The 2020 Election Cycle

The cap to an insane year was a truly insane national election. While I know that this is a public platform, I feel the need to express, in a little way, how in my opinion, recent events have played out. For the sake of future generations, even if they don't read our own words, these sentiments need to be expressed.

First off, while there is still the slim, off chance that events may still swing Trump's way, it is a very tenuous chance at best. The powers that be, the real powers that be, have managed to sidestep our institutions and traditions in ways that have rightly been referred to as a silent coup, or a hostile takeover. Furthermore, they have done so largely through the cooperation of those very institutions of elected legislature, judiciary and executive authority. 

One day perhaps, those individuals involved, from robes to suits, will see clearly how they, in fact, surrendered their authority and sundered their responsibilities. For now, these same non-entities celebrate how 'their' power and privilege defeated a populist President. So be it, these founts of wisdom have made their decision and have sealed their future regard, or lack of it.

What is left to the rest of us are the consequences of this event, this great disruption in what has been up until now, the longest-running, most stable example of representative government in the history of mankind. From January 20, 2021 on, the world for America and Americans will be a very different place. In the first place, who are our new masters, the engineers of this current imbroglio?

First, let us put aside such traditional trappings as ideology, such swings of definition as left or right. What is taking over is a far-reaching global agenda that respects neither ideas, nor culture, nor traditions that disagree with its pre-formed view of how society should be organized and conducted. For it, human society is a global phenomenon that must conform to a model that respects neither traditional nation state boundaries, nor differences in cultures, ethnicities, belief systems, even gender identities.

In short, what we are facing is less control by a political system or ideology, as a trans-humanist movement that sees mankind less as a creative and developmental force, as a biological system badly in need of reform according to their vision. Such elites, wherever and whatever they are, look down from their gilded and insulated perches upon populations supposedly restrained by regressive traditional societies. Such is their faith in their viewpoint, their methodologies, above all in the correctness of their own belief in these, that even electoral and representative systems are to be disregarded if the results contradict their own driving principles.

Such a system will seek to breakdown whatever traditional cultures it takes over. We can see much this process now acting out in Europe and Latin America. Up until recently, we Americans, as always, thought we were above the fray. No longer, the long sought ambition of all systems of global organization, the subjugation of the linchpin of the world's economy and politics, the mighty United States of America, appears at least superficially to have been achieved.

What this means will be a visible loss of individual and community autonomy in this country. Decisions will be made and policies carried out that are in clear defiance of the general will. When it is expressed through the traditional means, the ballot box, the results will be oddly skewed towards whatever the establishment viewpoint, expressed through the mass media and other organs of the ever oppressive opinion industry, will want it to be.

Eventually, Americans will realize that they are under the control of an elite that cares little for their everyday concerns. Not while they can manufacture consent through votes imported or manufactured. How long the USA will maintain itself as solvent entity, as a great power, as a unified nation, as even identifiable regions of the country, will have to remain to be seen.

No situation plays itself out entirely and frankly, achieving all of the above in four years is a tall order, even with all the 'progress' that has been made in the last sixty years or so. Still, with no one to teach it or instill it, the old idea of a nation founded on individual rights and responsibilities, on liberty, will be a distant concept in the era of the 'Grand Reset.' One would hope for their own sakes, that our future masters' cleverness and capabilities match their astonishing arrogance.

 The Heavens Say Farewell to 2020

This year's winter solstice will be marked by an astronomical alignment that occurs only every 4 centuries or so, the Grand Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. For a cosmic moment the night of the 21st of December, the two great gas giants will appear to join as one in the night sky. For those fortunate enough to see their union by advanced optics, the rings of Saturn will appear as horns upon the celestial bull of Jupiter. 

One wonders how seeing this rare sight was greeted in the ancient world, a world much more conscious of astronomical phenomena than we sometimes give them credit for. After all, this might actually have been the 'Christmas Star' that guided the Chaldean Magi to the house of the Infant Jesus. This might also have been the source of the 'Ma' character used in ancient Prakrit and Sanskrit.

The astrological significance of this sign, especially in light of Mars' near approach in early October, could probably be debated. One hopes that 2021 will be a more sanguine year, but perhaps this year was only the foreshadowing of a cruel and chaotic decade. Oh well, whatever the case, may you be fortunate on this chilly year's end, to take full advantage of the wonder of this spectacle.

 No Such Thing as Capitalism

Sam: So you say there is no such thing as Capitalism?

Me: To which I ask you, what is the ideology of capital, the social planning program, the core doctrine or the particular strategies espoused by its adherents? You, as well-read and informed as you are, have no answer to my query? I can tell you right now why that is, there is no ideology, no program, no doctrine of any sort, not even really any plan of action by its adherents, unless you count the age-old one of getting rich. 

You see, (taking up his wallet and proffering a Jackson) this is capital. A piece of paper, representing an assigned value, that has neither sentience, nor emotion, nor investment in any particular state of being. An inanimate object, that exchanged for some item, set on fire, tossed on the waters, all of these states are equal to it, it has no more need to alter the current state of its environment anymore than does the air that circulates around us, or the chairs we sit upon.

And yet this thing, this matter is supposed to impose some sort of political structure, some type of order on society just by being present? I really doubt it.

Sam: So let me ask a fairly obvious question, beyond stoking greed and misanthropy, what does an imposing capital structure do? Come to think of it, what is capital's function, anyway?

Me: Brave questions! First off, yes, capital can be an acquisitive end, even obsession all its own. The same however, can be said of just about anything. Most certainly, those who rail against 'capitalism' tend to exhibit a compulsive desire of their own, that of greed for power. Their external need to impose their will upon their surroundings and all who live within their watch certainly meets or exceeds the internal need of 'big capital' for sucking in and concentrating the wealth contained within.

As for the second, I think more profound question, what does capital do exactly? All capital is is a form of incentive. Incentives motivate actions and a combined set of actions and actors make up a society. 

We all have incentives to motivate us. When we are hungry, we prepare a meal. When we want to fill our time, we read a book or watch TV or surf the net. 

Capital is the successful way we have to make abstract labor and resources. This is of course, in order to exchange them, in what is ideally a mutually beneficial way. You mow my lawn, I give you a fiver. 

Again, even though the concept of capital is the closest thing many will come to a metaphysical form, there really is no mystery to it. There is certainly no set form for how capital can and should be exchanged, after all capital is exchanged even in a society such as North Korea, that officially frowns upon it. I'm afraid the altruistic motives that most theorists and ideologues seek as the foundation for utopias without money, tend to be more personal and point phenomenal than these great minds wish, certainly nothing to base an entire society upon.

Yet we have this concept of a 'capitalist' society. Usually, the image that seems to self-generate in our minds, certainly in those of academics, tends to be an image of a banana republic. Dirty, poverty-stricken streets, plentiful armed soldiers whose tanks and guns tend to be American in origin, lounging and lurching towards a workers' holocaust under tropic skies. 

Which is, of course, what the idea is meant to convey. The idea of 'capitalism', or capital as its own ideology, is a formulation by socialists merely to represent what they supposedly are not. Every new and potentially competing idea, after all, needs to have an opposition to define itself. Capitalism is merely socialism's intended bogeyman, the values and beliefs of the 'bourgeoisie' and big finance, as opposed to a socialist's own ostensibly altruistic and humanistic value system and measures of success. 

Thus by espousing capitalism as a doctrine, automatically places so-called capitalists at a disadvantage. They are, by definition and by deliberate intent of the original definers, defending something which is meant to be a straw man to begin with. Automatically, they are fighting their mental way out of a corner into which they are painted into, which is of course, the result of using a simple material argument (ie, money is good, a lot of money is BETTER!) as opposed to a doctrinal or ideological argument supposedly based on reason, such as their opponents will deploy.

In truth, capital, like just about anything else, does the maximum good for the maximum number under a system that fosters that kind of reciprocity. This would be a representative system that ensures rule of law, including property rights that ensure protection of material assets, wealth and the results of industry and enterprise. That as much as possible at every stage of development, does not monopolize incentivization by either large capital, nor undue political or institutional influence, but allows for sufficient competition and innovation for society to progress and adapt technologically, institutionally and in the body politic.

A society ruled by law, based on a constitution, which in turn is based on individual rights and responsibilities: in short, based on liberty. In short, a constitutional republic, or as close to one as any given political system can be. When its proponents espouse the 'magic of the free market' or other such thing meant to convey what capital CAN do and can bring under the proper conditions, that should be what they mean. 

In short, when you are for capitalism and use the market argument, what you are saying is that you are on the libertarian side of the argument, be you a classical liberal, libertarian or a republican of some sort. You are definitely not a socialist, communist, or fascist (such as types like yourself are often painted as). In fact, from a well-formed argumentative structure not tied to your opponents' rhetoric, you can freely take them on on the basis of YOUR core beliefs and ideas.

After all, compare the success of 'capitalist' societies as opposed to left-leaning, ideological ones. Ask your potential debaters, what is THEIR record of success?!

 Venice and Alviso

Take Alviso, a not very impressive stretch of marsh and small, sandy islands. At the turn of the last century, just before ill-fated attempts to turn it into 'New Chicago March,' the supposedly promising site of future manufacturing and commerce, it was even less impressive than it is now. Today, most of the geography has been dredged to form salt ponds for the Morton company.

Yet imagine how it might have been under different circumstances. In truth, this sheltered cove connected to the ocean by its location in San Francisco Bay and the winding Alviso Slough, might have supported a different legacy, as would its location past the East Hills. Imagine a 'simpler,' more primitive time of wandering barbarian tribes and Mediterranean agrarian societies on the brink.

A re-telling of the storied legacy of La Serennissima might come to mind in re-imagining the rather mundane story of Alviso. Can't quite see the comparison, ready to laugh at me for even making it? Well let me relate it and tell me what you think.

Ah Venice, the glory of the Adriatic, defender of Christendom from the sway of the Turk, trader to all and sundry, bold and beautiful, ruthless and cunning, a match for great Byzantium itself. In its time, from about the start of the second Christian millennium to its downfall at the feet of Napoleon himself, its power and wealth, its place in European affairs, was such that it was claimed to be at the height of its power from roughly the 14th to the 16th century, to be the uncrowned capitol of Europe.

Yet it wasn't always the Jewel positioned before the fertile plains of the Veneto. During the whole of the first millennium, while the power and glory of Roma rose and fell for the final time, one could have come to the current location and found it not unlike Alviso was when it was discovered and named for Ignacio Alviso, an 18th century explorer of California whose descendants were deeded land around the area.  An area of tan marshes and mud and sand islets encrusted with salt and the guano of cackling sea birds feeding and breeding in the marshes and swooping and gliding overhead.

Then came the barbarians to the peninsula and the gates of its many cities. No one knows exactly when or for what circumstance the first inhabitants came to this place. Some say it was in the wake of Attila's ravages in the 5th century. Others, the incursions of the Lombards in the 8th and 9th. Elements of both stories are probably true and what is certain is that the little settlements that sprang up in the sheltered lagoon, previously inhabited only by itinerant fishermen, were the product of conflict.

While the hills beyond constituted a fine defensive barrier, still much more was needed if a proper community would arise. So it was that the various refugee communities settled on the 118 islets, found strength and peace in unity. The islets were linked by bridges of various kinds. 

In wartime, these could be destroyed and the communities linked by them were thus protected from direct land attack. The fishermen turned boatswains were in turn transformed into defenders, whose fast boats and picks ruthlessly dispatched all who attempted menace on the waters. In time, these fine foes became the famed gondoliers whose storied passages are still a unique part of the visual landscape on the sun-kissed waters.

One can see with the mind's eye what Alviso might look like under conditions like those that graced Venice. Far out, where the train tracks go past the slumbering ruins of the ghost town of Drawbridge, would be the start of the great Lido. Once past, near where the ponds bloom salmon and tan, where the water is death to swarming little fish and where the Great Flyway brings bird life of all sorts to rest, sea gulls, ducks and geese, the sight that inspired the view from London's Thames would present itself. The great basilica of St Giorgio Maggiore, the Hall of the Senate and the Ducal Palace and where the birds strolled and the lions had wings, San Marco square. 

Perhaps upon the islets that still litter the lagoon of Alviso, one can spot a place for the famed glassworks of Murano, the constant activity of the grand brick edifices of the Arsenal, the waters filled with grand galleons and galleasses, bringing the wealth to Venice and striking its might from the Adriatic, to the Aegean to the Levant, even up to the realm of the Ottomans and the legendary Golden Gate of the Dardanelles itself.

Alas, Alviso's life began in more humdrum, utilitarian circumstances. The outlet for the fruits and early on, the pelts of Santa Clara Valley to the markets of San Francisco wasn't really as congenial for its early formation as Venice's more dramatic story. Still, one can see how the mechanics of history can work in similar circumstances and one can dream of the beauty and history that boasts such as the music of Vivaldi, the painting of Giorgione and Titian and the majesty of the legendary Carnival.

 The Great Conjunction

One last thing to look forward to in 2020, besides this whole Annus Horribilis ending, is the conjunction of the two great planets, Jupiter and Saturn, on the winder solstice on December 21. The near approach of Jupiter to Saturn will be in the southeastern night sky and be visible by binoculars. The appearance under magnification might resemble Saturn appearing like a set of great horns upon the Great Lord of the Solar System.

I have not found an astrological significance to what such a great pairing can produce, although such an event must have produced a state of at least profound dread to ancient skywatchers. I have found a more prosaic, though no less ominous significance, in that a similar formation four centuries ago preceded the Maunder Minimum. This was the solar minimum that initiated a period of climate fluctuation, that probably devastated agriculture throughout the planet.

The fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China, the devastation and misery in Central Europe during the Thirty Years War, the collapse of Irish agriculture that drove that unfortunate island's first immigration wave, all of these were probably attributable to this climate change. It really can't be hoped in this era that we won't avoid the same fate, as Solar Cycle 25 reportedly began about now, at the start of winter. Already, grain crops and soybeans in China, the Midwest, the Pampas and elsewhere, have been gravely impacted. 

One can only hope we react to this current crisis and act according to real world information and observation, not doctrine and supposition.

 Republican and Democratic

After both of us endured talk from well-meaning and well-informed people about how our nation was a 'democracy,' Some people use the terms interchangeably, which is somewhat understandable. After all, they are both representative forms of government. 

These days, it is impossible for the majority not to answer, if asked the question, what sort of governmental system is the United States of America under. Indoctrinated by their schooling, the media and eventually casual conversation, the answer comes back, 'We are a democracy.' Actually, we are a federal republic.

So what are the differences between the two systems? Such a question can fill volumes. For the sake of expediency,  I came up with a little empirical lesson to tell the two systems apart.

Question: As this is a constitutional republic, how do you vote?

Answer: Well, I make sure to register to vote, research the issues, consider the candidates and issues presented, do they represent my views, my interests, my particular take on public life, etc., etc.. Thus, when I go to the polls, I am informed and convinced as much as possible of how I am going to vote.

Good, now how do you vote in a democracy.

Answer: Why, the same way of course, they're the same system.

Me, speaking in a shocked voice: Well that's selfish of you! Haven't you considered the views of your family, your area, your fellow members of such and such union? Didn't you take into account the history of your ethnic identity, how your ancestors would want you to vote, how your faith calls you to vote, how truly small-minded it is to think only of your position, your interests, your self!

The conversation I just laid out is reminiscent of friends and acquaintances of mine who have returned to their native societies, democracies decades old or years old. While they long ago gave up the right to vote there, wherever there is, nonetheless the straitjacket of tradition that once confined them to one particular segment of society, one particular world view, is there to give them its cloying embrace, even as they exit the plane.

The unique sense of autonomy and opportunity, the self-reliance and yes, necessary uncertainty that is truly unique here in America, is largely the product of a system of rule of law. That law in turn, is enunciated by a constitutional framework based on individual rights that are considered both inalienable and intrinsic to the human condition. When one votes in this country, in theory at least, one votes as a constituency of one.

Things are different in a democracy. The Greek word 'demos' is usually translated as people, but a more direct translation is group. In fact, ancient Athens was divided into 'demos' of Piraeus, or those of such and such district, much like old-style wards of American cities. 

Such a system counts 'individuals' not as themselves, but as members of particular identities. In fact, modern-day identity groups can be seen as democracy in its purest form. In such a system, power is still the primary fixation of society, much as in earlier autocratic systems.

The primary difference is that whereas such systems are run by a small elite or narrow power structure, power in a democracy is divided among social identities, each with their particular interests and causes. If something unites these groups, there is no more stable, efficiently functioning system. If not, or if interests start to clash, the central society is subverted, and eventually civic order may be lost entirely.

Here in America, we tend to see the traits of foreign democracies in both positive and negative lights. On one hand, we might see an annoying groupthink, positive in its sense of community and social belonging, negative in the behavior it enforces among its members, as anyone who has endured a European strike for example, can attest. On the other, we see other peoples much more informed and socially active than their counterparts in this country, without appreciating the sense of obligation, if not outright coercion, that can be exerted in such communities.

One thing should be clear however, whatever the pros or cons of a democracy, the United States is most certainly not one.

 Adventures in French

Ah, French transitive conjunctions, I'm sure I'll get the hang of them, one of these days. This week's lesson covered the following:

Pour: for, as in the amount of time for something to either have happened or will happen.

Pendant: during, covering the two points of time, between which, something happened.

Depuis: since, or from a point in the past, to the present.

I suppose I could write: 'J'ai loue un appartment dans le ville de Calistoga pour deux mois.'

I rented an apartment in Calistoga for two months.

Or: 'J'ai etudie la Japonaise pendant Juin-Aout, 2011.'

I studied Japanese from June to August, 2011.

Something like that. 

Eventually, this will get natural.

 Dialectical Materialism

My name not being Karl Marx and the real fellow in all his boils, physical and mental, having been gone from us for almost a century and a half, I thought I might taking a stab at a description of the most famous thesis of his vast philosophical vision. After all, what is he going to do, return from some nonexistent Marxist hell and upbraid my analysis? Oh well Uncle Karl, here goes!

Now the important epistemological thing to take away from the doctrine, is the term itself. Neither 'Dialectical' nor 'Materialism' are defined conventionally. Dialectical does not refer to a system of mutual learning by conversation, nor does Materialism really have to do with random run-ins with countertops or other angry dogs or other objects with a definable presence of their own. 

Rather, dialectical in Marxian terms has to do with the classic Hegelian triad of Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Marxian thought may be the furthest anyone has ever put Hegel to a practical application and history has confirmed it's as scary a consideration as it sounds.

As for Materialism, in Marxian terms, it's actually something of an odd hybrid of materialist and metaphysical principles. That is to say, matter that is taken into an intellectual frame of reference ceases to be ordinary matter and instead is transfigured into an abstract state. This last seems drawn from a peculiar German fixation on ascribing spiritual properties with material attributes and vice versa.

Therefore, a bunch of guys working at a factory, with families, cultures, dreams and aspirations of their own, are not merely a gang of people who happen to be working together. They are transformed by the ideology into producers of labor, the fundamental value in Marxism, workers who can be united into a power of their own, the Proletariat!

Say they are the thesis, the central figure in the vision of the Marxist. Since Marxism is a confrontational structure, this power has to be set against a power and authority that both defines it and grants a purpose to its existence, to be that which it is not. That antithesis is Propertied Capital, the exploitive class whose actions lead to the destruction of peoples and communities, namely the Bourgeoisie. 

These are shorn of their existence as trades, as families, as even individuals of variations in character and talents. Rather, is one lives by mind and connections, one is immediately branded as an exploiter and set within this class, no exceptions. That is the ruthless edict of Marxist social thought, that distills all it sees to labels that are to magically convey whatever it is that thing truly is, to reveal it totally, without any tiresome subtleties or reference.

Finally, the synthesis is the Class Struggle, the supposedly inevitable conflict between these two categories of human phenotypes that produces the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the ultimate eschatology of human history. A society blessed by the high traits possessed by the Proletariat of selflessness, mutual support and community, traits that will apparently thrive after the old bourgeoisie structures based on exploitation, property and finance cease to be. By the way, according to the violent nature of this conflict as explicated by Marx, apparently proletarian virtues do not include compassion for one's enemies and respect for all human existence, oh well.

Well they would probably have to. Because frankly such a utopian scheme, and as much as either Marx or Engels tried to escape the utopian label, that is precisely what it is, has never really succeeded. As is the fate of any society that obviates the need for human activity, labor value if you would, to be compensated by some type of incentive, usually of a monetary nature.

But again Uncle Karl, that's just my take.

 When the Ground Turned to Jello

This Friday the 31st of October, a quake hit the Aegean Sea, beside the Turkish city of Izmir. It toppled buildings and caused the water to pour in both on the Turkish mainland and on the Greek island of Samos. Sadly, the casualties are in the hundreds, with dozens of dead, mostly Turkish. 

According to the USGS, the quake hit the Richter scale at 7.0. Like Proust's madeleine, it is odd how a spare detail or two can conjure an entire world of memories. For any native of the California North Bay Area of a certain age, memories are jogged of another quake that occurred two weeks to the day, thirty-one years ago. 

This was the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, an event marked by indelible images of cars falling into gaps in broken freeways, millions of people evacuating a World Series game and numerous buildings, sometimes remarkable efforts later to restore institutions and businesses sorely affected by this event. "Where were you when the shift hit the land" indeed! This writer remembers vividly traffic lights swaying on the Alameda in San Jose, and stopping by the side of the road as that transient but unforgettable feeling of the ground turning to jello came yet again into his life.

Yet another memory, one even farther into time and space, was the Great Lisbon Earthquake, whose anniversary happens to fall today, All Saints' Day, 1755. A day when all of the populace and guests of Lisboa was primed to festively mark a great Catholic festival, only to find themselves put through a three and a half minute hell that saw the very ground underneath them break and swallow lives, the great waters of the Atlantic gush into the Great Plaza itself. Such was the strength of the quake, at 8.5 to 9.0 on the current scale, that for many years, it was the most powerful quake ever recorded. It is said that even lakes in North America roiled in the aftershock and a great tsunami is recorded by the then inhabitants of the Azores.  The final death count may never be known, but is believed to be around 30,000-50.000.

Every once in a while, we humans cloaked in our hubris at the civilization we created, are brought down to remember that we may exist on this earth, but we don't control it. Please extend your thoughts and prayers for the people of the Aegean, as they struggle to cope with the traumatic aftermath of this latest reminder. In situations such as this, small things make a bigger resonance than we can ever imagine.

 Du Fu

I come back from the court each day and pawn some spring clothing

Every day I return to the river as drunk as I can be

I have many debts for wine all over the place

For men to live to seventy has always been unusual 

I see the butterflies go deeper and deeper among the flowers

And dragonflies in leisured flight between drops of water

As we're told, passing time is always on the move

So little time to know each other: we should not be apart

Winding River 2

The pivotal event of this poet of the Tang Dynasty was the An Lushan rebellion, which ripped through the heart of what is now Central China in the middle of the 8th century. He and his friend and mentor Li Po are considered the greatest of all Chinese poets. More than 1500 of his poems are still extant.

Du Fu was already in his forties and a family man by the time the rebellion broke out. That event may have shaped his talent, but it certainly shaped his themes. His themes relating that time are much earthier, more psychologically grounded than the somewhat hedonistic and subjective, if beautifully expressed, themes of Li. 

Certainly, his poems recounting the events around him, the suffering and pain ensuing, read rather like contemporary war journalism and memoirs like Stephen Crane or Ernest Hemingway. The Song of the Wagons in particular, gives voice to feelings, insights and experiences common to soldiers of all places, of all eras. His influence on subsequent poetry in Asia before and since is immeasurable.

 I Saw Mars on the Horizon

A false Venus for but a day, that Tuesday the 13th. For that day, the golden countenance of the Star of the Sea was replaced by a surprisingly pleasant copper sheen as the next brightest light in the night sky. It will be another two years before the curious see that again. 

Mars has been many things to many peoples over the years. The Romans referred to themselves as the Marsii, or literally 'the Martians.' Perhaps appropriately, they and everyone else from at least the Sumerians who called it Nergal, associated this blood-like countenance with war. 

Perhaps one day, like all the planets one day will, Mars will be a mere way stop to somewhere else, or perhaps someone's home. So far, nuclear-fueled fantasies persist, but there have been conventionally fueled proposals. Notable among them have been those of Robert Zubrin. 

For now, only our eyes, aided or otherwise, may gaze upon its splendor. As did we tonight, didn't we little kitty, sitting on the fence? Such a show the heavens always presents!

 A Day in October

Today, Sunday the 4th of October 2020, marks the 63rd anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. According to the son of then Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev, the leadership at the time had no idea of the magnitude of what had just been done. To them, it was just another test of what they hoped would be their game-changing weapon system, the R-7 rocket. 

Well, the rocket went up, Earth's first artificial satellite was confirmed orbiting it and after that? All the assembled dignitaries, generals, party officials and the like assembled before the screens and gauges at Baikonur Cosmodrome went to lunch. And in their ponderous wakes, they left behind a world as transformed by their creation as it was by its intended cargo, the Soviet thermonuclear bomb.

Since then, man's cosmic feats have far outweighed any other consequence of the Cold War. A good thing, for otherwise the amazing technological feat of the R-7 and its successors would have long ago been shelved away as has too much of mankind's engineering past. In its case, the seed that would have opened vast treasures of knowledge and achievement to mankind, if not his future as a species, would have been lost maybe forever.

Certainly this little 'test' was not ignored here. A friend of mine attending jr. high in Norcal at the time remembered being told just days before by his science teachers that man would never go into outer space. After Sputnik, he and his friends were berated for being so lazy as to let the godless Commies slip ahead of us!

Afterwards, he and others of his school founded or joined various rocket clubs springing up around the area. They didn't get as far with their space jaunts as did the celebrated Rocket Boys of October Sky, but still it sounds fun to so go against what had heretofore been a paradigm.

A couple of other notes about the R-7, from my own experience.

Most significantly, an Australian satellite engineer I once knew had actually been invited to the old Bailonur facility where the R-7 at the time (late 1990's to early 2000's) was still being made. Boy I would have liked to have been on that trip! As astonishing a feat of modern engineering as it was, the R-7 still conformed to the autocratic model of the old Soviet Union.

This is to say, that one of the ways people survived was to become indispensable. Therefore, everything was done by specialists, which in the old Union meant people who learnt how to perform particular tasks and crafts in a certain subjective way that only they knew. No, these people didn't train apprentices or anything like that, in fact anyone who did things their way or better were actively considered enemies, people as likely to send them to the Gulag as the friendly local commissar.

The whole thing sounded not unlike old guilds and associations from past times. Indeed, ever wonder why no one can duplicate medieval archways or Chinese Celadon pottery anymore? In the case of the R-7, even in those days, one guy and one guy only did the welding for the framework that held a particular section that I believe was essential to hold the boosters and the core rocket assembly together.

'And what happens if he retires?' I asked my source. He shrugged and said simply, "No more R-7 rockets." And that my friends, is how legends in real life die, with but a change in status.

My own observation was that of the R-7's numerical designation. Now all Soviet rockets were direct descendants of the infamous V-2, in fact the V-2 is the R-1 in Soviet lexicon. After that, you had the R-2 which was an incremental improvement, the R-3 and G-4 which were design studies and apparently never made it to a workshop, the R-5 which was a forerunner to the storied SCUD, and then the R-7.

So what happened to the R-6? There have been some fine attempts to hypothesize an intermediate between the R-5 and the R-7; in truth, one would think such a grandiose leap would demand one. The truth is though, Russian engineering for some reason seems averse to the number 6.

I can think of another example. The BT tank series started with the American Christie tank which was designated the BT-1. Afterwards, once again there was the BT-2 to the BT-5, which became the BT-7, from which came that legendary war winner, the T-34. So what happened to the BT-6?

Apparently, what could have been the BT-6 was simply considered an improved BT-5. And that was that, the nomenclature was crushed under the tank treads of standard Soviet bureaucratic progress. If there are other examples of Soviet/Russian Hexaphobia, I'll list them here and I'd love to hear of them. 

Maybe it's like the odd Japanese phobia about the number four. 'Shi' or four can also be translated as 'Death.' That is why you will rarely find things numbered in four in Japan. I'd be interested in knowing if this is a similar case with six in Russia. 

 The Coming Cataclysm of the Gorge

So far, so good. The Three Gorges dam has not ruptured, the dragon of the Yangtze has not awakened in sound and fury. All isn't right with the world, but at least the world has been spared one more mind-wrenching catastrophe with which to crown what has to have been a truly dismal year-so far.

Yet even with the calm of autumn, I worry still. The rains are still devastating, but they are diminishing. Supposedly, most of the monsoon season at least, will be over by the end of this month.

 But that hardly means that danger is past us. When the St. Francis Dam in Los Angeles ruptured after all, reportedly there wasn't a drop in the sky. It isn't just bulk water that endangers a dam after all. 

Probably the greatest danger of all is time and the wear and tear it brings on such a huge structure. I wish to God, someone would somehow use sensors on the bottom, After all, wasn't it said that the great concrete blocks were simply laid on the river bed, or otherwise not properly fastened to the bedrock?

If that's the case, it's possible that the foundation has indeed moved, or the bedrock has been eroded by water flow, or a combination of factors. What is a fact is that the form and movement of the water has changed oddly since the beginning of September. It is turgid, with whitecaps, rather resembling wild water.

Is it possible that water flow is seeping through the dam itself from the bottom? If so, how long before a block slips, the bedrock gives way and the dam ruptures not from the top as it is thought, but from the bottom? That the great danger is in fact out of sight, out of mind, lulling too casual observers into unwarranted complacency? 

The fate of hundreds of millions hangs in the balance, hopefully these are empty words.

 How to Hate Yourself

It's easy, think yourself helpless, ineffectual, little more able to tend to yourself than when you emerged from the womb. 

At least that's the only way I can understand the sight of young, university-educated, in every other way attractive people who seem to think the only way they can advance themselves personally and professionally is to yell, scream or otherwise act out against a supposedly repressive authority. Who believe that subsuming their precious identities in movements or communities instead of developing minds and attitudes all their own. Who seem to feel that their lives are helpless and hopeless, in the midst of unprecedented prosperity and freedom from adversity.

Well perhaps they're right, they are lacking in resources against a world that, in their view, seems to be spiraling out of control. Perhaps they are utterly unable to find a way ahead for themselves and will forever be restricted to marginal, passive lives. Certainly that possibility is real.

Or perhaps as Henry Ford once observed: "You think you can, or you think you can't. Either way, you're right."