Field Notes from a random walk through life

I have moved to a new blog address.

My wonderful wife has created a custom blog for me at srstern.com.

Change your bookmarks if you have them and check it out.

 

The arrogance of control

Yesterday, Richard Taylor commented on the Japanese disaster, saying I am in shock and denial at the human toll, in awe of nature's power and protecting myself in a cloak of indignation at our arrogance in thinking that we can control and plan our way around forces so much bigger than we are. Amen to that, Richard.

I don't think I know anybody who is arrogant enough to think they can control their own cat and yet - collectively - we arrogantly think that we can control nature. And we consider it a virtue. Why don't we learn? Or - more accurately - why do we consider it a virtue not to learn? Why do we consider it a virtue to rebuild New Orleans in situ? It is a game we can not win.

If somebody says Let's build in harmony with nature, let's not build on the flood plain. they are looked upon as anti-progress.  In his New Yorker article The Control of Nature, talking about the Army Corps of Engineers' fight to stop the natural flow of the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya River, John McPhee quotes Norris Rabalais: This nation has a large and powerful adversary. Our opponent could cause the the United States to lose nearly all her seaborne commerce, to lose her standing as first among trading nations . . . . We are fighting Mother Nature . . . . It's a battle we have to fight day by day, year by year, the health of our economy depends on the victory.

In my humble opinion, that is complete bullshit; the health of our economy would be better off if we built in harmony with the Earth. Rabalais job might depend on our fighting Mother Nature, but that is a different question. 

Japan would be better off if the nuclear power plant had been built above the Tsunami high water line. If it had not been built in the flood plain behind walls built to hold out the sea. And, as Richard points out, now Japan is two feet lower making the control of the sea all that much harder.

 

 

What has happened in Japan is incomprehensible

 

The Sendai quake and tsunami and now the nuclear incident - as Prime Minister Naoto Kan so delicately put it - are overwhelming. Some of the aftershocks have been bigger than Loma Prieta. What can be done with the remains of a wall of water that washed inland as far as six miles and was over 30 feet high. I can understand why people just stand around, doing nothing, or are reduced to measuring a damaged road.

The pictures are heartbreaking and very scary. More so - for me atleast - because the scenes are so first world; because Japan - more than any other country, including the United States - expected an earthquake and tried to be ready; because, while we all expect that there will be an earthquake sometime, nobody can really be ready.

 

Libya and Iraq and Democracy

As quoted from Al Jazeera:

Democracy does not land from Mars. Without exception, democracy is constructed locally. Recent and past lessons from the wider Middle East affirm that democracy does not easily travel from the West to the rest.

It seems to me that our democracy from Mars is not working in Iraq. I read where the government has closed down the opposition headquarters, this is not a government that tolerates dissent and free speech. I am dubious about democracy flourishing in Egypt - there really doesn't seem to be anything in the wings now that Mubarak is gone. I hope it works: it would be thrilling. But Libya; ah! Libya.

If the revolutionaries in Libya win - and they might not - and especially, if they win after a rough fight; I think that they have a shot at really getting democracy.

Democracy is constructed locally, but so is revolution. Of the two, democracy - real democracy, with a free press and freedom of dissent is harder. I am not saying it is easy to have a revolution , it seems almost impossibly hard and dangerous;

but democracy is almost impossible. Among other things, democracy requires leadership. Imagine South Africa without Mandela.

As the civil war in Libya goes on, leadership will have to emerge for the revolutionaries to win. After they win - and they might not, although the chances are better now that France has recognized the new government as legitimate - they will have home grown leaders. If those leaders are more like George Washington than Nouri al-Maliki, there is a chance there will be democracy in the Arab world. 

 

 

The San Francisco Orchid Show

Last Saturday, Michele and I volunteered a couple of hours at the San Francisco Orchid Show. Or, more accurately, I volunteered us both to help man -person? people? - the Succulent and Cactus Society booth at the 59th Annual Pacific Orchid Exposition - Show and Sale at the Fort Mason Center in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is a federally run urban park made out of an old Army base. This is not the sort of thing that a private party would ever do. In a gross over generalization, I would say that the private sector is great at innovation, at solving problems, at seeing opportunities, but the private sector really sucks at providing for the public good. If this land had been sold to the highest bidder, it would not be a green area at the edge of San Francisco, but the rows of houses would just continue to the water. 

So, because of the Federal Government turned the land into an urban National Park, I am able to go to a plant show in a huge building that was originally built to load Soldiers and Marines onto ships to be sent to war against the Japanese. There are three buildings and each is a huge open space with giant garage doors lining each side wall and, now, they are a public resource. It makes me proud to be an American and very happy that I live near by. As an aside, what an unhappy and scary experience that must have been: taking a train from a training facility to a giant warehouse; waiting and waiting until it is time to get on a ship - say the West Point AP23 with 7,978 other "passengers" - expecting that, when you get off the ship, it would be to land on some previously unknown Pacific island killing ground. End aside.

Now the open space is filled with orchids and people admiring the orchids, and music and enjoyment. In a slightly ironic twist - a large portion of the admirers are Asian, or gay, or Asian and gay. Maybe that is why the Republicans are so anti-government; Orchid People just aren't their demographic.

All pictures taken by Michele with her iPhone (after I forgot my camera.)

Egypt and Afghanistan

It seems to me that what we are trying to do for the Afghans - free them from a repressive and backward regime - the Egyptians did for themselves. Or, at least, are trying to do for themselves. And because they fought for freedom themselves with some of them dying and a lot of them making sacrifices, they have a much better chance of getting it. Because Americans are the ones dying for freedom in Afghanistan, the Afghans have almost no investment. Why should they.

If, in 1776,  an 100,000 man French army had come to the Colonies and got rid of the English for us, I think our commitment to democracy would be different. If all we did was wait for the French to win and then they said Here is your country, I doubt we could have made democracy stick.

In Egypt, I read, people are cleaning the streets, Tahrir Square is clean. The Egyptians are taking pride in their country.  We had to take control of our country and, I am afraid, the Afghans will have to do the same.  We can't do it for them.

A couple of days ago, Michele and I watched the HBO movie, The Battle for Marjeh. We were both taken by the fact that the Americans were doing most of the heavy lifting, the Afghan Army seemed expert at always being where the action wasn't.

People say that Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires. I don't think that is true. To quote somebody -Tom Ricks, I think - We'll eventually leave Afghanistan to its fate, but it will be because we've finally figured out that the stakes there aren't worth the effort, especially given the low odds of meaningful success.  It's just taking us longer to figure that out than it should.

I think the real question is If everything were the same in Afghanistan except we weren't there, would Obama commit 100,000 troops? I doubt it. 

Aaarrrggg! Lancia is now a rebadged Chrysler

  Lancia was once one of the world's great auto makers.  It seemed genetically incapable of producing an uninteresting car.Its early 50's bread and butter sedan, for example, was the Aurelia - all Lancias were named after Roman roads - it had a front engine V-6 engine, a rear mounted 4 speed trans-axle with inboard brakes, all independent suspension. It was an aluminium and steel bodied wonder. The 2 seater convertable was even better. It could run all day long at 100 mph when most cars couldn't get to a hundred.

 

 I have owned several Lancias and each one was an idiosyncratic charmer. Like the Fulvia with a 1600 cc V-4, front wheel drive, and an aluminum body by Zagato.

 

Now Lancia is just a rebadged Chrysler. It may be a good car, even a great car, but it is not a Lancia.

The Joy of Informal Language

I started out titling this post "The Joy of Simple Language" but, in taking about it with Michele, she pointed out that I was really talking about Informal Language and, infact, what I was looking at as simple is actually complicated. I had it backwards.

I used to be in an men's group. We met every other week for years and we had all sorts of rules on how to be in our group. Among the rules was Anything the we say in the group stays in the group.  When one guy told us he and his wife were expecting a baby, none of us told our significant other. Rules were rules. Eventually, we dropped all the rules except To be in relationship to what we do in the group and to each other. With no rules to slavishly follow, being in the group became much more complicated.

Language is that way.

Intuitively, we all - I - think that the language of primitive people is simple. We all know that cave men said things like Uga or Ugh and not I want to tease out the real meaning in the cave being empty.  And that may be true, but earlier languages are simpler because they are more formal than our language. They have more and harder rules. Latin is almost impossibly complex but it is easy once you memorize the rules.

English - American English - is losing rules every day and it had a lot less to start with.  I think that is so thrilling.

It is easy to follow a rule like Never end a sentence with a preposition, but it results in a sentence like About what are you thinking? rather than What are you thinking about?  As English losses its rules, it becomes more complex as well as less formal. There is more room to play. To understand tease  above, we have to see it in context. We have to be in relationship and that is the Joy. 

 

 

An old Chinese curse: "May you live in Interesting Times". these are very interesting times.

These are interesting and exciting times. Watching - from a very safe distance - people take to the streets to fight for their freedom is both exciting and scary. The air is thick with possibility and - for me, at least - real democracy in the middle east seems possible. So does a crushing by an entrenched establishment.

In Bahrain, the Formula One race has been cancelled by the government. "Government" mean the "crown prince"  in Bahrain. But he did the right thing and the opportunity for real reform seems possible. Not so much so in Libya and - even - Egypt. One of the things dictators usually do so well is stopping any alternative governmental organisations from forming.

So, in Egypt and Tunisia, people will have to dig their way out of the rubble and form a government out of nothing. Hoping the army doesn't step into the void, hoping the cronies don't keep control and out last the people, hoping the Islamists don't take over. Right now, it all seems so possible, but as Donald Rumsfeld said, "Stuff happens." 

 

Congratulations! Egypt

I really don't know what else to say. It is truly impossible for me to imagine what it must of been like to live under the thumb of a brutal dictatorship protected by a vast system of oppression. The terror of living in that world.

These people who risked everything, including their lives, to change their world, and our world, are heroes. They were ordinary people doing extraordinary things and becoming transformed.

I am not sure that I would have had their nerve. I try to imagine getting up in the morning and going to a rally, not sure I would live to come home again - and I can't. Imagine, then, getting to the rally and seeing main battle tanks - as big as small houses - and knowing that they might turn on you. And staying and then doing it the next day and the next.

Martin Luther King was right The arc of history bends towards justice.