Choices, Change, Technology, and Using Our Brains

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Brian H. Gill
Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier & Ives: “The progress of the century…”. (ca. 1876)

This week I’ll be looking at:

  • Parts of that “…Progress of the Century…” lithograph
  • A few lines from three poems by Tennyson
  • What’s changed over the last couple centuries
    • What hasn’t

I’ll also explain why I don’t “believe in” Progress with a capital “P”.

On the other hand, I’d rather be living today than in 1923 or 1823.

That’s partly because we’ve made considerable progress, lowercase “p”, on the technology side of our lives. And some remarkable lowercase progress on the social side, too.

I’ve been running a fever this week, so the discussion of Progress and progress is a whole lot shorter than I’d planned. Which may be a good thing.

This week’s post may be a trifle more digressive than usual. You have been warned.

Mottoes and Viewpoints

Detail of telegraph tape, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
“…Peace. Good will….” These were good ideas the 1870s, and still are.

That Currier & Ives lithograph’s full title is “The progress of the century — the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, the steamboat”. All four new technologies were making a difference in people’s lives.

But they’re not what the mottoes on that telegraph tape are about. It reads, top to bottom:

“GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST. ON EARTH PEACE. GOODWILL TOWARD MEN.”
“LIBERTY AND UNION NOW AND FOR EVER”
“ONE AND INSEPARABLE”
(Currier & Ives: “The progress of the century…”. (ca. 1876))

First of all, and briefly, about that first line. It’s an abbreviation of this bit from Luke:

“And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:
“‘Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.'”
(Luke 2:13–14)

Much as I’d like “on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” and “on earth peace” to mean, in practical terms, the same thing — I’m pretty sure that God’s favor doesn’t entirely rest on everyone.

Not if “favor” means something like “approval”.

I know that sounds “judgmental”, but think about it.

If God ‘favored’ — gave approval to — everybody, then I’d have to try believing that God’s stamp of approval was on what everyone did. Like, for example, both on feeding the poor and on killing folks because they have the ‘wrong’ ancestors.

I can sympathize with folks who chucked “Biblical morality” because ranting loonies said rock and roll music was “Satanic”.

But I’m sure that some actions are wrong, no matter how I feel or what the circumstances, that “legal” and “right” aren’t the same thing, and that’s another topic. Topics.

Basically, I don’t see God as a senile but cheerful grandfather.

“…By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. and by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness — the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’. not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception….”
(“The Problem of Pain“, III Divine Goodness, C. S. Lewis (originally published 1940) via Samizdat University Press, Québec, used w/o permission) [emphasis mine]

Principles

Alfred Gale's 'Pictorial Illustration of the Cause of the Great Rebellion' and 'Pictorial Illustration of Abolitionism.' (ca. 1865) via Library of Congress, used w/o permission
Alfred Gale’s Broadsides (ca. 1865) via Library of Congress, used w/o permission.

I figure that the Currier & Ives telegraph tape’s next two lines, “liberty and union … one and inseparable”, were inspired by relief that the American Civil War was over. And had been for about a decade.

I suspect that this particular Currier & Ives lithograph was more popular north of the Mason-Dixon line.

But maybe by the mid-1870s, more survivors in the Confederate states had started seeing advantages to being part of a Union. Or maybe not.

Back when I watched coverage of national political conventions, at least a half-dozen or so delegates would say something like ‘the sovereign state of [non-New England state] casts its vote for…’.

The balance of state and federal authority has been shifting in my country since day one.

I see advantages in having, for example, a national highway system and currency that’s good in all 50 states. But I’m also glad that energy and road repair policy here in Minnesota isn’t entirely decided by folks living on the east coast.

Basically, I think state’s rights can make sense. Even though that’s apparently a controversial idea. Which brings me to our only internal war.

The main reason for the American Civil War was the noble North’s abhorrence of slavery.1 At least, that’s what I’ve read. It’s probably true, but I strongly suspect the situation wasn’t nearly that simple.

I also suspect that religious whack jobs of the 1860s weren’t limited to the Confederacy.

“…Abolitionism made the war by electing a sectional President on a Sectional Platform. Its avowed object was to take away the rights of the Slave-States expressly guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
“LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY!”
(“Pictorial History of the Cause of the Great Rebellion,” Vol. II, Alfred Gale (1865) via Library of Congress, used w/o permission)

And that’s yet another topic.

One more point.

Slavery is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. Ever. Even if it’s legal. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1903, 1950-1960, 2242, 2414, and more)

Steam, Reform, and Poisoned Candy

Detail of locomotive, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier & Ives: “The progress of the century…”, detail, locomotive with spark arrestor. (ca. 1876)

Amédée Bollée's L'Obéissante steam vehicle. (1875)Not all “locomotives” ran on rails in the 19th century. At least some self-propelled road vehicles were called “locomotives”.

I don’t know when we started having different words for (railroad) locomotive, tractor, truck, and so on.

Anyway, the 1800s is when folks worked the bugs out of steam engines, and began building continent-spanning railroad networks.

Earlier this week, I made an incomplete list of 19th and 20th century tech developments:2

  • 19th century
    • 1802: Trevithick’s Coalbrookdale Locomotive
    • 1803-1805: Morphine isolated
    • 1816: Francis Ronalds (static) electrical telegraph (among others)
    • 1832: Schilling telegraph
    • 1834, 1840, 1848, 1849, 1854, 1856, 1871, and other: telephone
    • 1843: Lightning steam press
    • 1848: Float glass
    • 1849: Corliss steam engine
    • 1852: Giffard dirigible
    • 1853: Otis safety elevator
    • 1854: Rickett of Buckingham steam car
    • 1854: Internal combustion engine
    • 1856: Bessemer converter (maybe 1851, or some other time)
    • 1857: Phonautograph
    • 1866, 1877, 1879: Stapler
    • 1872: Commercial liquid-fueled internal combustion engine
    • 1874, 1880: Incandescent lamp
    • 1879: Cholera vaccine
    • 1879-1883: Cash register
    • 1884: Steam turbine
    • 1886: Linotype machine
    • 1890: Tabulating machine
    • 1894: Medical glove
    • 1894: Electric refrigerator
    • 1897, 1901, 1903, 1904, 1906: Powered flight (Which year? Take your pick)
  • 20th century
    • 1910: laparoscopy
    • 1923: Diphtheria vaccine
    • 1926: Pertussis vaccine
    • 1926: Liquid-propellant rocket
    • 1927: Tuberculosis vaccine
    • 1927: Tetanus vaccine
    • 1935: Yellow fever vaccine
    • 1938-1970s and beyond: hip replacement
    • 1940-1941 Penicillin
    • 1947: Defibrillator
    • 1958: Pacemaker
    • 1958: Integrated circuit
    • 1961: Cochlear implant
    • 1963-1972: CT scan
    • 1960s: Antiviral drugs
    • 1963: Lava lamp
    • 1980: Flash memory
    • 1981: Scanning tunneling microscope
    • 1983: Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet
    • 1986: National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET:forerunner to the Internet)
    • 1989: MCI Mail, CompuServe email
    • 1990: World Wide Web
    • 1995: PHANToM system (Personal HAptic iNTerface Mechanism)
    • 1996: USB ports
    • 1997: Hybrid vehicle

A Long-Overdue Change

Detail of steamboat, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier & Ives, “The progress of the century…”: a steamboat. (ca. 1876)

Edward Windsor Kemble's illustration for 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn': 'She Hugged Me Tight'. (1885)On the ‘up’ side, steam engines helped folks get more done, move goods and people faster, and even provide power for telegraphs that helped us communicate faster than we had in the 19th century’s ‘good old days’.

But they didn’t make us understand that human beings are people, no matter who our ancestors are.

“‘…We blowed out a cylinder-head.’
“‘Good gracious! anybody hurt?’
“‘No’m. Killed a [redacted]
“‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt….’
(“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Part 2 (1885), Chapter XXXII, Mark Twain; via gutenberg.org)

More than a century after “Huckleberry Finn” began offending folks, it’s easier to say that non-Anglos are people: and get taken seriously. Shift the vocabulary a bit, though, and ethnicity still seems to matter. And that’s yet again more topics.

New York Daily Times(?) advertisement: (March 25, 1854 (?))As for me, I look “Anglo”, but I’m not. Not by some standards, at any rate.

And “Anglo” or not, I’m Catholic: so seeing everyone as “people” is a must. That’s everyone, no matter where the person’s from, what he or she has done: everyone. (Catechism, 360, 1700-1706, 1932-1933, 1935, 2258, 2268-2283)

Which reminds me of something good that happened during the 19th century.

Like I said earlier, slavery is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it. Ever.

But slavery has been both a cross-cultural tradition and a vital part of the economy at least since we started keeping records, several millennia back.

This ancient tradition started unraveling recently.

Slavery as an institution was first regionally criminalized during the 12th century. The pace picked up considerably a few centuries back. My country’s nation-wide ‘no slavery’ laws got traction around 1804 and took hold in 1865.

But wealthy Americans with employees living in slavery-like conditions are a recurring news item. And slavery is still legal in some parts of the world.3

What impresses me is that it’s become unfashionable. At least here. That’s a start.

(Optionally) Rational Animals

Detail of boy using printer's tools, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier & Ives, “The progress of the century…”: a boy using printer’s tools. (ca. 1876)

Child labor, child labor laws, and letting kids learn marketable skills, is a tangled mess I won’t try sorting out this week.4 Or next, for that matter.

I think there was and is genuine exploitation of children, and that it’s a bad idea.

I also think children and parents are people, that we have responsibilities: and, I hope obviously, that children are not property. (Catechism, 2217-2230, 2378)

Exploding steam engines, seeing some folks as not-people, and those who treat kids like property — strongly suggest that all is not right with the world.

Which brings up a question.

Several, actually, but I’ll focus on one.

Once we all agree that something is a bad idea and we shouldn’t do it, why don’t we all stop doing it?

For one thing, getting everyone to agree is often an issue.

For another, although we’re rational animals: acting reasonably isn’t hard-wired into us. We’ve got free will, so each of us can decide that thinking is too much work. (Catechism, 1730, 1951)

Deciding that avoiding bad behavior is worth the effort would be a whole lot easier, if it weren’t for original sin.

My native culture’s quirks being what they are, a clarification: humanity isn’t garbage, utterly and unalterably bad. That is not what “original sin” means. Not for a Catholic, at any rate.

We were and are basically “very good”, like all of God’s creation. But the first of us decided that “I want” mattered more than God’s “you should”. We’ve been living with consequences of that choice ever since. God did not, however, change our nature. We are wounded, but not corrupted. (Genesis 1:27, 31, 3:1–19; Catechism, 31, 299, 355-361, 374-379, 398, 400-406, 405, 1701-1707, 1949)

The Candy Man Could

John Leech's cartoon for Punch: 'The Great Lozenge-Maker. A Hint to Paterfamilias' (November 20, 1858)What happened on October 30, 1858, wasn’t criminal.

At least, that’s what British courts decided after tracing 20 deaths to candy sold from a stall in Bradford’s Greenmarket.

The verdict made sense, in a way.

Whipping up a batch of candy laced with enough arsenic to kill about 2,000 people was an accident: regrettable, but quite unintentional.

Here’s how it happened.

William “Humbug Billy” Hardaker, or maybe it’s Hardacre, I’ve seen it spelled both ways, and I’m drifting off-topic.

Anyway, Humbug Billy ordered humbugs, a sort of hard candy, from a candymaker.

The candymaker didn’t have enough plaster of paris on hand, so he sent one of his lodgers to a druggist. “Plaster of paris” is not a typo. Gypsum plaster, plaster of paris, was cheaper than sugar: and often used as a sugar substitute in ‘the good old days’.

The druggist was sick, so he told his assistant where to find plaster of paris. Which, as it happened, was in a barrel right next to an identical barrel containing arsenic trioxide.

I gather that folks had been getting fed up with food that wasn’t as-advertised and impromptu preparation of pernicious pharmaceuticals.

If that’s so, then the 1858 Bradford Halloween body count was the straw that killed the camel. Or something like that.

The Pharmacy Act 1868 set up rules for storing, handling, and selling poisons. That legislation was, at the time, a big deal. And quite arguably saved lives.5

“Forward!” — With Hope

A. Provost's 'Disaster on the Railway between Versailles and Bellevue, 8th May 1842'. (1842-1855)
“Disaster on the Railway between Versailles and Bellevue, 8th May 1842”, A. Provost.. (ca. 1850)

“If anything can go wrong, it will.”
(Murphy’s law)

“Murphy was an optimist.”
(O’Toole’s commentary on Murphy’s Law)

Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809, died in 1892, started writing poetry in his teens, and was England’s Poet Laureate from 1850 to 1892.

He’s among my favorite poets, which helps explain why I used this quote last week:

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law….”
(“Locksley Hall“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835))

Tennyson was in his mid-20s when he wrote that. His narrator is fictional, and apparently not entirely on the same page as the young Tennyson.

But I suspect Tennyson shared some of his narrator’s hopeful outlook.

At the time, there were reasons for an upbeat attitude. Hobhouse’s Act (1831) and Althorp’s Act (1833) put limits on child labor. The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 outlawed slavery everywhere in the British Empire.

Small wonder that Tennyson’s narrator saw a smooth (rail) road ahead.

“…Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range;
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change….”
(“Locksley Hall“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835)) [emphasis mine]

About those “ringing grooves of change”: Alfred Tennyson had seen a railroad train at the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s opening.

But a whole lot of other folks were there, too. So many that Tennyson couldn’t see the train’s wheels. He got the impression that they ran in grooves.6

Tennyson wrote “Forward, forward let us range” in 1835.

Just over a half-century later, he wrote this:

“…Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
“Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
“‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone….”
(“Locksley Hall – Sixty Years After“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1886))

I talked about why I won’t “hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone” last week.

This week, I’ll make a guess or two as to why Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” sequel didn’t seem so optimistic.

These days, a standard-issue explanation for “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After” is that the Industrial Revolution didn’t deliver on its promises. And, presumably, it took Tennyson five decades to notice.

There may be something to that.

Charge of the Light Brigade and a Poet Laureate

Photogravure/print, from Richard Caton Woodville Jr.'s 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' oil on canvas, commissioned by the Illustrated London News. (ca. 1895)
Print of Richard Caton Woodville Jr.’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. (ca. 1895)

But I suspect some of Tennyson’s apparent change in attitude stems from his having paid attention during the mid-19th century.

And from his having been England’s Poet Laureate for about a half-dozen years when he wrote “…Sixty Years After”.

A poet laureate’s job. basically, is writing poetry for special occasions: from the government’s viewpoint. There’s considerable prestige to the job.

But I can see a down side, too.

Take, for example, the Charge of the Light Brigade: a world-class military SNAFU.

The last I checked, academics are still debating how and why two British lords failed to obliterate a light cavalry unit. A unit that was on their side.

Despite being sent up and down a valley covered by artillery on three sides, Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade had several horses and riders at the end of the day. Apparently Lord Raglan wanted Lord Cardigan to send them somewhere else.7

“…Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
   Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die….”
(“The Charge of the Light Brigade“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1854))

I don’t blame Tennyson for presenting pointlessly suicidal bravery as a virtue. He was, after all, working for the English government: tasked with putting a positive spin on a debacle that’s still famous, make that infamous, more than a century later.

But I can see how that sort of thing could put a damper on youthful enthusiasm for cries of “forward! forward!”

Progress, Problems, Making Choices

Danijel Mihajlovic's photo: Parkland, artificial Super Trees and the Marina Bay Sands luxury hotel in Singapore's Gardens by the Bay. (2019) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.I was going to talk about Progress with a capital “P”, but like I said: I’ve been running a fever this week.

So that’s not going to happen. Not today.

Instead, here’s a quick explanation for why I think Progress — the notion that the human condition will inevitably improve — no matter what daft, demented, destructive decisions we make?

😕

Oh, boy. Fever. What’s been in my news feed. Moving along.

Basically, I can’t take the inevitability of Progress with a capital “P” seriously.

Mainly because I’m 72, and have been paying attention. I’m also, by training and interest, an historian: and know that humanity has been through the occasional speed bump.

But we’ve been through the occasional speed bump. And we’re still here.

Good grief, the Black Death didn’t do much more than slow us down. And, bad as it was, we fixed some serious problems while recovering. Folks in Europe did, anyway. Maybe elsewhere, but I’m not all that well-versed on that.

We can make stupid, self-destructive, choices.

But we also can use our brains, and look for solutions to problems. Preferably solutions that won’t make the problems worse: but I am not going to get conventionally gloomy.

See? That was me, using my brain and making a decision. And if I can do that, I figure pretty much anyone can. And that’s — still another topic. Several, actually.

Dik Browne's 'Hagar the Horrible:' 'It may be the end of civilization as we know it.' (February 25, 1973)

Stuff I see as related. Your experience may vary:

1 A (very) little American history:

2 Two centuries of new technology, a very incomplete list:

3 An ancient ill that’s being dealt with:

4 Emphatically not simple:

5 Two identical barrels, many deaths, and new rules:

6 Tennyson:

7 More Tennyson:

Posted in Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hamas, Harvard, Ukraine and Alaska Air: Looking for a Bright Side 

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Brian H. Gill
Screenshot from a video taken during Supernova festival attack. (October 7, 2023) via BBC News
Fleeing the Supernova festival. (October 7, 2023)

All is not right with the world.

But all is not wrong, either.

Take Sunday night’s air disaster that didn’t happen, for example.

Alaska Air 2059

An off-duty pilot, riding in the cockpit’s jump seat, achieved momentary fame by trying to trigger both engine fire extinguishers. Putting out flaming aircraft engines can save lives. But not when the aircraft is nearly six miles, 31,000 feet, 9,400 meters, up.

Happily, the flight crew interfered with their colleague’s effort; and all 84 folks who were on board were alive and well when Alaska Airlines Flight 2059 landed.

At Portland, Oregon, rather than San Francisco, California.1 But the point is, they landed.

Underground (Literally) Schools in Ukraine

Kids in Kharkiv, Ukraine, going to class in underground bunkers isn’t exactly good news. But I figure this way, they’re somewhat less likely to get killed during Russia’s Nazi hunt.

Or whatever the current official explanation for death and destruction in Ukraine is. Apparently Russia is also saving the world from Ukrainian Satanism and black magic.2

You can’t make this stuff up.

Hey, Everybody! See What We’re Doing! — Improv by Hamas

Idan family photo, via BBC News: Maayan, third from right, is dead. Her father, Tsachi, far right, was kidnapped by Hamas. (October 2023)
Family photo, before Hamas attacked.

Then there’s the little live theatre presentation that Hamas broadcast recently.

“‘Hamas said they wouldn’t shoot, then murdered my daughter’“
Anna Foster, BBC News (October 23, 2023)

“As Tsachi Idan was driven away to Gaza, his hands were still covered with his daughter’s blood.

“He wasn’t allowed to wash them after cradling 18-year-old Maayan, who was murdered in front of her family by a Hamas gunman….

“…And throughout the ordeal, Hamas rigged up a phone to broadcast the family’s pain and terror to the world on Facebook Live….”

I’ll admit to a bias. I think murder and kidnapping aren’t nice. Even if whoever’s doing it really, really wants to.

Since I’ve got free will, I could say “although personally opposed to murder and kidnapping, I don’t have the right to interfere with another person’s choice”. But I won’t. Partly because I think that makes no sense.

I think murder and kidnapping aren’t nice, even if done for a great and noble cause.

Some actions are just plain wrong, no matter what excuse I have. “…The end does not justify the means….” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1753)

Meanwhile, Back in the States

From Mack Sennett Studios, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission: a publicity still from 'In the Clutches of the Gang' / 'In the Clutches of a Gang'. (1914)A couple weeks back, university students at Harvard reminded me of my college days. Not that they had me in mind, of course.

“Harvard Student Groups Face Intense Backlash for Statement Calling Israel ‘Entirely Responsible’ for Hamas Attack“
J. Sellers Hill, Nia L. Orakwue; The Harvard Crimson (October 10, 2023; updated October 10, 2023)

“Harvard student groups drew intense campus and national backlash over the weekend for signing onto a statement that they ‘hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’ in the wake of a deadly invasion of Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas.

“Authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and originally co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organizations Saturday, the statement came under fire from federal lawmakers, University professors, and other students….”
[emphasis mine]

In a way, I don’t blame those kids for saying that “the Israeli regime” made Hamas attack the Supernova music festival, kill some Jews, and kidnap others.

The situation in what’s called the Gaza Strip isn’t ideal.

It wasn’t ideal, even before “the Israeli regime” started acting as if killing Jews isn’t nice.

Hamas — the name’s an acronym of “Islamic Resistance Movement” in Arabic — has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007. They’re Sunni Muslims who seem convinced that God agrees with their political views.

I’m simplifying the situation enormously. The point is, Hamas runs the Gaza Strip.

They were elected all nice and legal-like in 2006. That’s important, since democracy and elections have been all the rage since the late 18th century.3

I can see how serious-minded college kids might think that a democratically-elected outfit with “resistance” in its name, supported by their friends, could do no wrong.

What does surprise me, or maybe “relieve” is the right word, is that at least one Harvard professor and an ex-Harvard U. president said the students weren’t absolutely right.

“…Harvard Computer Science professor Boaz Barak called on the University to remove the organizations’ school affiliations.

“‘I have a lot of criticisms of Israeli policies, but everyone who signed this statement is condoning terrorism, rape, and murder,’ Barak wrote on the social media platform X.

“Former University President Lawrence H. Summers called the joint statement ‘morally unconscionable’ in a post on X.

“‘In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today,’ he wrote….”
J. Sellers Hill, Nia L. Orakwue; The Harvard Crimson (October 10, 2023; updated October 10, 2023)

Maybe there’s reasonable hope that more academics like Boaz Barak and Lawrence H. Summers will break ranks and Make Academia Great Again. And that’s another topic. Topics.

I don’t know why those Harvard students blamed “the Israeli regime” for the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. But I suspect that at least some may have been following an old American tradition.

I’ll get back to that.

Civilian Homes, a Little Extra Shielding — Tomayto, Tomahto.

U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, screenshot from video: 'US Ambassador to Israel Shapiro Visit to Attack Tunnel'. Under the Gaza Strip, built with materials which would otherwise have been wasted on civilian housing. Or which should have been used for civilian housing. Take your pick. (October 27, 2013)
U.S. Ambassador to Israel, in one of the Gaza Strip tunnels. (2013)

I don’t doubt that folks living in the Gaza strip are distressed just now.

Their rulers decided that killing Jews was a good idea.

Jews, or at least the Israeli government , acted as if killing Jews wasn’t acceptable.

And now folks who are not running the Gaza Strip are learning that living on top of their rulers’ tunnel networks is occasionally unpleasant.4

I gather that discussing the Hamas tunnel network(s) isn’t considered polite in proper circles, which doesn’t surprise me a bit.

Moving along.

Loving Neighbors: Not Easy, But I Must

Sporki~commonswiki's (?) photo taken during World Youth Day, Rome. (2000) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permissionI don’t hate those Harvard students, folks in Hamas, and certainly not folks living under Hamas rule.

More accurately, I’m not allowed to hate them. Loving God, and my neighbor, and seeing everybody as my neighbor, comes with being Catholic. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31, 10:25–37; Catechism, 1789)

I follow that rule better on some days than on others. But I’m obliged to try every day.

Loving my neighbor doesn’t necessarily mean endorsing whatever my neighbor does. “Love” doesn’t mean “approval”, and that’s yet another topic.

Bogeymen, Assumptions, and Attitudes: Past and Present

Confederate till Death at English Wikipedia's photo: Ku Klux Klan members at a cross burning. (November 2005) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission
Cross burning and the KKK. An American tradition, but not the only one.

The United States is not now and never has been a monolithic block of like-minded people, united in their common preferences, politics, and parentage.

I very strongly suspect that’s driven various fanatically faithful folks nuts: nuttier than they were to begin with, at any rate.

Politics, Religion, and Not Missing ‘the Good Old Days’

Watson Heston's 'History Repeats Itself'/'This is the U.S. in the Hands of the Jews': Anti-Semitic USA political cartoon. Sound Money magazine (April 15, 1896) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Watson Heston’s “This is the U.S. in the Hands of the Jews”, from Sound Money magazine. (1896)

Grant Hamilton's cartoon comment on William Jennings Bryan's 1896 'Cross of Gold' speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.With another presidential election looming, my country’s news is already full of flying fewmets; which is about par for the course.

The current election cycle’s hysterical nonsense could be worse.

So far, I’ve seen nothing like William Jennings Bryan’s famous — or infamous — “Cross of Gold” speech. (July 9, 1896)

That bit of political theater, and Watson Heston’s “This is the U.S. in the Hands of the Jews” cartoon, were symptoms of what should have been a discussion of United States monetary policy.

A serious issue, whether or not to caffeinate America’s economy, was complicated by fallout from the then-recent Panic of 1893: and by the fears of some folks who weren’t “robber barons”.

My teen years and the 1960s overlapped almost exactly. What I’ve read about the period, and my memory, tell me that American politics wasn’t much less goofy than it was in William Jennings Bryan’s day.

My news feed tells me that both, make that all, parties still aren’t trying to help voters think. Can’t say that I blame them, sort of, and that’s yet again another topic.

I have, however, noticed that there’s less of the massively-inappropriate old-school ‘God agrees with me’ political hype.

It’s hard to imagine a politico with national ambitions presenting himself as in persona Chrisi, the way William Jennings Bryan did.5

That’s an aspect of ‘the good old days’ I emphatically do not miss.

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” —

The Dearborn Independent's article (image of page, body text not readable): 'The International Jew: The World's Problem'. (May 22, 1920) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission“Protocols” popped up around 1902.

It’s a (fictional) strategic plan for world domination by an international cabal of Jewish conspirators.

The author(s) of “Protocols” spiced it up with paraphrases from Maurice Joly’s “The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu”.

They also did a pretty good job of covering their tracks, and that’s still another topic.

The original “Protocols” was in Russian.

By 1940, it had been translated into several languages, including German and English. And had been outed as a literary forgery.

Possibly because it fit neatly into existing assumptions about Jews, a fair number of smart folks didn’t realize that “Protocols” was — at best — fiction. And, at worst, dangerous propaganda.

Henry Ford’s paper, The Dearborn Independent, published “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, as well as several commentaries on that work.

Over in Germany, excerpts from “Protocols” were adapted for classroom use.

Word finally got around that “Protocols” was about as genuine as “Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk…”. But before that happened, highly-respected folks assumed that “the international Jew” was a threat to national — nay, world — security.

Time passed.

I suspect that Germany’s purge of undesirables made anti-Semitic attitudes less fashionable, at least on my side of the Atlantic.6

But it hasn’t been all that long since I heard someone who should have known better mention ‘the Jewish threat’.

Then there’s the 1988 Hamas Charter.

Article 32 and “Protocols”

Article 32 says Hamas is against “imperialistic powers” — those who seek the corruption of Arab countries — until at last Palestine alone shall stand as the final bastion of Islam.

Reminds me of what ranting radio preachers of my youth said, actually. Except they put America and their brand of Christianity in the starring role.

Anyway, Article 32 also says that the ‘Zionist conspiracy’ is revealed in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.7

— “Several Experts” and the Reptilians

David Shankbone's photo: Westboro Baptist Church protest at the United Nations headquarters, New York City, the day when Pope Benedict addressed the UN General Assembly. (18 April 2008) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.America’s better sort have a new bogeyman. Or did, three decades back.

“…The Post has been deluged with calls since that article, which described followers of television evangelists as ‘largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.’ The paper ran a correction the following day, saying there was ‘no factual basis’ for the statement….

“…Michael Weisskopf, the article’s author, said he made ‘an honest mistake, not born of any prejudice or malice for the religious right.’ He said his description was ‘overstated’ and should have been qualified by saying that evangelicals in general are ‘relatively’ poor and uneducated.

“Weisskopf said he based the description on interviews with several experts, but didn’t attribute it to anyone because ‘I try not to have to attribute every point in the story if it appears to be universally accepted. You don’t have to say, “It’s hot out, according to the weatherman.”‘…”
“EVANGELICAL OUTRAGE“; Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post (February 6,1993) [emphasis mine]

Maybe the word’s getting around, that what’s “universally accepted” in the Washington, D.C., area’s better neighborhoods may not be the whole picture. And that Christians are not all radical right-wing extremist white supremacists.

But, with an election coming up — I’m just glad that only four percent of the American voting public believe that we’re threatened by space-alien shape-shifting lizard-men.8

Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

Spears, Pruning Hooks, and Making Sense in the Meantime

Navy Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Jim Watson's photo: World Trade Center rubble and fires. (September 14, 2001)
New York City’s Word Trade Center rubble and fires after the 9/11 attack. (September 14, 2001)

I think Isaiah had the right idea.

“In days to come,
The mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain
and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it.

“He shall judge between the nations,
and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
One nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.”
(Isaiah 2:2, 4)

And I am convinced that we’re not there yet. Not even close.

F. Bate's 'A Bird's Eye View of a Community...I think living in peace and harmony with all would be nice.

I admire the resolve of pacifists: and think they will, at this time, flourish. As long as they are protected by non-pacifists.

Given the sort of either-or perceptions I run into, a clarification is in order.

I do not like wars. They break things and kill people. Or, rather, people break things and kill other people in wars.

I think avoiding war is a good idea.

But I would make a terrible pacifist, because I think sometimes war is less unpleasant than the alternative.

Even before I became a Catholic, I thought human life mattered: and that stopping someone who wanted to kill another person was a good idea. Now that I’m Catholic, thinking that this is true isn’t just a personal preference. It’s an obligation.

It’s been almost a year since I talked about the idea that life matters, and that keeping folks from being killed also matters. It makes sense, but the explanation takes longer than a sound bite. So please bear with me.

Double Effect: It’s Complicated

U. S. Department of Defense photo: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, Washington, D.C., near Constitution Gardens on the National Mall; dedicated November 11, 1982, Veterans Day.I think human life is precious. All human life. Each person’s life. That’s because human life is sacred. We’re made “in the image of God”. (Genesis 1:27; Catechism, 2258, 2261, 2268-2283, 2319)

No matter where we live or how we act, each of us has equal dignity. Respecting “the transcendent dignity of man” can be hard, but it’s part of my faith. So is doing what’s good while avoiding what’s evil. (Catechism, 360, 1700-1706, 1928-1942)

Some of us don’t act as if everyone’s life matters. But everyone’s life matters, anyway. Including mine. So valuing my own life is a good idea.

Now let’s suppose someone tried to kill me. I’m a Catholic, so I must value my own life and value my hypothetical attacker’s life.

Here’s where it gets complicated.

I could, maybe, defend myself by avoiding the attack or stopping it without killing my hypothetical attacker. Maybe.

But suppose non-lethal prevention isn’t possible? Do I devalue my own life and let myself be killed? It is an option, but not the only one.

In this hypothetical situation, defending myself is okay: even if doing so results in my hypothetical attacker’s death.

If my intent was defending myself, if I used the least force possible, and if my attacker’s death was unavoidable in the circumstances. (Catechism, 2258, 2263-2269; “Summa Theologica,” Thomas Aquinas, II-II,64,7)

Individual ethics apply to groups, too. Avoiding war is a good idea. But sometimes the only other option is letting innocent folks get killed. (Catechism, 1909, 2263-2269, 2307-2317)

This idea of double effect, where preserving my life or the lives of others is an intended result, but the death of the attacker is not, is “legitimate defense”. (Catechism, 2263, 2265)

“This is Not Us” “Yeh Hum Naheen”

Looking for a video of that song, I learned that “this is not us” has been a provocative, polarizing, and otherwise divisive phrase.

I’m using it anyway, since the phrase expresses what I think is a reasonable idea.

Branford Clarke's cartoon, from page 21 of Alma White's 'Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty;' Zarephath, New Jersey. (1926)I’m quite sure that not all Muslims are terrorists, and positive that not all Christians wear hoods and desire an America cleansed of people like me.

Particularly since I’m a Christian. And a Catholic, and that’s a whole bunch of rabbit holes I must ignore, if I’m going to get this thing finished in time.

Let’s see. Where was I?

An air disaster that didn’t happen.

Hamas, bogeymen, and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.

Right.

Backing up a bit, I think that Jews, Muslims, and Christians are not all mass-casualty events just waiting to happen. And I think nutty notions like those repeated in “Protocols” are common enough to warrant a little discussion.

First off: since I’m a Catholic, I must not blame our Lord’s death on “the Jews”. One way or another, we’ve all got a share in happened on Golgotha. (Catechism, 595-598)

I think that “outside the Church there is no salvation” and that God’s plan for salvation includes everybody. I must remember that someone can be seeking God and not be on the same page that I am. (Catechism, 839-856, 934-1942, 2357-2359, and more)

Basically, I must see humanity as “us”. Not “me and mine” and “those others”.

Easy? No.

Important? Yes.

On the other hand, sympathizing with Muslims who aren’t happy about being lumped in with the likes of Hamas — isn’t all that hard for me.

I grew up in a culture where ranting radio preachers and their fervent followers made negative stereotypes all too plausible.

Academic Freedom and Responsibility

Jeffrey S. Flier, Steven A. Pinker; Harvard Crimson op-ed:'Academic Freedom Prohibits Censorship and Punishment, Not Judgment' Headline and lead paragraphs. (October 26, 2023)The Harvard ‘it is the fault of the Jews’ SNAFU has been joined by similar expressions of solidarity — and has apparently entered the ‘support academic freedom’ phase.

I’d take stalwart defenses of academic freedom more seriously, if I hadn’t done time in academia when political correctness was in bloom: and remember when my country was recovering from Hollywood blacklists and other effects of McCarthyism.

Maybe this time freedom won’t mean “free to agree with me”. That’d be nice.

An unanswered question is why so many Harvard kids apparently hold “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”.

These are Harvard kids. They aren’t, or shouldn’t be, particularly ignorant.

They might not be familiar with all aspects of Middle Eastern politics over the last half-century or so.

But I’d think that they’d at least be aware that it isn’t a simple ‘Hamas wears the white hat’ situation.

Then again, their parents and grandparents lived in a society where “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was occasionally taken seriously: and still is.

More recently, “imperialistic powers” have been assigned black-hat status9 by my culture’s self-described best and brightest.

With some justice: but I do not think reality is that simple.

I suppose I should be glad that a coalition of student groups at Yale hasn’t declared that Alaska Airlines is “entirely responsible” for that off-duty pilot’s behavior. Maybe they have, and it hasn’t made headlines yet.

A Civilization of Love: Something to Work Towards

Google Maps Street View: New York City Central Park. (August 2012) used w/o permission.
New York City Central Park: August 2012. Not bad, but we can do better.

I said I was “looking for a bright side” in this post’s title. It’s high time I do that. But first, I’d better say what I mean by “love”. In this context, that is.

Love is an emotion. It’s an attraction to what is good. Love can cause desire for that which is good, but is not here. It can encourage hope, seeing a good which is possible but not present. Love is also an act of will: a decision to help another person. (Catechism, 1765-1766)

“LOVE: See Charity”

“CHARITY: The theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. (1822)”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary)

Like charity, love is something we do. Not necessarily something we feel. (Catechism, 1766, 1822-1828)

That sort of love doesn’t come easy, at least not to me.

But it’s a good idea.

So are values like justice, and acts of charity; along with respecting humanity’s “transcendent dignity” — and working toward a society where justice, charity and respect are the norm. All of which starts in me, with an ongoing “inner conversion”. (Catechism, 1886-1889, 1928-1942, 2419-2442)

Again, it doesn’t come easy. But it’s a good idea, anyway.

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization,” Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

A “…Competent and Sufficiently Powerful Authority….”

War Department, Office of the Chief Signal Officer's photo: Ruins of Richmond, Virginia; detail. (1865) U. S. Archives, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.If I think building a “civilization of love” makes sense, then how come I don’t denounce “the Israeli regime”, and anyone else who physically resists attackers?

I talked about the idea of double effect and legitimate defense before.

Much as I might prefer living in a world where such ideas are strictly hypothetical, that’s not how things work. Not now. (Catechism, 2302-2317)

“…Certainly, war has not been rooted out of human affairs. As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted. State authorities and others who share public responsibility have the duty to conduct such grave matters soberly and to protect the welfare of the people entrusted to their care. But it is one thing to undertake military action for the just defense of the people, and something else again to seek the subjugation of other nations. Nor, by the same token, does the mere fact that war has unhappily begun mean that all is fair between the warring parties….”
(Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word: “Gaudium et spes“, Pope St. Paul VI, Second Vatican Council (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]

Nearly six decades later, we still don’t have a “competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level”. So “legitimate defense” is still a very non-hypothetical idea.

On the whole, I’d prefer that Hamas not act as if it has remained true to the word and spirit of its charter. But I suspect that “the Israeli regime” is not completely unjustified in its efforts to keep the Gaza Strip’s current rulers from killing more Jews.

Of course, I also think that “Protocols” is a literary forgery, so I would have that opinion.

Now, about that “bright side” I mentioned.

Pope St. John Paul II’s phrase, translated as “civilization of love”, goes back at least to Pope St. Paul VI.10 Not all Popes have been Saints. But we got a bumper crop in the 20th century; and that’s — you guessed it — more topics.

“Although to some it may seem strange, Pentecost is an event that also involves the secular world. For it gave rise to a new sociology—one which penetrates the values of the spirit, which forms our hierarchy of values, and which confronts us with the truth, and with the ultimate destiny of humanity.

“It is this which has given us our belief in the dignity of the human person, and our civil customs, and which above all leads us to resolutely rise above all divisions and conflicts between humans, and to form humanity into a single family of the children of God, free and fraternal.

“We recall the symbolism at the beginning of this amazing story, of the miracle of many different languages being made comprehensible to everyone by the Spirit. It is the civilization of love and of peace which Pentecost has inaugurated—and we are all aware how much today the world still needs love and peace!”
(Creating a Civilization of Love, address for Pentecost Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, Pope St. Paul VI (May 17, 1970) via Christ the Servant Parish at Our Lady of Peace Church, Canton, Ohio) [emphasis mine]

Poetry, Future Generations, and a Very Long-Haul Project

Zellim's 'Celistic Concept Art', detail. (2013) used w/o permission

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law….”
(“Locksley Hall“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835))

That was among my favorite bits of poetry during my teens. Not surprising, since Tennyson said “Locksley Hall” expresses “…young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings”.11

I turned 72 this year. My youthful suspicion that “the common sense of most” was a wildly-optimistic assessment has been confirmed. But those lines are still among my favorites.

However, I also appreciate Tennyson’s follow-up:

“…Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
“Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
“‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone….”
(“Locksley Hall – Sixty Years After“, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1886))

But I won’t say “Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone”.

That’s because I think we have work that can be done today.

The civilization of love outlined by popes since 1970 still makes sense. Even though, maybe because, something profoundly not like it has been making headlines.

Building a civilization of love, even cobbling together something like Tennyson’s “Federation of the world”, will take generations, centuries, of hard work, slow progress and occasional disappointments.

Make that millennia of hard work. Humanity has a backlog of unresolved issues, accumulated over uncounted ages. Making a dent in that is a very long-haul project.

But I am convinced that taking what we have, keeping what works, and fixing what doesn’t, is a good idea.

Starting now means that there will be that much less toil for future generations. Which strikes me as a good idea. They’ll have quite enough on their plate as it is. And — yeah — that’s more topics.

Finally! the usual links:

1 Today’s cockpits are almost always enclosed, so a cockpit is usually a flight deck: an etymology/history rabbit hole I’ll avoid today:

“Off-duty pilot Joseph Emerson accused of trying to crash Alaska Airlines flight“
Nadine Yousif, BBC News (October 23, 2023)

“An off-duty pilot has been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, after he allegedly tried to crash a passenger jet during a flight on Sunday night.

“The suspect was sitting in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight behind the captain and the first-officer, according to an airline statement….

“…In a statement, Alaska Airlines said the off-duty pilot was traveling in the flight deck jump seat, when he ‘unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the operation of the engines.’…”

Movie poster: 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' (ca. 1967) via allmovie.com, used w/o permission.2 Sadly, this is not an edgy dark comedy:

From BBC News:

“Ukraine war: First underground school to be built in Kharkiv
Jaroslav Lukiv, BBC News (October 2, 2023)

“Ukraine’s first underground school will be built in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov has said.

“‘Such a shelter will allow thousands of children to continue their in-person education safely even during missile threats,’ he said….”

3 Winning an election and being right aren’t necessarily the same thing:

4 Focusing more on the tunnels than on the folks who live on top of them, and an embarrassing hospital hit:

5 Today’s politics? It could be worse:

6 The international conspiracy described in “Protocols…” sounds like the plot of an old Saturday afternoon serial, but a remarkable number of folks took it seriously:

7 ‘There is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer’ — Hamas Charter Article 13:

8 Space-alien lizard-men and other odd notions:

9 Perceptions, partisanship, and white hats:

10 A little background:

11 A poet and a poem:

Posted in Being Catholic, Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Chrysler Building, Copyright, Spider-Man and Rules

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Brian H. Gill

This is not what I’m talking about for this week’s ‘Saturday’ post.

But since I’m interested in both intellectual property rights and the fiction side of writing, I’m taking a few minutes from my Wednesday afternoon to share this excerpt and a link to Blake Hester’s article:

“Spider-Man 2 Is Missing This Major New York City Landmark“
Blake Hester, Game Informer (October 20, 2023)

“The recently released Spider-Man 2 is also missing the Chrysler Building. In its place is the same building that replaced it in Spider-Man Miles Morales, though this time with a new coat of paint….

“…with the building coming under new ownership in 2019, it looks like the Chrysler Building may be making fewer appearances. We talked to a copyright lawyer about the ways buildings are protected by copyright and to developer Insomniac Games about why it had to change its version of the New York City skyline.

“The Chrysler Building opened on May 27, 1930, and stood as the tallest building in the world until the Empire State Building was completed in May 1931, one mile away. … The Art Deco building, which rises to 1,046 feet with 77 floors, is particularly famous for its eight eagles, which protrude from the exterior of the 61st floor….”

Whoops. Left out an important bit:

“…As of 1990, architectural works such as the Chrysler Building can be protected under copyright, no different than other forms of art. According to the United States Copyright Office, an architectural work is defined as ‘the design of a building as embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings. […] Examples of works that satisfy this requirement include houses, office buildings, churches, and museums. By contrast, the Office will refuse to register bridges, cloverleaves, dams, walkways, tents, recreational vehicles, or boats (although a house boat that is permanently affixed to a dock may be registerable as an architectural work).’

“While copyright owners won’t go after a picture you took of a building, they do protect themselves from more obvious infringements, such as another company copying a building’s design for its own purpose, and building owners have, on occasion, gone after companies for copyright-protected architecture on merchandising….”
(“Spider-Man 2 Is Missing This Major New York City Landmark“
Blake Hester, Game Informer (October 20, 2023)) [emphasis mine]

As I see it, folks in New York City are still allowed to look at the Chrysler Building and other non-bland objects. They’re even allowed (apparently) to take snapshots. That, my opinion, is good news.

I can, with a little imagination, see the viewpoint of a corporation bigwig who wants another corporation bigwig’s minions to give the corporation of the first part a piece of the corporation of the second part’s action — whoosh. That’s a syntactic mouthful.

Anyway, I can see why SIGNA Group and RFR Holding LLC — I gather they’re the current owners of the Chrysler Building — don’t want their big shiny building associated with Spider-Man. Not until they get an offer they like, at any rate.

On the other hand, I don’t know where the dividing line is between some New York City tourist taking pictures and the likes of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel Comics. Or maybe it’s a dividing zone, where one writer or artist gets sued and another doesn’t.

This doesn’t affect me, happily. At least not yet. But I like to keep mildly up to date with rules involving intellectual property rights.

Now, I’d better get back to work on that ‘Saturday’ thing.

Posted in Being a Writer, Being an Artist, Discursive Detours, Journal | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Sednoids, Rewinding the Solar System in a Simulation 

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Brian H. Gill
NASA's illustration: the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud in relation to inner solar system. (2016)
Oort cloud, Kuiper belt, and the Solar System’s planets. NASA illustration.

Sedna and Sednoids aren’t this month’s only science news. But I saw two exciting, for me, developments; and that’s what I started talking about last week.

This week I’ll wrap up most of what I was going to say about Sednoids and “Planet X”.

Results of the James Webb Space Telescope’s observation of Sedna and two other distant dwarf planets will wait for another time: when I’m not running a fever.

Which I have been, and that’s why this was teeming with typos. I think I’ve fixed them. But if you find some, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know in a comment.

Okay. Here’s what I was going to talk about last week:

‘As You Recall, In Our Last Exciting(?) Episode’…

1958 Solar System poster, 1888 wood engraving for Flammarion's pop science book, B movies, Superman comics. (https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Kryptonian_Science_Council http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2010/11/jor-els-life-story.html)Recapping part of what I said last week, we’ve been learning a great deal about the Solar System.

Pluto has been relabeled as a dwarf planet and trans-Neptunian object.

As a term, “trans-Neptunian object” isn’t something I remember from my youth. On the other hand, I haven’t learned who coined it, or when.

My guess is that it’s a fairly recent addition to science-speak, since sometimes it’s spelled “transneptunian object”. And sometimes trans-Neptunian object and Kuiper belt object are used as synonyms.

This strongly suggests its spelling and usage hasn’t been standardized yet.

Anyway, objects like Pluto and Sedna, although they’re far from the inner planets, aren’t at the edge of the Solar System.1

Oort Cloud

NASA/Caltech's illustration PIA05569: Sedna Orbit Comparisons: four panels showing the location of the newly discovered (illustration released 2004) planet-like object Sedna. Moving clockwise from upper left, each panel zooms out. The first panel shows orbits of the inner planets, asteroid belt and Jupiter's orbit. The second panel shows orbits of the Solar System's giant planets, Pluto and the Kuiper belt. Below that, at lower right, are orbits of the giant planets, Pluto, and Sedna (red ellipse). Finally, at lower left, Sedna's orbit and the (probable) inner part of the Oort cloud. NASA/Caltech image released March 15, 2004, via JPL/NASA, used w/o permission.The Oort cloud is the Solar System’s outermost zone.

Unlike the inner Solar System, asteroid belt, outer Solar System, and Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud is a theoretical thing.

We haven’t observed an Oort cloud object yet: not one that’s been identified as such.

But we have seen and tracked long-period comets, which are coming from somewhere.

The Oort cloud, or something very much like it, is the least-unlikely source.

For now, I’m assuming that the Oort cloud is real; since that means I needn’t put words like “theoretical” in every other paragraph.

The Oort cloud is stuff left over from when the Solar System formed, some four and a half billion years back.

Objects in the Oort cloud are mostly small (yards to miles / meters to kilometers across) planetesimals: made mostly of materials that are gas or liquid here on Earth, like methane or water.

Some of them likely have cores that are rock or metal. That’s one reason NASA is sending a probe to Psyche. The asteroid Psyche may be the core of a planetesimal that had most of its outer ice knocked off. And that’s another topic.

Two more things about the Oort cloud.

Observations of comets and lots of math say that the outer Oort cloud should be roughly spherical, with an inner part that’s a comparatively dense disk.

Depending on context and who’s talking, the Oort cloud’s in-the-ecliptic disk is the Hills cloud, inner Oort cloud, or inner cloud.

Finally; the Oort cloud’s outer, roughly spherical, part is three light-years across.2 Give or take a bit.

Kuiper Belt and the “Inner Solar System”

WilyD's chart of the outer Solar System, from Jupiter's orbit to 60 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. Epoch January 1, 2015.The Oort cloud’s inner disk — theoretical, so far — is in the ecliptic.

The ecliptic is the plane of Earth’s orbit, which is pretty close to the Solar System’s invariable plane.

The Solar System’s invariable plane is an average of the planets’ orbital planes. Roughly. I’m leaving out a whole bunch of stuff about barycenters and angular momentum vectors.

It’s been one of those weeks.

The Kuiper belt is another disk of material, also in the ecliptic. It was theoretical, too, until we started charting Kuiper belt objects: and realized that Pluto was one of them.

Then we discovered the Kuiper cliff, 47.8 a.u. — astronomical units, the distance between Earth and our star — from the Sun. I talked about that last week.

One of the reasons, I gather, that Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet is that’s got more in common with (other) Kuiper belt objects than it does with the Solar System’s planets.

Let’s see, what else? The “inner Solar System” almost always means the inner four Solar planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. “Outer Solar System” often refers to our planetary system’s four giant outer planets.3

Unless someone’s talking about things outside Neptune’s orbit.

That brings me to Sedna and Sednoids, tidal forces and orbits, and the (theoretical) Oort cloud’s outer reaches.

Or, rather, that almost brings me to what I was going to talk about this week.

Our Star’s Sphere of Influence

Some of the math involved in finding an object's sphere of influence.
SOMEof the math involved in determining a star’s sphere of influence.

Before astronomers found objects like Sedna, the most famous outer Solar System object was probably Nemesis.

Nemesis was (and is) a hypothetical red dwarf star or brown dwarf, orbiting the Sun every 26,000,000 years. Each time it swooped through the right (or wrong) part of the Solar System, it sent comets and asteroids hurtling toward Earth.

There are a few problems with that idea.

First, although extinction events happen, they’re nowhere near regular enough for Nemesis to be the cause. The only cause.

Second, we’re running out of places where Nemesis could be. Recent wide-field surveys have looked for Nemesis, among other objects: and so far have come up with nothing. Nothing fitting the Nemesis profile, that is.

Third, its 26,000,000 year orbit would have taken Nemesis about 1.5 light-years out from the Sun: about where scientists figure the Oort cloud’s outer edge is.

Finally, barring wildly improbable luck, Nemesis would have long since been tugged out of the Solar System.4

That’s because something about 1.5 light-years away from the Sun is near the edge our star’s gravitational sphere of influence.

“…Nothing Stands Still”: Heraclitus and the Solar System’s Shifting Border

SternFuchs's chart: distance to stars currently within 10 light-years, from 20,000 years ago to 80,000 years from now. (January 11, 2017) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.
Distances to stars currently within 10 light-years: past, present and future. (2017) SternFuchs via Wikipedia

“τὰ ὄντα ἰέναι τε πάντα καὶ μένειν οὐδέν”
“All entities move and nothing remains still.”
“πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει”
“Everything changes and nothing stands still.”
(Heraclitus, quoted by Plato in “Cratylus”)

I think Heraclitus had a point, at least where things in this universe are concerned.

Take the exact location of the Sun’s sphere of influence, for example. I’ve seen it described as being ‘a few’, or about 1.5, light-years out.

But what I’ve learned about astrodynamic spheres of influence very strongly suggests that the Solar System’s gravitational border keeps shifting.

That’s because what ancient astronomers called the “fixed” stars — aren’t; although for practical purposes, on the scale of human lifetimes, the stars we see in Earth’s sky stay put.

But they’re all moving in their orbits around our galaxy’s center, and so is our Sun.

Right now, Alpha and Proxima Centauri are the closest stars. Some 28,000 years from now, they’ll be about three light-years away: their closest approach.

About 10,000 years after that, Ross 248 will be at roughly the same distance.

There’s nothing magic about “three light-years”. Some stars come much closer.

Take Gliese 710, for example. The star will, astronomers figure, be just over an eighth of a light-year away in 1,290,000 years. That’s 10,520 astronomical units: close, very roughly as far away as the currently-theoretical Hills cloud.

So I figure the Sun’s sphere of influence, the Oort cloud’s outer edge, is a shifting surface; where our star’s gravity and that of neighboring stars cancel each other out.

And that, on average, it’s about 1.5 light-years out: the top of the blue zone in the “Stars Near to the Sun” chart.

I was going to talk about this sort of thing more, but it involves a lot of math that’s beyond what I’ve learned.5 And, like I said before, it’s been one of those weeks.

Sedna and Sednoids —

Tomruen's diagram: orbits of Sedna and outer Solar System objects. (positions on Jan 1, 2017) Sedna's orbit is white, Pluto's purple, Neptune's blue. Via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.
Orbits of Sedna (white), Pluto (purple, Neptune (blue), Uranus (green)….

S. Sheppard / Carnegie Inst. of Science's diagram: Sedna, 2012 VP113, Kuiper belt and Solar System planet orbits. via Sky and Telescope. (2014 )Backing up a bit, the Kuiper belt starts around Neptune’s orbit.

Based on mathematical models, scientists expected the Kuiper belt to extend well beyond the Solar System’s planets.

Instead, they found the Kuiper cliff, 47.8 a.u. from the Sun.

Maybe it’s just a broad gap in the Kuiper belt. If so, we haven’t found that gap’s outer edge.

Now, finally, Sedna and the Sednoids.

Sedna’s current classification is dwarf planet, it’s diameter is very roughly half Pluto’s, and it’s about as close to the Sun now as it ever gets. Its perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, will be in July, 2076.

Sedna’s orbit keeps it well beyond the Kuiper cliff, but it’s not alone. We’ve found three other Sednoids: objects with similar orbits.

Sednoid nameSemimajor axisPerihelionInclination 
90377 Sedna506 a.u.76 a.u.12∘ 
2012 VP113262 a.u.81 a.u.24.1∘ 
2015 TG387 Leleakuhonua1090 a.u.65 a.u.11.7∘ 
2021 RR205990.9 a.u.55 a.u.7.6∘ 
Sednoid orbits, expanded from table in Sky and Telescope. (October 4, 2023)

The Sky & Telescope article I started talking about last week only mentions Sedna and three other Sednoids. I’m pretty sure 2021 RR205 got left out because its perihelion is less than 60 a.u., and maybe because it’s got the smallest inclination.

Inclination: in this context, that’s how much an orbit is tilted out of the ecliptic.6

— Galactic Tides, Time, and Rewinding the Solar System

Tomruen's diagram: orbits of VP113 and outer Solar System objects. (positions on Jan 1, 2017) Sedna's orbit is white, Pluto's purple, Neptune's blue. Via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.
Orbits of 2012 VP113 (white), Pluto (purple, Neptune (blue), Uranus (green)….

Yukun Huang (University of British Columbia, Canada)'s illustration: sednoids; orbits of Sedna, 2012 VP113 ('Biden'), 2015 TG387 (541132 Leleākūhonua). (2023) via Sky and Telescope, used w/o permission.I’ve been looking for a diagram of all three Sednoids that were mentioned in that Sky & Telescope article. But so far, I’ve only found two: one for Sedna, that’s the one heading this section; and another for VP113, above.

It’s now Friday afternoon. So I’ll put that graphic quest on a back burner, and share another excerpt:

“…Huang asked: What if there is no undiscovered planet in the Kuiper belt? In that case, the orbits of the three Sednoids should have been stable over billions of years.
“‘Planet X’ May Have Left Our Solar System Billions of Years Ago“
Emily Lakdawalla, Sky and Telescope (October 4, 2023)

This is where I was going to talk about the Solar System’s orbit around our galaxy’s center, the search for solar siblings — stars which formed with ours — and, more to the point, how stars passing by ours in the course of the Sun’s 20.4 laps around the Milky Way.

That’s not going to happen. Not this week. Which may be just as well. I tend to ramble, and that’s yet another topic.

At any rate, objects in the Oort cloud’s outer reaches feel the gravitational tug of passing stars; an anthropomorphism that I’ll let slide.

Sometimes the objects get pulled into orbits that take them to the inner Solar System. Sometimes they’re pulled out into the void between stars.

The Sednoids, far away from the planets as they are, are far enough inside the Solar System to be safe from the ebb and flow of gravitational tides.

But they’re also too far from the Solar System’s giant worlds to have the shape of their orbits bent by close encounters. Gravitational effects of the Solar System’s giant planets would rotate the Sendoids’ orbits, and that’s about it.

Science-speak for ‘rotate their orbits’ is precession.7

One more excerpt:

“…Using a computer simulation, Huang ran the solar system backward in time for billions of years. He found that the orbits of the three known Sednoids shared some remarkably similar properties just once, in the distant past: Not long after the birth of the solar system, their perihelia clustered at the same solar longitude, and their apsidal lines (the line passing through perihelion, the Sun, and aphelion) were also nearly coincident.

“This orbital clustering is a telltale sign that a single event put the Sednoids onto their present paths, an event that happened during the solar system’s youth more than 4 billion years ago. It’s also a sign that nothing has disturbed the slow evolution of those orbits for 4 billion years. In other words, there is no undiscovered planet to be found today….”
“‘Planet X’ May Have Left Our Solar System Billions of Years Ago“
Emily Lakdawalla, Sky and Telescope (October 4, 2023)

I do not think this ends the search for planet-size objects in the Solar System’s borderland. But I do think it may add a page or two, at least, to the early chapters of our home’s continuing story.

That’s it for this week, apart from — you guessed it — links:

1 The Solar System’s outer reaches:

2 Oort cloud, mostly; and an asteroid:

3 Definitions:

4 A death star that probably isn’t there:

5 More than I’m going to talk about this week:

6 Sednoids and more

7 The main points are “nodal precession”, “orbital plane”, and “apsidal precession”; the rest are related topics:

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Tokamak at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy Shut Down

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Brian H. Gill
UKAEA EUROfusion's photo: JET (Joint European Torus), a magnetically confined plasma physics device at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK. It is the world's largest and most powerful tokamak reactor prototype. (2023) via BBC News, used w/o permission.
Inside the JET (Joint European Torus) tokamak device at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.)

“UK’s nuclear fusion site ends experiments after 40 years“
Esme Stallard, BBC News (October 13, 2023)

“‘It felt brilliant. One thing is to work on a design, another thing is to operate it.’

“Barry Green recounts the moment in June 1983 when the JET fusion laboratory in Oxford undertook its first experiment.

“For the next four decades, the European project pursued nuclear fusion and the promise of near-limitless clean energy.

“But on Saturday the world’s most successful fusion experiment will wind down….

“…In 1958, when the United States’ war research on fusion was declassified, it sent Russia, UK, Europe, Japan and the US on a race to develop fusion reactions for energy provision….”

JET/UKAEA's photo: inside their JET reactor.This is a quick update on something I wrote back in May, 2022: “TAE and ITER: A Few Steps Closer to Fusion Power“.

ITER research will keep going: in France.

I gather that ITER started out as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and has had a name change or two since then.

England’s fusion research isn’t over, although the tokamak torus at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK, is being decommissioned.

The BBC News piece says they’ll be studying the reactor’s materials. That should show them how they’ve changed in the four decades since it was built. And that will help develop construction and maintenance procedures for future reactors.

NASA's illustration: the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud in relation to inner solar system. (2016)I’m keeping this short, since there’s more to say about Sedna, the Oort cloud, and all that, than I expected.

I’ve talked about fusion power and more-or-less-related topics before:

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