Rant of the Week: 2/7/10-2/13/10
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Author Archives: ape man
Essay of the Week: 2/7/10-2/13/10
What I have been reading
I have known for a long time that nobody really understands water. It pleases some evil part of me that something as common as water has stumped the best minds of men for so long. That confusion may or may not be over. Time will tell. But I still learned a lot I did not know about water’s weirdness from this article.
Speaking of water, it is now being blamed for 30% of Global Warming. Maybe this new bit of info will take some of the blame off the cows.
But my reading has not all centered around high minded things like water. I have also been following dark and mundane things like the rank fear that has been emanating out of Europe. It has gotten so bad that Hungary’s Minister of Finance is responding in full force to blog posts by Edward Hugh. Nothing against Edward Hugh, but when your country’s Minister of Finance fells compelled to address his arguments, you have serious problems. But as this Guardian article reminds us, Europe’s current problems are nothing considering what they are going to face.
Speaking of reading dark things, I have got some books by Gene Wolfe out of the library. I have seen his name splashed around here and there. But I don’t have much use for fiction these days. In spite of this, I was intrigued by the Wikipedia article about him. There was a lot of things that intrigued me. But they are all summed up in the first two lines…
Gene Wolfe (born May 7, 1931) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying a Catholic.
I don’t think I would have given the “dense, allusive prose” a second thought if had been for the part about being a Catholic. Something about the Catholic faith seems to be good at creating or attracting people who really get metaphor and symbolism. It will be interesting to see if Gene Wolfe falls into the same category or not.
The worst of all possible worlds
They say the New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken. I am sure they are right. I am also sure they have no idea of what they are talking about. I could not stand reading the article, but I made myself finish it.
I guess I sound like I am some kind of wanna be Zen master. But I really don’t know how to express myself to people who have not seen what I have seen and don’t know what I know. And I know that few people want to consider this problem honestly and no one has the brains to figure out a good solution.
It is so easy to play the populist. I would probably play one myself if I didn’t know better.
Let’s play the populist game. Let’s play different parts of the article against each other.
First we have this….
The state spends roughly $210,000 per youth annually, but three-quarters of those released from detention are arrested again within three years.
Then we have this….
“These institutions are often sorely underresourced, and some fail to keep their young people safe and secure, let alone meet their myriad service and treatment needs,” according to the report, which was based on interviews with workers and youths in custody, visits to prisons and advice from experts.
What a contrast, eh? How can a system that spends a couple hundred grand per kid per year be sourly underresourced? I mean, how much more do we really want to pay to take care of young thugs?
Yet the system is sorely underresourced. But that does not change the fact that the state cannot afford to spend more money on its prison system.
To explain this sad state of affairs fully would take essay upon essay. But you can quickly grasp the nature of the problem by understanding that the only two “good” choices are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Choice number one: You can shoot every kid who has been convicted of anything that resembles a serious crime with no appeal allowed. This would be very cheap and it would dramatically cut the crime rate.
Choice number two: You can hire the best Drill Sargents that the military can produce and give them lots of discretion and money. This will produce the best chance of turning young criminals into productive citizens as long as you keep the Drill Sargent to youth offender ratio low and hold the Drill Sargents accountable for the results that they achieve.
The disadvantages of the first choice is obvious to the modern mind. The disadvantage of the second choice is that it is hideously expensive. People who have the skills to be good Drill Sargents have lots of career choices. And without significant monetary compensation, most of them are not going to put working with young thugs on their list of dream jobs.
The fundamental problem is that the closer you get to the middle ground between these two choices, the closer you will get to creating a system that is the worst of all possible worlds.
And the worst of all possible worlds is a bureaucracy were nobody has the authority to punish or reward. A bureaucracy where any kind of meaningful interaction with the wards of state is against the rules. A bureaucracy whose only goal is to carry the kids through their term safety so that they can come out more dangerous and hardened then when they went in.
And that is what New York State has now.
Two different reasons for hiding data
Today I have science on the brain. Or at least some vague approximation of the word (I have real trouble spelling it, for some reason).
I spent some time reading up on Robert Hooke just because I did not know much about him other then he was Newton’s nemesis.
Reading it made me kind of depressed. If you ever get to thinking that you’re smart, you should read about some of the early giants of the enlightenment. When they weren’t making ground breaking discoveries in 42 separate areas of study (all of which they were pursuing at the same time), they were designing buildings, hard to counterfeit currencies, and building better watches. I think they benefited greatly from living in a time that was wealthy enough that many men could devote themselves to thought and yet it was still expected that a man of thought would be able to build things with his own hands.
But be that as it may, those biographies of early scientists are depressing for reasons other then how small they make us feel. The early giants of the scientific revolution repeatedly demonstrated they could be awfully small minded. They stole ideas from each other and did not give credit. They jealously guarded their own data and ideas lest someone else steal them. They slandered each other and tried to destroy all the works that their opponents left behind.
Reading all of those things, one can’t help but think of the recent climategate scandal. One is tempted to trot out the old adage “the more things change, the more things stay the same.”
But there is a crucial difference. The early giants of the scientific revolution had ideas that would change the world and stand the test of time. And they knew the value of what they had. That is why they fought like cats and dogs over who thought up the ideas first.
On the other hand, the scientists involved in global warming research have no clue what they are doing. They can’t even reproduce their own work, much less have it be tested by others. They hide their data not because they know it is of great worth, but because they know that it is next to worthless (and that’s being kind.)
Perspective makes all the difference
Today Sippican Cottage posted an old video showing the twin towers being built. It makes for some very interesting viewing. Sadly, the clip makes for more interesting viewing now than it did before the towers came down.
Watching those great big pieces of steel being lifted into place, one can’t help but think about how they came down. Hearing the announcer describe how the twin towers were being built with a new type of construction that allowed the building to be supported by the outside frame, you can’t help but think about how that type of construction was instrumental in causing the towers to collapse. And watching the propaganda about how these buildings were bringing people together from all around the world…..
But there is no need to belabor the point. Just about anyone who watches the above clip will come up with a similar set of reactions. What I find really interesting about the above clip is not the immediate reaction that it generates. Rather, I think it is an interesting example of how radically our interpretation of past events can change based on events that happen after the fact.
We generally think that we know how we will look back on events as we are living through them. We think we know what will be happy memories and what will be sad. We think we know what we will value and what we will not. But life has a way of changing how we perceive the events that happened in our past.
And in that context, I can’t but help think of Jesus’ story of the beggar and the rich man.
The Mystery Of UP
Today I watched Up.
I think the thing that struck me most while I was watching it was how much of the movie was written solely for adults. I mean, how many kids watching that movie would have been able to figure out that the old man’s wife could not have kids?
It makes you wonder why Pixar does such things. Granted, it is common wisdom that for a children’s movie to be successful it should appeal to the adults as well as to the children. But it is hard to think of any other children’s movie that has so much in it that goes completely over a child’s head. The only ones that come close are other Pixar flicks.
To be sure, Shrek had a lot of parody in it that a child would miss. But the parody worked on its own terms for little kids. They did not have to get the parody to enjoy the movie. And maybe I am wrong, but I think that there is an awful lot of stuff in Up that kids just won’t get.
That is not to say that kids won’t enjoy the movie, but it strikes me that it will never become a favorite of the little ones on par with Toy Story or Lion King. And if the people behind Pixar have any brains, they had to realize that it was going to be this way when they were sending it out the door.
So it makes you wonder why they do it. You would think they would make even more money if they geared it more toward little kids. I mean, adults watch Pixar’s stuff. But kids would watch it over and over again if they geared it more toward them. Kids have time and loyalty that most adults lack.
The only thing I can think of is that a lot of people in Pixar would rather be making movies for adults, but don’t feel that they can get away with their anti-modernist streak if they did so.
An authentic rebel yell
I have always wondered what a rebel yell really sounded like. The history books always described at as a high pitched yelping. I could never understand what they were talking about. But I suspect this is the closest I will ever come to hearing an authentic rebel yell.
They don’t make them like they use to
Today I was thinking about how extraordinary my Grandpa was in many ways when compared to subsequent generations.
How many of the baby boom generation are likely to have 6 kids who all married had two kids and never divorced (at least up to the present time)?
How many of the baby boom generation are likely to have built a house, while living in the basement with a bunch of small children and holding down a full time job at the same time? (To read the rest of this post click here)