"Billions and billions of years......."
Quote, appropriately attributed to Carl Sagan, famed college professor who studied.......something about space and time. What is a billion?
I graduated from college in 1985 with a two year degree in Electrical Engineering Technology. In 1985 that meant the engineers were the guys in the suits and ties, in their offices, coming up with all kinds of nifty new computer ideas, and I was the guy in the lab struggling with their mistakes. Pay was pretty good, and I was pretty good at my job. My professors didn't just drill us in formulas, they taught us to think, to probe, if you don't know the answer to a problem, how to scientifically work your way through it. I owe those teachers an awful lot. Without them, I'd probably be working in either a grocery or a department store.
Back in those days, we had hands-on classes as well as theory. We took physics and calculus. We learned units of measurements for things so small that you can't even work with the numbers using standard math. And we worked with numbers that were so large you couldn't enter them into a calculator. A capacitor is an electrical component that can range in size from a beer can (about 3 farads - unit of measurement) to ones so small they were measured in trillionths of a single farad (pico-farad). We did it using (depending upon who was speaking) scientific notation or engineering notation. Allow me to learn you non-techies something here.
0 = 0
1,000 = 1 x 10**3 : One thousand (The double "**" denote the power is raised, in this case 10 raised to the power of 3, or 1,000. Blame it on keyboards) : one Kilo.
1,000,000 = 1 x 10**6 : One million : one mega
1,000,000,000 = 1 x 10**9 : One billion : one giga
1,000,000,000,000 = 1 x 10**12 : One trillion, one tera.
Now I know that's just a bunch of zeros, and might not mean much, but I'm working on it. Being scientific/engineering notation, we change the "term" (kilo, mega, giga, tera) every 3 zeros.
Okay, here's where I pull this all together, and I know you're wondering how. How long is one trillion seconds? Go ahead, take your time, come up with a guess. I'll give you a few of those seconds. But I won't give you a trillion seconds to think about it. Because if I did, you'd have 31,000 years to think about it. That's give or take a few centuries. Think about it for a minute (that's 60 seconds, sorry, couldn't resist). If you had a trillion single dollars, and counted one dollar, every second, it would take you 31,000 (31K) years to accomplish this feat.
Know how big the federal budget? $2.6 trillion dollars. That's $2,600,000,000,000 (give or take a few $1,000,000,000). That would take you somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,600 years to count, at the rate of one dollar per second (80.6K). A million is one thousand thousand. A billion is one thousand million, and a trillion is one thousand billion.
The sheer size of the federal budget is practically beyond the scope of a single individual to comprehend. What I've tried to do is give you some idea on just how astronomical these figures are.
Back in 1985, I worked on single board computers that had 4K of memory, actually 4,096 bits of memory, but that has to do with the binary number system used in digital computers as opposed to the one most humans use, the decimal system, which goes from 0 to 9 before it starts over. Ever wonder why we humans use the decimal (base 10) system? How many fingers do most humans have? Today I'm typing on a computer with over 1,000,000 bits of memory space. Those computers didn't have a hard drive, they weren't invented yet. They had no floppy disks, those were too new and expensive.
My computer has an 80G (80,000,000,000) hard drive today. The first hard drive I ever had was only 35K (35,000) of space. I never filled up even 25% of it. The reason I'm explaining this is because the arc of the growth of computer storage has something in common with the growth of governmental spending. Every couple of years or so, all the numbers double.
In 1989 I was working as a technician on a special purpose super computer, 256 parallel processors. The engineers were working on a new version with 65K parallel processors (65,536, again, the odd numbers because of dealing with the binary number system, which has only two values, 0 and 1. That's right, a computer is nothing more than billions and billions of switches, off and on, 0 and 1, true and false. Us tech savvy people just round off.) I remember the budget for that project was $65,000,000 ($65M). And the number stuck in my head because that was the approximate budget for the County I live in. The County budget this year is around $215M ($215,000,000). In about 15 years, County spending has ballooned. You do the math. The same has happened at the federal level.
So why all these numbers? Why all the math (and noticed I charged you $0 for that lesson)? Because, in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, politicians on the left are calling for a tax increase to rebuild. The federal government already takes, under threat of force, $2,600,000,000,000 of our money. They call it revenue, and that's bull - it's our money. In all that money, the pile that would take over 80,000 years to count, at one dollar per second, they can't find enough money for the clean-up. No, they need more. How much more? $3,000,000,000,000? $4,000,000,000,000? $7,000,000,000,000? Now we're approaching the level of the National Debt. That's the amount they spent, but couldn't bring themselves to raise taxes, so they just borrowed it. They want more, because they know how best to spend it. (And its for the children, you understand.) You and me, we're just hairless monkeys, we don't know shit. Ah, but upon entering the hallowed halls of Congress, a special wisdom and intelligence is bestowed upon these dedicated and loyal public servants. The congressional delegation from Louisiana has decided the rest of us need to give them $250,000,000,000 ($250G) in order to rebuild a city, on the coast, below sea level. That should do it, they figure.
Here's the deal. They don't need any more tax money. They have more than they can figure out what to do with now. A couple of years ago Hillary Clinton decided that we should spend $40M in order to set up a 411 system, for public relief money. Move to a new town, and you don't even need to open a phone book to find where to get social services. Nope, just pick up the phone and press 411, and you've got people waiting to throw "government revenue" at you. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a public safety net, I do have a problem with a public safety hammock (hat tip Bill Whittle).
At all levels of government, people are throwing money, our money, at all kinds of projects. Its so easy to be generous when its some one else's money. $10M for a museum here, $120G for agricultural subsidies there, a few billion over there for peanut farming studies. They have enough money. They just need to learn how to spend it effectively. But I have no doubt that will never happen. Rather than waiting for politicians to come to their fiscal senses, my time would be better spent counting to a trillion.
[Editor's note: What a depressing ending. I frantically searched for some good news, some sign that things could get better. Instead I found this.]
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Counter-counter-counter-counter-culture
I have a friend. He's a typical liberal democrat. Time and time again, me and my editor (yes, I have an editor, do you?) have proven his position and reasoning wrong in excruciatingly intricate detail. And yet still he can not see the truth, even when it's laid before him. In other words, he fits the definition of a classic "moonbat". Like a regular bat, he can send out signals, but he lacks the biological ability to receive the returning signals, so he continues to fly around, constantly bashing into such objects as truth, logic, reason, history and facts. But despite all that, I'm still fond of him. He's the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. In the middle of winter, fourteen inches of snow on the ground, the first time I'd called him in years, asking for help moving, and he was the first one to show up. I've often said that when it comes to common, everyday, garden variety, off the shelf liberals, I love 'em. Their hearts are in exactly the right place. Problem is their heads are up their asses. For this reason, I will not reveal my friend's name. He deserves better than that. So lets call him "Boomer." Not as in "Esiason", but rather as in "Baby-Boomer."
Because in truth that's what he is. A classic Boomer. In the interest of full disclosure, I have the unfortunate privilege of being considered the same. I was born in late November of 1962. And from what I understand, the Boomer generation was considered born before January 1, 1963. Please don't hold that against me. I don't hold it against Boomer.
Boomer has it all figured out. Everything. Guaranteed. Whatever you show him, he's got a comeback. When we prove his comeback is wrong, he either has another comeback, or else he changes the subject, coming back in a few days or weeks and pretends he's never seen the evidence we've provided him before hand. Its all in good fun, though some times it does get a bit tiring. But we all understand that its just a fun, honest debate, and we don't take it personal*. He uses classic moonbat strategy. In other words, if we can't see the obvious truths in his argument, then it's a mental defect on our part.
[*We've been exchanging emails daily for several months. And predictably, the attacks sank into mud slinging within the first few days. Having once been a liberal, I know how to play that game, and I quickly put an end to it. I told the people in our email forum that if they wanted to get down in the mud and the muck, I can beat them just as easily at that game. Upon receiving proof, they quickly agreed to rules of civility.]
Over the past several months, my editor has asked me questions about the mind set of our email forum friends and liberals in general. That's prompted some internal debate in my head, and the basis for this essay.
Boomer is about five or ten years older than me, I've never bothered to ask his age. He grew up in the middle of the age of Aquarius. His favorite band is Chicago (I'm not even going to go there). He's for peace, love, "can't we all just get along" kind of personality. Normally, that's not much of problem, unless you count the fact he has the right to vote. Then it gets scary. But back to the point. I grew up behind the people in his age group, so I can't really say I experienced life the way they did. I saw anti-war protests on the news, but I was a bit young to understand their significance.
From what I can figure out, Boomer's generation believe they won the anti-war in Vietnam by forcing the Nixon to end his war against the poor and oppressed in South East Asia. He believes his generation cleaned up the government by forcing Nixon to resign. He believes his generation saved America from the ravages of the evil Republican right. So he can now sit back, during middle age, and have a beer, and feel confident that he, and his generation, had done the right thing. And our nation and the entire world were better for their efforts.
So when I mention to him that Kennedy (a democrat) sent the first combat troops to Vietnam, and that Johnson (a democrat) turned the heat up to incinerate, he tells me it's Nixon's war. When I point out that Nixon ended the war and the draft, he changes the subject, then comes back to it later. When he looks at the mainstream media decrying the terrible state of the US economy, we point out specific facts proving the economy is actually better now than it was under Clinton, he goes back to talking about Nixon's war. You get the picture.
What I think my good friend Boomer believes is that his older generation needs to come out of retirement and finish off the old, evil, racist, poor-hating republicans. He thinks the counter culture needs to regroup and finish this culture war once and for all. There's a few things that he needs to learn and understand, a few points that I think his disability as a moonbat will prevent him from learning.
First, his counter-culture buddies did not win the culture war. They think they did. But they didn't. They did win some amazing battles. Bringing Nixon down was an awesome victory, though I think Nixon deserves most of the credit, for being a criminal in the first place. Another battle they won was solidly taking congress in the post Watergate era. They think they won the culture war, but they didn't. Its not over, just the rules and teams have changed. Its still going on. Once the draft was finished, Vietnam was over, and in the parties following Nixon's resignation, his counter culture buddies went into what he'd consider a sub-counter culture. But they didn't. They moved into mainstream society. They took over Madison Avenue, the advertising industry. They moved into Wall Street, stocks. They moved into power in academia. They solidified their hold on the mainstream media. And most importantly, they took over public education.
The fact that so eludes my good buddy Boomer, is that his counter culture buddies became, more or less, the culture.
And when that happens, things change. Battle lines are redrawn, troops reformed, plans are altered. Global warming and humans as the root cause, buy it without a question. Poverty is without a doubt, caused by the evils of conservative politics and evil multinational corporations. Racism? Just look around you. Feminists? He actually told me that he wants Hillary Clinton to be president because we need a women to clean up the mess we males have made. Talk about sexism. Personally I don't care the gender, ethnicity or color of any one, I just want the most capable people in the most important positions. Don't even get me started on taxpayer money paying for sexual reassignment surgery. Everything is society's fault, and the criminal is actually the victim. How much should you receive because you're too stupid to know coffee is hot? The equivalent of one day's profit McDonald's makes on its coffee. Did I forget to mention the counter culture also took over the courts? Whoever said the devil is in the details was right on the mark.
But one must remember, all these positions are taken as gospel for a reason. Because the counter-culture is now the culture. Or at least a significant portion of it. I hate counting human lives as numbers. It just makes me feel like I need a shower. But I've run some numbers on the Iraq war. Depending upon which set of numbers you believe, the US presence in Iraq has saved somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 Iraqis, or I should rather say, human lives. I'll crunch those numbers in another rant. I've got a draft version, but my distaste for considering human lives as numbers has prevented me from finishing it up. I will try to get back to it. Check back in a couple of days or a week. So why are so many people in the streets, decrying the US presence in Iraq, and blaming the US for killing innocent civilians? Why can't they look at the numbers? Why can't they understand that the policies they are protesting against, have actually saved lives, and if they had their way, there'd be hundreds of thousands more dead who instead are now alive? Being an ex-liberal, my first gut reaction is to insult my opponents and pick some standard, off the shelf claim, and call them racists. Its okay for Iraqis to die, as long as its not Americans. I can't do that any more. I can't divide human beings up into different columns and say "okay, these can die, because they are not like me, but these can't, because they are."
The reason is, because to the old counter culture (now the culture) all war is wrong (which it is, I'm also a practicing Catholic). If it saves lives, doesn't matter. Conservative/Republicans are running the show, they are wrong, they are evil, they hate, and I'm blind for not being able to see that. Which brings me back to Boomer. The same guy who I can show mountains of data, proving he's absolutely wrong, then he simply changes the subject.
Boomer keeps telling me, he can't believe how much I've changed over the years. How I've changed from believing in "power to the people." How could I possibly even consider the republican and conservative point of view? Isn't it obvious they are wrong, evil and dangerous?
Here's the money line. How could I possibly change sides and join the culture, while he sits so comfortably on the counter-culture, sure in the superiority of his argument?
I didn't change. I'm still in the counter-culture. He's moved to the culture. I'm still fighting it.
Because in truth that's what he is. A classic Boomer. In the interest of full disclosure, I have the unfortunate privilege of being considered the same. I was born in late November of 1962. And from what I understand, the Boomer generation was considered born before January 1, 1963. Please don't hold that against me. I don't hold it against Boomer.
Boomer has it all figured out. Everything. Guaranteed. Whatever you show him, he's got a comeback. When we prove his comeback is wrong, he either has another comeback, or else he changes the subject, coming back in a few days or weeks and pretends he's never seen the evidence we've provided him before hand. Its all in good fun, though some times it does get a bit tiring. But we all understand that its just a fun, honest debate, and we don't take it personal*. He uses classic moonbat strategy. In other words, if we can't see the obvious truths in his argument, then it's a mental defect on our part.
[*We've been exchanging emails daily for several months. And predictably, the attacks sank into mud slinging within the first few days. Having once been a liberal, I know how to play that game, and I quickly put an end to it. I told the people in our email forum that if they wanted to get down in the mud and the muck, I can beat them just as easily at that game. Upon receiving proof, they quickly agreed to rules of civility.]
Over the past several months, my editor has asked me questions about the mind set of our email forum friends and liberals in general. That's prompted some internal debate in my head, and the basis for this essay.
Boomer is about five or ten years older than me, I've never bothered to ask his age. He grew up in the middle of the age of Aquarius. His favorite band is Chicago (I'm not even going to go there). He's for peace, love, "can't we all just get along" kind of personality. Normally, that's not much of problem, unless you count the fact he has the right to vote. Then it gets scary. But back to the point. I grew up behind the people in his age group, so I can't really say I experienced life the way they did. I saw anti-war protests on the news, but I was a bit young to understand their significance.
From what I can figure out, Boomer's generation believe they won the anti-war in Vietnam by forcing the Nixon to end his war against the poor and oppressed in South East Asia. He believes his generation cleaned up the government by forcing Nixon to resign. He believes his generation saved America from the ravages of the evil Republican right. So he can now sit back, during middle age, and have a beer, and feel confident that he, and his generation, had done the right thing. And our nation and the entire world were better for their efforts.
So when I mention to him that Kennedy (a democrat) sent the first combat troops to Vietnam, and that Johnson (a democrat) turned the heat up to incinerate, he tells me it's Nixon's war. When I point out that Nixon ended the war and the draft, he changes the subject, then comes back to it later. When he looks at the mainstream media decrying the terrible state of the US economy, we point out specific facts proving the economy is actually better now than it was under Clinton, he goes back to talking about Nixon's war. You get the picture.
What I think my good friend Boomer believes is that his older generation needs to come out of retirement and finish off the old, evil, racist, poor-hating republicans. He thinks the counter culture needs to regroup and finish this culture war once and for all. There's a few things that he needs to learn and understand, a few points that I think his disability as a moonbat will prevent him from learning.
First, his counter-culture buddies did not win the culture war. They think they did. But they didn't. They did win some amazing battles. Bringing Nixon down was an awesome victory, though I think Nixon deserves most of the credit, for being a criminal in the first place. Another battle they won was solidly taking congress in the post Watergate era. They think they won the culture war, but they didn't. Its not over, just the rules and teams have changed. Its still going on. Once the draft was finished, Vietnam was over, and in the parties following Nixon's resignation, his counter culture buddies went into what he'd consider a sub-counter culture. But they didn't. They moved into mainstream society. They took over Madison Avenue, the advertising industry. They moved into Wall Street, stocks. They moved into power in academia. They solidified their hold on the mainstream media. And most importantly, they took over public education.
The fact that so eludes my good buddy Boomer, is that his counter culture buddies became, more or less, the culture.
And when that happens, things change. Battle lines are redrawn, troops reformed, plans are altered. Global warming and humans as the root cause, buy it without a question. Poverty is without a doubt, caused by the evils of conservative politics and evil multinational corporations. Racism? Just look around you. Feminists? He actually told me that he wants Hillary Clinton to be president because we need a women to clean up the mess we males have made. Talk about sexism. Personally I don't care the gender, ethnicity or color of any one, I just want the most capable people in the most important positions. Don't even get me started on taxpayer money paying for sexual reassignment surgery. Everything is society's fault, and the criminal is actually the victim. How much should you receive because you're too stupid to know coffee is hot? The equivalent of one day's profit McDonald's makes on its coffee. Did I forget to mention the counter culture also took over the courts? Whoever said the devil is in the details was right on the mark.
But one must remember, all these positions are taken as gospel for a reason. Because the counter-culture is now the culture. Or at least a significant portion of it. I hate counting human lives as numbers. It just makes me feel like I need a shower. But I've run some numbers on the Iraq war. Depending upon which set of numbers you believe, the US presence in Iraq has saved somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 Iraqis, or I should rather say, human lives. I'll crunch those numbers in another rant. I've got a draft version, but my distaste for considering human lives as numbers has prevented me from finishing it up. I will try to get back to it. Check back in a couple of days or a week. So why are so many people in the streets, decrying the US presence in Iraq, and blaming the US for killing innocent civilians? Why can't they look at the numbers? Why can't they understand that the policies they are protesting against, have actually saved lives, and if they had their way, there'd be hundreds of thousands more dead who instead are now alive? Being an ex-liberal, my first gut reaction is to insult my opponents and pick some standard, off the shelf claim, and call them racists. Its okay for Iraqis to die, as long as its not Americans. I can't do that any more. I can't divide human beings up into different columns and say "okay, these can die, because they are not like me, but these can't, because they are."
The reason is, because to the old counter culture (now the culture) all war is wrong (which it is, I'm also a practicing Catholic). If it saves lives, doesn't matter. Conservative/Republicans are running the show, they are wrong, they are evil, they hate, and I'm blind for not being able to see that. Which brings me back to Boomer. The same guy who I can show mountains of data, proving he's absolutely wrong, then he simply changes the subject.
Boomer keeps telling me, he can't believe how much I've changed over the years. How I've changed from believing in "power to the people." How could I possibly even consider the republican and conservative point of view? Isn't it obvious they are wrong, evil and dangerous?
Here's the money line. How could I possibly change sides and join the culture, while he sits so comfortably on the counter-culture, sure in the superiority of his argument?
I didn't change. I'm still in the counter-culture. He's moved to the culture. I'm still fighting it.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Evolution and Intelligent Design
Editor's note: This is one of those areas where the writer and I do not see completely eye to eye. I have no problem posting it of course; it's his forum, and he does most of the shameless self-promotion of it. But he did say it was ok to interpose my own comments on this post, which will appear in italics below.
For some reason, lately there has been a run on stories concerning Darwin's theory of Evolution, Creationism and a new term getting bandied about, Intelligent Design. First National Geographic. Then Time Magazine devoted an entire issue. And the perpetually smirking Jon Stewart hosted 'Evolution/Schmevolution' last week on his Daily Show on Comedy Central. I'm not exactly sure why this subject is rearing its ugly head at this particular time, it might have something to do with the start of the school. Which unfortunately means we can look forward to this every year with the turning of the leaves. However, its also the time of year when my lovely, beautiful, smart, intelligent, talented, funny demon-spawn daughter goes back to school, so I guess I can live with it.
Considering the mission statement of this blog, which is, to educate the Great American Public on just what the Constitution is, what it embodies, what it allows and prevents, thereby providing an absolute crystal clear example of why pretty much all politicians are liars and crooks, let's begin with the Constitution:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
Now without a doubt, this falls under the well documented, thoroughly enshrined wall that separates the Church and the State. To reach that end, in full disclosure, I am a practicing Roman Catholic; we volunteer at Church, and my daughter attends Catholic School. So you'll have to grant me some leeway here with how I view this subject. I've seen government in action, and I've seen Catholic volunteers in action. Enough said.
So lets take a look at just what kind of brick and mortar is made of, shall we? It can be found in the first amendment of the US Constitution:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti
Or more precisely "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." There it is. The entire kit and caboodle. That's it. That sentence fragment is what is at the heart of the entire debate between Church and State. Seems pretty simple to me. The state leaves the Church alone, and the Church leaves the state alone. And never the 'twain shall meet. I like it. I attended public school myself. I think I got a fairly decent education, but that was 30 years ago. I've seen my daughter helping our publicly schooled neighbor with homework she covered two years earlier. They are in the same grade. In the recent tragedy called Katrina, the Red Cross - a private organization - had truck loads of food, water and blankets, loaded up and ready to roll into New Orleans following the storm. While the Red Cross is not a religious organization, it is not a government organization, it is private sector. The state of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans prevented them from entering the city, because they were trying to evacuate the city, and were afraid the relief supplies would attract people to the city. On the one hand we see a nongovernmental organization ready to act, on the other hand we see government gumming up the works. My point here is, I can see the huge benefit from keeping the government the hell out of the public's way. On the other hand, we can look to the Crusades and see ample proof the Church does a pretty crappy job when it pokes into the states business.
For those interested in a much more thorough work on the subject, my editor (yep that's right, I may not have a lot of readers, but I have an editor!) found this fantastic piece of writing from Pope Benedict XVI, back when he was just a lowly Cardinal. Its pretty thick, but I found it an incredibly well written refutation of Liberation Theology. In short, Liberation Theology is a Catholic thing that says Jesus so hated injustice, as documented by his examples in the New Testament, that its proof he would approve of left wing death squads killing right wing death squads, and that the Church must force itself into the political arena. Pope John Paul II excommunicated five priests in Latin America for this crap. That's one reason I have so much respect for that future Saint. But if you want more, read Cardinal Ratzinger's take on it.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
Now that we've covered the what the constitution says on the separation, and why its a heck of a good idea, let's progress to the matter at hand.
What is Darwin's theory of evolution? Here's where my public education comes up short. The extent to which we covered it, it was that species evolve to higher life forms based upon natural selection. That's a nice, pretty way of saying the strong survive and the weak die. I've had several people over the years try to explain it all to me, and I've come up with what I believe were pretty good arguments to their proof. From those debates, and from what I've read and was taught, Darwin nails some points very well, some not so well, and other points he doesn't even try. For example, Darwin, as far as I know, doesn't even try to explain where life originally came from. Just some vague, broad ideas. More on that in a minute.
What's Creationism? Again, here being a Catholic, leaves me at a disadvantage. the Catholic Church teaches us that Darwin is correct, and he merely describes how the hand of God did it. I can live with that. As best as I can figure, real, hard core creationists believe the Bible, literally, word for word. The entire spiel. Everything. Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, serpent, apple, the whole shebang. The earth is only 6,000 years old. Angel of Death. Parting of the Red Sea. Now here's where I part company with some of my fellow Christians. Carbon dating has proved amazingly accurate. I've seen pictures of the dinosaur fossils. I understand the earth is billions of years old. That's science. The Bible is faith. Therein lies the difference. That being said, one of my hobbies is studying the Bible, and its historical context. Any archeologist or historian worth their salt would have to admit, as an historic document, the Bible is a lot more historically accurate than atheists would have you believe. For example, there was a city called Jericho, and its walls did indeed fall. There has been some evidence that it is possible, under extremely rare circumstances for the Red Sea to appear to part. There was indeed a man named Jesus who caused a big fuss at the Temple in Jerusalem during Passover, and the Romans did indeed nail him to a tree for it. Those are facts, and facts are what science is made of. Was he the Christ? That's faith. Did he exist? That's a fact. If you don't want to believe those facts, then you need to disavow a good portion of established history. Because the three or four "gold standard" ancient historians whose works we accept as gospel (pun intended), also establish the existence of a man named Jesus and some of antics (Note: Jesus was a common name at the time). Scientist listen up: you can't have it both ways.
For more information on this subject, I suggest the following book. Its a wealth of information on how the New Testament and the Bible evolved. The actual Lost Gospels Of Timothy, in themselves don't shed a lot of light for me. But the background history described by the author was a fantastic read.
To me, the Bible and particularly the oldest books in the Old Testament, the Tora, are humanity's earliest attempts at trying to explain who we are and why we are here. I'm not going to hold some guy responsible, who, 4,000 years ago, looked around and saw everything flooded and concluded the entire world was covered with water. Come on, these were some of humanity's earliest stories, fables, tales, sacred writings. I can't fault them for not understanding about DNA, physics, calculus etc. Remember, for these earliest members of society, the world was flat, the sun rose in the east, set in the west, and they had no idea how it got back to the east the next morning. If you got sick it was because you or some one in your family sinned against some strange force they called God. Imagine the gossip if you got struck by lightning? "I told Grog he shouldn't be eating dirty goat meat, would he listen to me? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
What is Intelligent Design? Good question. In its simplest form, its nothing more than the idea that life is too complicated to have just happened. This is something I've thought for years. It was covered in a great book that I read back in college. Its called "Space" by James Michener. Its a fictitious story laid against the real back ground of America's space effort. He explained concepts about computers and science that I was studying - and I must tell you, he explained many of them much better than some of my professors did.
In one part (and I'm working from memories 20 years old) he tackles the subject of just how huge the odds were against life ever starting on this rock we're floating through space on. The odds are so huge, when you compare them to the odds of being life on all the trillions of planets out there, it is enough to make you stop and think. We're at just the right distance from the sun, any closer or any further and life would never have happened. For proof, look at second and the fourth rocks from the sun. The atmosphere, the climate, water, other life, such as plants and animals providing food? Let me just say, he convinced me, there's two positions on this one. We are either the absolute, most lucky receivers of the biggest long shot in the entire universe, or else we are the result of the intelligent design of some force beyond our ability to comprehend. I lean towards the later.
Let's imagine a world that is one big ocean, with a small, lone island. Now imagine we take the entire population of China, and place them randomly (ie, no conscious placement) in that world. Depending on the size of the world, and the size of the ocean, there's a certain chance that a person will be located either on or close enough by the island to survive. Of course, there's chance that no one will be placed close enough, in which case no one will be around to say "gee, look how amazingly fortunate I am, this cannot be chance - someone out there really, really, likes me!". The pedantic out there will now snidely say "ok, but SOMEONE placed them there" - but that's not the point of this scenario. It's to show, perhaps awkwardly, that amazingly improbable (from our limited experience) events can happen, without the occurance due from a conscious force.
It's a mistake to try to draw probability claims from a singular event - such as the existence of...existence.
Incidentally, in the Time magazine issue on Darwin, they asked one scientist what he thought of ID. He pointed out some anomalies in life, such as the human eye actually inverts the images it sees, by its shape, and the brain must learn to reinterpret them correctly. He said would an intelligent designer have made such crude mistakes? As a computer engineer, I have to say, that sounds exactly like the type of error an engineer would make. I've made them before, and I've had to fix them, in much the same way. They're called patches and fixpacks. Trying to convince me ID is false, he actually made the case for it.
This would certainly be an interesting argument for a finite creator. But trial and error seems beneath an infinite being, by definition. That the eye of a squid is much better than a humans, when that infinite being chose us as his special ones, is even stranger.
So lets contrast and compare. Darwin's work looks into "The origin of species" but does not touch on how life started, to the best of my knowledge. Instead it talks about how life changes. Creationism talks to how life began, but doesn't bother touching on how life changes. Intelligent Design dwells on neither, just a theological idea on how life managed to reach a form in which science can examine. Personally, I don't see a whole lot of conflict between them.
But the big 800 pound gorilla in the room is science. Make that two gorillas, faith. Science is fact. Faith is belief. If faith could be proved, it would be called science, not faith. If you need a leap of faith to believe science, then its not science, its faith. Until I'm proven otherwise, I will believe science as fact, and I will believe faith as faith. And that's not to give faith a short rift. I do have faith. I believe in a God. In a force that's out there that is beyond the comprehension of my simple human brain. And this is my decision, it just happens to coincide with the Catholic Church's teaching. Faith is that God created life. Science is just us humans reaching a point where we can stick our head under the hood, and begin to figure out how he did it.
So I have no problem with Darwin being taught in school. I have no problem with stickers on text books that point out its a theory, after all, that's all it is. I have no problem with introducing the idea that something may have guided evolution. Personally, I think we can all get along. But that's just me. I have no problem with my daughter being taught both Creationism and Evolution in her Catholic school. I think the entire concept of Intelligent Design can be covered in about 30 seconds in a science class. Then they can get back to slicing up frogs. Faith is Faith, science is science, and theories are theories. And every one in the news screaming they are right and every one else is wrong, should be relegated to Comedy Central, where they try to be funny. Sometimes they even are.
Placing a 'theory' sticker on a science textbook is highly redundant - all science is theory, since humans are not infinite in scope and so can only say "this thing meets our measurement and understanding of reality the best so far". And if ID and Creationism does not meet the standard of science, should it be taught in a science classroom? And since faith does not require evidence, anything that cannot be proved wrong could be someone's faith. There are not enough hours in the day to teach all the possible variations of Intelligent Design.
For some reason, lately there has been a run on stories concerning Darwin's theory of Evolution, Creationism and a new term getting bandied about, Intelligent Design. First National Geographic. Then Time Magazine devoted an entire issue. And the perpetually smirking Jon Stewart hosted 'Evolution/Schmevolution' last week on his Daily Show on Comedy Central. I'm not exactly sure why this subject is rearing its ugly head at this particular time, it might have something to do with the start of the school. Which unfortunately means we can look forward to this every year with the turning of the leaves. However, its also the time of year when my lovely, beautiful, smart, intelligent, talented, funny demon-spawn daughter goes back to school, so I guess I can live with it.
Considering the mission statement of this blog, which is, to educate the Great American Public on just what the Constitution is, what it embodies, what it allows and prevents, thereby providing an absolute crystal clear example of why pretty much all politicians are liars and crooks, let's begin with the Constitution:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
Now without a doubt, this falls under the well documented, thoroughly enshrined wall that separates the Church and the State. To reach that end, in full disclosure, I am a practicing Roman Catholic; we volunteer at Church, and my daughter attends Catholic School. So you'll have to grant me some leeway here with how I view this subject. I've seen government in action, and I've seen Catholic volunteers in action. Enough said.
So lets take a look at just what kind of brick and mortar is made of, shall we? It can be found in the first amendment of the US Constitution:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmenti
Or more precisely "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..." There it is. The entire kit and caboodle. That's it. That sentence fragment is what is at the heart of the entire debate between Church and State. Seems pretty simple to me. The state leaves the Church alone, and the Church leaves the state alone. And never the 'twain shall meet. I like it. I attended public school myself. I think I got a fairly decent education, but that was 30 years ago. I've seen my daughter helping our publicly schooled neighbor with homework she covered two years earlier. They are in the same grade. In the recent tragedy called Katrina, the Red Cross - a private organization - had truck loads of food, water and blankets, loaded up and ready to roll into New Orleans following the storm. While the Red Cross is not a religious organization, it is not a government organization, it is private sector. The state of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans prevented them from entering the city, because they were trying to evacuate the city, and were afraid the relief supplies would attract people to the city. On the one hand we see a nongovernmental organization ready to act, on the other hand we see government gumming up the works. My point here is, I can see the huge benefit from keeping the government the hell out of the public's way. On the other hand, we can look to the Crusades and see ample proof the Church does a pretty crappy job when it pokes into the states business.
For those interested in a much more thorough work on the subject, my editor (yep that's right, I may not have a lot of readers, but I have an editor!) found this fantastic piece of writing from Pope Benedict XVI, back when he was just a lowly Cardinal. Its pretty thick, but I found it an incredibly well written refutation of Liberation Theology. In short, Liberation Theology is a Catholic thing that says Jesus so hated injustice, as documented by his examples in the New Testament, that its proof he would approve of left wing death squads killing right wing death squads, and that the Church must force itself into the political arena. Pope John Paul II excommunicated five priests in Latin America for this crap. That's one reason I have so much respect for that future Saint. But if you want more, read Cardinal Ratzinger's take on it.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
Now that we've covered the what the constitution says on the separation, and why its a heck of a good idea, let's progress to the matter at hand.
What is Darwin's theory of evolution? Here's where my public education comes up short. The extent to which we covered it, it was that species evolve to higher life forms based upon natural selection. That's a nice, pretty way of saying the strong survive and the weak die. I've had several people over the years try to explain it all to me, and I've come up with what I believe were pretty good arguments to their proof. From those debates, and from what I've read and was taught, Darwin nails some points very well, some not so well, and other points he doesn't even try. For example, Darwin, as far as I know, doesn't even try to explain where life originally came from. Just some vague, broad ideas. More on that in a minute.
What's Creationism? Again, here being a Catholic, leaves me at a disadvantage. the Catholic Church teaches us that Darwin is correct, and he merely describes how the hand of God did it. I can live with that. As best as I can figure, real, hard core creationists believe the Bible, literally, word for word. The entire spiel. Everything. Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, serpent, apple, the whole shebang. The earth is only 6,000 years old. Angel of Death. Parting of the Red Sea. Now here's where I part company with some of my fellow Christians. Carbon dating has proved amazingly accurate. I've seen pictures of the dinosaur fossils. I understand the earth is billions of years old. That's science. The Bible is faith. Therein lies the difference. That being said, one of my hobbies is studying the Bible, and its historical context. Any archeologist or historian worth their salt would have to admit, as an historic document, the Bible is a lot more historically accurate than atheists would have you believe. For example, there was a city called Jericho, and its walls did indeed fall. There has been some evidence that it is possible, under extremely rare circumstances for the Red Sea to appear to part. There was indeed a man named Jesus who caused a big fuss at the Temple in Jerusalem during Passover, and the Romans did indeed nail him to a tree for it. Those are facts, and facts are what science is made of. Was he the Christ? That's faith. Did he exist? That's a fact. If you don't want to believe those facts, then you need to disavow a good portion of established history. Because the three or four "gold standard" ancient historians whose works we accept as gospel (pun intended), also establish the existence of a man named Jesus and some of antics (Note: Jesus was a common name at the time). Scientist listen up: you can't have it both ways.
For more information on this subject, I suggest the following book. Its a wealth of information on how the New Testament and the Bible evolved. The actual Lost Gospels Of Timothy, in themselves don't shed a lot of light for me. But the background history described by the author was a fantastic read.
To me, the Bible and particularly the oldest books in the Old Testament, the Tora, are humanity's earliest attempts at trying to explain who we are and why we are here. I'm not going to hold some guy responsible, who, 4,000 years ago, looked around and saw everything flooded and concluded the entire world was covered with water. Come on, these were some of humanity's earliest stories, fables, tales, sacred writings. I can't fault them for not understanding about DNA, physics, calculus etc. Remember, for these earliest members of society, the world was flat, the sun rose in the east, set in the west, and they had no idea how it got back to the east the next morning. If you got sick it was because you or some one in your family sinned against some strange force they called God. Imagine the gossip if you got struck by lightning? "I told Grog he shouldn't be eating dirty goat meat, would he listen to me? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
What is Intelligent Design? Good question. In its simplest form, its nothing more than the idea that life is too complicated to have just happened. This is something I've thought for years. It was covered in a great book that I read back in college. Its called "Space" by James Michener. Its a fictitious story laid against the real back ground of America's space effort. He explained concepts about computers and science that I was studying - and I must tell you, he explained many of them much better than some of my professors did.
In one part (and I'm working from memories 20 years old) he tackles the subject of just how huge the odds were against life ever starting on this rock we're floating through space on. The odds are so huge, when you compare them to the odds of being life on all the trillions of planets out there, it is enough to make you stop and think. We're at just the right distance from the sun, any closer or any further and life would never have happened. For proof, look at second and the fourth rocks from the sun. The atmosphere, the climate, water, other life, such as plants and animals providing food? Let me just say, he convinced me, there's two positions on this one. We are either the absolute, most lucky receivers of the biggest long shot in the entire universe, or else we are the result of the intelligent design of some force beyond our ability to comprehend. I lean towards the later.
Let's imagine a world that is one big ocean, with a small, lone island. Now imagine we take the entire population of China, and place them randomly (ie, no conscious placement) in that world. Depending on the size of the world, and the size of the ocean, there's a certain chance that a person will be located either on or close enough by the island to survive. Of course, there's chance that no one will be placed close enough, in which case no one will be around to say "gee, look how amazingly fortunate I am, this cannot be chance - someone out there really, really, likes me!". The pedantic out there will now snidely say "ok, but SOMEONE placed them there" - but that's not the point of this scenario. It's to show, perhaps awkwardly, that amazingly improbable (from our limited experience) events can happen, without the occurance due from a conscious force.
It's a mistake to try to draw probability claims from a singular event - such as the existence of...existence.
Incidentally, in the Time magazine issue on Darwin, they asked one scientist what he thought of ID. He pointed out some anomalies in life, such as the human eye actually inverts the images it sees, by its shape, and the brain must learn to reinterpret them correctly. He said would an intelligent designer have made such crude mistakes? As a computer engineer, I have to say, that sounds exactly like the type of error an engineer would make. I've made them before, and I've had to fix them, in much the same way. They're called patches and fixpacks. Trying to convince me ID is false, he actually made the case for it.
This would certainly be an interesting argument for a finite creator. But trial and error seems beneath an infinite being, by definition. That the eye of a squid is much better than a humans, when that infinite being chose us as his special ones, is even stranger.
So lets contrast and compare. Darwin's work looks into "The origin of species" but does not touch on how life started, to the best of my knowledge. Instead it talks about how life changes. Creationism talks to how life began, but doesn't bother touching on how life changes. Intelligent Design dwells on neither, just a theological idea on how life managed to reach a form in which science can examine. Personally, I don't see a whole lot of conflict between them.
But the big 800 pound gorilla in the room is science. Make that two gorillas, faith. Science is fact. Faith is belief. If faith could be proved, it would be called science, not faith. If you need a leap of faith to believe science, then its not science, its faith. Until I'm proven otherwise, I will believe science as fact, and I will believe faith as faith. And that's not to give faith a short rift. I do have faith. I believe in a God. In a force that's out there that is beyond the comprehension of my simple human brain. And this is my decision, it just happens to coincide with the Catholic Church's teaching. Faith is that God created life. Science is just us humans reaching a point where we can stick our head under the hood, and begin to figure out how he did it.
So I have no problem with Darwin being taught in school. I have no problem with stickers on text books that point out its a theory, after all, that's all it is. I have no problem with introducing the idea that something may have guided evolution. Personally, I think we can all get along. But that's just me. I have no problem with my daughter being taught both Creationism and Evolution in her Catholic school. I think the entire concept of Intelligent Design can be covered in about 30 seconds in a science class. Then they can get back to slicing up frogs. Faith is Faith, science is science, and theories are theories. And every one in the news screaming they are right and every one else is wrong, should be relegated to Comedy Central, where they try to be funny. Sometimes they even are.
Placing a 'theory' sticker on a science textbook is highly redundant - all science is theory, since humans are not infinite in scope and so can only say "this thing meets our measurement and understanding of reality the best so far". And if ID and Creationism does not meet the standard of science, should it be taught in a science classroom? And since faith does not require evidence, anything that cannot be proved wrong could be someone's faith. There are not enough hours in the day to teach all the possible variations of Intelligent Design.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
In Remembrance and Hope
I have many memories of 9/11/2001. I remember the day very vividly. I was working in my cubicle, wasting time, and generally just goofing off. My sister called me and said a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. She didn't know if I had heard or not, but she said it was all over the news. I turned on my radio and heard the reports rolling in. When I heard a second plane had hit the other tower, something definitely was wrong. When I heard about the Pentagon, I had a terrible sinking feeling. My friend in Poughkeepsie AIM'd me and said he heard planes were falling out of the sky in Washington DC. and wondering if this was WWIII. One of my co-workers had a small black & white TV in his office, a radio/TV combo. The picture was grainy, hard to see, but I, and my fellow co-workers, watched the first tower fall. All I kept saying was "it's coming down, it's coming down." Sandy, Donna and Linda were in tears. Mike couldn't hold them back either. My office mate Doug kept muttering "I can't believe this." Dean, as always, was perfectly stoic. I swear the guy's a rock.
I left for home shortly there after. I just felt the need to be with my family, to protect them. All the while coming to terms with the fact there was nothing that I could do to protect them. I was powerless to save them from anything. Let me tell you, that feeling is a real kick in the gut. The two people who mean most to you in the world, your wife and daughter, and you are powerless to protect them. My little baby girl. All I could think to say was "it'll be alright." As I turned down my street, my neighbor Judy had put her American flag out. That was the first American flag I saw on 9/11. Mine joined her's shortly. As I sat, dialed into the Corp. network from home, I watched the tragedy unfurl, in real time on TV. Those images are seared into my brain. Two days later we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary, we went out for dinner. At the restaurant, the TVs blared images, the names of the dead scrolled along the screen, the dead being pulled from the ruins. For our daughter's sake, we tried to make it a pleasant evening. But the images, the knowledge, was always there. Just a radio or TV button away.
The following Sunday at Church, the organist played "America the Beautiful." As I looked down at my little girl, watching her sing, all I could think of was the death and destruction that my generation and my parent's generation had left for her future. It was all I could do to keep my composure. What did it mean? What would happen next? When would the other shoe drop? Was America in the process of turning into the West Bank and Gaza strip? What......?
But through out all the murder and mayhem, I saw many other scenes. On 9/11 I saw a reporter talking with a pickup truck full of big, burly construction workers in Manhattan. The one speaking was wearing an American flag decorated bandana. He was pissed. He said the call came out for volunteers to help search for victims. But they were turned away and he was not happy about it. They were turned away because they had so many volunteers already, they were getting in the way. I saw a report from the local Red Cross. A reporter was talking to some one at the back of a very long line. He said the Red Cross workers told him it would probably be at least an eight hour wait, and chances are they'd be out of blood bags by then. He didn't care he was waiting anyway. No one was going to stop him from doing what ever he could. Even if it turned out to be meaningless. I understood the feeling completely.
In the following weeks and months other stories came out. The absolutely courageous story of flight 93 going down in Pa., and why it went down. A group of passengers had decided they would not be used as pawns by scum, and they'd decided they were going to do something about it even if it killed them. It did, but think of the many more deaths they prevented? The story about Father Mike Judge, the NYFD chaplain, who was giving the last rights to a fellow fireman when the tower fell on him. I learned later, the NYFD had recovered his helmet, repaired it and had presented it to Pope John Paul II as a tribute. I heard the story of Abe Zelmanowitz who, rather than evacuate the Trade Center, decided to stay with a friend who was a quadriplegic and could not be evacuated because the elevators were knocked out. Abe decided that his friend would not die alone. That story still makes me cry.
I also saw images of flags everywhere. I saw yellow ribbons everywhere. I saw people pulling together. I saw Hollywood actually have the intelligence to just shut the f*ck up for once. I saw millions raised from every day people. I saw the obituaries from local people in our upstate NY community who had moved to the city. I saw pledge drives. I saw relief supply drives. I saw the county in which I live raise more than $1 for every resident, in one day. When we went to the local mall to drop off a check, I saw people from my Church there collecting it. I heard flag lapel pins were on sale, all proceeds for the Red Cross. I bought $20 worth and gave them to my fellow coworkers, the ones I'd watched the towers fall with. They wanted to pay for them, but I said next time you see a fund raiser, give them the money, they need it more than I do. I remember giving the last one away, the one I bought for me, to my father in law.
I watched the President at Ground Zero, yelling into his bull horn '...they'll hear from all of us.' I saw the first game played at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees had asked for, and received permission from the commissioner, to wear NYFD hats for the rest of the season. I watched that tattered old flag from the top of the World Trade Center being carried into the Olympics. I read that fire depts all over the world were observing a moment of silence in unison to memorize the dead of the NYFD. I saw it all. Heard it all. Remembered it all. I can't forget it if I tried. And believe me, there are times I've tried.
9/11 Proved to me just how terribly, terribly vulnerable I, my family, my friends, all of us were. It left me despondent. Was humanity even worthy to exist on this planet so thoughtfully provided by the good Lord? Questions. Millions of questions. But there were no answers. After a while, it started to puddle in my head. Then it turned to anger. Not just mad, upset anger. But rather the kind that makes your gut wrench. The kind that makes your blood boil. The kind that simmers over a long period into that most dangerous, self righteous kind. I'm talking Old Testament, lightning bolts out of the sky kind of anger. The kind that turns village whackos into Biblical prophets. Fortunately, between the kindness I saw surrounding 9/11 relief effort, and the weekly advice of the kindly old priest who'd married my and my wife, and baptized my daughter, I got over it. Mostly.
But the point is, what does the it all mean now, four years after that cowardly sneak attack that scared my country and nation? In the past four years I have learned something very important. I've learned my father was right. I've learned the corny John Wayne movies are right. I've learned the old veterans who march every year in the Memorial Day procession are right. I've learned Bill Whittle is right. I've learned, by and large, Rush Limbaugh is right. America is a large, vast country. Its populated by people from all over the world. I can't even count all the countries my ancestors came from on one hand. We are a different breed of people. A melting pot that contains both the best and the worst of all humanity. The motto of the statue of liberty is completely wrong. America will accept your weak, your poor, your huddled masses. But they don't come often. By and large, it takes guts to get to America. It takes people willing to work hard, to fight if necessary, to do what ever it takes to succeed. It takes people willing to work three jobs while taking night classes at the local community college. It takes people who are proud, upright, and have guts. It takes people who are willing to do the dirty work, as long as it helps them achieve their dreams. And if it helps others achieve their dreams, all the better.
America, real America isn't a free ride. Sure there's welfare. But that's not for real Americans. Real Americans want to win. They want to succeed. They want a brighter future. They want to see their children happy. They want grand kids, and plenty of them. They want good times, carefree times, and they are not afraid of the work required to achieve them. They are willing to put their lives on hold, and join the Army, the Airforce, the Navy, and even the Marines. They are willing to put their lives on the line, and even sacrifice them, if it provides a brighter future for themselves and their fellow Americans. Imagine, some kid from Out House Iowa is willing to fight to ensure my daughter has a chance at a future, even though their family isn't in danger. They're willing to do that for my daughter. My little girl. Its mind blowing. They are willing to take a chance, that by helping to make the future brighter for some unknown family in Iraq or Afghanistan, they just might help make a brighter and more safe future for me, my daughter, and some guy selling oranges on a street corner in LA. To me, that represents a true American.
What 9/11 has meant to me, is life is not only about the past. Its about the future. In the past we were safe, protected by two oceans. That was the past, that was my parents America, and the America of my childhood. 9/11 Proved it isn't so. But the future remains out there. Just above the horizon, constantly changing. Anything can happen. What matters is who the future of America is, and what they are willing to do to ensure the future for their children and their children's children. And watching America's young in action has filled me with a sense of optimism that words can't describe. They are not only willing to do what needs to be done, they are doing it. I have three young relatives in the service now. One is on his second tour in Afghanistan, flying supply ships off a carrier. I have another who's just finishing up basic training with the US Marines. I have another, and I'm not sure exactly what he's doing, but cut me some slack, I have a really huge family. But they care about the future, and they want to see it safe. They care. That's the point. To quote President John F. Kennedy "where the strong are just and the weak secure". That's America.
Being a parent, all I can do is my best to raise my daughter, and hope I can instill in her all the hopes and dreams of every generation of American before me. Work hard, play by the rules, get a little further than your parents, and hope your kids get a little further than you. And I see it happening in America's youth. Its a big dangerous world out there. But we're in good hands. We're in the hands of Americans, raised by Americans. They understand we all can do it. Because they can do it. Its a beautiful day today, just like 9/11. But as the afternoon winds down, I have hope. Hope that I didn't know existed four years ago. But it exists for me today. I see it in the brave young men and women stepping up to the plate. And I see it in the eyes of my brave young daughter. The one who had the courage to sing out America the Beautiful that Sunday four years ago when I couldn't, hope and courage I lacked. But I have it now.
[09/15/05: Author's Note: I received this quote in an email a few days after completing the above essay. Leave it to me to spend several paragraphs describing what someone can sum up so eloquently in one sentence.]
"Courage is the first of all the virtues because if you haven't courage, you may not have the opportunity to use any of the others." —Samuel Johnson
I left for home shortly there after. I just felt the need to be with my family, to protect them. All the while coming to terms with the fact there was nothing that I could do to protect them. I was powerless to save them from anything. Let me tell you, that feeling is a real kick in the gut. The two people who mean most to you in the world, your wife and daughter, and you are powerless to protect them. My little baby girl. All I could think to say was "it'll be alright." As I turned down my street, my neighbor Judy had put her American flag out. That was the first American flag I saw on 9/11. Mine joined her's shortly. As I sat, dialed into the Corp. network from home, I watched the tragedy unfurl, in real time on TV. Those images are seared into my brain. Two days later we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary, we went out for dinner. At the restaurant, the TVs blared images, the names of the dead scrolled along the screen, the dead being pulled from the ruins. For our daughter's sake, we tried to make it a pleasant evening. But the images, the knowledge, was always there. Just a radio or TV button away.
The following Sunday at Church, the organist played "America the Beautiful." As I looked down at my little girl, watching her sing, all I could think of was the death and destruction that my generation and my parent's generation had left for her future. It was all I could do to keep my composure. What did it mean? What would happen next? When would the other shoe drop? Was America in the process of turning into the West Bank and Gaza strip? What......?
But through out all the murder and mayhem, I saw many other scenes. On 9/11 I saw a reporter talking with a pickup truck full of big, burly construction workers in Manhattan. The one speaking was wearing an American flag decorated bandana. He was pissed. He said the call came out for volunteers to help search for victims. But they were turned away and he was not happy about it. They were turned away because they had so many volunteers already, they were getting in the way. I saw a report from the local Red Cross. A reporter was talking to some one at the back of a very long line. He said the Red Cross workers told him it would probably be at least an eight hour wait, and chances are they'd be out of blood bags by then. He didn't care he was waiting anyway. No one was going to stop him from doing what ever he could. Even if it turned out to be meaningless. I understood the feeling completely.
In the following weeks and months other stories came out. The absolutely courageous story of flight 93 going down in Pa., and why it went down. A group of passengers had decided they would not be used as pawns by scum, and they'd decided they were going to do something about it even if it killed them. It did, but think of the many more deaths they prevented? The story about Father Mike Judge, the NYFD chaplain, who was giving the last rights to a fellow fireman when the tower fell on him. I learned later, the NYFD had recovered his helmet, repaired it and had presented it to Pope John Paul II as a tribute. I heard the story of Abe Zelmanowitz who, rather than evacuate the Trade Center, decided to stay with a friend who was a quadriplegic and could not be evacuated because the elevators were knocked out. Abe decided that his friend would not die alone. That story still makes me cry.
I also saw images of flags everywhere. I saw yellow ribbons everywhere. I saw people pulling together. I saw Hollywood actually have the intelligence to just shut the f*ck up for once. I saw millions raised from every day people. I saw the obituaries from local people in our upstate NY community who had moved to the city. I saw pledge drives. I saw relief supply drives. I saw the county in which I live raise more than $1 for every resident, in one day. When we went to the local mall to drop off a check, I saw people from my Church there collecting it. I heard flag lapel pins were on sale, all proceeds for the Red Cross. I bought $20 worth and gave them to my fellow coworkers, the ones I'd watched the towers fall with. They wanted to pay for them, but I said next time you see a fund raiser, give them the money, they need it more than I do. I remember giving the last one away, the one I bought for me, to my father in law.
I watched the President at Ground Zero, yelling into his bull horn '...they'll hear from all of us.' I saw the first game played at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees had asked for, and received permission from the commissioner, to wear NYFD hats for the rest of the season. I watched that tattered old flag from the top of the World Trade Center being carried into the Olympics. I read that fire depts all over the world were observing a moment of silence in unison to memorize the dead of the NYFD. I saw it all. Heard it all. Remembered it all. I can't forget it if I tried. And believe me, there are times I've tried.
9/11 Proved to me just how terribly, terribly vulnerable I, my family, my friends, all of us were. It left me despondent. Was humanity even worthy to exist on this planet so thoughtfully provided by the good Lord? Questions. Millions of questions. But there were no answers. After a while, it started to puddle in my head. Then it turned to anger. Not just mad, upset anger. But rather the kind that makes your gut wrench. The kind that makes your blood boil. The kind that simmers over a long period into that most dangerous, self righteous kind. I'm talking Old Testament, lightning bolts out of the sky kind of anger. The kind that turns village whackos into Biblical prophets. Fortunately, between the kindness I saw surrounding 9/11 relief effort, and the weekly advice of the kindly old priest who'd married my and my wife, and baptized my daughter, I got over it. Mostly.
But the point is, what does the it all mean now, four years after that cowardly sneak attack that scared my country and nation? In the past four years I have learned something very important. I've learned my father was right. I've learned the corny John Wayne movies are right. I've learned the old veterans who march every year in the Memorial Day procession are right. I've learned Bill Whittle is right. I've learned, by and large, Rush Limbaugh is right. America is a large, vast country. Its populated by people from all over the world. I can't even count all the countries my ancestors came from on one hand. We are a different breed of people. A melting pot that contains both the best and the worst of all humanity. The motto of the statue of liberty is completely wrong. America will accept your weak, your poor, your huddled masses. But they don't come often. By and large, it takes guts to get to America. It takes people willing to work hard, to fight if necessary, to do what ever it takes to succeed. It takes people willing to work three jobs while taking night classes at the local community college. It takes people who are proud, upright, and have guts. It takes people who are willing to do the dirty work, as long as it helps them achieve their dreams. And if it helps others achieve their dreams, all the better.
America, real America isn't a free ride. Sure there's welfare. But that's not for real Americans. Real Americans want to win. They want to succeed. They want a brighter future. They want to see their children happy. They want grand kids, and plenty of them. They want good times, carefree times, and they are not afraid of the work required to achieve them. They are willing to put their lives on hold, and join the Army, the Airforce, the Navy, and even the Marines. They are willing to put their lives on the line, and even sacrifice them, if it provides a brighter future for themselves and their fellow Americans. Imagine, some kid from Out House Iowa is willing to fight to ensure my daughter has a chance at a future, even though their family isn't in danger. They're willing to do that for my daughter. My little girl. Its mind blowing. They are willing to take a chance, that by helping to make the future brighter for some unknown family in Iraq or Afghanistan, they just might help make a brighter and more safe future for me, my daughter, and some guy selling oranges on a street corner in LA. To me, that represents a true American.
What 9/11 has meant to me, is life is not only about the past. Its about the future. In the past we were safe, protected by two oceans. That was the past, that was my parents America, and the America of my childhood. 9/11 Proved it isn't so. But the future remains out there. Just above the horizon, constantly changing. Anything can happen. What matters is who the future of America is, and what they are willing to do to ensure the future for their children and their children's children. And watching America's young in action has filled me with a sense of optimism that words can't describe. They are not only willing to do what needs to be done, they are doing it. I have three young relatives in the service now. One is on his second tour in Afghanistan, flying supply ships off a carrier. I have another who's just finishing up basic training with the US Marines. I have another, and I'm not sure exactly what he's doing, but cut me some slack, I have a really huge family. But they care about the future, and they want to see it safe. They care. That's the point. To quote President John F. Kennedy "where the strong are just and the weak secure". That's America.
Being a parent, all I can do is my best to raise my daughter, and hope I can instill in her all the hopes and dreams of every generation of American before me. Work hard, play by the rules, get a little further than your parents, and hope your kids get a little further than you. And I see it happening in America's youth. Its a big dangerous world out there. But we're in good hands. We're in the hands of Americans, raised by Americans. They understand we all can do it. Because they can do it. Its a beautiful day today, just like 9/11. But as the afternoon winds down, I have hope. Hope that I didn't know existed four years ago. But it exists for me today. I see it in the brave young men and women stepping up to the plate. And I see it in the eyes of my brave young daughter. The one who had the courage to sing out America the Beautiful that Sunday four years ago when I couldn't, hope and courage I lacked. But I have it now.
[09/15/05: Author's Note: I received this quote in an email a few days after completing the above essay. Leave it to me to spend several paragraphs describing what someone can sum up so eloquently in one sentence.]
"Courage is the first of all the virtues because if you haven't courage, you may not have the opportunity to use any of the others." —Samuel Johnson
Friday, September 02, 2005
Katrina and the Waves
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee certainly wasn't dry...
What a mess. The Gulf Coast is destroyed. Millions of people are affected. Hundreds of thousands are displaced. And, in addition to New Orleans existing below sea-level, it is now below the sea. Talking heads on the left are complaining about talking heads on the right who are complaining about the talking heads on the left, who are complaining about the talking heads on right, and so on and so forth. There's nothing like a tragedy of biblical proportions to bring out the nut jobs from all shades of the spectrum. Politicians doing what they do best, making political hay out of other's misfortune.
From time to time, fate throws situations at us, both natural and man-made, that show a fundamental flaw in human nature. That is the inability to face facts that make us uncomfortable. Anyone with a subscription to National Geographic (member since 1992!) has known that storms form at sea, they sometimes turn into hurricanes, sometimes really, really big hurricanes, and these storms have an appetite for the Southeast coast of the US.
Faced with 100% - 0% chance of a cat 5 hurricane finally hitting New Orleans, what do humans do? Do they cease building big, expensive homes on the coast? Do they contemplate moving New Orleans? Do they diversify the nation's oil refinery industry, building new plants in other parts of the country? No. They build houses, they fight new refineries, and they continue to party during Mardi Gras.
New Orleans was protected by a series of levees designed and built to withstand a cat 3 level hurricane. Katrina was a cat 5. What are the chances that could happen? I'd say about 100%. To dredge up an old cliche, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Will the San Andreas fault slip causing an unbelievably horrible earthquake leveling either Los Angles or San Francisco or both? Yes. When? Good question. But it will happen.
There is nothing that can be done to thwart mother nature. We can calculate the odds, the risks, weigh the options. But we can never be 100% safe. Mother nature will see to that. Please donate anything you can to help the survivors. Old clothes, supplies, money, time, effort. Our fellow Americans need our help. Odds are, some day, so will you.
North American Mission Board Disaster Relief
Samaritan's Purse
Salvation Army
Operation Blessing Hurricane Relief
Methodist Relief
Mercy Corps
Episcopal Relief and Development
Catholic Charities USA
American Red Cross
What a mess. The Gulf Coast is destroyed. Millions of people are affected. Hundreds of thousands are displaced. And, in addition to New Orleans existing below sea-level, it is now below the sea. Talking heads on the left are complaining about talking heads on the right who are complaining about the talking heads on the left, who are complaining about the talking heads on right, and so on and so forth. There's nothing like a tragedy of biblical proportions to bring out the nut jobs from all shades of the spectrum. Politicians doing what they do best, making political hay out of other's misfortune.
From time to time, fate throws situations at us, both natural and man-made, that show a fundamental flaw in human nature. That is the inability to face facts that make us uncomfortable. Anyone with a subscription to National Geographic (member since 1992!) has known that storms form at sea, they sometimes turn into hurricanes, sometimes really, really big hurricanes, and these storms have an appetite for the Southeast coast of the US.
Faced with 100% - 0% chance of a cat 5 hurricane finally hitting New Orleans, what do humans do? Do they cease building big, expensive homes on the coast? Do they contemplate moving New Orleans? Do they diversify the nation's oil refinery industry, building new plants in other parts of the country? No. They build houses, they fight new refineries, and they continue to party during Mardi Gras.
New Orleans was protected by a series of levees designed and built to withstand a cat 3 level hurricane. Katrina was a cat 5. What are the chances that could happen? I'd say about 100%. To dredge up an old cliche, it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Will the San Andreas fault slip causing an unbelievably horrible earthquake leveling either Los Angles or San Francisco or both? Yes. When? Good question. But it will happen.
There is nothing that can be done to thwart mother nature. We can calculate the odds, the risks, weigh the options. But we can never be 100% safe. Mother nature will see to that. Please donate anything you can to help the survivors. Old clothes, supplies, money, time, effort. Our fellow Americans need our help. Odds are, some day, so will you.
North American Mission Board Disaster Relief
Samaritan's Purse
Salvation Army
Operation Blessing Hurricane Relief
Methodist Relief
Mercy Corps
Episcopal Relief and Development
Catholic Charities USA
American Red Cross
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)