Well, it’s picture time. But first, a call to political action, albeit some really lame political action.

As you know, really nasty stuff is going on right now over in Sudan. Genocide, pure and simple. So far, the USA ain’t doing too much about it. I haven’t heard the President make any speeches about butchery in Sudan, as he did in regard to Iraq. If that unsettles you, there’s probably a lot you can do to get involved. But if you’re like me, too burnt out and tired to get involved, then at least you can send out a couple of e-mails to your federal officials. I did that, for what little good it might do.

Actually, it’s quite easy. For your Senators, find their sites at www.senate.gov As to your Congressman, find him or her at www.house.gov And as to the Big W, he’s at president@whitehouse.gov If you’re really at a loss for words, here’s what I wrote:

Dear [Congressman XXXX] [Senator XXXX] [President Bush],

Thank you.

OK, as to the picture . . . it was taken from the parking lot of the former Prentice-Hall Info Services office in Paramus, where I worked many years ago. All you see are some bare trees. Bare trees usually don’t make much of a picture. But with the early morning sun and the late autumn fog, it seemed interesting enough. Also, I was in love at the time. And as you probably know, when you’re in love you like to do creative things like take pictures of trees in the fog at dawn.

Did things work out, you ask? Well, we eventually got married, but a few years later we went our own ways and got divorced. Guess she became bored with a guy who won’t do anything more than write an e-mail to stop genocide. (Actually, we didn’t have e-mail back then!) Such is life, and death. But hey, at least I’ve still got the picture.

There appears to be a micro-trend emerging in the book world regarding pessimism about humanity’s future. Sure, there have always been doomsday predictions by cranks and charlatans looking for some attention and a fast buck. But within the past two years, three respected authors have published titles that question whether civilization can overcome the negative trends that appear to threaten continued progress. Each of them basically brings it down to a coin-toss; 50-50 odds against some kind of collapse during the 21st Century that will return us to the Dark Ages, if not to outright extinction.

You can probably guess what worries these folk. The usual suspects: pollution, overpopulation, unfair distribution of wealth and power, the collapse of the family, terrorism, climate change, an “I don’t care” attitude on the part of the well-off, species extinction, etc. But there are also some exotic fears too, including the gray-goo scenario from nanotechnology and the runaway negative-strangelet scenario from heavy-ion research. Interestingly, this renewed doomsday pondering is happening despite the end of the Cold War and the unlikeliness of an all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia. I still remember a pop hit song from the 60s inspired by that fear, i.e. “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire (who turned out to be a one-hit wonder; not much to sing about after you’ve blow up the world). And then of course there were the nuclear movies, including Doctor Strangelove and Fail Safe.

Well, the big nuclear war never came (although some say that we are now in more danger of seeing a city nuked, due to terrorism and proliferation to smaller countries such as Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, maybe Iran too). But hey, you can only get away with de-bunking the pessimists for so long. Sooner or later, one of their concerns is going to come true (though perhaps not exactly as they might have anticipated). So, if you’re in a pessimistic mood and want to catch up on some of today’s bigger problems, here are three respected authors and their recent works:

1.) Sir Martin Rees (British Royal Astronomer), “Our Final Hour”

2.) Jane Jacobs (noted urbanologist and social observer), “Dark Age Ahead”

3.) Edward O. Wilson (Harvard biologist), “The Future of Life”.

Enjoy!

There was an article by Tom Carson in the July/August Atlantic Monthly about teenagers and high school. Carson starts his article with the proposition that high school is the quintessential American experience, our truest common denominator. He then gives a few examples of how other writers have used high school as a reference point. One of those examples regards politics: “high school with power”. It was his follow-up observation, however, that captured my interest. Here it is: “and man, could Grover Norquist use a wedgie”.

Well, I’m not all that savvy on politics, so I had to look Mr. Norquist up. It turns out that he’s a top Republican political strategist, one of those smart guys behind the scenes. Tax issues and economics appear to be Mr. Norquist’s forte; he is credited as the genius behind Mr. Bush’s successful effort last year to cut taxes mostly for the rich (and thus swell our national deficit, all for the sake of our wealthiest 1%).

I found a picture of Mr. Norquist on his foundation’s web site. Here it is. Does this look like a guy who should have his britches violently upended on the way to history class?

Definitely.

DREAM SEQUENCE: Freud and his followers say that dreams are loaded with hidden and not-so-hidden meanings. I really wonder just how true that is. I know that some people have vivid dreams with intricate plot lines ripe for psychoanalysis. As to me, I seldom have dreams with any discernable theme to them. Most days I wake up with no memory of dreaming at all. And even when I do, my dreams aren’t very memorable. They mostly seem like fleeting, mundane images; e.g., I may be walking in a park for a second or two, then outside a warehouse, then in a car. On those rare occasions when my somnolent impressions have any discernable significance, their meaning is usually quite obvious; e.g., my anxiety that my new landlord is going to disrupt my peace and quiet by rebuilding the house (and then raise my rent!). In other words, my sleeping mind doesn’t seem to put a lot of energy into devising clever and symbolic ways of expressing my deepest desires and taboos. It just tries to get some rest.

The other night, though, I had a weird dream, weird enough to remember. In this dream, I was outdoors on a city street (could have been anywhere, the landscape wasn’t very memorable), and it was night. I was looking up at the dark sky and I could see a strange, glowing patch, bigger than a full moon, partly blocked by some buildings. This glowing area was brighter than a cluster of stars but not as bright as the moon, and had a strange swirly shape to it. I remember walking around to see it better from behind the buildings. A stranger said that it was from two different things way out in space. Then a little later, someone else said no, it’s only one thing, a ghost cloud. This wasn’t your ordinary cloud; it was way out there. It seemed uncanny and vaguely threatening, but not immediately dangerous. No need to run, but no cause to relax either.

Well, the dream could have ended right there, but then came act II. Still late at night in a city, like some scene from a Batman movie. Still a strange glowing cloud up in the skyline. But now, this guy that I used to know and haven’t seen for five years shows up. Marty is his name. Nice enough fellow, I helped him to get his job as an administrator at a social service agency. Now, before you Freudians start postulating some repressed homoerotic attraction on my part, let me tell the rest of the story. Marty comes over and looks at the cloud with me. He doesn’t seem afraid of it at all. He seems to think that it has some wondrous, mystical meaning behind it. He tells me that we just don’t know what that cloud is. I ask him, is that mostly because we haven’t sent any spaceships out to explore it yet? Marty then says no, we can never know what that celestial cloud is. Heavy, man!

Then I woke up and looked at the clock. 12:45 AM. Yea, not surprising. If I’m gonna have a weird dream, it’s usually early in the night, right around 1. No big deal, I usually get back to sleep pretty easily when I have them. I just rolled over and told myself that there is no “ghost cloud” out there; NASA and NORAD have got the heavens covered. Then it’s 5:30, no more ghost cloud dreams (or any other dreams), and it’s time to get up. All is normal.

Next morning, I thought about it some more. What did I eat that might have triggered all that? And where did Marty come from? Well, I didn’t eat anything funny that night, but just before going to bed I listened to a CD lecture about 18th Century philosopher David Hume and how he debunked the attempts of 17th Century thinkers who postulated that we can come to know God through the beautiful design of our Universe. OK, my subconscious was probably having some indigestion over that, given that I’ve also put some stock in the “natural theology” approach. And Marty? Oh, yea, I recall him having a simple albeit intelligent faith in the ultimate goodness of his employer, his Catholic religion, and his overall place in the world. As opposed to my existential skepticism regarding all of those things. Yea, Marty would be the guy who would have faith in the ultimate goodness of the unknown and the unknowable.

What is the ultimate lesson here? Hmmm … I’m not sure. But from now on, I’m gonna avoid both pizza and those Teaching Company lectures just before bedtime!

DRAFT BEER, DRAFT STUDENTS: There’s been talk lately of bringing back the military draft. So far, talk is all it is. Some Democratic congressmen, including Charles Rangel of New York, have introduced legislation (S89 / HR163) that would require all men and women between 19 and 26 to perform two years of national service, which would be in the military or possibly in some form of domestic service work. The Republicans aren’t getting behind these bills (that would be suicide just before a big election), so for now it’s little more than a publicity stunt.

Rangel, as a Democrat, seems at first like an unlikely sponsor of a pro-military bill. However, as a black legislator with enough stomach for racial politics, Rangel wants to put more white skin in the game, so as to give our leadership pause the next time they decide to send the boys overseas. (And girls. Rangel’s bill won’t let them off as in the past). The next “Operation Freedom” would thus mix sophomores from Yale and Harvard in with the brothers and sisters from Newark and Oakland. In theory, anyway.

It’s pretty clear that the U.S. military is smaller than it’s been in the past, and is taking a lot of wear and tear from the Iraq situation. The Rumsfeld concept of a fast shock-and-awe operation that relies heavily on high tech equipment was successful in gaining ground, but not in holding it. We really wouldn’t be ready today if a lot of troops were suddenly needed somewhere else (say, Korea?). If Bush is still in the White House come late January, fear of the D-word might well diminish once it was recaptured from the Democratic rogues. And hey, the Democrats also have a history as happy warriors; a veteran like Kerry might also claim a need to call upon our young men and women to help our nation meet its international responsibilities.

My first instinct is to oppose a return of the draft and let our young people have their lives (as I was lucky enough to have had; the Vietnam draft ended just as I reached the age). But then again, perhaps Congressman Rangel has a point. If our leaders, Republican or Democrat, actually had to think about their own children and nephews (and now, even nieces) when considering future Iraq-like operations, their thinking process might become that much more focused. Maybe the USA would then avoid getting stupid and thinking that we can run the world without the consensus and support of our major allies. (That is, if we have any left).

TWO STRANGE PHENOMENA: Number 1: Madonna in her Jewish phase. “Esther”, as she would have it. The Material Girl as Queen of Kabbalah. Far out.

Number 2: Cosmic strings. Even farther out. These aren’t your usual superstrings. Many cosmologists think that the universe went thru some heavy changes during the first minute of its existence, changes that included phase transition and symmetry breaking. When things goes thru phase transitions, they often develop topological defects; sort of like the cracks that develop when water turns to ice. Some of these defects in the Universe may turn out to be huge strings of pure energy that warp the fabric of spacetime. If you were to get caught between one of these strings and a black hole, you might even get transported into the past (if you could survive the crushing gravity force).

Next year, the LIGO project to detect gravity waves will become operational. If there are cosmic strings out there, this may be the thing that will pick them up. But whatever the LIGO scientists detect, the observation of gravity waves will open up a whole new way of looking at space; it will probably be responsible for some really important discoveries over the next couple of decades. Definitely far out. Check out http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/LIGO.html

Yes, they do look a lot alike. But some of you may not remember the guy on the right. OK, I’ll explain. He’s a former U.S. senator from Maine by the name of Edmund Muskie. He ran as Hubert Humphrey’s VP candidate in the 1968 election and lost to the Nixon ticket. Then in 1976 he ran for the Democratic nomination, but his campaign fell apart after he started crying when asked about his wife taking hits from the mud-slinging political journalists up in New Hampshire. He finished up his career as Secretary of State for Jimmy Carter, and was around to watch Carter go down in flames against the Gipper (R.I.P.) in 80. Yea, Edumund Muskie was a decent man who had a hard luck political career.

I can’t help but wonder if John Kerry was born under the same crossed star. The last hope: a VP candidate with a more lucky disposition. Namely, John Edwards.

My father served in the US Navy toward the end of World War 2. He lucked out by being assigned to the Naval Air Station in Pearl Harbor (about two years after the Japanese attack there on December 7, 1941). Obviously, had he been assigned to a ship somewhere in the western Pacific, he could have been taken down by a torpedo or some kamikaze, and I wouldn’t be here writing this blog today. My belated thanks to the underling lieutenant who reviewed my father’s papers and decided that he’d make a good airplane mechanic in the Pearl Harbor backshop. You never know who you owe your life to.

Even though my dad passed away many years ago, you can still find some Naval paraphernalia in the nooks and cubbyholes around my mother’s house. While doing my wash over there, I sometimes browse through my father’s Bluejackets’ Manual. This is “the bible” on how to be a sailor. Contained within its 784 pages is all kinds of info, including how to sail a ship by wind, how to row oars, how to swim, how to apply first aid, how to salute, how a lifting tackle works, how various types of knots and splices are tied, how to fire a handgun and a rifle, how to march in formation, what the colors of various kinds of mortar shells are, and on and on. There’s a Q&A; section that tells you about bilge keels, scuppers, the break of the forecastle, deadlights, taffrails, bucklers, fish booms, and hawse plugs. It also offers the wisdom that “keeping a warship in first-class condition means a constant battle against rust”. Hmm, wonder if that still applies in this era of aluminum and composites.

Towards the beginning of the Manual, there is a basic description of what the US Navy is all about, at least as of 1940. Since the Navy is mainly about ships, the book contains a list of the major warships of the time and some pictures (my favorite part). It’s slightly ironic to review the specifications for the USS Arizona and Oklahoma, which would be lost at Pearl Harbor just over a year after the Handbook was issued in June, 1940. Also, the pictured aircraft carrier (the USS Lexington) went down a few months thereafter at Coral Sea.

You might have thought that a new Handbook would have been issued by late 1943 when my father enlisted. (Actually there was a 1943 version, but it was probably still coming off the press). I suppose the Navy had a lot on its mind, such as battles at Midway and Leyte Gulf, not to mention Nazi U-Boats. Actually, it looks as though the 1940 Bluejacket’s Manual was pretty well prepared, and probably didn’t need to be redone once the torpedos and bombs started flying. Most likely it was one of those unheralded little things that some long forgotten group of people put a lot of energy into, which in the end allowed something big to happen – in this case, America’s military success against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

The first couple of chapters of the Manual were written, appropriately enough, with the raw young recruit in mind. These chapters basically amount to a sales brochure for the sailor’s life, and at the same time they dispense some fatherly wisdom aimed at the scared and bewildered 18 year olds who were soon gonna be fodder for Axis ordnance. I found the language to be quite interesting – obviously, some of the vernacular is now outdated. But it assumes a certain credulity and respect for governmental authority that I’m not sure still exists. I really wonder if the average teenager of today could take seriously what was said in the Manual. Anyway, here are some excerpts with a few of my own comments.

PLEASE NOTE: I’m not trying to depreciate the bravery of our veterans or the sincere efforts that military people still make for the nation. Admittedly, I was never in the military, so I can’t completely understand the context involved. I’m mainly examining the manly tone of language used, and wondering how much the world has changed since it was more-or-less appropriately spoken some sixty odd years ago.

Fighting spirit – you know what this is. Without it, you are only a human biped who wears pants. With it, you are a live, red-blooded go-getter . . .

(I’ll let someone else comment on the correlation, or lack thereof, between wearing pants and red-blooded fighting spirit)

Be peppy. Put some drive into things. Carry a self-starter. Don’t have to be cranked everytime to get started.

(Cars stopped using starting cranks by 1930, but interestingly, the expression lingered).

Be square. Give a square deal to others and expect one in return.

(Of course, by the 1950s, being “square” was a little bit too pro-establishment; the age of the beatniks was yet to come in 1940).

Act so that your home folks will be proud of you . . .

(Ah, the days when the home folk were counting on young soldiers and sailors; then came Vietnam, unfortunately . . . )

No man ever succeeded by hanging on to his mother’s apron strings all his life.

(Back when mothers wore aprons)

A letter from home will buck you up more than anything else.

(I guess that people today don’t speak about getting “bucked up” because it sounds too much like something else . . . )

. . . you will find that you will have more liberties than you really want.

(sorry, but I have to question how many sailors would ultimately agree with that)

Admit your mistakes frankly and take your medicine.

(And take it like a man!)

The government educates and trains you, and then gives you a fine position for life, for which, in turn, you agree to do whatever the government demands.

(this sounds a little bit Orwellian …)

Always boost. If you cannot boost, at least do not knock.

(OK, good basic advice.)

To live a clean, wholesome life, you must think clearly and wholesomely. When you find your mind wandering on unwholesome subjects, snap out of it and turn your mind to clean thoughts. Get interested in clean, manly subjects, such as good books, athletics, shows, etc.

(Most books, athletics and shows today aren’t 100% clean and wholesome …)

See the really worth-while sights in the towns you visit. Do not hang around the dirty places that are always handy and which are always waiting to prey on you.

(Maybe this is reverse advertising – imagine being some kid from a farm in Iowa on his first Navy voyage, about to dock in France or Italy – wow, dirty places, can’t wait!!!)

Your best friends are your company commander and the officers on your station. They are trying to make a real man of you.

(Well, I’ll bet that they honestly wanted raw recruits to have a chance to live once the bullets started to fly, so they did all they could to toughen them up; a form of tough love, I guess).

You will develop friends rapidly with your new shipmates. Be careful, however, that you do not pick the occasional shirk, piker, or fourflusher for your friend, as such a man will invariably get you into trouble in time.

(I can imagine the fourflusher – a tall guy with black, slicked back hair and a trimmed little mustache …)

An Army and Navy YMCA is usually near your station, and you should make use of it immediately. It gives you a fine club life which would cost you a small fortune to enjoy in civil life.

(But perhaps not quite the “fine club life” that we would envision today)

[The Chaplain] frequently has additional duties with reference to motion pictures and entertainments and often helps in promoting smokers, parties, and various forms of
athletics.

(Smokers set up by the Chaplain? Cigarettes, booze and dirty movies? Well, one out of three, perhaps …)

. . . the only object of the Navy is to win battles.

(I’ve read that military doctrines are more sophisticated today; recall, most battles in Vietnam were won, but the war was horribly lost)

Wooden ships manned by men of iron will defeat iron ships manned by wooden men.

(That’s an old saw, but it still makes a good point — a point that perhaps applied in Vietnam; not that our guys were inferior, but the other side just wanted it too much).

Many men leave the service by desertion or by bad-conduct discharge and then, after they get outside, they realize that the Navy is a fine place.

(Perhaps this is a bit of advertising exaggeration; you can imagine this being spoken in a burly voice that puts emphasis on the word “fine”).

Do not try to learn by hard knocks and experience alone. That is slow and inefficient. The study of a good textbook for a few hours will probably teach you more electricity than Franklin learned in his whole life.

(Kids today probably know plenty about electricity, but as to Franklin … who’s this Franklin dude?)

Winning or losing, the main thing is to show yourself good and clean sportsmen — modest winners if the breaks are with you and good losers if the breaks are against you.

(Good sports philosophy – it’s all in the breaks, so be a good sport – wonder if the Navy accepts that as a philosophy of military and political outcomes?)

There was an article in the December, 2002 Atlantic Magazine about imagination. A lot of research is going on about how the human mind works, and how the chemistry, structure and dynamics of the human brain supports it. Imagination is turning out to be a very important thing in determining people’s actions. Imagination is not just for kids. It’s basically the process by which all personal decisions are made. Whenever we face the future, be it what channel we watch on the tube, or what we do tonight for dinner, or whether we have another child, or whether we apply for a particular job, our imagination sets up a picture of the future, to allow us to evaluate the consequences. Sure, for the important decisions, we do some pondering and analysis. We evaluate the facts, look at the pros and cons, maybe even write up a list of things to consider. But in the end, most decisions aren’t made according to a mathematical outcome from some abstract formula. We make our decisions based upon a picture in our heads. At bottom we ask the following: do we like this picture better than the other possible picture (e.g., we might take a job, even if it’s boring, because it’s better than sitting home on unemployment).

The article points out that in evaluating our “imagination pictures” when making a big choice, sometimes our imagination runs a bit faster than reality. One good example is in the spending of disposible income. Say we have enough cash for basic food and shelter, and then have some extra money. We see an advertisement for something, say a new coat, a new computer, a trip to Europe, whatever. The imagination now has two pictures to compare: in one picture, we sit there as we are, with the money in our wallets or in our bank account, waiting for some future opportunity to purchase something. In the other picture, we have the thing in question, and it’s great. For some reason, our imagination seems to favor doing something versus doing nothing. So, we go ahead and buy the thing, and guess what? Even if it is of reasonable quality and does what it’s supposed to do, we feel a bit disappointed. The glow wares off rather quickly. I’m a sucker myself for books (as an eternal student should be!). I walk thru a bookstore and see something interesting, and immediately I imagine what a great read this book is going to be, what a warm glow I’m going to feel by having it. Then I buy it, take it home, peck through the first chapter, find out that it isn’t all that inspiring after all, and throw it into the growing pile of books waiting for me to get to one day.

The article concludes with an interesting point, which is this: perhaps it is best that our imagination is biased toward action, even if that causes problems with our $budget$ sometimes. If our imaginations presented things as they will most likely turn out, then we would become much lazier creatures, and a lot of personal and social progress would never have happened. Imagination turns us into a world of proactive doers, versus solely reactive survivors. But let’s never forget that imagination, like everything, has its dark side. For example, various terrorist groups looking for suicide volunteers seem to have had success in inspiring potential candidates to imagine the spiritual paradise that awaits them in exchange for their lives (also to imagine the good that will accrue to their own tribe, while disregarding the pain that will be felt by the other tribe). Like yin and yang, perhaps both imagination and cynicism are needed.

A guy at work gave me a copy of the Wall Street Journal the other day (May 27 edition). I’m not the WSJ type — not a “hyper-capitalist” at all (though I’m not really anti-capitalist either; I’m just against the extremes that business seems to go to these days). But it’s still good to keep up with what the business sector is talking about, so I put the Journal in my “water closet” reading pile.

After a few visits to the loo, I noted two articles of interest. I thus decided to share them with my blogging audience, all 5 or 6 of you –- thanks for your support! And please be assured that this is a not-for-profit blog; it has nothing to do with those sales arrangements encouraged by sites like www.aiyo.com (talk about capitalist extremes). Anyway, here are my WC reflections on the WSJ:

1.) On the heavy side, there was an article about Airbus and its A380, a commercial jet liner now in development. Once it starts flying, supposedly in 2006, it will be the world’s largest passenger jet, bigger than the Boeing 747. It will be able to hold up to 800 passengers, depending on how tightly the airlines decide to pack ‘em in (and the airlines generally pack ‘em in pretty tight).

The article focused on the problems that Airbus management and engineers have had in controlling the A380’s weight. The problem is, the more the plane weights, the more fuel it uses. The more fuel it uses, the more it costs to operate. The more it costs to operate, the less money it makes in the highly competitive air passenger market (and in these days of extreme capitalism, just about every market is highly competitive). So, the Airbus engineers are breaking a lot of old rules, in terms of using carbon-epoxy composites instead of aluminum for critical wing structures.

Today’s planes use a lot of carbon composite parts, but they stick to metal for the most critical load-bearing things. That’s because the designers know how metal responds to wind shears and rough landings and rapidly changing air temperatures (in 10 minutes, a plane can go from 120 degrees on the runway to way below zero up at cruising altitudes). They really don’t know that much about how composites will react under load in such conditions. But what the heck, Airbus is betting the farm on the A380 in its battle with Boeing to dominate the commercial aircraft industry. Too bad that it’s also betting the lives of up to 800 people on each A380 flight in its quest to be king.

Oh, and to save a few more pounds, Airbus is substituting aluminum electrical wire for the usual copper. Although aluminum wire is lighter, it’s more brittle than copper. And brittle is not good in something that twists and flaps like a big airplane does (did you ever watch the motion of an airplane’s wings during turbulence, or during a rough landing? Actually, perhaps it’s best not to).

Back in the 50’s and 60’s, when the government actually tried to discourage monopolies, industries adopted more of a live-and-let-live attitude. Because of the threat of antitrust lawsuits, they would generally forgo the chance to rake in big profits and settle for just enough to keep their investors from bolting. Today, it seems like we’ve gone back to the mentality of the early 20th Century, when monopolies like Standard Oil would do anything to knock off their competitors and rake in the dough – including endangering the welfare of their customers and employees. It will be interesting to see if Airbus is also going a little bit too far here.

I’m sure that Airbus and the airlines will get the A380 up in the air; but will it have the generally good crash history that the 757 and 767 have had, or will it become another DC-10? I myself will not be in any hurry to fly an A380, despite the low fares they will allow (Virgin Atlantic, a low-fare trans-Atlantic carrier, had signed up for some; but they’ve decided to wait a bit, let someone else be the first to fly them).

2.) On the slightly lighter side, there’s an article about Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, another one of those rust-belt industrial cities that fell upon hard times in the 70s and 80s and still hasn’t gotten out of the hole. Aliquippa has been down on it’s luck since its big J&L; Steel plant closed around 1983. Thousands of jobs were lost, unemployment went way up, the town went broke, people moved out, and almost no new businesses came in (although a small US Gypsum operation started and created 200 jobs). Under such conditions, it’s not surprising that alcoholism and drug abuse has become more prevalent. Aliquippa is one of those places that got stepped on by the cowboy capitalist ethic that I discussed above. (Admittedly, controlling this new hyper-capitalist ethic won’t be as easy as in the early 20th Century, when antitrust and pro-union laws did the trick, followed by environmental laws in the 70s; we are now living with a highly international economy, where American antitrust and union and environmental laws have no effect in places like India and China; there are no easy answers, as trade barriers just shoot ourselves in the foot).

A broken down town in a gloomy valley outside of Pittsburgh … this is light, you ask? Well, no. But the article also quoted Aliquippa’s City Manager, who came across as a highly intelligent, professional and devoted public official trying his best to somehow find a way out of the mess that his town is in. Given the town’s problems with substance abuse, however, his name was a bit unfortunate: Mister Stoner.

Well, in keeping with my promise to zip this blog up a bit, I’m going to close with a nice picture, a picture of a cloud. As to Airbus, I hope that its A380s with their 800 passengers soar above every such cloud to safe landings every trip. And as to the stoners in Aliquippa, I suppose they can relate to a “cloud 9”. But I hope that the glowing edge of this cloud foretells an upcoming “silver lining” for Mister Stoner and all the people fighting for a comeback in his town.