Category: People

Einstein, Walter Isaacson Simon & Schuster, 2007

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

I wonder what it would have been like for a Princeton undergrad to ride back to school on the Dinky and find himself seated next to Albert Einstein or to see him seated at the corner ice cream store on Nassau Street where he would stop on his walk home.  Einstein would walk daily to his office chatting with his friend Kurt Goedel.  Interesting that these two monumental minds found such a bond, with Goedel who described the limits of logic and Einstein who explained the great expansive energy of the universe.
Walter Isaacson explains the basics of Einstein’s theories in a way that, mercifully, the average reader can understand.  By average reader, I mean, all of us who struggled with math and are baffled by physics.  And it is decidedly not true that Einstein was backward as a child and could not learn mathematics.  He mastered calculus in his teens was good enough at it to tutor the lesser minds of fellow students.  On the other hand, he was slow to take up language, but then again, it is clear that all his life he thought deeply and thoroughly before speaking.
It is interesting and surprising to learn that his discoveries were made mostly of thought experiments, rather than by actual physical testing.  That task was left largely to others who proved his theories.  It is also a surprise that this man of science insistently denied that he was an atheist.  In fact, he surprised several friends who assumed that he had no belief in a grand designer of the incredible design of nature.  On the other hand, he said he had no belief in a personal God, but rather believed in Spinoza’s God.  Spinoza defined God so broadly and was so opposed to what he termed the superstitious stories of the Bible, that it would be hard to say in what kind of deity Einstein did believe.
On thing is certain, he was proud of his Jewish heritage and hated the German nationalism even before Germany turned to the Nazis.  Einstein was also somewhat skeptical of the growing nationalism in Palestine that eventually brought about the state of Israel.  Nonetheless, he lobbied for the founding of Israel and was even offered it first presidency which he wisely declined.
Isaacson debunks many of the things we think we know about Einstein but it is true that there actually was some reason in the suspicions that the FBI had about him during the war.  Apparently he never knew it, but in his later years the woman he dated was indeed a Soviet agent.  His last years were spent quietly and peacefully in Princeton where he was thought to be just as he was, a thoughtful man who had every right to display superior airs, but didn’t.  His neighbors had a little daughter who would sneak over to Einstein and get help with her mathematics homework and he obliged.  She complained to him that her math problems were so difficult, but Albert Einstein, the patient genius, told her that his math problems were even more difficult.

Job #2

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

 

Introduction to My Miserable Jobs:  Job #2, Usher

I am always saying I had 50 or more jobs, but I am not sure. I want to see if I can remember all the worthless, God-awful pursuits of mine in the name of keeping body and soul together. Here is my real resume. I hesitate to call it a “Vita” lest it comes to define my life. I still have some hope that my life is more than the sum of my crummy jobs.

Job Number 2, Usher. I believe the first employment I had was at as an usher (remember them?) at a rat’s ass motion picture theater in Lake Worth, Fla. It was the Lake Theater or the Worth, I can’t remember which. The pay? I believe it was $1.10 an hour, maybe less, and all the popcorn you could eat. Of course, the ushers could also see the movies for free, once their shift was over. Unfortunately, this rotting old failure of a cinema house showed only films which nobody wanted to see. It hadn’t yet fallen to the state of having to become a porn palace, but that happened next, a few years later. We ushers wore funny little uniforms, black I think, and really cheap. Why is it that the worst of jobs come with uniforms?
I was just at the legal age to work, I suppose 14. This would have been 1963 or 1964. At that time, each little town had at least one theater that would have Saturday morning features. These were a cultural phenomenon few remember, for good reason. Basically, the Saturday morning session catered to a clientele of twelve to fifteen year olds, wild, uncivilized, and set loose in the dark. Younger ones were attracted to a cartoons, but the real free-for-all was the horror shows, two for a dollar. Of course, like today, the money was in the candy, pop, and popcorn sales. After selling vast quantities of these vile concoctions and sticky substances to the wild herd, the lights were dimmed and the show began. A tumultuous riot always ensued. Nickel pickles were hurled at the screen, gooey candy dropped or flung, most of the popcorn and soda spilled on the floor. In fact, the floor was the expected repository of all refuse as well as all manner disgusting substances. There were no trash cans as no one would use them anyway. The screaming, fighting, crowd of horrid adolescents were free, free at last to throw anything anywhere.
The usher’s duty was to maintain order. Imagine! There in the dark, six tiny ushers teamed against a mob of hundreds with all the hormones of their age coursing through them, fueled with sugar and driven with the smell of utter license and a total absence of law, parents, or any thought of decent behavior. The only rules enforced were the fire regulations limiting the size of the crowd, a law always violated to great extent. The ushers had to hold the mob at bay by guarding the entrances until the appointed hour, then only to sell a limited amount of tickets. On one Saturday, a particularly outrageous crowd pushed on the double doors to get in. The ushers pushed back. At one point, a snot-nosed villain, smelling of cola and sweat, inserted an arm and a foot and tried to unloose the locking mechanism. I shoved my body against the doors and smashed his hand quite well. In another day and age, the theater and I would have been sued from here to hell, but in 1964 the little creep just settled the score by stalking me after the show. I ran, of course, and luckily never saw him again.
My flight from him, and his accomplice, who was a freckled girl with few teeth, took place after the clean up, a task of several hours that only a Hercules shoveling out the stable could have accomplished any earlier. Gigantic mounds of refuse where pushed and shoved into the aisles from the rows. Feed lot scoops were used to shovel the junk into containers which were trucked away. It was awful. All the while, the little weasel manager, Mr. T. I think, stayed closeted in his smelly office making phone calls.
A short while after I quit this little prison, I heard what may well have been a scandalized lie, that T. was arrested in Ft. Lauderdale for exposing himself to little boys.

Ryan/Rand

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

So now we have to listen to endless jabber about that second-rate mind Paul Ryan who will subject us to his sophomoric adoration of Ayn Rand. This is Harold Bloom’s assessment of Rand:

Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities and English at Yale University. Professor Bloom did not mince words: “Ayn Rand was a writer of no value whatsoever, whether aesthetic or intellectual. The Tea Party deserves her, but the rest of us do not. It is not less than obscene that any educational institution that relies even in part on public funds should ask students to consider her work. We are threatened these days by vicious mindlessness and this is one of its manifestations.” from Cockburn http://www.counterpunch.org 

VJ’s Nonprofit Class

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

This is a succinct list of recommendations on how to actually apply ethical standards in the workplace by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the HBR: http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/06/ten-essentials-for-getting-val.html.  When I have the privilege of teaching the ethics section of VJ’s course for nonprofit managers, I emphasize that ethical decisions are commonplace but difficult ones pose a dilemma, a controversy, and always a tough call for the nonprofit executive.  Judging the consequence of taking one path or the other is a choice between shades of gray, with both yin and yang on either side.  Kanter’s list reflects how dialog and stories that reflect values can help instill and promote ethical behavior.

A Refutation

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

I always liked the story about Samuel Johnson and the Platonic world of ideals.  Boswell says he can’t refute the claim of Bishop Berkeley that what we sense is not real, only ideals are real.  So Johnson delivers a swift kick to a stone saying “I refute it thus!”  There is a story about Diogenes where he wants to give a Diogenean response to a definition of man as a “featherless biped” made by Plato.  Diogenes carried a plucked chicken to the Academy and said “Here is Plato’s Man!”

Lake Worth City Manager

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

In my last post about Lake Worth, 22Jan2010, I mentioned that I thought that the city was wonderfully transformed (even in these hard times).  I had assumed Susan Stanton, the former mayor of Berea (as Steve Stanton), was largely responsible.  Maybe.  But regrettably, he has recently been fired.  I know that Lake Worth is a town friendly to the LGBT folks so it can’t be that.  Still and all, Lake Worth is a lovely place filled with quiet streets, walk and riding paths, parks and a vibrant nightlife.

more Diogenes’ replies

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

At the mansion of a wealthy young man: “Since I had no where else spit, I spit on the fellow himself.  He rebuked me but I responded that he had himself to blame because I didn’t decorate this extravagant hall with such excess, leaving only yourself as a fitting place to spit.”  D. claims the young man then gave away all his wealth and put on a coarse cloak and followed Diogenes.


Since the writing attributed to Diogenes was not actually written by Diogenes, it is possible that the reports of what he said may have been spoken by others.  The Cynic Epistles (Malherbe, 1977) contains passages (trans. Fiore, SJ) ascribed to Diogenes of Sinope who probably did write some letters such as these, but the ones available were written long after Diogenes’ passing into the eternity which he doubted.  Someone revise D.’s words, so I revised them too.


To Aroueca D. writes:  “Know yourself, and if you have anything wrong with you such as stupidity, get a doctor for it and pray he does you more good than harm.”


To Zeno he advises:  “One should not wed or raise children, since our race is weal and marriage and children burden human weakness with troubles….If the human race should thus become devoid of people, how could this be regretted?”


Sometimes it is claimed that Diogenes was stolen by pirates and sold into slavery.  At the sale of the slaves, D. is displayed for purchase and asked if he has any talents.  “Yes, my skill is to rule over men, so if any of you need a master, then I am available.”


Diogenes Laertius reports (D.L. in Google books) of Diogenes (of Sinope)  that D. had issues with Plato who called him a dog, but of course, D. called himself a dog so this should not have offended.  D.L. says Plato defined a human being as a two-footed, featherless animal.  So D. brings a plucked chicken to his school and says, “This is Plato’s man.”


D. L. also says that after the “stand out of my sunlight” reply, Alexander states that if he had not been Alexander he should have liked to be Diogenes.  I suppose Alex would not have liked the living in a barrel thing.

Carnivore’s Loss

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

Today we mourn the loss of Al Bernardin, the inventor of Quarter Pounder, the artery clogging concoction from McDonald’s carnivore paradise. This signals the end of the American way as we know it. Reported to be a lovely man, volunteer for hospice, business leader, and Dean of Hamburger University, Al died of a stroke at 81 years of age. Al also invented the frozen french fry, a McDonald’s delicacy equaled by no other. I will think of Al this afternoon, and every afternoon when I step over to Dogwood Drive and pick up the McD’s bags and rappers tossed by passing motorists who graciously offer me their trash without charge. Al’s contribution to demise of cattle everywhere is not well recognised, nor is the cause of the clearing of South American jungles, where 70% of such deforestation is due to the expansion of cattle ranches in order to feed fast-foody Americans.  We cannot speak ill of the dead, and I know of nothing ill to be said about this gentle soul, and the Donne poem tells us every death diminishes us all.  Our rear views are undiminished by the consumption of Quarter Pounders, those oily fries, and I, believe, Mr. Bernardin’s other contributions to the culinary world such as McDonald’s pies.  I will think of him every time I see a party of fat bottomed folks pull into the golden arches and hope that Al has plenty of burgers where he is going and I trust they won’t be well done.  Bye Al, hope you’re lovin’ it.

The Old Time Religion

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

That Old Time Religion would be Jewish, so I don’t understand why the Southern backwoods churches sing about it. A McClatchy news item today http://www.kentucky.com/faith/story/1079670.html reports a study showing religious belief and prayer is most strong in the South and to a lesser degree in the Western hands-off-my-guns states. Mississippi is the very epicenter of churchiness.  It also sports the lowest median family income of all the States.  One can’t help but think that there is a relationship of fundamentalist belief and the prevalence of violence, racial animosity, parochialism, poverty,  tobacco spitting, and garden variety ignorance. As old Scrooge was told, the worst of these is ignorance. A Wiki posting on Religiosity and Intelligence cites numerous studies that show that intelligence and education are negatively related to religiosity. It may be that brighter and more educated persons are also more agnostic. Not only in American states, but in whole nations, as education is high, religion is low. The Wiki article mentions a controversial study by Helmuth Nyborg and Richard Lynn that showed that well educated nations are less religious. ‘Among the sample of 137 countries, only 23 (17%) had more than 20% of atheists, which constituted “virtually all the higher IQ countries.” The authors reported a correlation of 0.60 between atheism rates and level of intelligence, which is “highly statistically significant.” ‘

The McClatchy article carried in the Lexington Herald-Leader displayed a map which was striking in showing how prayer and church-going is most strong throughout Dixie-land. It is only natural to conclude that this seems to be trait that goes along the worst of Southern sentiments. The map has a prominent outlier: Utah, where Mormons reign supreme. Utah in general has a population that is relatively high in education and income. There is some evidence that Mormons who are more highly educated are more religious. This seems to indicate that perhaps one type of religious belief or the nature of literal belief systems is related to intelligence and education. The history of formal education, of universities and universal education is also the story of religious leadership at least in Catholicism, both in its aggressive Jesuit tradition, and in Catholicism-lite, the Anglicans. Possibly in Islam too, some of the great advances in education and science were made by highly religious persons and institutions, although in Muslim countries it seems like everything is religious except in Ataturk’s Turkey. Probably Jews have a corner on the greatest advances in literacy and science but Jews, at least today, are not often highly religious at least in the US and Europe.
Nonetheless, the map of the praying South is striking and scary. It may just be those stomping, snaky, shaking Bible-thumpers, but it is true that God and Guns and Goober go together.

Last Day

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

Chris Hedges’ book Empire of Illusion was lent to me by T.B. and I finished it on this last day of anno domini 2009. Hedges is not a happy man. In this book, subtitled “The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” Hedges records the demise of the American Empire and its crushing devolution into the celebrity culture, the hyping of know-nothingism, the rapacity of the corporate economy, and the sleaze of pornography. T.B. cautioned me against reading Hedges’ chapter on pornography, and the first few pages of it convinced me to take his advice. Hedges is in serious need of an increase in his Prozac dosage, but his record of the swift decline of our culture, while decidedly over-the-top, was entirely appropriate to my final reading for the end of a decade where humanity endured, but did not prevail.

 
On a more positive note, I had been given, by E. as a Christmas present, the collection of essays What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite writers. Last week David Brooks awarded Gladwell a Sidney, the annual David Brooks award for magazine essays. Gladwell is always fascinating and perhaps criticized as not a deep thinker, he is an out of the box thinker and never fails to provoke thought and amazement. Brooks wrote that some critics assault Gladwell as “being too interesting and not theoretical enough. This is absurd. Gladwell’s pieces in The New Yorker are always worth reading.” I read several of the pieces and indeed they are worth reading. How any writer can learn and convey so much from an essay on ketchup of all things is nothing short of astounding.
Brooks himself is always worth reading and he also reminded me of some websites I had visited before and have neglected and some he helped me discover. “Fortunately there are a few Web sites that provide daily links to the best that is thought and said. Arts and Letters Daily is the center of high-toned linkage on the Web. The Browser is a trans-Atlantic site with a superb eye for the interesting and the profound. Book Forum has a more academic feel, but it is also worth a daily read.”
The Arts and Letters Daily led me to a Kevin Carey article about college Pell grants http://www.democracyjournal.org/that_old_college_lie.html , which are so often wasted those colleges and their students, perhaps better called customers, who teach and seek higher education as some form of job training, and endeavor that generally ends in failure. Carey does regard the best of universities as truly worthwhile, however the costs are shameful. Graduate tuition and living expense at Princeton is more than $55,000 for a year. Carey says, “At the trend-setting high end of the market, higher education has become a luxury good, the educational equivalent of a Prada shoe. These are unusually nice shoes, of course, just as Harvard is an unusually good university. But in both cases consumers aren’t paying for quality alone–they’re also paying extra for scarcity and a prominent brand name, the primary value of which is to signal to the rest of the world that they’re rich and connected enough to pay the price.” Harvard is like Prada. I like that, it was worth reading.