BAOBAB

This poem about the Baobab tree was posted on yourdailypoem.com April 22 in recognition of Earth Day.

Ancient one, you have watched over a hundred generations of my kind. Your ugliness is softened only by bird nests that hang like pendants, and greening when the spring rains come. You are an oasis in the desert. You pocket water in hidden cavities for thirsty travelers, who make lemonade of the powder in your seeds and drink it to calm their ailments. You are the eternal shelter to all creatures. This morning school children gathered in your shade for lessons. Tonight a leopard will stretch across your loins and sleep. - Edward Hujsak

DEAR SENATOR

Dear Mr. Hujsak:

Thank you for writing to express your support for the "Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2015" (S.198).  Your correspondence is important to me, and I welcome the opportunity to respond. 

As you may know, on January 20, 2015, I joined 11 of my Senate colleagues to cosponsor legislation authored by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), the "Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2015."  This bill would increase the required share of foreign ownership a corporation must have to move its tax headquarters overseas from the current 20 percent to 50 percent.  Furthermore, S.198 would mandate that merging companies continue to be treated as domestic companies for tax purposes if the management and control of the company remains in the U.S., or if a quarter of its employees, sales, or assets are still located in the U.S.  This legislation is currently awaiting consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, of which I am not a member.  Companion legislation (H.R.415) was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Sander Levin (D-MI).  

I share your concerns that Congress must do more to prevent companies from using tax loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes and to help our economy by reviewing and simplifying the current tax code. The tax code, as it stands today, is enormously complex, with expensive deductions and loopholes that have been carved out over time by influential special interests.  The rate of corporate taxes as a share of the federal tax revenue has decreased from about 21 percent in the 1960s, to the current rate of 10 percent.  I support corporate tax reform that protects small businesses, supports job creation, and ensures that all corporations pay their fair share.  

Please know that I appreciate hearing of your support for the "Stop Corporate Inversions Act of 2015," and I will keep your thoughts in mind should this bill or similar legislation come before the full Senate for consideration.

Again, thank you for writing.  If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841.  Best regards.

Sincerely yours,


  Dianne Feinstein
         United States Senator

Note: Senator Feinstein replies at length to letters about different issues. In contrast, Senator Boxer
seldom replies, and when she does, it is a banal letter telling how well she is doing her job.

ROSE MADNESS

Shades of red, from violet 
to crimson to pink.
Velvety petals curl
erotically in the sun. 
How could you know
you are so beautiful?
How could you know
your sharing
is a human delight?
How could I know if
the snip of your stem
brings anguish, or joy
at being abducted?
How could you know
your disrobing,
one petal at a time
are tears dropping?
For I feel now you have 
taken up my sorrows.
How could you know?

-e. hujsak

  

EARTH

     I have spent half a lifetime, without much success, to pursuade poets and writers to write “Earth,”  and not “the earth.” One does not write “the mars,” or “the jupiter” or “the saturn.” Oddly enough, they frequently get it right in the expression: “What on Earth?” 
     Earth! Earth! Earth! Doubtless,  Goddess Earth would approve.

LETTER TO BERNIE

Senator Bernie Sanders
1 Church St.
Burlington, VT 05401 

Dear Bernie:

Sometimes I wonder, am I wasting my money?
Isn’t it about time to turn up the heat? Get a little rough?
The Clintons used, dishonored and perverted the United States Presidency to get rich - forty some-odd million dollars worth.
Now it appears that Hillary Clinton has both surreptitiously and blatantly co-opted your line.
Example: Hillary says, “I will go after Wall Street!’
Seriously? Hillary Clinton IS Wall Street. She has family ties to Goldman Sachs. She takes quarter million dollar stipends for speeches to Wall Street. Those guys are smart. They don’t need her advice. This has all the earmarks of an ancient practice with the Pope - the buying of indulgences. The public should know what wisdom was imparted in those speeches. The media gives her a pass, standing to one side, somewhat bemused. 
Bill Clinton signed a bill  gutting Glass Steagall near the end of his administration, opening the gates to financial mischief that caused the near collapse of 2008 and a charge to taxpayers of $750 billion bailout money. Hillary says she will not reinstate Glass Steagall. Her citing Dodd Frank doesn’t do it. Not by a long shot.
If Hillary ends up winning, you can bet many Sanders supporters will swing to Trump, handing him the Presidency. So much hinges on whether or not you up the game.

Sincerely,

Edward Hujsak 

THE CENTENNIAL PROJECT

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

My Dear Trill,

     An interesting tale about your young nephew, who, at his tender age, is interested in interstellar travel. That generation is so bright. I have high hopes for it. Could he have been inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars films? Of course, they are science fiction, rife with implausible tricks. We should be amazed that Scotty, on the Starship Enterprise, was never commanded to reduce Warp Speed. So the Enterprise must still be speeding along in space somewhere, maybe by now in another galaxy, with no idea about how to slow down and return.

     Seriously though, what has caught your nephew’s enthusiasm has a wide appeal, for the most part resting in those that view interstellar travel as part of the great human adventure. Only a few are concerned about a genuine need, for instance in the event that Earth becomes non- habitable, struck by a huge  asteroid or swallowed by a wandering black hole. To preserve the species, the argument goes, we had better be prepared to settle some people elsewhere. 
     The concern is found not only in the general population, but also at levels where you would expect knowledgeable opinion. In the past few months opinions have been expressed by two noted British astrophysicists, Stephen Hawking and Robert Rees, that humanity could become extinct in a thousand years, and possibly in as few as a hundred years. Climate change is viewed as a possible cause, rendering the planet unliveable, but also worries exist regarding appearance of a nut who is a skilled technician in nano-technology and virus creation, who might decide that it is time to eradicate all humanity. 
     In the more distant future, the sun is predicted to increase in diameter to the point that Earth and other planets , Venus and Mercury, are engulfed. That is the ultimate fate, but too far in the future to worry about.

     Assuming the case can be made for interstellar travel, the initial and driving premise is that a propulsion system can be developed to attain speeds that enable reaching a destination in a reasonable time. Even at the speed of light, it would take approximately four years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. Should the James Webb telescope discover a liveable planet much more distant, It could take generations to reach it......and generation ships have appeared in the literature.

     Historically, there have been extended trips: The voyage of the Beagle, a British explor- atory voyage, on which Charles Darwin sailed for five years; The Lewis and Clarke expedition in 1804 which lasted for two years.

     Sometimes I think about how one would go about the discovery and development of a propulsion system. There is little doubt that it would require breakthrough physics, as nothing currently exists that comes near to doing the job. Appropriations by the Congress would be risky. This project could take a hundred years, and Congress has a habit of axing programs that don’t show great progress. But how, assuming that it would take that long, would one go about funding a Centennial Project? One idea is to take a small percentage of the budgets of the various agencies. NASA, EPA, NSF, DARPA, etc. NASA alone, at 5% of its annual budget, could provide the annual billion dollars it might require per year for a hundred years.

     Another way is to approach the five hundred billionaires in the country and seek funding via a crowd funding scheme that would yield a billion dollars a year. That would be interesting. Under this scheme, billionaires would invest in  funds that would yield the proposed annual amount. They would lose nothing, as the principle would remain intact.

     Worth noting is the “One Hundred Year Starship” project now being funded by DARPA and NASA, a study funded to ex-astronaut Mae Jemmison at a $500,000 level. It is hard to imagine that this will produce knowledge beyond that already produced by the British Interplanetary Society (Daedalus) and contributors to the Tau Zero Foundation, an organization dedicated to breakthrough propulsion. But the objective of the study is only to determine the organization of an effort, if undertaken, to develop a Star Ship within a period of 100 years.

     The design of a Star Ship will fall into place once a propulsion system is available. Present day design of cruise ships and submarines already provide an experience base for provisioning and for accommodation of crew and passengers.  However, for comfortable travel, artificial gravity would be a must. Conceptually, a gravity ship might be comprised of two spheres, connected by a long tube. After acquiring transfer velocity, the Star Ship would rotate, end over end, providing a gravity field for crew comfort and well being. A major engineering task will be to provide on- board power......in all liklihood nuclear. Heat rejection is a major design issue.

     Again, the key to interstellar travel is propulsion. Nothing available today comes close to being adequate. Solving it calls for breakthrough physics, and so far as I know, there is nothing in play that offers a possible answer.

Good luck to your nephew, Trill. I will mail to you books I have written that may help him in making a career choice - All About Rocket Engines, The Future of U.S. Rocketry, and All About Clean Energy. I hope they will be helpful. 

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 for 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