Local Newspaper Reporting

The Atlantic (January/February 2010): "There’s an old joke about the provincial newspaper that reports a nuclear attack on the nation’s largest city under the headline “Local Man Dies in NY Nuclear Holocaust.” Something similar happens at the national level, where everything is filtered through politics. (“In what was widely seen as a setback for Democrats just a year before the midterm elections, nuclear bombs yesterday obliterated seven states, five of which voted for President Obama in the last election …”)"

Forgive to Feel Better

Copied this article from the Daily Mail (UK). I love the parable but forgiving is impossible sometimes.

(Daily Mail UK March 13 2012):

This is an old Native-American parable.

 ‘I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart,’ a grandfather tells his grandson.

‘One wolf is vengeful, angry and violent. The other is loving and compassionate.’

‘Which wolf will win?’ the grandson asks.

‘The one I feed,’ the grand- father answers.

So it is with forgiveness. We’ve all been hurt, or wronged by enemies, or worse, by lovers. The way we react defines the health of our relationship. If we hold on to the hurt, it will turn to anger, resentment and even violence.

Letting it go has the power to change our lives for the better. Forgiveness is essentially selfish. To forgive even makes us healthier — less prone to anxiety and depression, with lower blood pressure. But how do you let go of those things that claw at your insides?

One answer is meditation. Find a quiet space and let your mind go and observe the thoughts. Notice that they are just thoughts, just temporary.

Now imagine them floating away. By feeding the compassion inside us we can move on to a happier, healthier place. Which is the place where love lives.

TO FORGIVE:

Value: Understand the power of forgiveness to change your life. Forgive for your own sake.

Reflect: Think objectively about what happened and why. Understanding is the first step in forgiving.
• Choose: Once you’re ready, choose to forgive. And keep choosing to do so. True forgiveness means forgiving until you’ve forgotten.

alphaheart.com

Kindle E-Reader and Other Stuff

I sit here with my morning coffee thinking about my Kindle e-book reader and (paper) books. It occurs to me I am living through another change caused by new technology. Being born in 1942, I have seen  several such changes. I have purchased several e-books on-line from Amazon and borrowed e-books on-line from my library. In the Internet age  distance means nothing but I still wonder at receiving books from an Indiana library while sitting here in Florida. Once selected from the on-line site the books usually appear on my Kindle in less than 60 seconds. Wow!

The e-books cannot be put on your shelf for future use...but they will exist in your e-book memory and the “cloud “ storage maintained for you by Amazon. My early model Kindle does not handle pictures and drawings well…but the e-print is expandable and easier to read than paper print. Graphics can be beautiful on PCs or an IPAD if you use them as your e-reader. E-readers with full color graphics are already here but the publishing industry is still working on a e-book business model that can survive.

Looking back to my youth I remember our home before TV. My parents used radio like we use TV today. The programming was the same type as today…drama, music, news, etc. but the pictures were in your imagination. When I was about eight (1950) we got our first black and white TV. I think color TV came to our house about 10 years later. Vacumn tubes powered our TVs. Stores had tube testers that you could use to find out which tube should be relaced. The transistor was a nerdy thing unknown to the public at the time that was to change the world.

The first transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories on December 16, 1947 by William Shockley (seated at Brattain's laboratory bench), John Bardeen (left) and Walter Brattain (right). This was perhaps the most important electronics event of the 20th century

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My first hands-on contact with computers was in the Navy. I was one of the first group  of Data System Tech ratings in the Navy. Our computer was a refrigerator sized box. It was made up of circuit boards with individual transistors in pencil eraser size cans with three legs (wires). The memory was a 32Kbit magnetic core type that was unreliable. We used front panel buttons laid out in binary and octal (based 8 number system) format to control the computer. My cheap digital wrist watch today has more power.

At IU (1960-61) a class I had covered FORTRAN, one of the early programming languages. We wrote some simple programs which were then put on punch cards. We took the cards over to the temple (the climate controlled computing center) where priests (operators) would feed out cards into the machine and the Gods (big main frame computers) would print out our fate (error! Invalid command!).

Fall registration at IU was a nightmare for some, especially Freshmen. Students gathered in the big gymnasium on 7^th street with class schedules in hand. No computers were used until after registration to sort the punch cards. Each department had tables set up and you lined up to wait your turn at the table. Then you find that the class (e.g. English 101 at 9:30 MWF)  is full so you have go back to other tables to change class times you already have in order to get the required classes at non-conflicting times. This led to un-workable situations for some kids as the classes filled up. The university figured on a 50% drop-out rate so they never had enough freshman classes. I saw kids sitting on the gym floor crying in frustration.

My first PC at work (1970) used the Microsoft DOS operating system. MS-DOS  is how Bill Gates began the road to become the wealthiest man in the world. This was command-line input…type in an instruction on the black and white monitor, hit return and see what happens. We also wrote programs in FORTRAN or BASIC to control test machines and analyze data.

Of course there has been progress in many fields since 1942 that have changed our lives in many ways. The engineers that figured out how to build a cell phone system went unnoticed by the public but the impact of it is now obvious to everyone. There was no new fundamental science breakthrough but existing technologies were put together in new way. So there is always stuff in the works below the public’s radar that may get our attention in a big way someday. Bill Gates talked about this and said advances do not happen overnight but on a scale of five or ten years big things can happen.

China and Hope

China may become a super-power like the USA.  Will they be hostile and threatening? Will we have another cold-war with the nuclear threat? China's GDP is 2nd in size to the USA. However, the per-capita income of China's 1.3 Billion people is still 3^rd world level and it will be generations before they approach US standards, if ever. China's GDP growth is due to the capitalist economy the Communist leadership has allowed recently and the Chinese are clever and inventive people. Since the Communist party is still in power,  I wonder what tortured logic they use to explain how Communism is still relevant? I suspect people in power will always find a way to remain in power.

We hope China evolves toward a lawful and just society.   There are reasons for hope.  First, there is the (limited) free enterprise China now allows.  Trade and commercial interaction with former enemies can be a good thing. Second, about 160,000 Chinese are being educated in American universities.  During the cold war, Russia did not send students here. So this is a big, positive difference. China, India and South Korea supply  almost 50% of overseas students here. IU has about 5400 foreign students and Purdue has 7500 foreign students of which 22% are Chinese. These students will return to China with new experiences and ideas and assume positions of leadership in society.  Third is the softening of Communist radicalism.  The old cold-war was driven by Marxist dogma. Like Islamic Jihad, Communism was to be forcibly exported to the rest of the world. China has now (partially) embraced the "enemy". How can they preach revolution for the world?

There are some negatives: Corruption in government was bad under Mao and continues today. Then there is the difficult issue of 1.3 billion people with aspirations to a better life. If these aspirations are unfulfilled, will the country become unstable? Can the communist government evolve or will the conflict with Marxist underpinnings cause an explosion? Anything can happen during times of great change, good or bad.   

Too Many People

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Saturday for a second "green revolution" to feed the country's burgeoning population that is forecast to overtake China in numbers by 2025.

Under India's "Green Revolution" in the 1960s and 70s -- seen as one of the world's most successful agricultural turnarounds -- planting of high-yield varieties of wheat and rice resulted in a sharp output rise.

"We all look back proudly to our green revolution which helped us overcome food shortages and banish the spectre of starvation," Singh told a conference of agricultural scientists.

But now, "we clearly need a second green revolution that is broad-based, inclusive and sustainable", he said, noting agriculture productivity has plateaued and "yields continue to be much lower than what is attainable".

Experts say India must increase yields to feed its population which already stands at 1.21 billion people. India is expected to supplant China as the world's most populous nation by 2025, according to Indian official projections.

Singh said the agriculture sector is growing at three percent annually -- one percent below target -- helping drive food inflation that has spiralled faster than in most major economies, causing huge misery for India's poor.

India is poised to introduce a food security bill aiming to guarantee cheap food grains for nearly 70 percent of the population which will impose even greater food production challenges.

Last year, India's premier economic policymaking body raised its estimate of the number of Indians living in poverty and unable to meet their nutritional needs from 28 percent to 37 percent -- representing some 440 million people.

The prime minister called for the spending outlay on agriculture research and development to double or even triple by 2020 as he projected demand for food grains will grow to 280 million tons by 2020-21.

The government on Saturday estimated the country's food grain output touched a record 241 million tonnes in the crop year that ended in June -- 23 million tonnes more than the previous crop year.

India recorded bumper food grain output during 2010-11, helped by abundant monsoon rains, and is hoping for another strong monsoon this year.

oopied from Internet July 2011

Internet Junkies

Pete Gets Angry

 

Pete is my 6 year old grandson. My son John told me this story:   John ran over Pete’s bicycle while backing out of the driveway. When Pete found out later he was upset and confronted John. He wanted John to repair the bicycle. John said he probably could not repair it. This was too much for Pete. He called John  “fat” and “ hoboish? “  (John is heavy and has a job that gets dirty). Pete then said to John “I am very disappointed in you.” John felt the outburst required  some action so he sent Pete to his room. Later John went up to Pete’s room to discuss the matter. Pete, lying on his bed, wordlessly pointed to a paper he had taped to the wall that said “sorry” in childish script. They had a discussion and peace was made.  Pete is a great kid, well mannered and very smart for his age. He reads very well and gets along well with others. I repaired his bike.

Puritanism vs NLRB

H.L. Mencken defined puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. The National Labor Relations Board is haunted by the fear that a company somewhere might be creating jobs with a nonunionized workforce.
Boeing has run afoul of that fear by investing more than $1 billion in a new plant in the right-to-work state of South Carolina. With only the flimsiest legal justification, the board wants to force Boeing to reverse course and locate the facility with its current operations in Washington state, where its workers are unionized.

Oaks vs Maples

A reader sent this into our local paper as a comment on a story about Union organisers. It is a poetic message that in the end is about violent Union activism and Socialism.

"There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the oaks just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw

-The Trees"

Ann Coulter...load bearing walls

Another great quote from Ann Coulter: "Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose. Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards -- why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens!"