real.
On the issue of subtlety, I think that the lack of it destroyed an otherwise cute and gratifying surprise ending. Throughout the book the author felt need it to pound into our heads every time he did something he thought was clever, and the ending was no exception. He leaves nothing of the nearly-perplexing and interesting ending to the imagination. After being bludgeoned repeatedly throughout the book with banal psuedoreligious pandering, the reader deserves a gentle, subtle, thoughtful ending.
I grant fiction writers almost infinite freedom to stretch credulity with the setup of the plot. What's the fun of fiction if they can't? So I have no bones to pick about the fantastic nature of the story itself, it is the book's main draw. But I did find Yann Martel's extensions and details so outrageous that it detracted from the story. I think he intended the book to have a "choose for yourself" type ending, like K-PAX, but unlike K-PAX one of the possibilities is so impossible and fantastical that it isn't an option. So you're forced to choose the other option [and if you missed the choice, he has a clunky dialogue that forces you to interpret it this way]. It's just not fun, it leaves the reader with no space for imagination or intrigue.
So, I don't know what all the fuss is about. The book is fun-you should read it-but the claim on the back of my edition that Yann Martel is the "greatest living writer of the generation born in the sixties" is absurd. I'm not sure that he's the greatest author born in 1963 in Salamanca with the surname of Martel, but I'll need to do some more research before I can say that for sure.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Transcendent music
People have often asked me why my wife and I often limit ourselves to a narrow range of classical music. I've had a lot of trouble explaining this, so I want to try here.
First of all, these are some of the reasons that have been speculated for our choice of music, all of which are wrong:
1. We think it makes us smart
2. We think it makes us look smart
3. We have an elitist disdain for other music
4. We have a moral issue with other music
5. We haven't been exposed enough to other music
We both actually listen to and appreciate a wide variety of music. But we still keep on discovering that nothing reaches us like our music, particularly late romantic chamber. One of the reasons for this is a feeling that we have both arrived at independently, and describe in the same language. I'll try my best to explain from the bottom up:
There are many categories of "bad" music [of course judged by how it affects and reaches us]. I won't discuss this here, it should be fairly obvious what makes up the bulk of the inhabitants of these categories. And there are "good" music categories. Here are some examples of pieces and composers which might fit under various good categories, based on our tastes:
Merely good: most of Mozart. Schumann, most of Mendelssohn, Lizst, Chopin, etc. Almost anything you hear on a classical station is here or below.
Really good: most of Dvorak, most Beethoven, Stravisnsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, etc. I don't think we bother listening to anything below this category.
Spectacularly good: Mendelssohn quartet Op. 13; Ravel and Debussey quartets; Bach Cello suites; some Beethoven; Smetana quartet and Moldau, Dvorak serenade for strings, etc. This is a huge category considering how distinguished it is.
That much gooder [a.k.a. perfect]: Schubert late chamber and nearly all Brahms chamber. Grieg g quartet.
Most of the non-chamber music we listen to falls within the "merely good" to "that much gooder" categories and this includes non-classical music, what we listen to for dancing, and whatever else we have on our iPod.
This is pedantic.
The point is that there is great music everywhere, even music that rivals our holy "that much gooder" music.
But there is one more category that we have both arrived at without triangulation. It is transcendent music. This is music that breaks some invisible barrier and really deeply penetrates us. This is music which feels like it was written by God, and probably was. There are only certain passages in certain pieces which are transcendent in this way for us, and they hold a very special place in our lives. We both claim the most profound spiritual, emotional, and penetrating experiences with these passages. It's different than very, very good music; it is very, very good music with a divine touch. Here's what is transcendent for us:
Scattered passages of the Dvorak cello concerto, mostly in 1st and 2nd movement.
Brahms piano quintet in f, especially the B and D sections of the 4th movement [this trumps all for me, put me on a desert island with this and I'll die a perfected saint].
Schubert quintet in C, B section of the second movement
I want to stress that we dearly love and are passionate about other music. The second movement of the Ravel quartet, Schubert's Death and the Maiden 1st and 2nd movements, the opening sequence in Grieg's quartet in g, the first movement of Smetana's "From my Life" quartet, Brahms' piano quartet in g final cadenza and piano quartet in c 2nd movement climax and a huge amount more, Schubert's G quartet 1st movement, Bach cello suite #5 prelude. These are all the absolute pinnacle of human musical achievement. But the transcendent passages [of which there are few more] go beyond the pinnacle and enter into another realm for us. And the key is that these transcendent passages cluster mostly around late romantic chamber music. That's why we listen to chamber as much as we do. It doesn't hurt that the non-transcendent stuff is flappin' awesome also.
So we don't think music can make us smart. And we're not musical snobs or prudes. We just found a little patch of the transperfect and we can't get enough of it.
First of all, these are some of the reasons that have been speculated for our choice of music, all of which are wrong:
1. We think it makes us smart
2. We think it makes us look smart
3. We have an elitist disdain for other music
4. We have a moral issue with other music
5. We haven't been exposed enough to other music
We both actually listen to and appreciate a wide variety of music. But we still keep on discovering that nothing reaches us like our music, particularly late romantic chamber. One of the reasons for this is a feeling that we have both arrived at independently, and describe in the same language. I'll try my best to explain from the bottom up:
There are many categories of "bad" music [of course judged by how it affects and reaches us]. I won't discuss this here, it should be fairly obvious what makes up the bulk of the inhabitants of these categories. And there are "good" music categories. Here are some examples of pieces and composers which might fit under various good categories, based on our tastes:
Merely good: most of Mozart. Schumann, most of Mendelssohn, Lizst, Chopin, etc. Almost anything you hear on a classical station is here or below.
Really good: most of Dvorak, most Beethoven, Stravisnsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, etc. I don't think we bother listening to anything below this category.
Spectacularly good: Mendelssohn quartet Op. 13; Ravel and Debussey quartets; Bach Cello suites; some Beethoven; Smetana quartet and Moldau, Dvorak serenade for strings, etc. This is a huge category considering how distinguished it is.
That much gooder [a.k.a. perfect]: Schubert late chamber and nearly all Brahms chamber. Grieg g quartet.
Most of the non-chamber music we listen to falls within the "merely good" to "that much gooder" categories and this includes non-classical music, what we listen to for dancing, and whatever else we have on our iPod.
This is pedantic.
The point is that there is great music everywhere, even music that rivals our holy "that much gooder" music.
But there is one more category that we have both arrived at without triangulation. It is transcendent music. This is music that breaks some invisible barrier and really deeply penetrates us. This is music which feels like it was written by God, and probably was. There are only certain passages in certain pieces which are transcendent in this way for us, and they hold a very special place in our lives. We both claim the most profound spiritual, emotional, and penetrating experiences with these passages. It's different than very, very good music; it is very, very good music with a divine touch. Here's what is transcendent for us:
Scattered passages of the Dvorak cello concerto, mostly in 1st and 2nd movement.
Brahms piano quintet in f, especially the B and D sections of the 4th movement [this trumps all for me, put me on a desert island with this and I'll die a perfected saint].
Schubert quintet in C, B section of the second movement
I want to stress that we dearly love and are passionate about other music. The second movement of the Ravel quartet, Schubert's Death and the Maiden 1st and 2nd movements, the opening sequence in Grieg's quartet in g, the first movement of Smetana's "From my Life" quartet, Brahms' piano quartet in g final cadenza and piano quartet in c 2nd movement climax and a huge amount more, Schubert's G quartet 1st movement, Bach cello suite #5 prelude. These are all the absolute pinnacle of human musical achievement. But the transcendent passages [of which there are few more] go beyond the pinnacle and enter into another realm for us. And the key is that these transcendent passages cluster mostly around late romantic chamber music. That's why we listen to chamber as much as we do. It doesn't hurt that the non-transcendent stuff is flappin' awesome also.
So we don't think music can make us smart. And we're not musical snobs or prudes. We just found a little patch of the transperfect and we can't get enough of it.
The Best Widget
It's absurd that so much of critique in popular circles revolves around the best of something or other. How can anybody claim to judge the best book, actor, food, music, athlete, temperature, dog, linguine crunchiness, song, expletive, or friend? It's a compulsion born of lack of vision, objectivity, humility, and experience. I find it beyond reproach that anybody dares to proclaim that X is the best Y, no matter how passionately they feel it.
The Dvorak cello concerto is the best and greatest concerto ever written. And Jacqueline DuPre's recording of it is the best in existence. No argument possible. I'm not joking.
The Dvorak cello concerto is the best and greatest concerto ever written. And Jacqueline DuPre's recording of it is the best in existence. No argument possible. I'm not joking.
The Magic Cello
On an orchestra tour in Aspen, CO, I started warming up before an open-air performance, surrounded by the beautiful dissonant noises of a full contingency of strings playing whatever they wanted simultaneously and in small quarters. As a 17-year-old, I had been playing the cello for 11 years and loved it. I was reasonably good at it. That summer I had been busy spending quality time [and otherwise] with my future wife and hadn't so much as touched the cello in many weeks before the tour.
So I sat there in the middle of Kitschville and just started playing, barely able to hear myself. And...
... music came out!
Sorry if this doesn't sound profound, but it really was. Like I mentioned, I was a good cello player but I was not really a cellist. I didn't think that I ever would be; I considered cello playing just a vehicle for experiencing the chamber music I loved. So something in my mind, my fingers, my inner musikmensch, my muscles, just clicked and I knew how to really play. I didn't instantly become any better technically, that would be magic. But this was the next best thing to magic: somehow I figured out how to project, to vibrato, to sing, and to create music with my cello. I wasn't playing anything that had ever been played before [this was typical for me; I shouldn't have wondered why practicing didn't help my solo pieces much].
So I became a cellist. A great cellist? Nope, just a cellist. Sometimes I pull my cello out and just glory in the beautiful sound that comes out of it, feeling blessed that my brain mysteriously figured out how to play that day in Colorado. I've never forgotten.
So what happened? I have no idea. Maybe some final, last neural connection between different regions of my brain that allowed me to express music through the cello? Who knows? A blessing no matter how it came.
Has anybody else had an experience like this? Your brain just figured something else out without you knowing?
So I sat there in the middle of Kitschville and just started playing, barely able to hear myself. And...
... music came out!
Sorry if this doesn't sound profound, but it really was. Like I mentioned, I was a good cello player but I was not really a cellist. I didn't think that I ever would be; I considered cello playing just a vehicle for experiencing the chamber music I loved. So something in my mind, my fingers, my inner musikmensch, my muscles, just clicked and I knew how to really play. I didn't instantly become any better technically, that would be magic. But this was the next best thing to magic: somehow I figured out how to project, to vibrato, to sing, and to create music with my cello. I wasn't playing anything that had ever been played before [this was typical for me; I shouldn't have wondered why practicing didn't help my solo pieces much].
So I became a cellist. A great cellist? Nope, just a cellist. Sometimes I pull my cello out and just glory in the beautiful sound that comes out of it, feeling blessed that my brain mysteriously figured out how to play that day in Colorado. I've never forgotten.
So what happened? I have no idea. Maybe some final, last neural connection between different regions of my brain that allowed me to express music through the cello? Who knows? A blessing no matter how it came.
Has anybody else had an experience like this? Your brain just figured something else out without you knowing?
Monday, October 22, 2007
San Pedro
This is a complete travesty.
My wife and I spent a significant portion of our considerable courtship hiking along the San Pedro in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, perhaps the busiest corridor for illegal immigrants in Arizona [though the Border Patrol coverage there seems spotty; they never seem to leave their flatulent air-conditioned SUV's]. The river provides cover and lower temperatures during the summer, runs straight north to I-10, and has an old abandoned railroad track running right along it, all of which factor to make this an ideal illegal immigration corridor. Hiking along the more remote stretches of the tracks is like trekking through a 40-mile-long 10-foot-wide landfill. Every step is littered with discarded water bottles, batteries, shoes, socks, shirts, pants, backpacks, empty food cans, plastic bags, blankets, utensils, and other detritus of desperate human exodus. Walking these tracks is an extremely sobering and humanizing experience. Almost 50 illegal immigrants a day are apprehended in the conservation area but nobody knows how many make it through. Only God knows how many people have died along this route trying to win a better life for their family, but it is easy for me to imagine as I walk there that I am surrounded by informal graves, each marking the end of a brave soul and their family's dreams. Maybe I over-estimate the deaths, but the marks of human tragedy are obvious.
The track route is subject to brutal day-time heat [up to the high 110º's] but the neighboring river-bed is protected by a canopy of massive cottonwoods and thermally regulated by the flowing water. It is an oasis. Hiking in mid-July is rarely feasible in southern Arizona, but here it is delightful. To escape the heat during the days the immigrants pick their way up the river bed, which is exceptionally rough going. We have run across elaborate networks of food caches, scouts, runners, and guides using the bed to smuggle immigrants during the day. Besides a pair of entomologists speculating that our southbound route constituted illegal immigration in an unusual sense, and a single nudist right at the confluence with the access wash, we have never run into a legal American citizen along the river. The Border Patrol flies by the dirt access roads in their SUV's without pausing [except for occasional stops to examine our vehicle and attempt to exact intelligence from us--they shouldn't dare].
That's the immigrant picture in San Pedro. Here's the biological picture:
San Pedro is a complete biological treasure. Due to the proximity to Mexico, north-south orientation, flowing water, monsoons, and high temperatures, the San Pedro contains the breeding grounds for many of the rarest birds in North America [using the convenient birder's definition excluding Mexico]. These birds represent the furthest north extension of many of the neotropical species. Several dozen of these exotic tropical bird species which are found nowhere else in North America breed in the giant cottonwoods along the river. Go to this gray hawk page and look at the range map; the long straight range extension up the western flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico is typical of many tropical species found in extreme southern Arizona but nowhere else in North America. Gray hawks were actually our main targets in the area; 75% of all gray hawks north of Mexico breed along the San Pedro.
Western riparian habitats account for more than half of all species found in the region. The San Pedro is often cited as the richest riparian area in the state, and it is the longest undammed river in the southwest. Approaching the San Pedro is a shock of senses: arrogantly laid down in the middle of drab, low-level desert-scrub is a gaudy green ribbon of thriving giant cottonwoods and biological extravagance. It is truly one of the precious treasures of the country.
Much could be said about the damage that has already been done to the San Pedro: devastating, though not on the same scale as the full-fledged rape and murder of the similar Santa Cruz river, parallel and 40 miles to the west. I won't devote any more of this post to those issues, but this piece is well-written, lightweight, digestible, and touches on the conservation issues of the San Pedro watershed.
Now that the background is painted, here's the issue: The Fence. Right through the corridor.
Backed by the ignorant flood of vitriol that is steadily disseminated by the conservative punditry, and empowered by the heavy-handed and arrogantly mongering Current Administration, Michael Chertoff wants to build a fence right through the conservation area. He has used his God-given, er, Current Administration-given powers to “waive in their entirety” every single piece of modern legislation that stands between the Republican extractive economy and complete ecological ruin for the western States. The Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, all are impotent against Michael Chertoff's whim. These acts are often the only weapons on conservationists' belts, now rendered obsolete by a flick of somebody's president's pen.
[So I have just demonstrated what I hate about blogs: diatribing, name-calling, generalizing, ranting, sourceless opining. Here's my attempt at an objective discussion, minimized by the late hour:]
For the fence to be built, it must be established that:
1. The Fence will work
A. Illegal immigrants will no longer be able to cross
B. Drugs will not be able to cross
C. Foreign terrorists will not be able to cross
2. Benefits outweigh costs
A. Environmental damage
B. Capital costs
3. The Fence constitutes a solution to current border issues
Let me set one thing straight before we continue: the god-like powers given to Michael Chertoff to suspend environmental regulations were given as an add-on to his Department of Homeland Security duties in the Real ID Act, which deals almost exclusively with terrorism-related regulations. So nominally the Fence is about terrorism. It is not about illegal immigration.
To address the issues above, I'll say this, briefly:
1. The Fence will not work
A. Illegal immigrants will find other ways to cross the border. They will until economic opportunities exist at home. Desperate people willing to risk death to cross will always find a way to do it.
B. Our own capitalistic model insures that drugs will always be available. Walling off Ogden, UT is probably a more effective method of controlling methamphetamine distribution in the US than the Fence will be for any drug.
C. Foreign terrorists? Are you kidding me? 36 of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives who have been implicated in crimes in the US between 1993 and 2001 entered and stayed in the country legally. They can fly over on a student visa, a business trip, to visit family, for the holidays. A Fence won't stop legal immigrants and visa-holders from blowing up Americans. So who cares even if it can stop illegal entrants from doing it? There are millions of volunteers to do it now that we've set up camp over there and created hundreds of thousands of widows.
2. Benefits do not outweigh costs
A. Environmental damage is the only lasting legacy of a Fence. Habitat fragmentation is the most potent cause of biodiversity loss. The Fence cuts an ugly impenetrable swath right across the San Pedro, among other important areas. I'm convinced, after all my time in the area, that bulldozing even a 10-foot chunk out of the middle of the riparian zone and placing fence there will drastically alter the life cycles of much of the local flora and fauna. Rivers in the southwest are superhighways of animal movement. Walls bisecting highways are not a good idea.
B. Capital costs. Really, at 2 billion a week the War pretty much makes any other expenditure moot. But the 1 billion or so it will take to build the fence could absolutely and irreversible revolutionize the worldwide species conservation effort.
3. The Fence constitutes a band-aid at best for current border issues
The last issue is illegal immigration. Although the Fence is nominally about terrorism, the political expediency comes from rampant fear and misanthropy caused by poor statistics and hysterical public figures. Have you ever known an illegal immigrant? I have. Have you ever met one? Talked to one? Eaten dinner with one? I have. Fantastic, humble, family-oriented people. We could use more. I would have an illegal family as neighbors without pause. The proportion of rotten ones is no higher than that of the general American populace. But their illegal status and the accompanying social barriers put their children at extreme risk for criminal behavior. That is the fault of the way we treat the immigrants, not the fault of the immigrants.
I meet so many people who are ridiculously ignorant on this issue. "They broke the law, I have no sympathy for them." Really? I would jump the fence for my family. Wouldn't you? I'm not a bad person [Ann Coulter is not my judge]. "I say just send them all back where they came from." Really? Will you be the one to work in the fields when all the immigrants are gone? I've worked side-by-side with illegal immigrants harvesting onions, pumpkins, and hay. What they do in a day would reduce you to a quivering pile of whimpering. And it is necessary labor, needed to sustain the economy we all benefit from. "They're not American, America has no obligation to help them." What moral right do you have to a microwave, 3 TV's, frozen pizza, an SUV, multiple pairs of shoes, and all-you-can-eat buffets? You were born an American, yes. Did you die for this country? The entire founding philosophy of this country centers around the inalienability of fundamental human needs. Will you be the one to tell them that your rights are inalienable but theirs are alienated in this country because of where their parents lived when they were born? Your ancestors--if you are like most Americans'--immigrated to this country and found equity. Will you deny equity to those who would come now? What proportion of your hoarded wealth do you feel you will lose from having to share with our new arrivals? "They steal my tax money." Sure. The solution to this is to make them tax-paying citizens.
Something that really, truly should appeal to the very people I wish would listen to this but will never read my words: would Jesus Christ turn the illegal immigrants away? Would he deny them health care? Would he let them die in the wilderness? Would he condemn them for trying to save their families? Would Jesus Christ build a Fence? Would you?
I once met a Peruvian sheep-herder living alone in a small trailer on top of a mountain in Idaho. He spent 9 months a year with virtually no human contact doing a job that no American would take at well under minimum wage in order to feed his wife and children at home. He had to hop the border twice a year. Why should this man have to break the law to get home to his family?
And we're back. This is where it ends:
In the far distant future, a ceremony will be held atop an old set of tracks next to the San Pedro during mid-July at mid-day. The participants will dedicate a memorial to the souls who died trying to find a way to provide for their families. Somebody will say "Mr. President, tear this *&!^@ fence down" and it will be done.
Long live the San Pedro!
My wife and I spent a significant portion of our considerable courtship hiking along the San Pedro in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, perhaps the busiest corridor for illegal immigrants in Arizona [though the Border Patrol coverage there seems spotty; they never seem to leave their flatulent air-conditioned SUV's]. The river provides cover and lower temperatures during the summer, runs straight north to I-10, and has an old abandoned railroad track running right along it, all of which factor to make this an ideal illegal immigration corridor. Hiking along the more remote stretches of the tracks is like trekking through a 40-mile-long 10-foot-wide landfill. Every step is littered with discarded water bottles, batteries, shoes, socks, shirts, pants, backpacks, empty food cans, plastic bags, blankets, utensils, and other detritus of desperate human exodus. Walking these tracks is an extremely sobering and humanizing experience. Almost 50 illegal immigrants a day are apprehended in the conservation area but nobody knows how many make it through. Only God knows how many people have died along this route trying to win a better life for their family, but it is easy for me to imagine as I walk there that I am surrounded by informal graves, each marking the end of a brave soul and their family's dreams. Maybe I over-estimate the deaths, but the marks of human tragedy are obvious.
The track route is subject to brutal day-time heat [up to the high 110º's] but the neighboring river-bed is protected by a canopy of massive cottonwoods and thermally regulated by the flowing water. It is an oasis. Hiking in mid-July is rarely feasible in southern Arizona, but here it is delightful. To escape the heat during the days the immigrants pick their way up the river bed, which is exceptionally rough going. We have run across elaborate networks of food caches, scouts, runners, and guides using the bed to smuggle immigrants during the day. Besides a pair of entomologists speculating that our southbound route constituted illegal immigration in an unusual sense, and a single nudist right at the confluence with the access wash, we have never run into a legal American citizen along the river. The Border Patrol flies by the dirt access roads in their SUV's without pausing [except for occasional stops to examine our vehicle and attempt to exact intelligence from us--they shouldn't dare].
That's the immigrant picture in San Pedro. Here's the biological picture:
San Pedro is a complete biological treasure. Due to the proximity to Mexico, north-south orientation, flowing water, monsoons, and high temperatures, the San Pedro contains the breeding grounds for many of the rarest birds in North America [using the convenient birder's definition excluding Mexico]. These birds represent the furthest north extension of many of the neotropical species. Several dozen of these exotic tropical bird species which are found nowhere else in North America breed in the giant cottonwoods along the river. Go to this gray hawk page and look at the range map; the long straight range extension up the western flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico is typical of many tropical species found in extreme southern Arizona but nowhere else in North America. Gray hawks were actually our main targets in the area; 75% of all gray hawks north of Mexico breed along the San Pedro.
Western riparian habitats account for more than half of all species found in the region. The San Pedro is often cited as the richest riparian area in the state, and it is the longest undammed river in the southwest. Approaching the San Pedro is a shock of senses: arrogantly laid down in the middle of drab, low-level desert-scrub is a gaudy green ribbon of thriving giant cottonwoods and biological extravagance. It is truly one of the precious treasures of the country.
Much could be said about the damage that has already been done to the San Pedro: devastating, though not on the same scale as the full-fledged rape and murder of the similar Santa Cruz river, parallel and 40 miles to the west. I won't devote any more of this post to those issues, but this piece is well-written, lightweight, digestible, and touches on the conservation issues of the San Pedro watershed.
Now that the background is painted, here's the issue: The Fence. Right through the corridor.
Backed by the ignorant flood of vitriol that is steadily disseminated by the conservative punditry, and empowered by the heavy-handed and arrogantly mongering Current Administration, Michael Chertoff wants to build a fence right through the conservation area. He has used his God-given, er, Current Administration-given powers to “waive in their entirety” every single piece of modern legislation that stands between the Republican extractive economy and complete ecological ruin for the western States. The Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, all are impotent against Michael Chertoff's whim. These acts are often the only weapons on conservationists' belts, now rendered obsolete by a flick of somebody's president's pen.
[So I have just demonstrated what I hate about blogs: diatribing, name-calling, generalizing, ranting, sourceless opining. Here's my attempt at an objective discussion, minimized by the late hour:]
For the fence to be built, it must be established that:
1. The Fence will work
A. Illegal immigrants will no longer be able to cross
B. Drugs will not be able to cross
C. Foreign terrorists will not be able to cross
2. Benefits outweigh costs
A. Environmental damage
B. Capital costs
3. The Fence constitutes a solution to current border issues
Let me set one thing straight before we continue: the god-like powers given to Michael Chertoff to suspend environmental regulations were given as an add-on to his Department of Homeland Security duties in the Real ID Act, which deals almost exclusively with terrorism-related regulations. So nominally the Fence is about terrorism. It is not about illegal immigration.
To address the issues above, I'll say this, briefly:
1. The Fence will not work
A. Illegal immigrants will find other ways to cross the border. They will until economic opportunities exist at home. Desperate people willing to risk death to cross will always find a way to do it.
B. Our own capitalistic model insures that drugs will always be available. Walling off Ogden, UT is probably a more effective method of controlling methamphetamine distribution in the US than the Fence will be for any drug.
C. Foreign terrorists? Are you kidding me? 36 of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives who have been implicated in crimes in the US between 1993 and 2001 entered and stayed in the country legally. They can fly over on a student visa, a business trip, to visit family, for the holidays. A Fence won't stop legal immigrants and visa-holders from blowing up Americans. So who cares even if it can stop illegal entrants from doing it? There are millions of volunteers to do it now that we've set up camp over there and created hundreds of thousands of widows.
2. Benefits do not outweigh costs
A. Environmental damage is the only lasting legacy of a Fence. Habitat fragmentation is the most potent cause of biodiversity loss. The Fence cuts an ugly impenetrable swath right across the San Pedro, among other important areas. I'm convinced, after all my time in the area, that bulldozing even a 10-foot chunk out of the middle of the riparian zone and placing fence there will drastically alter the life cycles of much of the local flora and fauna. Rivers in the southwest are superhighways of animal movement. Walls bisecting highways are not a good idea.
B. Capital costs. Really, at 2 billion a week the War pretty much makes any other expenditure moot. But the 1 billion or so it will take to build the fence could absolutely and irreversible revolutionize the worldwide species conservation effort.
3. The Fence constitutes a band-aid at best for current border issues
The last issue is illegal immigration. Although the Fence is nominally about terrorism, the political expediency comes from rampant fear and misanthropy caused by poor statistics and hysterical public figures. Have you ever known an illegal immigrant? I have. Have you ever met one? Talked to one? Eaten dinner with one? I have. Fantastic, humble, family-oriented people. We could use more. I would have an illegal family as neighbors without pause. The proportion of rotten ones is no higher than that of the general American populace. But their illegal status and the accompanying social barriers put their children at extreme risk for criminal behavior. That is the fault of the way we treat the immigrants, not the fault of the immigrants.
I meet so many people who are ridiculously ignorant on this issue. "They broke the law, I have no sympathy for them." Really? I would jump the fence for my family. Wouldn't you? I'm not a bad person [Ann Coulter is not my judge]. "I say just send them all back where they came from." Really? Will you be the one to work in the fields when all the immigrants are gone? I've worked side-by-side with illegal immigrants harvesting onions, pumpkins, and hay. What they do in a day would reduce you to a quivering pile of whimpering. And it is necessary labor, needed to sustain the economy we all benefit from. "They're not American, America has no obligation to help them." What moral right do you have to a microwave, 3 TV's, frozen pizza, an SUV, multiple pairs of shoes, and all-you-can-eat buffets? You were born an American, yes. Did you die for this country? The entire founding philosophy of this country centers around the inalienability of fundamental human needs. Will you be the one to tell them that your rights are inalienable but theirs are alienated in this country because of where their parents lived when they were born? Your ancestors--if you are like most Americans'--immigrated to this country and found equity. Will you deny equity to those who would come now? What proportion of your hoarded wealth do you feel you will lose from having to share with our new arrivals? "They steal my tax money." Sure. The solution to this is to make them tax-paying citizens.
Something that really, truly should appeal to the very people I wish would listen to this but will never read my words: would Jesus Christ turn the illegal immigrants away? Would he deny them health care? Would he let them die in the wilderness? Would he condemn them for trying to save their families? Would Jesus Christ build a Fence? Would you?
I once met a Peruvian sheep-herder living alone in a small trailer on top of a mountain in Idaho. He spent 9 months a year with virtually no human contact doing a job that no American would take at well under minimum wage in order to feed his wife and children at home. He had to hop the border twice a year. Why should this man have to break the law to get home to his family?
And we're back. This is where it ends:
In the far distant future, a ceremony will be held atop an old set of tracks next to the San Pedro during mid-July at mid-day. The participants will dedicate a memorial to the souls who died trying to find a way to provide for their families. Somebody will say "Mr. President, tear this *&!^@ fence down" and it will be done.
Long live the San Pedro!
Ma propre expérience française
Mon frère Beerstraw a écrit dans le français l'autre jour sur son blog. Je n'ai pas pensé qui était équitable parce que j'ai dû compter sur une page de traduction en ligne problématique qui a rendu son écriture illisible. Donc j'espère qu'il lira cette traduction contraire et sentira la même frustration j'ai senti l'essai de lire ce qui a eu l'air d'une collection sans fin d'expressions banales courtes et vaguement spirituelles. Je ne sais pas comment ce traducteur voudra traduire "et là j'avais la révélation" mais j'espère que cela tourne dehors plus comme "et là j'avais quelque chose de bon." Mais le lecteur ne sera pas capable de répéter parce que les deux expressions sembleront identiques si ainsi.
En tout cas, j'ai pensé à l'insérant des articles supplémentaires juste pour l'amusement mais j'ai décidé que ce sera assez impénétrable sans eux que je peux garder la traduction torride pure, après une manière du fait de parler.
Durablement, votre frère de votre mère.
En tout cas, j'ai pensé à l'insérant des articles supplémentaires juste pour l'amusement mais j'ai décidé que ce sera assez impénétrable sans eux que je peux garder la traduction torride pure, après une manière du fait de parler.
Durablement, votre frère de votre mère.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Searching in vain
We've spent the last week researching a new lens we need to acquire to fill a gaping hole in our coverage and to give MChes something to shoot with while we're out our requirements:
1. ED glass with max focal length no less than 300mm
2. Hand-holdable
3. Fast [f2.8 hopefully]
4. Fast AF [AF-S preferable]
5. VR would be very, very nice considering that we'll be using it handheld under rainforest canopies
And, of course, we have to be able to afford it. We were thinking about the 80-400mm VR, which is really versatile. But I've looked at hundreds of images online from people using it, some of which are explicitly designated as proof of the lens' superior optical performance, and they're all garbage. Nothing doing, I won't touch a lens that will ruin an otherwise awesome picture with bad glass. Plus the lens is slow and the AF is super slow.
So we were looking at a variety of 300mm primes. The 300mm f2.8 would be sweet, but the AF-I and AF-S versions are too heavy to hand-hold and the VR versions are so fantastically expensive that it would be more economically feasible to switch to barnacle photography than to buy it. Same for the fabulous 200-400mm f4 VR.
So maybe we'll get an old, cheap used 300mm f4. Not as fast as we'd like, too-large depth of field wide-open, and no VR.
So we just can't get what we want. It's frustrating.
1. ED glass with max focal length no less than 300mm
2. Hand-holdable
3. Fast [f2.8 hopefully]
4. Fast AF [AF-S preferable]
5. VR would be very, very nice considering that we'll be using it handheld under rainforest canopies
And, of course, we have to be able to afford it. We were thinking about the 80-400mm VR, which is really versatile. But I've looked at hundreds of images online from people using it, some of which are explicitly designated as proof of the lens' superior optical performance, and they're all garbage. Nothing doing, I won't touch a lens that will ruin an otherwise awesome picture with bad glass. Plus the lens is slow and the AF is super slow.
So we were looking at a variety of 300mm primes. The 300mm f2.8 would be sweet, but the AF-I and AF-S versions are too heavy to hand-hold and the VR versions are so fantastically expensive that it would be more economically feasible to switch to barnacle photography than to buy it. Same for the fabulous 200-400mm f4 VR.
So maybe we'll get an old, cheap used 300mm f4. Not as fast as we'd like, too-large depth of field wide-open, and no VR.
So we just can't get what we want. It's frustrating.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Second draft
Thanks for all the comments [I especially liked the "you're a stud" ones]. Here's the next draft:
http://raptorphoto.sundala.com/NewSiteSandbox/
Note that the title is just a stand-in, we haven't decided what to call ourselves yet, and I'll still add Beerstraw's copyright at some point.
Lemme know, etc...
http://raptorphoto.sundala.com/NewSiteSandbox/
Note that the title is just a stand-in, we haven't decided what to call ourselves yet, and I'll still add Beerstraw's copyright at some point.
Lemme know, etc...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
New Website Front Page
Here's the first draft of the new front page to our site:
http://raptorphoto.sundala.com/NewSiteSandbox/
Some questions about it:
1. Is it too big? I'm curious how it looks on smaller resolution screens
2. Is it clear? If you clicked on a link to take you here would it be too confusing what you need to do?
3. Is it attractive?
Any help is help. We want this to be gooooood.
http://raptorphoto.sundala.com/NewSiteSandbox/
Some questions about it:
1. Is it too big? I'm curious how it looks on smaller resolution screens
2. Is it clear? If you clicked on a link to take you here would it be too confusing what you need to do?
3. Is it attractive?
Any help is help. We want this to be gooooood.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The incredible explodable egg
I just got home from work and felt like a little protein before heading off to tutor tonight. So, on a whim, I put an egg in the microwave.
It exploded all over the microwave. So I tried again.
The second one split open but didn't explode. I salvaged a core of yolk and white which was piping hot but looked edible and intact. When I bit into it, the burnt yolk exploded in my face.
It smelled like a large quantity of rotting ant dung. And it was all over my face, the table, the floor, and the chair. And it was, I should emphasize, piping hot.
So don't try that at home [I'm not sure why I did].
It exploded all over the microwave. So I tried again.
The second one split open but didn't explode. I salvaged a core of yolk and white which was piping hot but looked edible and intact. When I bit into it, the burnt yolk exploded in my face.
It smelled like a large quantity of rotting ant dung. And it was all over my face, the table, the floor, and the chair. And it was, I should emphasize, piping hot.
So don't try that at home [I'm not sure why I did].
Into the Wild
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer.
I'm not prone to saying things like this, so enjoy it while it lasts:
I learned something about myself by reading this book.
First you need to know what the book is about. If you haven't heard the story already, it's about a guy my age [24] named Chris McCandless who dies of starvation alone in the wilderness in Alaska two years after converting to asceticism and disowning materialistic life. But it's not really that simple. The guy was not nutty, and he was not stupid. He was irrepressibly idealistic and passionately morality-minded. Being a real person, it's foolish to try to attribute his actions to any single factor.
Read this if you want to know more of the story and about Chris [this is the article that the book was derived from]. It's very good reading.
Chris reminded me in many many ways of myself. I hesitate to explain how, but it was uncanny. Reading the book was like reading a story of me in a parallel universe but with these differences:
∙ I'm married to the same woman I dated when I was 16 [this is actually crucial]
∙ Religion
That's it. As far as I can tell all the other differences are superficial. Sure we had different parents and were raised in different homes, but we both showed such a convergent evolution of philosophy and traits that I can't imagine that differences in environment can explain much.
Being married has been a tremendous moderating force in my life. I've flirted here and there with radicalism but the practicalities of marriage and parenthood as well as the personal influence of my wife has smoothed over my most extreme views and tendencies. I discovered how much of a blessing this is through reading Krakauer's book.
Chris's views were not fundamentally wrong or bad. And his ideals didn't kill him. What killed him was his immoderation and, frankly, some pretty bad luck. He was somewhat reckless, but not suicidal.
So reading the book was a great education for me. It taught me that people like me exist elsewhere in the world, it taught me the dangers of taking my idealism too far, and most of all it showed me how lucky I am to be married to a stabilizing woman.
It also forced me to imagine what my life would look like posthumously through the lens of a nature/adventure writer in mainstream culture. I imagine a lot of armchair psychologists saying "obviously suffering from X" or "clearly his behavior was caused by Y" which seems so foreign seeming when it's referring to me. I'm me, I decide what I do, I decide how I am, and I'm neither insane nor stupid. So I don't believe that Chris McCandless was stupid, repressed, off-kilter, insane, arrogant, heroic, brave, naive or even labelable at all. He was just a guy with no moderation who felt strongly and acted on his feelings. A weird duck, no doubt, but a duck nonetheless.
[I feel like I'm rambling. I listened to some of my old music today and it had this same structure: clumps of connected material haphazardly strung together with no driving purpose, no direction, and no correlation. Whoops.]
I'm not prone to saying things like this, so enjoy it while it lasts:
I learned something about myself by reading this book.
First you need to know what the book is about. If you haven't heard the story already, it's about a guy my age [24] named Chris McCandless who dies of starvation alone in the wilderness in Alaska two years after converting to asceticism and disowning materialistic life. But it's not really that simple. The guy was not nutty, and he was not stupid. He was irrepressibly idealistic and passionately morality-minded. Being a real person, it's foolish to try to attribute his actions to any single factor.
Read this if you want to know more of the story and about Chris [this is the article that the book was derived from]. It's very good reading.
Chris reminded me in many many ways of myself. I hesitate to explain how, but it was uncanny. Reading the book was like reading a story of me in a parallel universe but with these differences:
∙ I'm married to the same woman I dated when I was 16 [this is actually crucial]
∙ Religion
That's it. As far as I can tell all the other differences are superficial. Sure we had different parents and were raised in different homes, but we both showed such a convergent evolution of philosophy and traits that I can't imagine that differences in environment can explain much.
Being married has been a tremendous moderating force in my life. I've flirted here and there with radicalism but the practicalities of marriage and parenthood as well as the personal influence of my wife has smoothed over my most extreme views and tendencies. I discovered how much of a blessing this is through reading Krakauer's book.
Chris's views were not fundamentally wrong or bad. And his ideals didn't kill him. What killed him was his immoderation and, frankly, some pretty bad luck. He was somewhat reckless, but not suicidal.
So reading the book was a great education for me. It taught me that people like me exist elsewhere in the world, it taught me the dangers of taking my idealism too far, and most of all it showed me how lucky I am to be married to a stabilizing woman.
It also forced me to imagine what my life would look like posthumously through the lens of a nature/adventure writer in mainstream culture. I imagine a lot of armchair psychologists saying "obviously suffering from X" or "clearly his behavior was caused by Y" which seems so foreign seeming when it's referring to me. I'm me, I decide what I do, I decide how I am, and I'm neither insane nor stupid. So I don't believe that Chris McCandless was stupid, repressed, off-kilter, insane, arrogant, heroic, brave, naive or even labelable at all. He was just a guy with no moderation who felt strongly and acted on his feelings. A weird duck, no doubt, but a duck nonetheless.
[I feel like I'm rambling. I listened to some of my old music today and it had this same structure: clumps of connected material haphazardly strung together with no driving purpose, no direction, and no correlation. Whoops.]
Sunday, October 14, 2007
THE Forgotten War
I'm thinking of an American war.
The war was fought on foreign soil in a country which had inferior technology and tactics. The Americans defeated the regular army soundly and quickly. Within a few months the Americans declared the war over and won.
But violence still continued. Thousands of American soldiers died in protracted conflict with guerrillas determined to liberate their country from occupation. In response to guerrilla tactics the Americans started resorting more and more to brutal methods. Prisoners were regularly tortured and civilians targeted. The Americans trained and used native troops against their own countrymen.
News of atrocities incited the American people to denounce the war. Many influencial personalities demanded publicly that the war be ended on grounds that it constituted an act of imperialism which the United States was fundamentally opposed to on principle [the Monroe Doctrine is a manifestation of this].
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
OK. So if you're a non-savvy reader you might think that I'm talking about Iraq. If you're a little smarter than that, you'd recognize that I must be talking about another war which I've simplified in just the right way to highlight resemblance to the Iraq war.
But the one you're thinking about isn't it at all. This isn't Vietnam. It's not Korea [obviously]. And since it's quite certainly not either of the world wars, the civil war or the revolutionary war, I think the average American can safely be assumed to be 100% absolutely ignorant of its very existence.
I'm talking about the Philippine-American war, fought from 1899 to 1913.
Never heard of it? I don't think most people have. It's an embarrassing war: 4,324 Americans and maybe 1,000,000 Philippinos died in this little adventure. In case you missed that, 500 more Americans died in this war than have died in the Iraq war to date. The war was essentially an act of imperialism, not nearly as complex in cause as the current war. The Americans had just soundly defeated Spain [how many people even know we fought Spain? and as a result of a purported act of terrorism?], and Spain was the colonial ruler of the Philippines. The U.S. sought to replace Spain in its role as colonial governor. So this war was, in essence, a war of independence with the Americans as the "bad guys."
Virtually anything else that can be said about the Philippine-American war proves that it was quite different than Iraq; no WMD's, no IED's, no Saddam, no Islam, no Dick Cheney, and no oil interests. Many of the soldiers died of disease and not combat.
But there were Guantanamos, there were Hadithas, there were John Murthas, and there was a messy, unpopular, ugly, expensive and unwinnable war in a country so far away that the majority of modern Americans cannot find it on a map. So there are lessons to be learned.
A few weeks ago cnn.com showed a graphic of war casualties from all "major" American wars. I can't find it now, but I think the data came from here. The P-A War wasn't on the list. This is completely consistent with the lack of profile that this war has. Wars with a fraction of the casualties of the P-A War--like the Gulf War and the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, and the War of 1812--were shown while the P-A War was not [note that the page referenced specifically lists "battle deaths." Even by this measure the P-A War, with 1,000-1,500 conflict casualties is worse than the Gulf War and the Spanish-American War and thus certainly deserves place on the list]. A quick google search for "american war casualties" yields among the top hits this, this, and this, with no disclaimer of incompleteness and with the second link even going so far as to mention Grenada [but not Panama??], but none mention the P-A War. The last link is a very thorough documentation of every death in US military history, found on fas.org, the website of the Federation of American Scientists, an extremely well-respected non-profit group dedicated to collecting and publicly distributing information pertaining to the US military. It lists Haiti, Somalia, Grenada, Panama, and even the Iranian Rescue Mission which combine for 82 casualties. Combat and non-combat deaths are totaled one-by-one by race and cause but the Philippines-American War doesn't show up.
How could over 4,000 Americans die and nobody seems to know about it? How has our information-oriented culture completely forgotten a major American war? I don't know, but I do have a theory.
I think that nobody is comfortable with such a blatant act of imperialism by the US. We rarely hear of the American intervention in the Bolshevik revolution. Nobody even mentions US occupations of Haiti, Cuba, Panama in the 1900's, Nicaragua in the 1920's and 30's, Hawaii, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, etc. All of these occupations were adventures in imperialism carried out by the United States before most of us were born. In many cases the US supported or installed evil, cruel, tyrannical dictators who made Saddam's only unique attribute his mustache. In the vast majority of these cases even the most optimistic and patriotic American would have trouble demonstrating some great good either then or now that these occupations have accomplished. This is embarrassing.
Forgetting this war has rewritten US history just like remembering Valley Forge has written it. It surely is not the most important war in American history. But remembering it may have prevented us from embarking on the most frivolous one.
So how does the story of the Philippine-American war end? The violence lasted for years until the United States backed out and ceded control of the country to its own citizens. The US lost the country and several thousand soldiers. Nothing was won with this sacrifice. It wasn't sacrifice for freedom. America lost the war.
The war was fought on foreign soil in a country which had inferior technology and tactics. The Americans defeated the regular army soundly and quickly. Within a few months the Americans declared the war over and won.
But violence still continued. Thousands of American soldiers died in protracted conflict with guerrillas determined to liberate their country from occupation. In response to guerrilla tactics the Americans started resorting more and more to brutal methods. Prisoners were regularly tortured and civilians targeted. The Americans trained and used native troops against their own countrymen.
News of atrocities incited the American people to denounce the war. Many influencial personalities demanded publicly that the war be ended on grounds that it constituted an act of imperialism which the United States was fundamentally opposed to on principle [the Monroe Doctrine is a manifestation of this].
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙
OK. So if you're a non-savvy reader you might think that I'm talking about Iraq. If you're a little smarter than that, you'd recognize that I must be talking about another war which I've simplified in just the right way to highlight resemblance to the Iraq war.
But the one you're thinking about isn't it at all. This isn't Vietnam. It's not Korea [obviously]. And since it's quite certainly not either of the world wars, the civil war or the revolutionary war, I think the average American can safely be assumed to be 100% absolutely ignorant of its very existence.
I'm talking about the Philippine-American war, fought from 1899 to 1913.
Never heard of it? I don't think most people have. It's an embarrassing war: 4,324 Americans and maybe 1,000,000 Philippinos died in this little adventure. In case you missed that, 500 more Americans died in this war than have died in the Iraq war to date. The war was essentially an act of imperialism, not nearly as complex in cause as the current war. The Americans had just soundly defeated Spain [how many people even know we fought Spain? and as a result of a purported act of terrorism?], and Spain was the colonial ruler of the Philippines. The U.S. sought to replace Spain in its role as colonial governor. So this war was, in essence, a war of independence with the Americans as the "bad guys."
Virtually anything else that can be said about the Philippine-American war proves that it was quite different than Iraq; no WMD's, no IED's, no Saddam, no Islam, no Dick Cheney, and no oil interests. Many of the soldiers died of disease and not combat.
But there were Guantanamos, there were Hadithas, there were John Murthas, and there was a messy, unpopular, ugly, expensive and unwinnable war in a country so far away that the majority of modern Americans cannot find it on a map. So there are lessons to be learned.
A few weeks ago cnn.com showed a graphic of war casualties from all "major" American wars. I can't find it now, but I think the data came from here. The P-A War wasn't on the list. This is completely consistent with the lack of profile that this war has. Wars with a fraction of the casualties of the P-A War--like the Gulf War and the Spanish-American War, the Mexican War, and the War of 1812--were shown while the P-A War was not [note that the page referenced specifically lists "battle deaths." Even by this measure the P-A War, with 1,000-1,500 conflict casualties is worse than the Gulf War and the Spanish-American War and thus certainly deserves place on the list]. A quick google search for "american war casualties" yields among the top hits this, this, and this, with no disclaimer of incompleteness and with the second link even going so far as to mention Grenada [but not Panama??], but none mention the P-A War. The last link is a very thorough documentation of every death in US military history, found on fas.org, the website of the Federation of American Scientists, an extremely well-respected non-profit group dedicated to collecting and publicly distributing information pertaining to the US military. It lists Haiti, Somalia, Grenada, Panama, and even the Iranian Rescue Mission which combine for 82 casualties. Combat and non-combat deaths are totaled one-by-one by race and cause but the Philippines-American War doesn't show up.
How could over 4,000 Americans die and nobody seems to know about it? How has our information-oriented culture completely forgotten a major American war? I don't know, but I do have a theory.
I think that nobody is comfortable with such a blatant act of imperialism by the US. We rarely hear of the American intervention in the Bolshevik revolution. Nobody even mentions US occupations of Haiti, Cuba, Panama in the 1900's, Nicaragua in the 1920's and 30's, Hawaii, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, etc. All of these occupations were adventures in imperialism carried out by the United States before most of us were born. In many cases the US supported or installed evil, cruel, tyrannical dictators who made Saddam's only unique attribute his mustache. In the vast majority of these cases even the most optimistic and patriotic American would have trouble demonstrating some great good either then or now that these occupations have accomplished. This is embarrassing.
Forgetting this war has rewritten US history just like remembering Valley Forge has written it. It surely is not the most important war in American history. But remembering it may have prevented us from embarking on the most frivolous one.
So how does the story of the Philippine-American war end? The violence lasted for years until the United States backed out and ceded control of the country to its own citizens. The US lost the country and several thousand soldiers. Nothing was won with this sacrifice. It wasn't sacrifice for freedom. America lost the war.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Raptorrific
[images copyright 2007 RaptorPhoto]
Today we drove to Half Moon Bay to photograph a huge concentration of raptors dining on a population explosion of voles. We saw perhaps a dozen white-tailed kites, 4-5 northern harriers [one male], and several red-tails [top picture is one of them] dining on the voles. Additionally there were two great blue herons hunting voles at sunset [bottom picture is one of them, a 1st year].
The herons were interesting. They slowly walked through the grass while waddling their entire bodies snake-like with head poised to strike. They looked like cobras on stilts. I didn't see them catch anything.
The kites hunt by hovering over a vole then periodically lowering themselves down until they are within range. Then they fold in their wings and drop like a rock. I didn't see them catch anything.
The harriers fly acrobatically very low over the ground and periodically ambush voles. They have many other tricks in their arsenal but this is all we saw today. I didn't see them catch anything.
The red-tails just sit on a stump and wait until they see a vole. Then they fly over and eat it. They ate lots of voles.
So I think the red-tails have something good going here. No wonder they're the ubiquitous hawk of North America. Now if somebody would inform the other raptors that they don't need to work that hard maybe we'd see more of them too!
Costa Rica
From Jan 9 to Jan 23 [plus or minus a day or two on either side] 2009, MChes, Chuckwalla, Pummelo, Beerstraw's older brother and I will be in Costa Rica. We've hired a private bird guide to show us around for a week and then we're going to spend the rest of the time camping in Corcovado National Park ["the most biologically intense place on earth" according to National Geographic].
We will hopefully be sleeping outside for most nights, a good primer for Peru and New Guinea. It's going to be awesome! I can't wait.
Literally.
I'm pretty much just sitting around waiting for it to happen.
But there's a lot to do until then. We have 820 species worth of field marks to memorize, half a dozen books on neotropical ecology to read, tropical camping gear to acquire, vaccinations to receive, a camera and the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens to buy, and many other nouns to verbize.
The original incarnation of this trip was a two-week guided backpacking expedition in August 2008 in the western Amazon basin in Peru. After a huge investment of time planning that trip it pretty much imploded based on cost and safety concerns. Costa Rica will be half the price and much, much safer. And quite possibly birdier too.
So, imagine us with a nealy-3 Chuckwalla, a 16-month Pummelo, a 500mm f4 lens mounted on our antiquated but trusty D100, our tripod, a D200 with the 80-400mm VR mounted on it, a tent, sleeping bags, bug netting, food, field guides, baby backpacks, rain gear, binoculars, and possibly an infrared trigger for the cameras. Not exactly Chris McCandless, but worth it to us.
We will hopefully be sleeping outside for most nights, a good primer for Peru and New Guinea. It's going to be awesome! I can't wait.
Literally.
I'm pretty much just sitting around waiting for it to happen.
But there's a lot to do until then. We have 820 species worth of field marks to memorize, half a dozen books on neotropical ecology to read, tropical camping gear to acquire, vaccinations to receive, a camera and the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens to buy, and many other nouns to verbize.
The original incarnation of this trip was a two-week guided backpacking expedition in August 2008 in the western Amazon basin in Peru. After a huge investment of time planning that trip it pretty much imploded based on cost and safety concerns. Costa Rica will be half the price and much, much safer. And quite possibly birdier too.
So, imagine us with a nealy-3 Chuckwalla, a 16-month Pummelo, a 500mm f4 lens mounted on our antiquated but trusty D100, our tripod, a D200 with the 80-400mm VR mounted on it, a tent, sleeping bags, bug netting, food, field guides, baby backpacks, rain gear, binoculars, and possibly an infrared trigger for the cameras. Not exactly Chris McCandless, but worth it to us.
Peach Prizes
Re: Beerstraw's post.
The reason why Al Gore's crusade against Global Warming qualifies for a Peace Prize is in my mind pretty simple. Even if we limit "peace" to the lack of armed conflict between people [an unnecesarily narrow definition] then there is ample evidence that climate change in the way predicted by the most modern climate models will lead to more global conflict and thus less peace. This is very thoroughly laid out for environmental degradation in general in Jared Diamond's Collapse and for GW in particular here and here, among other places. Especially interesting is this report by a group of retired US generals and admirals [not your typical extreme environmentalists]. They claim national and global security are seriously threatened by GW. Here's how they say it:
It's not clear if the Nobel committee had this in mind when they awarded Al and the IPCC the award, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
The reason why Al Gore's crusade against Global Warming qualifies for a Peace Prize is in my mind pretty simple. Even if we limit "peace" to the lack of armed conflict between people [an unnecesarily narrow definition] then there is ample evidence that climate change in the way predicted by the most modern climate models will lead to more global conflict and thus less peace. This is very thoroughly laid out for environmental degradation in general in Jared Diamond's Collapse and for GW in particular here and here, among other places. Especially interesting is this report by a group of retired US generals and admirals [not your typical extreme environmentalists]. They claim national and global security are seriously threatened by GW. Here's how they say it:
"Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the mostIn short, based on our best modern science combating GW will lead to fewer conflict fatalities in the future. Thus fighting GW is an act of peace.
volatile regions of the world."
It's not clear if the Nobel committee had this in mind when they awarded Al and the IPCC the award, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Croozle
Google "finland time zone". Click on the first link [Wikipedia article].
Recognize the language? Thought not. It's Somali. Isn't that bizarre? Somalia doesn't even have an operational national domain and it has a Wiki article for Finland.
And why the blue buffalo Google chose to display the Somali page as the most relevant search is one of those ineffable ineffabilities of life.
But there is at least a possible explaination. The Somali page is the only page I could find that didn't have the info bar in the language of the page. So the Basque page says "Ordu Eremua" instead of "Time Zone."
Still...
Recognize the language? Thought not. It's Somali. Isn't that bizarre? Somalia doesn't even have an operational national domain and it has a Wiki article for Finland.
And why the blue buffalo Google chose to display the Somali page as the most relevant search is one of those ineffable ineffabilities of life.
But there is at least a possible explaination. The Somali page is the only page I could find that didn't have the info bar in the language of the page. So the Basque page says "Ordu Eremua" instead of "Time Zone."
Still...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Travels
I posted 10 minutes ago. Babysitting can be so productive!
So MChes and I are nuts about traveling. Here's our plans for the next couple years:
Nov 2007: Thanksgiving in Utah, of course!
Dec 2007: Montana with the Monsters
Aug 2008: Olympic peninsula alpine camping and temperate rain forest hiking
Feb 2009: Costa Rica
Sept 2010: Peru
Up to Costa Rica is pretty firm, and I've spent too many hundreds of hours planning for and dreaming of Peru for that not to happen. It was going to be Sept 2008 except we had scheduling and money issues.
So, after that where we go depends on where we are living. If I get a CERN fellowship we'll be living in Switzerland so our travels will be mostly European, though we'd love to swing by Madagascar or Tanzania if we can. So here's our list [mostly mine, MChes's list and mine are, shall we say, complementary]
1. Papua New Guinea. Some day I'll write a whole post about why I'm so attracted to there. Or seven.
2. Madagascar. This will get a post too.
3. Peru. Most biologically diverse place on the planet.
4. Costa Rica. 100 more species of birds than North America in a country the size of West Virginia. And the plants and mammals and scenery... fantastic. And you probably have no idea what kind of crazy animals exist in the world until you've gone through a guide to the fauna of tropical America. Or been there.
5. New Zealand. This one isn't about diversity. It's about wild places, scenery, crazy birds and the cold. What's not to like about a place where birds evolved into every niche normally filled by mammals?
6. Tanzania/Kenya. Usambara mountains, seregeti. Need I say more?
7. Kamchatka. 7th looks far down the list, but let me tell you I've been dreaming of this trip since the 2nd grade. That's a true story. It might seem odd that somebody as obsessed with the tropics is also in love with tundra, but it's true. I could spend my whole life on tundra and be very very happy. Plus I prefer cold weather.
8. Bhutan/Nepal. This one isn't about biodiversity either. It's about a lot of other things though.
9. Botswana. Okavango is just about the wildest place on earth.
10. Hawaii. 40 species of honeycreeper. It would be my 49th state.
11. South Sandwich Islands/Antarctica. The real deal, some day. Not exactly for biodiversity... but the biomass is rediculous.
12. Norway, Iceland, Australia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Brazil, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Indonesia. Each of those has been on a top-three list at some point in time and each one would still be sweet beyond belief.
What makes me want to travel? Wilderness, wildlife, photography, ecology, adventure, experience, boredom, curiosity. And the goal is to finance the travel with our photography, which is on the verge of commercial viability after our Alaska trip this summer.
Now you know me better. You know what I think about when I can't sleep at night, when I'm supposed to be working, and when I'm in class.
So MChes and I are nuts about traveling. Here's our plans for the next couple years:
Nov 2007: Thanksgiving in Utah, of course!
Dec 2007: Montana with the Monsters
Aug 2008: Olympic peninsula alpine camping and temperate rain forest hiking
Feb 2009: Costa Rica
Sept 2010: Peru
Up to Costa Rica is pretty firm, and I've spent too many hundreds of hours planning for and dreaming of Peru for that not to happen. It was going to be Sept 2008 except we had scheduling and money issues.
So, after that where we go depends on where we are living. If I get a CERN fellowship we'll be living in Switzerland so our travels will be mostly European, though we'd love to swing by Madagascar or Tanzania if we can. So here's our list [mostly mine, MChes's list and mine are, shall we say, complementary]
1. Papua New Guinea. Some day I'll write a whole post about why I'm so attracted to there. Or seven.
2. Madagascar. This will get a post too.
3. Peru. Most biologically diverse place on the planet.
4. Costa Rica. 100 more species of birds than North America in a country the size of West Virginia. And the plants and mammals and scenery... fantastic. And you probably have no idea what kind of crazy animals exist in the world until you've gone through a guide to the fauna of tropical America. Or been there.
5. New Zealand. This one isn't about diversity. It's about wild places, scenery, crazy birds and the cold. What's not to like about a place where birds evolved into every niche normally filled by mammals?
6. Tanzania/Kenya. Usambara mountains, seregeti. Need I say more?
7. Kamchatka. 7th looks far down the list, but let me tell you I've been dreaming of this trip since the 2nd grade. That's a true story. It might seem odd that somebody as obsessed with the tropics is also in love with tundra, but it's true. I could spend my whole life on tundra and be very very happy. Plus I prefer cold weather.
8. Bhutan/Nepal. This one isn't about biodiversity either. It's about a lot of other things though.
9. Botswana. Okavango is just about the wildest place on earth.
10. Hawaii. 40 species of honeycreeper. It would be my 49th state.
11. South Sandwich Islands/Antarctica. The real deal, some day. Not exactly for biodiversity... but the biomass is rediculous.
12. Norway, Iceland, Australia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Brazil, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Indonesia. Each of those has been on a top-three list at some point in time and each one would still be sweet beyond belief.
What makes me want to travel? Wilderness, wildlife, photography, ecology, adventure, experience, boredom, curiosity. And the goal is to finance the travel with our photography, which is on the verge of commercial viability after our Alaska trip this summer.
Now you know me better. You know what I think about when I can't sleep at night, when I'm supposed to be working, and when I'm in class.
Squirrel
I normally bike to where a campus bus picks me up for work. I purposely don't check the schedule because I like sitting outside and the stop is rather peaceful [don't tell MChes]. I get some good reading in there since the bus comes every 20 minutes which means my average wait is 10 minutes.
For the last week I've been watching a squirrel from the bench I sit on. He has been systematically stripping one small oak of all of its acorns. He pulls each acorn off the branch and, while dangling upside-down or downside-up [whichever one fits his mind-set] pulls the cap off off of the acorn and takes a nibble of the nut to see if it is acceptable. If it isn't, he drops it [there is a large circle of detritus around the bottom of the oak]. If the acorn is acceptable, he climbs down the tree and crosses the road, which is often jam-packed with students on bikes. When he gets across he searches for a suitable spot to bury the acorn in a small thicket of imported shrubs. He is just as picky in selecting a spot to bury his prize as he is in selecting a proper nut in the first place. After the burial he returns to the tree again.
This seems like rather tedious work, but I've seen him at it every day for nearly a week.
So, even though you are conditioned by speeches, talks, commentaries and articles to expect the great motivational tie-in at this point, I don't have one. The squirrel is a squirrel, one of billions, and he is doing what he thinks he needs to to survive the fantastically [literally] brutal Bay-Area winter. No observations on human nature, life, or futility.
I just have found it interesting to watch the squirrel. I don't often get to see wild things being wild in my sterile cubicle deep in the gizzard of the marvelously sterile monstrosity of a scientific edifice that is the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [SLAC]. So it has been fun.
I mention this because... I can. It's honestly one of the most exciting moments in my day. Here's the list, if you're keeping track:
1. Waking Chuckwalla up in the morning [if she doesn't wake me up first]
2. Waking Chuckwalla up from her nap after coming home from work
3. Reading at the bus stop and on the bus
4. Watching the squirrel
You should see my weekends!
For the last week I've been watching a squirrel from the bench I sit on. He has been systematically stripping one small oak of all of its acorns. He pulls each acorn off the branch and, while dangling upside-down or downside-up [whichever one fits his mind-set] pulls the cap off off of the acorn and takes a nibble of the nut to see if it is acceptable. If it isn't, he drops it [there is a large circle of detritus around the bottom of the oak]. If the acorn is acceptable, he climbs down the tree and crosses the road, which is often jam-packed with students on bikes. When he gets across he searches for a suitable spot to bury the acorn in a small thicket of imported shrubs. He is just as picky in selecting a spot to bury his prize as he is in selecting a proper nut in the first place. After the burial he returns to the tree again.
This seems like rather tedious work, but I've seen him at it every day for nearly a week.
So, even though you are conditioned by speeches, talks, commentaries and articles to expect the great motivational tie-in at this point, I don't have one. The squirrel is a squirrel, one of billions, and he is doing what he thinks he needs to to survive the fantastically [literally] brutal Bay-Area winter. No observations on human nature, life, or futility.
I just have found it interesting to watch the squirrel. I don't often get to see wild things being wild in my sterile cubicle deep in the gizzard of the marvelously sterile monstrosity of a scientific edifice that is the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center [SLAC]. So it has been fun.
I mention this because... I can. It's honestly one of the most exciting moments in my day. Here's the list, if you're keeping track:
1. Waking Chuckwalla up in the morning [if she doesn't wake me up first]
2. Waking Chuckwalla up from her nap after coming home from work
3. Reading at the bus stop and on the bus
4. Watching the squirrel
You should see my weekends!
Dreaming
I saw a purple-crowned fairy in my dreams last night. Honestly.
When I woke up I read Beerstraw's post. I endorse it. Good stuff. But since I'm a young dude living in California, I blame it all on the System. Here's why.
Take a young idealistic up-and-coming politician [assuming that some start this way], call him Bob. Bob feels strongly about a few issues, and if he's smart and independent-minded, probobalistically speaking these issues will liekely not follow a particular party line. So he decides to run for election. He has two choices:
1. Sell out to a particular party [my bias in no way reflected in my choice of verbiage]
2. Lose the election
Bob takes option 1. He does this because option number two is stupid. So Bob decides to run as a Democrublican. Now Bob has two more options:
A. Sell out to the party line
B. Lose the primaries
So Bob chooses option A, of course. It's his only option. So he trims his list of genuine ideals in order to win the primaries. What's the point of running if you can't win? By now he's becoming a party hack, but he still feels like an independent spirit so it doesn't bother him too much. He hires handlers to tell him how to look and what to say in order to get votes from the Democrublican party. In order to finance his campaign, Bob aligns himself with several corporate interests. By the time he wins the primary, Bob has become a complete phony. He adheres to the party line so religiously that he believes that's what he started out believing just a few months earlier. Next comes the general election. His options:
I. Revert to more moderate positions
II. Lose the election
So Bob softens his stances. He no longer follows the party lines. His handlers talk to him in terms of gaining and winning votes. They plan on keeping all his old supporters and gaining a few new ones by essentially lying: retracting his harder positions from the primary race and becoming more moderate. Bob listens to his handlers and shakes hands the right way, he smiles at the cameras the right way, adds perhaps a homey twang or sophisticated curve to his speech, and he treats his opponents with the correct blend of disdain and respect that he has been coached into believing will win the sympathis of the general public.
Bob wins.
Now Bob has two options:
i. Sell whatever remains of his soul to the System and have a long political career.
ii. Revert to his original well-thought-out ideals, be labelled a liar and hypocrite, and lose all political clout. Lose the next election
So Bob finally is making policy decisions. He is a slave to his former campaign donors, his party, and his supporters. Someday he might remember that it was idealism that started him off on this track [remember, Bob didn't get into it for narcissism]. But by that time he is in way, way too deep to ever get out.
Bob's rise to public service required so much lying, bribery of the public, and selling out to corporate interests and his party that there is nothing of merit in what Bob has to offer in public service any more. He does whatever he is expected to do by those who he owes his election to.
Isn't that sad? Isn't it true? Is there another path to a high-profile public position?
Lest I lose track of the point of this post, here's it is: the political machine today is intolerant of objectivity and free-thinking. We have a choice: let others dictate to us what we are to believe or live impotent political lives on the outside of the circles of populist power.
Wow. Sounds cynical. It's not, I promise.
And by the way, lest you think that Bob represents a particular politician, that's not true. And even if he did, it's not the one you're thinking it is.
[for those of you unaware, a purple-crowned fairy is a species of hummingbird]
When I woke up I read Beerstraw's post. I endorse it. Good stuff. But since I'm a young dude living in California, I blame it all on the System. Here's why.
Take a young idealistic up-and-coming politician [assuming that some start this way], call him Bob. Bob feels strongly about a few issues, and if he's smart and independent-minded, probobalistically speaking these issues will liekely not follow a particular party line. So he decides to run for election. He has two choices:
1. Sell out to a particular party [my bias in no way reflected in my choice of verbiage]
2. Lose the election
Bob takes option 1. He does this because option number two is stupid. So Bob decides to run as a Democrublican. Now Bob has two more options:
A. Sell out to the party line
B. Lose the primaries
So Bob chooses option A, of course. It's his only option. So he trims his list of genuine ideals in order to win the primaries. What's the point of running if you can't win? By now he's becoming a party hack, but he still feels like an independent spirit so it doesn't bother him too much. He hires handlers to tell him how to look and what to say in order to get votes from the Democrublican party. In order to finance his campaign, Bob aligns himself with several corporate interests. By the time he wins the primary, Bob has become a complete phony. He adheres to the party line so religiously that he believes that's what he started out believing just a few months earlier. Next comes the general election. His options:
I. Revert to more moderate positions
II. Lose the election
So Bob softens his stances. He no longer follows the party lines. His handlers talk to him in terms of gaining and winning votes. They plan on keeping all his old supporters and gaining a few new ones by essentially lying: retracting his harder positions from the primary race and becoming more moderate. Bob listens to his handlers and shakes hands the right way, he smiles at the cameras the right way, adds perhaps a homey twang or sophisticated curve to his speech, and he treats his opponents with the correct blend of disdain and respect that he has been coached into believing will win the sympathis of the general public.
Bob wins.
Now Bob has two options:
i. Sell whatever remains of his soul to the System and have a long political career.
ii. Revert to his original well-thought-out ideals, be labelled a liar and hypocrite, and lose all political clout. Lose the next election
So Bob finally is making policy decisions. He is a slave to his former campaign donors, his party, and his supporters. Someday he might remember that it was idealism that started him off on this track [remember, Bob didn't get into it for narcissism]. But by that time he is in way, way too deep to ever get out.
Bob's rise to public service required so much lying, bribery of the public, and selling out to corporate interests and his party that there is nothing of merit in what Bob has to offer in public service any more. He does whatever he is expected to do by those who he owes his election to.
Isn't that sad? Isn't it true? Is there another path to a high-profile public position?
Lest I lose track of the point of this post, here's it is: the political machine today is intolerant of objectivity and free-thinking. We have a choice: let others dictate to us what we are to believe or live impotent political lives on the outside of the circles of populist power.
Wow. Sounds cynical. It's not, I promise.
And by the way, lest you think that Bob represents a particular politician, that's not true. And even if he did, it's not the one you're thinking it is.
[for those of you unaware, a purple-crowned fairy is a species of hummingbird]
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The results
Here are the number of incorrect guesses in my vanity game:
MChes: 0
G of All Creation: 2
Little Mama: 1
Real: 3, but she guessed too many
Anonymous [Beerstraw? Monster?]: 2
So Little Mama, the cool mama in the wilderness, is the big time winner [except for MChes who doesn't count]. So here's the real answers for each one and the reason for it:
See every bird in North America: NO. I enjoy birds and wilderness but I'm not big into listing, which is the obsession with seeing as many species of birds as possible. There are some bird species I wouldn't mind seeing a hundred more times [trogons, gray hawks, etc.] and there are species which I will never look for.
Become a professor of physics: NO. It turns out that experimentalists don't get summers off like theorists do. Anyway, although I've decided to continue my studies in physics, I have no idea if I want to do physics professionally. There are a lot of other things that I would love doing but probably won't for purely practical reasons.
Finally dunk a basketball: YES. It was pretty embarrassing to put this under one of my "passionate dreams" but it's true. Last week I dropped the ball in the hoop and the nicked the rim with my hand on my way down, so I'm reasonably close. There's something about being 5'7" that makes this seem really exciting to me.
Have 9 kids: NO. I have no idea how many kids we'll have. But we are both reasonably sure that we won't have 9.
Travel to New Guinea: YES. This has been a nearly all-consuming passion for the last year or so. We're going to Costa Rica and Peru first for "training" but someday we will be there.
Have one of my pieces performed by a professional quartet: YES. When I die maybe somebody can scrap this together in memory of me. I don't have any prayer of it happening until then.
Hike Kilimanjaro: NO. It would be fun, sure. But I hike to be in wilderness, not just to conquer some famous peak, so I'd prefer to spend a lot of time elsewhere in Tanzania or midway up the side of Kilimanjaro.
Publish in National Geographic: YES. Maybe this isn't strictly true, but it is true that one of my life goals is to become a published wildlife photographer who can pay for his travels and gear with his photos. Putting NG on there seemed a good way to crystallize that unwieldy sentence. And, as MChes points out, NG would be awesome.
Win a Nobel Prize: NO. I don't love physics nearly enough to put the work into it that would produce a Nobel.
Write the definitive particle physics popularization book: NO. If I ever write a nonfiction book it will be about something specifically not physics-related.
MChes: 0
G of All Creation: 2
Little Mama: 1
Real: 3, but she guessed too many
Anonymous [Beerstraw? Monster?]: 2
So Little Mama, the cool mama in the wilderness, is the big time winner [except for MChes who doesn't count]. So here's the real answers for each one and the reason for it:
See every bird in North America: NO. I enjoy birds and wilderness but I'm not big into listing, which is the obsession with seeing as many species of birds as possible. There are some bird species I wouldn't mind seeing a hundred more times [trogons, gray hawks, etc.] and there are species which I will never look for.
Become a professor of physics: NO. It turns out that experimentalists don't get summers off like theorists do. Anyway, although I've decided to continue my studies in physics, I have no idea if I want to do physics professionally. There are a lot of other things that I would love doing but probably won't for purely practical reasons.
Finally dunk a basketball: YES. It was pretty embarrassing to put this under one of my "passionate dreams" but it's true. Last week I dropped the ball in the hoop and the nicked the rim with my hand on my way down, so I'm reasonably close. There's something about being 5'7" that makes this seem really exciting to me.
Have 9 kids: NO. I have no idea how many kids we'll have. But we are both reasonably sure that we won't have 9.
Travel to New Guinea: YES. This has been a nearly all-consuming passion for the last year or so. We're going to Costa Rica and Peru first for "training" but someday we will be there.
Have one of my pieces performed by a professional quartet: YES. When I die maybe somebody can scrap this together in memory of me. I don't have any prayer of it happening until then.
Hike Kilimanjaro: NO. It would be fun, sure. But I hike to be in wilderness, not just to conquer some famous peak, so I'd prefer to spend a lot of time elsewhere in Tanzania or midway up the side of Kilimanjaro.
Publish in National Geographic: YES. Maybe this isn't strictly true, but it is true that one of my life goals is to become a published wildlife photographer who can pay for his travels and gear with his photos. Putting NG on there seemed a good way to crystallize that unwieldy sentence. And, as MChes points out, NG would be awesome.
Win a Nobel Prize: NO. I don't love physics nearly enough to put the work into it that would produce a Nobel.
Write the definitive particle physics popularization book: NO. If I ever write a nonfiction book it will be about something specifically not physics-related.
Now you know me.
Little Mama now gets her amazing prize. "Little Mama, you are super cool!" That's it.
Brachistochrone
So I've decided to keep blogging. This morning I was going to delete it, then I read Beerstraw's blog and decided that the world needs us both.
World, thank Beerstraw.
World, thank Beerstraw.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
John Muir: Travels in Alaska
John Muir is a Man. I want to be him.
To know why, read The Writings of John Muir. You'll want to be him too. He's the Brahms of glaciers, if you know what I mean.
For the sake of drama I though about ending right there. But since that was largely impenetrable for anybody with a brain outside of my skull, I should elaborate.
John Muir [how the pus do you say "Muir"? Moo-EER? Myur? MOO-er? Mweer?] is a late-19th century explorer, often described as the country's first conservationist and the founder of the Sierra Club. Writings is a collection of his--what else?--writings detailing his explorations in various places, mostly California and Alaska. In other words there is no plot. But plot is the last thing this book needs. Plots pull you forward through a book. This book is best appreciated slowly and repeatedly, with relish, like Gorgonzola. And like Brahms, I might add. Each page contains fantastically vivid descriptions of his cherished wilderness without the cloud of literary cynicism and post-modern understatement that has obsoleted this kind of book [yes, obsoleted is a word. Everything is a word in the OED.].
I just opened the book to a random paragraph to give you an idea. He is hiking up a glacier for kicks:
If that made you nauseaus, don't even think about thinking about reading this book, or the rest of this post either. But if that made you long for a solitary walk up an ancient isolated Alaskan glacier, and for times when profuse romantic language used only for the sake of glorifying beauty was not scoffed, then read this book. Slowly and repeatedly [just like you'll have to read that last sentence in order to extract any meaning from it].
Mendelssohn might be considered a better analog for John Muir; they both incessantly gloried in pretty things and created works that were neat and pleasant but rather light philisophically. But John Muir is Brahms. Here's the reason: John Muir is Man, just like Brahms is Man. Both epitomise what the Romantic era was all about [beauty!] while maintaining a totally modern manliness that was unparalleled in their generation. Listen to the last movement of Brahms' Piano Quintet in f Minor then read Muir's chapter on traversing the Taylor Bay Glacier. Then do it the opposite order. Despite Muir's blissful I'm-at-peace-with-Creation front, he's the bravest and craziest and most insanely passionate man Testosterone has ever created. Except maybe Brahms. In that movement Brahms loses grip and goes absolutely nutty. But it is profound, glorious nutty and it's some of the best music ever written. When John Muir goes completely nutty he does it without volume, but with just as much machismo. Read it and find out what I mean.
But I'd still love Brahms without the Quintet. And most of what makes John Muir great is his innocent, uncynical, enlightened romance with pure wilderness. This is pure Scripture for anybody who has felt the urge to seek true wilderness. And you find it better in this book than you can within a half-day's drive of your house.
Brevitously [ok, not in the OED]: read it. You need it.
To know why, read The Writings of John Muir. You'll want to be him too. He's the Brahms of glaciers, if you know what I mean.
For the sake of drama I though about ending right there. But since that was largely impenetrable for anybody with a brain outside of my skull, I should elaborate.
John Muir [how the pus do you say "Muir"? Moo-EER? Myur? MOO-er? Mweer?] is a late-19th century explorer, often described as the country's first conservationist and the founder of the Sierra Club. Writings is a collection of his--what else?--writings detailing his explorations in various places, mostly California and Alaska. In other words there is no plot. But plot is the last thing this book needs. Plots pull you forward through a book. This book is best appreciated slowly and repeatedly, with relish, like Gorgonzola. And like Brahms, I might add. Each page contains fantastically vivid descriptions of his cherished wilderness without the cloud of literary cynicism and post-modern understatement that has obsoleted this kind of book [yes, obsoleted is a word. Everything is a word in the OED.].
I just opened the book to a random paragraph to give you an idea. He is hiking up a glacier for kicks:
"I greatly enjoyed my walk up this majetic ice-river, charmed by the pale-blue,
ineffably fine light in the crevasses, molins, and wells, and the innumerable
azure pools in basins of azure ice, and the network of surface streams, large
and small, gliding, swirling with wonderful grace of motion in their
frictionless channels, calling forth devout admiration at almost every step and
filling the mind with a sense of Nature's endless beauty and power."
If that made you nauseaus, don't even think about thinking about reading this book, or the rest of this post either. But if that made you long for a solitary walk up an ancient isolated Alaskan glacier, and for times when profuse romantic language used only for the sake of glorifying beauty was not scoffed, then read this book. Slowly and repeatedly [just like you'll have to read that last sentence in order to extract any meaning from it].
Mendelssohn might be considered a better analog for John Muir; they both incessantly gloried in pretty things and created works that were neat and pleasant but rather light philisophically. But John Muir is Brahms. Here's the reason: John Muir is Man, just like Brahms is Man. Both epitomise what the Romantic era was all about [beauty!] while maintaining a totally modern manliness that was unparalleled in their generation. Listen to the last movement of Brahms' Piano Quintet in f Minor then read Muir's chapter on traversing the Taylor Bay Glacier. Then do it the opposite order. Despite Muir's blissful I'm-at-peace-with-Creation front, he's the bravest and craziest and most insanely passionate man Testosterone has ever created. Except maybe Brahms. In that movement Brahms loses grip and goes absolutely nutty. But it is profound, glorious nutty and it's some of the best music ever written. When John Muir goes completely nutty he does it without volume, but with just as much machismo. Read it and find out what I mean.
But I'd still love Brahms without the Quintet. And most of what makes John Muir great is his innocent, uncynical, enlightened romance with pure wilderness. This is pure Scripture for anybody who has felt the urge to seek true wilderness. And you find it better in this book than you can within a half-day's drive of your house.
Brevitously [ok, not in the OED]: read it. You need it.
Why I did it
I'm the only male in the family with a blog. MChester has one and it talks all about Chuckwalla and Pummelo, which makes my blog thus far redundant.
So why is it here?
Actually I've been debating having a blog since MChes created hers over a year ago. My main motivations:
1. To keep journal which can be stored for my kids in place of the solid journal I don't have
2. To write about the things I care about, since I like to write but never have an outlet
The reason why I always decided not to blog is that the "things I care about" are potentially controversial. I don't worry much about controversy generally, but in the context of the family it could be trouble. If I write "I like to beat up puppies" or "I like to cuddle with chipmunks" [neither of which is strictly true], then the puppy lovers and chipmunk haters in the family would never look at me the same again. It isn't a matter of offense; I think we're all more mature than that [and I'm not going to accuse anyone of smelling like gorgonzola]. It's a matter of preserving the peace by avoiding debate and judgement.
So what changed? Why did I decide to blog after all?
Part of the reason why I caved is the litany of amazing things that Chuckwalla does. It no longer seems fair to let her antics be forgotten and unremarked just because I'm scared of offending people I love.
Another part of the reason is... I have no idea, it was completely impulsive. I'm thinking about removing the blog altogether. I can help MChes update hers with Chuckwalla and Pummelo stories and photos and perhaps run an anonymous opinionator somewhere else.
Any thoughts? Until I figure this out, I'll stick to reviewing books I've been reading. That's benign enough, right?
So why is it here?
Actually I've been debating having a blog since MChes created hers over a year ago. My main motivations:
1. To keep journal which can be stored for my kids in place of the solid journal I don't have
2. To write about the things I care about, since I like to write but never have an outlet
The reason why I always decided not to blog is that the "things I care about" are potentially controversial. I don't worry much about controversy generally, but in the context of the family it could be trouble. If I write "I like to beat up puppies" or "I like to cuddle with chipmunks" [neither of which is strictly true], then the puppy lovers and chipmunk haters in the family would never look at me the same again. It isn't a matter of offense; I think we're all more mature than that [and I'm not going to accuse anyone of smelling like gorgonzola]. It's a matter of preserving the peace by avoiding debate and judgement.
So what changed? Why did I decide to blog after all?
Part of the reason why I caved is the litany of amazing things that Chuckwalla does. It no longer seems fair to let her antics be forgotten and unremarked just because I'm scared of offending people I love.
Another part of the reason is... I have no idea, it was completely impulsive. I'm thinking about removing the blog altogether. I can help MChes update hers with Chuckwalla and Pummelo stories and photos and perhaps run an anonymous opinionator somewhere else.
Any thoughts? Until I figure this out, I'll stick to reviewing books I've been reading. That's benign enough, right?
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Perigrinationings
I expect that very few people besides those who share my mitochondrial DNA [and maybe one who is married to one of those people] will ever read this blog. It doesn't matter much though because we don't get much chance to sit down and get to know each other, do we?
So, in all vanity, I'm going to make a me-oriented game [blogs are traditionally all about narcissism anyway, right?]. It will be very good for my already healthy ego, and hopefully you will all learn something about me.
Here it goes:
I have embedded in the following list 4 passionate personal dreams of mine. Leave a comment on this posting listing your four picks.
See every bird in North America
Become a professor of physics
Finally dunk a basketball
Have 9 kids
Travel to New Guinea
Have one of my pieces performed by a professional quartet
Hike Kilimanjaro
Publish in National Geographic
Win a Nobel Prize
Write the definitive particle physics popularization book
6 of these are wrong for specific reasons, and the 4 that are right do not constitute a comprehensive list of my dreams.
Let the competition begin. Winner gets an extra special surprise. MChester can't play [sorry, I know you were extremely excited].
So, in all vanity, I'm going to make a me-oriented game [blogs are traditionally all about narcissism anyway, right?]. It will be very good for my already healthy ego, and hopefully you will all learn something about me.
Here it goes:
I have embedded in the following list 4 passionate personal dreams of mine. Leave a comment on this posting listing your four picks.
See every bird in North America
Become a professor of physics
Finally dunk a basketball
Have 9 kids
Travel to New Guinea
Have one of my pieces performed by a professional quartet
Hike Kilimanjaro
Publish in National Geographic
Win a Nobel Prize
Write the definitive particle physics popularization book
6 of these are wrong for specific reasons, and the 4 that are right do not constitute a comprehensive list of my dreams.
Let the competition begin. Winner gets an extra special surprise. MChester can't play [sorry, I know you were extremely excited].
Friday, October 5, 2007
Pummelo
Pummelo is one month old today. She's little and cute. She poops alot. She's also way cute.
I'm actually very impressed at the biochemical factory that is Pummelo. All she gets in is milk and she puts out several substances derived from it: seedy yellow nuclear gruel, clearish sterile salt solute, boogers, farts, etc. It's pretty impressive!
Chuckwalla
Chuckwalla is 19 months old. She is undoubtedly and quantifiably the best toddler on the planet. Sweet, cute, funny, smart, pithy, savvy, gelatinous and adorable. Her favorites:
∙ Reading. She will do this indefinitely if allowed.
∙ Talking. She's very lexically oriented but not terribly syntactically oriented. We counted her solid words at 18 months and she had 300, and it has been increasing by leaps and bounds since then. Her forays into sentence construction have gotten more bold recently. Altogether we love having a baby who we can have basic conversations with.
∙ Exploring outside. This too she can do forever if allowed.
∙ Animals. She loves badgers, toucans, owls, foxes and pandas the most.
∙ Kissing.
∙ The baby. She calls her "Azuacha" which we decided is too cumbersome for a nickname.
She's too entirely sweet for words. She is sweet going down for a nap, sweet when she's eating, sweet when she gets babysat, sweet when she plays with her friends, and sweet when she plays with her sister.
So, in other words, I don't care how nice you might think your toddler is, because Chuckwalla is demonstrably the greatest toddler on earth, and the second greatest in human history.
I Hate Blogs
I hate blogs. Unsourced, unresearched, uncontemplated opinions will sink western civilization. This blog will be full of such opinions.
But also this will be a space to brag about my children Chuckwalla and Pummelo, report on recent readings, and generally semi-anonymously broadcast my eccentricities around the world.
But also this will be a space to brag about my children Chuckwalla and Pummelo, report on recent readings, and generally semi-anonymously broadcast my eccentricities around the world.
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