The Rogue Scholar

Three Americans Share 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics

3 Americans share 2009 Nobel physics prize

By MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writers Matt Moore And Karl Ritter, Associated Press Writers 16 mins ago

STOCKHOLM – Three Americans whose 1960s research laid the foundation for today's world of computerized images and lightning-fast communication shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for their work developing fiber-optic cable and the sensor at the heart of digital cameras.

Charles K. Kao, 75, was cited for discovering how to transmit light signals over long distances through glass fibers as thin as a human hair. His 1966 breakthrough led to the creation of modern fiber-optic communication networks that carry voice, video and high-speed Internet data around the world.

"What the wheel did for transport, the optical fiber did for telecommunications," said Richard Epworth, who worked with Kao at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories in Harlow, England in the 1960s. "Optical fiber enables you to transmit information with little energy over long distances and to transmit information at very high rates."

Kao solved the problem of transmitting through miles of glass without having the glass itself absorb the signal. Corning Glass Works built on his ideas to create the first fibers that could be used for large-scale long-distance communications, making today's Internet possible.

Kao said he never expected the award despite the vast changes that resulted from his research.

"Fiber-optics has changed the world of information so much in these last 40 years," he said in a statement released by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was formerly vice chancellor.

Willard S. Boyle, 85, and George E. Smith, 79, were honored for inventing the eye of the digital camera, a sensor able to transform light into a large number of pixels, the tiny points of color that are the building blocks of every digital image.

Their charge-coupled device, or CCD, is found today in devices ranging from the cheapest point-and-shoot digital camera to robotic medical instruments equipped with video cameras that let surgeons perform delicate operations deep inside the human body. It also revolutionized astronomy by letting spacecraft equipped with digital cameras take images from previously unseen regions of outer space and transmit them back to earth.

The work of the three men is "something that has really changed our lives," said Joseph Nordgren, chair of the academy's physics committee. "The impact on science is enormous."

Read the rest of the article here.  Enjoy!

An Open Letter to Steve Elliot of Grassfire.org: Follow-up

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your speedy response to my previous letter. I am thrilled to hear that things are going so well for your organization. I notice with some concern that your histrionic tone hasn't changed much, but clearly you are very excited about your prospects for success re: The Death of ObamaCare. I like a man who stands by his goals.

From the Desk of:
Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance


         After clicking on the link below to watch John Stossel's
         special 20/20 report exposing the truth about ObamaCare,
         take a few additional moments to add your name to our
         national petition:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=21413&RID=14353679

I clicked the link (which appears five times in this e-mail; that seems excessive to me, but that's a personal preference rather than a comment on your letter writing abilities) and watched the clip. I do not think it says what you think it says. 

John Stossel did not, as you put it, expose "the truth about ObamaCare." He did not even mention "ObamaCare"--that is your term, not his. The only time he even refers to Obama is a five second clip where the president is speaking to an audience, suggesting that it might be a good idea if all Americans had access to basic health services. Beyond that, Stossel spends all of his time trashing the Canadian health care system, with a (dis)honorable mention of the British National Health Service, which apparently doesn't have enough dentists to go around. 

That's all well and good. But it doesn't apply to what's going on in the United States at this point in time. Show me anything in the health care proposals being discussed now that attempts to swap our current health care mess for Canada's (or England's) and I'll forward the clip to as many people as I can think of. Otherwise, Stossel is comparing apples and oranges and you are making a leap of faith when you predict that any change in the status quo will produce Canada's health care system.

Anyway, to the bulk of your letter:

Jonathan,

A reinvigorated Obama is preparing for his grand sales pitch to
Congress and America on Wednesday night where it is expected he
will throw down the gloves and demand citizens fall in line!

Not citizens so much as congresspeople (who, I admit, are also citizens), but God, I hope so. It would be the first real sign of balls he's shown in a while. He needs to (as Maureen Dowd put it) "let Bartlet be Bartlet," not make nice with the freaks at the extremes.

Well Americans aren't falling in line. In fact, citizens by the
hundreds are flocking to sign our petition saying no to
ObamaCare every hour!

Hundreds? Every hour? That's . . . well, that's nice. Not really jaw-dropping, but a good effort. I think most of the folks who wanted to sign your petition have already done so. Maybe you could borrow Dick Armey's FreedomWorks mailing list. They should be receptive to this kind of knee-jerk logic.

         Jonathan, I noticed you haven't yet signed this
         important petition opposing government-run health care,
         and wanted to give you one last chance to do so before
         our historic delivery on 9/12.

I'm not going to sign. I'm morally obligated not to sign. I'd sign it if it denounced the current situation in favor of, say government regulated health care, which is where Matt Miller thinks this should go. But government-run health care is Medicare, which my mother and in-laws have, and Medicaid, which my godson has. Why do you want to kill my parents and kid?  (And you should watch your text blocking.)

         But before you sign, take a moment to watch an
         incredible video by ABC News' John Stossel about
         what likely awaits us should ObamaCare become
         a reality.

Click here to see the video:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=21413&RID=14353679

I clicked. I saw. I responded. Let's move on.


++ 45,000 Petitions Needed For Friday Delivery!

That's 15,000 signatures per day for three days. Possible, but I don't think you're getting to half a million by then.

Regardless of Obama's antics on Wednesday evening, Grassfire
team-members will be delivering petitions REJECTING OBAMACARE
to EVERY Senator on Capitol Hill on Friday--
letting each one know that Americans aren't falling in line.

Good to hear! But I cringe at your selection of the word "antics" in this passage. There's a lot to unpack there. A lot of minstrel imagery, especially. But you are busy and so am I, so let's just call this another dangerous foray into the realm of racism and leave it at that.

Already more than 95 team members have registered to deliver
petitions--ensuring this will be a historic event!

It's an historic event, but who's counting grammatical errors? Just out of curiosity, which states are the hold outs? Wouldn't telling us where the holes are be instrumental to filling them?

But we are 45,000 petitions shy from reaching our goal of
half-a-million petitions, and we need your help over the
next 24 hours.

No, you are 45,000 signatures away from creating a single petition to be hand-delivered to 95 (hopefully 100) senators tonight. Right? Or are we e-mailing our individual petitions to our own congresspeople? But if we're doing that then which document are the 500,000 signatures going to reside upon? Really, you must slow down, this is becoming confusing.

Click here to have your petition opposing ObamaCare delivered
to your Senator this Friday:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=21413&RID=14353679

        We only have about a 24 hour window to reach our goal,
        so after signing, forward this important message to 30-40
        friends urging them to watch the video and sign our petition
        in time for Friday's delivery by clicking here:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=21413&RID=14353679

I have given you my requirements for signing and/or forwarding your e-mails in my previous letter. There's no need to repeat them here. By the way, how are you verifying the e-mail addresses and names people respond to these e-mails with? Just curious.

This is our last chance to reach our goal of half-a-million
petitions before the 9/12 event on Capitol Hill, and I want
to mark the events of that day with an exclamation point
saying NO TO OBAMACARE!

I wish your event well. Say Hi to Beck from me. Tell him not to cry this time, it makes him look like a pussy. His lunatic shrieking on the phone was much more enjoyable. I'd like more of that, please. If you could arrange it, I'd be grateful.

Thank you for taking immediate action with Grassfire!

Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org

No, Steve, thank you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Frater

P.S: After signing our petition, make it a personal priority to
forward this message to 30-40 friends. Urge them to watch the
Stossel video and sign our petition by clicking here:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=21413&RID=14353679

*sigh*

An Open Letter to Steve Elliot of Grassfire.org

Dear Steve,

I'd like to thank you for keeping in touch the past few months. Really, I had no idea that I was living in a fascist state, so I appreciate your setting me straight on that matter. I notice that the tone and substance of your e-mails have been becoming increasingly hysterical since last November, which concerns me a bit; the last thing an organization like Grassfire.org needs is an obvious lunatic at its helm.  That said, I had no choice but to take issue with some portions of your most recent missive. I'm sure these are the innocent misunderstandings of a man under deadline writing to persuade, but they needed to be addressed.

Anyway, the text of your latest e-mail (edited for space) and my responses are as follows (your text in italics):

From the Desk of:
Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance


Jonathan,

Forget about the separation of church and state, these are desperate
times for Democrats who are suddenly embracing all things holy to
pass ObamaCare!

         Attempting to moralize the health care debate,
         Obama had the audacity to spew that those opposing
         ObamaCare were "frankly, bearing false witness."

         He pressed on, casting his perfect pro-abortion record aside
         saying passage of health care reform is "a core ethical and
         moral obligation: that is, that we look out for one another;
         that is, I am my brother's keeper."

It's interesting to see that you only approve of bringing religion into a public speech when it's spoken by a politician you like or delivering a biblical point of view you agree with. I don't know which Bible you've been reading but it seems to have misprinted the story of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:3-4:12):

4:3 At the designated time ⁹  Cain brought some of the fruit of the ground for an offering ¹⁰  to the Lord. 4:4 But Abel brought ¹¹  some of the firstborn of his flock – even the fattest ¹²  of them. And the Lord was pleased with ¹³  Abel and his offering, 4:5 but with Cain and his offering he was not pleased. ¹⁴  So Cain became very angry, ¹⁵  and his expression was downcast. ¹⁶ 

4:6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why is your expression downcast? 4:7 Is it not true ¹⁷  that if you do what is right, you will be fine? ¹⁸  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching ¹⁹  at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.” ²⁰

4:8 Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” ²¹  While they were in the field, Cain attacked ²²  his brother ²³  Abel and killed him.

4:9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” ²⁴  And he replied, “I don’t know! Am I my brother’s guardian?” ²⁵  4:10 But the Lord said, “What have you done? ²⁶  The voice ²⁷  of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! 4:11 So now, you are banished ²⁸  from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 4:12 When you try to cultivate ²⁹  the ground it will no longer yield ³⁰  its best ³¹  for you. You will be a homeless wanderer ³²  on the earth.”

The lesson is pretty clear here: Cain was his brother's keeper, and his jealously and rage at his brother's apparent success (as well as his own apparent failure) was both unjustified and destructive. There is no other way to read these passages as far as I can tell. Conservatives speak often of "the politics of envy" within the liberal heart, but how little room there seems to be in your own for those Jesus called "the least among you." Surely those Americans with no access to even the most basic health care fall into that category.

Doesn't his brother live in a tiny box somewhere in Africa?

Since the president's half-brother, George, is not a bullfrog or a praying mantis I assume you're referring to the incident described here. (If I'm wrong, please correct me.) I'm not sure what your point is, however; I can think of a few different ways of parsing that line about "living in a tiny box in Africa somewhere." To me it sounds vaguely racist to assume that the guy somehow deserves to be in a Nairobi jail cell for possession of a roach (if that is the case), but that's just me.  It's not on a par with burning a cross on the White House lawn or shouting "Die, Nigger, Die" (certainly not on the same page as  that wacko Randall Terry who is apparently threatening to blow up congress if all abortion everywhere is not banned immediately), but likely in the same realm. To be honest if you wrote me an e-mail with the subject line of "Just Get That Nigger Out of Office Already!" I'd have a lot more respect for you. It would be more honest on Grassfire.org's part than any of the other e-mails I have received so far.

No matter. Obama and the Democrats are pulling out the stops-- Bill
Clinton and even the Al "Gore-acle" showed up at events waxing
inspirational and calling passage of health care reform a
"moral imperative."

In fact, this Wednesday (Sept. 9), Obama will address the nation
during a joint session of Congress where I'm certain he will announce
that he has personally partnered with the Almighty to pass health
care reform!

Certitude is nice but generally misguided. Unless one of Obama's staff or God himself actually told you or one of your staff of this, I'd have to conclude that you're making an assumption, and an ass of yourself in the process. (When you ass-ume . . .) Also, Steve, the debate is a moral one, regardless of the fact that you don't like more than half the country's moral position.

500,000 Petitions Opposing ObamaCare!

In terms of purely political activism, that's a worthy goal. In terms of 1% of the population attempting to make sure the 15% of the country that currently has no health care never gets health care, well, that's pretty immoral in my book. Planning your own little "Death Panel," are you? Nice.

Jonathan, we have the momentum, and I refuse to allow Obama
or anyone else to moralize this debate in such a way as to undermine
what we've been able to accomplish so far.

All right, then: how would you like Obama or anyone else to moralize the debate? You don't specifically say, but the wording of your sentence suggests you'd be fine with it if Obama just let you have your political way.  For the record, he's been doing just that on a number of issues. So I don't get why you're so damn scared of him. Is it the Black thing? Is it those sleeveless dresses that Michelle favors? Help me out, here, because I got nothing.

That's why on Wednesday--just hours before Obama takes to the airwaves,
I want to announce to the nation that grassroots opposition to
ObamaCare is on the rise!

Good for you. It' good to want things.

Right now we are only about 60,000 signers shy of reaching our
monumental goal of half-a-million citizen signers who, like me,
refuse to be bullied or intimidated into silence!

"Intimidated into silence"? You make so much noise we can hear you from two states away! I'm sorry to hear you are being "bullied," but that gives me another question to ask: don't you ever get tired of being a victim?

Congress and Obama are desperate. We have the momentum, and with your
continued help we will continue to grow the resistance against
socialized health care.

Someone is certainly getting desperate (project much?) but I doubt it's congress, since this is not an election year. Anyway, Steve, here's what I am willing to do, one American who wants what's best for the country to another (so you say). You don't like socialism? Fine. Discard it. Publish a legal document (signed and notarized) in which you waive your right to every socialized program currently in use in this country at every level of government. Sign away your right to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, the home mortgage deduction, the whole gamut of government programs. Give them all up. Get others on Grassfire.org's mailing list to do the same. Live by the principles you espouse. In return, I will personally forward this e-mail (sans my comments) to everyone I know. It's easy, just write and sign the letter, have it notarized then convert it to a PDF and put it on the web with a link that I can use to see it. That's all I'm asking of you. For a great patriot like yourself it should come easily. If not, well, I'll have no choice but to assume you are merely another greedy, racist windbag.

I think that's fair.

By the way, this conversation that Senator Al Franken had with a group of concerned Minnesotans at the Minnesota State Fair is what an actual debate on health care looks like. Pay particular attention to the redhead with the Tea Party t-shirt. Besides speaking the name "Obama" in the same tone a Florida redneck from 1953 might say another word for a black man, once the information flows and the discussion really gets going, she has absolutely nothing to contribute. Rather like your fellow activists on Grassfire.org.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Frater

Judith Krug, RIP

From the pages of USA Today:

Library Advocate Judith Krug Dies of Stomach Cancer

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Judith Krug, a director of the Chicago-based American Library Association and a founder of its Banned Books Week, has died.

Judith Platt, president of the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation, says Krug died late Saturday at Evanston Hospital in suburban Chicago following a battle with stomach cancer. She says Krug had been ill for more than a year.

Krug's age was not immediately available.

She had been head of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967.

Banned Books Week has been observed since 1982 during the last week of September. ALA officials say the event celebrates intellectual freedom.

Banned Books Week is a major holiday in the Frater home. Make it one in yours as well.

Obama Frees Bush Historical Records

This article should be of interest to historians and archivists all over the political spectrum. To wit:

Obama Frees Bush Historical Records 

By Robert Parry 
January 22, 2009

When authoritarian forces seize control of a government, they typically move first against the public’s access to information, under the theory that a confused populace can be more easily manipulated. They take aim at the radio stations, TV and newspapers.

In the case of George W. Bush in 2001, he also took aim at historical records, giving himself and his family indefinite control over documents covering the 12 years of his father’s terms as President and Vice President.

It was, therefore, significant that one of Barack Obama’s first acts as President was to revoke the Bush Family’s power over that history and to replace it with an easier set of regulations for accessing the records.

Just as George W. Bush upon taking office in January 2001 immediately delayed the scheduled release of documents from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Obama wasted no time in reversing that policy by signing a new executive order on his first working day in office.

Eight years earlier, George W. Bush initially postponed the document release and then – after the 9/11 attacks – sought to extend the cloak of secrecy over those documents virtually forever.

Bush signed Executive Order 13233 on Nov. 1, 2001, granting the sitting President as well as former Presidents or ex-Vice Presidents – or their heirs – veto power over release of many documents.

In other words, Bush was giving himself and his family effective control over key chapters of 20 years of American history (his father’s eight years as Vice President and four years as President, and his own eight years as President).

Presumably at some point, that power would have passed to George W. Bush’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara, and to their progeny, giving the family a kind of dynastic control over how Americans would understand key events of an important national era.

Self-serving myths could become a substitute for accurate history – all the better to protect the Bush Family’s interests.

The rest of the article is here. Enjoy! (And have a great weekend.)

Something to Remember About "The Media"

My wife and I went to visit my CFP last night. He’s a nice guy, very smart, and we’ve known each other for roughly 20 years (during which time he’s made me some real—for me, at the time—money, which is I’m still dealing with him). At any rate, part of the plan we were talking about for the future last night rests on the assumption that what’s happening right now is a temporary glitch in the global financial system which will work itself out after a few years.

Well, he may be right.  As I said, he’s very smart. He’s certainly right to say that this is not the end of the world or even the end of commerce. Some things are just too important to too many people to let go of. On the other hand he might just as easily be wrong, and while the world and the life it supports will continue, the manner in which our wealth is created, calculate, and preserved probably will change, perhaps quite radically over the next few decades. 

Consider this bit from Mike Ruppert’s A2:FTW blog:

Jan. 18, 2009 – Perhaps we should be holding our breaths for something else; something that is breaking out all over the world. Civil unrest now moves from a back to a front burner as a landmark on our map and a pressing issue for our discussion.

On January 16th and 17th I saw (either) cowardice or duplicity on the part of mainstream media. Chesley Sullenberger is a great pilot. Coming from an Air Force/aviation family I would be honored to shake his hand. The U.S. Air miracle on the Hudson was indeed that. But for almost 36 hours I watched in rage as the mainstream media, especially CNN, played the same four of five clips endlessly, over and over, rehashing the rehash – hour after hour. The anchors and their producers were either taking a break or regrouping. Several looked very bored. Not since 9-11 have I seen American media shut down news coverage of other important events to such a degree. But the US Air crash landing wasn't a 9-11 was it?

On January 16th the United States shed another 21,000 jobs… in one day. Globally, the economic collapse is hitting other industrialized countries much harder than here. Around the world "emerging" bourses are imploding at a faster rate than ours. Perhaps we should rename them as "disappearing markets" now. The disappearing act has hit turbo charge in Europe as a result of a now three-week old lack of Russian natural gas. Triggered by the economic collapse and compounded by human suffering in unheated, near-zero weather, riots – big ones – have erupted from Latvia in the North, to Sofia in the South. There is serious street fighting. Around the world, from China, to India, to Europe, industrialized nations are "frantically" preparing for civil unrest (China at a very rapid pace). Of course our map says that the US, the UK, Russia and a few others have been preparing for this for years.

Arab nations have lost $2.5 trillion (40% of their investments) thus far in the collapse and have postponed or cancelled 60% of their new development projects… You know? Those hotels where you can snow ski inside when it's 112 outside? That kind of a shutdown will cause the Arab oil-producing nations to explode in civil unrest as aggravated poverty, starvation and disease hit home in short order. Collapsed oil prices have exposed the lack of economic stamina in the region. (You thought Americans were foolish spenders.) The luxuries of the princes will now stand starkly contrasted against the barren desert of their subjects' lives. Thus, geography is giving us our first major political tectonic fault line. From the Baltic south, through Greece, into Turkey, then fanning out across the Middle East is a new frontier of soon-to-be flaming unrest

Unrest will happen here and it will happen in an earthshaking fashion within the next year. Could the evidence supporting this conclusion have been missed as we watched footage on the Hudson for the thirty-second time in 36 hours? Couldn't they have squeezed any of this other news in… somewhere?

Mike is pointing out one thing we all need to remember: news is relative. Americans are notorious for ignoring what goes on overseas or even in the American interior. And “The Media” are not our friends: the news is handled by professionals to resemble entertainment, not information.

Just a few things to remember as we hope for the best in the coming year.

An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear Mr. President,

First of all, I wish to offer my heartfelt congratulations on your electoral victory.  In a short while you will be considered by many to be the most powerful person in the world.  For a man to call himself such is something an American has been doing every four years since 1945.  For a man of your race and background to call himself such is a unique and genuinely new moment in American history.

That is, of course, the point.  Along with your predecessor's problems you are inheriting an opportunity to build something genuinely new in this country.  Not a Utopian vision of perfect equality, justice, and universal happiness--there are some things that physical reality and human nature will not support and perfection is among them. Your and our ideals are important, and they should guide you and us as we try to figure out what kind of a country we actually want to live in.  One hopes that it will be a different one in tone and public action than what we've been seeing in the past decade.

I ask only that you remember that ideals are exactly that--ideas that we use to guide us as we struggle with physical limitations placed upon us by physical reality.  Our physical reality at this particular moment is rather bleak.  Our energy supplies are dwindling, our infrastructure is crumbling, our economic power is waning, and our military is unable to conquer or control underfed, poorly supplied adversaries in destitute countries.  The thing to remember about all of these problems is that more thinking of the type that created them will not help us solve them.  We need to think of something different.  To that end, I would suggest only that you keep an open mind and understand that good ideas and solutions comes from many places.  In fact, they come from everywhere.  All you need do is listen.  (You might want to start by listening to those Americans who've been experiencing hard times the past eight years.)

Good luck, and once again, congratulations.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Frater

Are We . . . Screwed?

(I'm in a ramblin' mood this afternoon, so . . .)

On this day--October 31--we are told, the barrier between the world of men and spirits are at their thinnest. But men and spirits both being less than reasonable 100% of the time have been known to seek us out for redress for past slights (real or imagined.) We traditionally dress up in costume to confuse or frighten off any would-be seekers of vengeance. And, we're told, we shouldn't really breathe easily until the clock strikes midnight and All Hallow's Eve becomes All Saint's Day, when the two worlds go back to their respective routines and men and spirits go their separate ways.

At any rate there's lots of goings on among the world of men to scare one silly. First off being that the great man who was known for a decade and a half as "The Maestro" and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II has officially come out of the stupid closet. It's not his fault, he says, he had no clue his brilliant ideas would screw up absolutely everything.

Right. No offense to Sir Alan, but my grandfather could have figured it out on his slide rule. Encourage people to do stupid things at no risk to themselves (albeit at substantial risk to those around them) and they--surprise!--will do stupid things. And they did, to the tune of making $70 trillion worth of bad bets on the global economy. (I know it's more complicated than that, but that's what it boils down to.)

That's the real problem with what's going on in the U.S. at this particular moment in time: idiots run the country, and through various international levers and treaties, the world. That sounds harsh and unfair on the surface. Greenspan had the best education money could buy, was imminently well-connected and was entrusted with managing the money supply--as, for instance, you and I never would have been--and there was a good reason for that. One assumes that anyone smart and motivated enough to get to such a position should, I don't know, know what he's doing. It's a decent assumption--you go to a good school, learn from the best, you should know which way is up. Except that Greenspan apparently didn't know up from down and by extension we can assume neither do the other big shots in economic circles.

Some of these guys are unquestionably saying these "Dude! I'm as surprised as y'all!" type things now to cover their asses, which really is a learned skill (covering your ass, that is, not saying "I'm shocked this has happened"), especially in our institutions of higher learning. And let's give credit where it was due, only a fucking genius could have invented something as complicated (and frankly as dangerous) as the derivatives market turned out to be.

I say these things out loud and I'm nearly always told by someone that I just don't understand economics. I agree that math is not my strongest skill set. But I understand human behavior pretty well, and it's a well documented fact that people fall in love with their ideas. I hate to throw away half-written articles or short stories because, well, they're mine and I put a lot of energy into them. I don't think about the fact that seven out of then ten people who read them in the past year hate them for largely the same reasons. But I should think about that because when you show a piece of writing to ten people and more than seven list the same things as being noticeable, it's best to listen to them.

By that same logic if government statistics say we're wealthier than at any point in history but polls  consistently say that the people actually living in America just don't feel that way, maybe that's a hint worth taking.

So, at this particular moment in time, October 31, 2008,  the world of economics--noted by some as a real science and by others as a bunch of wishful thinking with a lot of math--is closer to the everyday world of daily life than it has been in years. By that I mean that those of us not in the special club have finally taken notice of it and are perhaps also noticing that maybe handing control of our destinies to this Harvard-edumacated crowd is not the best idea.  And with that in mind would you rather vote for the guy who seems to have a handle on things--what things the system will let him handle once he's in the top job, of course--or the guy who thinks being the touchiest man in the room qualifies him for that job?

As I said several posts ago, this, too, shall pass. It'll be like losing 50 lbs.: doing it sucks, but you feel better when it's over. And granted, there are real reasons to be very afraid of the future we're creating. But there are resources to get through this as well because life never really stops and nothing ever really ends. 

Happy Halloween!

Don't Panic . . .

 . . . monorail cat now stops at the library.

All right, so monorail cat doesn't stop anywhere but the top shelf because that's where the light from the living room window hits during the day. But there are valid reasons not to panic, which include (but are not limited to):

The fact that this blog just logged its 18,000 visitor. I am amazed and astounded (and pleased as hell) to report this. Part of the reason that I'm reporting it today is because someone--I don't know who because there's no referral link involved--has been looking at a post I wrote years ago about what librarians should know about electronic resources., over and over and over again. I'd love to know where these people are coming from but I'm just as happy to report that they did in fact visit for a spell.

If you're like most Americans, the Great Market Drop hasn't affected you personally yet.  It will, probably when you open that next day trading account statement or your next quarterly statement from whichever firm holds your 401(k) plan. That will suck, and you need to mentally prepare for it. However, chances are you still have a job, are still paying your bills, and are still living in the home you had weeks or months ago. Those are all good things. Be happy you have them.

And as I write this the market is up something like 400 points. That is a prime opportunity to sell whatever stocks you've lost faith in because it means the market is swarming with buyers. That's a good thing. It probably won't last so take this chance while it's here.

As a final note, remember King David's posthumous words to his son Solomon, who had been left with enemies on all front and a kingdom in a marked state of decay and disarray: this, too, shall pass.Night always turns into day. (Just be prepared for day to turn back into night at some point.)

Rushdie Still Driving Iran Nuts!

Whether it made political sense for the Queen to elevate Salman Rushdie to knighthood at this particular time or not, I do not know.  In one sense, this is like throwing gasoline on a fire.  I do know that he's been making the Imams in Iran crazy for over 20 years, which from a writer's viewpoint, cannot be a bad thing.  (You know you've hit the Big Time when someone wants you dead.  Doesn't matter who.)  In college we English majors all dreamed to getting onto as many hit lists as possible because of what we'd written, drawn, sculpted or put on film.  Rushdie was elevated to near-god status when his life was first threatened for writing the Satanic Verses.  If nothing else, it spurred dozens of us to immediately run out and buy the book.  Which is what I think you should do if you haven't done it already.  (Click here.)