The frustration of the long-distance rower

The New Neo Posted on by

This story was frustrating to even read about.

Italian Alex Bellini set out to row across the Pacific from Peru to Australia. To contemplate the execution of this sort of feat is beyond the comprehension of most people—certainly beyond mine—and to achieve it requires a force of will and an ability to endure that is extraordinary. Actually, I think it can sometimes border on the pathologically obsessional. A person has to be able to judge when enough is enough.

Bellini apparently made that judgment. He rowed almost the entire distance of 9,500 nautical miles for ten months before giving up. Yes, he gave up—within sixty-five nautical miles of his goal.

Nowadays, even solo adventurers such as Bellini are in some sort of contact with the outside world, and he “contacted his wife Friday to say he was too exhausted to row his 25-foot (7.5 meter) boat any further, despite being nearly in sight of the eastern Australian town of Laurieton.”

It’s that “nearly in sight” part that made me gnash my teeth. I can only imagine how wiped out Bellini must have been to have abandoned his goal when he was so close to achieving it. I would dearly love to have been able to listen in on that conversation with his wife, though.

The night without artificial light

The New Neo Posted on by

The ice storm that hit most of New England and some of New York last week is long gone. In most places, the shimmering coat that covered everything for a day has melted, and the downed branches and power lines have been cleared.

But that doesn’t mean the power is on. In most states, there are still whole towns without power. In most towns, there are still pockets of people without power.

Well, lucky me. I’m one of those still without power. As I write this, I’m sitting in the warm dining room of a good friend who has kindly consented to let me visit every day for as long as I want. I eat, recharge my batteries (literally), take a shower, and just generally get comfortable.

I’ve learned that the most important thing to have in a power outage of any duration is a good and generous friend. The second is patience (wearing thin, I must say). The third is an appreciation of the strange beauty of it all.

Beauty? Yes. At night, driving through the part of town that was (and still is) without street lights or traffic lights, I feel transported back to another time and place—except, of course, for the fact that I’m driving a car. The moon has been full and luminous, and it’s the only light there is in that area of town. The dark seems darker than usual, and the moon brighter in contrast, much more of a presence.

In the day, during the hours the sun is out, it seems a wonderful thing to have natural light and not have to function with candles and flashlights when inside. But at night, when I’m in my place and padding about in my down jacket, I notice how beautiful candlelight is but how little it actually illuminates. Just the bit in its immediate proximity—so very different from the uniform brightness of electric lights, which must have seemed a miracle when they were first invented. They seem like a miracle again to me right about now.

Mind change on climate change?

The New Neo Posted on by

This is interesting.

And here’s something related. It’s from a year ago, when a number of previously convinced scientists were having doubts about the proof that global warming is generated by human activity. That number seems to have increased since—and in my opinion a scientist who once believed and now does not is of even more significance that one who was always a doubter.

One recanter, Dr. David Evans of Australia, said:

“As Lord Keynes famously said, ”˜When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’”

This is right up my alley, being a specialist of sorts in what it takes to change a person’s mind in the face of a strongly entrenched belief system. Answer: a great many facts, forming a pattern strong enough to mount a powerful challenge. And even then, only some minds will change.

More fascinating stuff from Dr. Evans:

Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990’s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote.

This is another example of how difficult it is, and how much courage it takes, to dissent or even to withhold final judgment on this highly politicized scientific issue. As a layperson, I have followed the arguments for quite some time now, and I believe the jury is still out.

[NOTE: See this and this for previous discussions.]

Snowflakes: no two alike?

The New Neo Posted on by

Want to photograph snowflakes? The approach of winter makes it seem an attractive proposition.

If so—and if you can follow these incredibly complex instructions—no doubt you’ll be rewarded with some wonderful photos. And if you can, no doubt you are also a more painstaking and patient person than I am, because I balked at even reading the directions (and speaking of painstaking and patient, consider the life of the father of snowflake photography, Vermont’s Wilson Bentley).

That doesn’t mean I don’t think about snowflakes from time to time. I remember one extraordinary night when I was in graduate school. I emerged from a February evening class and encountered a rare snowfall in which each flake was seperate and dry, its regular crystal form clearly evident to the naked eye. It was as though nearly-weightless white diamonds had somehow fallen from the sky and were there for the taking. They stood outlined for a moment on our coats and hats and hair and gloves, but disappeared at the touch of a warm human hand.

To form that sort of snow it can’t be overly wet. But it must be very very cold. Where are these conditions best met? Sometimes here in New England, but this snowflake seeker says they’re more likely to be encountered in the midwest, around large lakes. Also Antarctica, but that’s a bit more difficult to visit:

The pole is very cold, very dry, and at high altitude, and snow crystals found there tend to be small, nearly perfect, hexagonal prisms. The very low temperatures produces sharp crystal facets (no chance of melting), while the very slow growth tends to produce small solid prisms.

It turns out that memorable snowfall I saw long ago was most likely composed of stellar dendrites and ferned stellar dendrites, as especially magical storms often are. “Storm” might be the wrong word, though; to make the most perfect flakes, a calm snowfall is best. I recall that on that night there was hardly any wind at all:

stellardendrites2.jpg

fernlikestellardendrite.jpg

And this is what the aggregate looked like:

dendritesnowfall.jpg

So, are no two snowflakes alike? I heard that in my youth, and wondered how it could ever be proven. Wouldn’t a person have to study them all, and wasn’t that impossible? The answer, unsurprisingly, is that it depends on what your definition of “alike” is. We can safely say, however, that at least for complex snowflakes, there have never been two alike in the history of the world.

Here’s one of them, though. It’s a movie of a snowflake growing under lab conditions. I am so stunned that I managed to figure out a way to get this onto my blog that I can’t muster any more tech savvy to figure out how to shrink it down to the proper size.

dendrite

    Valerie and Cecilia and…

    The New Neo Posted on by

    Ah, those bad girls, Valerie and Cecilia. They remind me a bit of each other.

    First we have Valerie:

    Now Cecilia (I looked for a live version, but the few on You Tube were really bad, so I settled for this):

    And then there’s Layla. Now Layla, she ain’t so bad (be patient; it takes close to a minute to really start):

    Since the last two songs feature girls names that end in “a,” the next one that happened to come to mind was “Lalena” by Donovan.

    Donovan. There’s a name I hadn’t really thought about in decades. The quintessential hippie, he seemed dated and mired in the 60s, full of flower power and vibrato, bells and beads.

    So imagine my surprise to find an oldish video of him (1983) at You Tube. And imagine my surprise to find on watching it that I thought he acquitted himself—and sadder-but-hardly-wiser Lalena, and that extraordinary quaver in his voice (how ever does he do it?)—very nicely indeed:

    Gun control and Mumbai

    The New Neo Posted on by

    Remember the discussion (here and here) about the ineffective cops who confronted the very effective terrorists in Mumbai?

    Not only were the terrorists probably well aware of the lack of training and poor equipment of the Mumbai forces. It seems likely that they also counted on the fact that India has a poorly-armed populace.

    This piece in American Thinker by Abhijeet Singh describes gun ownership in India. It is edifying to learn that, although even Gandhi was in favor of having a clause in the constitution of the new state that would protect the right of the ordinary citizen to bear arms, when independence was granted in 1947 such a passage was absent.

    The resultant laws controlling gun ownership in India, as well as the economics involved, have discouraged most of its law-abiding residents from owning firearms:

    …[T]he Indian government has…used state policy to ensure that firearms and ammunition prices are probably some of the highest in the world. Domestic production of rifled firearms is a state monopoly, churning out crude products that are priced at 7 (or more) times their cost of production. Similarly domestic production of ammunition is a state monopoly with inconsistent supplies, poor quality, and very high prices. This combined with the fact that imports have been virtually banned since 1986 means that an ordinary snub nosed .357 Colt revolver will sell (legally) for a mind boggling US $20,000 or more.

    A tight licensing regime combined with the high price of acquiring a legal gun has meant that very few Indians own weapons. Unsurprisingly these restrictions have also meant that there is a thriving black market for arms and ammunition, ensuring a steady supply to all manner of criminals…

    The result of Indian gun ownership policy is exactly the opposite of what one would hope. It keeps guns out of the reach of the law-abiding citizen and makes acquiring one a simple thing for criminals.

    Here’s another scene from Mumbai,an excellent illustration of the old saying “don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.” Only in this case, substitute “stone” for “knife”:

    At the Jewish outreach centre, bystanders pelted the terrorists with stones in a vain attempt to ward off the attack, but had to retreat when the terrorists opened fire with automatic rifles.

    Now it’s true that stones can be lethal, especially when hurled by a sizable crowd in sizable numbers. But the process takes time, and time is what a crowd facing terrorists armed with automatic weapons lacks.

    Mumbai, unfortunately, is a microcosm of the problems to which bad gun laws inevitably lead. It’s a bit like the line from Yeats’ “The Second Coming:”

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Gun laws such as those in India ensure that “the best” will lack the weapons to defeat the “passionate intensity”—backed by firepower—of “the worst.”

    [NOTE: There is research indicating that violent crime declines in states with concealed carry laws. But the evidence, and the researcher involved (John Lott), are so controversial that I refer you to this webpage if you want to immerse yourself in the pros and cons.]

    Mother nature, frosty in tooth and claw

    The New Neo Posted on by

    Posting will be delayed today due to widespread ice-generated power outages all over New England, including my home. It’s spotty though—I’m at a nearby friend’s house right now, and it’s a little oasis of power. I probably will do some sort of posting later today, so stay tuned.

    More on “Midnight Run”

    The New Neo Posted on by

    After mentioning the film “Midnight Run” in yesterday’s post—and searching You Tube for relevant videos—I started wondering what it is about that movie that I like so very much. After all, it features the f-word very prominently, and it’s an action film—hardly my favorite genre.

    I have decided it’s the actors who really make the difference in the film. Also, the director who may have helped coax such stellar work from all of them. The script is fine, but it wouldn’t be anything without these performances.

    De Niro is usually good, but I don’t think he’s ever been so funny as in “Midnight Run.” Charles Grodin tends to be a grating guy, but in this movie that quality of his has been put to perfect use, and Grodin adds a subtle slyness that I’ve never seen before (or since) in him, as well as a real humanity.

    But they couldn’t do it alone. “Midnight Run” is the rare movie in which every single role is played to perfection, including the smallest bit parts. Watch the kid on the airplane as he watches Jack (De Niro) making a fake ID. Listen to the waitress describe the chorizo and eggs. See the look on the face of Jack’s daughter during his brief visit to her. Enjoy the dumb-but-lovable gangsters and the vicious mob boss, and the latter’s ever-escalating threats as he becomes more and more exasperated with the incompetence of the former: “You and that other dummy had better start getting more personally involved in your work, or I’m gonna stab you through the heart with a fuckin’ pencil.” Note especially the hysterical panic of bail bondsman Eddie, and the gleam in the eye of rival bounty hunter Marvin, Jack’s convivial but aggressive nemisis. See Yaphet Kotto, as FBI agent Moseley, struggle and fail to retain his dignity (and his sunglasses) amidst the frenetic goings-on.

    Here’s a series of short scenes from the movie. I almost didn’t include it, because if you haven’t seen “Midnight Run” I doubt it will seem all that funny. But in the context of the film the bits are hilarious. It’s the split-second timing, the running jokes, and the ensemble acting. Don’t think the film doesn’t justify its “action” designation, either: there are plenty of hair-raising moments.

    Note in the video the waitress (“chorizo and eggs”) at minute 2:18, and remember that, as she speaks, the characters De Niro and Grodin play are salivating with hunger but unable to afford a meal. Note also that, despite the general hilarity, the film contains real evil (see the mob boss addressing accountant Grodin at minute 4:21).

    But most of all, rent the movie and enjoy.

    [NOTE: It may be somewhat relevant to mention that the more serious theme of the movie is corruption and the fight against it.]

    What is it about Illinois?

    The New Neo Posted on by

    USA Today is eager to point out that Illinois is not the state with the highest number of elected officials convicted of corruption per capita. That dubious honor goes to North Dakota, with Alaska and Louisiana not far behind.

    Of course, this statistic might only mean that these states have corruption but are better at punishing it than Illinois is, since the study only dealt with convicted officials. And Illinois seems to have more corruption convictions in its highest places: it is the top state in number of governors indicted.

    So, what is it about Illinois—or any other state with such a problem? Is corruption a sort of proud tradition there, passed on from official to official? Or does the fact that a corrupt system is already in place and thriving make it difficult for an honest politician (not an oxymoron) to achieve success there? Or are the opportunities for corruption so much more numerous and lucrative that the temptation is greater? Or are new officials socialized into the corruption biz by older officials who teach them the ropes? Or do they start seeing so much of it that it quickly becomes normative behavior? Or is there self-selection on the part of those who go into politics in such states, because it would be rare for an honest person to want to be part of such a system and the inevitable compromises one would have to make? I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

    Of course, the present scandal isn’t just about Blagojevich and what prompted him to go bad. From the sound of what I’ve read about the contents of the tapes, he may just be a sociopath who has no sense of honor to lose. So “going bad” may be giving him too much credit.

    The larger question, of course, is the history of our next President, Barack Obama, and how he managed to negotiate the shady hallways of Illinois and Chicago politics. At the moment, I come down on the side of thinking he made his associations and accommodations with various sleazebags too numerous to mention, but kept his own record clean of outright corruption.

    Blagojevich: what the wire reveals

    The New Neo Posted on by

    At this point we can safely say that Governor Blagojevich of Illinois is outrageously corrupt in an almost-comic book—or textbook, if you prefer—sort of way.

    The proof is in the wire. It’s not a case of “he said, she said.” It’s simply “he said. And then he said and said and said and said.”

    It’s ironic that Blagojevich ran on an anti-corruption platform six years ago, saying he would overturn “what he called a Republican ‘legacy of corruption, mismanagement and lost opportunities.'” Who knew that the accent in that quote would be on the word Republican, and that the “lost opportunities” he referred to were the lost opportunities for Democratic—or, more specifically, Blagojevichian—corruption? Apparently, nobody does it better—although in Illinois and Chicago, there’s a lot of bi-partisan competition for the honor.

    Corruption in politics is nothing new. Corruption by particularly self-righteous politicians (such as, for example, Elliot Spitzer) seems to be a bit of a trend lately. And in the Blagojevich case, the wearing of the wire gives us an extraordinary glimpse behind the scenes at the dichotomy between public and private persona.

    One can safely assume that public figures speak and act differently in private than in public. With their families and friends, they are more relaxed, for example. They also tend to clean up their language for public consumption. But the gap between the public Blagojevich and the governor who wheeled and dealed to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder is pretty much on the order of the Grand Canyon.

    One of the revelations, aside from the depth and breadth and sheer audacity of Blagojevich’s corrupt dealings, is that his favorite word by far is the f-word. A typical quote:

    Rod Blagojevich said that the consultants … are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this “motherfucker [the President-elect] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.”

    I said his corruption was comic book. It is also cinematic—or at least his language is. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, “Midnight Run.” Ever seen it? (And I’m not talking about the similarly-titled “Midnight Express”—I’m talking this one).

    Although “Midnight Run” may not be exactly the film you might think I would go for, I have to say it’s one of the funniest movies ever, and I’ve seen it about eight times. One of its most salient characteristics is the liberal and very comic use of the f-word by most of its characters. I once saw the film on TV in an expurgated version, and it was funny in a different way—it seemed that every other word (literally) was blipped.

    For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, and as a tribute to the somewhat limited but colorful vocabulary of the private Blagojevich, I offer you this You Tube video featuring relevant excerpts from “Midnight Run:”

    [NOTE: “Midnight Run” also features a wonderful scene involving the wearing of a wire by Robert de Niro towards the end. Just rent it and watch it.]

    Book groups: ah, the complexity!

    The New Neo Posted on by

    If you want to have a reason for refusing to join a book group, just read this article to discover how petty and strange people can be.

    Confession: I am a member of a book group. An all-female one, as the majority of them are. Ours has had its share of ups and downs, and some members have dropped out because of time constraints or conflicts with one person or another. We also have had a political brouhaha or two, as in the article.

    But we persist, and I think it’s because we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We also happen to be have an unusual number of lively and entertaining women in our group, and we all like to have a good time. That’s the acknowledged main function of our book group—the books are merely a pretext, although we do get around to discussing them.

    But people such as Jocelyn Bowie, featured in the article, would have a lot of trouble with our group:

    …[Bowie] lobbied for literary classics like “Emma” and the rest of the group was abuzz about “The Secret Life of Bees,” a pop-lit best seller.

    The last straw came when the group picked “The Da Vinci Code” and someone suggested the discussion would be enriched by delving into the author’s source material. “It was bad enough that they wanted to read ”˜Da Vinci Code’ in the first place,” Ms. Bowie said, “but then they wanted to talk about it.”

    Oops! I have to say that I’m a literary sort too, and couldn’t stand The Secret Life of Bees or The Da Vinci Code, both of which were indeed read by the group I attend. But in that case, I either don’t read the book at all or I skim it. When it’s my turn to choose, I select something I like, and if it tends to be more “literary” than the other selections (and it does) no one has ever complained. This is because we are actually friends, and everyone agrees that our main function in getting together is to have fun.

    What is this tendency to make everything into a pretentious undertaking, a way to impress each other with our sagacity? Book groups are the modern substitute for the bowling leagues and the canasta- or bridge-playing get-togethers of my parents’ generation, when people didn’t feel the need to apologize for their lowbrow tastes. They even had parties, too, with no excuse except that they liked to party.

    Now it seems that this isn’t enough. Now too many prima donnas seem to spoil the fun—just read the article if you doubt what I say.

    And I am astounded at the revelation of a new profession: book group facilitator. There’s one in New York who oversees a dozen groups and charges members $250-300 a year for her services. I have just done the math, and if there are ten members per group (a low estimate), she would be making close to $36,000 a year for her services. Most book groups meet no more than once a month, and usually even less. Not a bad gig, I’d say.