072609

No hospital trip this week. Will be some time this coming week.

_____

Wow. I just have to share the love: I can now control iTunes from my iPhone, totally remotely. iTunes is hooked into my main stereo, and nice Bose speakers attached directly to my computer; with the subwoofer involved, the sound is simply miraculous. Most of this (including the iPhone part, which has to be on the same wireless Airport network as iTunes) is made possible by Airport, Apple's wireless system. May the cosmos bless them for it.

*Perfume*

[The literal translation of Gottschalk is "god's jester."]

My name is Jean Baptiste and I will be writing these little perfume columns from here on out. I am the greatest perfumer that ever lived; in my death, the gods, knowing what I had been in life, made me their repository for the greatest perfume recipes in history, a number of which are mine, I'm proud to say. I have decided to share them all with Mr Gottschalk and his new perfume company, Lord's Jester. Lord's Jester, you see, makes perfumes the way we used to make them: all natural, botanical, wholesome, none of the horrid chemicals in use by everyone else. In addition to liking the company name, I am greatly pleased by this old-world facet, and I trust you'll be interested to join us in our journey back in time, with the aromas of yesteryear, and figures like Apollo, Dionysus, Anthea, Helen of Troy, and Cleopatra. In the old days, we did get a few things right, and perfume is perhaps the greatest of our successes.

It gives me great joy to carry the torch of my great art which is very much in danger from impostors, from posers, from low-life grifters, who forsake the rich legacy we, history's great perfumers, had left them. Lord's Jester, and other entities like it, is preserving that legacy, bringing history back to life, and even heading out into territory none of us could ever have imagined; they, the Natural Perfumers (I hear some of them prefer "Outlaw Perfumers"), are doing a tremendous justice to the art as we saw it once, reflecting the infinite possibilities of the earth, speaking to memories, reminding us of innocence, manifesting the unspeakably sexy, and bowling us over with its guileless intimacy and honesty. Come delight with us in the many gifts Gaia has to offer; visit our web site (I'm told it's under construction, whatever that means) at http://www.lordsjester.com.

*Quotations*

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide.

--Edna St Vincent Millay

Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah didn't miss the boat.

--Mark Twain

There are too many people and too few human beings.

--Robert Zend

The central purpose of each life should be to dilute the misery in the world.

--Karl Menninger

Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world.

--Albert Schweitzer

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

--Carlos Casteñeda

The miserable have no other medicine but hope.

--Nietzsche

Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.

--Theodore Dreiser

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

--Blaise Pascal

Companions, in misery and worse, that is what we all are, and to try to change this substantially avails us nothing.

--Franz Liszt

*Poem*

If I Knew Then

I wonder what happened to Nikki Sun.

Nicole Ogden too for that matter.

Shawne Sanders.

Amanda the dress maker.

A tall thin hippie girl

at Hampshire College--

for the life of me

I can't remember her name.

I touched all these women,

and they touched me,

but I've heard not a word

about them in years.

In a few cases this is

by design, in most though

it stems more than anything else

from utter ignorance,

blindness to the ways

life is for all of us

in the long run,

disservice to the very things,

the very people, I've loved

the most, callousness toward

those that I should have held

most dear. Hindsight is nothing

if it is not clear.

I would gladly take

an ounce of prescience

for a pound

of clarity in retrospect

any old day of the week.

*Philosophy*

Recently an acquaintance spoke of the "breakdown of moral dependency." Never mind that "dependence" is better, that's a beautiful concept. And it succinctly characterizes what happens with widespread misinterpretation of Adam Smith. If you know Smith at all you might be inclined to think him, in his role as father of modern economics, to be anti-moral; on the contrary he was deeply moral and every assertion he ever made was grounded in his moral convictions. That "the common good attains through the pursuit of individual self interest," in his book The Wealth of Nations, came with oodles of important caveats. Most important to me is that he maintained the common good would attain thusly _only if no capital or labor is flowing over international boundaries_.

He envisioned independent sovereignties which each had a strong web of economic and moral dependence _within their own borders_. When the economy is only that within your own nation, your ability to interact with corporations, from workers to management to administration, is greatly improved over what it is now, whether you be a business owner, a concerned citizen, or an angry government official, contacting them to hold someone accountable--right now, no one is accountable. The way it works now these huge multinationals do hide behind their very mobility and complexity, shirking their responsibilities, socially, economically, morally, at every turn, with no one along the line taking responsibility for any of the company's actions (or inactions). This state of affairs is the _opposite_ of what Smith envisioned; he's rolling over in his grave.

*Science*

I've been waiting for some time for the dawn of a new era: that of wireless electricity. When I was in Florida recently I described to my father how incongruous it seemed to me that we have all this high technology, and it's all chained to a wall or desk with an obnoxious power cord sticking out. I imagined there must be a way to power all things within a given space, just by virtue of their being located within that space. My father said he thought throwing power around could be dangerous. But the age of wireless electricity is upon us. The basic technology was unveiled at TED, an annual technology conference in England. The system works by way of resonance: it turns out that two objects which are resonant at the same frequency can share power/electricity over that frequency. As humans are not themselves magnetic they are not conductors of electricity so having these electrified frequencies passing through us is no concern at all. For now, before big money invests, they're showing off cell phones and TVs powered wirelessly. The day will come when your car starts charging the moment it's inside your garage.

One fascinating fact I wasn't aware of (aside from exactly how the above-described technology would manifest) is that Nikola Tesla (inventor of alternating-current electricity) and Edison (inventor of direct-current electricity) were highly interested in wireless power from the get-go. On the BBC it said, "'They couldn't imagine dragging this vast infrastructure of metallic wires across every continent.' Tesla even went so far as to build a 29m-high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower in New York." Funding fell through and Tesla's dream was never realized. Vast infrastructures of wires have indeed been dragged across every continent. An interesting fact: Tesla invented electricity as we know it, so why don't we know his name? He considered himself a scientist and inventor, whereas Edison was an inventor and a businessman. Legend has it that Edison went to see Tesla one day; on that day he convinced Tesla to sign over the rights to every watt of electricity ever to be made. Tesla didn't care; he didn't realize how big this was, and he cared only about science.

[Another part of the legend has it that when Edison arrived at Tesla's home, Tesla was holding what is described as a ball of fire; seeing Edison Tesla simply put the ball into a box; to this day no one knows what in tarnation that ball of fire was.] Now that wireless electricity is upon us I finally understand one important thing: it's probably not that Tesla didn't realize what he was signing over; likely he thought there was no money to be made in electricity that had to be hard wired together. From the sounds of his Wardenclyffe Tower venture, he was betting on wireless to be the way of the future. He couldn't imagine the vast networks of wires we have now, the ecological, financial, and social costs of such networks. Again, here we can look back, nod our heads, and say, "Yes, there was a man so far ahead of his time, he was lost of those around him." At the very least we can remember his name now, and say it. Please tell all your friends about the genius that was Nikola Tesla.

_____

On a rerun of Numbers this week, Charlie and a bunch of serious math jocks are sitting around the dinner table with Charlie's father, Alan, talking about chaos theory and entropy. At one point the subject of Maxwell's Demon comes up (the old intellectual creation of James Maxwell); Alan knows nothing about it, so the math folks explain it. Hearing the story again reminded me it is this very bit of "hokum," as Alan put it, that irks me about modern physics and economics (the two areas are inextricably intertwined). This one "intellectual exercise" gave rise to every aspect of modern, quantum physics, but I believe strongly that it was only ever _meant_ to be theoretical. The theory, while it is liberating in a way (it supposes that the second law of thermodynamics might be violated), sounds like a joke on its face: in an isolated system of two connected chambers at different temperatures (which the second law assures us would eventually reach the same temperature), there is a little demon and every time a molecule of warm air tries to pass through into the cooler chamber, the demon stops it and sends it back.

Sounds like a joke, right? In a way, it most certainly is. In fact the second law can never be violated, certainly not by means of a tiny demon. But this exercise has let many imagine a fictional world where the second law doesn't apply, and where both perpetual motion and also infinite economic growth are possible. Neither is feasible in this dimension of space time. Acting as though they could be is responsible for untold amounts of damage to our world, to forests, to local economies, to our collective long-term wealth. Einstein himself said in 1949, "Classical thermodynamics has made a deep impression on me. It is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced, within the areas of the applicability of its basic concepts, will never be overthrown." One fact that is overlooked mostly is that the "areas of the applicability of its basic concepts" are _macroscopic_. There is no portion of thermodynamics that was ever meant to be microscopic. Therefore much of the "science" I see around me today is in fact science fiction.

*News*

Jimmy Carter

Losing My Religion for Equality

July 15, 2009

"I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

"At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities. The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met. In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

"The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family. It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices--as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

"I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it. The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

"We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share. The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place--and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence--than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers. I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

"The truth is that male religious leaders have had--and still have--an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions--all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views."

Peace, love, and ATOM jazz