Sunday, December 27, 2015

REMEMBERING LEO

       The music world is populated with a few performers for whom the cards fell nicely into place, assuring them both fame and fortune. There is a second tier of performers, much larger in number, occupied by their professional equals but who weren’t quite so fortunate. Performing a few concerts a year is not adequate to a good living, so these fine musicians  commonly drift to a career in private teaching, or in the employ of an established school like Julliiard or Eastman School of Music, with an occasional recital.
Leo Smit, composer and pianist, teacher exemplary, fell into the second tier, though so highly esteemed that the State Department sent him on world tours as part of its cultural exchange program.
Leo was a family friend for  nearly forty years. In the past few days I had occasion to speak and mention him in my writings. It now seems appropriate to recall that interesting and rewarding association in more detail.          
       Leo Smit was born in Philadelphia on January 12, 1924. Showing early signs of musical talent, his mother took him to Russia at an early age to study with composer Dmitri Kabalevsky. Later he studied in New York with  Isabella  Vengerova and Jose Iturbi and composition with Nabokov. Performance of his Symphony No. 1 by the Boston Symphony in 1957 (he composed three symphonies) was one of the highlights of his career. In that year he moved to Los Angeles to teach composition and piano.
It was then that my wife Joy, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, majoring in piano and organ, made his acquaintance. She had previously pursued graduate study with noted pianist E. Robert Schmitz at his  school in the old Embassy building is San Francisco. She contacted the University of California in Los Angeles, and, after stating  she wanted to  continue study, the university recommended Leo Smit, She telephoned him. Intrigued that someone as far away as Santa Fe had called to study with him, Leo was interested, then later was somewhat bemused on learning that she had called from Rancho Santa Fe, California, a hundred miles down the pike.
Leo often gave thematic recitals – sometimes illustrated with his own slides – sometimes reading letters written by the composers. He  performed a great deal of new music, especially works by Aaron Copland. He performed a  Mozart recital at my home one day, to which organists from the San Diego region were invited.
  He wrote two operas: The Alchemy of Love (1969), in collaboration with the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, with whom he also worked on an oratorio.
Leo was smitten with American poet Emily Dickinson and bemoaned the fact that he was born  years too late.  He  set to music nearly a hundred  of her poems. A final work in his life was to record thirty-three of the poems. He performed and recorded them with Soprano Rosalind Rees.  
Leo was a frequent visitor at our home in Rancho Santa Fe. He was happy in those surroundings, a few miles from the Pacific.
In 1962  he left for Buffalo where he had taken a position with the Music Department of  New York University. He settled  comfortably into a a huge old mansion on Jewett Parkway, where he lived alone, but in the midst of company. 
       In 1969 we moved from Rancho Santa Fe to a home in La Jolla, a few miles away, bordering the Pacific Ocean. 
Leo spent his summers in Encinitas, California, a few miles north of San Diego, occupyng an ocean front condominium with a rented upright piano. We met frequently and often dined together. At one time I introduced him to the computer software, Finale, which I had mastered in order to render some of Joy’s  compositions into publishing quality. In a few minutes he was composing with my keyboard.
It happened that one evening, Joy received a telephone call from Leo. He was at the airport, awaiting arrival of British Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who was traveling from Australia to England, with a stop-over in San Diego to see Leo. He asked if he could use her piano, as Fred was in town and he wanted to play for him. Of course, he was welcome. Shortly, the pair showed up and we met the famous  Fred Hoyle. 
Leo sat at the Steinway forthwith and played from memory the entire Beethoven Diabelli Variations, all thirty three, to a rapt audience of three.  Then they left. Afterwards I regretted not remembering to ask Fred Hoyle to sign my copy of his science fiction novel, “October the  First,” resting on my bookshelf

Stricken with congestive heart failure, Leo made a final return to Encinitas, California, late in 1999, where, a short time later, he came to a lonely end at the age of 78. 
       Leo Smit, a fine musician, a fine friend.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

CAUTION ADVISED

        In the Dec. 19 Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton stated that she would rely on her husband in matters relating to the economy, “which he knows something about.”  
        Bill Clinton, in the last days of his presidency, was blindsided into signing a bill that gutted the Glass Steagall Act, which served the country well since the 1930's. That set the stage for banks and financial houses to undertake all kinds of high risk instruments which eventually brought about the economic collapse of 2008.  It cost taxpayers $750 billion to bail them out. No one was prosecuted. No one went to jail. Hillary has stated she would not reinstate Glass Steagall, but it is not clear why. Following the advice of her husband?

Friday, December 18, 2015

SOLEMNITY



The solemnity in those eyes
Runs deeper than one can imagine.
It goes back to the days he first
Frequented campfires,
Pledging that in exchange for 
An occasional bone
And the comfort of sleep
By the fireside,
He would guard the children
And spell their parents
When occupied in other matters.
He would hunt when the master calls,
Stand guard while he sleeps.
He would make no judgment, ever,
In uncompromising loyalty.
The solemnity in those eyes tells you
He would die for you.

-e. hujsak

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

SPAGHETTI RECIPE

Composer/Pianist Leo Smit’s recipe for Spaghetti.

(Leo was a close friend. He showed me that the spaghetti is done when you can toss a noodle against the wall or ceiling and it sticks there.)

INGREDIENTS

1 lb Italian Spaghetti.  (Fine or regular)
1 lb sliced bacon
Ground parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1 cup grated  white cheddar cheese
Pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

DIRECTIONS
Cut the bacon into 1/2 inch squares and fry until crispy brown. Drain and set aside.
Mix thoroughly  1/2 cup parmesan cheese with the two eggs and set aside.
Cook the spaghetti per directions, drain and return to pot.
Add the olive oil and cheddar cheese and mix while still hot to melt the cheese
Add the parmesan cheese mix and stir.
Add the bacon pieces and seasoning and stir.

Serve with sour dough oven heated bread and wine. (never heat bread in microwave)

Saturday, December 5, 2015

THE FIRST SNOW STORM

Posted on yourdailyoem.com, Dec 4 2015

It came and went in the night.
It left fence posts capped
like ice cream cones
and pines laden so heavy
their limbs touched the ground.
A rising sun lent Dawn
a dazzling brilliance.
White smoke rose
from a red chimney
up, up to a cerulean sky.

Tinned pails in hand.
I trudged through snow
toward the barn door
for the morning milking.
An elongated shadow 
of an invisible white cat
accompanied me.
Searching,
her black eyes betrayed her.




TERRESTRIAL CRUISE MISSILES?

        How big a leap is it from Google’s self driving car to a terrestrial cruise missile? Do we want cruise missiles to be licensed to the general public? Will terrorists be big customers?
What is Google thinking? Why hasn’t the Department of Transportation weighed in on this? What problem does a driverless vehicle solve? What problems does it create?
As for doing anything to abate climate change, the car is electric, its batteries charged from the grid. Two thirds of power on the grid is provided by fossil fuel power plants with thermal efficiencies ranging from thirty to thirty-eight per cent. Overall efficiency of  the electric cars will be in the mid-twenties, far below the forty percent efficiency common for modern motor cars. So much for abatement of climate change. 

Advancement of technology is fun and often profitable. But too often it creates problems rather than solving them, some of them deadly.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

HERMIT

Milosz, had he known you,
Would have revised his thoughts to read:
She locked herself in a tower, 
Read ancient authors,
Fed birds on the terrace,
Only to forget having to learn about herself.
Buried in antiquity, 
Forgetting to live, 
Forgetting to love.

-e hujsak

Friday, November 27, 2015

A WOMAN CALLED JOY

IN MEMORIAM

Joy Hujsak
May, 1924 - December, 2010

THE YEAR OF THE DAISY

That was the year that daisies
All decided to perform flawlessly.
To help humanity along its faltering way.
Every one, its petals plucked
To rhythmic chants:
She loves me - she loves me not,
Would tell you that she loves you.
He loves me - he loves me not,
Would tell you that he loves you.

It was her favorite flower, you know.
Garlands framed the altar
Where we said our last good byes.

Now this lavender bloom,
Lifted from the roadside,
Has graced my table for a week.
Drawn into its lonely self at night,
It flares to fullness at daybreak
Atop a dime store, Ming inspired
Thin-stemmed porcelain vase.
I pluck its petals one by one.
She loves me - she loves me not.
She loves me - she loves me not.
………She loves me.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

DRAGONS

 Dear Sister, 
      Amazing, isn’t it, that here we are, conversing in real time, though our planets are thousands of light-years apart, due to a quantum tunneling effect I confess I will never understand. How lucky we are!
     Your litanies on the problems you face on Earth put me in mind that you are several centuries behind us, here on Tilsen. Such a long, hard road ahead. I sympathize, but humans being what they are, there are no short cuts. It seems that suffering is necessarily part of the game, else there is no basis for learning. The most important lessons are conservation and unity of purpose. We now waste nothing. Our massive landfills from previous times are all being mined.  Except for the Wedgies, who  still have much to learn, we are far along in both areas.
Of course there are problems here on Tilsen. It is not Paradise. Far from it. But who doesn’t have problems? Every day brings new surprises.
    I thought to tell you of my recent adventure. In retrospect it is somewhat amusing but at the time I was vexed, no end. In the last month I lost three guard peacocks, one after the other, overnight. A scattering of sparkling feathers like new blooms in the dawn light. That’s all. Normally they raise a real ruckus at the slightest sign of an intrusion.
     I decided I had to speak with my mentor. His name is Jack Hooper. He lives just over fifty kilometers east of here, a few minutes by hopjet Yes, everyone has a mentor here. It’s the law. You get assigned one in a drawing, and it was just my luck to get a contractor. Every time he comes by he circles this old place, looks up and down and into crawl spaces. You know what’s coming by the sight of a sliver of his tongue showing between his lips. “You got some repair jobs coming up, Jessica” I will try to imitate his speaking style - hardly follows the rules, but effective, nevertheless.
I know he is half joking, but he does keep this ancient building in remarkably good repair. It’s quite evident after all these years that Jack is soft on me, and I do enjoy his company - an informal relationship, never meant to go anywhere. But I’m getting off the subject.
    Well you have mentors too, don’t you? You have your priests, coaches, scoutmasters. psychiatrists, counselors.  The difference, I suppose, is that ours are one on one. With our mentors there is no remuneration involved. It’s somewhat like a marriage, but then again not like a marriage at all.
    Oh dear, I fear I’m not making any sense.
     So with the last dead peacock, or naked peacock running around somewhere, I asked Jack to swing by, leaving everything untouched.
     Jack showed up within an hour in his hopjet. I should have told him to land in the front courtyard. As it happened he landed in the back yard and the jets blew the peacock feathers all over the place. So much for leaving the evidence untouched.  He got out of the craft, looked about and seemed unfazed. It didn’t seem to bother him that the actual site of the deed was now obscure.
      After a while he neared the back fence where the ground is bare. He knelt down and peered closely at what appeared to be fresh animal tracks, He looked up at me.
     “Dragon tracks. You got dragons, Jessica.”

     “Me? I have dragons? You must be crazy.”
Jack said nothing, rose and walked to the fence. “See these slime lines? Them’s dragon spoor. Let’s go around, we’ll see where they lead..Most likely directly to the lake, I’d say. Not usual for these critters to come on land. They like the deep water.”
      Jack followed me to the house. He scraped his booted feet unnecessarily on the door mat and followed me across my study, down a long corridor to a side door that opened to an overhead trellised, bricked pathway adjoining the rear fence.
      To the rear of the house lies a  field of meer grass, something like your timothy, that slopes gradually down for a distance of a couple hundred meters to the lake shore. Lake Elena is big - about twenty kilometers long and two across. And deep. We walked toward the water, pausing to watch a diving bird pierce its surface.
We waited for it to emerge with its prize, but it did not reappear.
     Jack smiled. “They never learn. Dragons have to eat, too.”
     We followed a zig-zag line where the grass appeared to be trodden down. Then all became clear as we approached the muddy shore. Dragon tracks running in all directions..
      As we strolled back toward the house I asked, “What should I do, Jack?”  
    Jack stopped, drew a long flowering stalk of grass from its clump and nibbled at its tender end. “You can’t use peacocks no more. They freeze at the sight of a dragon. Can’t even make a sound. Can’t run away even. It’s like they’re paralyzed. You got to get yourself a couple of Con dogs. They’re not afraid of dragons. They won’t come around no more.”
      So to sum it up, my dear Sister, I am now in possession of two beautiful, big, intelligent, smooth Con dogs - a black and  white male and a white female. The female has taken a liking to me and is constantly at my feet. She will be my personal protector. The male, however, is content to patrol the property. Con dogs are so much friendlier than peacocks. Not as messy, either. As far as I can tell, there are no more dragons. There was a commotion one night, soon after I obtained the Con dogs, but there was no sign of a dragon having climbed the fence.
      A thought comes to me. I’ve not named them as yet. Would you like to name them?  I know you love dogs, and keep several, including three terriers. From your description, I fear that dragons would make short work of them You must have a long list of unused names. The images I send you may help in making your choices.
       Bravo and Brava? How clever you are! Bravo and Brava it will be.
      Do not get me wrong. my Sister. I want to hear about your problems. I just want you to know that we have problems too.
  I am waiting for more news from the Resurrection. It is on the return leg of its wanderings. It will be good to see my daughter, Gabrielle, again. As you know, her husband, Jonathan, is a junker, and makes periodic journeys to the region where planet Eden blew up. The space transfers are long and boring. But that does not ease my worries. The trips are also hazardous.
      Then again, as you say, “No news is good news.” I do hope that is true.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

NEW WORLD II

Why had the prophets missed this,
the long moment of the great awakening?

Almost too late, the phenomenon of selflessness
replaced the dominance of avarice and greed.

It was the suffering that did it,
and the unexpected winter of the great die-off.

Now we know immortality is a shared experience,
the thread that runs from generation to generation.

In these happy lands rockets and submarines
lie buried at the bottom of the ocean.

Cathedrals, temples and mosques have been dismantled
to make homes for the weary.

Mecca and places like it are archeological curiosities
scattered beneath  the desert sands.

The Vatican is preserved.
We have made it a museum of false gods.

The labyrinths of Mars have revealed
the tenacity and fragility of life.

The internet has brought all people together.
Notions of class have been erased.

Evenings, when work is done, 
poets read their works to tell how things are.

Musicians arrive, unpack their instruments
and everyone dances.

- e hujsak


Sunday, November 15, 2015

THE FLOWER THAT BLOOMS

       
     “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.” 
This quote,  attributed  to a Chinese Emperor’s words of wisdom to a young girl may be familiar, as it appeared in the 1998 Walt Disney film, “Mulan” and alluded, in the film, to the plum tree blossom as an example.
Stated another way, “This flower blooms in adversity,” it becomes personalized, and can be a powerful expression of self assurance in the face of various attacks of disappointment, rejection, anger, failure, or soured disposition of any sort that is encompassed by the full range of human emotions.
In  a brief moment following a technical discussion in his office in the late 1950’s, General Dynamics colleague L.T. Cheung withdrew a Christmas  card from his desk drawer and showed it to me. It was from a close friend of his, then residing in China. His name was Dr. Qian Xuesen, known to his friends in America as simply, “Dr. Tsien.”  Its short message must have affected me profoundly, for I remember the event to this day, nearly 60 years later. It read simply: “This flower blooms in adversity.”
Dr. Tsien lived in the United states with his wife and two children during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. He met and married his opera singer wife here and his two children were born in the United States. He studied  and obtained his degrees at MIT.  An associate  of von Karman, he rose to be a prominent  rocket scientist in the United States. He taught at MIT and Cal Tech. and came to be highly respected and admired. With his colleagues at  Cal Tech, he founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where key propulsion technologies and rocket technology would  be advanced. They included Jet Assisted Takeoff  (JATO) for aircraft and  the WAC Corporal high altitude rocket, which  followed technology developed by the Germans in their V-2 rocket (The German rockets previously were developed  with technology introduced by American rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard.).
In 1950, with the onset of the Second Red Scare, Dr. Tsien was accused of having communist sympathies. His clearance was revoked and he was interred on Terminal Island, while for five years he and his cohorts in academia, and indeed some members of the  Federal Government, fought for his vindication. Discouraged, in 1955 he was allowed to return to China. Rumors were of an exchange taking place for American pilots captured in the Korean war and held by the Chinese.
In China Dr. Tsien founded the Chinese missiles and rockets industry, which has grown over the years to a strong Chinese presence in space, made possible by several versions versions of the Long March space launch rocket. He also managed the development of the Dong feng ballistic missile. He was highly honored by the Chinese and lived comfortably to an old age. He died in 2009 after having experienced the satisfaction of  seeing Chinese astronauts working in space. and unmanned , China sponsored missions, to the moon. He was 97.

Quite a journey, from the day he penned “This flower blooms in adversity” so many years ago.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

LIQUID NATURAL GAS SHIPS

It happened that at one point in my career I nearly became a shipbuilder. Not that I had any skills in that field, or was even interested in anything that plies the oceans.  There weren’t any shipbuilders or sea men in my family except for a sister, who was a WAVE during World War II. Not much of a legacy there.
Lloyd Bergerson, General Manager of the Quincy, MA. shipbuilding division of General Dynamics (GD) had a vision. The shipyard could be converted to build liquid natural gas (LNG) carriers for transporting LNG from places like the Middle East and Indonesia to industial nations in America, Europe, Asia and South America. LNG was already being shipped into nearby Boston from the Middle East.
Late in 1968, if I remember correctly, Lloyd requested my services to travel with him and several Quincy engineers to Norway, the purpose being to evaluate a ship the Norwegians were building in an Oslo shipyard and assess feasibility of building a similar design in the United States. Our counterparts in Oslo were helpful in describing the design and its operational characteristics. On the evening of the last day, we were  hosted at a dinner given by Mike Kroner, manager of the Oslo shipyard. Our driver to the restaurant was an immense Norwegian named Olaf. 
          As the evening wore on, we concluded with drinking and exchanging stories. Stocky Mike Kroner kept staring at me  from across the table. He finally asked, “Did you play football?” I said I didn’t  and he said, “I want to arm wrestle you.” I agreed, and announced to the gathering, “Gentlemen, we are about to determine for the first time, and possibly the last, whether the aerospacemen of California are tougher then the shipbuilders of Norway.” My earlier life as a logger and operating a dairy farm stood me in good stead and I put him down after a brief struggle. He was amazed and called to one of his men, “Go get Olaf;” Fortunately, Olaf was off on some errand and was nowhere to be found.
Returnng to my room at the the Bristol hotel, I spent several hours writing my report.  Later, I learned that it was on the strength of that report that Lloyd Bergerson received approval from GD headquarters to go ahead with the project. 
Bergerson offered me a job at Quincy, but I declined. He could have insisted, but a close friend and colleague, Alan Schuler,  a fine engineer, went in my place and did a superb job. His wife and daughters (both Mensa) didn’t much like the idea of moving to the East Coast. One daughter, Sherri Lightner,  is currently President of the San Diego City Council.  
In a matter of a few month Bergerson was fired and replaced by P. Takis Veliotis, who had approached GD Headquarters and made the case that he and his shipbuilding  crew from Canada should be hired to build the ships.
Veliotis rose to manage  two divisions,  Quincy and Electric Boat, where  nuclear submarines are built. He was given a top secret security clearance. He sat on the GD board  of directors and enjoyed lucrative executive compensation.
During the 1970’s ten enormous, beautiful, fast ships were built, each equipped with five, one-hundred twenty foot diameter insulated spherical containers.  All ships were sold into the Asian trade and served for many years before being decommissioned. Only one still remains in  service. 
The tenth ship was a hard sell, so the demand for ships was deemed by GD executives to have dried up. The Quincy shipyard was shut down and dismantled. 
Takis Veliotis was indicted by the Federal Government in 1982 for taking kickbacks from a supplier. General Dynamics moved to freeze his assets but success was questionable as he had transferred major investments, including GD shares  to Canada and sold them. He retired in 1983 and moved to his native country, Greece, to live out his life, presumably in luxury.
Just a few years later worldwide demand for LNG began to burgeon. Unloading facilities for LNG ships and regasification plants now exist in twenty-five countries. At the present time there are outstanding contracts for construction of ninety-four LNG carriers. Most will be built by Mitsubshi Heavy Indistries in Japan and Hundai in South Korea.
Lloyd Bergeson’s vision for the future of LNG and the ships for transporting the fuel was vindicated. Some may say General Dynamics missed the boat on this one, to the tune of twenty billion dollars or more.















Sunday, November 8, 2015

LETTER TO CONGRESS

        I write as one who has benefited significantly from Medicare,  to express my support for single-payer national health insurance and to urge you to co-sponsor H.R. 676, the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr.
By now it is pretty clear that Obamacare is a chaotic plan and millions of Americans will remain underinsured or without insurance. Moreover, those who are insured are at the mercy of profit-motivated companies who substantively determine what kind of care a person can get, and may deny it entirely. 
Obamacare is styled to please for-profit insurance companies. A cruel and fundamental flaw is that it is common for people to buy policies with high deductibles,  for example $2500 or $5000 in order to keep the premiums at a minimum The patient ends up paying out of pocket for most medical bills and the insurance company banks the entire premium.
With Medicare for all, there will be very significant savings, especially if Medicare is allowed to negotiate for drug prices, which often skyrocket for no good reason. Also, it is ridiculous that prople are prevented from buying prescriptions where the prices are lower, for instance, Canada.
Since all enrolled will pay a modest amount, Medicare can be incentivized so that people get a refund if they keep themselves healthy and don’t  use the system. A healthier nation will  result. Everyone wins.

I urge you to support H.R. 676.

Friday, October 16, 2015

AN ELECTRIC CAR IN YOUR FUTURE?


Author’s note: Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who makes it possible to write in a style which is comfortable for me. 

My Dear Trill,

My answer to your question in an unequivical NO. You should not buy an electric car, although you can well afford it. But for you it does not "pencil out,” as they say, for a number of reasons, including cost, but a main one being that your electrical power comes from a coal fired power plant, which would effectively make your electric car a coal burner. 
Granted, electric cars are nice, they run quietly ( be aware that quiet cars are a hazard to pedestrians)  and smoothly and have much improved  acceleration and response over gasoline engine powered cars, but that does not get at the heart of the problem they are reputed to solve -  reducing emissions to help abatement of climate change. Electric cars are at best a regional solution, working nicely where grid power is renewable, such as in Washington State and Western New York and countries like Norway where hydro power is the main source,  and regions where solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear are the main sources.
In this field, greed, ignorance and corporate perfidy converge  to encourage a gullible public that electric cars are the next wave in personal transportation. That may be so, but if ever a new, broadly accepted product presented a case for  systems engineering, covering study and evaluation of resources, infrastructure, short and log term consequences, tradeoffs, and preferable design approaches, this would be it. Such a study should be within the purview of the Department of Transportation, but at present, it doesn’t consider it their responsibility to provide  design guidance to the auto industry, despite the fact that responding  to market forces alone can result in aggravating, instead of  abating the climate change problem.
The reason? Approximately two thirds of electrical power supplied to the grid comes from power plants that are coal fired or natural gas fired. That would imply that two thirds of electric cars would be fossil fuel burners.  A sharp rise in electrical power consumption due to the demand of electric car batteries would mean construction of new power plants. Because they are the lowest cost and can be rapidly built and placed on line, new power plants would  doubtless be fossil fuel burners. 
Thermal efficiencies of such plants range from around thirty per cent for coal plants to around thirty eight percent for natural gas. Electric car efficiencies are around eighty-five per cent, taking into account electric motor and drive train losses..... which would mean an overall electric car thermal efficiency in the mid twenties. In contrast, modern gasoline powered motor cars deliver thermal efficiencies  close to forty per cent. 
Naturally, an electric car salesman will include in his pitch that you will be doing your part to abate global warming. He will point to the rear  of the car and exclaim: “Look, no tail pipe. No emissions.” The truth is that the tailpipe is now the  smokestack adjoining the new fossil fuel burning power plant a few miles down the pike.
A systems engineering study of the entire paradigm shift in transportation would take into account on-board power generation as well as the grid as sources of power, always with the objective of projecting the smallest carbon footprint. Fuel cells fed by natural gas or hydrogen would be candidates. But these are risky, problematic ideas due to the likelihood of springing leaks from road vibration, pot holes, impacts etc. Eventually this will occur. You wouldn’t want to park your car in the garage if there were a hydrogen gas leak and you weren’t aware of it. 
Inevitably, a systems engineering study would examine a technology that has been around for nearly a hundred years -  the Diesel electric locomotive. Apply this technology to the electric car and find ways to produce biodiesel as the fuel of the future, and a near zero carbon footprint electric car will be availabe everywhere. Moreover, it will run dependably when the grid is down for days at a time due to storms. Biodiesel is not a far-fetched idea. California, home to half the electric cars in the U.S., already has about twenty biodiesel stations.
Trill, I hope this gets you thinking further about purchasing an electric car. I would like to buy one too, but a suitable one has not yet arrived upon the scene. 




Wednesday, October 14, 2015

FIRST DEBATE

Hillary came off well, but the thought of Bill in the White House for as many as eight more years is abhorrent. Will he be her chief advisor? The financial debacle of 2008 can be traced directly to his signing away the Glass Steagall Act which had served the country well since the thirties. A victim of the Machiavallian machinations of Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Bill Clinton opened up the Gates of Hell to the banking industry and Wall Street financiers.
The final cost to taxpayers was $750 B bailout money for too-big-to-fail banks.(borrowed money, so who knows how much?). $750B is enough to pay for the college educations of ten million students. A fearsome prospect….. Bill Clinton residing in the White House for eight more years.

Friday, October 9, 2015

AN ENCOUNTER WITH CLIMATE CHANGE

From the weather scientists to the President to the Pope, a salient topic is climate change. There are deniers, but the evidence is that it is occurring and it will occur at an ever faster pace, due to the nature of positive feedback. (when things get worse, they can get even worse, faster). When the ice melts, the water gets warmer, so the ice melts faster. We, the living, may not see much change in our lifetimes, but succeeding generations will. Mass migrations the likes of which we observe in the present events in Europe, but much larger, will upset everything. The oceans will rise, as they have before and living areas will be inundated
My book of short stories, A Pig In The Rumble Seat (Amazon), contains  stories partly reflective of my career as a rocket engineer, engaged in design and development of the Atlas and Centaur rockets in the World War II Consolidated Aircraft factory in San Diego. I regret not including an experience that has a particular meaning for the present concerns, as it highlights a rare acquaintance with a time in the past when Earth’s oceans covered much more of the planet than they currently do.
About ten miles east of where I live in La Jolla on the Pacific coast, the terrain is similar to photos I have seen of the ocean bottom. Rolling hills and valleys composed of who knows what deposits over the ages. In an area known as Sycamore Canyon, the company, then renamed General Dynamics, hired architects and engineers to design and build facilities for test firing the rockets, comprising steel towers for holding the vehicles, storage tanks for propellents and a blockhouse from which test engineers controlled the firings.
Early in the building process, some of the mounds were scarfed away to provide a level area for operations, leaving other mounds that were sliced off from bottom to top like a cut through a round loaf of bread. Revealed was layer upon layer of shell creatures that had lived out their lives and built up a crust on the ocean floor during an ancient period when the region was covered by water. Using my Swiss Army knife, I pried some samples out which foolishly I never kept. I had at that time no feeling other than that ir was interesting. It was in fact a profoundly spiritual event to be in touch with something that lived a millions of years ago and had been brought into the light.
We now know that there was at least one period in Earth’s history when there was little or no water trapped as ice and the sea level was perhaps two hundred feet higher than it is now. In California, the Gulf of California would have moved significantly northward, an explanation for the seashell deposits in Sycamore Canyon. There was no San Diego. Most of the East Coast, including all of Florida, was under water. Then followed a period when warm oceans produced severe storms, In the polar regions and Greenland the precipitation was heavy snow which turned into enormous ice fields, enough to lower the ocean levels to where it is now.
Could the ice caps melt and raise the ocean level again? The answer is yes, and probably faster than we expect because a new factor augments what might be characterized as a normal, cyclic global warming event. That is the the human factor, whose activities and excesses in burning fossil fuels release annually more than a hundred gigatons of carbon dioxide, a heat trapping gas, into the atmosphere. To make matters worse, and will likely speed up the process, rising temperatures will thaw the perma-frost, which upon decaying, will release vastly more tonnages of heat trapping gases.

So things can get worse, much worse, faster, and probably will. Positive feedback at work. 

Monday, September 28, 2015

WATER ON MARS

Ho Hum. NASA scientists announced that they have found water on Mars. Of course there is water on Mars. We knew that. Should they discover a thigh bone……well that would be news.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

TRANSIENT

I cannot tell
whether the humming bird
that frequents my feeder
is the same one,
or whether it is one of many,
making one last stop
on its way to heaven.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

ARRIVAL - A SHORT STORY

     In a little farming community in Eastern Estonia, a five minute walk from the famed Puhitsa Convent, lived an eighteen year-old girl with her grandparents, Joosep and Kadri Kallade, who took over her care when her parents developed pneumonia and died within hours of each other.   Her name was Lilisi. She was beautiful, devout and simple. Lilisi  tended the family garden and in bad weather she knitted sweaters for the tourist trade. She had long, blonde hair and her skin had a creamy texture. If she had admirers, they were not in evidence. Young men were scarce in that region of Europe.
   
Working in the garden, Lilisi  sometimes disappeared from the scene. Her grandparents were unconcerned. She usually headed for the near-by copse which had a running stream, many birds and rich natural growth. They gathered that she had lain down somewhere and gone to sleep.
   
On one occasion she was gone for an unusually long time and Joosep and Kadri began to worry. Lilisi finally emerged  from the woods looking disheveled and upset. She had obviously been frightened and had been crying. Lilisi told her grandparents a strange tale. She said  she had been abducted by beings who appeared to be human, taken aboard a strange vehicle and  whisked away into the sky and taken to an odd location. She found herself in a room, lying on a bed surrounded by men in white coats. She had been sedated and was unable to speak or struggle. She said the men drew blood,  poked and probed, even in regions she considered private.
   
Joosep and Kadri were skeptical. They told her she had probably fallen asleep in  the forest and had experienced a bad dream. They advised her to speak no more of the experience and to try to forget it.
   
Events took a new turn a  few months later when Lilisi had all the signs of a growing pregnancy. She continued working in the garden plot for a few months until finally Kadri took her into total seclusion. On an April day she delivered Lilisi of twins, a boy and a girl. Hours later she told her, “ We cannot keep them, you know.You must take them to the Convent. They will find good homes for them.”
   
Crestfallen, Lilisi had to agree. The babies were beautiful, but she could see no other alternative. The family was  very poor and had few resources  for their their upbringing. Privately, Joosep told Kadri, “ She was raped in the forest. Who knows what to expect of these two. To the convent.....without delay.”
   
That same evening Lilisi parted with the twins.Weeping quietly, she bundled them into a carrying basket. In silence the twins gazed up at her with green eyes. She walked the short distance to the Convent, stumbling in the dark over the uneven terrain. It was a warm evening. Stars shined bright overhead and a thin sliver of a moon  appeared low in the western sky.
   

She set the basket down at the gate, rang the bell and retreated into the darkness, watching from a short distance as the gate opened and a figure looked down, then looked about, then picked up the basket and disappeared within.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

POETRY


       A funny thing about writing poetry; it can be a real struggle, especially if rhyming is your thing. If you aren’t careful, the result can be inane, even banal, purely in the interest of rhyming. In any case, if it is a struggle, one should let it go, to incubate for a while. Then one day the words will flow, musically, rapidly, carrying the full message, end to end, without correction.

       The following poem was posted on yourdailypoem.com on September 8, 2015.

EVENING PRAYER

Grateful I escaped, 
Once more,
A hurricane,
A tornado,
An Earthquake,
A flooding,
A lightning strike,
A snake bite,
A tsunami,
A grandmother’s wrath. 















Friday, September 11, 2015

WHY GO TO MARS?

Author’s Note: Trill is a ficticious female acquaintance who makes it possible to write in what for me is a comfortable style.

My Dear Trill,
        


         Odd that while I am thinking about why we should be planning to visit and eventually colonize Mars, you would question me on the same subject. Sooner or later, I should have expected this question from you, and I’m glad you asked, because the lure of adventure beyond our planet, into the solar system and even into interstellar space, prompted, in part, by the success of the Apollo mission, continues. A common cry when the Apollo program ended was: “On to Mars.” But when the estimated cost of such a journey was upwards of a hundred billion dollars, Congressional enthusiasm for the venture cooled. Moreover, the technical challenges far surpassed those that were needed to go to the moon.
         A single problem may prevent any such mission in the near future. One round trip by an astronaut to Mars may cause exposure to cosmic rays equivalent to the total permissible for an entire career. It is a serious problem because brain damage is the main effect, and that could jeopardize the success of a mission where ability to make judgments is a primary requirement. The physics for cosmic ray shielding is simply not known as yet. Earth is fortunate. A strong magnetic field diverts galactic cosmic rays and harmful ones from the sun to the poles.
       Reasons for going to Mars persist. Among them is that humans are born to explore, and examples are cited in Earth’s history ranging from Alexander the Great’s foray to the East with his armies as far as India, the Lewis and Clarke expedition, exploring the west on the North American continent, Livingston in Africa, and lately the Apollo mission to place man on the moon. If one were to look for missions that parallels a journey to Mars for its duration, the sailing of HMS Beagle, from 1831 to 1836 to chart the southern waters under Captain Fitzroy, might be cited. This was the second sailing mission for the ship, on which Charles Darwin was a passenger. The difference was that the ship was able to make stops for supplies and refurbishment. A trip to Mars would have no such luxury. Similarly, the duration of the Lewis and Clark expedition, just over 2 years, in the early 1800’s, the explorers living off the land.
          Other reasons, rather specious, is that in a few million years the sun will expand and engulf Earth and humans must be prepared to move to a planet more distant from the sun. Or that a predictable event will threaten all life on Earth. This could be caused, for example, by collision with a large asteroid, which has occurred in the past. We therefore must move some humans away, to another planet, to preserve the species.This assumes that humans are the only species worth saving, which is arguable. Even Noah saw the value in preserving as many species as the Ark could accommodate.
         Ample water supply is one of the largest consumables for a successful settlement, History of new settlements on Earth tells us that settlers made certain that water was nearby. A future where water is conserved by recycling urine, sweat, wash water, and expelled moisture content from breathing, is bleak indeed, especially if the process follows a likely law of diminishing return. Supplying water by rocket from Earth is possible but a preposterous notion. Scientists are quite certain that subterranean water exists on Mars.
        Supposing a group of would-be colonists were fortunate enough to land in a region close to a under- ground aquifer..... say about thirty feet underground. Initially, a comparable event on Earth would be similar to landing in the middle of the Gobi Desert, where access to a large deposit of local water could change everything.
         For the fun of it, let’s look at the problems associated with getting water from an aquifer to a faucet in a Mars colony structure. To begin, if you drove a pipe down , say thirty feet to the water, you couldn’t pump it with a surface pump as the atmospheric pressure can lift water only 2.4 inches on Mars, versus 33 feet on Earth. With temperatures varying from 70 deg. Fahrenheit to -225 degrees Fahrenheit, freezing avoidance measures would be necessary.
        On Earth, you would call up a well driller, who would promptly appear with his Diesel powered drill rig and a truckload of steel casing for lining the drill hole. On completion of the well hole an electric motor powered pump would be mounted either at the surface, or lowered into the water, depending upon the depth of the well hole. Freezing problems, if any, are easily managed.
        To get water on Mars, significant effort and equipment, designed to function in the Martian envi- ronment, would be required. It is conceivable that well drilling equipment could be transported and erected on Mars. Presumably a drilling rig would be electrically powered, the source of energy being fuel cells or nuclear. Casings to line the drill hole could be of carbon composite to save weight and reduce the need for handling equipment. Transporting steel pipe to Mars borders on the unimaginable. An electric motor driven pump and discharge line would then be lowered down the well casing to submerge the pump in the acquifer.
            Running a pipeline from the well to the settlement has its own set of problems, mainly to prevent freezing. Insulation will not be enough, and burying the pipeline could be ineffective. Possibly something could be learned from the utilities management in far north Earth cities like Vladivostok or Fairbanks, Alaska.
          Could children be born and raised in the Martisn environment? The answer is that nobody knows. Without cosmic ray shielding.... probably not. A second open question is what kind of human would be produced, growing up in a gravity field 38% of Earth’s gravity? Is the human body shaped and sized to a significant degree by the strength of Earth’s gravity? How could you know, other than conducting an unthinkable experiment with newborns aboard the International Space Station?
           I could go on, but it is just as well to conclude with these thoughts: I think you can see that there are no serious driving forces for colonizing Mars or even visiting it. Robots are capable of exploring, providing video coverage, sampling, analyzing and transmission of information at an acceptabe cost. With advancements in artificial intelligence, they will be able to make decisions. That is about the most that would be expected of human explorers, at enormous cost for crew accomodations, crew training, ultra large launch vehicles, Mars surface accomodations and exploration vehicles and return rockets......some of it at high risk to human life. The cost could be prohibitive. The problems are nearly insurmountable. There is little visible payoff that cannot be obtained robotically, and success is doubtful, just as many settlements on Earth have failed and had to be abandoned.
       Just think, Trill. Ten European settlements failed in North America before Jamestown! 

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

PEOPLE AND BORDERS




Author’s note. Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who makes it possible for me to write in what is for me a comfortable style, on a variety of subjects

My Dear Trill,
    Sooner or later, the issue of legal and illegal immigration and migration was bound to come up, wasn’t it? It is quite an interesting subject, and has implications that people have only begun to imagine.There is no stopping it. You can build the highest, impregnable wall  along a nation’s border and people will tunnel under it. In some regions, like the southern border of Europe. the terrain is such that a wall to keep out immigrants is unthinkable.
    There is more to it, however, than the movement of people to find a better life. That has been going on for thousands of years. Earth is beginning to undergo a big change as scientists forecast a warming trend, caused largely by human activity, that correlates with the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun, and the consequences are rising Earth temperatures, melting of the polar ice, and significant rise in ocean levels. The predicted rise is many feet, which will inundate large land areas and affect a hundred-sixty million people in twenty countries. 
     There is a word of Greek origin, Diaspora, which in general means movement of bodies of people from one place to another, for any one of a number of reasons. They may be expelled from a region, or, like the wildebeests in the African grasslands, move to where food is more abundant, or, as in the  modern world, because opportunities exist for a better life, because homelands have become uninhabitable, or simply expelled from a region due to religious or other ideological differences.
    Examples of Diaspora over history are the Spartan exile of the Messenians in the third and fourth centuries BC, expulsion of Jews from Judea, African slave trade, settlement of the Americas and Australia, and  more recently to the present, refugees from Vietnam, movement North from Africa into Europe and from Mexico into the United States and migration of Jews from Europe and Asia to Israel.
    Where will one hundred sixty million people go?  If you have a globe handy, southern movement is not likely in large numbers.. Africa and South America taper off  into a limited area. Australia and New Zealand cannot accommodate a large influx of people. But look north and you see large areas that are virtually uninhabited that will become more inviting as the climate warms. Siberia, Canada. Alaska, and Norway, Sweden and Finland comprise about ten per cent of Earth’s land area.
    But will they be welcomed? Will the migrations be preplanned and agreed to by the participants and proceed in an orderly manner or will there be border wars, starvation, panics, massacres at the  border, that have time and again been demonstrated to be typical of hegemonic human behavior?
    Earth is evermore rapidly transitioning into a new era, for better or worse. Considering the age of Earth, it seems unusual and somewhat unsettling to witness huge changes within your own lifetime. It is fascinating and not a mystery as to the causes. Attempts will be made to reverse, or at least slow the process, but the  day-to-day needs and desires of a burgeoning and largely heedless population may well negate all such corrective  efforts.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE

     
       I was no older than twelve then, maybe just eleven, a slender stripling who had years to go to reach anything resembling manhood.
      It was a difficult time, during the Great Depression, though we were lucky to be living on a farm. My mother had died two years before,leaving my father with a family of twelve, including a newborn. A brother and a sister were old enough to work in the table factory, where they were paid a dollar an hour. My oldest brother was working his way through college and a sister was married and living in Boston.
    To add to difficulties, our team of horses had aged, and no longer were fit for work. That became obvious when one, and then the other, lagged when pulling a plow or other implement, leaving the heavy pulling to the other. That led, reluctantly, to a decision to call Benson's Wild Animal Farm a few miles down the road, where, unemotionally, they ended up as lion food. My father had been extremely fond of his team of horses.
    But there was still the Fordson tractor, a treacherous, noisy and odiferous machine that nevertheless, through considerable effort, one June day delivered a field ready for planting corn for the silo.
    My father borrowed a horse from a neighbor to pull the corn planter, a dispenser with plow handles that plowed a shallow furrow, dropped seeds and fertilizer into it and covered them up.
    The horse was a huge, fiery eyed, ugly beast, gaunt and aged, that in other days might have been a war horse. He was clearly not too happy about having been offered up to do work. He had enormous hooves that waved around before taking the next step, hooves that hadn't been trimmed or shod in years, grown broad as a wash basin.
    I  remained  home from school to lead the horse in straight lines, row after row, until the field was done. To say I was terrorized is an understatement.  I had to reach high over my head to grasp the halter. Rather than lead the horse in a straight line, it was  an exercise to avoid falling under threatening hooves, and my father was none too happy about the serpentine trails I was leaving, sometimes overlapping the previous row. The situation did not improve, and in fact got worse. I heard loud curses behind me and took them to be meant for me.
    My father finally gave up. “You can go” he said. I fled to the woods in tears, and stayed there the day long. He finished the job the next day, with my brother driving the Fordson tractor. He attributed my failure to youth, and returned with neither rancor nor apology back  to his normally good nature.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

CANES vs WALKING STICKS

A chance encounter today with my one time cardiologist at a local restaurant. He is 89. I am 90. I use a walking stick and he uses a cane. From an engineering standpoint, I believe a walking stick is better than a cane. It gives the body something to hang on to. The arm is in tension. With a cane, the arm is in compression and because it is hinged at the elbow, it can buckle.

Friday, August 7, 2015

REPUBLICAN DEBATE

Two Comments on the Debate:

1. I would like to see Carly Fiorina get the nomination, if only to hear them sing at the Republican Convention:
CarlyFiorina Here I Come!

2.  Trump’s disingenuous quality was revealed in bragging that he made a big deal, but fully within the law, when it is likely that the law was changed by big money to accommodate men like him in making big deals.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

SEND MONEY

      Nearly every day a telephone call arrives from the Democratic National Committee, begging for money. Were I foolish enough to contribute in that manner instead of directly to those whom I support, the DNC may or may not  support candidates I favor. Specifically, I would rule out spending any money to support Hillary Clinton.
-    Hillary Clinton comes from a gene pool of corrupt politicians and corrupt financiers who,  at the end of the  20th century, set the stage for near-collapse of the US economy in 2008.
    The critical event occurred in late 1999 when Senator Phil Gramm of Texas  inserted a 254 page amendment into a budget bill that Bill Clinton was about to sign.The amendment gutted  the Glass Steagall Act. This law, enacted in 1933, served the country well by preventing bankers from using their customers’ savings to finance risky investments. Mellow and inattentive in the waning hours of his administration, President Clinton signed the bill.
    Phil Gramm did not write the two hundred fifty-four page amendment by himself. One can be certain that it was crafted by experts, bent on pursuing their own agendas,  confident that in the event of failure, the Federal Government (that is,we the people) would bail them out. They wrote the bill and devised a crafty way to get it approved without debate, or even any knowledge of it by most members of Congress. No one in the Media was smart enough to raise a red flag.

     President Bush was happy with Clinton's  action and confounded the public further by reducing taxes on  the wealthy. Topping that, he led the nation into a trillion dollars added indebtedness by conducting two wars on borrowed money.
    Gutting Glass Steagall  opened up the gates of hell, allowing bankers to free-wheel with their customers’ savings, luring them into all kinds of high risk investments. The collapse came before the decade was out, the highlight of which was the Treasury Secretary informing President Bush that too-big-to-fail banks needed 750 billion dollars to remain solvent.
    The President caved,  the ransom was paid, and the American people were stuck with the bill. The financial firms were back in business. No one was prosecuted. No one went to jail. The principals involved collected their huge salaries, and even took home bonuses that year. But individual investors were left high and dry..
    How much is 750 billion dollars? Enough to build a World Trade Center II every fifteen miles from coast to coast across the United States.
    Word is that Senators Sanders and McCain are teaming to get Glass Steagall reinstated. Opposition will be strong. The President has as yet not taken a position, but  action is absolutely necessary if the nation is to prosper without fear of reversion to the oligarchy that ruled during  the 1920’s before the Great Depression.
    I’ll not ever send a nickel to the DNC, nor the RNC either.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

EARTH WARMING


Author’s note. Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who makes it possible for me to write in  what is for me a comfortable style, on virtually any subject.


My Dear Trill,

    How did I know that some day you would be asking me about climate change?.After all, the media is full of  self-styled “experts,” mostly global warming deniers, pontificating on the subject, comfortable inside their skins with things just as they are, and confident that Earth will experience climate changes  every few thousand years and there is nothing we can about it. I am not an expert, Trill,  admittedly, but I do have ability to separate  hard scientific data from mere conjecture and am happy to pass on what I know.
    What I do know is that vast changes have taken place ever since humans have sought ways to ease manual labor, increase production of goods, and travel far and wide. The revolution (often called the Industrial Revolution) began rather recently, around 1775, when in England James Watt made improvements to the Newcomen steam engine that  accelerated its application to all kinds of things, from powering the machines in factories, to trains and ships. Long after that development, another engine that burned gasoline and similar fuels was invented, called the Otto cycle after the inventor,  that underlies the operation  of gasoline engines in the millions of cars, buses and trucks that cruise the highways. The Diesel engine was a further development on the gasoline engine. All of this, in addition to stationary power plants for generation of electricity as well as  a development of air travel, led to enormous consumption of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. The burning of these fuels produce huge quantities of carbon dioxide.
    In earlier times, natural processes on Earth like plant growth, which consumes carbon dioxide, and absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, were able to consume the carbon dioxide as fast as it was produced. As consumption increased the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere grew beyond the ability of natural processes to handle it. Carbon dioxide is a heat trapping gas. It hampers the ability of Earth to radiate into space some of the heat gathered from the sun. Methane has similar properties. Sulphur dioxide, on the other hand, shields Earth from the rays of the sun.
    There are people who downplay the the contribution of humans to global warming, arguing without basis that a single volcano emits a quantity of carbon dioxide equal to the output of all the automobiles in the world. The truth is quite different, All the volcanoes in the world , according to the U.S. Geological Survey, emit a total of .26 giga-tons of carbon dioxide in a year, (That’s .26 followed be twelve zeros). In contrast, the automobiles, ships, trains and aircraft emit a total of 30 giga-tons, a hundred twenty times as much.
    Here’s something for you to ponder. Where does all the carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide emitted by volcanoes come from? One theory is that the gases were present when Earth was nothing but a huge gas ball. Then the rocks started to pour in, forming the hard planet with an atmosphere around it. As Earth cooled, fissures and cracks appeared that got filled with gas from the atmosphere and then got sealed in by further crustal movement.  Volcanic eruptions are largely caused but pressures generated when the gas is heated to high temperatures by Earth’s magma.
    Trill, there is no doubt that climate change is upon us, and some think that we have already passed the tipping point and it is beyond the capacity of humans to reverse it. If true, you will be witness to some enormous changes in your lifetime, with the snow caps, icecaps and glaciers  melting, ocean level rising, regionally some very hot weather, violent storms, and entire civilizations moving to safer ground. Your home, given its location, unfortunately will probably be under water.
    These observations will, I hope, help to guide you and place limits  on how and where you plan to spend your days and years on Earth. It will be quite an exciting time. Not bad for the planet. It will simply be in transition to another form. But very sad for most of its occupants. Sea creatures may be the only survivors and we will begin all over again, when the first ones crawled onto the land. 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

SAYINGS

Sometimes, instead of pressing the reset button on your brain (it's so hard to find!), it may be useful to review the thoughtful words of others that  have stood the test of time, or are recent.
 



Intelligent people are the unhappiest ones I know. - Hemmingway

No matter how wealthy a person is, abandonment of a friendship leaves
one irredeemably impoverished. - anon.

Feeling bullied may be needlessly bullying yourself. - anon.

Ego does indeed, in many cases, equate with evil. - anon.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without affection. - Dalai Lama

History is the presentation of facts in the order of their appearance.
Interpreting it is self serving -  anon.

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Self regard goes a long way. It can be mistaken for wisdom. It can masquerade as vision.With enough of it, the clown transforms himself into a ringleader.The dwarf looks like a giant. -  Frank Bruni, NYT




Thursday, July 16, 2015

SPACE STATIONS

The following letter  appeared in the July13 issue of Space news under the title: REPLACE ISS WITH SPECIALIZED STATIONS

To the Editor:

       Though well reasoned, Hugh Cook's op-ed: "Humanity's Outpost on the Edge" appears to recommend that America average about one astronaut in space for years into the future, as we have for the past fifty years.That's no way to capitalize on space.
      It's why I have been in favor of, and promoting a  practical phase-out of the ISS and replacing it with numerous, Skylab sized, turnkey stations that may be specialized in configuration (i.e. research, manufacturing, tourist destination).
      Progress will come with  a larger population occupied in space. Stations can be leased to nations with little space access.
     Development of cheap transportation will be stimulated.  Incidentally, it  would also be a steady use for the Space Transportation System.



Sincerely,


Edward Hujsak

Sunday, July 12, 2015

DOES EGO EQUATE TO EVIL?

My Dear  Trill,

(Author’s note: Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who, with her questions, makes it possible for me to write in a style that is for me both different and comfortable.)

     How amusing. The guest of honor at the annual meeting of the Lithuanian Club, a Peter Kashilinus, who turned out to be a mere office clerk, though a senior one, at the local slaughter house, while the real Peter Kashilinus, Phd, renowned physicist and Nobel Prize nominee, was somewhere in Montana, fishing for trout. I imagine  your program  chairman had some things to explain.
    So you ran across my poem which asked the question: “Does ego equate to evil?” It could have been a rhetorical question, but it happened that it was aimed at a one-time friend, who, an admitted egotist, said the question left her reeling. I did not intend to offend her. I intended only  to lure her into an interesting discussion but she did not take the bait.
    Still, it’s an open question when you restrict the word ego to ally with terms like conceit, narcissism, overly self assured, or a hunger for recognition, accolades, or for power, no matter what the circumstance.
    It’s my contention that everyone  possesses a finer sense of self and a less-than-finer sense of self. The eternal problem is which is allowed to, or made to, triumph over the other.
`    It follows, in my view, that evil can easily result in egoists who exhibit the second trait. This is manifest in the numerous despots who take over entire populations through the strength of their ego.....Adolph Hitler, Mao Zedong, Peron, Mussoline, Gaddafi, Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great .....the list goes on and on, throughout history, and has prominent membership to this day. A living example is Donald Trump, candidate for the U.S presidency, whose ego is so strong that he feels no need to prepare speeches, but babbles away instead. In this case, though, evil is not evident; simply a strong  egocentricity. Still, who can argue that all candidates for public office are not strongly egocentric?
    My question: “Does ego equate with evil” is  not categorically true, of course, but I  could argue endlessly that it is at the root of much of the evil we encounter or observe, or that has occurred. It would be hard to imagine doing anything about it, however. The answer lies in uniform adherence by humans to the finer self, and that isn’t going to happen.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

JIM'S CHAIR


     Thinking the other day about who were the finest people I ever met, I almost missed someone who ranks near the top of the list........Jim Murguia, gentleman barber, resident barber for Convair, San Diego, and later, General Dynamics Astronautics Division for most of his salaried career. I never met his wife, but she must be someone special too as together the couple raised four children who returned a level of pride most parents hope for.

     It was a banner day when promoted to a perk level where you were privileged to visit the company barber. And Jim was special because you knew intuitively that he was a sympathetic listener. You could unload on him and know that it would go no further. It didn’t matter if you were thrice married, divorced, had something going on the side, a raving conservative, a starry eyed liberal or someone being undermined in the various maneuverings that are always in play in the company hierarchy. Jim listened and commented just enough, always sympathetically so you walked away with a haircut good enough for a wedding and feeling as good as if you had visited the local shrink and plunked down fifty bucks for an hour on the couch.

     When Jim retired from the Astronautics over a quarter century ago he established a private practice, “Jim’s Chair,”that periodically got bumped from location to location in the Kearny Mesa Area. His clientele from Astronautics and Convair followed him, so he didn’t have to look for customers. Only as a special favor would he take on someone recommended to him.


     Jim is an avid golfer and Jim’s Chair got to be known as the only place in town where you could get a haircut and a golf lesson for ten bucks. 
     Still barbering well into his tenth decade and still a great listener, I must think to tell him: “Jim, its too bad you are not a writer. Your book would be a best seller.”

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

PUREES

Well, what do you know?  Today, June 17, 2015, New York Times:  ASTRONOMERS DETECT SIGNS OF EARLIEST STARS THAT ENRICHED THE COSMOS. Some months ago I posted here the theory that the Big Bang was a symmetrical event, producing  a number of identical stars which I called PUREES, their composition being mainly hydrogen and helium. Over their lifetimes they produced the material of the Universe, which got dispersed as they exploded. They no longer exist, but we and Earth around us are some of the remnants. Nice to see that others are thinking likewise.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

LETTER TO TRILL


(Author’s note: Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who, with her questions, makes it possible for me to write in a style that is for me both different and comfortable.


My Dear Trill,
      It comes as no surprise to me that you would raise questions about religion, sooner or later. You are inquisitive about so many subjects. But in no way do you test my patience. As a decidedly non-religious person, I can only give you my views on the subject, to which, as it happens, I have given considerable thought, ranging from bitter personal experience to awareness of the horrors of World War II, when 70 million people, mostly innocent, lost their lives - and  an omnipotent, omni-present God didn’t seem to care.
     It may be useful to tell you about a revealing report that I read recently and leave it to you to do further reading and thinking on this subject.This is important, Trill. Important because your life might be better spent if not too occupied with thoughts that are laced with a considerable measure of skepticism. Even worse, you could become entrapped in any one of a number of ideologies that lay claim to a special place in the embrace of an as yet undetected God. I have in mind at the moment the machinations of a certain Evangelistic pastor in Atlanta who is fleecing his flock to purchase an eighty-five million dollar private jet for his personal use.
     But happily, things are always happening that lead to better understanding.You may be familiar with a charitable organization called Save The Children. They publish annually a report on the State of the World’s Mothers, The Urban Disadvantage Report, along with the Mother’s Index. A highlight of the report is identifying the ten best countries for maternal health and children’s well being. In the 2015 report, surprisingly. the United States did not appear in the top ten. In fact, it was ranked as 33rd.
     The top country in the ranking of ten is Norway. Other countries were Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, Germany, Spain and Australia. Striking is the is the clustering of most of the countries in one region, Northern and Western Europe. Of course, that immediately begs the question: Why?
      Searching for an explanation, I wondered if the top selections correlate in some manner with wealth, religion, or education, or all three. Upon examining a world map of the least religious nations, the countries listed above stand out, along with Ireland, France Switzerland and Czech. What is startling is that these countries are close together, in some cases bordering each other, are wealthy and well educated. You could conclude, then, that wealth and education trend to atheism and non-religion.
     Then what about the United States? The country is different in two respects. It is wealthy, but the wealth is concentrated in a few. Also, in education rankings the United States rates poorly among other advanced nations. You would expect, then, that the United States would have a lower percentage of atheists and non-religious, than the above listed nations and this, in fact, turns out to be true..
       A large population of poor people and poorly educated tends to be more religious. This is borne out across most of the world, according to the map. Poorer nations tend to be more religious. You could conclude, though not without caveats, from the above studies, that GDP per capita is a reasonable measure of how religious a country is. But a calculated GDP, where most of the wealth is in the hands of a few, such as Saudi Arabia, and an actual GDP per capita are two different things, and one should not confuse the one with the other.
     Who knows, Trill? It may well be that further growth in atheism and non-religion will resolve one of the most pressing problems facing humanity.....the clash between different religions, each believing itself to be the final word, often leading to war and brutality, a condition that has held true for thousands of years. It will be interesting to watch. This could happen as countries rise out of poverty and and are better educated, but it is increasingly unlikely due to a concurrent burgeoning of world population, especially in poorer nations, and scarcity of progressive leadership, worldwide. 

-Edward Hujsak