Suave

Book Review: The Gods Themselves

Isaac Asimov
1972
Awards: Nebula, Hugo
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ – –

Asimov is always good for a fun story. This one is about a portal from our world to another world where creatures in another dimension have discovered a way to change one of our elements into one that gives us an unending energy supply, which originally people think is great but then turns out to be bad because it is slowly making our sun hotter so that it will soon explode. The creatures in the other dimension are actually each made up of a triad of partner creatures, which each carry different aspects of the single creature's personality (parenting, logic, and emotion).

I really liked Asimov's introduction in which he explains that this book came about because he was having a conversation about physics and he referred to an element that couldn't possibly exist, and he was called on it, so then he swore he was going to write a story in which that element did exist and was the center of the plot.

Incoming!

Sunset from the Porch

The Demise of the Southern Veto

As a region, the South is more politically isolated right now than at any time since the Civil War. For most of our nation's history, the South has been so disproportionately powerful that the section has wielded a "Southern Veto" over U.S. politics and policy. A brief and admittedly oversimplified history of the Southern Veto over the years would include the following:

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson was forced by delegates from Georgia and South Carolina to remove a clause from the Declaration of Independence condemning the African slave trade.

During the drafting of the Constitution, the Southern states insisted on being allowed to include their slave populations to determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College. The Northern states objected of course, since they had few slaves. To break the impasse, delegates from North and South agreed to count three-fifths of a given state's slave population in determining that state's representation. This shifted the balance of power in the Electoral College to the South in such a way that it routinely swung antebellum presidential elections in favor of candidates that were acceptable to the South.

When the modern Democratic Party organized itself the 1820s, it decided to require a two-thirds majority in order to nominate a presidential candidate. This gave the South an effective veto over any Democratic presidential nominee. For over a century afterwards, the Democratic Party existed as a coalition between Southern slaveholders and segregationists and the big-city machines of the North. Thanks to the two-thirds rule, every Democratic presidential nominee and his platform had to be acceptable to the South.

As a northerner, FDR found his New Deal initiatives severely constrained by the Southern Democrats who controlled key Senate committees. For instance, to get Social Security passed, FDR agreed to exclude agricultural and domestic workers from the program, leaving huge numbers of Southern Blacks out of Social Security entirely.

Other than Obama, the only non-Southern Democrat to be elected President since FDR was JFK. His domestic social agenda, which included civil rights and Medicare, went nowhere until after he was assassinated. His Southern successor LBJ pushed through both initiatives, turning the "Solid South" over to the Republican Party in the process.

Today, with Obama in the White House, the G.O.P. boasts electoral strongholds only in the South and in the sparsely populated Plains states. The Southern Veto, and especially its power over the Democratic Party, appears to have been finally overridden, at least for the time being. For example, there was only one Southerner among the "Gang of Six" centrist Senators in this summer's health care debate: Mary Landrieu from Louisiana. It is instructive that this lone Southern moderate hails from a state with a polyglot, cosmopolitan culture and history that sets it apart from the rest of the South.

Barack Obama is the gravest threat to the political power of the South since Lincoln. Viewed against this backdrop, the current town-hall-birther-deather-teabagger freak-out makes a bit more sense to me.

Obama's Health Care Speech

A classic of rhetorical technique:

1. Start with Ethos: Establish your credibility as someone to listen to. "When I took office, the economy was on the brink. Things are still bad, but we've pulled back from the edge. I am a competent manager."

2. Logos: Give a logical argument for why your approach is best. Obama offers a series of wonky arguments for why his reform is the best route.

3. Pathos: Appeal to the heart, and ask people to take some action. Obama invokes Ted Kennedy, and reminds us that wanting to help your fellow man is not a partisan issue.

Rhetorically, a very strong speech. Unknown is how many persuadable people actually watched it.

The Unfulfilled Promise of Dome Homes

I lament the unfulfilled promise of dome homes as a suburban housing option. Also yurts.

Forest Hills Station

Comparing Obama and FDR

This New York Times op-ed, Roosevelt: The Great Divider, argues that FDR rammed through his New Deal program with nary a care for the opposition. The implication is that Obama can and should do the same with health care reform.

However, there are some key differences between the situations faced by Obama and FDR:

1. The economy was much, much, much worse during the Great Depression than it is now. Much worse. Unemployment was 25%. There was no government safety net to speak of. The severity of three and a half years of Depression prompted the electorate to demand a radical response.

2. The economy was so bad, in fact, that the middle class identified politically with the poor, which is rarely the case. It certainly is not the case today.

3. The Congress is much more evenly split today. In 1937, the GOP was down to 17 seats out of 96 in the Senate and 88 seats out of 435 in the House.

4. The populist energy during FDR's administration was on the left and it demanded change. Today, the populist energy is on the right and it opposes change.

Arnold Arboretum

Foiled Assassins of the 1970s

Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme. Pointed a pistol at President Gerald Ford while dressed in a red robe. Apprehended by Secret Service before the gun went off.

Janet "Tweety" McGuire. Poisoned National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski's lunch. Running late, Brzezinski skipped lunch that day.

Dolores "Mouse" Garrett. Attempted to run Secretary of State Cyrus Vance off the road. Her car, a 1975 AMC Gremlin, was not up to the task.

Marge "Tootie" Phillips. Struck Vice President Walter Mondale in the head with a lead pipe. Mondale was wearing a hard hat while touring a solar panel factory and was uninjured.

Karen "Birdie" LaChance. Schemed to kill OMB Director Bert Lance with a well-tossed lawn dart. Two days before her planned attempt, lawn darts were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Beverly "Buzzy" Lee. Planned to stab Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz with a dagger. On her way to intercept Butz at a Cleveland hotel, she dropped the dagger down a storm drain while attempting to hail a cab.

Denise "Chirpy" Butler. Rented a motel room across the street from the office of HEW Secretary Joseph Califano, planning to take him out with a sniper rifle as he left the building. Butler failed to notice Califano's departure when she became engrossed in an episode of Barnaby Jones.

Rhonda "Perky" Schmidt. Plotted to strangle Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker during a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Due to Volcker's height (six feet seven inches), Schmidt was only able to wrap the ligature around the Fed Chairman's mid-section.

Green Street Fountain

Fore River Shipyard

Choose Your Own Apocalypse

Slate is asking readers to Choose Their Own Apocalypse: How will the United States meet its end?

Out of 144 possibilities, my top 5:

Robot Overlords
Unitary Executive
China Unloads U.S. Treasuries
Isolation of Elites
Pax Sinica (Chinese hegemony)

According to my choices, I am a "humanitarian internationalist. You're convinced mankind will terminate America—but at least we won't off ourselves in the process. You'll know you're right when: Everyone on Earth pledges allegiance to a world government; the feds default on the national debt."

Red Sox Update

I am happy with the trade for Victor Martinez. We really needed a good bat, and Lowell is a statue at 3rd. When V-Mart plays 1st, Youk can play 3rd.

We still need to figure out the starting pitcher situation, though. Beckett and Lester can't do it all by themselves. Dice-K is finished in Boston for this season, possibly forever. Our elderly pitchers Wakefield and Smoltz are moving to and from the mound on Hoverounds™. Buchholz is unpredictable. Penny is doughy. Look for Theo to pick up another starting pitcher off the waiver wire.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

English High School

Gove County, Kansas

Gove County, Kansas

Wheeler Geologic Area, Colorado

Half Moon Pass, Colorado

Wheeler Geologic Area, Colorado

Vegetable Pick-up

I'm just about to go pick up our weekly share of vegetables from the local farm, Heaven's Harvest. Here is what is in season now in Massachusetts:

Scallions
Edible Snap Peas
Edible Pod Peas
Pickling Cucumbers
Bok Choi
Green Peppers
Sweet Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Dandelion Greens
Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Boston Lettuce
Red Kale
Parsley
Sage
Oregano
Thyme

A full share is a bushel; we just get a half share, which means we only get the items that I've marked in red. However, we have gotten all of the other items in previous weeks.

This is the third week of produce (out of 15 total). The first two weeks we also got a pint of strawberries, but the cool wet weather has already washed out the rest of the strawberry crop. Blueberries are next.

The farmers bring our share, plus those for about 80 other families, to a warehouse here in town, once a week. I can ride my bike to go pick them up -- they fit in a backpack. When carrots come in, the carrot leaves fly out the top of the backpack like a flag.

It is fun to get these veggies and then have to figure out how to use them up within a week. Also interesting to see what is in season at a given time.

We pay for the produce ahead of time. That way, the farmer has the money at the beginning of the season, and we customers all take on part of the risk. If a given crop should fail, we all share in the loss. On the other hand, we all benefit if a particular crop does better than expected. The organic aspect is nice I guess but the main reason I like it is this financial set-up. It's proven as a good model for keeping these small truck farms going in the rural areas around large cities. I don't think it would work for the giant grain farms like my uncle's in Kansas: what would we do with 100 bushels of wheat or corn?!

Pont-Aven

Le Pouldu

Ploumenac'h

Ploumenac'h

Mont Saint-Michel

Omaha Beach

Forest Hills Cemetery