Day 910

Day 910 Thursday July 4, 2019

487 Days until the 2020 election and 565 days until the Inauguration

Our president has wanted a parade “like the have in Red Square or North Korea” since before he took office. He asked for it for his inauguration parade, backed off when he heard the cost ($63M), denied it when asked; but now the truth has come out in the form of a free press inquiry with the Pentagon.

Apparently, he will get his wish today. When he went to Bastille Day in Paris  he remarked about their parade with all it’s military hardware. We were there. Security was tight. You had to pass through two checkpoints on the same block to get to the Champs and then the crowd was so thick all we could see were the tops of some of the vehicles with people standing up in them saluting.

One of the many things this president does not understand is that the tradition of the Fourth is to celebrate our independence, unlike North Korea and Russia where the parades are displays to show the power of the government and the individual running the country. North Korea has the added bonus that if you don’t like what’s going on you and your whole family can be sent to the gulag. France’s Bastille Day parade is to celebrate their victory over tyranny. Our president wants a parade to aggrandize himself. This is being called a political event by many, including many retired generals. Something they are loath to see our military involved in. 

Part of the festivities will be Baby Trump. The lovely ballon that graced London on his visit there. For some reason they are not allowed to put helium in it. I guess the Park Service is worried all the helium will leak out at an inappropriate time and those around it will start sounding like Daffy Duck?

We now come to the Constitutional Crisis of the day. We used to get one a week with this crew, but now, one a day seems the norm. What’s it this time? Well, see we have this thing called the Census. It happens ever ten years. The Constitution says that everyone in the country will be counted every ten years. The reason for this is as Thomas Paine put it “No taxation without representation.” You can put that right next to the picture of the coiled rattlesnake with the words, “Don’t Step On Me.” This is one of the fundamental concepts of our democracy. We fought a war of independence for this. But now? Hey, let’s only count white people. Can’t do that? Shucks. Can we undercount immigrants and undocumented illegal folks? Yeah, let’s go with that. No? What? Why not? Oh the Supreme Court said no? Oh, they didn’t say no; they said they didn’t like us lying about why we wanted to do it. We made up a bunch of stuff and they didn’t buy it. Nor did the lower courts. We did it to undercount Democrats and to give white states more representation. Yeah. America first baby! What? They are really Americans. They aren’t like us. I mean they look different. NINA? What does NINA mean? Why are you bringing that up? History? I don’t need no stinkin’ history. Read? I used to be able to, not any more.

So what happened? Well, after Mr. Mills and Mr. Sessions lied about why they wanted a citizenship question in the 2020 Census, and after Mr. Sessions refused to take a meeting with the Census workers who said they could give him better more accurate data cheaper than putting it in the census, they tried to put the question in the Census form anyway. And, I know you will find this shocking, but they didn’t follow any of the normal procedures to put the question in the form. Basically, they said, “Hey put this in the form. Just do it.” This ain’t Nike. Sorry, Charlie. (or is it Donnie?) 

So they lose in court, in The Supreme Court. It goes back to a lower court. The Justice Department lawyers say to the judge, “That’s it. We’re done.” The Census forms are being printed (supposedly). Then the president writes in a tweet that “they” are going to do it anyway. That is they are going to put the question in the census form. So what if it’s illegal, unconstitutional, hasn’t meet any of the procedural guidelines, ignores the fact that better data could be had another way cheaper, and that they’ve lost in court every time? 

For some reason, this kind of behavior upsets a judge. He had an emergency phone call with the Justice Department lawyers and the folks bringing the suit where he asked, basically, “WTF?”

It got to the point that the judge asked the Justice Department lawyers if they were actually speaking for their client? They hemmed and hawed. I think the judge should order the president to come into court and explain himself. 

So that’s where we are on this Fourth of July. We have a man running our country who knows nothing of our traditions, history, or facts. Who is trying to get rid of scientists, diplomats, politicians, political appointees, and anyone else who disagrees with him, or give him factual information he doesn’t like, or in anyway makes him look bad. This man is going to hold a parade on our National Mall for his own self aggrandizement. It’s disgusting. It’s unpatriotic and it’s where we are as a country.

But to quote Arlo Gutherie “That isn’t what I came here to talk about…”

Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me the following:

So, Rick – Taking our discussion (which I don’t recommend we get too wrapped up in!!!) to PM . . . Yes, certainly public schooling and the interstate highway system can be viewed as socialist policies.  I don’t agree that our military would/should fall into that category, since it is cited in the Constitution as a responsibility of the Federal government. — — As you noted, the degree to which one approves of these policies is a big part of the issue.  (I commented that I am not a big fan of our public school system.  I am also not really a fan of the idea that everyone MUST have the next level of education.  In my grandfather’s day, an 8th grade education, and his natural talents and curiosity, enabled him to be very successful.  Now, not only is a high school education not considered adequate, but even, in many fields, a BA or BS is not enough.  It won’t be long before an MA is not enough [and is already considered insufficient in many fields, including teaching.]  We do need to bring back vocational training, and recognize its value. [I have been interested, over the years, to note how many people I know, respect, and work with – who didn’t go to college – and if they didn’t tell me, I would never have guessed!]  So I think the push for more and more publicly funded education is questionable, at the very least.)  —-  Beyond such, I am wondering, how far you do/would go in your support of the new socialist bent in the Dem party – ?  Do you support government take over of the entire health care system?  Support minimum income for all adults? (example, Andrew Yang’s proposal of $1000/per month, for every adult over 18?)  Guaranteed housing?   Voting rights for non-citizens?  And those illegally here? The Green New Deal ?  Etc.  —  Just curious. . 

She is very – how shall I put this? – extreme in her political views. But I have found her to be thoughtful and not condescending or prone to ad hominem arguments. I think this deserves some thought and a response. Other than the “when did you stop beating your wife” adjective on the “socialist bend of the Democratic party” it’s a pretty straight forward question.

Essentially, it is asking, “Where do I stand?” I think it’s a question we better all ask ourselves.

Here is my answer:

Your message to me raises some interesting questions.

One of them the “socialist bend of the Democratic party” I could ask you how you like the entrenched socialism of the Republican party? They love grain subsidies and hand out to corporations and banks but abhor helping regular folks.

As far as the Green New Deal goes.

The ideas in it are a response to facts raised by scientists.

I’m a big believer in science.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, “science is the search for the truth.”

The more I study ancient cultures and civilizations I see religions and political demagoguery to be intertwined in pure plays of control and power. I mean if you can make people believe – in a god, or some idea (no matter how unfounded) you can direct their efforts and control them.

This is the basis of many empires, civilizations, and dictatorships.

The American experiment is based on the principles of freedom and democracy. These principles are under a great deal of strain from people purporting to support them, all the while doing whatever they can  to subvert them. 

When we are at our best, we have faced problems and tried to deal with them.

Ignoring problems, like the rising temperatures of the Earth, is not wise. 

Ignoring science, like the fact that rising temperatures means sea levels will rise flooding much of the habitable lands and, for example, that rice will loose much of its nutritional value thus causing 600 million people to be malnourished. To ignore this, or to do what the Trump administration is attempting to do, which is to get rid of these scientists and their agency, is not wise.

As far as education goes. Part of the great American experiment has been to give every child the opportunity to get an education, a basic education at least. That is now under attack. Do we really want to have a majority of our electorate not able to read or write? That is where we are headed. 

As far as higher education goes. All research is based on the work of others. “Standing on the shoulders of others” etc. Gallileo saw the moons of Jupiter using a telescope. This technology has been continually improved. Linus Pauling did a lot of the work on DNA that Crick and Watson picked up on and finally figured out the make up of the DNA molecule.

Yes, I’ve known many brilliant people that didn’t got to college or didn’t finish (my Uncle George who designed and built Stratascope I based on the design of Jim Baker, who is considered by those of his generation to be the most brilliant astronomer/engineer of his day is one. Jim graduated with a PhD from Harvard after giving a talk at a dinner on ‘the state of astronomy today”)

Bill Gates never graduated. Nor did Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t think Seymour Cray did or Elon Musk.

What’s my takeaway from that? If you’re brilliant you may be able to do without a formal education.

What about the rest of us?

If you go to college, you can take courses, where someone has laid out a roadmap for you.

Yes, you might be able to figure calculus out on your own (Leibnitz did, so did Newton, so did Feynman, but unless you’re really really smart and have lots of time, you probably won’t. Why not benefit from the work of others? Do we really want are best and brightest to be reinventing the wheel every generation?

I prefer the approach of standing on the shoulders of giants and pushing forward into new unknown areas.

There’s another piece to all this, which I think is important. That is to have enough stuff lying around that you can discover new things by putting together in new a different ways what you’ve got lying around.

Rodin did it with his sculpture. We did it at Western Electric when I was working on the most sophisticated injection molded part ever made. We worked with machine and tool and die makers that were in the Pennsylvania and Chicago area. There were a whole bunch of them. We swapped ideas and showed them what we were doing and they took it and ran with it. Andy Grove has talked about this in terms of chip making. You need a certain critical mass to come up with this sort of stuff. My dad working at Perkin Elmer. They had that critical mass when it came to developing the most sophisticated optical systems ever made. They provided the optics for the cameras in the B-29’s Norden bomb site in WWII, in the spy cameras that flew over Cuba during that crisis, in the U2 planes, in the Hubble Space Telescope. Many of the best technicians there didn’t have college educations. Their efforts were often guided by those who had studied with some of the best minds in the world and did go to college, or were brilliant on their own. It was however a group of people dedicated to creating the best optical systems the world had ever seen. They had that critical mass and were given the power and authority to push the boundaries.  

When I was growing up I heard “funny stories” as my dad would relate them. About the NASA engineers who didn’t want to put a window in the original space capsule but wanted a periscope instead. Of folks who worked with Einstien or Harlow Shapley at Princeton’s observatory, or Chandra – who postulated about black holes, or the man “who saved the world.” (Lee Davenport who developed the gun tracking radar that shot down Hitler’s V1 and V2 rockets in the Battle of Britain.)

These were people with great minds, who were curious, who were trained or trained themselves.

But, like the idea of having enough stuff around to build new and different things, you need enough “idea stuff” lying around to figure out new things and develop new ideas.

That’s where basic R&D comes in. That’s what Bell Labs and IBM’s Watson Center and our government were really really good at. 

We currently have an administration that is out to destroy the very bedrock of our learning because it conflicts with their pre-conceived notions.

Our president is ignorant and revels in his ignorance. He belittles ideas and demonstrates on a daily basis his ignorance. It is frightening and could be the Gabrelian siren call of the end of this great experiment in freedom and democracy that is our United States. He is attacking our very institutions, undermining the support systems that create and maintain those systems and ideals, and he is lying, cheating, bullying and belittling everything and everyone who does mollify him. He is a threat to our country and the ideals for which it stands.

Have a great Fourth!

I urge everyone to take some time to reflect on what it is that makes our country, this experiment, so unique, and to think about how to uphold those ideals. 

PS Bastille Day Parade 2017. We were there with Donald and Melania! Hope they had better seats. (Okay, we stood.)