Give Me Back My Space Program

by admin Posted on April 30, 2012

A few days ago, my wife and I watched Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle, being flown to its new exhibit site in New York. It was an emotional experience, reaching its peak when the image of the shuttle flying on the back of a specially designed Boeing 747 was juxtaposed with two reminders of the violence that has beset our country. As the news anchor was interviewing Mark Kelly, astronaut and husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was grievously wounded in a shooting that left 6 others dead, the 747 carrying the shuttle flew by the Freedom Tower, which is being built on the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. This juxtaposition of the technology that is emblematic of the highest of human achievements against powerful reminders of those who would pervert it to the demands of hatred and dogma left us speechless. Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Reflections, Politics | 3 Comments

Another Site Redesign

by admin Posted on April 30, 2012

When many people have major life changes, they respond by remodeling their houses, starting new ventures, launching insane self-improvement programs, or going shopping. I do all of these. I also tend to redesign my web site. This time, the life changes are positive but nonetheless stressful. I recently retired from Sandia National Laboratories, mainly so I could pursue certain ideas about technology and people that I felt could best be explored outside the strictures of a corporate setting. I also wanted to have the time to devote myself to writing – hopefully producing more than the pathetic four articles per year that have been the norm, and maybe even pursuing another fiction project.

As part of this, I have ported my content to a WordPress implementation. WordPress is a blogging tool and Content Management System (CMS) that should help me to manage the flood of literary jewels I plan to produce (did I mention the insane self-improvement programs?). The new site will contain all the articles and other content from the former site. It will also provide readers with tools for searching the site’s content, and the ability to post comments. This entry briefly looks at the design of the new site, and at the problem of insuring that links into the old site are not simply broken. Continue reading →

Posted in Design, Media | 2 Comments

For what do I feel reverence?

by admin Posted on December 24, 2011

This is a holiday season preceding an election year, which means that all the usual excesses of religion are pushed at us through the media sphincter with ever increasing venom. Whether it is the casting call of presidential candidates competing to prove who loves Jesus the most, Christian conservative pundits who take every gesture toward inclusiveness during the holidays as a war on their most deeply held beliefs, or Baptist preachers labeling Mormons as a cult, I don’t seem to be able to escape the inquisition.

Although, I must admit that I did enjoy the last one. It came from a Baptist preacher in criticism of Mitt Romney, and it led me to imagine this purely hypothetical conversation:

Baptist preacher: “We believe Jesus was born of a virgin, turned water into wine, raised the dead, walked on water, died on the cross because it was the only way God could forgive the sins I was to commit 2000 years later, and rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion to ascend bodily into heaven.”

Mormon: “We believe all that. We also believe that on his way to heaven, Jesus stopped in America and visited with the Indians.”

Baptist preacher: “Well, that’s just crazy.”

In general, I’ve tried to avoid the topic of religion, because, in my experience, when people ask me what I believe, they don’t really care what I believe. They simply want to know whether:

Continue reading →

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Herman Cain, Sexual Scandal, and the Kobayashi Maru

by admin Posted on November 26, 2011

Currently, the Herman Cain sexual harassment scandal seems relatively quiescent; presumably awaiting some new revelation that will boost it back into the center ring of sleaze, anger, righteous certitudes, and reassuring prejudices that comprise our national politics. While resting in the eye of this perfect storm of denials, accusations, legalistic hair-splitting, conspiracy allegations, stonewalling, and other tired tactics that seem to accompany every political sex scandal of modern times, I had a thought that struck me as worth putting down in writing.

Is there a sense in which sex scandals have become the Kobayasi Maru of American politics? Continue reading →

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Fourth of July and our Imaginary History

by admin Posted on July 4, 2011

This Fourth of July, as is my habit on weekends and holidays, I had decided to take a hike in the nearby National Forest. I walked up the road from my house to my usual trailhead, only to find the forest was closed due to drought, fire danger, and our cherished Independence Day tradition of igniting fireworks with little concern for surrounding fire conditions. Perhaps it was because holidays often put me in a reflective mood, but as I walked through the neighborhood back to my home, I began to think about our history and the extent to which our lives are shaped by a past we rarely think about.

The Signing of the Constitution, by Thomas Rossiter (public domain)

In particular, I was struck by two realizations:

I was born only 82 years after the American Civil War ended. In the year of my birth and through much of my childhood, former Civil War soldiers and former slaves still lived in the United States. Well into my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, public spaces across the American South shamefully enforced separate white and colored bathrooms, and a black man could be brutally murdered – with little consequence to his killers. Continue reading →

Posted in Media, Politics | 1 Comment