Tagged: Writing

Foucault’s Pendulum and Spheres and Earth and Friends and More!

Careful readers noticed yesterday that I used the words “pope” and “Copernicus” when dismantling Tesla-lovers’ desire to save the planet while they commute alongside me. I did this because my guided reading through the Great Books of the Western World has landed me in Ptolemy and Copernicus (and now Kepler).

I told a co-worker that I feel like I’m reading sacred scripture when I read these guys’ words. I mean they are it. These are the ones who tackled the big problems and won (and lost). I cannot emphasize enough how interesting and provocative the writings are—especially the ones that have been disproved. Just fascinating. For example, did you know that folks knew Earth was a sphere over 2000 years ago? They knew. And they knew through easy methods that even you and I can understand, the most simple being that during lunar eclipses, the shadow on the moon is always circular. And only a sphere object can do that.

Anyhow, in short, (because I know you aren’t going to rush out and get the set) Ptolemy (and many in his day, circa 100-200AD) thought the Earth was an unmoving sphere inside a larger rotating sphere which was lined with the stars and the other lights of the sky. To be clear, this is a ball within a ball scenario. Like if we go to a planetarium and lay back in the dome structure to “ooh and ahh” the night sky as projected digitally, that’s pretty much what they thought. I mean to emphasize that they did not see the night sky (or day sky for that matter) as “deep”. Had they thought to travel out to the lights, they apparently thought they would hit a wall/boundary. (Keep in mind, they didn’t conceive of traveling off earth.) This, of course, stands against everything we moderns believe, which includes that we can and will journey further and further and further away from the Sun/Earth or really anything out there.

With me?

Next, it was Copernicus who went through the Pope (and had to in 1543–life is so different today—so very different) to correct Ptolemy’s errant belief that Earth was the center of the larger sphere. The Sun was the center—and, put simply, for the reason that it makes the math simpler. Note here that Copernicus still did not believe that space went out and out and out. (He also showed other things, such as the Earth itself moves and this what makes the stars appears to move, not the other way around.)

In the guided reader, they make mention of the types of proofs that Ptolemy and Copernicus were concerned with and this is where it is mentioned that the Foucault Pendulum was finally invented and put to use in 1851. You can look it up yourself; I still don’t fully understand how it works. Maybe you will. But when you look it up, you’ll discover that these pendulums are all over the globe now at various science museums, and they report in to each other. It is this comparison of observations that is truly the mechanical proof of the rotational movement of the sphere earth.

This was a “Eureka!” moment for me.

To rehearse and summarize some of this trivia, Ptolemy really made his mark because he took into account past astronomical observations and added to them an extensive new amount of data. Then Copernicus did the same. (See the methodological trend?) By the time we get to Foucault’s Pendulum, we already have an established pattern of humans using other humans’ information, so the idea of sharing the results from these pendulums that are swinging all over the world is not entirely new.

Are you tracking yet?

(I enjoy leading folks to the conclusion rather than just bluntly stating it, but I’ll be blunt after one more clue.)

Put another way, Ptolemy alone didn’t suggest the Earth was the center and a sphere. Copernicus alone didn’t suggest the Sun was the center and the Earth rotated. Foucault alone didn’t prove that the Earth was a rotating sphere.

People need people! Get it?

We all have encountered Flat Earthers of late. Or most of us have. Guess what? They are alone. They have no friends. Even the others at the conventions aren’t friends. They don’t compare notes and use each others’ new and unique and accurate and confirmable measurable data to develop and defend their idea. They just bleat. Bah bah baaaa.

I am impassioned by this topic because a very good former friend of mine that I met at the seminary revealed his insanity when he one day decided to lob a joke about the earth being round into the fray. When I didn’t buy into his BS, he wouldn’t allow for any other topic of conversation to pass.

Keep in mind I told him, “I don’t care which mental construction of the universe you hold in your mind. I just think we should be able to talk about something else too.”

Nope. He wouldn’t move past it until I agreed with him.

I had invited him in for lunch in my seminary, Steinway-housing apartment. His wife and him (and baby) hosted H- and I for an afternoon meal and relaxing stroll at his place. We were at the seminary together. Man. It was/is frustrating. But it also proves my “newly learned” point. These folks have no friends. (Did I mention he was a green beret? Yeah. Unrelenting persistency does not always pay off.)

Anyhow. Crazy times we live in. The good part, as I have said and wrote time and time again, is we have books. I’m still with TJ, “I cannot live without books.”

Saving the Planet

“I’m kinda particular about these things. It’s really just that I have a rule. It’s only one rule, but it means that I don’t have many friends. I like alignment. The car is about travel, not about the environment. Get it? Buy whatever you want. Build whatever you want. But when you build a vehicle and tell me that you’re using it to help save the environment, I can only say, ‘That is too complex and too complicated (there is a difference) a goal for me to believe in. And if I can’t believe in it, then you can’t either because I am certain I have read more about it than you. And if you can’t, then you really haven’t even thought about the meaning of the words and are instead doing some sort of unthinking parroting or propaganda.”

Okay, I didn’t say that last bit. I didn’t attack. I ended my thought on the complex line. But I wanted to continue it here. For fun. Because I’m serious.

Life is weird as I get older. As a boy, a knife was sharp or dull. It was big or small. The basketball was inflated or needed air. The Bible was heavy. The pizza was good. The soda, too good.

Cars were fast. Motorcycles, faster. F-14’s even faster and the SR-71 fastest.

Now people drive a car alongside me on the road and act like they are, besides traveling, saving the planet. And, get this, they believe that I—little ol’ insignificant spec of a flesh on a forgettable rock floating through the universe—am destroying the planet.

There is a better way, folks. I am not destroying the planet. I am driving to work. Same as you.

So don’t tell me that your Tesla is somehow doing something more than carry you from A to B quicker than horses could. Don’t tell me that 20% (or is it 40%?) of all bad gases are caused by automobiles alone. Don’t tell me that America needs to act. Don’t tell me these things, not because they’re wrong, but because you don’t even know if they’re right.

You have no sources. Any sources available have no credibility. And there ultimately is no authority to judge the matter anyhow! We don’t live under the Pope. We don’t act by leave of a King. Musk does not need to be persuaded in order for the Sun’s insolation to reach Earth.

You, yes, you, neo-Copernicus, have only yourself to persuade and pat on the back. And you’ve done a bang-up job of it. Way to go!

Is that what you need to hear?

I’d rather talk about something interesting. There are so many interesting things to spend time considering. And not-a-one of them is your Tesla’s ability to save the world.

Boring.

More interesting already is a path of discovery on the topic of what you think you need to overcompensate for.

It’s okay. You can be an expert at your job, a good parent, and not save the planet. It’s okay.

Effort vs. Execution, A Joint Review of Equalizer 2 & Equalizer 3, by Antoine Fuqua

My wife mentioned that she wanted to watch the new Equalizer, but I couldn’t recall ever taking time for Equalizer 2. So we started with 2, and then moved to 3. “Decent and in order.”

Oh, and we have this new TV which does that thing where even Hollywood films appear like they are home videos. Know what I am talking about? Probably not. I have not found many who can see what I see, but having taken about 12 years off TV, I can tell that the image is far, far different than it used to be.

I bring up this image quality thing because it is part of the problem with Equalizer 2, but not 3. On these new TV’s, the CGI, if any corners were cut, looks terrible. Like it used to look before it got good and seamless, really, with the Avengers film. So 3 must have had a bigger budget—itself no surprise as they were probably caught off guard by how many went to see the sequel to a standard action film. Apparently, they were not monitoring Mr. Wick’s success. If they make a 4, I’d rush to see it because they will surely be in full stride (and direct competition) with John.

The story in 2 was also less than compelling. The start was great, but the moment we hear the “bad guy” stop pretending he is innocent, the movie, for all intents and purposes, ends. And this happened near the half-way point. And the CGI wasn’t even introduced until the end. So we went from worse to “worser”, to play off David Ayers’ Street Kings opening.

But again, we were only watching 2 to get to feel right about watching 3. And 3 delivered.

These two films (I can barely recall the first one) are incredibly violent. Shockingly so. So don’t think you should bend the rules with your kid and show them their first R-rated feature with one of these. You’ll regret it. But they do the right thing of making the bad guys really bad, and Denzel, well, he’s Denzel. And in 3 we got to see a CGI free Denzel film. Or one that had the budget to make it look like CGI wasn’t used.

You know what makes Denzel great? He’s almost a one trick pony. But the trick is the equivalent of harnessing the power of the Sun. He is so great because of how he, in almost every movie, can give a particular look which makes you sympathize whole-heartedly with his character. Of course his speaking and speeches are excellent. And who doesn’t want to move like he moves? And think like he thinks. But the silent look he gives is something that I want to never be able to produce. I don’t want that pain, that history, that store of feeling. I don’t want that library of unspoken, but not forgotten, words. But I do sympathize.

Final note: his other recent film, “The Little Things” is decent. Don’t skip it if you are at all intrigued.

Name Change Coming Soon

I’ve been thinking it’s time to more accurately entitle this blog of mine. So a name change (just superficial—website will stay the same) from Captain’s Log to something else is coming soon.

The point of this post is to say, “Don’t be alarmed. It is still me. I just feel like I need to admit that I’m hijacking the mood when I drop the lure of being an interesting pilot/Captain who can also write well and has a unique perspective, but, really, I am just a blogger who blogs fearlessly—which means writes well.”

More to follow.

Free Vacuums

Mindlessly, perhaps distractedly, I sat at a stop light, patiently waiting my turn on this December evening. My eyes fell upon a sign over to the right on a building that said, “Free Vacuums”.

Now at work, the vacuum we have is terrible. It is one of those canister kinds that lets you see the dust swirling as evidence that it is working—that is, until it isn’t working and the dust just sits and now the volume seems to loud and you wonder if it always was this loud or has it just gotten louder when it stopped working correctly? I hate the canister kind. I’ve always preferred Oreck and bagged vacuums, myself. Just keep it simple.

Back to the sign, I thought, “How could they possibly have enough vacuums for any and all comers?” I wish, for your sake, you could have seen what I imagined the inside of this store looked like. Just a smorgasbord of refurbished (that’s surely the only type that could be free) vacuums. The old chrome ones, and maybe an Oreck a day was set out for a lucky shopper.

It didn’t seem real, but then who does like vacuuming? And I have been trying to give away a washer and dryer and am resolved that it will simply cost money to have someone pick them up. Maybe the vacuum market is similar? And maybe there is a government program to help encourage clean houses? Who knows?

Let me be clear, I almost re-routed in the direction of the sign.

Then it hit me. I almost couldn’t look again for shame and embarrassment. And I have barely been able to stop laughing long enough to type this out—of which the only reason I type is because the two people I called to share a good laugh with didn’t answer.

It was a car wash! Ha. Free vacuums!

As if someone would just give away vacuums.

Hahahahahahahahaha.

There is No Logic in the Human Heart

I tried. I tried to make it simple. I said, “Given: It is wrong for a man to punch a woman. Period. It’s obvious.” I then went on to say, “If you can understand this fact, then you can understand that I believe that when an ex-wife steals the kids and half the retirement from her retired military ex-husband, it is wrong. Period.”

I didn’t say this to be introducing some new concept. I didn’t say this to emote. I said it to move the conversation forward. My punch-to-stealing kids/money equivocation, so I had intended, was preliminary. I wanted to define terms. It didn’t work.

My only, but lovely, two commentators each offered, if tactfully and empathetically, that they believe there are two sides. There are always two sides.

Well, the place that I was going to go probably just involved me renewing bitter claims that us divorced fellas–robbed daily and without our children–are victims, metaphorical punching bags. But if I step outside myself and view the situation, I would never promote that someone should claim to be a victim, so I will not do so here.

We’re not victims. We’re not. No, we’re not victims; we are the optimists.

We are optimists stuck in the muck of this shitty, shitty world that spends its limitless energy on one goal: “Destroy hope”.

****

H-: You don’t have to read these, and I’d ask you not to if reading them means you won’t talk to me. Proceed at your own risk. In the end, please don’t hurt people.

American Divorce: The Way I See It

I believe in writing. I have been at this blog for a decade now. In the beginning, I liked encouragement. These days, I couldn’t care less when someone encourages me about my writing. It always has this air of “I wouldn’t have thought you were a good writer…” and that kinda bothers me. Why not? What about me sounds like bad writing? My job? My hobbies? The things I like to talk about? My clothes? Seriously, there is no signal that suggests that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own with a pen/keyboard.

Now-13.5 H- has shared that she reads these posts, and that the result of my “woman hater” (which would be “female hater” if I want to encourage the child to learn reading comprehension–I do–it’s “female hater” and I define “female” in contradistinction to “woman” in the post, H-) post from the other day is that she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me (at least for now). In any case, and this is the point of this opening, with encouragement, with discouragement, I maintain that writing is good. The rest of this post, then, the part that pertains to the title, is Exhibit A.

The last two posts have been on the topic of men and women and our relationships. In the background, many more thoughts and conversations have been taking place because of these posts and the events which inspired them. So again, I want to write, to catalog. I want to think on them.

The most important result of writing about my friend’s looming divorce (in which his wife of twenty years is going to steal his military retirement and hold hostage his two children in Europe, all with the blessing of Missouri and general American Culture), is my own wife and I have come to a shocking realization and subsequent clarity of our perspectives. We laid in bed the other night and bickered about whether I was claiming my friend was ‘perfect’ when I asserted that ‘he did nothing to make her steal from him’. In other words, we realized that even the two of us, husband and wife, see the eternal institutions of marriage and divorce TOTALLY different. (Makes ya wonder what any of us are even doing.)

(You with me thus far?)

I believe this woman–er, this female–, E-, is a terrible creature–less than human–worse than Hitler. I wrote as much a few days back. She is terrible, not for crimes committed, but for crimes she is going to commit until one of them dies. And I further maintain that my friend did not and does not have any influence on E-‘s decision to commit these twin crimes (to keep it simple, we’ll just call stealing his money and stealing his children the only two crimes–but there are more).

My wife hears me say this and responds, “Oh yeah! I’m sure he is perfect. All your friends are perfect!”

(The point of this post is to report to you, dear reader, not the entirety of the conversation, but the fruit.)

With this, I finally saw the stumbling block to my wife and I’s communication.

So I began again, in a new vein, “Do you remember that video of the blacks brawling at Disneyland several years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how the dude just punches his girlfriend in the face? He just turns and punches her. It was horrific. I had never seen anything like that ever. That’s why I showed it to you. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember!”

“Okay. Did that woman have anything to do with him punching her? Was there anything she did that caused him to punch her? Were any of his needs not met by her and so he punched her? Is there anything she did that alleviates his punch of its evil?”

“That’s totally-“

“-‘No’. The correct answer is, ‘No. She had nothing to do with him punching her. A man punching a woman is wrong. It is always wrong. It is squarely wrong. It is never her fault. It is never something she caused. It is just wrong.’ And I am saying that, for precisely the same reasons, these women who divorce a man and then proceed to steal from him are likewise wrong. They are likewise committing evil. My friend has no more responsibility for E-‘s evil actions (continual actions keep in mind) than that woman did for her boyfriend’s punch (probably plural). And stop with ‘the Law’. The ‘Law’ has no bearing on my opinion, and, in fact, is the reason I am so adamant about this belief of mine. All these wives hide behind the ‘Law’ and comfort themselves with the thought that they are somehow not accountable for the evil they are committing since it is the ‘Law’. The ‘Law’, in this case, is immoral and needs to adapt to the times. Whatever the reasoning that went into ‘woman gets half the retirement’ was, it is now different. The ‘Law’ needs to change. You can’t take a husband and expect him to somehow ‘prevent’ divorce, when all the while, all that is required for a divorce is the wife saying, ‘I want a divorce.’ The way a wife would prove her innocence, would prove she had endured something terrible, is to not take the money. Just divorce him and move on with your life. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ What E- and all the wives are doing is morally wrong–evil.”

****

What do you think, dear reader? Think my wife bought my rant? Have I made a dent in your thinking with this analogy, ex-wife collecting retirement as same ‘obvious’ evil as man punching woman? Or do you need it in codified writing? Is it possible for my friend to have been an unqualified good husband and father and this still be the result of his behavior?

Or is the fairer sex just too pure to sow and reap evil? Too feeble to ever work for a living? Too unstable to ever reach old age without the financial backing of a man?

The Coffee Inspires

One more note to share, while on the unending topic of men and women.

“What’s it really like to be married to a woman who barely speaks English (though she doesn’t know it) and hails from one of the least educated countries on the planet?”

In short, if you can imagine how the first conversation with an alien (on his first—and surprise, think emergency landing—visit to the planet) would go, how you would quickly learn that you could assume no shared context or meaning or any easy place to start, then you may have an idea of how every verbal utterance we have plays out.

Don’t believe me? Try this recent experience.

As you know, I value reading and books. I am with TJ when he said, “Books are my friends.” I have tons and tons of books. And I recently got some great bookshelves upon which to display them in the new Colorado house.

Well, anyhow, as we recently were going through the ritual of shopping for home decor, I couldn’t help but notice they had some fake books to purchase. I dryly—too dryly it seems—picked them up and said, “These would be perfect for your new furniture. Ha.”

A week or so passes and then I see her placing a bunch of this nonsense all throughout the room and the fake books are included. When I comment with a hearty, if not literal, “WTF?,” she earnestly rebuts in kind with, “You said you would like them!”

Did I?

Keep in mind this is four years in. And it is not the first time I have pointed out or commented on the concept of fake books when shopping together.

Never assume, I guess.

Quite the life.

Never Incentivize the Female’s Fantasy—Divorce Must Actually Devastate Her

So I just learned of an old friend’s divorce. Like many other friends of mine this man just retired from the military, and only when this was clear did the evil cunt announce her intentions. To make matters worse, their last duty station was in Europe, and for the common, internationally known reasons, this first grade teacher has decided to keep the kids over there with her.

First, don’t even start if you’re going to take one step towards suggesting that anything about the situation is the natural result of their daily, twenty plus year relationship. This move is so low, and happens so frequently to retired military men that there is never anything about the actual personalities involved, no. The only two factors or variables at play are the fact that divorce is incentivized and the female (no “woman” as such would even consider accepting a dime more or a minute more from her ex), the female, as a creature, is the most depressed and despicable entity on the earth. You will never find another—no murderer, no rapist, no genocidal maniac—who can even tread water next to a female.

Unreal and uncouth, one must never incentivize, these, their fantasies. If this time-honored dictum is ignored, then children, men, and eventually a nation will be destroyed. They will all be destroyed because these mentally incapable females possess unbounded imagination. This results in one of two outcomes. The first possible outcome might best be embodied by the legendary George Washington. The second outcome is best embodied by the current population of the American penal system—fatherless males.

The female—as part of her growth into womanhood—must have her imagination bounded. She must have restrictions. Life cannot possibly appear to keep getting better and better and always improve and never disappoint. These fantasies must remain on the pages and stages.

No, the female must have a very concrete and inescapable situation staring at her to perform. This is how to bring her womanly character to the surface. She must see the limits to her life daily and she must, daily, face the fact that without her man, she will certainly face abject poverty and lose her children. This is the only way.

It seems that the male alone, for reasons known only to the LORD God himself, comes into the world designed to absorb the apparently latent happiness available within each breath of air. The female, on the other hand, hates the air, hates the sun—hates the very day. The female, on the other hand, listens to every lie, believes every instinct, and obeys every passion. I write this in the hopes that someday my two daughters read it.