Obsidian Wings

Fifty Years Ago Today

by Doctor Science

I was twelve. It was the day we arrived back to our house in Illinois after a year in Dijon, France, where my father had an exchange professorship. We rode down the familiar streets, but it was almost like a dream or a Twilight Zone episode, because there was almost zero traffic. We'd been driving for almost 3 days from New York City, so we weren't really conscious of the news, and it took us a while of driving down deserted streets to remember, right, it's the day they're landing on the moon.

When we got to our house, the first thing we did was find and set up fans, but we then dug out our lousy, small black-and-white TV and of course turned on CBS. I don't remember all that many details about the broadcast or about the landing itself, just the TV on top of cardboard boxes in our living room as we unpacked the house, which another professor's family had been living in for the past year as part of the exchange. But I do remember "One small step", though I was VERY tired and I think maybe my 10-year-old brother was already asleep.

I loved the Apollo program growing up, but I'm OK with a focus away from humans toward robot-based exploration. Especially if it keeps idiots like Jeff Bezos from thinking we don't have to solve the climate change problem.

I'm following along Apollo in Real Time and it is *gripping*-- not to mention so much clearer than that little TV 50 years ago.

We had a dinner party tonight, and the people who are old enough to remember talked to the younger people about how it felt back then. We grew up seeing the Vietnam War toll growing on our TVs every night, seeing violence in the streets, assassinations and riots. What really stands out in retrospect is how great it was to see and feel part of a really large project to do something ... wonderful.

I don't know if such a project is imaginable today, and what it would look like. Maybe only space is impractical enough to be the focus of a truly wonderful, large project: anything done on Earth of similar scope (halting anthropogenic climate change, for instance) is too practical or useful to feel like something done for beauty, for love, for joy.

View from command module Columbia as the lunar module "Eagle" returned from the surface of the Moon

A Revised Version

by Ugh

Four score and seven years ago our [white] fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all [white] men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of [white] freedom -- and that government of the [white] people, by the [white] people, for the [white] people, shall not perish from the earth.

[Donald J. Trump]

 

Feh

Women's World Cup Final! U! S! A! (open thread too!)

by Ugh

Let's do this.  For some reason the game is at 11am Eastern instead of 3pm like the semifinals, but whatever.  Need to by me a Rapinoe jersey and walk around by the White House with it on if they win.

Separately - go Coco!  And really, All England Club, this "no middle Sunday play" nonsense has got to stop.  Srsly.  Also, love that the French starts on Sunday, the other tourneys should do that too (though I guess the Australian technically starts on Sunday in the US).

What other less than horrible sh1t is going on out there?

Open thread 

Women's World Cup (yetanotheropenthread)

by Ugh

So I've said before the nation rooting order for anyone watching the (male) World Cup should be:

1. Your home country
2. Any nation from Africa
3. Any nation outside of South America & Europe
4. Brazil
   ....
   121,212,312. Germany (no offense Hartmut!)

This gets more complicated for the Women's World Cup as the primary reason for rule 3 is that no nation outside those two areas has ever won the Men's World Cup, or indeed even made the World Cup Final.  That's obviously not the case for the current tournament.

Anyway, based on my own rules, U! S! A! (for the sportsball tournament, not our nightmarish presidential administration that, apparently, thinks it's cool to emulate Soviet Russia and roll tanks down The Mall on July 4th.........).

Maybe someone could trick Trump into reading "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"

Feh

UPDATE:  You fncking go Sue Bird.

I'm in Charleston and it's effing hot (Open Thread)

by Ugh

It's SCOTUS Armageddon this week, where we learn if we can keep it.  Good on ya', CJ Roberts (probably the incorrect turn of phrase).

USWNT won today, although likely didn't deserve it.  Nevertheless, woo!

I watched Brightburn and it needs a sequel (in fact the concurrent credits scenes are some of the most compelling of the movie).

Did I mention it was hot in SC?  A perfect time for dinner on the USS Yorktown with no AC...."feels like" 103 degrees.

Anyway, I've been neglecting my duties here for a variety of reasons, so, open thread............................

Free College for All and Other National Platform Proposals

by wj

I have been reading, with some bemusement, the calls from several (most? all?) of the Democratic candidates for free college for all. I’m bemused because I just don’t see this as a Federal issue. An issue nationwide, to be sure, but that's not really the same thing.

Let me be clear, I absolutely agree that the cost of college has gotten totally out of control. To my mind, someone attending a state college/university (whether Land Grant or otherwise) ought to be able to cover their costs, including tuition and room-and-board, with a half time job. That’s half time at something not much over minimum wage – say washing dishes. It was possible in the late ’60s when I was in school, which I know because I did it. It wasn't easy, but it definitely was possible. It should be possible today.

That said, it isn’t obvious why the Federal government should be involved. After all, we already have universal (free) public education for grammar school and high school. Funded (over 90%) by the state and local governments.

Free (better yet, cheap) college for all would doubtless require the states to make some changes. Tax increases probably -- but it's a better investment that tax breaks to (theoretically) attract companies. Deciding that funding college athletics isn’t really a reasonable priority would be a good step as well. Quite possibly other things also. But it could be done. (Let me add a caveat that charging more for out-of-state/foreign students is a whole different discussion.)

So why are the candidates pushing this? Besides it being a feel-good issue, of course.

Echoes

by JanieM

I’m reading a book called “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,” by Jenny Odell. Perhaps ironically, it was brought to my attention via the weekly email newsletter from hello hello books in Rockland, Maine, which is owned by one of our old babysitters.

I’m only a little way into the book, but I bought it because it seemed likely to feed into, and help me flesh out, my increasing dissatisfaction with the way the internet, the phone, and the computer screen dominate my life. I’ve been hanging around here at ObWi, and everywhere online, less than before, and although it’s a struggle, I’m kind of amazed at how different it feels to get a whole raft of chores and duties out of the way before noon. (Don’t forget, I don’t get up early...and I work mostly at home.) I still haven’t broken the habit of checking my mail and a few headlines as soon as I get up, but I’m keeping it to a minimum, with hopes of getting back to a far older habit, which is to write three “morning pages” before I am barely out of bed.

So, yesterday I spent the day in the ER for a problem that has been extremely debilitating and painful, but thankfully not life-threatening. The Jenny Odell book seemed a little heavy for the ER, and for the condition I was in, so I pondered my bookshelves for a while and took something to re-read: “One Man’s Meat,” by E. B. White. There was a time when I might have taken a laptop with me, but those days are if not gone, at least in abeyance, and since I use my phone only as a phone (well, as an alarm clock and a camera too, but not for internet access), I was fairly free of electronics.

Here’s a passage from White’s first chapter, dated July 1938 and titled “Removal,” in which he muses on his decision to move from New York City to North Brooklin, Maine:

Clearly the race today is between loud speaking and soft, between the things that are and the things that seem to be, between the chemist of RCA and the angel of God. Radio has already given sound a wide currency, and sound “effects” are taking the place once enjoyed by sound itself. Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and near in favor of the secondary and remote. More hours in every twenty-four will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals. A door closing, heard over the air; a face contorted, seen in a panel of light—these will emerge as the real and the true; and when we bang the door of our own cell or look into another’s face the impression will be of mere artifice. I like to dwell on this quaint time, when the solid world becomes make-believe, McCarthy corporeal and Bergen stuffed, when all is reversed and we shall be like the insane, to whom the antics of the sane seem the crazy twistings of a grig.

When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.

My emphasis. From very early on in the cell phone era, I was commenting to my friends that people are no longer where they are. But E. B. White said it better, of course, and in 1938!

I’m reminded of a passage from “The Fellowship of the Ring,” an interlude in the tale of the hobbits’ first meeting with elves while they're still in the woods of the Shire:

Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to himself, what he felt or thought that night, though it remained in his memory as one of the chief events of his life. The nearest he ever got was to say: ‘Well, sir, if I could grow apples like that, I would call myself a gardener. But it was the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean.’

I first thought of this passage because reading E. B. White makes me want to say, “If I could write sentences like that, I would call myself a writer.” (Just the rhythm of White's sentences is a balm to my soul.)

But now that I’ve copied out the LOTR passage, I see that it also touches on questions of seeing and hearing, which are, loosely speaking, my subject matter today.

*****

Open thread.

*****

ETA: revised to correct a few typos.

Breaking the Dictionary

by Doctor Science

The Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday night ended in an 8-way tie, when the competition ran out of sufficiently challenging words.
“We’re throwing the dictionary at you. And so far, you are showing this dictionary who is boss," they told the contestants.

The eight final-round words were: auslaut, erysipelas, bougainvillea, aiguillette, pendeloque, palama, cernuous, odylic. Of those, I'd only seen 3 before, and 4 of them are unknown to my spellchecker.

Six of the 8 finalists appear to be from South Asian families. One is white, and one (Christopher Serrao) may be Filipino-American, Hispanic, or have ancestors from Goa, I don't know.

More striking to me than the dominance of South Asians (which has become the norm in recent decades) is that not all the contestants are using the same methodology. Shruthika Padhy (#307) and Christopher Serrao (#427) both do something distinctive: writing on themselves with a finger as they spell. I have done something similar myself on an ad hoc basis, but I've never seen it in such a formal context.

Both of those kids are from NJ, though from different parts of the state. I wonder if finger-writing is a method that's been developed in this region and is mostly used here (I'm in NJ, too), or if it's part of the arsenal of spelling methods nationwide, and it's just coincidence that the 2 kids for whom it happens to work well are in the same state. Either way, it proves that the spelling bee community is experimenting with a variety of methods, to find ones that work best in general and for particular individuals.

The amazing 8-way tie suggests to me that they've made a pedagogical breakthrough: they've "cracked" English spelling, at least in this format. They've developed methods for teaching memorization and recall that work, that can repeatedly solve this particular problem, and train talented children to have lexical arsenals on the order of 100,000 words.

I don't think these children have "superhuman" talent, just a couple of standard deviations above the mean talent. But their parents and grandparents come from a culture with an array of mnemonic techniques developed for word-perfect memorization of extremely long texts (the Mahābhārata is almost 2 million words). The problem of English spelling is different, of course, but the idea that rote learning is a teachable skill using an arsenal of methods was there to guide experimentation.

In the discussion at Language Log I said perfect English spelling reminds me of the 4-minute mile: people used to think it would take a unique talent to do it, but after it was done, improved training methods made it accessible to a wider pool of talented runners. Another commenter wrote, So you're saying that someday English spelling might be as easy as climbing Mount Everest? It's not a bad analogy, in that Nationals can expect to see a traffic jam at the top:

A long queue of mountain climbers line a path on Mount Everest on May 22, 2019. 11 climbers died on Everest last week, most while descending from the congested summit during only a few windows of good weather. Nimsdai Project Possible/AP; cropped & resized by me

Nepal is discussing changes to the rules for summiting Everest to prevent this sort of thing. Fortunately the Scripps National Spelling Bee--unlike Everest--doesn't have a route littered with corpses, but they probably need to think about changing their rules, too, if they want to hand out only a limited amount of first-prize money.

There's still a lot to know about how this collective brain-hacking process has worked, but even the outline I've given here should give plenty of ideas for fantasy (like Earthsea) and science fiction (like the Mentats of Dune). Not to mention that the New York Times' list of spelling bee books and films doesn't include ANY fictional media centered on a South Asian character, wow.

I don't know if *all* of that neglect is racism--some of it may be an American storytelling convention that wants to focus on heroic individuals, not supportive communities and cultures. But there are rich and distinctive stories to be told, here.

Rama kills the demon warrior Makaraksha in combat, from a manuscript of the Ramayana. The crescent-shaped arrowhead Rama is using was a real thing.

Assorted Random Thoughts....(Thread that is Open)

by Ugh

The GoT finale was okay and overly-criticized.  

Uber IPO:  Ha ha (he says, as he needs to submit receipts for Ubers taken on his last work trip...).

I still haven't seen Avengers: Endgame.

I don't understand the group of lawyers (and others) who are dedicated to preserving/expanding/keeping the supremacy of the Executive/Presidential power.  This is necessary b/c why?

People need to use their turn signals more often and earlier.

What book should I read next?

The current spate of abortion bans are unconstitutional for the reasons expressed on Roe as well as under the 8th and 9th amendments.

Go GS Warriors.

OPEN THREAD!

Inherent Contempt

by wj

No, this is not about the contempt for others, or contempt for the law, that seem inherent in the personality of certain public figures. At least not directly. Rather, it is about Contempt of Congress and how it plays out.

As you may be aware, the House Judiciary Committee is in the process of finding Attorney General Barr in contempt. The cogent question is: What happens next?

Normally, when someone is found in contempt of Congress, the United States Attorney takes them before a grand jury. But there is some reason to doubt that this will happen in this case. Which is unusual, but not unheard of the past few years. In which case, Congress usually moves to Plan B:

Alternatively, the Congress can launch a civil suit to compel compliance. This can result in a court order – something even the more recalcitrant individuals are generally unwilling to blow off. The down side is, if the defendant stalls and launches appeals, it can take months before the matter is resolved. And if the delay extends past the next election, the case gets dropped.

But, it develops, there is a third alternative. It hasn’t been used in decades, but there is solid case law, including Supreme Court decisions, upholding it. It’s called “inherent contempt”. In this, the House (or Senate) Sergeant-At-Arms (or his deputy) acts as a police officer to arrest and detain the individual in contempt. I’m not sure exactly where the Congress would detain him, but presumably they can find some place suitable.

But the question that leaps to my mind is this. Suppose the issue is the refusal of an individual to produce records in response to a subpoena. Does inherent contempt extend to having the Sergeant-At-Arms physically seize the subpoenaed records?

I can see where this would be straightforward, at least in principle, in the case of Congress wanting an unredacted copy of the Mueller Report. Finding a copy at the Justice Department shouldn’t be that difficult, and even at a few hundred pages it should be easy enough for one person to pick up and carry out. Getting Mr. Trump’s tax returns could be more of a challenge. But it should still be possible to find out where the IRS has them, rent a truck, and send a couple of guys to load them up. Wouldn't that be fun?

Open Thread (because we're overdue for one)