How much optimism is too much? Do you look both ways?

 

I just listened to @SciFri.  I’m really getting tired of hearing from people who can start with the current clusterfuck and calmly talk about it. Yes!  I know that that is exactly what they/we have to do.  But, it is profoundly depressing for me to hear the “optimists” who are featured who don’t start out with: 

“THE most ignorant, psychopathic idiot savant ever to attain power in the history of the USA... DID this to us”.   Then I'll be ready to listen to reason. 

 

I'm not happy about the slow and disorganized roll out of the life saving vaccines.   And even though, an ardent critic of the crazy and false "zero sum game" that supposes that everything good that happens to someone else is something bad that happens to me; I still can't dispel the idea that:  

"Everything that I can get for me" doesn't end up being something not so good for them.  So, I'll not jump into any vaccine lines. 

So.  I am happy for every single person who gets a vaccine (even the line jumpers).  I will try to not think about which one of those shots that I didn't get might end up in me dying.  I am a firm believer in the idea that when I'm dead; I will not know it.

I am also an ardent pessimist.   I have always expected to die from this pandemic.   If I don't; I'll consider it a triumph of something...

If I do, I won't know that I was right all along. 

Off all the things wrong with t****, I believe that his total adherence to the "zero sum" was his worst attribute.  From that, all inability of empathy flows.  Oh, and ignorance and stupidity.... but where does one stop?

What he didn't do Wednesday January 6, 2021

Is way worse than what he did to start it.

I wrote directly to my congressman, Ben Cline 6th District, Virginia.  Cline is an avid trump supporter who has, to my knowledge, never criticized anything trump has ever said or done.  He is among those who "protested" the vote counts of other states both before and after the invasion and sacking of the Capitol building.

I urge you to Read the timeline of events of last Wednesday [ As allies pleaded for help, Trump kept watching TV ] in the Washington Post, written from interviews with 15 white house staffers on January 12, 2021.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mob-failure/2021/01/11/36a46e2e-542e-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html 

I saw a live stream of some of this from Jr. Donald Trump's friend who was there at the time.  Trump watched the invasion of the Capitol like a toddler glued to the TV watching a cartoon, as his mob... did what they did.  Many Trump aides tried to get his attention, but it was hours before he would react.  When he did, it was by tweeting the wrong words.  Others danced and music played. It was hours before anyone could break into his reverie and convince him to issue a statement on the attack on the Capitol.  When he finally did, too late, it was too little.  Read the transcript of his last words that day.  He mostly said the wrong things.  He was still lying about the validity of the election and still supporting the mob: "we love you, you're special". 

 

I know that Ben Cline will never see this.   YOU his staff will.  If you can support Cline and Trump after knowing what is true of that day, you join them as traitors to America, plain and simple.  Trump is insane; he must not be president one day longer.

 

Your only redemption from this assessment is to resign and get another job... working for a patriotic American.

Hey! Ben Cline House "representative" for the 6th District, Virginia

 Dear Ben:

From your continued support Donald Trump I can only conclude that you have never read any of his comments on Twitter.  If you had ever read them, you would be clamoring for application of the 25th amendment.   He is now tweeting about a non-existent brother of Mr. Raffensperger.  And that is only one of thousands of demonstrably insane things he has said. 

 

By the way, your signature on that request to invalidate the votes in four other states is a violation of your sacred oath to the constitution that you swore to with your hand on a Bible.  

Many people believe that Jesus will remember that when you die.

What is an "intentional explosion" ?

It is the last few days of 2020 and we have the media coin new words:

            "intentional explosion"

A phrase that I've never heard before today.

Gee, is this planet just a little weird? Are we living in a Vonnegut novel? How long in the news cycle before you never hear about any of this again?

Oh, I often think about Robert Frost

 

I often think about Robert Frost’s poem, his “Death of the Hired Hand”; as I too, go about my chores.   As one who takes some pride in OCD, AKA: inappropriate meticulousness; I appreciate attention to detail that others ignore.

In the poem, Silas, the handy man who is dying out of sight, was being pre-eulogized by the wife and his sometime employer, her husband.  Silas was now, maybe worthless, sometimes in the past, valuable.  But after refection, he is acknowledged as being at least, good at some few things.    But:

 

    “What good is he? Who else will harbor him?  At his age for the little he can do?” 

   Well, I recall that he could build a hay pile,    he’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself, straining, not to stand,  not on anything, really.

    To stand or nothing….

as I do as I dig potatoes from a bed I will never step into, much less stand on.  But, also, as I collect firewood, first into the tractor bucket as I cut it in the forest… how might this log fit?  Can I maximize the load and minimize the trips?  Then, as I build the pile from the tractor to the storage outside the door to the house and even as I load the dolly I use to bring in those few pieces that will warm us for a day or two, or more, if we’re lucky because the days are warm.  These efforts stand on nothing.  They are nothings which are things only because.  They are nothings.

 I am a hired hand, valued or not, by my memories, my discipline, to myself, perhaps, only to myself.

 

        Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man Some humble way to save         his self-respect.

         You never see him standing on the hay  He thinks if he could teach him             that, he’d be Some good perhaps to someone in the world.

 

And if you need to read the real thing:

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44261/the-death-of-the-hired-man

Googleplex: Why not think really big?

In 1920, Edward Kasner's nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, coined the term googol, which is 10¹⁰⁰, then proposed the further term googolplex to be "one, followed by writing zeroes until you get tired".^[1] Kasner decided to adopt a more formal definition "but different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have Carnera a better mathematician than Dr. Einstein, simply because he had more endurance and could write for longer".^[2] It thus became standardized to:

         ¹⁰⁰

  10¹⁰ 

^{Ten to the tenth to the one hundredth}

 

A typical book can be printed with 10⁶ zeros (around 400 pages with 50 lines per page and 50 zeros per line). Therefore, it requires 10⁹⁴ such books to print all the zeros of a googolplex (that is, printing a googol of zeros). If each book had a mass of 100 grams, all of them would have a total mass of 10⁹³ kilograms. In comparison, Earth's mass is 5.972 x 10²⁴ kilograms, and the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy is estimated at 2.5 x 10⁴² kilograms.  The number of Protons and neutrons in the universe is 10⁸⁹ (without dark matter).  It looks like the mind of man who can think about 10^{10  to the 100th}   is greater than the Universe.

If you agree

 The thing to do is this:  Please.

Share it with somebody.

I feel as if I'm disappearing...  

I think I have something worth saying.  How do I know?  Only if someone hears.  

Is anything real if the internet doesn't "record it"?   HA!  I guess that "government by twitter" is a thing?

Oh, boy;  now there's a question about what is real (not to mention, what is "true").  

But it's starting to look like I'm wrong.  

Nobody knows.  Nobody really cares.  Not enough people care enough to make a difference.  Those who translate Twitter rants into policy, well what comes next?  

Trump farted!  That's a policy statement!

TRUTH is WHAT you say it is,

If you say it loud enough.

I have a very quiet voice.  Who has the megaphone?   Ah! difficult question!

Why can't life be easy?   There are a few more of these "simple questions" 

Please, stay in the effort to communicate.    And try to do your part.