Marble Cities

Naturally my attention today is focused on the Inauguration, with its hopeful implications.  Hussein is, I'm convinced, the brightest, most centered person I've known anything about in my 75 years of Earth.

I remember, when reading Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe how much I wished someone of his intelligence and calm acceptance of disagreements over his proposed theories would run for elective office.  It seemed then, in the days of Bushian maximum divisiveness, an impossible dream.  Yet here comes Hussein. 

Hussein crushed Bush this morning with a single phrase in his inaugural address; he made no effort to rub it in; it was almost as if the phrase was made in passing, but the crowd loved it and I suspect it was greeted with shouts of joy in many a foreign land.  And when he finished his speech, he gave Bush a bear hug.  Amazing.  Lyndon Johnston couldn't have been more dismissive and disarming; and Johnson wasn't nearly as bright.

But more on that later, when the changing of presidents has sunk in more.

Today I wish to report on a quite unusual stimulus project that Pakistan has instituted:  the construction, from scratch, of seven marble cities, one in distant, frozen Chitral.  

The cities will take about 18 months to complete once work starts.  There is as yet no indication in the English-language press about who will live in those marble homes; what economic enterprises will support their inhabitants; or where the yaks will be housed.

But what a grand concept!  I hope we do something as grand with our $8.5B stimulus money.

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A song from my youth:

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,
With vassals and serfs at my side,
And of all who assembled within those walls,
That I was the hope and the pride.
I had riches too great to count, could boast
Of a high ancestral name;
But I also dreamt, which pleased me most,
That you lov'd me still the same...

You old timers can hear the song sung on youtube, though gussied up more than you'll probably like.

nang 'em. Hang 'em high.

Swim meet champions

The Still President and Still Vice President have both admitted to War Crimes.  HHussein is left with the problem of what to do about it.  Today's Times lays out the arguments.

I would hang 'em, with the reservation that I pose capital punishment; so hang 'em just enough.

This is a good 'Texas view of what to do to anyone who would trample 

in their 2nd Amendment Tight To Carry Concealed Guns to Church:
                  "Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast
"Yeah, I really don't think there's any punishment too strong for these tortures. Hang them. Hang them all from the highest tree on national fucking TV right along with Rod Blagojevich and his ilk. And let their bodies twist in the wind, as a warning to all the rest who would ever contemplate taking a shit on our rights . . . ."

Of course this quotation references attempts to stamp bullets with an ID number so that murderers can be identified, in plain violation of Justice Scalia's ruling on the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, now made scared everywhere except in Justice Scalia's court room, and the sentiment fits torturers. 

The Spanish Inquisition water boarded.  Japanese water boarded our soldiers and we tried them as war criminals for doing so. We prosecuted GI's in Vietnam for water boarding, for Christ's Sake. If I get some lawyer to write an opinion that it's OK for me to shoot the Vice President in the face with bird shot, would I be excused?

It is too clear that Cheney and Bush are war criminals.  I say "too clear" because Hussein doesn't want to clutter up his pure message with messy war crime trials.  Too bad, I say.

Times change but the sentiment of outrage remains ever with us.

They will hang Jeff. Davis to a sour apple tree!
They will hang Jeff. Davis to a sour apple tree!
They will hang Jeff. Davis to a sour apple tree!
As they march along!

The International Treaty on Torture requires signatories, for example us,  England, Turkey, Brazil, Iran, Uruguay and nearly every country in the world, to apprehend war criminals and try them.  Many nations are angry at our disregard for our treaty obligations and our weakening respect for the Rule if Law. Bushco's liberty to travel will be severely limited, and how embarrassing for France to do what we were too timid to do!

"We will hand Dick Cheney from a sour apple tree," or at least that gets my vote. But, since I oppose capital punishment, hang him only until he comes in his pants, then send him to Elba, or wherever the modern equivalent is. Perhaps send him to Iraq, which still-President Bush says loves America.

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I am feverish.  Perhaps that explains my anger.  Perhaps it only makes my anger sharper.  

I true;y don't like involuntary  torture.  

I really would not like  see Cheney hanged, or treated like some of our prisoners, unless he would get a kick out of it.  

( tConsensual torture which inflicts no lasting damage, on 

the other hand, is good, clean fun.)

I do like banishment, and a time in Iraq, with only as much money as the average Iraqi has, might engender a modiicun if humility.

Ah, well.  Nothing much will happen, I fear.  To bad!

Swetshops good; Liberals bad?

This pic is not fuzzy; the air around these children, where they eke out a subsistence in Cambodia, is filled with smoke.  Always.

As a good Liberal, as I am when I'm not an anarchist, I naturally deplore "Fair" Trade Agreements that allow workers with substandard working conditions and low pay to compete with United States' workers, to the detriment of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and many other areas of our country; and I naturally applaud Hussein's announced intention to renegotiate those agreements.

Nicholas Kristoff, in his support of sweatshops in Cambodia and elsewhere, shows how shallow my thinking has been.

I'll try to do better as I learn more. Surely sweatshops are not needed in Canada. Are they desirable in Columbia? Is that proposed fair trade agreement an aid to the impoverished or is it something more sinister? Do Democrats oppose the Columbia deal on reasonable or merely partisan grounds?

Stay tuned. . . .

TMy tree samples of the whole not-us world

Queen's Beach, Waikiki.

An article in today's Post reminded me of the larger world.  Hussein is ordering a rethinking of the Afghan War, and not a minute too soon.  A new plan will be announced in April, and I am waiting in eager anticipation for it's contents, hoping that it will recognize who the Pushtuns are and how they might be successfully dealt with.

The world is large and complex.  For example, there is a republic in Russia, seeking autonomy, that traced its history to the stone age. We are rightly proud of our history, but think what it must feel like to be able -- at least theoretically -- to trace your ancestry to the Stone Age!

I can't focus everywhere, so I've taken three small parts of the world, hoping that they are fairly representative of those parts of the world that are not like us.

Chitral is first because it has such a wonderful history of successfully resisting conquest, from Alexander the Great to the present.  The citizens of Chitral are Sunni, but relatively moderate, and Chitral is located in the Pushtun tribal areas that straddle Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area of vital significance to our national interest. Also, they play polo on yaks.

The second area on which I have focused is the large desert in North-West China thinly populated by Uighurs.  I was initially taken by Uighurs because I got a kick out of the way Uighur is pronounced:  WEE ⋅ gur.    But they are much more than a funny name.  Their civilization is very old, their alphabet is a marvel, they are relatively moderate Sunni, and they, like the Tibetans, are violently repressed by the Chinese.  They are of interest because they reflect the culture wars that are going on in Turkey, Russia, Iraq, and, with less violence, in Europe and even here, where some favor an emphasis on ethnic and racial autonomy and others prefer that all adopt the Anglo-Saxon model.

Third, I focus on Bolivia, because it has recently elected an Indian as its president.  Bolivia is the first country in South America to elect an Indian, as we are the first Western nation to elect a Black person.  Indians are, in Bolivia, an impoverished minority.  President Morales is trying to improve their lot by nationalizing gas production, which lies in provinces controlled by Spanish-speaking elites who have enjoyed the fruits of natural gas production for years and are threatening secession if the Morales government insists on sharing the wealth with the impoverished Indians.  Bushco supported the secessionists' efforts and diplomatic relations between our country and Bolivia are now severed.  To me, Bolivia is a critical test on Hussein's character.  I hope he supports the Morales government, with all its faults.  If he does, I will thereafter refer to him as President Hussein.

So, from time to time you will get reports from me on these areas.  Perhaps you will come to share my interest. Perhaps it doesn't matter if you do or don't. I'll get a kick out of writing about them, anyway.

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The first time I remembering writing an article I was in high school.  David Lee Williams and I collaborated on an article about Uruguay, I think because its name is unusual, to Westerners.  I've loved Uruguay ever since.  Uruguayans' football fans are second only to Albanians in zeal [what others might call fanaticism].  I'd like to go to a football game in Uruguay.

Queen's Beach, Waikiki.

Two recent editorials in the Times deserve attention.

Paul Krugman argues, convincingly to me, that Hussein's stimulous package is too small.  The Talking Heads have persuaded me hat Hussein knows that it is too small, and will be back for more, later.  Let's hope that later isn't too late.

Thomas Friedman proposes that the U.S. and China are the two countries that will matter in the next decades; that both countries will spend lots and lots on economic stimulus programs; and wise choices by these two countries will make the difference between a bright or a dim future for us and our children.  Friedman wants spending focused on education, to which I say "Hooray!

I recommend them both to you.

Tim and the PC fight the improbable Standard Model

Timothy is the best nephew anyone could wish for.  Say "Hello" to Tim, as he was on Queen's Surf, Waikiki, some few years ago.

Tim is bright, witty, inventive, and he had a computer that wouldn't do the simplest things.  It couldn't even be fixed.  So naturally, when it comes to gluons, the basis for supposing that they exist being millions and millions of computer observations and millions of computer computations, Tim is sceptical.

However, the Standard Model of Particle Physics predicts that there are gluons with defined though heretofore unobserved (by computers) properties, and physicists are understandably pleased that  predictions have now been confirmed. (Or displeased, for a proof that the Standard Model is wrong would mean work for hundreds of physicists for years to come.

So, this is what has been learned.  We consists of atoms, so we can dispense, in descriptions of us, with "we" and simply note a collection of atoms.  Atoms consist of protons and neutrons, in the main, so we can dispense with "atom." and substitute "proton and neutron"  Protons and neutrons consist of quarks and gluons, so we can dispense with protons and neutrons, and say that "we" and everything that humans can observe, are quarks and gluons.

Now.  We think that we "weigh" something.  I think that I weigh 182 pounds -- down , thankfully, from 196.  Little did I know, until I read this article in Science News, that weight is an illusion.  Rather, what we think of as weight is merely the strong "force", the constant interaction of gluons with their attendant quarks.  ["Force" is in quotation marks, to indicate that I think it is as meaningless as "aether" was in bygone days.  Try to find a definition for for force that isn't circular.]  

The science News article has lots of other interesting stuff about multiple computations on four dimensional matrices which all of you might enjoy marveling that JP can understand.

We cannot, even theoretically, "see" a gluon, nor touch nor smell one.  Science now marches on such abstractions of abstractions.  Will someone, someday, understand the world in a more direct way?  I think so.  I know that many scientists hope so, and dream of being the one to make such a discovery.  See, Dreams of a Final Theory, by Steven Weinberg, a hero of mine.

In the meantime, it would be good if  Hussein were to use stimulus money to hire an army of technicians to create home computers that work, or at least that can be easily repaired, so Tim will at last enjoy his life. 

Or he could get a Mac.

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When I heard the learn'd astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and

measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much

applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

But Whitman, whom I love, was shortsighted in this instance.  Both views fill me with wonder.  You too?

Or you might prefer Ginsberg's rake on Whitman, whom I love too:

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for

I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache

self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went

into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families

shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the

avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what

were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,

poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery

boys.

Can't go to a grocery store without this line of poetry echoing in my mind.

Paul Krugman on Hussein's timidity

Honolulu

Oh ho!   Too much togetherness?   Watch out for additional tax cuts for the rich, a demand Republicans are making.