Sunday, December 25, 2016
These are my thoughts - unfortunately, someone else said them first. I won't say who but he is a genius.
A son is home from college for the holidays. He actually tried to convince us last night that Pot was good for you. "I think what you're trying to say it is less bad for you than other recreational drugs." "Do you know how much they've improved pot since you were a kid?" With a sagacious nod of the head, I said, "sure, it's more potent. However, you're still ingesting a foreign substance into you're no longer pink lungs. Pot is better than sniffing airplane glue, shooting street heroin, or snorting elephant tranquilizers, but I wouldn't call it healthy. You're not talking to someone with chaste ears, I've been around plenty. I know people that've been smoking weed for fifty years and they all have one thing in common - a passive acceptance of life. If you feel the need to be tranquilized in order to survive, by all means smoke all the weed you can, but please don't call it healthy. Personally, I've never understood the allure of sitting with a group of brain-dead losers passing a saliva soaked cigarette around and acting stupid, I'd rather sit in a proper drinking establishment discussing politics, sports, or pursuing audacious strumpets, but that's just me."
Thursday, December 31, 2015
I had not heard of NASA's Michelle Thaller until this week. (revised to remove typos)
I turned on CSPAN Sunday morning in 2015 in the middle of a Discussion on Science Skeptics. It was a rerun from earlier in the year.
A member of the audience addressed the panel. He related his experience with people who sought out medical science when a family member had spinal meningitis but would not vaccinate against the same disease. Then said, "We are all mortal. What is it about death that brings us back to science?"
More than one on the panel blurted out, before clicking their microphones to on, the one-word answer. Fear.
While panel member, Richard Alley, spoke analytically about the relative costs of ignoring science in different situations, I thought scientific-atheists might turn to religion when fearing death.
Then a young woman, Michelle Thaller, turned on her microphone. She said she was also scheduled for another panel, one on science and religion, and declared that it was not her area of expertise and that there was little intersection between them. I'll quote the rest of her answer.
Michelle Thaller:
One of the things that people do not understand about science, being a scientist, is that we do not believe we have found truth. As amazing as the equations of Albert Einstein are, and I have studied graduate-level Quantum Mechanics and graduate level General Relativity, we cannot find one small deviation from these laws that were set up 100 years ago. When you measure how light bends around a black hole or around the sun, Einstein is absolutely correct but we know it is not the be all end all truth. Einstein's theories don't work inside an atom. There the laws of quantum mechanics contradict them. When you ara a scientist, you give up this idea of there ever being an answer and of there ever being a truth. ... and that does, of course, influence my view on spirituality.
I live in a world where you learn to swim in doubt - beautiful, complex, ever-increasingly accurate , getting towards the truth but never getting there. There is a beauty in trying to lose your ego in that. ... and I think people often think that scientists don't respond emotionally to what they learn from science. ... I don't think that's true. Uhmmm ... This is still conjectural but we are fairly sure that time does not exist the way we think it does. It is not a simple progression from start to end. The modern laws of physics and particle physics almost require that to not be true. and ... In some other dimensional view, you can see all of my life from beginning to end. Because we believe the big bang most likely created all of time as well as all of space. and at that instant of creation, not only was space created, but time from start to end, whatever that means to temporally based creatures like me. So I say to my husband some times because we expect to die and not have anything after death, that when the universe began, I was holding your hand and when the universe ends I'll be holding your hand
there is anther way to be an swim in doubt and still find beauty.
Me: DROP THE MIC!
I turned on CSPAN Sunday morning in 2015 in the middle of a Discussion on Science Skeptics. It was a rerun from earlier in the year.
A member of the audience addressed the panel. He related his experience with people who sought out medical science when a family member had spinal meningitis but would not vaccinate against the same disease. Then said, "We are all mortal. What is it about death that brings us back to science?"
More than one on the panel blurted out, before clicking their microphones to on, the one-word answer. Fear.
While panel member, Richard Alley, spoke analytically about the relative costs of ignoring science in different situations, I thought scientific-atheists might turn to religion when fearing death.
Then a young woman, Michelle Thaller, turned on her microphone. She said she was also scheduled for another panel, one on science and religion, and declared that it was not her area of expertise and that there was little intersection between them. I'll quote the rest of her answer.
Michelle Thaller:One of the things that people do not understand about science, being a scientist, is that we do not believe we have found truth. As amazing as the equations of Albert Einstein are, and I have studied graduate-level Quantum Mechanics and graduate level General Relativity, we cannot find one small deviation from these laws that were set up 100 years ago. When you measure how light bends around a black hole or around the sun, Einstein is absolutely correct but we know it is not the be all end all truth. Einstein's theories don't work inside an atom. There the laws of quantum mechanics contradict them. When you ara a scientist, you give up this idea of there ever being an answer and of there ever being a truth. ... and that does, of course, influence my view on spirituality.
I live in a world where you learn to swim in doubt - beautiful, complex, ever-increasingly accurate , getting towards the truth but never getting there. There is a beauty in trying to lose your ego in that. ... and I think people often think that scientists don't respond emotionally to what they learn from science. ... I don't think that's true. Uhmmm ... This is still conjectural but we are fairly sure that time does not exist the way we think it does. It is not a simple progression from start to end. The modern laws of physics and particle physics almost require that to not be true. and ... In some other dimensional view, you can see all of my life from beginning to end. Because we believe the big bang most likely created all of time as well as all of space. and at that instant of creation, not only was space created, but time from start to end, whatever that means to temporally based creatures like me. So I say to my husband some times because we expect to die and not have anything after death, that when the universe began, I was holding your hand and when the universe ends I'll be holding your hand
there is anther way to be an swim in doubt and still find beauty.
Me: DROP THE MIC!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Seasonal Haiku
Naked tree limbs bend with the wind -
Lead edge of spring: PEEPS.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Test photo text
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Gone
1458 Chestnut is now an empty lot now.
We've forgotten a lot about living at 1458 Chestnut. This January 2007 exchange of emails is some of what we remember:
from John
to BOB, Bill
date Jan 9
I don't know why, but when they tear down a building that was part of
your life, it seems a little sad. This time it was 1458 Chestnut.
East Chestnut Street was an o.k. neighborhood when we lived there in
the 40s. The Einstandings lived on one corner and the Malooley's on
the other and we were in the middle of the block on the alley. You
will have more memories of it than will I because we moved on my 5th
birthday when you guys were 12 and nearly 15.
What do you remember, Brothers?
John
from Bill
to John, Bob
date Jan 9
My, what a clear view of Baldsley's house to the left of 1458. If that is how you spell it. That man painted my bicycle red white and blue for free. I remember the kid on the right of the alley was swinging on our grape arbor. He fell and caught his eye (maybe eyelid) on a nail or something and his eye came out. It really sounds too gruesome to be true. Is it Bob?
Bill
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 10
John -
Thanks for the picture. I have many memories of living in that house.
The house to the west was Balsley's, the famous Balsley that John asked to
come over and untie him, because that damn ole red headed woman had tied him
to the clothesline. We got our first bikes when we lived there. The house
across the alley, their name started with M and he was older than I and was
some kind of athlete at Tech. A boy lived across the street, played the
guitar, and told dirty jokes I didn't understand. I was in the Boy Scouts at
the church at the corner of 14th and Chestnut. I used to stand on the curb
and play baseball games by throwing balls against the porch and catching the
balls that bounced back. The empty lot on the corner of 15th and Chestnut
was where all of the football games were played. Jack Burke lived up the
alley, his Dad made him high jump and pole vault pits in his back yard and
we did that quite often.
Bob
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 10
Bill -
I don't remember the grape arbor even, so I don't remember the kid catching his eye on it. I caught malaria when I was in the 8th grade in the summer. Sickest I was ever in my life. I was in bed on the side porch for about 2 weeks.
Bob
from Bill
to Bob, me
date Jan 10
I liked the picture too. I didn't have such good memories of the neighbors though. I do recall the kid across the street that sang the dirty songs. He also sang "Old Shep". I remember the ones that lived upstairs better, I suppose. One family made jewelry from old tooth brushes. Another was the Pitners and he was an engineer on the building of Hulman Field. Then Jo Stoops lived downstairs during the war before she went into the waves. I wonder if Hogie Carmichael recalled that house and his time in Terre Haute.
Bill
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 11
Bros
One of the families that lived upstairs I thought worked on building the
two war plants that were south of Terre Haute, one was later a drug plant
( Pfizer ?). A single man that lived up there was the manager at Two Legs.
One had a son the same age as John, he was about half John's size. That is
where we lived when I had my paper routes.
Bob
more on 1458 Chestnut
We've forgotten a lot about living at 1458 Chestnut. This January 2007 exchange of emails is some of what we remember:
from John
to BOB, Bill
date Jan 9
I don't know why, but when they tear down a building that was part of
your life, it seems a little sad. This time it was 1458 Chestnut.
East Chestnut Street was an o.k. neighborhood when we lived there in
the 40s. The Einstandings lived on one corner and the Malooley's on
the other and we were in the middle of the block on the alley. You
will have more memories of it than will I because we moved on my 5th
birthday when you guys were 12 and nearly 15.
What do you remember, Brothers?
John
from Bill
to John, Bob
date Jan 9
My, what a clear view of Baldsley's house to the left of 1458. If that is how you spell it. That man painted my bicycle red white and blue for free. I remember the kid on the right of the alley was swinging on our grape arbor. He fell and caught his eye (maybe eyelid) on a nail or something and his eye came out. It really sounds too gruesome to be true. Is it Bob?
Bill
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 10
John -
Thanks for the picture. I have many memories of living in that house.
The house to the west was Balsley's, the famous Balsley that John asked to
come over and untie him, because that damn ole red headed woman had tied him
to the clothesline. We got our first bikes when we lived there. The house
across the alley, their name started with M and he was older than I and was
some kind of athlete at Tech. A boy lived across the street, played the
guitar, and told dirty jokes I didn't understand. I was in the Boy Scouts at
the church at the corner of 14th and Chestnut. I used to stand on the curb
and play baseball games by throwing balls against the porch and catching the
balls that bounced back. The empty lot on the corner of 15th and Chestnut
was where all of the football games were played. Jack Burke lived up the
alley, his Dad made him high jump and pole vault pits in his back yard and
we did that quite often.
Bob
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 10
Bill -
I don't remember the grape arbor even, so I don't remember the kid catching his eye on it. I caught malaria when I was in the 8th grade in the summer. Sickest I was ever in my life. I was in bed on the side porch for about 2 weeks.
Bob
from Bill
to Bob, me
date Jan 10
I liked the picture too. I didn't have such good memories of the neighbors though. I do recall the kid across the street that sang the dirty songs. He also sang "Old Shep". I remember the ones that lived upstairs better, I suppose. One family made jewelry from old tooth brushes. Another was the Pitners and he was an engineer on the building of Hulman Field. Then Jo Stoops lived downstairs during the war before she went into the waves. I wonder if Hogie Carmichael recalled that house and his time in Terre Haute.
Bill
from Bob
to Bill, me
date Jan 11
Bros
One of the families that lived upstairs I thought worked on building the
two war plants that were south of Terre Haute, one was later a drug plant
( Pfizer ?). A single man that lived up there was the manager at Two Legs.
One had a son the same age as John, he was about half John's size. That is
where we lived when I had my paper routes.
Bob
more on 1458 Chestnut
