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Snowflake Guy

Snowflake2_1

Kate pointed out an article in the January issue of Smithsonian magazine about Wilson Alwyn “Snowflake” Bentley. He was a Vermont farm boy who got to fiddling around with a view camera and microscope in the 1880s so that he could make images of snowflakes — or more accurately, the ice crystals that make up the flakes. And that,  to fit a lifetime into a sentence, is how we know that no two snowflakes are exactly alike.

Having never heard this guy’s name before, what’s a little surprising is how well known a figure he is and how much information about him is floating around. The historical society in his hometown, Jericho, Vermont, has a Snowflake Bentley site dedicated to his work (with a small but dazzling gallery of some of the original images. Dover has republished the book Bentley published just before he died in 1931, “Snow Crystals.” Since Bentley was curious about other precipitation phenomena — he published his research on raindrops — weather scientists eventually discovered his work and celebrated it, and one has written a biography, “The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley.” There’s a critically well-received children’s book about him.

The reason for all the attention is apparent when you look at his work. He was meticulous and scientific in his approach, and he was convinced he was revealing something profound:

“Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”

(Image and quote from www.snowflakebentley.com.)

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Gardening at Night

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That’s sunset today in Berkeley. This afternoon, I tried to take advantage of our little stretch of dry weather (the last rain was on Tuesday) to clean up some of the weediness in the front yard. As the sun went down, a layer of high, broken clouds caught the light. After taking the picture, I went back to the garden cleanup and, even though it was getting dark, decided to cut down a big blue potato bush that was growing so hardily it was obscuring the front of the house. Tom came home while I was still sawing off some of the bigger branches. He turned on the front-yard spotlight, then went inside. A couple minutes later I heard an R.E.M. song, "Gardening at Night," start to play inside the house. Tom opened one of the front windows so I could hear the song better.

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Official Boycott List

The New York Times has a little story today on fund-raising for Bush’s second inaugural. The story is accompanied by a list of donors, both individuals and companies, who have given $250,000 for the festivities (the official inaugural committee has the complete list). My first reaction on seeing it was — great, I’m not having anything to do with anyone who’s given money to this thing (although one of Bush’s money men points out in the story that in the case of the companies, they apparently set aside cash for the event no matter who wins because they want to be good and sure they make friends with the government people who might oversee their business). But then, looking down the complete list, you see that ceasing business with all the donors is not a casual decision. No Microsoft, Oracle, or Dell. No cars from Ford, GM, or Toyota. No Pepsi, no Coke. No Bud, either, but that’s OK. No fine distilled petroleum products from ChevronTexaco, Exxon. or Marathon. No phone calls on MCI or SBC. No checking accounts at Bank of America. No packages from UPS or FedEx.

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What Are We Fighting For?

From an Army journalist/blogger who is returning from 11 months in Iraq:

“This war started out as a means to find weapons of mass destruction. Then, it was let’s give the Iraqi people freedom. Now, politicians say let’s fight the terrorists there and not on American soil. To be honest, soldiers don’t care about the cause. We’re not fighting for any of the above; we are fighting for the guy on our left and right. You form a bond so tight with fellow soldiers that you never want to let them down. I’ve seen it displayed every day for a year.”

Later in the same post, the blogger (whose observations are certainly worth reading, whether you agree or not) talks of his resentment that wire services and newspapers have seldom picked up on the personal stories of American troops killed in Iraq:

“We learned our lesson of spamming a memorial story to the larger outlets like AP. The editors deleted the story and used the photo of a crying soldier hugging the memorial display of an M-16 bayoneted into a box with the soldier’s helmet on the buttstock and dog tags on the hand grip. The photo cutline read: A soldier mourns the loss of a fellow comrade. Elsewhere in Iraq, 14 killed in a large explosion outside… you get the point. Just a single sentence. No name. No family. Just a sentence and then elsewhere in Iraq. That’s hardly justice for a soldier who gave that reporter the freedom of press.”

It’s the last sentence of that paragraph — especially in combination with the sentiment expressed in the first quote — that really gets to me. “We’re only fighting for our buddies and their survival … but we’re giving all you media ingrates (and those who express questions, doubts, criticism or outright rejection of the war) the freedoms you enjoy.” It’s as if, yes, the corruptness of the reasons given for going to war in Iraq — and for putting all the troops at risk there — is recognized. But at the same time, there’s a belief that the fight is preserving our rights.

I don’t get it. “Soldiers don’t care about the cause” (can’t help but think of the Country Joe lyric here: “One two three, What are we fighting for? Don’t tell me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam. …”) Yet, as one person lectured me a couple months ago, they’re keeping me safe to sit here and blog my brains out.

You know, I don’t believe any of this is keeping us safe. And as for rights, I think the people who launched this war with their campaign of untruths are a bigger menace to our future as a democracy than Saddam ever was.

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Tale of a Remade City

Yes, a vote will happen in Iraq later this month, and it will be a remarkable feat. Whether it amounts to an election and how many people will die in the course of trying to stop it and trying to make it succeed remains to be seen. But here’s a story you need to keep in mind when you listen to the comfortable people, safe in Washington or, if they’re quite daring, in Baghdad’s Green Zone, talk about the march of liberty they’re leading.

It’s a dark fairy tale, really, and it has taken place in Fallujah, a city that’s not a fantasy. Just two months ago, our president and his commanders launched wave after wave of young men into the city, a stronghold for the anti-American insurgency. Scores of those young men died and hundreds were wounded. On the other side, facing the best-trained and best-armed military in the world, hundreds of other young men died, too. In the aftermath, the city looked much like any other battlefield: a ruined place, a place where sanctioned murder had taken place on a large scale.

Despite the grim scene — after two weeks of battle, many of the blown-apart enemy fighters were still lying in the streets — U.S. commanders and civilian officials said they were ready to put Fallujah back together again. The hundreds of thousands of residents who had fled the violent prelude to the battle would be welcomed back. Millions and millions and millions of dollars would be spent to make the city a peaceful and prosperous place. And it would all happen quickly. Grateful Fallujans would get to vote in the elections at the end of January. Like everything else Iraq is to become with our help, it sounded great and not all that hard to figure out or get done.

But first, the Americans had to find and eliminate the last enemy fighters. They had to pump sewage out of the streets and truck in drinking water and get the electrical system working again. And, finally, before the people of Fallujah could come back, the U.S. military needed to devise a way to make sure enemy fighters didn’t come back among the future peaceful and prosperous citizens. A strict identification system was suggested, including retina scans, a DNA database, and badges that would be displayed at all times. Security comes at a price.

But something’s not working. U.S. troops control the city, but they can’t seem to weed out all the guerrillas. Putting the city back together has proved much harder than the optimistic Americans guessed. Foul water still stands in the streets. There’s still little power, and that situation is unlikely to improve for months. The districts where the fighting was fiercest are still wrecked.

And the Fallujans?

Despite all that’s been done for them and all that’s promised, they appear reluctant to come back to their renewed city. In the last several weeks, about 85,000 of them, less than a third of the city’s pre-battle population, have lined up for the hours-long wait at the American checkpoints outside town. After they’re cleared to enter, they go to see what’s left of their homes. They seem angry with the destruction they find. Some talk of exacting revenge on those they believe responsible. Fewer than 10,000 have decided to stay in the city; the rest prefer refugee camps or whatever makeshift arrangements they’ve made to survive until the trouble passes.

So, where’s the new Fallujah our military and officials promised? A guess: The same place as Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The same place as Saddam’s cooperation with al Qaida. The same place as our easy victory in a nation that would greet us as liberators. All just stories, it turns out, but with real enough consequences for all the people who have died to find that out and for the rest of us, too.

Now the same people who spun these tales have crafted the inspiring story of Iraqi democracy. Let’s hope we’ll be able to find some trace of it before we go on to our next adventure.

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Fallujah After the Battle

A quick roundup on how U.S. military and media sources have described the reconstruction and resettlement of Fallujah since the battle in November.

Fallujah Reconstruction Effort to Begin Soon

American Forces Press Service

November 19, 2004

Fallujah reconstruction to begin

Army News Service

December 6, 2004

Returning Fallujans will face clampdown

Boston Globe

December 5, 2004

Pockets of Resistence Remain in Fallujah, Myers Says

DefenseLINK News

December 14, 2004

Fallujah Residents Return to Ruins

The News and Observer (on Military.com)

December 24, 2004

In Fallujah, Marines Try a New Tactic

Los Angeles Times (on Boston.com)

January 9, 2005

Fallujah Residents Angry over Destruction

The Associated Press (in the MInneapolis Star-Tribune)

January 11, 2005

As Residents Return to Fallujah, Marines Help Them Rebuild

DefenseLINK News

January 12, 2005

Fallujah voters still scattered by war trauma

The Washington Times

January 13, 2005

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’24’: The Final Verdict

We finished watching the second two hours of the new “24” (“the most critically acclaimed show on television”) last night. In my expert opinion, the show as written is simply too ludicrous to be saved. The appearance of one after another (after another after another) dumb soap-opera subplots simply overwhelms the alleged main story line and the action attendant thereto.

However, I have to admit some of the plot twists are so mind-bendingly idiotic that they’re entertaining in themselves, and they make you wonder whether the show’s creative geniuses have given up on action and suspense in favor of remaking “Dallas,” only with automatic weapons and mass casualties and bad guys with foreign accents. My favorite subplot so far involves the tight-assed Counterterrorism Unit boss, Erin Driscoll, who gets a call in the midst of a national emergency from her schizophrenic daughter Maya, who is wigging out and refusing to take her meds. She wants Erin to say she loves her, which Erin does with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner facing a firing squad. Minutes later, a neighbor calls to report that Maya has been terrorizing the neighborhood. Erin’s response is to bully a subordinate into waving off the Los Angeles police officers responding to the incident and sending a CTU medical team to deal with Maya instead. As bad as that sounds, it’s actually worse when you factor in the comic-book dialogue and very limited acting skills of all involved.

The question now is whether I’m really done with “24” for the season or whether I’ll respond the way my friend Endo did: “I’m burned out on ’24’ — UNTIL NEXT WEEK!!!”

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The Mini Is Not ‘Miniscule’

Apple just announced the Mac mini (which, thinking about it for a minute is bound to draw cracks about Mini-Me). Although I’m not given to copious salivation over tech devices, this machine seems very cool: It’s only 6.5 by 6.5 by 2 inches, it’s a fully loaded computer (basic model comes with a 1.25-gigahertz G4 processor, 40-gigabyte hard drive, Ethernet connectivity, and USB and Firewire ports) and is going for $499. Monitor, keyboard, mouse, and wireless capability extra. Even with all that, I’m sure you can get away with a full system for less than $1,000.

But the real reason I’m writing about this has nothing to do the interesting little Mac box. It has to do with this sentence from the Mac mini page: “And it boasts a miniscule price to match: Mac mini starts at $499.”

No: That’s m-i-n-u-s-c-u-l-e. With a “u.” (Pre-emptively, I reject the suggestion that it’s OK to misspell the word to stay consistent with or highlight the product name.)

Thank you.

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Fighting Evolutionary Terrorism

Link: Salon.com News | The new Monkey Trial.

Salon (subscription, unfortunately, required) has a superb long review on the political advances that anti-evolution forces have made in public schools across the country. The piece focuses on the struggle in a Pennsylvania school district over the school board’s decision last year to order the teaching of “intelligent design” in high school biology classes. ID, as proponents call it, is calculated to undermine the teaching of evolutionary biology by pointing to cases that evolution (or physics) has a tough time explaining, thus suggesting that a higher creative intelligence was involved (guess whose?). ID is largely designed to get the Bible’s take on creation into science classes without overstepping the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

The Salon story contains one breathtaking quote from a state legislator in Missouri that says volumes about how extreme and cockeyed anti-evolutionary thinking can become:

“Speaking to the [New York] Times, state Rep. Cynthia Davis seemed to compare opponents of intelligent design to al-Qaida. ‘It’s like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn’t want to go,’ she said. ‘I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don’t want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we’re going to take it back.’ ”

Oh, yeah — it’s just like that.

The reason orthodoxy of any stripe — religious, political, scientific — is not a good thing is that by definition it promotes rigid thinking and suppresses inquiry. The brand of Christian fundamentalism active in U.S. politics today is a menace because it insists on imposing the beliefs of many on all. But it doesn’t do for those whose world view is based on the fruits of the scientific method to laugh off the beliefs of others, either.

This is more a question of attitude than knowledge. I’m not suggesting that Judeo-Christian creationism be put on the same footing as science (if that kind of thing’s going to get into the classroom, I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on equal science-class time for the Norse creation story, the Navajo story, and the Celtic explanations for the world). But I do think those teaching science would be well-served by a sense of humility in approaching their task. Scientific knowledge is evolving. What comes to be regarded as established truth in one era — for instance, the origins and form of the universe, the nature and structure of matter, or our understanding of the processes that cause earthquakes (and trigger tsunamis) — can and often is unraveled by further inquiry.

The story should always carry a tagline: “To be continued.”

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’24’

Now back to really important stuff: The season premiere of “24,” Fox’s suspense/thriller/action”extravaganza, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Jack “Just Do It! Do It Now!” Bauer. (In case you didn’t know, it’s “the most critically acclaimed show on television.” Fox’s announcers kept saying that during the Green Bay-Minnesota playoff game, so it must be true.)

I admit ’24’ used to be a sort of guilty pleasure. The series’ central conceit, that you’re watching the story unfold over the course of a day, and that each episode represents real time, was an attraction at first. Yeah, it was kind of trashy in some ways. The characters’ personal side- and subplots were kind of dumb and not all the acting was great, but hey, it’s network TV and the original story line was engaging enough: a group of mysterious and really nasty people are trying to assassinate a leading presidential candidate on the day of the California primary.

We watched that season. And the second, when the presidential candidate Bauer saved has become president and is confronted by terrorists who try to detonate a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. And the third, when the same president — by now notorious to regular viewers for letting his loose-cannon wife and other relatives wreak all sorts of outlandish havoc on the Constitution and other innocent bystanders — is confronted by terrorists who threaten to wipe out Los Angeles and probably most of the country by releasing a super-bad germ that makes Ebola look like the sniffles.

Now, you’d never mistake “24” for “Smiley’s People” or “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” Then again, it’s not aspiring to be complex and challenging. It’s a romp. But even on that level, it’s had its problems. The terrorist plots are never intelligible. Bad people are doing bad things, but their motives, aside from wanting to settle scores with Bauer and his pal, the president, are never explored. Meantime, the scriptwriters spend most of their time concocting more and more elaborate woman trouble and political backstabbing for both Jack and the president.

This formula — just enough exotic terrorists vs. good guys action to make you sit still for the parallel soap opera — has been in place since season one. But last season, it went too far. Whenever any of the so-called good guys had a straightforward choice between a sane, common sense action that might keep them out of trouble and one that would bring them one more step toward utter destruction, they always — not sometimes or most of the time, but always — chose the latter. It got to be too much, so manipulative and dumb that we gave up on the show halfway through the season (though we did pick up again in the final couple of episodes just to see how it all came out).

So, where were we tonight when “24,” the most critically acclaimed show on television, began its new season? Not in front of the TV, at first. We got a TiVo digital video recorder, and we started watching about 40 minutes into the two-hour broadcast so we could just jump through the commercials. And what did we see?

It’s disheartening to report that the show didn’t even make it to the first commercial break without introducing its first sappy, predictable romantic subplot or disclosing that CTU, the counterterrorism unit where Jack does his stuff, is supervised by jealous, politically-driven moron who cares more about marking her territory than, gee, stopping a terrorist strike. Another predictable character was present, too: The field agent brought in to replace Jack had “dispensable” written all over him, and sure enough, he was dead by the time the show was off the air.

After saying all that, yeah, I’ll give it another couple hours tomorrow to see how bad it gets.