All Posts Tagged With: "TIME"
Hypocrisy in Time Travel
Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been mentioned before in this column. In the segment of that opus entitled The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the remark is made that in order to cover the phenomenal cost of an evening at the restaurant, all one has to do is deposit a penny in a savings account before leaving one’s own era. Even at low interest, an unimaginably great amount of money will have been accumulated in the course of several billion years. (Never mind that many planets, including the earth, would have burned up in the interim, complete with their banks. This is comic science fiction, after all.)
This morning I asked a group of friends I was having coffee with what point in time they would choose to visit if they could travel to the past. Mostly they were bewildered by the
question, but some thought in terms of going back to an earlier point in their lives to remedy some error that had negative effects. The possibility of going back with a little information about what was going to happen in certain real estate markets was brought up.
Being the student of the Bible that I am, I said one moment in time that I would dearly love to witness is the one related in Mark 7:24-30, in which a Gentile woman from Syrian Phoenicia approaches Jesus to ask him to come and heal her daughter. Jesus answers her in mock-prejudiced terms, telling her it just isn’t right to give the children’s bread to dogs.
This is a bright and spunky lady, though. She picks up on the fact that he doesn’t use the word for “dog” that the Jews usually use for Gentiles, meaning a filthy, mangy scavenger. Rather, he uses the word for a little lap dog, a pet. She says, I’m sure with an ornery glint in her eye, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Jesus obviously loves her answer, and tells her to go home because her daughter is well. I’m convinced that Jesus was doubled over laughing when he told her he was granting her request. That is why I’d like to see that scene as it took place.
Many people, though, would like to go back to certain turning points in history and watch, for example, a great general going through the agony of trying to out-think his adversary, perhaps bringing his knowledge of chess to bear. I would love to see Alexander the Great debating with his trusted second-in-command, Parmenio, before the Battle of Gaugamela, about what to do when King Darius’s chariots charged. One might even speculate that Alexander’s father, Philip, whose name means “lover of horses,” wasn’t named in vain, and that he had told Alexander that horses would not charge into an enclosure surrounded by lances. In any case, what a moment of inspiration it must have been when the idea was put forward of directing those chariots into U-shaped formations in order to stop the horses and chariots and slaughter their occupants. For that matter, I would like to see Alexander’s face as he made the hard decision to return and support Parmenio, who was in trouble, rather than pursue and kill Darius.
Following the Battle of Waterloo, Wellington called it “a damned close-run thing,” and some practical people might well choose to go back to tip the scales on other “damned close-run things,” so that some of the worst horrors of history might have been avoided.
Of course, some physicists have felt time travel into the past must be impossible for the simple reason that, what with the butterfly effect in operation (a butterfly in Beijing
today may affect weather conditions in New York City a month from now), any slight change in the events back there would radically change our circumstances today. The example most often given is that of a deranged person’s going back to kill his/her father before he could generate a child. The thing ends in paradox. Those who hold to the many-worlds theory, though, have no such problem; in an event of that sort the world without the patricide simply splits off from the one from which the time traveler departs.
Where some serious hypocrisy might enter the picture, however, is if someone imbued with radically postmodern values might travel back to the point at which the United States Constitution is being generated and make an impassioned speech about how many points in it will be considered embarrassing in what he firmly believes is a more enlightened, relativistic age. It’s something to think about.
More on Beijing’s air quality
Leave it to a publication that knows the country to give us an informed view. Austin Ramzy:
What I was hopping to convey was that it’s a bit silly (and yes, I’ve been guilty of it, too) to look out the window with a month to go before the Games, see the Beijing haze and declare that the Games are in peril. The short-term measures that are being put in place, like taking close to half the cars off Beijing streets nearly three weeks before the events start, will have a significant effect on air quality.
This seems like the right opportunity to reproduce part of a pitch I sent Slate on June 24, asking them to let me write about the overblown concerns over Beijing’s air. I outlined for them six reasons for optimism:
1. Cars pulled off the road, gas prices raised: ozone reduction. The main cause of air pollution is vehicle emissions, and according to a paper published by Harvard researchers (who should be accessible), 70 percent of the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere come from car emissions, which react with particles in the air and petroleum to form ozone (O3). During the Sino-Africa summit in November 2006, Beijing experimented with their odd-even license plate plan that effectively eliminates half the city’s cars from the roads, and the Harvard researchers found that over a three-day span there was a 40% reduction in NOx. I’d love to find out more, ask about implications, etc.
2. Construction moratorium and factory shutdown: particles reduction. Beijing’s treated these last few months like an 11th hour cram session to finish up projects like subway lines and condos. We’re about to go from that extreme to the other of no construction at all. The large dust particles that construction projects throw into the atmosphere will disappear, helping clear the air.
3. Geography and seasonal winds. Hills to the north and northwest block the southern winds that blow through during the summer, which means Beijing needs to shut down the big plants just south of the city lest they want the smog to settle over the metropolis. They know about this, and they will. Winds blow from the north during the spring, bringing down lots of dust from Mongolian sandstorms. This contributes to the pollution we see these days, but they won’t be a factor come August.
4. Because national Olympic Committees aren’t worried, and aren’t they the ones that should be? Darryl Seibel, USOC spokesperson: “Given the fact that the appropriate bodies are aware of this, are making it a priority and have a plan to do something about it, we’re comfortable.”
[Need to talk to the Australian Olympic Committee... I suspect one of their official's "concerns" over air pollution got twisted horribly out of context, as somehow this story transformed into this, which uses loaded words like "ban" and "boycott." Interview with Canadian Olympic Committee, UK Sport and IOC spokesperson TK.]
5. A quote from David Streets, senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, who I interviewed for the ESPN piece: “They also may of course do more things — they have the ability to reduce emissions more if it looks like things are really bad; they may say, Okay, all factories shut down and stop driving your car unless you absolutely have to the next few days. It’s the advantage of centrally controlled countries: they can do this and hope for the best.”
6. A little bit of luck. Mention of how six is a lucky number. As is eight, as in the Opening Ceremonies date, 8-8-08. Talk about how the best thing that could happen for Beijing is rain and wind in the week before the Opening Ceremony to clear up the air (this would have a tremendous effect, and I may be able to find a meteorologist to talk about it). Talk to the Italian forecast team that was recently selected to be the official weather team for these Games.
FOLLOW-UP EMAIL:
I’d take a much more aggressive approach in defending China’s anti-pollution initiatives. There’s been so much pessimism about Beijing’s air that I’d like to pull the discussion back towards the middle. It may seem bad now, but there are short-term solutions that really can (because they’ve proven to) work.
Long-term sustainability is a different beast, but when you’re talking about whether the air will be clear during the weeks of the Olympic and Paralymic Games, then I must reiterate my initial feeling that things will be just fine. Take a deep breath, people.
My Slate pitch was politely declined.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Gave Jesse Jackson Tens of Thousand at Same time as Grabing TAXPAPYER BAILOUT
Campaign Launched to Expose and Stop Those Who Finance Jackson Lavish Living.
At the same time Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were melting down earlier this month they were shoveling tens of thousands of dollars to Jesse Jackson. They are not alone but their largess is a scandal for what is defacto two concerns that depend on taxpayer money to bail out their profligacy. The fact that Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Ford, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, GE, PepsiCo, and Shell. fork over hundreds of thousands rather than risk a shakedown by the notorious race baiter is something for their shareholders to stop. Taxpayers and shareholders should scream and stop their wallets from being pilfered. It has worked in the past; i.e., in 2005 the NYSE had ended support of Jackson’s groups as a result of such protests.
Jackson is in the spotlight for saying he wanted to cut Barack Obama’s N***S off, and using the “N” work in the same context. “Rev” Jesse Jackson is notorius for playing the emperor of “racial justice” that supports his lavish and often questionable lifestyle and using his “constitutency” to act against those who do not “play ball” with him.
The National Legal and Policy Center has launched a campaign to expose Jackson supporters and dry up stock holder and taxpayer money.
Hersh and NY Time Team Up to Damn U. S.
Seymour Hersh and NY Times are at it again.
Seymour Hersh, 71. first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre; then in 2006 he reported on an alleged US military plan for Iran, which allegedly called for the use of nuclear weapons against that country but that was later discredited, has now written an article in The New Yorker magazine criticizing the U. S. for staging covert special warfare operations to damage Iran.
Hersh’s article continues a pattern that has included: a 1986 book alleging that the Soviet murder of the civilians on Korean Air Flight 007 in September 1983 was a U. S. and Russian miscalculation; in 1991 his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy ignited debate about his intentions toward Israel and the U. S.; and in a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The newest article cites disgruntled general officers pining for the good old days and openly disgruntled about maverick special operations who refuse to kiss their rings and simply get on with the “wet work” without hundreds of millions of dollars in support but with a knife or rifle. Since 1963 when JFK created the SEALS as a counter terror group in the US Navy military, traditionalists have opposed and resisted the idea of “special warfare” because that opposes their near Napoleonic tactics.
Simultaneously the NEW YORK TIMES wrote a front page article describing U. S. special operations in Iran and elsewhere that critics say exposes American special warfare troops to grave dangers, and is otherwise reprehensible.
Wither NEWSWEEK
This year’s “It” demographic called “low-information voters.” are the opposite of the media-saturated, and Gawd forbid being branded “elitist” voters. Next week’s NEWSWEEK says these voters are, in campaign parlance, “swayable”—undecided and looking for a candidate to believe in. They have been a category to be quested since at least 1991 when the group was reportedly first labeled.
Like almost everything else political campaigning has it fads, and one of the most current is labeling sub-clusters, i.e., soccer moms, etc. so micro-targeting technologies can be peddled to politicians seeking the silver bullet to slay their blood sucking opponent.
NEWSWEEK authors Suzanne Smalley and Sarah Kliff snidely argue their views that these– largely working class stiffs, not particularly well educated—at least in the campus sense and without time or inclination to google the latest insta-poll and hence are “emotional” voters attracted to or offended by a weeping Hillary or Barack’s infamous “bitter” comment but, absent “real” information on issues. Smalley and Kliff write from NEWSWEEK’S West 57th Street New York City digs talking about what is going on in that great flyover wasteland west of the Hudson River.
It is in that largely latte-less America, in places like Ohio, where the November presidential election will turn upon the backs of those gun-clutching God nuts Obama named.. NEWSWEEK’s circularion is a bit under 3 million, and while it still brags We’re number two (behind TIME by about a million. As died-in-the-wool elitist Smalley and Kliff know about snootiness but it is little more than a waste of ink and of little interest to would-be subscribers
Rose Bowl War Time Adjustments
DUKE and OREGON played in the 1942 ROSE BOWL on January 1, 1942. But it was NOT in Pasadena but in Durham, North Carolina because people feared that a Japanese invasion of the west coast was imminent following the December 7, 1941attack on Pearl Harbor.