Rocket Scientist

Today, of course, is the day I steal my own comment from (usually) someone else blog and make a post about it.  Kudos to Relax Max of Clarity2009 for giving me a doozy.  He wrote a blog , actually, in response to a quote I’d given on Saturday: 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” -Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953, a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

He noted that, though he thought he poor should be fed, he also saw a use for defense.  Actually, he said a great deal of useful thoughtful things, some of which I agreed with.  But I was intrigued by the implication that Eisenhower, although he may have said this is in a speech, was unlikely to have really felt this way.  I’m not so sure.

Now, let me be clear.  I am not objective.  I am mostly pacifist by nature and I won’t pretend otherwise.  If the draft included women and I were drafted, I would have to be a contientious objector because I could never kill someone for wearing a different uniform (though I recognize it is necessary in war, I could not do it).  That doesn’t make me strictly nonviolent, mind you.  I can think of several circumstances where I could kill, probably with a clean conscience, but it would be personal and I would know that the individual I was killing was a monster, not presuming it.  But I digress.  

I also think, personally, that this country spends far too much on defense and, worse, spends the money poorly.  I’m of the opinion that warfare as we knew it in WWII has long outlived it’s usefulness and and that carpet bombing civilians and attacking with hordes of impressionable young people is no longer useful.  No, I was not a fan of the Iraq war or even the one in Afghanistan.  In my opinion, war is an action of last resort, when you have exhausted every alternative  and you are faced with a future even worse than war if no action is taken.  War, even when well justified (as we were in WWII) is horrible.  In my opinion, if war is used for anything less than absolute necessity, it is treason, it is a betrayal not only of the the trust our soldiers who signed up for our military put in their leadership and a the people of this nation, but also a crime against those killed.  Note, I don’t say you have to agree with me.  But it’s how I feel about it.

This nation spends more than the entire rest of the world on defense.  That it spends more than 10X what more weapons for our infantry and bigger and better conventional weapons when we’re already tops on this is nothing but a gravy train for contractors.  Better to spend it on training for our most elite corps and using intelligence and brains to deal with threats surgically rather than with blunt force; we’d be doing ourselves a favor.

Anyway, back to my original point.  As most of you know, I gather quotes.  One day when I was trolling through Wikiquote, I stumbled upon the topic of “war” and was surprised by the views of so many I would have expected to be warmongers or were involved in war, how much my own thinking reflects their own.   OK, there are some pacifists in here, too.

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
–Albert Einstein

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
–Russell Baker

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
–Ronald Reagan

They serve so that we don’t have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm’s way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?
–Michael Moore

What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
–John F. Kennedy

We are defined by how we use our power.
–Gerry Spence

When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.
–Arthur Ponsonby

The sons of torture victims make good terrorists.
–André Malraux

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.
–Jimmy Carter

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.
–John F. Kennedy

No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation.
–Woodrow Wilson

Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else, and that’s the idea that when the troops are in combat everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning and troops were dying as a result. I can’t think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what’s the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that’s getting just as many troops killed?
–Gen. Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), former CENTCOM Commander-in-Chief, 2004-05-21, television interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes”

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel … and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man” — with his mouth.
–What Is Man? (1906) by Mark Twain

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it-for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
–The War Prayer by Mark Twain [Twain, as you know, was a sarcastic ass, but apparently a pacifist]

Göring: Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
– Interview in Göring’s jail cell during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (18 April 1946) [did anyone else think this sounded familiar?]

A pre-emptive war in ‘defense’ of freedom would surely destroy freedom, because one simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend.
–J. William Fullbright

I have concluded, there is no war, in the history of man, that could not have been avoided by 15 minutes of honest diplomacy.
–Andrew Mutton

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.
–Douglas MacArthur

It is a tribute to the humanity of ordinary people that horrible acts must be camouflaged [with words] like security, peace, freedom, democracy, the ‘national interest’.
–Howard Zinn, Boston U professor & former WWII bomber pilot, USA.

Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.
–Robert Nichols

Peace cannot be achieved by force, only by understanding.
–Albert Einstein

War in our time has become an anachronism. Whatever the case in the past, war in the future can serve no useful purpose. A war which became general, as any limited action might, would only result in the virtual destruction of mankind.
–General Dwight David Eisenhower

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
–Mahatma Gandhi

There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
–Benjamin Franklin

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
–Desiderius Erasmus

When the rich make war it’s the poor that die.
–Jean-Paul Sartre

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
–Martin Luther King, Jr.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.
–Ronald Reagan

You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.
–Boris Yeltsin

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,” it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
–Sydney J. Harris

 Just sayin’.

Sometimes it amazes me.  Just as something triggers a train of thought in my brain, like the response to yesterday’s blog, the New York Times (or a blog or something else) will spit forth something that goes along with what I’m thinking.  In this case, it was the New York Times again with this article . 

 But what was I thinking, you might ask (unless, of course, you know by now that I’ll tell you whether you ask or not).   I was thinking about people noting that Wikipedia is fallible, that you have to take some of what you read with a grain of salt, that you can’t take everything you read at face value.

Granted.  But, then, shouldn’t we do that all the time? Skipping, for the instant, religion and religious texts (where I find the advice still applicable, but I don’t intend to tell anyone else what to do or believe), what source is so authoritative, so infallible, so incontrovertible that you shouldn’t read it critically?  Seriously.  And, yes, that includes me.

Newton was a genius.  Do you think he never made a mistake?  Or Einstein?  Or Gallileo?  Gallileo struggled, in fact, because the notions and logic of Aristotle (or Archimedes - some Greek with a name that started with A) were considered definitively true and, therefore, couldn’t be challenged.  Even though they were wrong.  It should be noted that being wrong doesn’t mean you’re not bright or brilliant or intelligent.  (Refusing to acknowledge you’re wrong even when data presents itself may be a different matter but that is another blog post.)  Everyone gets stuff wrong.  

However, you’ll get a lot less wrong if you don’t forgo your own thinking.  Give it the sniff test.  Sure, so-and-so is an expert or has been write about X before, but is he right now? And this is where the article came in.  It’s all about exercises in a book called Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin where guesstimation exercises (as Enrico Fermi used to impose) are provided to help you learn to guesstimate big things.  They’re more than just an exercises in math, though, they’re exercises in doing quick and dirty calculations that can give you a quick sense of whether something makes sense or not.  Ok, ok, so math isn’t everyone’s bag, but the concept isn’t just about math.

Where I work, I call it the sanity check.  Someone makes an assertion and my first reaction is to double check it in my mind.  In some cases it might be validating an analysis - I do a ballpark estimate and, if they’re pretty close, I know it’s probably fine.  If they’re off by a decimal place, I need to look closer because one of us is likely wrong (and, yes, I’ve caught other people’s errors that way - and many of my own).  But it applies to logic.  If someone asks for funding because their current model is underpredicting risk (as compared to actual damage), but then the new improved model comes out and it says the risk is half what was originally predicted - that should send up flags.  Something doesn’t smell right.  (And, yes, I’ve seen that happen too - and I’m the only one it bothered).

We’ve grown too lazy, willing to put off our thinking to someone else.  Politics is one of the worst.  I’m mostly liberal, but I have some conservative tendencies.  Why?  Because I decide for myself what I believe is best on each individual issue.  No one decided for me.  I did.  I like Obama, but I don’t assume he’s always right or infallible.  No one is.  We agree on some topics, but not on others.  I don’t have a problem with someone else disagreeing with him either, but I do have a problem with someone regurgitating tired arguments (that have been readily disproved) or making unsubstantiated allegations with no basis.  I would feel the same if someone did it to Sarah Palin.  People, in my opinion, are entitled to any opinion they want, but I won’t waste my time arguing with someone who hasn’t bothered putting thought behind it nor will I respect it.

If we thought for ourselves, we would realize that interest only loans and adjustable rate mortgages were too good to be true.  If we think for ourselves, we can understand the difference between our rights and a moral imperative to impose our beliefs on others.  We can listen to an expert or a scientist or a skeptic without ignoring the small voice inside our own heads that says, “that doesn’t sound right.”  If it doesn’t sound right, find out more.  Your view on the world might change or you might realize that a lot of things that sound authoritative really are nonsense dressed up like something meaningful.  

Asking someone to do our thinking for us is a dangerous proposition, for two reasons if no others.  First, because those with the most definitive and authoritative voices often have a vested interest in getting you to think they way they want you to and, secondly, because you will have to live with the end result, whether you trusted someone else’s thinking or your own.

Update:  Speak of the devil, here’s a perfect example.  I don’t object to the joke but I do object to the yahoos who swallow it without thinking.

Hard on the heels of the New York Times article I referred to yesterday, I found yet another article that made me think.  This time, it was talking about Wikipedia .  I’m not going to quote the article (I try to avoid that - better you should read it directly), but it was mostly pointing out that, despite the criticisms, it was mostly quite accurate for the same reasons it is sometimes, particularly on the more obscure entries, misleading.  The more people that read it, the more likely it is that something wrong will be caught, will be flagged, will be noted for its lacks.  And, with all these people, working together, looking over each other’s shoulder for one purpose–to share knowledge with anyone who asks–it’s a marvel of surprising caliber.

I couldn’t agree more.

Man, I love Wikipedia.  Give me a computer and a week with no one wanting anything and I could spend all day wandering through Wikipedia (OK, I have spent all day(s) wandering through Wikipedia). Ever wanted to know about Japanese history ?  Hey, it’s in there.  Lady Jane Grey ?  It’s in there.  String Theory ?  You betcha.  Nuthatches ?  It’s there.  Space accidents ?  They got it.  African American astronauts ?  Yep.  The Hope Diamond?  Fruits Basket ?  Dracula (pick one)? They have it, all cross-linked so you can start with Alfred the Great and follow it all the way to Elizabeth II (I’ve stopped linking ’cause, hey, it’s fun to search).  The article I mentioned in the NYT times noted that too.  Man, you can look up Nellie Bly and just wander around following links for hours.  Again, this is the voice of experience. 

But what about accuracy?  After all, can’t anyone just edit it?  Yes they can and anyone else can fix it if it’s broken.  Citations run rampant through Wikipedia (I wish most encyclopedias cited their sources so definitively and completely), often with links so you can check them out.  Related wikipedia articles are usually listed as well as outside sites that are applicable.  And, I have to tell you, I’ve read a LOT of articles on Wikipedia.  I have found errors, but, for the most part, I’ve been blown away by the completeness and accuracy of the information.  Esoteric science articles, detailed animal descriptions, obscure but pivotal historical figures.  Want to know where to find diamonds or how to smelt iron?  It’s there.  Want to know what the actual tenets of hindism are?  We got that too.  It’s a smorgasbord of everything you ever wanted to know, laid out and cross-referenced intuitively so you can find it. Even if I don’t end up citing Wikipedia, I can still use it as a resource for finding source documents for any number of subjects.  I want to look something up for work, for myself, Wikipedia is my first stop, though usually not my last.

That’s not all though.  Wikipedia, built and maintained by experts and laymen alike, is amazingingly readable and accessible.  Not just finding the topics you want, but reading about complex topics in approachable language that makes it understandable.  Many’s the time I’ve been stymied by some theoretical physics question that’s outside my expertise, only to find a very usable and helpful description in Wikipedia.

And all the other resources associated with it:  wikisource (public domain literature and art), wikiquote (great resource for the quote happy), wikibooks (free textbooks), and much much more.   All this, with no advertising, no apparent agenda other than knowledge is power and we should share it.

Damn, I love Wikipedia.

Once again, the editorial pages of the New York Times have provided me food for thought.  And, when I get to thinking, I try to put it on my blog so you all can share it.  In this case, it was it was Kristoff’s column on the experts who were apparently caught flat-footed by what, in hindsight, was the inevitable economic meltdown we’re all dealing with right now (some more severely than others).   It actually wasn’t really the column that caught my eye so much as the Dr. Fox effect and the findings of a Philip Tetlock of the University of California Berkeley who studied 82,000 predictions by some 284 experts (and described it in his book:  Expert Political Judgement ).

The Dr. Fox effect was the way of describing an experiment where an actor was paid to present himself as an expert (Dr. Fox) and give a completely pointless and nonsensical presentation to a group of professional educators.  The presentation was presented well (with jokes and likely excellent power point slides, perhaps animation) and left the educators by and large impressed, which either meant that they were too intimidated to admit they didn’t understand or were too amused to protest that it was garbage.  Believe me, I’ve seen the Dr. Fox effect in action.

But I found the results of Mr. Tetlock’s study even more fascinating.  Apparently, if one examines the predictions of “experts” and compares them to reality, he discovered that their predictions vs. actuality were accurate only slightly better than random.  Think about that, not slightly better than, say, the general public, slightly better than “chimps throwing darts at a dartboard.”  This was true regardless of the area of expertise, education or years of experience.

In fact, the only differentiation was fame and not how you might expect.  The more famous the “expert” the less likely they were to be accurate.   The reason Mr. Tetlock decided, was that the media prefers folks that give a definitive answer without codicils or signs conditionals.  But I think it’s possible that people feel pressured to give definitive answers when in front of the camera as well.

However, this just reinforces one of my own litmus tests when it comes to scientists (or really an expert):  the less open they are to question or adamant that their view is the only view, the less likely they are to really know what they’re talking about.  In other words, no real scientist refuses questions or belittles people who disagree.  A real scientist understands the limitations of his own knowledge and welcomes anyone who wants to understand.  A “bad” scientist thinks that his expertise should quiet all dissent.  That’s someone who cares more about appearing right than the truth - which is the antithesis of a real scientist in my opinion.  I guess that applies to more than science.

Well, it’s always nice to get data to back my opinion.

I didn’t want to pursue a theme today.  Couldn’t settle on one, so I thought I’d just scroll randomly through my long list of quotes and nab a few for this Saturday.  Enjoy the eclectic weirdness of the kinds of quotes I collect.

One of the difficulties of politics is that politicians are shocked by those who are really prepared to let their thinking reach any conclusion. Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible– and perhaps it really is.
                           – Richard Crossman

One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
                        – Lewis Mumford

On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
                            – Charles Babbage

Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
                                 – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.
                           – Ezra Taft Benson

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
                          – Confucius

Remember the five-step response of all experts when first confronted with a new development in their field: IGNORE, RIDICULE, ATTACK, COPY, STEAL.
                          – Arthur Jones

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist invents the parachute.

                   -George Bernard Shaw

We lived like that “Happy Family” you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.
                  -Robert Heinlein

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.

                        -Douglas Adams

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

    -Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953, a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

–Ashleigh Brilliant    

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
–Jean De La Bruyre

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
–George Patton

The Americans will always do the right thing… After they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.

–Winston Churchill

I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

–Albert Einstein

Softmindedness often invades religion. … Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read “Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God.” This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. … Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.

                        -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Biologically speaking, if something bites you, it is more likely to be female.
- Desmond Morris

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
– Peter Rothman

Today, it’s time to take care of some housekeeping.

First, those of you who are Today.com bloggers already know that entrecard is now taboo.  For the rest of you, I’ll be leaving entrecard soon and thought I’d give you a heads up in case that’s how you find me.  I’ve got ads in place until April 2, so I’ll leave my widget up until they run out, but it will be taken down some time next week.  I have mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I think entrecard got me noticed by some who would never have found me otherwise (and my readers are the best!).  I also know I stumbled upon some blogs I absolutely treasure through EC, so I’m a little sad.  Naturally, I expect a dip in hits, but I wasn’t here for the traffic, though I’m sure Today feels differently about it. On the other hand, my favorite hits are those that come back to read my blog and perhaps comment, rather than find a quick way to run up 300.  I’m expecting the traffic that remains to be of the quality I like best, so that’s a good thing.

I have endeavored to be a spot worth coming to, for whatever reason draws you and I’m not closing shop.  I still plan on writing quality blogs and encourage you to make a link or a bookmark so you can get your daily dose of Rocket Scientist (and/or Ask Me Anything , which I’ll be touching on a bit later, too).  By the time I remove the EC widget, I’m hoping I’ll have an RSS feed to replace it.  However, you’re always welcome to bookmark it or put a blog link somewhere so I don’t miss out on you and you don’t miss out on me. 

I’ve loved the interaction here.  I do get much more discussion than my traffic would justify and I think that’s super cool.  Quality, you know, rather than quantity.

Also, as a reminder, I do have that second blog.  As it has had less of a chance to build a following, the EC change will hit it much harder.  Also, without comments or questions to feed Ask Me Anything , there’s nothing to post on it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly capable of asking myself questions I find thought-provoking and will do so if necessary, but I really wrote it so people could ask me, well, anything.

Sure, I can ask myself questions, but, hey, I already know the answers.

For those of you that jumped the gun with my last post to jump from exploring the moon into making a colony: .  Smarties!  And I bet you’ll have no problem guessing whether I’m all for it or not.  That’s right, I am.

Hava noted that making a colony on the moon, a real long-term self-sustaining facility, is no easy matter, despite what we’ve read in books or seen in movies.  She ain’t lying.  Making a self-sustaining colony on the moon is a complete pain in the whatsit.  Everything we need (air, water, food) will either have to be brought from here and 100% recycled or made from unpromising natural ingredients.  Power will need to be generated but, more than that, propulsion will have to be devised in order to make coming and going viable for the long run.  (Some of you might note that these same technologies and capabilities could be damn useful right hear on the planet, too.)

Do I see it likely within my lifetime?  Honestly, no.  Bits and pieces of what you’d need for a long term commitment, maybe, but not all of it.  But we don’t have to succeed soon to make pursuing  the goal of a self-sustaining colony worthwhile today.

Why?

Because I do believe that human exploration is more important that climbing Mount Everest because it’s there.  I don’t know what’s in our future, on this planet, and I know that getting to where we have other options if something cataclysmic would happen is going to be a long and painful road.  I don’t know if we’ll ever need it, but I’d much rather have the option and not need it than find out we need it in thirty years, but the path to escape is fifty years long.  But it’s more than that.

I believe that, if we are ever to do real exploring outside our solar system, we’d better know our way around space, we’d better know how to live on little or nothing and how to make the most of whatever natural resources we can find because we aren’t going to just stumble (conveniently) across dilithium crystals nor can we count on friendly (or touchy) natives to supply our wants.  And I think that should be our goal.  Our planet is precious and beautiful and wonderfully nurturing; I love the Earth.  But I dream of exploring elsewhere, finding more places, more people, more systems than I can imagine today.  I want that, if not for my children, for my children’s children.

The moon, as it was as an exploration test bed, is a perfect place to learn how to survive on very inhospitable land, how to use the resources we have to the fullest, how to grow food and create a living ecosystem out of very very little.  All within easy reach of earth, in case of setbacks, but under some of the harshest terms.  There is no welcome on the moon.  To stake a permanent claim, we’re going to have to be brilliant and creative and resourceful, just as we’re going to need to do to travel beyond our sun’s influence.  And, if we can beat her, we will not only have perfected any number of necessary steps that will set the foundation for future exploration, we’ll have proved that it’s possible, that man need not be fettered to this planet for all eternity.

Every day we wait or refuse to set our feet upon that path, success retreats at least one more day away.

Not that I’m opinionated or nothin’.

Don’t ask me why, but this seems the right topic today.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

                              –John Adams

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.

                              –Sir Francis Bacon

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.

                          –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

                          –George Carlin

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron — namely, that he is a blockhead.
                              –Ambrose Bierce

The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
                              –G.K. Chesterton

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
                                –Winston Churchill

Tact is the act of making a point without making an enemy.

                               –Clarence Darrow

A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.
                           –Baltasar Gracián

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil,” it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
                            –Sydney J. Harris

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
                          –Robert Heinlein

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
                                   –Elbert Hubbard

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.

                           –Kin Hubbard

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
                                   –Aldous Huxley

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

                            –Thomas Jefferson

Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.

                      –John F. Kennedy

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.

                                                                        –Jean Kerr

That’s right, I am.  It’s my turn to speak my mind on the discussion of the bonuses for employees of the companies that have accepted billions of taxpayer dollars.  The general public is outraged.  So am I.  Some reporters have noted that this is just a blip, a distraction from the big picture.  The public has not agreed.  Neither do I.  It’s a matter of principle.

When I read stories in the New York Times about business leaders complaining that taxing or retracting  those bonuses, making wild (and utterly unconvincing) predictions of losing masses of “brainiacs” and “talent” (and doom predictions that their knowledge would be destructive when they were “snapped up” by someone else), that companies will have nothing to do with government run businesses, that they have no choice legally but to provide those bonuses, I have to call BS.  Then, when that was ineffective, they started in on how those employees, facing the loss of million dollar bonuses, came into their bosses office “in tears”.  Boo hoo.  To face the loss of their unearned gain at the taxpayer’s expense when millions of people have faced job loss as a result of their incompetent/greedy/dishonest behavior?  Let me tell you how sad I am for them.  The individual with a $25 million bonus (Merrill Lynch) has already spent his bonus on a $37 million dollar apartment.  Boo hoo.  Just like hundreds of thousands of people in this country who face the loss of their homes, and have done less to deserve it.

Yeah, I’m with the outraged public.  I always thought a bonus was all about a reward for going above and beyond the expected, the normal.  It bothers me already that we give restaurants leave to short their wait staff on salaries because it’s expected we’ll happily cough up an additional 10-25% tax  so they don’t have to pay them even minimum wage.  Instead of being an indication of gratitude for extraordinary service, it’s an obligation or an opportunity to indulge in a little malice at the waiter’s expense.  Likewise, bonuses have been come obligations instead of what I believe they were originally intended to be:  a reward for exceptional service, over and above the original job one was hired to do.  For a company to go tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into the hole over a year and then think that millions (or, like Merrill Lynch, billions) of dollars of bonuses are justified just demonstrates how far from realities these “brainiacs” really are.

But it’s more than just the bankers.  I’d like to see this carried forward into government contracts in general.  It is disheartening for someone who loves and believes in the space program to see contracts written in such a way as to reward failure.  To get the contract, a company often drastically underpredicts how long a task will take, what they can deliver and what it will cost - and they can do so confident that if things run somewhat over or somewhat long or not what was asked, the government usually responds by pulling out its checkbook.  I’ve seen a major contractor deliver hardware that notably didn’t meet well established requirements, only to be provided beaucoup more money to fix the deficiencies.  I’ve seen sole source contracts awarded to companies because “only” they have the expertise to do a particular job in a particular timeframe, only to see them complain after the award how they can’t deliver what was asked and demanding requirement changes (and let’s not forget delivering it late and over budget).  I’ve seen companies with abysmal ratings from the government who still walked away with 90% of the “award” fee, effectively a bonus over and above the contract itself.

In the “real” world, accountants who mismanage your money are liable, perhaps criminally.  In the “real” world, people who contract to perform a service will go out of business if they don’t deliver what they promise, not only not getting paid, but not getting future business. 

As a taxpayer, I don’t mind paying for a space program or to assure our economy doesn’t take a nosedive, for the good of all, but I still deserve to get value for my investment.  My interest in space or the economy (or defense or any other program for the good of all) should not be used as a windfall with nothing in return. 

I’m hoping the government takes on the role of a discerning customer and begins to demand value.  I know we can deliver if only we are held to it.  I look at our history and I see how we’ve accomplished so much when so much has been demanded of us.  Here’s another opportunity if we only take it.

Sometimes I never see where these blog postings are going until I get there.

So, I was struggling to identify a comment I made that was worth stealing.  Sadly, I really didn’t.  I didn’t, however, let that stop me.  So, I noted my failure and decided to write about that.  Here’s an example from this week (taken from JD’s excellent blog “I Crush Children’s Dreams So You Don’t Have To “):

Motto: If you’ll listen to lizards for car insurance, why not a frog for lawn care. After all, we’re GREEN.

Whoops. that was so bad, by brain just left in disgust. Damn, I hope it comes back.

To put something like that on a clever and brilliant blog like JD’s should be some sort of crime.  She doesn’t take it out on me, of course, because (a) she’s a sweet person and (b) everyone has brain aberrations.

I just have more than my fair share of them.  Cleverness comes and goes and when it’s gone, I can’t write a clever comment to save my life.  Fortunately, some things come back and I’m hot.  But when it’s gone, it’s really really gone.

But, I think more frustrating than when my brain is dialed to “dull,” is when I’m being all smart and clever or informative or clever and my fingers and mind are not in sync.  That’s when I leave letters off words so I look like I can’t spell.  Or I leave words out entirely (my favorite is “not” - so that what I write is - surprise! the opposite of my intent).  Or I mix up the order of the words so that the sentence, which is filled with intelligent and perceptive words, doesn’t make sense.

So, I said we all had brain aberrations.  Was I lying?  Or is it just me?

Talking about the orbital debris situation usually brings us back around to talking about environmental issues.  Unfortunately, while some environmental issues are well accepted, others which threaten the status quo (and the lucretive energy market) are still hounded by whispers of doubt and accusations of the impossibility of change.

That makes no damn sense, though.  Whenever I’m told that, I remember the same song when we talked about cleaning air in Los Angeles or rivers in many parts of the nation, but air quality in Los Angeles has improved drastically and many many places that were a wasteland 30 years ago are coming back into their own.

I think a salutory lesson resides in the discussion of ozone depletion .  

Thirty years ago, CFCs were “perfect”.  Nonreactive, rarely toxic, wonderful thermal qualities.  A Dr. Lovelack (the biologist) did a self-funded study to measure CFCs in the atmosphere in the early 1970’s.  But it took the thinking of Frank Sherman and Mario Merino (1974)  to hypothesize that the nonreactive nature of CFCs could allow it to stay intact up to the stratosphere where, when it rose high enough, it could be disassociated by UV radiation and leaving a free chlorine ion.  A chlorine ion is murder on ozone because it works as a catalyst in turning ozone back into molecular oxygen, while remaining unchanged itself, free to convert again.

To say that this hypothesis was treated with skepticism would be putting it mildly.  Even if it were true, people argued, we were so dependent on CFCs that we would go through untold hardship if we were asked to give them up.  Economic ruin.  Impossible.  Besides the notion that we could affect the atmosphere that was preposterous!

Sure enough, some of the early NASA readings specifically to measure ozone seemed to put the notion of an ozone hole to bed.  Except, it turns out that an algorithm was discounting the measured readings because they were so far different from the expected values that the software for the measurement was throwing them out as errors.  When we got the real picture(1985), no one expected it to be as bad as it actually was.

Fortunately, the scientists who supported this were taken seriously even before 1985 and many countries were already reducing or eliminating CFCs (including the US).  Within the decade, nearly every country was doing the same.  And we’re seeing some improvements with the ozone layer despite the vast quantities of CFC that were still filtering upwards.  It looks like the damage will be undone within 40 years. 

And what was the impact on you?  Did you have to give up refrigeration?  Air conditioning?  Aerosal cans?  Nope, once we committed to change, we made it happen with minimal if any effect on regular folks.  Amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. 

When I think of the difference in energy costs of the homes in Palm Desert, California , going from costing $1400/month in energy costs to $500/YEAR with city financed solar arrays (repaid via property tax), I know we can do more than we think we can.

In honor of venturing out into the world with yet another blog when I’m not even wildly popular with this one, I’m picking out quotes that have to do with bravery and the like.  Wish me luck!

Boldness is a child of ignorance.
                  –Sir Francis Bacon

Every successful person has had failures, but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.
                          –Ashleigh Brilliant

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
                         –James A Garfield

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
                      –Baltasar Gracián

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
                          –Robert Green Ingersol

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.
                      –Jean Kerr

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
                 –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.
                –Gen. George Patton

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
                  –Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
                 –Mark Twain

The basis for optimism is sheer terror.
                   –Oscar Wilde

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the Ready-Aim-Aim-Aim Syndrome. You must be willing to fire.
                            – T. Boone Pickens

Courage… is when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
                           – Harper Lee

Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.
                     – David Lloyd George

Don’t dare to be different, dare to be yourself — if that doesn’t make you different then something is wrong.
                 – Laura Baker

Have the courage to say no.
Have the courage to face the truth.
Do the right thing because it is right.
These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.
                         – W. Clement Stone

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
                              – Vaclav Havel

I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.

                                                -Helen Keller

I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.

                                                -Helen Keller

I have brought you to the ring, now see if you can dance.

                        -William Wallace

I wasn’t going to write on this topic today.  I was innocently reading the New York Times when I stumbled upon a brief story titled “Who Forgets a Child in a Car?” which links an entirely different story in the Washington Post entitled “Fatal Distraction.”   The first article advocated reading the entire post article, down to the end and she wasn’t lying.  Every parent with small children should read it and I say it though it was probably the hardest thing to read I’ve ever read.  Not because it was poorly written – oh no – but because it hurt so badly.  Babies, left to die of heat related causes in cars, not by monsters, but by parents who loved them dearly.  (I wrote several weeks ago about the power of just a few words.  Think of the story and impact of this sentence when an expert is asked about the “worst” case:  “The child pulled all her hair out before she died.“  It haunts me now, hours later.)  For hours, today, I fought weeping (mostly failing) because, as an absent-minded but loving parent, I know this could happen to me (and I’m grateful that my husband is with me most times when I take my baby anywhere or I’d be much worse off).  And, folks, it could happen to you.  Not because you don’t love your children, but because it can happen to anyone.

It’s a specific problem, this hyperthermia, that has blossomed into a horrible fate almost unheard of before the mandate of rear-facing carseats in the back.  Thirty-five to forty children dead per year is better than the hundreds that likely died before carseats became mandatory, but that is small comfort to the parents that will live with this tiny mistake for the rest of their lives, for, though the act was not heinous (in most cases), but results were.  (And, yes, it is sometimes deliberate and sometimes a symptom of abuse/neglect or drug problems – but that’s not what I’m talking about here.  Most are accidental according to this and this .)  But it’s more than a question of location.  It’s a matter of distraction.

Day in and day out we are demanding more of ourselves, more demands on time and attention, stresses and problems, eating into our sleep and forcing us to constantly juggle a dozen different tasks at once.  Our kids are important to us, but they add to the load.  Add to that the distractions that are part and parcel of this day and age (that our parents and grandparents never had to contend with):  cell phones, PDAs, pagers, GPS, computers.  We twitter and chat and talk and IM and and… hopefully, not in the car, but all of that adds to the interaction and preoccupation in the brain.  Too much, too tired, too stressed, too busy, and our bodies go into automatic mode to where we can drive to work despite the distractions without ever realizing we forgot to stop at daycare and drop off the child.  After all, we’ve done it so many times, our mind can play it back like it actually happened if we think about it later.

Hell.  (Must stop crying)

There are steps we can take to improve this .  There are steps mentioned here and another site dedicated to kids and car safety well worth checking out.  I was surprised by the notion that there are technologically handy devices to prevent this that are all but unknown and not readily available and the reason why was striking.   The same reason many are quick to judge the parent in such a situation is the same reason why the devices that can preclude this are not popular:  people just don’t believe that they could ever do a thing like this.  And, because of this mindset, they make themselves vulnerable to it.

But leaving children in cars is just part of it.  Children crawl out of garden gates or sneak out of doors, they hang out behind a door that can smack them or underfoot where they can be stepped on.  The phone rings at dinner time or bath time or any other moment and your eyes and attention aren’t with that baby.

And you don’t have to have children for distractions to be an issue.  Cars are a bad place for them (and it happens all the time, and cellphones are just one of the distractions).  It can happen with payments you forgot to make or critical directions you forgot to give.  It can affect construction where a construction worker is hurt or can leave something constructed poorly where someone else, years later, pays the price (don’t get me started on the slipshod installation of my attic access.  It’s a miracle it didn’t just drop out of the ceiling on us any time the past three years).  It can be a missed reading on a monitor at a secure facility, or a missed gauge reading at a nuclear facility.  It can be one of a thousand missed communications during manufacturing, building, testing or using complex (and dangerous) equipment.

Being pressed for time, feeling harried and stressed, pushing yourself to the limit (and who hasn’t heard this from everyone at one point or another) isn’t just inconvenient, it’s dangerous and, if we’re lucky, no one will pay the price for our distraction.  Not because we don’t care about quality or don’t want to do the job right, not because we don’t care about safety, but because safety is just one of the many many balls we have to juggle.

It’s not surprise that schedule pressure has been cited at both Shuttle accidents.  It’s a reason why I’m a firm advocate for having people devoted to safety and nothing else, not programmatic risks, not mission success, not budget, not schedule.

So, when you’re swamped and weary and stressed and frayed, when you’re struggling to juggle twenty more balls than you think you can, ask yourself, seriously, what you risk with your distractions and, what, realistically, is the worst case of one or more balls fall.  If we’re talking about hurting a child or a coworker or an astronaut, some of those balls are likely to look pretty darned unimportant.  Now, how do they compare with playing peek a boo with your tiny child.  Yeah, I thought so.

So, let the answering machine catch the phone.  Or let ‘em call back.  Skip the IM one night.  Get to work five minutes late.  Forgo sweeping this morning.  Make it a habit to open the door and check the car seat.  Spend an hour wrestling with a five year old or playing “point out the facial feature” with the baby.  Take the dog for a walk.  Remember that all those things you juggle are so you can enjoy life.  Don’t let the life pass you by because of it.

I’d write more, but I’ve got a movie night planned with my family.

Despite the nearly comatose nature of today (as it to be expected, rising in the middle of the night thanks to DST), today has mostly been a good day.  I got some breathing room financially.  My fence is done.  And, as almost never happens, I won–twice, first a Blu-ray DVD of Igor , which I’ve been meaning to watch as twisted stop motion is a favorite in our house and, from the same source, 80 Years of Oscar , which is chock full of wonderful movie stuff (and retails at $75).  I probably would never have been able to convince myself to purchase the latter, but I know I’ll get a lot out of it.  Both contests were offered by a clever and indepth little movie/TV blog called RU Screening , which is somewhat heads and shoulders above the nominal “I’ve-been-so-anxious-to-see-[insert movie name here]-and-I-did-and-it-rocks” kind of review site.  I find the reviews, even for movies I haven’t the slightest interest in watching, insightful, interesting and entertaining.  What I don’t understand is why there isn’t more notice of this slickly built little gem of a review site.  Or as much interest.  I mean, to enter these contests for free goodies, one only had to leave a comment on the review.  Only three left comments on Igor and I was the only comment for the exceptional (and expensive) book.  Anyway, if you’re interested in movies, some of them long released gems and some upcoming/current releases, it might be worth your while to check out RU Screening .

But, as opposed to that kind of meritless winning, I thought I’d mention another big winner.  Last month, during Black History month, I made a point to note some of the many contributions made to science and technology by African Americans.  This month is focused on women and today is International Women’s Day , and, by a strange coincidence, 2009’s Black Engineer of the Year is Dr. Wanda Austin , President and CEO of the technically prestigious not-for-profit Aerospace Corporation which operates “a federally funded research and development center for the US Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office and support all national-security space programs.”  

Since I noticed this little tidbit, I just thought I’d pass on more reminders that technical know-how brains and excellence are notrace or gender specific, although I doubt any of my readers need reminding.

Oh, I’ve heard the reasoning behind Daylight Savings Time .  Seriously.  I know the results are mixed, but they are also minimal and controversial.  So, if there are upsides, they’re not exactly overwhelming.

 But the downsides are enormous.   If not for the world, for me.  I hate daylight savings time.  I hate not knowing when the clocks change (I don’t watch TV).  I hate losing an hour every spring and, yes, I know I get it back in the fall, but I’m always so overbooked for time, they could get me an extra November and I’d use it all up before spring.  I mean Christmas is coming and I have kids.  I hate the fact the some states skip this stupidity but never the state I’m living in.  However, I then have to remember which state changes and which states don’t and I have enough trouble with time zones. 

*Note to self:  if I ever switch countries, live in one small enough to be all in one time zone.

 I hate to change the 900 clocks in my house, including my alarm clock and my daughter’s alarm clock and both microwaves and two hundred media devices, only to forget the one in my car and still be off time-wise.  I hate having to figure out how to convince my daughter (soon to be one) to change her schedule to match what some idget yahoo thought would be a good idea, only to have to do that again in six months.  I hate losing an hour for any reason, when I’m already working my butt off trying to put my house back together after Hurricane Ike thought it was a set of Lincoln logs. I mean if we’re going to lose an hour for no good reason, why can’t it be a workday weekday hour that our companies have to pay for.  Why do we have to give up an hour of our own time.

 I have to tell you I don’t understand why we put up with this.  Isn’t life complicated enough?  Aren’t there enough things to stress over and confuse and remember and explain?  Do we have to add another one of truly dubious usefulness?

 There.  I said it.  Now back to my sleep-deprived life.

Ah, Quote-a- Thon day!  What fun and, easily, my easiest posts to write.  Since I’m a sympathetic ear this weekend, kindness and friendship seemed a good subject.  Note that I had plenty to work with.

Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

                                      –Elbert Hubbard

 Love may be what keeps the world spinning ’round, but friendship is what keeps us from throwing ourselves off it.
                            – David R. Mead

  He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
- Oscar Wilde

Loving kindness is greater than laws; and the charities of life are more than all ceremonies.

- The Talmud

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘try to be a little kinder.’

                                  –Aldous Huxley

 The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

                              -Harriet Beecher Stowe

All my actions have their rise in my inalienable love of mankind.

                        -Mahatma Gandhi

 I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one’s weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can’t all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.

- Arthur Conan Doyle          

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

                  –Helen Keller

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

-Elie Wiesel

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.

                        -Robert Anton Wilson

I am enclosing two tickets to the first  night of my new play; bring a friend…. if you have one.
-George Bernard  Shaw to Winston Churchill
Cannot possibly attend first night, will  attend second… if there is one.
-Winston Churchill, in  response

  And, of course, don’t forget to vote in the poll!  As often as you want.

The votes have spoken (fairly softly this week) for “Sympathetic Ear.”  Well, alright!  I happen to be a very good listener.  I’m highly empathetic and I understand that everyone–everyone–needs to vent once in a while.

I’ve never served drinks, of course, or been a counselor and I don’t have gangs of friends.  But the friends I have are THE best and it’s a pleasure to listen in to what they have to say or to be there for support, and to know I won’t be left high and dry on my bad days.

 But, today, it’s not my turn.  It’s yours.  Had a bad week or a bad time, tickled by something good or something causing anxiety?  Had surgery or your nails done?  Honey, I’m here for you.

 I’m just gonna sit on my comfy couch, pat that bit o’ cushion right next to me, make sure my welcome mat is in place (”Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, look who’s here!”) and keep Bete Noir (my comforting cat) near at hand.

 Now, tell your ol’ pal, me, all about it.  Today is your day.

It’s thieving Thursday and I know you’re all wondering: who will be the lucky blog?  Who’s comment on someone else’s blog am I going to steal and then spin my magic on?  Will it be the redoubtable JD , fresh from surgery and my horrific tales of needles gone awry?  Or will it be Kathy of The Junk Drawer and my tales of the mighty iron bladder that nearly rusted out waiting for my ultrasound, one baby back.  Fear not, men, it’s neither!
No, today the lucky winner is oldwestmom from foreverfamily who writes a darn fine blog on adoption issues.  Although I don’t have any adoptive children myself, this topic is near and dear to my heart as my grandmother was a blackmarket baby and spent many years going in and out of orphanages.  There are family members that were adopted (my grandparents had ten children and then adopted two more) and some cousins, I believe.  To me, adopting a child is not different from birthing one.

Well, the subject was a safe haven law and the struggles for placing such an abandoned child because biological fathers or even other biological relatives can get gum up an adoption and leave a child in limbo for years (the example she was discussing was not abandoned by her mother and was soon after reunited) especially if those “receiving” the child get no useful information.  My comment was thus:

“Not to sound harsh, but, if I ruled the world, this would be much simpler. If someone abandons a baby (or child) with no name or identification, put the baby’s picture and info on the missing/exploited children website and also compare it to all missing child reports for a set period of time (weeks or months NOT years). At the end of that set period of time (say three months), the biological parents are assumed to forfeit all claim, irrevocably. And the baby can find her own home.”

Yep, I’m a meanie.  Later, it was mentioned that we needed that tie to the original parents, had to positively exhaust that end of it because what if another blood relative was willing to take the child?

My answer: So what?

/Steps on soapbox

Let me explain.  I love my children, fiercely and completely, and I’m inherently protective of all children (as noted earlier this week).  But I think we’d all be a sight healthier in handling children in general if we’d get over the notion that blood outweighed love when it came to family.Think about it.  A baby is abandoned, say by the mother.  They put the baby’s face (perhaps name) on the missing exploited children’s list with a description.  They also compare the baby to all missing and exploited children listed for three months.  If the baby was stolen and really belongs to someone else, who isn’t going to report their baby missing in three months?  I’d be lucky to go 20 minutes.  If you’re a blood relative that has a real tie to this baby, sufficient to justify taking in the baby over someone else, why didn’t the mother go to you?  And where do you think the baby has been for three months? Why are you a better home than a foster/adoptive home?

And that last question is the important one to me.  Why do we give so much credence to genetics?  Many a biological parent has either beaten their children to death or stood by while it happened.  Or worse.  Why does our system work so hard to take battered children and reunite them with those that beat or sexually abuse  or neglect them?  Say the abuser is cured.  First, it isn’t your butt on the line taking that risk and secondly, if they are cured, is it healthy for the child to spend time with the one that traumatized them?But this preoccupation with biological ties has bigger implications.  Think how much time and effort and money and pain is expended on infertility and overcoming it when there are children in the system right now unloved and alone - instead of opening one’s home to an orphaned child.  And, as for those that feel so strongly that abortion must be stopped, if they’d take that passion and energy and devoted it to the children we have now who need homes, if they took that time and money and energy and devoted it to helping children with food and services and healthcare instead of trying to mandate children have children of their own and add to the unwanted children pool, I think the world would be a whole lot better.  And, I’d feel a whole lot sympathetic to their cause.

I think everyone wants to take care of the children already out there, but it’s too disconnected from most of us.  Most parents love their kids.  I want to make it “all” parents and I have no trouble moving the kids to different parents if that’s what it takes to make it so.

/Steps off soapbox

Don’t forget to vote in the poll.  Tomorrow, I’m who YOU want me to be.

I read a very interesting article in the New York Times (yes, it’s the only newspaper I read daily).  In this article, about the book “Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding” by Dr. Hrdy, Dr. Hrdy contends that the glue behind our society, what makes humans really out of the ordinary is not our thumbs or our brains but our babies.  See, babies top the scale on charisma.

Duh! you might be thinking, so?  Ah, but according to the article/book, Dr. Hrdy thinks that this appeal to more than just a baby’s mother is the key to our society and our success.   See, in nature, babies of all different flavors come into the world with different levels of autonomy and different levels of risk.  In the insect/fish/reptile worlds, young are usually laid as eggs (some exceptions) and left to fend for themselves after hatching, often laid by the millions with only a few escaping the hungry mouths of predators (which in some cases, include their own kind).  True, there are some fish that look out for their young, often denoting a bit more brains that average (like octopi), and some insects that actively care for young, though these are often societal insects like ants, bees or termites.  But, for most insects, fish and reptiles, egg abandonment is the norm with the luckiest getting parents that at least leave them on a food source, like parasitic wasps and flies do.

Move up the chain a bit and birds and mammals generals expend some effort caring for their young, protecting them even at the cost to themselves.  However, in most cases, this dedication to young is limited to the parents in question.  You kill a mama bird or a mama bear, the babies will die from neglect.  Even social animals largely leave unclaimed children to die (with mothers unwilling to share their newborns) unless they have cooperative breeding like some species of birds and lions and wolves and handful of others have developed.  In a wolf pack, for example,  which is usually 2-20 wolves, all take care of a single litter of wolf pups at a time (usually the alpha male and female’s pups.  They are born helpless and generally stay with the pack until fully mature, say 2 years or so.  This is a contrast to chimpanzees and other primates where multiple mothers likely give birth and care for their young exclusively.

 Humans, however, are a pretty unusual animal, not just for the helplessness of their young but for how very very long the young are unable to truly care for themselves.  Humans are not really suited to taking full care of themselves  for a dozen years at least (and most of us with teenagers would say much longer) and, truthfully, one person is really not capable of watching a child (or actually children) 24/7 for every minute.  So, we need help.

And that’s one reason why babies are so darned cute and giggly and googly and charming.  Even contankerous old men can be undone by that toothless grin.  Women completely unattached can be enticed by that baby smell and cute little baby feet (Don’t you just love baby feet?).  And mothers, unlike other primates, will let others hold and coo and play with their children.

Dr. Hrdy contends that it is this cooperative reproduction that led to our emotional maturity, that sense of something beyond oneself, not just one’s own progeny, but children in general.  It’s why we grieved for the broken bodies pulled from the Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City and why we support school lunches and schools even when we don’t have children ourselves.

I’ve been talking about the big picture.  Look at my little Roxy.  That’s what I’m talkin’ about.  Roxy and children all over the world just like her.

I strongly recommend reading the article .  I found it very thought-provoking.

Anyone else ever see the movie Creator with a 900 year old (but still charming) Peter O’Toole when he was teaching his graduate student 6 hours of “The Big Picture”?  Sometimes I think there are a number of people who could use a healthy dose of the big picture.  I mentioned yesterday that I would say what I thought about the Author’s Guild getting worked up over Amazon.com ’s used bookselling methods.  Admittedly this is nearly seven years ago so the concept is hardly topical and, in fact, I can no longer find the original position of the Author’s Guild directly.  I did find two sympathetic references here and here and one that disagreed (and also “printed” Amazon.com’s response).

So, after acknowledging this ship has sailed, let me tell you why I’m bringing it up again.  Inspired by yesterday’s “Kindle Swindle” reference, I got to thinking how people seem to have a hard time understanding the overall benefits of a situation because they are focusing on a teeny tiny aspect of it.  Like yesterday, getting outraged over having a book read something out loud without realizing they have the potential to be purchased and enjoyed by a whole spectrum of readers who might otherwise never be exposed, either because audio books are not available or because they are prohibitively expensive.  For no extra outlay, the author gets an audience they might not otherwise have had.

I felt the same way on the used book snitfit.  Now, I’m the sort of reader who, when I discover an author I really like, buys everything I can by that author.  Used bookstores are a boon, of course, but I love Amazon.com.  So far from dissuading me to read new books, falling well and truly in love with an author may mean I’m buying more and more new books.  AND I can collect my beloved but hard to find out of print books from my favorites (like Georgette Heyer, and such resources have provided me new and used hardbacks of over half her full complement of books).

But that’s only half of it.  Lots of people you think would know better are always working to their own detriment.  Banks that happily accepted a taxpayer handout are still foreclosing right and left, like this it’s to their benefit to sell a house for pennies on the dollar to a depressed market where no one is buying rather than trying to work with people who want to buy it, but are struggling.  How is that a smart move?  Or auto makers accepting billions to prevent an employee hemorrhage then rewarding that thinking with massive layoffs while still spending billions—on what exactly?  I mean, for a few billion dollars, couldn’t you have put on a good show at least?

There’s a line of reasoning that the only way to get ahead is to wring every tiny groat from the consumer until they’re limp and lifeless.  Great idea unless someone else with something better cheaper (like, say, Walmart) comes along or unless the consumer is no longer able to purchase anything.  Then what?

In biology, parasites that kill their hosts are generally considered failures.  Some of those screw-the-little-guy types might want to give that some thought.  Credit card companies are sending out notices (in our environment of lowest interest rates ever), doubling and tripling the interest rates because they know credit’s tight, not thinking that taking people for that extra bit now can readily backfire.

In the big picture, we all depend on one another and screwing over one group for the benefit of the other is short-sighted for a number of reasons, not the least of which is people won’t take it indefinitely.   Exacting a pound of flesh is a good way to run out of customers when a tiny bite here and there will improve their chances of survival and secure your own future.

I’m not advocating running out and holding everyone’s hand singing “Kumbaya” any more than I’d advocate everyone becoming an engineer.    I’m just saying not to get bogged down with trivialities, petty differences, little bits and pieces that, in the big picture, come out in the wash (aagh, there was apparently a sale on cliches!) or even make your own life a little brighter if you look with the right perspective.  If waiting two weeks gets you a happy customer and doesn’t mean your family starves, wait two weeks.  A little kindness and understanding, a little time in someone else’s shoes, a little breather here and there to watch a sunset - these are all good things.  A little less of “but-what-about-me” and a little more big picture might do us all a world of good.