Monthly Archives: March 2009

87: The Age of Rocks and the Rock of Ages

Imagine yourself a member of a hunter-gatherer tribe, say, 4000 years ago. You have plenty of time to observe the world around you. In fact, as a hunter or gatherer, closely observing the natural world is essential to your survival.

Every year or two your tribe’s purposeful wanderings return to the same hunting-ground. One of the things you notice is that certain large rocks, which you thought the solidest of things, have come apart, not merely chipped off the edges but sometimes split right down the middle, straight or jagged. You notice this phenomenon in every rocky region you come to; it is very common. Being a wonderer as well as a wanderer, you ponder how rocks come to be split. Surely no merely human agency could do it.

Perhaps you hit upon an answer involving freezing and thawing, or the growth of tree-roots. But then a more complex question occurs to you: you see many rocks broken to pieces large or small, but you never find any rocks put back together. In time, you think, every rock must break up, until the world be made of pebbles. Therefore, the world had a beginning, when all rocks were whole, or perhaps the world was originally just one very large rock.

Given that a few more rocks crack each year, you count them and form, gradually, a rough guess as to the age of the earth. If your tribe has the concept of “billion years”, or “myriads of kalpas”, you think those would be too long a time. But perhaps two thousand years before your birth …

Yes, that sounds about right.

addendum: Most scientists had figured the age of the Earth at billions of years before they could explain why all the world’s rocks have not already become pebbles. The answer has only come in my lifetime, with the discovery of plate tectonics.

85: “Center”

“Center” means “middle”, either literally or figuratively. It does not mean “place” or “site”, unless that place or site happens to be, essentially and not merely accidentally, at the middle of something.

The use of “center” to mean place or site, or establishment or organization (which began about 1960, apparently) serves no useful purpose and contributes yet another jot to the universal confusion.

The established idiom is “center of…”, not “center for…”. Mentally substitute “middle” for “center”, and you’ll see what I mean.

(Footnote: In a show of delicacy, an institution at John Jay College calls itself “Center on Terrorism”, not “Center for Terrorism”.)

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84: President Obama and “Special Olympics”

“Special” used to mean nothing more than “sort or kind”; then, a readily extended meaning, “exceptional” or “unusual”. Then, because notable things are exceptional (or they wouldn’t be notable), it came to mean “notable; excellent”. For years, Buick sold a line of cars called the “Buick Special”. There was nothing very unusual about them, but they were asserted, by their press agents, to be notable and excellent.

When did “special” come to mean “inferior” or “below normal in a given respect”? When people decided to hide uncomfortable reality behind pretty, inoffensive words; and worse, when they learned to write Newspeak, where words mean their opposites.

And Buick doesn’t make a “Special” any more.

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83: Population Pollution

The following quotation is from www.sciam.com, accessed 16 March 2009 [slightly abridged]:

“Every environmental problem is ultimately a population problem. If the world’s population were only 100 million, we would be hard-pressed to generate enough waste to overwhelm nature’s cleanup systems. Population experts agree that the best way to limit population is to educate women and raise the standard of living generally in developing countries. But that strategy cannot possibly happen quickly enough to put a dent in the population on any useful timescale. The U.N. projects that the planet will have to sustain another 2.6 billion people by 2050. But even at the current population level of 6.5 billion, we’re using up resources at an unsustainable rate. There is no way to reduce the population significantly without trampling egregiously on individual rights (as China has done with its one-child policy), encouraging mass suicide, or worse. None of those proposals seems preferable to focusing directly on less wasteful use of resources.”

===== BUT THAT WON’T WORK — attempting to solve the problem through ‘less wasteful use of resources’ is an absurd dream; we’ll never be able to un-waste ourselves out of our mess even with today’s population, much less the future’s. Seems to me, we can either (a) Restrict human reproduction, starting as soon as possible, until we reach a sustainable number of people on this planet, or (b) Wait for our inevitable die-off, when we take with us most of our fellow mammals and everything else but bugs and slugs.

Alternative (a) will be unpleasant and repressive, but no one need be physically hurt.

Alternative (b) will bring millions (at least) of agonizing deaths and, probably, devastating resource wars as well. And even then, we will leave a ruined earth.

What will it be, brother?

82: “Pierced him with seventy propositions”: Sex Junk Emails – II

Prolongeed erectionn Click HERE

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A comfortable night except for his old enemy, abe protested. i ain’t said no abuse to the feller for joy, as i thought that one of my comrades wearily to his feet. All right, abe, he said. is the colouring. The interesting thing is.

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Hullo! My penis is not only longer and wider, but with a higher level of confidence I feel like a new manster python? That s what I ask myself now.

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New Orgasm Enhanceer

Of mighty arms, that three maidens, all unrivalled case that no single specimen was ever seen in displeasure against that leading step of defection, you think so.

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Be not afraid to vary and change the life, after all all becomes to the best

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Chin-chin!

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Negroes admire with the of the size – we will surpass them!

Hullo! Now that I ve tried Dr MaxMan, pulling down my pants is no longer my biggest worry. Will she be able to handle this my monster python? That s what I ask myself now.

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Chineses suffer from quantity, we enjoy quality

Ciao!

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New Orgasm Enhanccer

And, marking time with her flat foot, she chanted poison.and vivinsati, pierced him with seventy propositions and discussions of the day previous told me. We passed a house in process of building, is sent, not at home, when they are only too lazy.

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Be not afraid to vary and change the life, after all all becomes to the best

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Look air he appealed to heaven to witness that he was.

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81: So There!

Corrections (Washington Post, 11 March 2009) verbatim:

“A March 4 Metro article about changes to the tax rate in Prince William County mischaracterized a comment made by County Executive Craig S. Gerhart. Gerhart was quoted as saying it would be “irresponsible” for the board to adopt the lowest tax rate from among the options supervisors were considering. In fact, he said it would be “irresponsible” for him to recommend that they adopt the lowest rate.”

80: A Scientific Basis for Personality?

How many different personality types are there? A friend of mine, then recently returned from England, remarked “There are five kinds of Englishman. When you’ve met all five, there’s nothing else to know about them.” He was, almost, serious.

And then we have birth-signs, and Chinese restaurant-menu-‘year of the’-types, and the Myers-Briggs scale, four variables of two values each, revealing in their combinations, i-Ching-like, some inner truth.

And now, scientists have correlated personality types with physiological activity. According to New Scientist, issue of 14 February 2009, page 43, there are four basic personality types, with their assorted mixtures. Now we know what’s what, because science has spoken:

“Explorer – elevated activity in the dopamine and noradrenalin systems. Tend to be risk-taking, novelty-seeking and impulsive, high energy and sex drive. Optimistic, enthusiastic, and curious.

“Builder – elevated activity in the serotonin system. Tend to be sociable but conventional, cautious and meticulous. Often have high social status.

“Director – elevated activity in the testosterone system. Tend to be systematic, dominant, and tough-minded. Intellectual and able to focus attention. Often have poor social skills.

“Negotiator – elevated activity in the oestrogen and oxytocin systems. Tend to be imaginative, empathic, and egalitarian with good social skills. Articulate and able to see the big picture.”

The tip-off here is that, whichever type you are, you are really quite worthy, even interesting, perhaps exciting. Even dull and plodding Builders are redeemed, in their case by ‘high social status’.

– Please leave my serotonin alone, and just hand me that fortune cookie over there, would you?

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79: How to Make Classical Music Boring

Here’s a letter I sent to a well-known classical music radio station in the Washington, D.C. region (WETA-FM), in response to their most recent appeal for money:

 

“I hope you will consider the following criticisms seriously; I am sure that other ex-Leadership Circle members feel as I do.

 

“About two years ago, when you switched to all-classical format, I donated a thousand dollars to WETA. As a retired person, that’s not a trivial amount for me to give. I expected two things: Excellent classical music programming, and the chance to meet other Leadership members at various events.

 

“For the next few months, I listened to WETA 3-4 hours a day, and found the programming, frankly, dull, ‘relaxing’: Pieces we’ve all heard very many times before; and almost entirely limited to ‘safe’ selections from ‘safe’ composers from the Classical and Romantic periods, occasionally Baroque. During those months I never heard any Penderecki, or Pettersson, or Diamond, or Holmboe, or even Rubbra (who is tuneful enough, even if the others may not always be). — Or even more-adventurous works of standard composers, such as the choral works of Beethoven or Bruckner. So for the past year I’ve been listening to the RadioIO Classical channel on the internet. That’s my concept of what WETA should have been.

 

“And as for events: during that year I received a total of one invitation to a special Leadership event (Ken Burns), but to attend that one, WETA wanted an additional $500!

 

“So, no thank you.”

 

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78: Holocaust: Denial or Praise?

Thinking of the case of Bishop Richard Williamson, and others: Why is there Holocaust denial?

Columnist Richard Cohen (Washington Post, 10 February 2009, page A17) holds that deniers claim that the Holocaust is “a yarn, a myth concocted by those diabolically clever Jews to win sympathy, reparations and, of course, Israel itself.”

But that seems an unlikely motive. If the deniers are truly anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic, or if they think Hitler acted rightly, these deniers should affirm the Holocaust, praise it, even exaggerate the number of deaths.

The Holocaust certainly did occur, pretty much as commonly believed. And the deniers, I am sure, know that. Denial therefore isn’t really a claim of historical fact, but a statement of ideology, a refusal to “let Nazis be Nazis.” But the form of their denial seems to me both irrational and, as a strategy, self-defeating.

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77: Revenge

Revenge is the purest of motives. Victims will say “Oh, no, not at all! We don’t want revenge, Heaven forbid!; only justice.” But they deceive themselves, and do not, in any case, have standing to demand justice. Revenge is the individual’s motive; justice is society’s motive. Let us not confuse the two. **

Revenge is entirely innocent: it cares not for wealth, or health, or the high esteem of one’s neighbors. Often, it cares not for personal survival, so long as its object is gained.

Revenge suffereth not; Revenge never faileth.

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** Marc Fisher (Washington Post, 8 March 20009, page C01 continuation) puts this point nicely: “ I’ve always thought the system errs when it takes into account the views and passions of victims’ families; for all the tragedy they’ve suffered, they are naturally driven by exactly the kinds of emotion that the justice system should seek to put aside in calculating fair and proper punishment for criminals.”

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