When I was in the Army (1968-1970), at both the Pentagon and later Fort Eustis, there was a common belief among many enlisted men that nuclear war with the Soviet Union was a real peril. The willingness to draft men to fight on the group in Vietnam was seen as a buffer.
Monday, October 29, 2018
"Do Nuclear Weapons Matter?" Controversial Foreign Affairs issue to end 2018
The November/December 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs has an eye-catching
issue title, “Do Nuclear Weapons Matter?”
There are six articles. “Nuclear weapons don’t matter, but
nuclear hysteria does”, by John Mueller; “The vanishing nuclear taboo? How
disarmament fell apart?”, by Nina Tannenwald; :”If you want peace, prepare for
nuclear war; a strategy for the new great-power rivalry”, by Elbridge Colby; :”Armed
and dangerous: when dictators get the bomb:, by Scott D. Sagan; :”Beijing’s
nuclear option; Why a U.S.-Chinese war could spiral out of control”; “Moscow’s
nuclear enigma; what is Russia’s arsenal really for?”
The most critical piece might be the Sagan one, where the
writer characterizes North Korea as the first “personalist” dictatorship to
acquire nuclear weapons, especially possibly thermonuclear with ICBM’s. The
writer fears that this will set examples for other small state dictators (most
of all Iran). But in much of 2017 there was increasing talk of the reach of
DPRK missiles and, along with Trump’s reckless rhetoric at the time, the
growing idea that an area of the continental US could face a nuclear strike
someday, or at least an EMP incident, as a result of Trump’s intransigence to
wipe out the country. We all know that during the February winter Olympics things
started to change and the result was the controversial Singapore embrace of Kim
and Kim’s unconvincing claimed start of disarmament. That logically can lead to
doomsday prepper ideology (and influence the domestic gun control debate). But it could also lead to a broader idea about
the contingent responsibilities of citizenship.
The last article posits Russia’s (post Communist) “escalate
to de-escalate” idea. Russia could have an incentive to develop novel tactical
nuclear weapons (or flux devices) for action in the Baltics, or even conceivably
Finland (where there was a bizarre assassination at the border in May 2016). Russia created controversy last spring with
claims of a new missile that could evade any NORAD defense.
When I was in the Army (1968-1970), at both the Pentagon and later Fort Eustis, there was a common belief among many enlisted men that nuclear war with the Soviet Union was a real peril. The willingness to draft men to fight on the group in Vietnam was seen as a buffer.
When I was in the Army (1968-1970), at both the Pentagon and later Fort Eustis, there was a common belief among many enlisted men that nuclear war with the Soviet Union was a real peril. The willingness to draft men to fight on the group in Vietnam was seen as a buffer.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Connecticut Supreme Court rules Adam Lanza's(from Sandy Hook) book-like manuscript notes must be released
CBS and other news outlets report that a court (the
Connecticut state supreme court) has ordered the release of the writings of
Adam Lanza, the perpetrator in the Sandy Hook shootings in Connecticut on
December 2014, link. This contradicts and reverses a ruling
reported two years ago in the video below.
Lanza apparently had maintained a child-like notebook (maybe handwritten, maybe like a scrapbook)
of a compendium called “The Big Book of Granny”. It is reported to include a number of disturbing
rants and stories. It would seem likely
that it (the text) will eventually be available for free browsing available
online (as with Eliot Rodger, etc) but it is conceivable that, given recent public
pressures since Charlottesville, that protest activists would pressure any hots
to take it down. Sandy Hook families had
sued Alex Jones over his conspiracy theories and no doubt these plaintiffs had
a role in the eventual deplatforming of Alex Jones from social media.
In retrospect, the Lanza incident, however tragic, shows the
difficulty of keeping weapons away from very determined if demented people.
Picture: New London, CT, Coast Guard Academy, personal 2011 trip
Saturday, October 20, 2018
"The Nation" examines an activism handbook ("Hegemony"), and its use in Trump country around Lancaster PA
The Nation (now with a paywall) offers a detailed booklet length article by Jimmy Tobias, Oct. 18, “Can a Group of Scrappy Young Activists Build
Real Progressive Power in Trump Country?”
The narrative describes a couple Jonathan Schmucker and
Becca Rast, who returned to Lancaster County, in SE Pennsylvania, in order to
organize a “populist” bi-partisan presence to resist extremism in both parties,
somewhat reminiscent of “Better Angels”.
The article does describe “door knocking” and “bird dogging”. Now, when I had a house, I had a
no-soliciting sign and tended to regard unannounced knockers as a possible home
invasion, so I don’t know how you get past that mentality.
The article mentions a book by Schmucker “Hegemony How-To: A
Handbook for Radicals” (2017, AK Press).
Monday, October 15, 2018
Ben Sasse's new book "Them" recalls an earlier book by Charles Murray
Here’s another preview, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE): “Them: Why We
Hate Each Other, and How to Heal” (288 pages, St. Martin’s).
CBS carried an interview with him on “Face the Nation” on
Sunday, Oct. 14
Like Charles Murray (“Coming Apart”, March 14, 2012) .Sasse criticizes
the erosion of social capital, particularly in stable neighborhoods. It’s easy, got example, to be critical of
people who “choose” to live in riskier areas (hurricanes, as recently, floods,
wildfires, maybe earthquakes) but often it’s the social capital of their
communities that enables them to see things through.
His views are well explained in his Wall Street Journal
article, “Politics can’t solve our political problems”. His concept of “mobile”, “rooted”, and “stuck”
is interesting. I am definitely a “mobile”,
partly because I don’t form intimate relationships easily (as to create or
adopt children). “Rooted” implies social competitiveness. What he describes as “loneliness” may be the
way introverted or even mildly autistic or schizoid people outflank or lowball
the system and manage to live very productive lives as individual contributors
(even though some people find their ability to lowball others as disruptive).
Sasse is also author of “The Vanishing American Adult: Our
Coming-of-Age Crisis, and How to Build a Culture of Self-Reliance”. Yes, he is concerned with trigger warnings, microagressions, and pseudo-safe spaces. But
self-reliance can contradict widespread social cohesion, although it does
encourage social capital within extended families.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Former NSA Director Michael Hayden discusses his "The Assault on Intelligence" at the "Fall for the Book" fair.
I wanted to offer a preview of former NSA Director Michael
V. Hayden’s “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age
of Lies”, May 2018, from Penguin.
I attended a session today where Hayden spoke at 1:30 PM at
the “Fall for the Book” fair in Merten’s Hall at George Mason University in
Fairfax VA. The session was called “The
Assault on American Security”.
Hayden talked about the post-truth era, after the influence
of the “age of enlightenment”.
He also discussed Trump’s lack of “meta-cognition”, and the
idea that truth for people is whatever their leadership creates for them.
He did discuss how social media had unintentionally driven
people farther way into their own echo chambers. The Russians exploited this capacity of Facebook and Twitter because Russia understood that American "elitists" did not care personally about illiterate people who were targeted by Russian bot campaigns. He explained this in the context of how enemies can conduct combat without contact. He discussed the difference between cyber war and information war.
He gave a detailed answer to my question on EMP, here.
(Something bizarre happened when I opened the video I’ve embedded. An ad appeared for a depilatory, that shows
men epilating themselves with one wipe, and played for 1:45. It did not identify the product. It was almost like soft core. What if they showed doing it to somebody else? Then the time tracker for the video would not
show until I closed and reopened YouTube.)
Monday, October 08, 2018
Anthology on mental health in young adults: "(Don't) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation About Mental Health"
Editor: Kelly Jensen
Title: “(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation
About Mental Health”.
Publication: Oct. 2, 2018: Algonquin Young Readers, paper
and Kindle, 240 pages, ISBN 978-1616207816, five chapters, parsed into 33
essays.
I learned about this book from Reid Ewing (@media_reid on Twitter)
who has an essay on p. 95 “I underwent cosmetic surgery for my body dysmorphia
and I wish I hadn’t”. The detailed account
is harrowing. Reid sought the attention
in 2008 of a plastic surgeon at age 19 when he thought he had to make his face “better”. He got taken by unscrupulous doctors, it
sounds like. There were a few micro surgeries
to fix this an that, and at one time he was mistaken for a “monster” in the
California desert. What’s amazing is that in his public shows (including “Modern
Family” and various films starting with “Fright Night” in 2011) and YouTube there
is absolutely no hint of this history in his appearance (nor is there on Twitter). Following “In the Moonlight (Do Me)” he
actually made a second spirited song-video in 2012 called “Imagine Me Naked”. While I’m at it, I’ll mention that I haven’t
been able to find a potentially powerful (and now suddenly even more relevant,
given politics) film about unwanted pregnancy that he appears in, “South Dakota”
(2017), by Bruce Isaacson from Lionheart Films). Reid has developed an interest
in manga and animation and may be moving in that career direction for film
projects.
I’m getting ahead of myself here. The five mega-chapters are (1) “What’s Crazy”;
(2) “Where ‘Crazy’ Meets Culture”; (3) “The Mind-Body Connection” (where Reid’s
piece appears); (4) “Beyond Stress and Sadness”; (5) “To Be Okay”.
The very first chapter gets into the idea of “Defying
Definition” (Shaun David Hutchinson). The
Ashley Holstrom follows with essays on topics like hair pulling and various habits.
Heid Heilig has an important piece in Part 2, “What we’re
born with and what we pick up along the way”.
She talks about how mental illness is portrayed today in young adult
fiction.
All of this is somewhat relevant to me because my own
experience at NIH in the fall of 1962, which I describe in detail . I recall displaying a certain tendency to berate
other less intact patients for having even more trouble conforming to the
demands of “society” to fit in to proper social and gender roles than I did. I remember a ping pong tournament where I
used a strategy of “keep the ball on the table” and let the “crazies” beat
themselves with wild slams, and then scream with anger at how I was lowballing
them.
It strikes me that some of the more violent members in all
of “these” demonstrations (either on Antifa or the alt-right) have disguised
mental health problems. And the paparazzi
love to film them to make themselves look well and strong in comparison.
By the way, "33" is the number of variations in a major Beethoven work (the Diabelli Variations).
By the way, "33" is the number of variations in a major Beethoven work (the Diabelli Variations).
Friday, October 05, 2018
Scientific American: "Wonders of the Cosmos"
The editors of Scientific American offer a challenging
e-book “Wonders of the Cosmos” (2018).
There is an introduction by Andrew Gawrelewski, “Mysterious
Universe”.
There are four sections: (1) “How did the universe begin”?; (2) “Cosmic Cartography”; (3) “”Life Wild
Phenomena”; (4) “Life Off Earth”.
The book opens with an essay by Niayesh Afshordi et al “The
Black Hole at the Beginning of Time”. The essay offers the idea that our
Universe is a three-dimensional shell around a four-dimensional black hole,
after an implosion. There is an interesting image “Before the Big Bang” at the
7% page.
Adam G. Riess and Mario Livio discuss “The Puzzle of Dark
Energy” which exists essentially because of the asymmetric weak nuclear force.
Npam I. Libeskind and R. Brent Tully discuss “Our Place in
the Cosmos” with particular attention to how gravity has a locus with out own
galactic cluster Laniakea, and this could predict the eventual cold end of the
Universe (ours, at least). It could also
explain emptiness like the Bootes void.
Juan Maldacena discusses “Black holes, wormholes, and the
secrets pf quantum space time.” Maybe
the wormhole would give the possibility
of a teenage Clark Kent to live among us.
In the last section, Lee Billings discusses “The Search for
Life on Faraway Moons”. He mentions Triton but does not seem to discuss Titan.
Kimberly Cartier and Jason T. Wright bring a gospel, “Strange
News from Another Star”, that is, Boyajian’s Star (or Tabby’s Star), about 1450
light years away. Is there an alien
megastructure, a Dyson’s Sphere, around the star? I want a hotel room with a view, and Internet
access (assuming Mark Zuckerberg is an alien himself and has conquered the
speed of light).
Frank Postberg et al discuss “Under the Sea of Encedalus”
with some persuasive arguments for some kind of primitive bacteria-like life
around the vents. Titan is a much more
interesting place geographically.
Christopher McKay and Victor Garcia explore how to look for
life on Mars.
Rene Heller discusses the idea of a “superinhabitable earth
II”. It’s likely such a planet might be
a little larger than Earth, and around an unusually stable M star (old enough
to give enough time for life) or perhaps a main sequence star a little smaller
than our Sun. A bigger planet would have
fewer mountains, likewise a large water surface, and a somewhat thicker
atmosphere (maybe people could fly like birds, as in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s
End”) – like the crow that keeps visiting my balcony and watching me as if I
were his own “human”.
In the video above, note how the surface of a black hole (3D to 2D) is viewed as a hologram saving all the information falling on it.
Wednesday, October 03, 2018
Andrew Sullivan opines on tribalism in NYMag: "America Wasn't Built for Humans"
Andrew Sullivan has a searing booklet-length piece in New
York Magazine Sept 18, 2018 (not “The New Yorker), “America Wasn’t Built for Humans”. His byline is “Tribalism was an urge the
Founding Fathers assumed we could overcome. And so it has become out greatest
vulnerability”.
The link is here.
Once again, we’re confronted with the fact that most of us
are genetically hardwired for tribal preferences. Rooting for a favorite sports
team is at least mild tribal behavior. (Yes, the Cubs lost last night, at
home.) It does seem that lot of this
discussion started with Amy Chua.
I’d like to think that the smartest among us overcome tribalism,
and in setting our own goals, some of us do – the more unbalanced personalities
in Rosenfels polarity theories. But that generates some of the problem: the
winner-take-all economy expressed by extreme capitalism, especially as it
developed, surprisingly, post 9/11 (but had started during Reagan) simply
leaves most people behind to scrabble now with the no-benefits “sharing”
economy.
That’s one reason why I’ve paid so much attention to
morality on an “individual” basis – the “pay your dues” idea (2004). Now that
seems to miss “the point”.
Sullivan is particularly chilling as he explains how
tribalism has infected a lot of academia, and how the idea of “hate speech” has
expanded to incorporate crime. Even my
speech, because of its gratuitous funding, could be reviewed as indirect “hate
speech” by some – this gets into the area of “implicit content” that I have
described.
He also gives the story of journalist Chadwick Moore, who
was sacked by the gay mainstream after showing intellectually balanced
appreciation for Milo Yiannopoulos. In
fact, if you actually read Milo’s book (“Dangerous”), it is not as extreme as
everyone thinks.
Likewise, he sympathizes with James Damore – whose work I
have mixed feelings about. The comments
on Sullivan’s article are not sympathetic.
The problem is that for many people, they have to stick
together and live in solidarity with one another to survive – so they must
become combative, and not tolerate any insults to “the group”. That explains the malignant growth of “hate
speech” as a concept.
Sullivan describes two mega-tribes: the urban-coastal (globalist
and intellectually elite), vs. the rural (local and socially driven). He notes that the end of conscription after
the Vietnam war helped keep the tribes apart (and like me, Sullivan made this
point in the 1990s during the debate over gays in the military).
I have to admit that I snicker with some degree of personal
contempt when I hear people chanting “lock her up” at Trump rallies, as if they
were Manchurian zombies who had abandoned their own personhoods.
But tribal social orientation – and the capacity to put the
local group above the self, and regard outsiders as enemies (even if that feeds
racism) probably got hardwired into the genes of most people in pre-modern
generations. Some of us seem to have fewer
of these genes, stand out, and find ourselves watching our backs.
Sullivan recommends “individuality” as opposed to
individualism (in 2004, people were just starting to talk about hyperindividualism
-- Ayn Rand style – as the opposite of
solidarity). And he recommends
forgiveness.
Monday, October 01, 2018
City of Philadelphia has literacy program offering books to families with newborn babies, and literacy by all by fourth grade
The City of Philadephia Department of Public Health
has announced a couple of literacy programs in a press release today.
One of these is “Read by 4th”, which means “Read
by Fourth Grade”, with site (no https yet) here It is offered with the sponsorship of
the Free Library of Philadelphia.
There is also a “Baby Book Club” which will distribute
children’s books and other literacy materials to every family with newborns in
Philadelphia.
The press release from Lauren Ryder from the
Department of Public Health did not have a URL to give, so here is a brief
excerpt:
“The Health Department
will be working with medical staff from each of the city’s six delivery
hospitals to ensure every infant born in one of the centers will leave home
with at least one book appropriate for babies to start his or her first library.
“Books will be in English and Spanish and will be distributed based on inventory and family preference. The books will also include a code for parents to sign up for a free one-year subscription for National Wildlife Foundation magazines for babies.”
“Books will be in English and Spanish and will be distributed based on inventory and family preference. The books will also include a code for parents to sign up for a free one-year subscription for National Wildlife Foundation magazines for babies.”
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