Author Archives: Ponderer

About Ponderer

Ponderer also writes science fiction and science-inspired rhyming poetry. Check her out at katerauner.wordpress.com/ She worked at Rocky Flats for 22 years - you may know her as Kathy London.

War, Progress, and a Challenge for America

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worth of warWikipedia identifies Benjamin Ginsberg as a libertarian political scientist, professor at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of twenty books. I read his new book, The Worth of War, because I hate the thesis: “Although war is terrible and brutal, history shows that it has been a great driver of human progress.”

No, I thought. War is a terrible destroyer. But there’s more.

“War selects for and promotes certain features of societies that are generally held to represent progress. These include rationality, technological and economic development, and liberal forms of government.”

“Preparation for war often spurs on economic development.”

This is a short book – 175 pages in the body of my Epub version, mostly focused on Europe and America since the 17th century.

Ginsberg uses some terms idiosyncratically. He is fond of “ensorcelled”, which I think is a neat word. But his odd use of “Lamarckian” to mean lessons learned and taught to the next generation may befuddle biologists.

There is much discussion of military techniques and organization – does it really matter if brigades are divided into regiments commanded by colonels, further subdivided into…

But I did learn some interesting tidbits. Between WWI and WWII the US had color coded war plans – ranging from War Plan Black for Germany to War Plan Crimson for Canada; that Rome preferred its legionaries to be at least 5′ 10″ tall; and that modern training techniques have resulted in 90% of soldiers firing their guns in battle versus 15% in WWII.

Via the “curriculum of war” winners learn rationality and develop skills in planning, organizing, and engineering that “spillover” beyond the military. Errors in judgment can be corrected, but countries committed to magical thinking disregard facts and become losers.

Ginsberg presents examples from ancient Greece and Rome [1],China, the European Crusades, Aztecs, and the Soviet Union, but Nazis receive considerable analysis.

The bizarre Nazis ideology of racism led them to believe “mongrel” Americans could pose no military threat, that Slavic peoples were “subhumans,” and that Jews should be exterminated. They diverted war materiel to exterminating the Jews and turned Slavs who initially welcomed them as liberators from Stalin into enemies. The Nazi rejection of “Jewish science” and Jewish professionals created an “enormous transfer of intellectual capital” to their enemies. Thus their adherence to ideology led to their defeat. Continue reading →

Does an Objective Universe Exist?

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Grand DesignThe Grand Design is a physics book that leads from antiquity to today, when a group of overlapping models called M-theory may be the unified theory of everything – though not as easy to write down as E=mc^2. “If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion of a search going back more than 3,000 years. We will have found the grand design.”

Stephen Hawking is, of course, a famous professor of mathematics and physics. His co-author Leonard Mlodinow is also a theoretical physicist who has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation. This happy combination produced a book that is casual in tone, with helpful diagrams and nerdy cartoons. I don’t think Mlodinow is the sole source of the book’s approach, since Hawking has appeared in many popular TV shows, including recently on The Big Bang where his sense of self-deprecating humor is evident.

The history of physics is well known and you may wonder if yet another book will add to public understanding. Remember that Richard Feynman once wrote “nobody understands quantum mechanics.” This is because quantum effects are beyond most of our daily experiences. I know intuitively that if I drop a glass it will fall and that if I leave something in a locked room it will be there when I return because of my experience. But cosmic relativity and infinitesimal quantum actions seem unfathomable. Repeated exposure to physics helps and this book, in particular, I enjoyed. Continue reading →

Whaddya Mean “We” Kemosabe?

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In a classic Mad Magazine cartoon (that I dimly recall), the Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a horde of hostile Indian warriors. The Lone Ranger says to Tonto “what do we do, now?,” to which Tonto replies, “what you mean ‘we,’ kemosabe?”

As a long article in Slate.com says:
“Even if you’ve never heard or seen a single episode of Fran Striker’s early 20th-century creation The Lone Ranger—begun on the radio [in 1933], continued in books and on television, and … the big screen—the term kemosabe is likely familiar to you.”

There’s more interest in “kemosabe” than you’d expect – Word Detective, Native Arts, and a favorite of mine – The Straight Dope.

There are amusing suggestions. The word “tonto” means “fool” in Spanish*. “Some people have pointed out that kemosabe sounds a lot like the Spanish phrase ‘quien no sabe'” which means idiot, so the two characters are calling each other stupid over the decades. I suppose this could have happened by accident (or by some devious design), but it seems unlikely.

Various people have tried hard to reconcile the word with Native American languages, and even to assign Tonto to a tribe (which Striker never did – but it was 1933 and “Indian” may have been sufficient for an entertainment.)

We’ll never know, since creator Fran Striker didn’t record where he got the word. My bet is that it was entirely made-up. If so, it can only mean what an episode of the TV show claimed – Tonto tells the Lone Ranger that the word “mean trusty scout.” Any later attempts (that means you, 2013 film) to redefine the word must be rejected. You only get one shot to contribute to a venerable creation’s canon.

*Note: Apparently, when Lone Ranger episodes are presented in Spanish, the trusty scout’s companion is named “Toro”, which means “bull.”

Changing Your Mind is Hard

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It’s hard for people – any of us – to admit being wrong. The more stridently you take a position in public, the harder it is to recant. Science is one field where changing your mind when the evidence requires it is applauded.

As Carl Sagan once said:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day.”

A few significant changes have occurred in my lifetime: plate tectonics replaced continental drift, an asteroid impact was accepted as finishing off most dinosaurs while birds were accepted as the last of the “avian dinosaurs”, and the Big Bang theory of cosmology replaced Steady State. There are many other examples.

It’s hard enough to admit to error in front of like-minded colleagues, so when you tackle a topic that is highly emotional, changing your mind may lose you a lot of friends. Because of this I want to commend Mark Lynas.

Lynas is a British author whose current focus is climate change. But in the 1990s he helped start the anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) movement. In 2008, he was still “penning screeds” (his words) attacking the use of GMOs.

In 2013, he addressed the Oxford Farming Conference with a change of mind:
“I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.
As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.” See the full text of his talk here where he details why he changed his mind. (Updated url: http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture-to-oxford-farming-conference-3-january-2013/ I wonder why it changed?)

Lynas has a new book out and many older titles still on Amazon, so a cynic might say controversy sells books. But – unless I find evidence to the contrary – I say, congratulations Mark Lynas. I hope that someday when I need it (and no doubt I will) I find in myself the integrity you’ve shown.

This blog has more posts about GMOs.

The Future of Food Could be Flavorful

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Third PlateDan Barber is a chef concerned about the farm-to-table journey of America’s food. He works with boutique farmers in upstate New York, including the Stone Barn Center for Food and Agriculture – a farm built in the 1930’s in a “Normandy style,” by wealthy philanthropist John D. Rockefeller to “preserve a memory – the place where he sipped warm milk from the lid of the milking jug.” (No matter how nostalgic, Ponderer does not recommend drinking raw milk, more especially the longer it’s been out of the cow.)

Barber is owner and chef at two New York restaurants, Blue Hill in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown (45 minutes from Grand Central Station). I visited his website at Blue Hill Farm.com before reading the book.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns is an elegant restaurant where jackets and ties are preferred for gentlemen. (Apparently fancy restaurants have given up trying to tell women what to wear.) In keeping with the ideal of serving the day’s harvest (and perhaps because of shortages for entree portions), Barber serves “multi-course tastings” for $138 to $198 per person. You’ll be happy to know you can buy Dom Perignon by the glass ($80). Most Americans are unlikely to dine here. But rich or extravagant people serve an important social function. They are the early adopters for things that become everyday benefits – air travel, electric cars, television, ocean cruises – so perhaps they can blaze the trail to better eating. Trends from expensive restaurants can affect the local grocery store, for example, designer pizzas are now available in your frozen food section.

New York is the right place for this venture – judging from my travels in lower upstate New York, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a farmer’s market or stand. Farm-to-table is a popular idea.

This is not a text book. It reads as conversation story-telling. Barber presents interesting stories about growing heritage varieties of crops and rotating crops and livestock to maximize soil fertility. This is not standard organic farming which retains the old American mindset: grow monocultures and serve slabs of meat with a few vegetables. It must be wonderful for a farmer to have the financial support to try these ideas and we meet many such farmers (at least one who, by the way, eats “hulking pork chops” and butters bread so thickly Barber “thought he was joking.”) Continue reading →

Strange Bedfellows

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This phrase refers to unlikely companions or allies; or usual opponents banding together. Dictionary.com says it is often used in the phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Bardwords quotes the phrase from The Tempest Act 2, Scene 2:

“Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is
to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout:
misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here
shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.”

They further say that “although set in different times many of the most famous quotes about life and love by William Shakespeare are still relevant today. Did you know that William Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language?”

Encyclopedia.com notes that the expression “adversity makes strange bedfellows” was an early 17th-century saying meaning that difficult circumstances will bring together very different people. So I guess Shakespeare can’t take all the credit. And the full phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows” was a mid 19th century proverbial saying. Wikiquote says the phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows” was used in print by American essayist and novelist Charles Dudley Warner. The phrase appeared in his 1870 book My Summer in a Garden.

Equating adversity with politics sure fits these days. Maybe it always has.