Undo Influence

I don't want to mock Mr. Law's sentiment in the following little excerpt, since I find his point agreeable. However, I could not pass by his typo / eggcorn without giving it due regard. (Do regard?) Besides, this coinage seems unusually appropriate.

What is wrong with this country is a lot more than a badly handled war. A lot of people have a sense that we have drifted radically towards losing control of our democracy itself and they are right. There has always been undo influence by big money but until recently it has never succeeded in practically dismantling government-by-the-people.

[Kevin Law, "We need Edwards to get the nomination", Huffington Post, 31 December 2007, accessed @ 1215.]

———-
[Added a day later:] It seems that "undo" for "undue" is indeed a recognized eggcorn, contained in the database.

Posted on December 31, 2007 at 12.54 by jns · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: All, Such Language!

Sloppy Ur-Joes

You may recall that I have been thinking deeply since this summer about Sloppy Joes, first when I shared a recipe that I have been refining as one that seemed to my adult taste buds to recreate the experience of eating the product of a recipe I used when I was a little chef ("Jeff's Sloppy Joes"), then later when I was wondering about what that original recipe might have been, prompted by my friend Tim's help in looking in his old cookbook ("Sloppy Joes Again").*

Well, when I was in Kansas City last week, staying in the ancestral home, I happened to look in the drawer in the kitchen (third down, with the dish towels) in which we always kept my first cookbook of youth. Just imagine the flutter in my heart when I saw that the book was still there, just where I left it over 30 years ago.

This discovery does not settle all Sloppy Joes questions by any means, but it does answer a few questions that had been weighing on my mind, and sorts out a few details. For instance, I now know with assurance that it was, pretty much as we thought

Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cook Book, illustrated by Gloria Kamen. New York : Golden Press, 1965 (first edition, first printing, spiral bound with hard covers). 156 pages with index.

Tim, I hope, will be happy to hear that I now have in hand also the instructions / recipe for the "Enchanted Castle Cake", a bizarre, over-achieving fantasy complete with pink-pillow-mint crenelations. We both made one for ourselves–once. I'd forgotten that this book also had the recipe for chocolate fudge that we used for many years and it always came out well.

But here's the treasure, right on page 46, my personal ur-recipe for Sloppy Joes. I give it in its entirety (but without the little tinted boxes highlighting the ingredients):

Boys' and Girls' Sloppy Joes

Heat oven to 325°.

Butter lightly 6 sliced hamburger buns

Wrap in aluminum foil and heat in oven 15 minutes.

Brown in skillet 1 pound ground beef

Stir in
  1 can (10 1/2 ounces) tomato soup
  1 tablespoon prepared mustard
  1/2 teaspoon salt

Simmer over low heat 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Spoon into warm buns.

6 servings.

So now I know the answer to this question: was mustard an original ingredient? Yes! This is where I must have first picked up that little trick for perking up tomato-based sauces that I use all the time.

I am a bit surprised that it was, indeed, done with tomato soup; that had escaped my memory altogether, although it was not at all an uncommon approach at the time. I may try it again someday and see how the original compares with my more recent, somewhat gussied up version.

It is such a joy for me to hold this book again and see this recipe. Now, of course, I'm wondering whether I need to cook my way through it again. There are some fun and useful recipes inside. The illustrations of the young people cooking and commenting on the recipes are great fun, too, although the color photographs are all a bit lurid, as frequently happened with color printing of cookbooks around that time.

Let's close for now with the blurb from the back (plasticized) cover of the book:

Here is the cook book children have loved for years–now bigger and brighter in this new edition! — Gay color photos, lively drawings, and how-to-do-it sketches illustrate more than 275 recipes and food ideas–all specially chosen by girls and boys themselves, and tested in their own homes.

Included are basic cooking steps, breakfast treats, sandwiches, main dishes, cookies, cakes, milk and fruit drinks, party surprises, campfire favorites, and complete meals for special occasions.

Betty Crocker makes learning to cook a happy experience for boys and girls…and for their parents.

———-
* Sure enough, as we both suspected, his recipe came from a later time (over two decades, in fact) and had ingredients that I was pretty sure were not in my ur-recipe. Not to mention that his had also moved beyond the tomato-soup era. Which makes me think: here at last is the recipe that all those googlers are looking for when they search for "sloppy joe tomato soup"!

Posted on December 31, 2007 at 00.39 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook

The "Cells" in Cell Phones

Isaac & I returned home yesterday, flying from Kansas City (central standard time) to Washington, DC (eastern standard time). As we arrived at the gate in DC, I overheard this conversational exchange from the seats in front of mine:

Mother: Oh, look! My cell phone has changed back to eastern time.
Teen-age son: That's because they work with satellites, and they know where you are.

I was a bit surprised that, contrary to common belief, young people still don't know everything. There is at least one surprising misconception in the son's mind that I should have cleared up on the spot, but I didn't. Y'all are so lucky.

Modern mobile phones, known also as cell phones, do not communicate through satellites, and they never have. There have existed satellite telephones that do, but they're a much different beast, not to mention much larger and much heavier.

Cell phones communicate with cell towers–or, more generally, cell sites, since not all cellular antennae are on towers; many are hidden on building tops, for instance. If the cell sites are visible they are easily recognizable, most often triangular structures with vertical "bars" on each face of the triangle. Each of the "bars" is actually an antenna for transmitting to mobile phones or else receiving signals from them. The antennae are used in pairs so that they send and receive signals directionally.

The whole idea of "cells" was originally the way to provide coverage over a wide area without requiring a large amount of power in the handset, and also as a way to use restricted amounts of radio-frequency bandwidth efficiently and provide for a number of users.

In some area over which the cellular provider wants coverage, the area is divided into hexagonal "cells" that cover the area. (Look at a bathroom floor sometime that has 6-sided tiles and you will see that the area can be completely covered without gaps.) At the center of each cell is a cell site. The cell site has the three-sided shape so that it can hear in all directions. A cell site is responsible for all the cellular phones in its cell.

The imagined boundaries of the cells overlap a bit, so each cell actually operates on a slightly different frequency# from all of its neighbors. Because of that, cell sites over a wider area can reuse frequencies, but there is the added technical challenge of tracking a particular cell phone between the ranges of neighboring cell sites and switching an active conversation from being routed through one cell site to being routed to another without dropping the call. That process is call "handover". When a particular phone switches cells it also shifts the frequency that it uses for the radio link by a small amount.

The size of each cell varies depending on terrain and obstructions and such things, but in denser areas cell sites will be about 5 to 8 miles apart, so that's the furthest that you cell phone usually has to transmit its signal, which is something it can manage to do with the relatively tiny batteries that it carries.

Cell sites do not continuously track a cell phone unless the phone is engaged in a conversation. If your phone has been off, it will always talk with the nearest cell site when you turn it back on and the phone network takes note of your position. Occasionally every cell sites will query phones with broadcast messages; the phones respond, and that way your cellular network can quickly find which cell site to use to contact your phone when you are receiving a call. The cell sites also broadcast timing signals, which is how cell phones always seem to know the right time. Note this: the cell site doesn't have to know where your phone is to get the time correct, instead your phone simply takes the local time of the cell site that it can hear.

Now, one last note about cell phones talking through satellites. Most communications satellites are in geostationary orbits, which means they are in orbits where they appear stationary in the sky. This is where you will find the satellites that broadcast satellite radio and television, too.

Anyway, to be in a geosynchronous orbit requires that the satellite be at an altitude of about 22,000 miles. That's a long way compared to the 8-mile distance to the nearest cell site. In fact, it's about 2,750 times as far away. Other things being equal* that means that the cell phone would require 7.6 million times the power for its signal to reach the satellite. As you might guess, the would require a much bigger battery than your cell phone has in it.

By the way, before I finish, I have to chastise the FCC for poor technical writing. I was looking around for a few details about cell-phone networks and I found this page of "Cell Phones FAQs" from "The FCC Kids [sic] Zone". You may wish to look at the answer for "How Does a Cell Phone Work" and count how many errors and imprecise statements you can find in one paragraph. (For extra credit, read the other answers if you can stand it.) There are many irritants, but I could start with the absurdity of using the copper-wire based, home phone system as a conceptual basis, since kids don't use that archaic communication system anymore as a conceptual referent.

There there's this statement:

A cell phone turns your voice into a special type of electricity and sends it over the air to a nearby cell tower; the tower sends your voice to the person you are calling.

Calling propagating electromagnetic waves a "special type of electricity" is incorrect and unnecessary, an egregious error. Saying the tower "sends your voice" is no better. Despite what this FCC author seemed to think, it's entirely possible not to go into pages of detail about the time-slice multiplexing and analog-signal digitization (most cell networks these days are digital) used to "send your voice" over the network and still get it right without the stupid and inaccurate "send your voice" gambit.

These are just the type of gratuitous and imprecise over-simplifications about science and technology that drive me into a frenzy and that I have vowed that Ars Hermeneutica will combat. If any of my four regular readers happen to know someone at the FCC, have them get in touch and we can straighten out these things before any more bad ideas get into kids' (note the apostrophe) heads.
———-
# Cell phones also use a different frequency to transmit from the frequency they use for receive, but that's a needless conceptual complication at this stage.

* There are details, naturally. The 7.6 million number is the square of 2,750, because radiated electromagnetic power diminishes as the square of the distance. However, satellite communications is possible with these geosynchronous satellites because their receivers have much higher gain (i.e., can hear much weaker signals) than terrestrial cell sites. They also are much too far away to be able to break an urban region up into cells and distinguish calls from different cells, let alone transmit in different cells, but that's a whole other story.

Posted on December 30, 2007 at 20.20 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

The Sun Truck: First Appeal

It's that time of year again, so here I am with my second annual year-end appeal for Ars Hermeneutica, Limited. With this appeal I want to keep things brief and stick to one topic.

Ars Hermeneutica started work in 2007 on its first informal science-education project. The project is The Sun Truck. You can find information and download our lovely Sun Truck brochure at The Sun Truck section of our website.

The Sun Truck pilot project aims to bring a first-hand science experience directly into neighborhoods across Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Longer term, a successful pilot project will attract the attention and funding to take the project national.

The total cost of the pilot project will be $2.5 Million. That sounds a lot, but it's only $1 for every person who will benefit. We are looking to individual donor gifts to cover $350,000 of the cost. Obviously we need the help of our friends.

Every dollar helps us open the minds of one more person to science as a personal experience and take a step towards increasing science literacy. In addition, individual gifts, regardless of size, demonstrate broad-based community support for our project, and that's vital for our success with major donors and for securing our IRS public-charity status!

Read about The Sun Truck and consider joining us in this exciting project.

To donate online with your credit card, visit our "Support Ars" webpage and use the buttons for Google Checkout or PayPal.

I challenge each of my four regular readers to help spread the word and enlist new people to our cause of increasing science literacy. Share the links above; put them in your blog, mention them in your Facebook profile. Pretend Ars Hermeneutica is an urban legend and forward this blog link to 7 friends in the next 7 minutes!

Ars Hermeneutica, Limited is nonprofit corporation and recognized as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt. All donations are fully tax deductible, but in the United States only right now, I'm sorry to say.

Thanks for helping us increase science literacy!

Posted on December 25, 2007 at 00.07 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Personal Notebook

Handel's Bagpipes

'Tis the season to saturate the airwaves with Christmas music and, since I'm a certifiable old curmudgeon, 'tis also the season to complain about poor performances and bad Christmas music. There is, of course, plenty of very nice music and remarkable performances that I've heard occasionally, but this post isn't about that.

Mostly it's about Handel's oratorio Messiah, surely the most performed and least understood of the seasonal favorites. I say "seasonal" advisedly since, as insiders and prissy others know, it is really an Easter work, not a Christmas work.

Now, I am not complaining about Messiah itself, which surely is a masterpiece of Western music. Despite a few foibles* it's a beautiful and inspiring piece, even if we mostly only hear the "Christmas portions". But there's a complaint: surely the work was never meant to be heard two dozen times in one month, perhaps even in one lifetime.

Before I forget, what I was going to complain about was the typical interpretation of the "Pastoral Symphony" movement, that odd little instrumental movement that appears just before the herald angel brings word of the imminent birth of the Messiah to the shepherds abiding in their fields.

"Pastoral" and "shepherds" certainly go together as ideas, but Handel was more explicit in his musical painting. For one thing, the pastorale is the traditional Italian Christmas sound, a dance written in compound meter, typically 6/8 or 12/8.% The pastorale became associated with Christmas through this image of shepherds in their fields, playing traditional dances on their bagpipes known as piffaro; the players themselves were pifferari.

Now, the "Pastoral Symphony" in Messiah is also marked "Pifa", to emphasize the fact that it is a pastorale in the Italian sense, and that it is imitating the piffaro of the shepherds. It's a miniature tone painting setting the scene for the shepherds to receive the news from the angel. Such a vivid scene!

If you listen to the music with this in mind, you will hear that the lyrical melody of the "Pifa" is played over droning fifths in the bass, played by 'celli and basses. Those drones are the basis of the imitation of the shepherds bagpipes, or piffaro. Also, there's that little trill in the melody in the third bar, a charming imitation of the characteristic little twiddle that pipers will play in their tunes. It's a stunning effect, brilliant in conception, and plays a pivotal role in preparing one emotionally for the birth of the Messiah.

Unless, of course, the conductor totally misses the point and either overlooks or tries to hide the bagpipe effect. Who would try to hide it? Far too many interpreters, I'm afraid. If they don't appreciate the bagpipe imitation of the movement they will usually try to "soften" the sound,** emphasize the melody, make the drone entirely too legato, and play the entire piece much, much too slowly, to make it more "beautiful" and "meaningful".#

So, for full sonic effect and proper emotional preparation, know what it is that you're hearing and insist on the full, bagpipe effect! You will be amazed if you've only heard the slow, pretty, "pastoral" versions before.

Forget all the performances you find on YouTube as examples, but I did manage to locate one version that I found satisfying. It's an older recording (that I own and enjoy) performed by Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music. Visit this Amazon link and listen to the sample from "Disk 1: Track 9: Pifa". While you're there you might want to follow-on with the next section in which the shepherds receive the news, and see whether you don't feel more involved after listening to the shepherds play their pipes.
———-
* For instance, Handel never quite understood the rhythm of English very well, and it shows in the way the accents land on odd syllables in some of the choruses.

% This is what gives Arcangelo Corelli's "Chistmas Concerto" its Christmas sound: every movement is in a compound meter.

** Far too many conductors seem afraid of the music that they're conducting and try to pretty it up. If I had a dime for every conductor who seemed to think Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" needed to have its corners smoothed off….

# Those who know us will know that "meaningful" is really a codeword around our house for something really icky.

Posted on December 22, 2007 at 00.56 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Music & Art

My Father

The following is an autobiographical sketch that my father wrote recently for his church newsletter. I do this in his honor, and to mark his death earlier this afternoon.

That's Me! – Bob Shaumeyer

I was born on June 18,1923 in Kansas City, Kansas. My parents were Albert and Rosina Shaumeyer. I was the youngest of six children. I had three brothers and two sisters.

In January, 1925, when I was approximately 11 months old, my father died, leaving my mother to raise six children, the oldest of whom, Albert, was 14 years of age. This was a time when there were no government programs to help those in need. My mother and Albert were determined to keep our family together somehow. So, at the age of 14, Albert took over a paper route delivering papers in the morning before school and in the evening after school. At this time, a paper route was a walking chore. In addition, Albert had to collect subscription money. He continued this until he was 16 years old, a legal age for going to work in a factory. He went to work at a company making cardboard boxes for the packing companies in the Armourdale district. He worked for this company for the rest of his working life. A little later, he was joined at the plant by my next older brother Bill, who also kept working for this company until his retirement.

Then, on top of all these problems, came the great depression. However, through the hard work of my mother and my older brothers and sisters, we never went without something to eat nor did we have to go to the prevalent soup kitchens. I still often reflect upon and take pride in the courage and stamina of my mother through all these challenges. After going to school in Kansas City, Kansas, I, too, went to work at an early age to help out the family. Then came the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor. I entered the Army in January, 1943 and after training in Virginia, the state of Washington and Oklahoma, my Army unit moved to Fort Myles Standish for movement to England in my 1944, just in time to be ready to take part in the invasion of France.

I was a section leader of a demolitions and mine detection section. Our job was to research mines that the German Army was using, for any new methods of mine laying and new types of mines that might appear. We also would "sap" (detect and disarm) booby traps in areas and buildings.
Because of this and just before the end of the war in May, 1945, we were assigned to help liberate the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich, Germany. And that is a story in itself.

After about a week at Dachau we moved to Mannheim, Germany where I was when the war with Germany ended.

After the end of the war in Europe I was assigned for a period of about six months to the Army of Occupation in Germany. At first we were stationed in the village of Bad Reichenhal, Austria, close to Hitler's mountain top resort, Berchtesgaden. There were thoughts that a die-hard troop of Nazi Storm Troopers might stage a guerrilla attack there. That never happened and we were then moved back to Mannheim. Upon my separation from the Army in January, 1946, I joined the Army Reserve Corps and served there for three years.

In April, 1946 I took employment at the H. D. Lee Garment Plant in Kansas City, Missouri. There, I met my future wife, Cleta, with whom I was immediately stricken and I was determined to make her my wife. Cleta was born and raised on a farm in northwest Missouri. After graduating from high school in 1944 she came to Kansas City to work at the H. D. Lee garment factory which, at the time, was a defense industry making military uniforms. After the war's end it converted back to making jeans and coveralls.

Finally, after three proposals from me, Cleta said, "Yes.", We were married on April 5, 1947 in Maryville, Missouri. To this marriage was born a daughter, Vicki and a son, Jeffrey.

In October, 1949, after being separated from the Army Reserve in January of that year, I joined the Kansas Army National Guard on a part time basis. By this time, Cleta and I had both left the H. D. Lee company. Cleta went to work at a new Sears store on the Country Club Plaza and I
took a job with the local transit company as a streetcar, bus and trolley bus operator. I held this job until October, 1955 when I went with the National Guard on a full time basis, a career I followed until my retirement in June, 1983. At the time of my retirement with the rank of
Command Sergeant Major, I had completed a total of 40 years of military service. I had served through three wars, World War 2, the Korean "conflict" and Vietnam. Although I did not serve overseas in either Korea or Vietnam I was on the alert for such service and for a time during the Viet Nam war, I was stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado.

Cleta and I really enjoyed our thirty plus years at Zion [United Church of Christ, in Kansas City, Kansas] and the many friends we made and the care and concern we have received. During this time I served on the Church Council as vice-president, president, treasurer, and secretary.

On January 21, 2004 my beloved Cleta went to be with her Lord just short of our 57th Anniversary of what I refer to as a "perfect marriage." I was blessed to have her in my life and I miss her greatly.

Posted on December 20, 2007 at 18.06 by jns · Permalink · 5 Comments
In: All, Personal Notebook

On Finding the Way

If at the end of our journey
There is no final
Resting place,
Then we need not fear
Losing our way.

— Ikkyu Sojun (1394–1482), Zen master and poet
[quoted in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History. New York : HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. p. 268.]

Posted on December 20, 2007 at 00.26 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book

Shaumeyer Endorses Dodd

I have come to my decision: I am endorsing Christopher Dodd for president.

I was mulling this over tonight, thinking about the positives I have in my mind for Dodd and for John Edwards, and the balance tilted towards Dodd.

If I were voting in an election (or primary) of the type where one voted for one's favorite two candidates, I would vote for Dodd first, Edwards second, and support whichever one came out on top. On Edwards' side, I think I am most impressed by his firm conviction that we, the country, cannot overhaul our health-care system by negotiating with the major pharmaceutical and health-insurance corporations, as suggested by Clinton and Obama. I can easily support all of Edwards' populist ideals that I've seen. I think he can only get stronger as the race goes on, if he can hold on.

But here was the determining factor for me. For some time I've asserted that what the Democratic party needed, and what voters would respond to, was someone who acted on his or her bold, liberal ideals with determination and conviction. Trying to please everyone pleases almost no-one, but it's a disease liberals are prone to.

The obvious struck me when I realized that the action Dodd took this week in the Senate to block new FISA provisions that would grant retroactive immunity against prosecution for all the telecomm giants who chose to collude with the Bush administration and spy on American's telephone calls. Some time back now he put a "hold" on the legislation, and said publicly that he was doing it and would certainly filibuster if Senate Majority Leader Reid insisted on bringing the legislation to the floor. One recalls that presidential candidates Clinton and Obama promised to support the filibuster when Dodd announced his intent.

Well, Reid decided to bring the legislation to the floor. Dodd prepared to filibuster, as promised, because he was convinced that a line needed to be drawn for individual privacy and liberty here and now. Dodd's move generated quite a bit of public support. Oddly, neither Clinton nor Obama were to be seen anywhere near the Senate when it was time to make good on their promised support. Reid blinked, pulled the legislation from the floor, and Dodd won one for liberty, freedom, the rule of law, and the Constitution.

Dodd did what I had wanted: he made a bold move based on strong convictions and he carried through. I realized tonight how important this move was — as a gesture and as a legislative reaction — both to me and to America. There are a number of other reasons why I am willing to support Dodd, but this is the the standard bearer. Chris Dodd made the bold move that was important and necessary; if he can do it once, he can do it again.

I am happy, therefore, to give my unqualified support to Chis Dodd's campaign for President 2008.

Posted on December 19, 2007 at 22.24 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Current Events

No "O"

We were at a mall this weekend (in Columbia, MD, in fact), flowing around with the crowds and enjoying the flow, largely because we didn't go there with a list of necessary purchases, when I was stuck by a thought.

"Look!" I told a bewildered Isaac. "There's no 'O' store. Can you imagine that! Shouldn't there be an Oprah Winfrey store filled with wonderful gifts personally selected by the big-O herself?"

He nodded the nod of those wishing to humor a dangerous person before they try to back slowly away.

Nevertheless, I think it's a winner of an idea and I'm now hoping to live the rest of my life in luxury from residual checks as initial concept developer.

Posted on December 19, 2007 at 13.20 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Eureka!

Schermer on Science

Science is not a thing, it's a verb.

[Michael Schermer, "Why People Believe Weird Things (video)" TED.com, February 2006.]

Posted on December 18, 2007 at 23.34 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science

Single-Issue Voting: Reason #1

I was just remembering what I said a while back about how reproductive rights really are a litmus test. It's not that I automatically trust anyone who appears to be pro-choice (Feinstein), it's just that I definitely don't trust anyone who isn't. Basically, no one who doesn't believe a woman should control her own body can be trusted to place individual rights and human compassion above money and repression. Period.

[Avedon Carol, "Political Stew", The Sideshow, 17 December 2007.]

In the original post Ms. Carol was making a point about Harry Reid, but I thought her remark was much more general. I thought about making some remarks of my own about misguided political rhetoric concerning "single-issue voters" — on this and other issues — but I don't want to dilute this observation, so I'll leave extrapolation to the interested reader.

Posted on December 17, 2007 at 13.15 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

So Out of Tuna

Perhaps because my mind has been on other things, but also perhaps because we were out this afternoon and I did a bit of remaindered cookbook shopping at Daedalus Books (drag a remaindered cookbook in front of me–like catnip), when I read this headline* on one of Andrew Sullivan's posts, what I thought he wrote was

How Out of Tuna are Some Conservatives?

"Wow!" I thought, "what great new lingo!"

This is my newest phrase, starting right now: "Dude! You are so out of tuna!"

I did find a couple of cookbooks that I liked, as if that will comes as a surprise to anyone.

I also found a couple that I decided would make suitable gifts, too, so there.
———-
* "How Out of Tune are Some Conservatives?"

Posted on December 16, 2007 at 20.16 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Laughing Matters, Such Language!

The "New Atheists"

I decided to make a note of the following because I wanted to give the essay it's from more attention that I have available at the moment.

2007 was the year atheists in America came out of the closet. And indeed, a glance at the state of our world suggests this was a predictable response. We find ourselves in this young century in a climate of violence and confrontation which is undeniably inflamed by pious religious certainty. Over the past 25 to 30 years, people the world over have turned to fundamentalist religious ideologies which portray the modern, democratic, secular world as little more than a decadent realm of temptation and infuriatingly uppity women. This fundamentalist fervor has produced two equally frightening social phenomena. The first: a multitude of hoodwinked and angry young men desperate for a promised martyrdom. And, the second: a man in the White House who is so convinced that everything he does has divine sanction that his administration has actually used the term “reality-based” as a disparagement.

[David Gregory Moser, "Denying Absurdity", Open Letters Monthly, December 2007.]

Posted on December 13, 2007 at 19.10 by jns · Permalink · 6 Comments
In: All, Common-Place Book

Sister Wendy on Marriage Equality

I read the blog posting referenced below mostly because it mentioned Sister Wendy in the title, and we here at Björnslottet are big fans of Sister Wendy Beckett. For those of you who don't know her, Sister Wendy is a nun who has made some wonderful documentaries about art and written some nice books about art. The first, and probably best, was "Sister Wendy's Odyssey" from 1992. She's informative, very knowledgeable, quite entertaining, and just adorable, as we reminded ourselves recently with our own Sister Wendy retrospective, reviewing all of her documentaries over the course of a few months.

Anyway, I found this one exchange of some interest.

[Ms. von Pfetten:] You've spoken out about gay marriage. How do you balance what you believe with what you have sworn to uphold?

[Sister Wendy:] I believe in loyalty. We should respect our church, but never believe that the church has the last word. The church is saying "this", but I believe that sooner or later "this" will change. "This" is not the mind of our Lord. God is all love. It's a delicate balancing thing. The Church has changed its position over the years, and because the spirit is with the Church, in the end the Church will always get it right. But in the end. The spirit of the Church is the meaning of love, which hasn't yet, perhaps, been fully understood.

[from Verena von Pfetten, "Sister Wendy, My Semi-Spiritual Guide", Huffington Post, 5 December 2007.]

Posted on December 12, 2007 at 18.22 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Common-Place Book

Impressive News

This just in. Headline news just read on my local junior-college radio station tells me that, in the just-completed debate in Iowa, Republicans could agree on one thing: reduced government spending.

I'm pretty impressed, but that's only one of the impressive things I've heard or read as the news of the day.

Apparently the Pope believes that gay and lesbian people wanting to marry each other is as big an impediment to peace as huge nuclear arsenals. People of the world, tremble in the face of our awesome power!

In print, priorities differ, and everyone seems obsessed with guessing whether David Beckham's cornucopiaic basket in his new Armani underwear portrait was enhanced (by photoshop or sock). It works fine for me either way, although I still prefer the D&G campaign from 2006. (cf)

Some people, still convinced that there has to be more in common between Romney's big "religion speech" and Kennedy's, beyond their location, are still trying to find some deep meaning in it to demonstrate their notion. I'm still a bit hung up on that idiotic "freedom requires religion" idea. On the whole, all the religiously informed candidates sound equally nutty to me. (Pam has a copy of Mitt's speech here.)

I'm trying to decide whom to endorse as a presidential nominee. I'm thinking Chris Dodd, but I could swing towards John Edwards. Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinch are less likely for me, although I'm happy they're in the campaign right now, and my reasons have nothing to do with whether I consider them electable, which I think is a ridiculous criterion since I refuse to base my choice on trying to decide whom the majority would choose if most of them chose that candidate. Naturally I want to make my endorsement before the Iowa Caucuses so that it can have maximum impact.

Posted on December 12, 2007 at 17.37 by jns · Permalink · 6 Comments
In: All, Current Events

Speaking of Spam

Speaking of spam, Seth Godin wrote

What a shame that we let organized crime, aggressive promoters and selfish nebbishes wreck such a useful medium.

[Seth Godin, "When Spam Approaches Infinity", Seth's Blog, 6 November 2007.]

Posted on December 6, 2007 at 17.32 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, Common-Place Book

Definitely Finite

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration now acknowledges it is trying to recover nearly $500 million from people who improperly received federal aid money intended to help victims of two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, along the Gulf Coast two years ago. It said the amount may increase further.

“This is a moving target and not finite,” said James McIntyre, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[Associated Press, "U.S.: Katrina aid fraud nears $500 million", msnbc, 4 December 2007.]

I found the first paragraphs of this item interesting, but not for the story about the effort to recover the half-billion dollars.

No, I'm interested in what Mr. McIntyre could possibly have intended to mean when he said “This is a moving target and not finite". The "moving target" bit isn't so difficult, it's the "not finite" that concerns me.

Finite, of course, means not infinite. Finite things are countable, they have limits, they have largest and smallest values, etc.

Now, in considering, say, the class of all people from whom money might be recovered, or even if we're talking about the amount of money that might be recovered — or virtually any other category you can think of that might relate to this story — there are bounds, highest values, largest numbers that one can assign without fear of being incorrect. How many people? Fewer than the population of the US; probably even fewer than the population of Louisiana at the time. How many dollars might be recovered? Probably less than $500 million. Whatever.

Either Mr. McIntyre is confused, or else this formerly useful word has taken on new meanings of which I am unaware, and of which I probably would not approve.

Posted on December 6, 2007 at 00.26 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Splenetics, Such Language!

McCarthy Reconsidered

I've been thinking some about the universal excuse conservatives use to exculpate their bad ideas and failed policies: "we didn't go far enough!" It comes with numerous variations, of course, like "we didn't give it a chance" (not far enough in time), or "he wasn't a true conservative" (not far enough ideologically).

We've had plenty of chance to see it in action this century.

I don't have a prediction yet, but I'm expecting any week now to see team-backwards start trying to resurrect McCarthyism. Clearly McCarthy would have produced good results, if he'd just been given the time and the support.

I'm really only pointing this out so you can understand why I appear to start laughing spontaneously whenever someone of conservative convictions argues against, oh, marriage equality or gays in the military because "it's no time for social experimentation".

Posted on December 5, 2007 at 16.21 by jns · Permalink · 5 Comments
In: All, Splenetics

A Moebius Ballet

I learned about it from Science News Online (here), but evidently it has been on its way to becoming a mini-phenomenon since it was posted on YouTube in June, 2007.

It's a short animation of some mathematical concepts, called "Moebius Transformations Revealed". To quote from the creators' website (here):

Möbius Transformations Revealed is a short video by Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness which depicts the beauty of Möbius transformations and shows how moving to a higher dimension reveals their essential unity.

It does do what it claims it does, although it doesn't go so far as to suggest what we learn from understanding their essential unity, nor what we might do with our new understanding. Perhaps I'll have that "aha!" later on.

Nevertheless, it's a very pretty little film (2:32 long), and the music (Robert Schumann, a movement from Kinderscenen, for piano) seems unusually well suited.

But it's better that you just have a look rather than listen to me talk about it.

Posted on November 30, 2007 at 19.58 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

To Listen More Hearingly

The New York Times (here) said that Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is one of its ten best books of the year. It's his history of the century past as heard through the century's "classical" music. I have no complaint, by the way–I like Alex Ross' writing and the book sounds quite interesting and deserving. But that's not the point.

In fact, I quite enjoyed reading the New York Times' review of the book, the review written by Geoff Dyer ("Century's Playlist", 28 October 2007). It was a delightfully written review that was fun to read and, I'm sure, gave me an accurate impression of the experience to had from reading the book. But that's not the point.

It was the final paragraph from Mr. Dyer's review that tickled my fancy:

It would be unfair, though, to dwell on omissions when so much has been included. “The Rest Is Noise” is a great achievement. Rilke once wrote of how he learned to stand “more seeingly” in front of certain paintings. Ross enables us to listen more hearingly.

Posted on November 30, 2007 at 00.27 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Such Language!