HypheNationTimes Blog

Capitalist Disillusionment with a Valentine Kiss

jade — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:46:00 GMT

14 February 2010

Capitalist Disillusionment with a Valentine Kiss

In the midst of this worldwide economic turmoil, insurance companies and stores alike are extolling a return to family unity and simplicity of the family as a unified haven. Family game night is strongly encouraged, as well as other more inexpensive forms of family entertainment. As with most difficult times, the prevailing emphasis is thus switched over from materialist consumption to the wealth of family, friends, and that which is most freely abundant: love.

Or does it?

In a world currently seeing an increase of divorces, hardships, financial turmoil, broken dreams, general corruption, and unctuous swindlers, love hardly seems to exist. One would be very hard pressed to find this quixotic intangible except in the lost, broken, marginalized shadows within a mirky mist of lowered morale, forgotten spirit, and forsaken hope. At best, the overriding excuse for paucity of love is that it is a luxury too expensive in these challenging economic times.

So what is the point to this challenging turmoil?

The true test of character is not seen in the ones who merely survive and endure to enjoy another day. Instead, it is in the ones who can honestly say to themselves that they are unaffected. Now, by unaffected, I do not mean the mega wealthy who truly are unaffected by this economic downturn. Rather, it is the 'Regular Joe' who can truly account for his wealth of friends, family, and loved ones and say to himself he is unaffected. He knows he has not suffered a lack of wealth because the material is not what he considers his wealth. He knows and what he values most is his spirit, his life purpose, and his creative invention to live love.

Love - true love - like all valued intangibles is mutually exclusive of the material. Enrobed in a seeming dearth of material finances that seem to be ravenously devoured by big corporations and swindlers to an exponentially horrifying degree, it is truly amazing to see and to acknowledge the endless wealthy abundance of happiness in truth of love. So go ahead and look around at your friends, family, and loved ones and tally up the value of your wealth.

Instead of focusing on what you lack, dedicate your efforts towards your own creative potentiality. Foster it and let it flourish before you. Happy Valentine's Day in the true sense, spirit, and hope of its intention.

This is my Valentine to you: a sweet, sumptuous, sensual dessert, filled with a rich, velvety, nougat, truffle love center to fuel your potentiality.

III of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

jade — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:16:00 GMT

27 April 2008

III of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

I have stressed PFLs (Positive Feedback Loops) as not only a favorable, but more importanlty, a viable and a very real choice available to all. Unfortunately today, there is too much focus in feeding NFLs (Negative Feedback Loops), especially as America's 'dirty laundry' is being aired in the news today:

1) About 889 out of 1,586 EPA scientists surveyed in the summer of 2007 admitted they "experienced political interference in their work" (Judy Pasternak, "Political pressure reported at EPA: Survey of scientists says more than half experienced interference in last 5 years," Los Angeles Times & San Francisco Chronicle, 24 April 2008). Apparently, such allegations are not new:

"During much of the Bush administration, there have been reports of the White House watering down documents regarding climate change, industry language inserted into EPA power-plant regulations, and scientific advisory panels' conclusions about toxic chemicals going unheeded."

2) While the Canadian government is poised to declare bisphenol-a (B.P.A.) - a chemical widely used in plastics for baby bottles, beverage and food containers, and food can linings found to cause neural and bodily changes in animals - toxic, the US Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program is only calling for "further research on the chemical" (Ian Austen, "Canada Likely to Label Plastic Ingredient 'Toxic'," The New York Times, 16 April 2008).

3) Four executives at two US companies who imported toothpaste from China containing the poison diethylene glycol were criminally charged, according to the Los Angeles city attorney (Louise Story and Geraldine Fabrikant, "4 Executives Are Charged Over Tainted Toothpaste," The New York Times, 7 March 2008). Distributed to prisons, luxury hotels, hospitals, and discount stores, the poison was found in almost one million tubes of toothpaste in about 34 countries.

As if this all is not bad enough, it gets worse, and these are real killers:

1) The SEC and a Canadian regulator have accused drug maker Biovail and four executives of accounting fraud, including three accounting schemes from 2001 to 2003 to disguise the company's true financial condition (Ian Austen, "US and Canda Accuse Drug Maker of Fraud," The New York Times, 25 March 2008). The reason one executive at Biovail gave for the company's financial shortfall (about $15M to $20M) is akin to 'the dog ate my homework':

"...most of the earnings shortfall...was ultimately found to be caused by delayed, but accident-free, truck shipments to Chicago from a Biovail plant in Canada.

They missed the quarter simply because the trucks came too late."

Ahem, since when is tardiness an excuse for accounting fraud?

2) Through MRI tests, the FDA discovered that a critical blood thinner linked to nineteen deaths "contained a possibly counterfeit ingredient that mimicked the real drug" (Gardiner Harris and Walt Bogdanich, "Drug Tied to China Had Contaminant, FDA Says," The New York Times, 6 March 2008). According to reports, Baxter International purchased the "possibly counterfeit ingredient" from Scientific Protein and sold the finished product. Aside from death, other reported side effects from the product include difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, excessive sweating, rapidly falling blood pressure, and life-threatening shock.

After the time of Harris' and Bogdanich's report, more findings circulated, including contamination in eleven countries and 81 deaths in the US alone (Gardiner Harris, "US Identifies Tainted Heparin in 11 Countries," The New York Times, 22 April 2008).

How much longer must we wait and how many more fatalities must we report before this poison is removed from use?

3) Not to be outdone, Eli Lilly, Merck, and Schering-Plough, have pulled off real doozers:

a) Eli Lilly systematically hid the risks and side effects of its best-selling schizophrenia medicine, Zyprexa, causing may patients using the drug to develop diabetes (Alex Berenson, "In Trial, Alaska Says Lilly Concealed Risks of a Schizophrenia Drug," The New York Times, 6 March 2008). According to company memos and e-mails, Eli Lilly executives were concerned as ealy as 1999 that Zyprexa's sales would be negatively affected if doctors knew the drug caused diabetes. From a July 2001 memo from a company executive, it stated they were "betting the farm on Zyprexa".

b) As a result of its heinous deeds, Eli Lilly was sued by the state of Alaska for knowing about the adverse side-effects and playing them down for the past decade (Alex Berenson, "One Drug, Two Faces," The New York Times, 25 March 2008). From the trial, side-effects of the drug were disclosed: severe weight gain, diabetes, sharply higher cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blook, and heart disease.

c) A panel of four cardiologists announced that Merck's Vytorin and Schering- Plough's Zetia - both widely prescribed for lowering cholesterol - may not work and should only be used as a last resort (Alex Berenson, "Doubt Cast on 2 Drugs Used to Lower Cholesterol," The New York Times, 31 March 2008).

d) In Merck's Vytorin and Schering-Plough's Zetia trial, it was found that they, like Eli Lilly, deliberately delayed the release of trial results proving that the drugs do not work - almost two years after the trial was finished (Alex Berenson, "Accusations of Delays in Releasing Drug Results," The New York Times, 1 April 2008).

Fraud, crime, failure, and the NFLs.

There is a choice...

...either requires the same amount of energy...

...it is up to you...

Ultimately, it is all about the loops...

...sooner over later, it ends up becoming kharma...

II of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

jade — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:15:00 GMT

27 April 2008

II of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

In a report by Dr. Majid Ezzati from Harvard University and Dr. Christopher Murray from the University of Washington, they found life expectancy to be inversely proportional to life-span - something they claim to be unheard of in an advanced nation where the healthiest and the least-healthy Americans continue to diverge (Kyung M. Song, "Life spans falling for least-healthy Americans, study by Harvard, UW finds," The Seattle Times, 22 April 2008).

While Dr. Ezzati and Dr. Murray hope their research will guide legislation to tackle health disparities, they also signaled the clarion call for better primary health care. Public-health expert at San Francisco State University James Wiley, concurs, stating that the "government also needs to ensure that all Americans have adequate health care" (ibid).

Richard Suzman, Director of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, MD, stresses the salience of the research, claiming it will soon be a classic with "a big impact" (Sabin Russell, "Rise in life expectancy not for all groups," San Francisco Chronicle, 22 April 2008).

Alameda County Health Officer Dr. Anthony Iton makes a critical point validating the research, stating that the study's link between geography and health outcome was duplicated in studies made in Alameda County. Moreover, he claims research of this magnitude is "building evidence linking social policy to measurable health outcomes, such as mortality rates."

Clearly on all levels, the outcry is loud for positive public-policy action.

Indeed, no one touts positive better than "Professor Happiness", Harvard social psychologist Daniel Gilbert (Claudia Dreifus, "The Smiling Professor," The New York Times, 22 April 2008). Currently, he directs a laboratory to study the nature of human happiness and attributes factors of resilience, adaptability, the ability to reframe events, and above all - human relationships - as instrumental towards experiencing happiness.

PFLs people, PFLs...the choice is yours.

I of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

jade — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:15:00 GMT

27 April 2008

I of III. Health and The Hyphenation Trail: It's All About the Loops

In his article on E. coli, Carl Zimmer explains how two genetically identical microbes actually express individual and differentiated behaviors and (re)actions to the same stimulus (Carl Zimmer, "Expressing Our Individuality, the Way E. Coli Do," The New York Times, 22 April 2008). In other words, despite being identical clones with the exact same DNA - carrying identical genomes - the E. coli ultimately end up to be different.

Zimmer goes on to report the cycle of negative feedback loops and positive feedback loops and the fact that it is a matter of chance as to which the E. coli choose. Most poignant of all, he points out:

"At the very least, E. coli's individuality should be a warning to those who would put human nature down to any sort of simple genetic determinism. Living things are more than just programs run by genetic software. Even in miniscule microbes, the same genes and the same genetic network can lead to different fates."

More than poignant, however, this is fundamental and critical to every individual's health lifestyle and choice. I dare say, the survival and life expectancy of each is pivotal to his conscious decision of which loop to choose.

The human body is more sophisticated than the E. coli microbe; we have no excuse to leave the decision up to chance. No excuse at all.

Take into light everything we know about the anatomy and physiology of the body thus far, especially with the help of specialized software, courtesy of David L. Bassett's 25-volume "Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy" (John Schwartz, "The Body in Depth," The New York Times, 22 April 2008). For everything he knew and included within his 25-volume 'tome', he proves to us how much we are learning and discovering each day and how much we have yet to uncover. As his daughter once recalled him saying to her:

"I know every muscle, I know every nerve and every vessel in the hand. But there's so much I will never know."

Towards our quest to uncover the unknown, Congress is leading the way in what is touted by Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine as "the first civil rights act of the 21st century" (Andrew Pollack, "Congress Near Deal on Genetic Test Bias Bill," The New York Times, 23 April 2008). What the Senator is referring to is GINA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, that prohibits discrimination by employers and health insurers on the basis of genetic tests and by so doing, advances personalized genetic medicine for the prediction and prevention of disease.

Although there is still a long way to go on health legislation, GINA is a bold and positive step to propel a PFL.

The question will be if we have the perspicacity to keep the motion moving forward or to halt it altogether...

The Loops

jade — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:56:00 GMT

27 April 2008

The Loops

I. There is a general sense of resignation and 'giving up' rather than perseverance to correct the situation/trail of mistakes (and corruption):

1) Marcus W. Brauchli, a former foreing correspondent with Dow Jones since 1984, is expected to resign as the top-ranking editor of The Wall Street Journal after less than a year on the job and despite the fact that he is "well liked and respected" by his colleagues (Richard Perez-Pena, "Wall St. Journal Editor Expected to Resign," The New York Times, 22 April 2008).

2) Despite more than six years trying to overhaul "an antiquated agency with a history of corruption, inefficiency and missing records, while coping with a building boom that stretched the department to the limits of its resources," Buildings Commissioner Patricia J. Lancaster resigned from her position (Charles V. Bagli, "New York Buildings Commissioner Resigns," The New York Times, 23 April 2008).

3) After surviving corruption scandals and a bribery conviction in the 1990s, Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, indicted on tax evasion charges, resigned along with his son, Lee Jae-yong (he was an executive at Samsung Electronics) (Choe Sang-hun, "Samsung Chairman Resigns," The New York Times, 23 April 2008).

II. Equally, there is a rise in the obliteration of quality. Case in point, e-books:

Apparently, self-professed "most published author in the history of the planet" Philip M. Parker, has compiled roughly 200K books through "computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject - broad or obscure - and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres...of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one" through Amazon.com (Noam Cohen, "He Wrote 200,000 Books (But Computers Did Some of the Work)," The New York Times, 14 April 2008).

David Pascoe, an unfortunate purchaser of one of Parker's books on rosacea, complained that the book offered such generic information that if a person is "good at the Internet, this book is useless."

For Parker even to imagine himself an author would be the greatest fallacy and for him to entertain the notion that the computer can replace the author is nothing short of absurdity.

To Parker: thank you for the trash. Nice to know you developed an algorithm to degrade further the quality of American 'literature'.

Wait, it gets better.

III. As a 'snowball' to the sense of resignation and obliteration of quality, the world is facing a global food crisis akin to the one it faced at the end of WWII:

In a very poignant opening to his article on hunger riots in Haiti, Marc Lacey states:

"Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti's presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country's prime minister packing" (Marc Lacey, "Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger," The New York Times, 18 April 2008).

Since the end of 2006, global food prices have increased about 45% "turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures."

According to the World Bank, food prices have risen by 83% in three years (David Stringer, "Global food crisis poses unpalatable options," The Seattle Times & The Associated Press, 23 April 2008).

To offset the crisis, Pakistan already has a system of ration cards for subsidized wheat in place. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the rising food costs "threaten to cancel strides made toward...cutting world poverty in half by 2015." Furthermore, because biofuel leads to the destruction of forests and takes up arable land for food crops, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the urgent re-examination of biofuel production.

IV. Add the above three to this latest finding:

That only WWII was costlier than the Iraq war, estimated by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance Professor Laura Bilmes to be $3 trillion (Zachary Coile, "Only World War II was costlier than Iraq war," San Francisco Chronicle, 18 March 2008).

In light of the global food crisis, it is very difficult to understand how Stiglitz could possibly and justifiably state of the Iraq war costs: "We are a rich country, and we can, in some sense, afford it. It's not going to bankrupt us."

Stunning indelicacy, to say the least.

So what do the above four issues have in common?

Loops.

It is all about the loops.

Negative Feedback Loops (NFLs), Positive Feedback Loops (PFLs), and the conscious decision of which to feed, flourish, or fumble.

It seems we are engaging in too many NFLs and not enough PFLs.

This is not news.

However, what is noteworthy is the toll and havoc our decision is reaking on our life, our future, and our basic survival. It takes just as much energy to feed the negative as it does the positive, so when given which side to invest in, why not choose the latter? Time and again, the world amazes, as we continue to partake in the negative, blindly asking for the one dish we have once been served...

...as if by blind herdism.

Of hyphenation, potentiality, and the present offerings of electronically mediated transcendence, there is just no excuse...

Of choices, how quickly we run to bankrupt ourselves!

Oh Einstein, you can not be more mistaken...

jade — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:52:00 GMT

27 April 2008

Oh Einstein, you can not be more mistaken...

From an interview for Niewe Rotterdamsche Courant in 1921 (Berliner Tageblatt, 7 July 1921), Einstein said of his first impressions:

"...knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America."

Surrounding the FCC and net-neutrality, America has proven Einsteen miserably wrong.

Here are some 'tidbits' on net-neutrality:

1) The net is completely politicized. Net-neutrality is primarily split along bi-partisan lines:
a) the Democrats support it and
b) the Republicans are against it.

2) The FCC Chairman is Kevin Martin:
    a) all indications point to him being a Republican on this issue,
    b) he refuses to take any legislative measures to ensure net-neutrality is enforced by the telecom industry (John Dunbar, "FCC cheif says no need for new regulation of the Internet," The Associated Press, 22 April 2008),
    c) he has a different notion of what should/not be enforced, stating that the FCC's 2005 anti-discrimination 'Internet Policy Statement' does not "establish rules nor are they enforceable documents" - so it is rather confusing because at the same time he says the "commission has a responsibility to enforce the principles that it has already adopted" he does not believe the approved policies and document to be enforced is enforceable!

3) The issue really boils down to money, control, power-hording by the telecom companies at the expense of American consumers, and the FCC's decision to side with the telecom companies over the American consumers.

4) What net-neutrality proponents ask for is that ISPs treat all Internet packets equally, rather than filter based upon how much its consumers spend (Brad Stone, "Comcast Adjusts Way It Manages Internet Traffic," The New York Times, 28 March 2008).

Here is another important fact: as a point of comparison, Japan offers "the fastest network speeds on the planet" to its citizens at an affordable price (roughly $28-35/month, yen-to-dollar).

Net-neutrality is a salient issue because rather than being a free forum for democratic exchange and dialogue, the net - the last bastion of free speech - is under political manipulation and control. It has been an increasingly heated issue since 2000. Recently, it has come under attack because of Comcast's decision to play 'Internet traffic cop' by its "throttling of file-sharing traffic on its cable-modem service" and because of this, the FCC held a public hearing on the issue in Cambridge, Massachusetts (The Associated Press, "NY Attorney General Subpoenas Comcast on Broadband," 26 February 2008).

Comcast's reasoning for its actions is that it is necessary to "keep other Internet traffic, like Web content, flowing smoothly" that translates to: 'because we are power-hording and will provide superior service only to those paying us premium prices to do so'.

And this is a sentiment vocalized by net-neutrality proponents, most notably, Justine Bateman:

"The idea of your site succeeding or failing based upon whether or not you paid the telecom companies enough to carry your material or allow quick access is appalling" (John Dunbar, "FCC cheif says no need for new regulation of the Internet," The Associated Press, 22 April 2008).

How about this:

Rather than police Internet traffic speeds, why not police cybercrime?

According to a report by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, US victims reported 2007 losses of $239M to online fraud with average losses at $2,530 (Doreen Carvajal, "High-Tech Crime Is an Online Bubble That Hasn't Burst," The New York Times, 7 April 2008). On top of this report, it seems the US judicial system is 'weak on cybercrime' as "judges remain reluctant to order much jail time for computer crime."

If you think cybercrime is dying down, think again.

According to Websense, a security vendor in San Diego that filters web sites for corporations, mass web attacks were reported in mid-March and in late-March/early-April, hackers "turned their attention to search engines" preying on web pages "that incorrectly use JavaScript...to infect thousands of sites" (Deborah Gage, "Hackers infiltrate Google searches," San Francisco Chronicle, 2 April 2008). What happens is when urls for web pages with incorrect JavaScripts show up on Google searches and are clicked on, the hackers redirect the user to a malicious program to steal information. Among the latest victims of this attack are Wal-Mart, Sears, Target, and Bloomingdales.

So again, I reiterate the question:

Why not turn attention and legislation to cybercrime rather than restrict and interfere with net-neutrality?

Stunned Paralysis

jade — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:51:00 GMT

27 April 2008

Stunned Paralysis

I am a member of a minority. Although I am not a member of the oppressed African-American minority, I really wish I were. Seriously. Because if I were, I would have grounds to write on the Sean Bell acquittal. As it is, the only foundation I stand on is the common bond of humanity. As a fellow human being, I write against Justice Cooperman's decision, and call out the case for what it is:

It is a sham,

It is a travesty of justice,

It is a degradation of any semblence and claim for 'America the free and just',

It is a blight on the collective responsibility of all to protect, care, and love - at least to help - our fellow man...at the very least, to act civilly to him...

This is a democratic civilization, is it not? The last time I checked, no one informed me we have become a police state...

Of truth and justice, these are very skewed ideals when left to men. In the hands of the corrupt, truth and justice are tools, manipulated for a purpose, for a cost-benefit, for a leveraged power, so in the end, they are but ersatz versions of their original intent, purpose, and value.

Facts people, facts.

Facts are what should be foremost to and provide the exclusive basis of the judicial system. I naively thought it was. I guess I am wrong, miserably wrong, as the Sean Bell case proves.

Here is my rough understanding of the facts:

1) About to be married, he was just coming from his bachelor party,
2) He was unarmed,
3) He was shot over fifty (50) times.

I thought the purpose of opening fire - the only purpose - is to stop the suspected criminal from fleeing. If you are a good shot, you only need to fire once. Opening fire over fifty (50) times is intent to 'shoot to kill' - intent to murder - and I thought the police badge is a license to serve and to protect, not to murder the innocent.

Perhaps the only fact that matters in the case is Sean Bell was an African American.

Here are two equally important facts: the police officers were incompetent at their job and murdered and got away with murdering an innocent man - a fellow American - in cold blood.

To Justice Cooperman and the three officers, the one caveat I have is this:

Kharma man, kharma. I would really hate to stand in your shoes when that time comes...

How about this America:

Let us call a spade a spade and do away with the self-deception. You are anything but the Land of the Free. You are not nation of democracy. Your justice is certainly not blind. You are a sham and can take a lesson from Finland.

To Americans today:

What grounds do you stand on when you take pride in being an American?

Haven't African Americans been through enough? How much further must we beat them down? How far deep into the cesspool will we drown before we take steps to correct centuries of wrong?

America is so young, and yet it has committed and continues to commit its lion's share of atrocities, abuses, and crimes that far outweigh its years...

Perhaps a little stunned paralysis is necessary to force us to pause and reconsider, or is this just wishful thinking...

Blaring Catastrophes Redux II

jade — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:50:00 GMT

27 April 2008

Blaring Catastrophes Redux II

Recently, I wrote about Boeing subcontracting Alcoa to forge titanium parts on the US Air Force's F-22 Raptor fighter jets and the sub-par job Alcoa did, using "shoddy manufacturing" techniques causing the jets to fly with a "manufacturing defect in crucial titanium supports" with the very likely outcome of causing "a catastrophic failure in flight" that "could result in the loss of the aircraft" (Dominic Gates, "Boeing sues Alcoa over parts for F-22 Raptor fighters," The Seattle Times, 11 April 2008). Apparently, Alcoa "failed to add a crucial extra 20 minutes in the furnace that was needed for proper forging."

The reason Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the US Air Force decided to use the defective F-22s is that to remove the defect would cause "substantial cost and disruption to aircraft-production operations," according to Boeing's filing.

Ahem, cost and disruption to operations?!?

To address the cost issue, it seems Boeing is really not hurting when it comes to turning a profit. In fact, the company reported an earnings of $1.2 billion, or 38% increase in profit over 2007 (The Associated Press, "Boeing Profit Jumps 38% as Orders Grow," 23 April 2008).

So then what is the real reason here? At the expense of our US Air Force's Airmen, Boeing just wants to maintain its stance on capitalist greed?

What about Boeing's future and it earnings potential?

Well, that too looks highly favorable with the Delta-Northwest impending merger because Boeing already has orders from Northwest for over fifty of its 787 Dreamliners and from Delta for roughly twenty of its 787s, 777s, and 747s, and about six of its 777-200LR ultra-long-range jets through the end of 2009 (Susanna Ray, "Airlines' merger may be good for Boeing, too," The Seattle Times, 16 April 2008).

Clearly, Boeing is not hurting, despite its mistakes and its defective products. Rather, it is profiting very well and looks to do so through 2009. Unfortunately, it will be to the sacrifice of not just the consumer, but the US Air Force, the nation...

Good going, Boeing. With vendors like you, we really don't need saboteurs.

Rather than news of Boeing's Profit Jumping 38%, it would be rewarding, albeit a fantasy, to read an article with the headline: "Boeing Reallocates Profits to Fix Defective Jets for the US Air Force and Meets Its Deadline" - now that would be noteworthy indeed!

To Einstein - Your Eternal Optimism and First Impressions

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:21:00 GMT

20 April 2008

To Einstein - Your Eternal Optimism and First Impressions

From an interview for Niewe Rotterdamsche Courant in 1921 (Berliner Tageblatt, 7 July 1921), Einstein wrote of America's industriousness, especially in matters of technology:

"What first strikes the visitor with amazement is the superiority of this country in matters of technology and organization. Objects of everyday use are more solid than in Europe, houses much more practically designed."

Crane disasters aside (see my 15 March 2008 entry, "Sense and Consequence Redux") and barely squeeking by at ranking fourth behind Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland according to The Global Information Technology Report (John Markoff, "Study Gives High Marks to US Internet," The New York Times, 9 April 2008), there are still some strides we can be proud of:

1) Power 6, the new IBM microprocessor that can carry out up to five billion instructions per second, has been declared the fastest chip on Earth (Tom Abate, "IBM chip is fastest on Earth," San Francisco Chronicle, 9 April 2008), beating out Intel's 3.73 gigahertz Pentium Extreme and Sun Microsystems' 2.4 gigahertz UltraSparc T2.

2) The US Department of Homeland Security's Secretary Michael Chertoff disclosed more details about a cybersecurity center President Bush created in January 2008, to "coordinate information on attacks against the government and the private sector" and likend the President's directive to the WWII Manhattan Project (Deborah Gage, "Details on US cybersecurity center," San Francisco Chronicle, 9 April 2008).

Long overdue, it is about time our government takes agency to effect protective measures for the security of our nation and its peoples - especially in light of all the bonehead decisions we continue to make...

3) As a brilliant measure to provide increased protective alerts to US citizens, Federal regulators approved a plan to create a nationwide emergency alert system via cellular text messaging (The Associated Press, "Text Alerts to Cellphones in Emergency Approved," 10 April 2008). As a result, three types of messages will be sent (projected by 2010):

a) a national alert from the President - most likely for a terrorist attack or natural disaster,
b) an imminent threats alert - most likely for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, or university shootings, and
c) an amber alert - for child abductions.

4) To help humanitarian operations and to raise the public's refugee awareness, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees teamed with Google Inc. to unveil "a new feature...for its popular mapping programs that shines the spotlight on the movement of refugees around the world" (The Associated Press, "Google and UN Put Refugees on the Map," 8 April 2008).

5) Commuters, dare to dream:
In an attempt to avoid traffic jams, Microsoft announced its plans for launching Clearflow - a "Web-based service for driving directions that incorporates complex software models" (John Markoff, "Microsoft Introduces Tool for Avoiding Traffic Jams," The New York Times, 10 April 2008). According to Microsoft, Clearflow will be available for 72 cities in the United States and will offer drivers "alternative route information that is more accurate and attuned to current traffic patterns on both freeways and side streets."

If anything, it might just help to reduce some of that road rage...

6) Not to be outdone, the clothing industry is striving for transparency in its processes by informing the potential buyers the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from its manufacturing process - just like a label that informs of the garment's type of material (Eric Wilson, "Where That Suit Has Been," The New York Times, 10 April 2008).

While we may fall miserably short of Einstein's first impressions of America in 1921, we can still take heart in the hope - still vibrant - of our creative potentiality and inherent drive to do some bit of good...

...despite the magnitude of backward steps and the cesspool so dangerously in our collective backyard...

...potentiality nonetheless.

Ode to Einstein: How far we strayed

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:44:00 GMT

20 April 2008

Ode to Einstein: How far we strayed

We have proven Nietzsche true on far too many counts. Obviously, we failed to heed his advice and warnings. Perhaps reworded and repackaged from Einstein, we will attempt to take agency and make an effective difference?

This may be a shot in the dark, but I will bet with the realists and suggest we not hold our collective breath on this one...

In a radio broadcast to accept his Lord and Taylor award on 4 May 1953, Einstein expressed the critical importance of nonconformism:

"To be sure, we are concerned here with nonconformism in a remote field of endeavor, and no Senatorial committee has as yet felt impelled to tackle the important task of combating, also in this field, the dangers which threaten the inner security of the uncritical or else intimidated citizen."

Indeed, this continues to be the problem with the individual who rather flocks to the safety of the herd rather than express the courage, tenacity, and strength to be critical and the daring to nonconformism...

In many areas, it is apparent that Nietzsche influenced Einstein:

On the subject of Good and Evil - Nietzsche's bailiwick - Einstein stated:

"To be sure, it is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive" (Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934).

This is creative potentiality at the heart of hyphenation...

Just as Nietzsche, Einstein abhorred the herd mentality:

"The really valuable thing in...life seems to me...the creative, sentient individual...it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd...remains dull in thought and...feeling" (Living Philosophies, pp.3-7, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1931).

Similarly, on Society and Personality, he spoke out against a very Nietzschean evil - decadence:

"In my opinion, the present manifestations of decadence are explained by the fact that economic and technologic developments have highly intensified the struggle for existence, greatly to the detriment of the free development of the individual" (Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934).

And independence and creativity, were values he too extolled for the individual:

"Without creative personalities able to think and judge independntly, the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personlaity without the nourishing soil of the community. The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close social cohesion" (ibid).

With as stunning a mind as his, how could he have gotten it so wrong on his observations of America?

From an interview for Niewe Rotterdamsche Courant in 1921 (Berliner Tageblatt, 7 July 1921), Einstein said of his first impressions:

"...knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America."

How far off the mark he was...good thing he stuck with his equation...

In the same interview, he added:

"The overestimation of money is still greater in this country than in Europe, but appears to me to be on the decrease. It is at last beginning to be realized that great wealth is not necessary for a happy and satisfactory life."

If only this were true in America, there would not be the 'cult of celebrity' and Hollywood would not be extolled to the level it is today...

Great minds past and present surround us. Their words of wisdom and warnings are plentiful. When will we ever take note and act upon them? Act for our future? Act for the collective good?

What a dream, what a far off dream...

...if only to remain in the creative potentiality of hyphenation and transcending virtuality...

Einstein, how profoundly we disappoint.

Nietzsche, how deaf and blind we remain despite your shrill calls for that will...

...to power...

...to truth...

Blaring Discrepancies: Dread the day when 'experts' are clueless because the day is now...

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:43:00 GMT

20 April 2008

Blaring Discrepancies: Dread the day when 'experts' are clueless because the day is now...

Exploratory research is fabulous.

Knowledge gained through experiment is magnificent.

Expertise qua excellence is brilliant.

The problem arises when one study is conducted and based upon that, the end all, be all, final word of what has been studied is declared in the name of 'research expertise'. There is expertise and then there is nascence - and never should the two ever be confused. Unfortunately, our 'experts' are taking too many liberties in declaring their incipient research the final product.

Forget reckless, this is lethal.

I have stated this before but it is worth reiterating again:

Seldom are we given second chances. When it comes to potential risk of life, one chance is all we have. The sacrifice is too precious in the name of declaratory pride and unqualified expertise.

Cases in point:

1) In a struggle between public relations and complete scientific objectivity surrounding the impending use of the Large Hadron Collider this summer at the European Center for Nuclear Research outside of Geneva, 'experts' argue there is "too much hype and not enough candor on the part of scientists about the promises and perils" of their planned LHC experiments (Dennis Overbye, "Gauging a Collider's Odds of Creating a Black Hole," The New York Times, 15 April 2008). According to Nobel Peace Prize winning nuclear physicist Francesco Calogero, there is a "tendency among his colleagues to promulgate a 'leave it to the experts' attitude" in which they " 'seem to be more concerned with the public relations impact of what they...say and write, than in making sure that the facts are presented with complete scientific objectivity.' "

2) Along the same lines of the stark unknown is the case of WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) speculated to be the "hypothetical elemantary particles left over from the Big Bang" that are also supposedly "immune to most forces of nature and so can pass through us and the Earth like ghosts" (Dennis Overbye, "Physicists Renew Claim, in New Experiment, of Detecting Dark Matter Particles," The New York Times, 17 April 2008). Surrounding this issue of WIMPs and DAMA, there are many camps arguing conflicting findings and conclusions - altogether signifying they are all still nothing more than absolutely clueless.

3) In the space of a single article, The New York Times reporter Kenneth Chang exposes how the same experiment is yielding opposite results. Rather than tests of global warming, a team of scientists concentrated on the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs, and found that ocean acidification resulting in carbonic acid destroys coral skeletons and its critical coccolithosphores ("single-cell, carbonate-encased algae that area major link in the ocean food chain") while a second team concluded the exact opposite - that the coccolithosphores actually grow bigger from the carbonic acid - and have been growing at a rate of 40% over the past 220 years (Kenneth Chang, "Study Sees an Advantage for Algae Species in Changing Oceans," The New York Times, 18 April 2008).

The reason for the discrepancy?

Apparently, the first team did not take into consideration the twin effects of calcification and photosynthesis, as the second team did. The second experiment was tested to emulate more closely real ocean conditions.

The conclusion to be deduced from this?

Think people, think because our dedicated 'thinkers' are certainly failing to do so.

The 'scientists' - our 'experts' - are still clueless. They have no right to presume the penultimate authoritative voice of expertise when they are still in their nascent stages of research and experimentation - and are still honing their experimental methodologies.

Wait, it gets worse (and from Stanford, no less!):

4) In a recent report on VBLOC therapy (vagal blocking for weight loss), Stanford researchers are participating in this national study in which "a device inserted just beneath the skin emits electronic impulses that confuse signals sent on the vagal nerves from the brain to the stomach" (Erin Allday, "Stanford in study on new weight-loss therapy," San Francisco Chronicle, 16 April 2008). According to the Stanford lead researcher Dr. John Morton, " 'It starts in the brain, and works down to the stomach.' "

Ahem, attention to the phrase: "confuse signals sent on the vagal nerves from the brain..." - how about brain damage? nerve damage?

Confusing - euphemism for damaging - signals?!?

How about the long-term damage here? Excuse me, possible long-term confusion?

Think people, think.

You only have one life, one body, one chance...messing with the brain, the nerves, what's next?

The fear, the dread, the horror...

Common Sensibility - How about using some?

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:42:00 GMT

20 April 2008

Common Sensibility - How about using some?

In what seems an historic effective move to combat the insidious cycle of eating disorders, French conservative lawmaker Valerie Boyer, backed by France's health minister Roselyne Bachelot, proposed a law to stifle the proliferation of web sites promoting, teaching, and tipping viewers to eating disorders (Doreen Carvajal, "French Bill Takes Chic Out of Being Too Thin," The New York Times, 16 April 2008).

As Carvajal reports, "the French legislators are seeking to tame a murky world of some 400 sites extolling 'ana' and 'mia', nicknames for anorexia and bulimia. Since 2000, such Web sites have multiplied in many languages, offering blunt tips on crash dieting, bingeing, vomiting, and hiding weight loss from concerned parents."

Unfortunately, opposition from the French Socialist Party argue the bill is too "vaguely worded". Michael Levine, psychology professor at Kenyon College, Ohio, agrees, stating " 'it's a mistake to ban them becuase...you're going to be hard pressed to demonstrate a very clear way that these sites have a direct negative affect.' "

Are you kidding?

How much more explicit can we make the connection?

Are academics like Levine and legislators like those in the FSP so far removed from common sense that they are blind to their present reality? What must we do - - shock them back to common sense?

This is a far stranger world than the bard ever could have imagined if the stark reality of truth via evidence only serves to blind rather than to act towards change, towards effecting a positive difference to help our fellow (wo)men...

...a cruel world, indeed.

Sense and Consequence - HIPAA (Redux)

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:41:00 GMT

20 April 2008

Sense and Consequence - HIPAA (Redux)

In my 2 March 2008 entry, "III of X. Sense and Consequence - HIPAA," I wrote about HIPAA and the move by AT&T and the state of Tennessee to "provide the country's first statewide system to electronically exchange patient medical information" (Erik Schelzig, "AT&T, Tenn. Create Medical Info Exchange," Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 February 2008).

In that entry, I also pointed to my 7 October 2007 entry, "Accounting for the Fissures of this Disjointed Reality," where I first brough up the issue of HIPAA and the move by Microsoft to make a patient's medical information available online:

"Through HealthVault, Microsoft is planning to further this direction by providing "a secure, encrypted database" for the storage of an individual's "personal health record" (Steve Lohr, "Microsoft Rolls Out Heallth Records", The New York Times, 4 October 2007). Through its database, Microsoft "hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or...test results showing blood pressure and cholesterol levels." On this front, however, there is critical need for pause.

On 21 August 1996, the 104th Congress passed into public law the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to (among other things) "combat waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery" and above all, "to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the information; to protect against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of the information; and unauthorized uses or disclosures of the information" (Public Law 104-191).

If the need for privacy of personal information and the handling of such information by medical and healthcare professionals were identified as so crucially necessary that a law and protocols with that law had to be executed into effect with the threat of legal ramifications if so violated, why would a proposed database against that law be so quickly proposed?

Although Microsoft explains that the database will be secure and encrypted, have we not learned the lessons of the agile hacker mind? There are countless cases and a cornucopia of ocular proof that information - especially on the net - is a 'sitting duck' in hacker territory. To offset the possibility of data corruption, Peter Neupert, VP of Microsoft's health group, makes the analogy to online banking that initially met with privacy worries and is today mainstream. I beg to differ.

There are still many who are justifiably hesitant to disclose their financial information online - can we say, "identity theft"? So no, banking is NOT mainstream.

Banking aside, if financial information is hacked into, it can be reversed and corrected. Banks and credit card companies anticipate hackers and identity thieves so much so that they have swift and effective protocols in place to correct the fraudulent activity. However, when personal information - health or otherwise - is hacked into, there is no corrective reversal. The information is the key. To disclose that information to anyone other than the patient or medical/healthcare professional it is intended for is the irreversable violation and infringement that HIPAA sought so painstakingly to safeguard.

I wrote then and I reiterate again:

The direction and consequence of moving forward without respect to common sense is increasingly fatal compounded by the fact that it is occurring in every sector affecting the individual, his freedoms, his safety, and his right to life on this planet...take heed...

Now, it seems researchers are slowly realizing this to be a critical issue, as with the recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine where "two leading researchers warn that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records" because "Microsoft and Google, the authors note, are not bound by the privacy restrictions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act...that regulates personal data handling and patient privacy" (Steve Lohr, "Warning on Storage of Health Records," The New York Times, 17 April 2008).

I am the first to admit I am the leading researcher of nothing and an absolute nobody, but even I raised HIPAA as my immediate concern back in October 2007 and then again in March 2008. Only now this becomes an issue - raised by "leading researchers"?!?

What is going on with our academics? The supposed intelligent?

How about this:

How about introducing a little thinking now and then?

Maybe think before acting?

Maybe think before endangering and jeapordizing innocent lives and breaking oaths of confidentiality?

When will we regain our common sensibility?

Will we ever?

Blaring Catastrophes Redux

jade — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:40:00 GMT

20 April 2008

Blaring Catastrophes Redux

Recently, I wrote of the US Air Force's decision to use defective F-22 Raptor fighter jets, despite the fact that use of them will most likely lead to "a catastrophic failure in flight" that "could result in the loss of the aircraft" (Dominic Gates, "Boeing sues Alcoa over parts for F-22 Raptor fighters," The Seattle Times, 11 April 2008). The reason for the defect? Alcoa (subcontracted by Boeing to forge titanium parts to the jets) "failed to add a crucial extra 20 minutes in the furnace that was needed for proper forging."

I already wrote of my bewilderment that our Air Force would go ahead with using the jets despite the blaring evidence to the contrary.

Add to this the recent discovery by researchers that the builder of the Titanic "struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship" (William J. Broad, "In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic's Doom," The New York Times, 15 April 2008). Interesting thing about this finding is the the fact that ten (10) years ago, the safety of the rivets was questioned and promptly dismissed by the builder, arguing that "it did not have an archivist who could address the issue" - so the sinking was left a "riddle".

Ahem, pause and step back please.

Researchers, investigators - are they not hired for their acumen, their shrewd abilities to uncover supposed mysteries? Is it not their code, their edict, to 'leave no stone unturned' and above all, not to take answers at face value - least of all from those most likely culpable?

How could they have listened to the builder, swallowed his (heap of garbage) dismissal, and just left it at that - for a decade?!?

We are seldom given second chances in life. When it comes to potential lives lost, we only have one instance to get it right. Is not the lesson of the Titanic enough?

So I pose to you again, why? Why is our Air Force making such a brazenly senseless decision to endanger their Airmen, especially when it is these very men we should cultivate and protect so they in turn can protect our nation?

Perhaps the warning blares too loudly, too defiantly, that the ears have been irreparably deafened...

Blaring Catastrophes

jade — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:21:00 GMT

13 April 2008

Blaring Catastrophes

Imagine, if you will, a person tells you he genuinely wants to be your friend - and claims actually to be your friend - at the same time he says he does not trust you and believes you to be a sociopath. Of course, if you believe him, you are a complete fool. (Aside from the obvious, you would be partaking in a script you did not write and one that serves you no purpose.) At the worst, you may be in a position of great risk if you decided to believe him.

Now snap to reality because this one is a doozy:

It seems Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the US Air Force are in a rather briny pickle. Because Boeing subcontracted Alcoa to forge titanium parts on the US Air Force's F-22 Raptor fighter jets and because Alcoa did a sub-par job, using "shoddy manufacturing" techniques, the jets are flying with a "manufacturing defect in crucial titanium supports" with the very likely outcome of causing "a catastrophic failure in flight" that "could result in the loss of the aircraft" (Dominic Gates, "Boeing sues Alcoa over parts for F-22 Raptor fighters," The Seattle Times, 11 April 2008). Apparently, Alcoa "failed to add a crucial extra 20 minutes in the furnace that was needed for proper forging."

An extra twenty minutes!

Those twenty minutes just cost Alcoa more than $12 million and might just cost the US Air Force the airmen's lives they put at risk in using those jets.

There are a multitude of warning signs blaring a mile a minute here, but the most deafening is the Air Force's decision to use the jets at the same time they claim they "would never do anything that would compromise the safety of our airmen" according to the Air Force's public-affairs officer, Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy. How can they claim not to compromise their airmen at the same time they acknowledge that if they use the jets, "a catastrophic failure in flight" will (surely) occur? (This rather sounds like our person telling us he is our friend but does not trust you and labels you a sociopath in the process.)

This is a shot in the dark, but is it not their (moral) responsibility to avoid a catastrophe, especially one they have been fully warned about? Is there not a pride in maintaining our airmen's lives, rather than knowingly put them at risk that is 100% avoidable? Is it not the point to maintain (rather than jeapardize) an Air Force to protect our skies and fight for whatever it is we believe in?

Is it not a source of pride in the US that we claim to be the best, utilize the best equipment, and leverage the best technologies?

It seems the Air Force is choosing to be the fool, believing rather wrecklessly that it can be the best while utilizing defective equipment just waiting to cause a disaster. Continuing on this path, there is no purpose served except inevitable loss of cataclysmic proportions and even greater costs in the end.

There has to be a point when we call a spade a spade in pursuit of common sensibility and the (moral) responsibility to avoid disaster blaring so stridently in our face...

Of deception and self-deception, how about withdrawing altogether from this sordid game?

The Hazards of Judgments

jade — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:39:00 GMT

13 April 2008

The Hazards of Judgments

Judgments are interesting. People think they can make them of others and they often do. Frankly, there is too much hypocrisy in it.

In the legal system, (mis)judgments are even more perilous - and lethal - for those accused wrongly, and more importantly, for those recidivists who are unwisely let free. When the facts are clearly laid before a jury and despite this, they make their unfortunate judgment, then there is a dangerous breakdown...for they have failed miserably in their duty to protect the public...and this, they do altogether too often.

Case in point:

A convicted Level III sex offendor and rapist with a history of stalking women and considered most likely to reoffend has been released free, despite the King County prosecutor's attempt to send him to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island (Sara Jean Green, "Jury rejects predator label for rapist," The Seattle Times, 11 April 2008). The reason for his release? He does not "fit the state's definition of a sexually violent predator because he does not have a legally recognized mental or personality disorder".

A couple of things leap to mind:

1) How about changing the definition!
2) The offendor was implicated in more than two dozen incidents of sexual misconduct and he was convicted as a rapist. What more does the legal system need to incarcerate him?
3) More importantly, what will it take to convince the jury to protect the public?
4) Moreover, what will it take for the jury to learn from its past? Case in point:

The last time the King County jury freed someone prosecutors wanted committed to the SCC, that person was again charged with rape and murder.

So much for the sound judgment of collective minds. Facts people, facts.

Suggestion:

Seek out the facts and listen to it. Learn the objective truth of the facts. Observe and observe wisely.

Truth is an interesting virtue. Objective, it remains intact. Manipulated in any way, and it no longer remains anything except false. So many falsities rest behind the flimsy veil of manipulated truth, but ultimately, it is a lie.

The many layers of truth - this is the cesspool, the very slippery cesspool.

Fact is fact. Fact is irrespective of group consensus.

So to those seeking to make judgments, however (mis)guided and (un)warranted, perhaps keep this in mind: semper fidelis ad sapientia et doctrina.

Case in point II:

In the past couple of years, deferred prosecution agreements are steadily replacing corporate criminal prosecutions, thus sanctioning corporate bribery, corruption, and criminal acts - in a decided shift away from transparency and accountability (Eric Lichtblau, "In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials," The New York Times, 9 April 2008). Over the last three years, the Justice Department has put off prosecuting more than fifty (50) companies suspected of wrongdoing.

The lesson in this?

Beware consumers. Beware public. The guardians of 'justice' are no longer guarding. Corporations can buy off their crimes. They have no fear or reason to maintain any sense of integrity or responsibility to the public. They are impervious to the 'rules' as long as they can pay.

Justice? Hardly.

Judgment? If you can pay, you are impervious.

Of slime, slander, and suspicions, walk away, walk far away lest you get mired in the web, tangled in an ersatz justice...

Judgments...there is too much hypocrisy in them...

Of Supermassive Black Holes and Presumptive Wisdoms

jade — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:46:00 GMT

11 April 2008

Of Supermassive Black Holes and Presumptive Wisdoms

Imagine the harshest critic of the quality of American education and add an extra layer of criticism. Now snap back to present reality because we are at a level one hundred times worse - and then some. Case in point: the Discovery Channel's documentary, Supermassive Black Hole.

Briefly, the documentary explains the phenomenon of supermassive black holes (for the purpose of this blog, I will abbreviate this to: SmBH), in contradistinction to black holes (likewise: BH), and their relation to their respective galaxy. Naturally, the documentary begins with the Milky Way, describing it as a giant rotating disk two hundred thousand light years wide with over two hundred billion stars like the sun circling slowly around a center. It is just one in one hundred twenty-five billion galaxies circling in space.

Purportedly, the most puzzling question baffling physicists is: how do clouds of hydrogen gas become galaxies of stars?

One suggested answer is the SmBH. They are one million to one billion times the mass of BHs and can fill an entire solar system. The center of a SmBH is called a "singularity" that to solve mathematically would require a new physics. At the singularity, light can not escape and gravity, space, and time are so distorted that they are at their 'breaking point'. Because they 'swallow' light, SmBHs are 'invisible' and are thus detectible only through the immense gravity hurling stars at over thirty-one thousand miles per hour. As ferocious whirling masses of hot gas just about to fall into a SmBH, quazars are another telltale sign that one is around.

It seems the physicists studying SmBHs made a few (hasty, incorrect) presumptions in going into their research:

1) SmBHs as such, are negative phenomenons.
2) SmBHs signal violent destruction.
3) SmBHs do not exist in every galaxy.

Through research, they have found evidence to counter some of their presumptions. I would venture a step further to suggest:

1) SmBHs are very positive evidences of creation.
    a) The umbilicus is to its creation what the SmBH is to its galaxy
    b) From the depths of assumed emptiness is an explosion of pregnant potentiality
    c) To counter Lear's rant - ex nihilo, nihil fit (from nothing, nothing comes) - SmBHs are ocular proof of     the very opposite. From nothing, everything comes.
2) SmBHs signal absolute creation - creation from explosion.
3) SmBHs must exist in every galaxy, though in various stages. And this has been proven true, thus far:
    a) NGC1068 has a very active SmBH
    b) Andromeda has an inactive SmBH
    c) The Milky Way is similar to Andromeda with an inactive SmBH

The physicists have also learned the following:

1) The size of a SmBH is directly proportional to the size of its galaxy.
2) The mass of a SmBH is directly proportional to the speed of its sigma.

Interesting note on sigma: it is assumed by physicists that it is unaffected by the gravity of its SmBH. However, upon closer inspection, they found a direct correlation between the mass of the SmBH and the speed of its sigma. I wonder when they will make a causal correlation, or if they will continue to identify the two as mutually exclusive.

On the whole, it seems they are 'batting zero' and declining.

Stubborn insistence on linear thinking with complete disregard to - at least the possibility of - interconnections and non-linear reasoning and effects is perhaps one of the greatest fallacies of Western thought. As with the SmBH research, the singularity, quazar, sigma, galaxy, and galaxial components are all treated as distinct and separate entities without concrete interconnections to each other.

As an alternative to the findings and theories bandied so far, I suggest the following:

1) Conceptually, if scientists can draw parallels between the galaxy and the human body, it might help in strengthening and guiding them in their research.
    a) The SmBH is the umbilicus as well as the self-regulating mechanism within cells to activate cellular     apoptosis.
    b) The singularity is the pluripotent and multipotent blastocyst.
    b) The sigma is the epidermis.
    c) The stars are the cells.
    d) The planets are the primary organs.
    e) The moons are the supporting organs.
    f) The quazar is fuel for the digestive organs, affecting the stage of activity.
2) Of course it baffles me how the very fact that SmBHs have been written about, studied, and captured in philosophy thousands of years ago could have ever escaped the collective memory. Ahem, Taoism.
    a) The "T&C" symbol - darkness and light with a sphere of darkness in light and of light in darkness - is     the force of the SmBH and its singularity.
    b) Dyads and duality, opposing forces, the polarity of protons and electrons affecting the stars swirling in     opposite directions around its SmBH - this is the Tao, and the Tao is so much more...

Postmodernists and Poststructuralists are so quick to do away with dualities. However persistent and convincing they may be in an ever-changing e-mediated world, the basic duality of oppposite forces will never diminish. Alas, the oldest philosphies of the East - the paragon of the metaphysical - are being rediscovered and proven true in the most scientific of methodologies and through the most non-metaphysical of minds. In other words, through science and physics, we ultimately return to metaphysics. Through positive you are lead to negative and then back to positive. In a word - cyclical - interconnection - interrelation - the linear follows the path that seems one-directional from a worm's eye view. Adopt a bird's eye view and realize the line has never left a circle.

The Eastern civilization is the oldest - and dare say, the wisest - despite the chutzpah and fanfaronade from the West. Just how long will it take before it is acknowledged as such, rather than as 'mysticism', 'ancient' and therefore, 'obsolete'? In all actuality, it is the West that has long been obsolete - 'off the mark' - and rather slow-witted to keep up the pace of the Eastern doxa and wisdoms...

Even if we replace the opposition between East and West with the encroaching universality of globalization today, disregard of our past, our ancients, our history...this is something that can not be replaced. So many lessons can be learned, and wisdom gained from our history - East, West, Ancient, Classic, Pre-Socratic - and yet, too often it is all overlooked.

Sometimes a clear step forward can only be gained through the prescience of a backwards glance...

potentiality

hyphenation

in readiness, in motion, in realization...

III of III: Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Clarke Redux (Sci Fi v. Self-help)

jade — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:05:00 GMT

23 March 2008

Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Clarke Redux (Sci Fi v. Self-help)

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Disclaimer: Before you read the below, it is not my intention to offend just as it is far from my intention ever to follow a herd mentality. It is because I have been hyphenated all my life that I can come to create hyphenation thus overcoming marginalization by realizing inherent potentiality in all. Equally, from this perspective it is my natural proclivity to speak however ostracized and no matter how stridently...(If anything, take heart that I rant not against the person, but the mentality.)

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In my prior blog, I wrote of the possible last remaining significant dualities of postmodernism as those between authenticity and hypocrisy and between truth and (self) deception. I propose another: that between the genres of spiritual self-help and science fiction because in truth, they really boil down to a duality between fetishization (or a bastardization - of Eastern thought) and potentiality.

Indeed, the battle of genres is really a battle of truths where the fetishization in spiritual self-help books is a perpetration of the false and the potentiality of science fiction is more truth in reality as we mediate our own transcendence daily and effortlessly through our electronic technologies. This is perhaps the irony of science fiction: it is more applicable to the real and with greater precision to accuracy of our present than 'spirituality as genre' ever will be, and spirituality is supposedly prescribed for an everyday application in practice and for everybody...

In other words, in actuality and ocular semblance, the world of sci fi is 'spot on' whereas the world of spirituality is completely off the mark, actually flying in the opposite direction...

...and this is rather a tragedy, because the precepts and original texts that are bastardized in these fetishized versions are frameworks and paradigms of perspective and lives successfully lived for thousands of centuries...and with more pristine truth than ever acquired in the totality of our present...

Spirituality is not getting a 'fair shake' because in its defiled form today, it is a lie, it is incomplete, it is a transmogrified monster, a hideous and garrulous sham...and the herd is none the wiser...

An even more profound irony here is that scientists - quantum physicists to be exact - are a lot closer to the spirituality and metaphysics of the ancients, as they increasingly realize the same breakthroughs of great historical Eastern philosophers...

Hyphenation is, in a word: potentiality.

Potentiality is the infinite, limitless, omnipotent creativity open to all.

Potentiality of our future and the limitless imaginings of creativity - this is the playground of science fiction and this is where the late Arthur C. Clarke was so genius a player.

Indeed, his "extraterrestrial relays", his mastery of speculative thoughts and imaginings, and his indefatigable timing - his unparalleled prescience - will be a tough act to follow for the current and future generations of sci fi writers (Dave Itzkoff, "The Fuzzier Crystal Ball," The New York Times, 23 March 2008). However, the honesty of potentiality and the impression of hyphenation proper will reign proven...most assuredly...

In a duality between 'spirituality as genre' and science fiction, in truth - between fetishization and potentiality - the scoreboard points to the latter...

Of hope, truth, and potentiality - truly of hyphenation - reign on!

Perhaps we can be reassured in this - in truth, in potentiality, and in hope, this is the greater influence, far more powerful than the almighty herd leader of today...

II of III: Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Herdism via the Cult of 'O'

jade — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:04:00 GMT

23 March 2008

Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Herdism via the Cult of 'O'

--------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: Before you read the below, it is not my intention to offend just as it is far from my intention ever to follow a herd mentality. It is because I have been hyphenated all my life that I can come to create hyphenation thus overcoming marginalization by realizing inherent potentiality in all. Equally, from this perspective it is my natural proclivity to speak however ostracized and no matter how stridently...(If anything, take heart that I rant not against the person, but the mentality.)

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In Jesse McKinley's article, the problem lies with Winfrey's current choice of book and in a genre fetishizing primarily Eastern philosophies and transmogrifying a way of life into defilement as synthetic as PVC. A bookseller McKinley quotes speaks on the author of Winfrey's book choice, "...you don't have to read 20 books to get this wisdom. I'll give it to you in a $14 paperback" and so the fetishization of horrors ensues (Jesse McKinley, "The Wisdom of the Ages, for Now Anyway," The New York Times, 23 March 2008).

A further indication to Winfrey as a 'sell-out', comes unwittingly from a quote by a publishing marketing manager (ibid): "We have already published books with very similar messages...and we will continue to do so...We just need to slap a cover on it and get it into Oprah's hands."

The horror....

Couple this article with Mark Morford's on life as commodity, and the perpetration of our decline further unfolds. Indeed, Morford calls it "Carpe Diem Syndrome" and "life as commodity, your soul on a credit card, experience as the pinnacle of meaning" but the stark reality, "the truth is, you could eat at every restaurant in the world and see every exotic wonderland and read a million great works of art and still be quite a miserable spiritually vacant neoconservative jackass with a world-class photo album and the sould of a cockroach" (Mark Morford, "Read this column before you die: 1,000 sights, 1,000 books, a few hundred drugs, 397 kinky positions, one million blasphemies. Get busy, " San Francisco Chronicle, 7 March 2008).

The true horror is not just that Nietzsche and Adorno are being proven true in spades, but more so that we are collectively, with full force and unwavering passion, speeding towards our decay and the destruction of our future hope.

The true terror is thus, the reign of herdism veiled by the commodified, fetishized genre of spiritual self-help that is more a sham, defilement, and an ersatz version of their originating philosophers and the precepts they extolled and penned.

How about this for some advice worth heeding:
Why not look to the ancients, the classics, and the original philosophers for their texts, their truth, and in the context of their history...why not encourage that, Oprah, rather than perpetrate the sham bargain-basement falsities?

Today is a bastardized, defiled version of decay far worse than Nietzsche ever dare imagine...

...this is the true stuff of science fiction gone awry because it is the state of our presence and even worse, against the movement towards progress and transcendence mediated by potentiality still to become realized...

...as a true tragedy of potentiality is creativity defiled and imagination truncated in regressive submission via the cult of herdism...

How about this for a step towards self-improvement:
Why not get off your self-fixation and try an authenticity of creative potentiality to effect difference for the aggrandizement and improvement of your fellow man?

Why not give speech to the voiceless, bring the marginalized to center stage, and give of yourself rather than horde for yourself?

Why not get off your narcissistic tunnel-vision and acknowledge and help others in need - on a daily basis?

Authenticity v. Hypocrisy

Truth v. (Self) Deception

Perhaps these are the last significant vestiges of duality in a postmodern world...

Of power, influence, and reckless herdism, Oprah and Tolle - 'achtung!'

Hyphenation by all means...

...at the very least, Finland: please help!

I of III: Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Nietzsche and Adorno Redux

jade — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:03:00 GMT

23 March 2008

Nietzsche, Adorno, and Clarke v. Winfrey - Nietzsche and Adorno Redux

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Disclaimer: Before you read the below, it is not my intention to offend just as it is far from my intention ever to follow a herd mentality. It is because I have been hyphenated all my life that I can come to create hyphenation thus overcoming marginalization by realizing inherent potentiality in all. Equally, from this perspective it is my natural proclivity to speak however ostracized and no matter how stridently...(If anything, take heart that I rant not against the person, but the mentality.)

--------------------------------------------

Oprah, how about a little less commodified-Hegel and a little more Nietzsche and Adorno? By the way, by transmogrifying and thus defiling Hegel, you are doing him a great disservice. Why not pick up one of his books before you decide to bastardize him, and maybe you will think twice about fetishizing his thoughts? (Has he not gone through enough already with Feuerbach and with Marx?)

Hegel notwithstanding, Winfrey - aka herdism via the cult of the almighty 'O' - is getting a little too careless and reckless with her power, influence, and fetishizing...

She is a sell-out and of the worst kind - that of the self-deceptive commodity that defiles unawares, thus perpetrating what Nietzsche railed so vehemently against: degeneration and decadence.

A little harsh? For the sake of our future, our culture, and any remaining claim to quality of life, not enough!

For someone with the power to make or break a writer and to influence impressionable minds by the millions, why can't she advise her followers to read a little more truth, at least now and then?

Truth as in facts and data,

truth as in the 'real' state of things,

truth in contradistinction to hypnotism and manipulation into a herdlike mentality.

Why not encourage a little individualism and authenticity of self through anti-narcissism and a little giving of the self in the everyday.

Why not encourage the quest for truth and accountability of our institutions, legislator, political leaders, and supposed 'watchdogs' by demanding disclosure, transparency, and the concrete?

A little too inconvenient, perhaps? Does not 'gel' with your advertisers? Not profitable, perhaps?

Sell-out aside, Winfrey would be wise to be reminded of not the Germany of Tolle, but rather the Germany of Adorno and the Frankfurt School:

In his essay, "On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening," Adorno states, "There is actually a neurotic mechanism of stupidity in listening, too; the arrogantly ignorant rejection of everything unfamiliar is its sure sign. Regressive listeners behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served" (The Culture Industry, 1991, Routledge Classics, NY). Although he was writing about the fetishization of music, the exact same can be said of thinking - or the absence thereof...that can be re-written as:

There is actually a neurotic mechanism of stupidity in thinking, too; the arrogantly ignorant rejection of everything unfamiliar is its sure sign. Regressive thinkers or non-thinkers behave like children. Again and again and with stubborn malice, they demand the one dish they have once been served - and that has been served to them bastardized by the media.

Adorno drives the point further by stating, "That it happens, that the music is listened to, this replaces the content itself. The ecstasy takes possession of its object by its own compulsive character. It is stylized like the ecstasies savages go into in beating the war-drums. It has convulsive aspects reminiscent of St. Vitus' dance or the reflexes of mutilated animals. Passion itself seems to be produced by defects. But the ecstatic ritual betrays itself as pseudo-activity by the moment of mimicry" (ibid). Similarly, I can easily apply this to the state of thinking today with 'spot-on' accuracy:

That it happens, that the writer as chosen by the herd-leader is listened to, this replaces the content of the writing itself. The ecstasy takes possession of its object by its own compulsive character. It is stylized like the ecstasies savages go into in beating the war-drums. It has convulsive aspects reminiscent of St. Vitus' dance or the reflexes of mutilated animals. Passion itself seems to be produced by defects and a paralyzing fear to go against the herd. But the ecstatic ritual betrays itself as pseudo-activity by the moment of mimicry, herdism, and the passionate zeal to follow with the crowd, and read the latest book - the symbolic tenet of brainwashing - as dictated by the herd leader.

Unfortunately, the problem today is exactly the problem Adorno identified in the mid-20th Century (from his essay, "The Schema of Mass Culture," ibid):

"The renunciation of resistance is ratified by regression."

And this is herd behavior - not to resist the crowd - and by so doing, regress into a defiled, degraded, ersatz and pseudo-life absent of any quality...and this is the mentality perpetrated today...

"Ecstasy is the motor of imitation. It is this rather than self-expression and individuality which forcibly produces the behavior of the victims which recalls...the motor reflex spasms of the maimed animal."

This can easily reworded and apply today:

"Unwavering zeal towards herdism fueled by fear to stand alone, whole in individuality and authentic originality, is the motor of imitation. It is this rather than self-expression and individuality which forcibly produces the behavior of the victims which recalls...the motor reflex spasms of the maimed animal."

And the truth, the root of the problem is thus:

"Participation in mass culture itself stands under the sign of terror. Enthusiasm...reveals the fear of disobedience."

Indeed, we must follow the herd leader with blind enthusiasm for fear of missing out on our chance of a success akin to hers...

So why my diatribe against Queen Oprah?

Read Jesse McKinley's article, "The Wisdom of the Ages, for Now Anyway," in today's issue of The New York Times, and you will learn of Winfrey's latest reckless perpetrations of herdism and literary cultural decay. Moreover, her influence robs from the common man:

hope of his greatness in potentiality,

potentiality of his individuality, creativity, and truth,

truth of his authentic voice, reason, and sense, and

sense of his effective impression upon his presence.

Marx railed against the (unnatural) fetishization of labor and the commodification of man. To this effect, he warned the bourgeoisie and reminded the proletariat that ultimately, society would 'circle/flip back' to truth in self-correction and unveil the illusions of self-deception:

"All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind" (Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1888).

Ah, to dare to hope this will come to be for us today...

Sense and Consequence - Redux II

jade — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:02:00 GMT

23 March 2008

Sense and Consequence - Redux II

It never ceases to shock and to bewilder me when people act against sense and against the very data presented before it to warn against such acts in the first place. Clearly, there are minds, there is evidence, and there are paragons of brilliance very much alive. And yet, the asinine folly and sheer stupidity runs rampantly at the consequence, detriment, harm, and loss to 'Joe Public'.

Why?

Why, when we know better.

Why, when we are advised better?

Why, when we are warned so fervently by our past?

Why, when the ghosts of tragedy abound, do we continue to feed the cesspool of our society's dysfunction?

Why, when we have such great examples to follow, do we continue to choose so precipitously and so wrongly?

Think I am exaggerating? Well then, let us just take a 'peek' at our economic sector:

Open up the papers, turn on the weekly business reports, and it is clear that stupidity abounds. If we believe the reports today, our economic state is:

1) in a 'downturn' (although the 4th Quarter 2007 reports positive economic growth) and

2) falling to a 'recession' (although it is too premature to declare so, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research's definition of a recession that there must be two consecutive quarters of economic decline) marked by

a) the sell-off of Bear Stearns (although this was more a manipulation/bullying of the hedge fund fiasco fueled by power and greed run amok),

b) 'rising' unemployment (although the National Bureau statistics claim the opposite),

c) 'crashing' housing market (although after coming off a 'boom', this could be a natural progression to this characteristically cyclical market),

d) fluctuating currencies (although that is the historical nature of the world currencies), and a

e) cascading snowball that is our world financial markets as the societe generale and credit suisse sort out their scandals and the asian markets 're-adjust' their 'positions and positioning'.

In the face of all this (premature, gossip-manipulated) press, thank goodness for the remaining vestiges of truth qua sense via Ben Stein (a must read: Ben Stein's "Making Sense of a Scared New World," The New York Times, 23 March 2008). It is rather unfortunate that it should require such a sovereign mind as Stein's to have to assemble, categorize, present, and publish the data - yes, the actual facts - before us, and with such brilliance that any 'lay person' can grasp with absolute clarity...

Stupidity fueled by 'herdism' and manipulation is here to stay, but at least we have warnings and little bastions of 'truth' to provide light in the darkness, thereby enabling us to identify the cesspool as such.

Kudos, Ben Stein.

Shame on you, 'watchdogs' - ahem, SEC, the Fed - for knowing well the Milken scandal, the technology crash, the October Black Friday - and persisting rather than deterring. Shame on you for creating SarbOx and not acting on it, not furthering it, to impress upon the call for transparency and disclosure...

There is far too much licentious manipulation fueled by (capitalist) greed at the expense of 'Joe Public' - JP who is the hardworking backbone holding up the economy with his grueling Monday-Friday 7 a.m. - 8 p.m. routine, busting his hump, fighting out the rat race, only to be bullied, trampled, and herded like a hypnotized fool. Shame on you for beating him down and stealing his future...

In a capitalist economy that cattle calls the masses to effect a 'snowball' of loss and deception, why not wrestle the megaphone away and declare a 'snowball' of individuality backed by sense, data, and truth qua facts?

In more ways than one - hyphenation - and this is the haiku:

one - truth,

one - de-hypnotize,

one to break the herd,

one - potentiality,

one - hyphenation, please...

...and if not hyphenation, then why not begin with the original idea - the think...

Think for your self,

think for your truth,

think for your potentiality,

and you will be one step closer towards your individuality and freedom from the mental enslavement of herdism...

...and more importantly, to your truth qua voice in action, and towards change,

towards effective difference.

Sense and Consequence Redux

jade — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:26:00 GMT

15 March 2008

Sense and Consequence Redux

There is an episode of Seinfeld where he goes to pick up a rental car with Elaine and learns that the car rental place does not have his car. He explains to the Rep that she knows how to take reservations but does not know how to hold reservations - the whole point to the reservation in the first place.

Joking aside, Seinfeld makes a point.

Adding to the cesspool of moronic, asinine, corrupt, irresponsible behavior spurred and fueled by capitalist greed, yet another senseless 'accident' occured today at 2:15 p.m. EST in Manhattan's Upper East Side (between 51st Street and 2nd Avenue). Accident? I should say, 'killing' because that is what it really comes down to:

Despite multiple violations and what many passersby even deemed 'unsafe', a construction site with an 'unstable' crane continued to stand until the crane crashed into a building killing four people, thus far.

What is the point of a violation if it goes unanswered? What is the point to a violation if it is ignored and leads to death(s)? What is the point of SAFETY VIOLATIONS if it fails to protect the public safety?

It is one thing to dispense violations - the whole point is to correct them - and if they are left uncorrected, the construction company, architect, and project manager(s) should be assessed heavy punitive damages.

How about this:

If a site gets a violation, shut it down. If it is clear to a passersby that a site is unsafe, shut it down. (Neighboring residents even joked about the site, expecting an accident to happen any second as they prudently decided to cross to the opposite street to avoid potential harm.) Correct the violation(s) then - and not until then - let the construction proceed.

That site was not just an 'accident waiting to happen', it was a site of ocular bureaucracy, 'passing the buck', negligence, cheap neglect and irresponsibility to say the least.

Today so much attention is focused on 'celebutardism' and political sex scandals. What about infractions that are left unanswered to the detriment of innoncent lives?

One death is one too many. A life lost can not be replaced, must not be overlooked, and should not be left unaccounted.

For what happened this afternoon, shame on you Manhattan.

Shame on you Scott Stringer (Manhattan Burough President) for knowing about this and failing to act. Your pointless rhetoric and inaction perpetrated these murders.

Shame on you department of buildings.

Shame on you architect, construction company, project manager, and crane company.

Unfortunately, the greater shame here is it will not be the first nor the last time this happens...and we are so proud of the ongoing rebuilding, renovations, and construction around the city...

Progress, indeed...

Hyphenation paradox, redux...