April 2008 archive

The wild west

Thirteen former PhD students at Nagoya City University who bribed a professor to reveal the contents of their oral exams prior to the tests were allowed to keep their doctorates because their theses were “carried in specialty journals overseas.”

Talk about troublemakers: two junior high school students in Fukuoka are in hot water after a series of incidents that included smashing windows, damaging a locker in the principal’s room, threatening teachers, spitting on other students’ parents, and “peeing from the second floor of the school building.”

Master Thomas at length said he would stand it no longer. I had lived with him nine months, during which time he had given me a number of severe whippings, all to no good purpose. He resolved to put me out, as he said, to be broken; and, for this purpose, he let me for one year to a man named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it. Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him … Added to the natural good qualities of Mr. Covey, he was a professor of religion–a pious soul–a member and a class-leader in the Methodist church. All of this added weight to his reputation as a “nigger-breaker.” I was aware of all the facts, having been made acquainted with them by a young man who had lived there. I nevertheless made the change gladly; for I was sure of getting enough to eat, which is not the smallest consideration to a hungry man.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“Right now most of the world is living under appalling conditions. We can’t possibly improve the conditions of everyone. We can’t raise the entire world to the average standard of living in the United States because we don’t have the resources and the ability to distribute well enough for that. So right now as it is, we have condemned most of the world to a miserable, starvation level of existence. And it will just get worse as the population continues to go up… Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.”

That’s from Bill Moyers interviewing Isaac Asimov in 1988.

fascinating video here – I had never seen this particular show before, did not know it existed until tonight.

What was true 20 years ago has not changed. It has become worse.

From Moyers web site today

   * More than 854 million people in the world go hungry

   * Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes – one child every five seconds

   * Poor nutrition and calorie deficiencies cause nearly one in three people to die prematurely or have disabilities, according to the World Health Organization.

   * 35.5 million people in the United States – including 12.6 million children-live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger.

   * Undernourishment negatively affects people’s health, productivity, sense of hope and overall well-being. A lack of food can stunt growth, slow thinking, sap energy, hinder fetal development and contribute to mental retardation.

   * Economically, the constant securing of food consumes valuable time and energy of poor people, allowing less time for work and earning income.

My concern is that these conditions will be getting much worse, (and from the data see I suspect changing quite rapidly as well), as climate change interferes with normal growing cycles, disease vectors and availability to obtain clean water for billions on this planet: what is an ‘inconvenient truth’ for us is a death sentence for perhaps billions who will not be able to cope.

The political upheaval we see today is nothing compared to what the future holds as climate change destroys the crucial infrastructure of areas where billions live.

Asimov said 20 years ago in the interview ..

.. you get the feeling somehow that Americans somehow are smarter somehow .. that what we consider a decent econmic system, freedom, free enterprise, that that alone “will do it for us” .. but not if we are lazy.

.. mixed in amongst the interview strikingly accurate views of the future

And then, he smacks George Bush for making comparisons between Harvard and Yale ..

..

..

That’s George Herbert Walker Bush, and Mike Dukakis he was talking about.

———–

I wish Asimov were still with us, to hear his wisdom again about where we are now.

We need bold leadership right now to address the issues that face us, and there are still too few voices.  

Stream of consciousness Youtube surfing, brought to you by my Minor Brain Chemical Imbalances.

Starting with: The song stuck in my head this morning, a cliche now, but undeniably a great song and great geetar.

From Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan says:

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,

That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost-the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

I always liked Milton’s Paradise Lost.  In high school I wrote a paper about the book, claiming that Milton never really did “justify the ways of God to man.”  He never showed, in my view, how God was better, but he certainly showed that God was more powerful!  

But as Satan put it:

He who rules by force rules but half his foe.

I’m quoting that line from memory, so I may be wrong about exactly how it goes.  But anyway, Milton made God stronger, more forceful, he had better weapons and such.

So I always had a soft spot for the Satan of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Today. Anniversaries. Martin died 40 years ago today. The peace sign made its debut. That was fifty years ago.

MLK… and peace. A man who shared his vision of love, equality, and brotherhood, and a little symbol that became instantly recognized as the totem for peace… both caused fissures in the fault lines of human interaction.

So let me ask you…