I just have three minor, mostly unrelated thoughts to discuss tonight. It’s pretty hard to weave them into a coherent picture, but 0f course, I’ll “go down trying”.
First – here’s a nice little article from the NY Times about the end of outdoor skating during the winter on frozen ponds. Unless you are up in Canada or in the middle of northern Minnesota, it just doesn’t get cold for long-enough periods anymore. Also, because of human development, there is too much road salt and other pollutants that keeps lake water from freezing. That’s a shame. Outdoor skating was a part of my youth here in New Jersey. I was never very good at it, but it could be fun nonetheless. But no, it just doesn’t happen very much anymore. The world has changed.
Second – about that spy satellite that the US military is going to shoot down in a week or so. I can’t help but wonder if they would normally ride something like this out, but now have itchy trigger fingers because of that Chinese anti-satellite test in January 2007. It’s not like the thing would require evacuation of hundreds of square miles of land. It wouldn’t spray toxic rocket fuel for more than a city block or two. They could track it and give advanced warning to any populated areas that it might hit (chances still greatly favor its coming down in the ocean). It’s not some huge crisis.
So I can’t help but wonder if the dramatic response is a message to the Chinese – i.e., you guys managed to hit a satellite in a controlled test with a missile launched from a special base. We can hit a satellite from one of our regular warships in international waters. On any day we want (assuming that the interceptor missile works). Admittedly, there are some technical differences – they hit a satellite up around 500 miles up, whereas we would hit ours at around 100 miles or less. Our situation won’t cause the big space-junk mess that the Chinese caused. But still, I think the intended but unspoken message to China and the world here is that the USA is still the big khahuna with regard to space and military technology.
Third – is competition between religions a good thing? The March Atlantic has an article written by Alan Wolfe about this. In many instances throughout history, competition between differing religious viewpoints led to war, torture, and other bad stuff. Today, in some places, this still happens (e.g., Nigeria). But in the USA, the effects of religious Darwinism will arguably be more peaceful. Since we are a rich nation, there’s not much danger of warfare breaking out between, say, the Mormons and the Pentecostals. But what we are seeing is the “Wal-Mart-ization” of religion.
In the US heartland, the mega-churches seem to be growing at the expense of small, traditional Protestant congregations (actually, there are signs of early mega-church formation here in NJ; e.g., not far from me, a newly formed generic Christian group meets every Sunday in a local Boys Club gym). These big churches offer a variety of worship forms, some featuring modern entertainment, and a wide variety of services including job seekers clubs, social outreach groups, sports teams, study groups, parents’ support ministries, etc. Other types of churches will hang on, but only by finding specific targeted audiences, e.g. gays (at some liberal Episcopalian parishes), educated agnostics (Quaker and Unitarian churches), struggling immigrants (probably where the Roman Catholic Church in America is heading), poor people looking for support (e.g., urban Pentecostal and Islamic congregations), cultural niches (Judaism, Islam, Hindu temples), etc.
So, the days of Currier and Ives are coming to an end in the USA. Paintings of kids skating on a pond under clear blue skies with a quaint small-town church in the background are visions of the past (or fading fast, anyway). Skating now goes on inside a big indoor rink; religion happens inside something like that too. And those skies aren’t so clear and blue anymore, but if you do get such a day, you might see the contrail of a rapidly-climbing anti-satellite missile seeking out an enemy in space (or some falling space junk).
Jim,
I really can’t relate to ice skating. I never could stand up on ice skates, even though I tried as a kid. My ankles somehow wouldn’t support me. Also, having been out in some of the worst weather imaginable during my life, I really have no good memories of cold weather. Although I never really minded cold weather in my younger years–I always felt one could always put on clothes to keep warm; whereas in the summer there were only so many clothes one could take off.
As to the U.S.-Chinese competition (if that what it basically is) as regards we-can-shoot-down-a-satellite-just-as-well-as-you-can-shoot-down-a-satellite, I say this is a way better method of proving “we can do it too” than say coming to some kind of war over something. I also think that there is also the competition of keeping “secrets” lest any other country find out some of our satellite secrets. The word that (for me) stood out immediately when I heard about this satellite “project” was “secret.” My thought is that if pieces of the satellite fell some place where some other gov’t might get hold of a piece of the satellite, the gov’t is afraid that someone else may find out something about our satellites they don’t want the Chinese to find out–and ultimately begin copying. Another version of the competition thing, but better that than starting a war, I say.
A tangential aspect of this “secrets” thing makes me wonder just what kind of secrets the military has when it comes to satellites and related flying objects. Recently, (sadly, I have to say I forget what state this was in) there was a spate of UFO sightings, somewhere near a military base. Of course, “they” swore up and down people were seeing things. But, having had an uncle who worked in the development of radar when it was top secret in WWII, I have always been suspicious of all the poo-pooing of the military when it comes to UFOs. My father long ago said to me: There must be something to some of these UFOs if highly trained and skilled pilots see them. Then too, some years ago I read the book THE HUNT FOR ZERO POINT: INSIDE THE CLASSIFIED WORLD OF ANTIGRAVITY TECHNOLOGY by Nick Cook. I had two reactions to that book: 1) How right my father was. 2) That book set me to thinking about all the gov’t and military secrets that are simply that–secrets that are simply not acknowledged, that no matter what anybody sees of these experiments and the results of these experiments, the military will always come up with “swamp gas” as an explanation. So in the “competitive” aspect of things with regard to our satellite that they hope to shoot down, my guess is that the REAL reason for shooting down this satellite is that the gov’t doesn’t want China to get even a small bit of what may be on that satellite.
And as to the “competition” between religions, is that what is going on? I haven’t seen it as such. There is a mega-church not too far from where I live–well, far enough that it is located out in what passes for a “rural” area these days. I passed it one time a few years ago and said to the person with me: What’s that church doing all the way out here? I was told so many people came to the church it had to be located out in the “rural” area because of the hoards of people who came and the parking problems, etc.
Since then, I’ve taken noticed of these mega-churches. I don’t know what I think. I do think that the appeal of them is to the “younger” crowd. And it seems to me difficult to separate the entertainment aspect of these churches from say going to a rock concert or some other form of mass entertainment. It does seem to me that the younger crowd today needs to be entertained on every level, even when it comes to religion.
On the other hand, I know someone who regularly watches Joel Osteen on TV and who claims that watching Osteen on Sunday morning (or even in a rerun some other day) will give that person enough inspiration to “get through the week.” So, maybe it’s not all entertainment.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — February 18, 2008 @ 6:33 am
Jim,
I really can’t relate to ice skating. I never could stand up on ice skates, even though I tried as a kid. My ankles somehow wouldn’t support me. Also, having been out in some of the worst weather imaginable during my life, I really have no good memories of cold weather. Although I never really minded cold weather in my younger years–I always felt one could always put on clothes to keep warm; whereas in the summer there were only so many clothes one could take off.
As to the U.S.-Chinese competition (if that what it basically is) as regards we-can-shoot-down-a-satellite-just-as-well-as-you-can-shoot-down-a-satellite, I say this is a way better method of proving “we can do it too” than say coming to some kind of war over something. I also think that there is also the competition of keeping “secrets” lest any other country find out some of our satellite secrets. The word that (for me) stood out immediately when I heard about this satellite “project” was “secret.” My thought is that if pieces of the satellite fell some place where some other gov’t might get hold of a piece of the satellite, the gov’t is afraid that someone else may find out something about our satellites they don’t want the Chinese to find out–and ultimately begin copying. Another version of the competition thing, but better that than starting a war, I say.
A tangential aspect of this “secrets” thing makes me wonder just what kind of secrets the military has when it comes to satellites and related flying objects. Recently, (sadly, I have to say I forget what state this was in) there was a spate of UFO sightings, somewhere near a military base. Of course, “they” swore up and down people were seeing things. But, having had an uncle who worked in the development of radar when it was top secret in WWII, I have always been suspicious of all the poo-pooing of the military when it comes to UFOs. My father long ago said to me: There must be something to some of these UFOs if highly trained and skilled pilots see them. Then too, some years ago I read the book THE HUNT FOR ZERO POINT: INSIDE THE CLASSIFIED WORLD OF ANTIGRAVITY TECHNOLOGY by Nick Cook. I had two reactions to that book: 1) How right my father was. 2) That book set me to thinking about all the gov’t and military secrets that are simply that–secrets that are simply not acknowledged, that no matter what anybody sees of these experiments and the results of these experiments, the military will always come up with “swamp gas” as an explanation. So in the “competitive” aspect of things with regard to our satellite that they hope to shoot down, my guess is that the REAL reason for shooting down this satellite is that the gov’t doesn’t want China to get even a small bit of what may be on that satellite.
And as to the “competition” between religions, is that what is going on? I haven’t seen it as such. There is a mega-church not too far from where I live–well, far enough that it is located out in what passes for a “rural” area these days. I passed it one time a few years ago and said to the person with me: What’s that church doing all the way out here? I was told so many people came to the church it had to be located out in the “rural” area because of the hoards of people who came and the parking problems, etc.
Since then, I’ve taken noticed of these mega-churches. I don’t know what I think. I do think that the appeal of them is to the “younger” crowd. And it seems to me difficult to separate the entertainment aspect of these churches from say going to a rock concert or some other form of mass entertainment. It does seem to me that the younger crowd today needs to be entertained on every level, even when it comes to religion.
On the other hand, I know someone who regularly watches Joel Osteen on TV and who claims that watching Osteen on Sunday morning (or even in a rerun some other day) will give that person enough inspiration to “get through the week.” So, maybe it’s not all entertainment.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — February 18, 2008 @ 6:33 am