Last Summer

About 10 years ago I wrote a novel - a Roman à clef - about a kid growing up on the railroad. I tried hard to find a publisher and failed. I eventually self-published. I'm amazed at the price of used copies...
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Summer-L-Clint-Welch/dp/193025296X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404069805&sr=8-1&keywords=last+summer+welch

But anyway, I've put the book up as a blog...

http://lcwlastsummer.blogspot.com/

"It's really wonderful to work in an environment with a lot of smart people." Marissa Mayer

In this post I’m going to use “smart” in a very broad sense.  Any positive talent or ability gets included – ability to get along with people is “smart,”  - able to effectively speak in public is “smart,” – able to solve problems in astrophysics is “smart,” etc.  I think any type of smartness – if we could measure it  - is distributed in the classical bell-shaped curve, i.e., Gaussian, among the population.  The point being is that there is not an infinite reservoir of any particular type of smartness.

This point comes to mind when people complain about a profession, for example, “Why doesn’t the school board just fire the dumb teachers and get smart ones?”  “Why do they hire bad policemen?”

The answer, I believe, is that the supply of people with the requisite “smartness” isn’t big enough.  They - police, teachers, bureaucrats, physicians  - all get trained, of course, and know the basic skills but “smartness” is that quality that enables you to effectively perform using what the training teaches you.  So the next time a bureaucrat in a government office gives you bad service, you should be thankful that the “smart” person became your doctor instead of the bureaucrat.

The best bureaucrat (in this example) got promoted and doesn’t serve the public – the “Peter Principle.”

So there may not be enough “smart” people to fill all of the positions requiring “smart” people.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Gun control impinges upon the Second Amendment; involuntary commitment impinges upon the liberty clause of the Fifth Amendment; curbing 'entertainment' violence impinges upon First Amendment free speech. That's a lot of impingement, a lot of amendments. But there's no free lunch. Increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties." Charles Krauthammer

There will never be a resolution to the gun control discussion. The proponents on each side believe they have the moral high ground. It's a minor league version of the Sunni vs Shiite struggle. The anti-control people believe that any impingement of the Second Amendment is starting down the slippery slope and soon the government will know where all guns are, who owns them, and have absolute power to confiscate them. The pro-control people believe that the only way to save hundreds of innocent lives – including children - is to have some control over the weapons. Note that the anti-control people believe that ANY compromise is a loss that they cannot tolerate – so the divide will remain. History has evolved such that they have the political power to control the government, which they distrust so much.

In my ideal world there would be geographically based gun control. I’ve lived in the rural West and enjoyed hunting and I’ve lived in large cities where you fear a stray bullet coming through a window. Guns are needed in rural areas – not in urban areas. But I recognize that if such control was in place, guns would inevitably migrate and thus such a geographical division would be impossible to maintain.

The argument that guns are necessary to protect against a dictatorial government is a red herring. If a rogue government were to happen their possession of tanks, armored personnel carriers, fighter jets, ICBMs, and drones would make a few AK-47s, 30-06s or whatever you’re allowed to have, completely ineffectual.

We already have some gun-control and haven’t plunged down the slippery slope into anarchy. Can you imagine the fun of landing a mortar round in a herd of antelope? It would rival the pleasure of using an AK-47, on automatic, to shoot up a piece of paper. But, alas, private ownership of mortars is not allowed. Gun-control.

Another red herring is the definition of assault weapon. The control people like to attack the phrase as meaningless. It’s sort of like pornography - hard to define, but you know it when you see it. I’m sure a definition could be formulated if the relevant parties tried, but having an enforceable definition is a step down the slippery slope and we can’t have that, so let’s not even try.

Another argument used to maintain school slaughters, is that criminals would benefit from any control laws because they wouldn’t obey the laws. I believe this to be true for a while. But eventually – perhaps in the time frame of decades - via confiscations, buy-backs, customs control, damages, the number of outlawed weapons would greatly diminish. Some solutions just require time to be effective.

Couldn’t we start with background checks, magazine size restrictions, waiting periods, and outlawing assault weapons (whatever they are). Evaluate the results and if they don’t work – get rid of the laws. But at least try.

It was my aim when I started writing this post that I would try to rationally present the arguments of both sides. But I found that my own opinion about what was rational kept getting in the way – so the result is one sided, I’m sure many of you will agree.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Music is the shorthand of emotion." Leo Tolstoy

In my last post I wrote about literature. Now I write about music and I warn the reader, I will write about art.

I grew up in a musically constricted environment. My parents listened to “Country and Western” -   The Carter Family, Hank Williams, Slim Whitman, et. al. I loved them all and they all evoked emotion. When I became a teen-ager, “Rock-n-Roll” was being born. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a momentous time for pop music. Elvis Presley had a huge cultural impact beyond music. The time was ripe for him and he had the talent to deliver.

An aside: I have a theory that whatever the popular music is at the time you’re going through the hormonal changes of puberty is the popular music that haunts you the rest of your life. It resonates with your soul in a way no other music does.

In college my ears were opened to classical music. I had a classmate (thanks, Ian) who took me on as a charity case. He insisted that I listen to a piece of classical music.  I had probably been denigrating the genre out of ignorance. He played “Scheherazade” for me and I was hooked. I moved to other thematic works, “The Grand Canyon Suite,” “Finlandia,” “Bolero” and then graduated to the more subtle – string quartets, etc. My favorite symphony (sorry, Ludwig) is Franck’s only symphony. It has a tension build up and release rivaled only by sex. I count many of my musical favorites among classical. The aria from “Madam Butterfly” is a guaranteed tear jerker.

I’ve never learned to appreciate jazz.  Perhaps I needed the jazz equivalent to Ian to awaken me. It and rap I avoid – just don’t understand it, but enjoy folk – bluegrass, mariachi, rhythm ‘n blues, Cajun, et. al.

Music moves me in ways that literature and art can never.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him." Maya Angelou

I remember the books from my childhood much better than from later years.  I graduated from comic books to “adult” books (meaning books without pictures) on my 9^th birthday.  As I sat down at the breakfast table a hardback book was lying there.  I assumed it belonged to a parent and took no notice.  Mom asked me, “Aren’t you going to look at your birthday present?”  It was a book for young boys, “The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest” by Capwell Wyckoff.  ( Confession: I had to “google” to find the author.)  The book came with an epiphany - I was old enough to read  grownup books!  No more of the “Dick, Jane, and Spot” nonsense. I got a library card and read all the series involving the Mercer Boys and the Bobbsey Twins. 

This led to more worthy literature such as “Robinson Crusoe” and “Treasure Island.”  I still have my original copy of “Robinson Crusoe.”  I take it down from the shelf every few years and sign it on the inside cover.  My first signature was from the 6^th grade and 9 signatures follow that - 9^th grade, 22 years old, 31, 38, 42, 52, 60, 67 and a just entered entry at 72. It’s a silly thread tying the years of my life together.  I’ve read it a few times.  I now wish that besides the signature I had written notes detailing where I was, my outlook on life, and status.  It surprises me how little one’s signature changes over your lifetime.

Regrettably, I find that the older I get, the less I read.  Fiction bores me more easily.  Perhaps, I’ve read it all already.  The books I do read have a science aspect to them and teach me something I didn’t know.  Three come to mind: 1) “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins; 2) “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond and 3) “The Structure of Scientific Revolution” by Thomas Kuhn.  The stuff those books taught me, I hadn’t even realized I didn’t know.

Two books of fiction that enthralled me were, “Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger and “Across the River and into the Trees” by Hemingway.  I read “Catcher…” at the right time in my life.  I WAS Holden Caulfield.  I like all of Hemingway’s books and the literary critics proclaim his “Across…” as one of his poorer efforts.  I have the opposite view.  I think it is his best.  Contains a great deal of subtlety.   I’ve reread each of these several times.

I envy those of you who can buy the latest best selling novel in the grocery store and enjoy it.

Studies have shown that reading fiction improves empathy and social skills.  Is that relevant as to why so many, comparatively speaking, prisoners can’t read?  They have no bond with their victims?

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Even the handsomest men do not have the same momentary effect on the world as a truly beautiful woman does." Jonathan Carroll

Today’s post deals with an aspect of our species that befuddles me – the asymmetry in gender attractiveness.  I think it is clear that beauty in a female plays a much greater role in our pairing, mating, dating, et. al., than beauty in a man.  Look at the publicity that female beauty pageants receive – “Miss Teen USA,” “Ms. Universe,” Miss America,” and so on.  Is there a “Mr. Teen USA” pageant?

In some way I understand this discrepancy at the intellectual level.  Books that deal with evolution and culture offer explanations that seem to make sense.  Guys want a healthy mate to greater guarantee the success of their offspring.  After all, offspring is the whole reason for mating so that the species can survive.  Health means clear skin, symmetry, big boobs, and youth to be able to nurse and care for the product of your loins.  However, I seriously doubt that most guys have those thoughts about health and offspring remotely in mind at all when they attempt to bed the gal.

Gals, the theory goes, want a provider who will be a good and steady companion.  They want themselves and their children to be protected from the saber tooth tiger and to have food on the table.  They want a powerful and rich man.  What he looks like doesn’t mean a damned thing.

So beauty in a female assures the male that the female will have healthy offspring.  Power and wealth in a male assure the female that her offspring will be protected and provided for.

This, I think, is the classical explanation of the gender’s perception of attractiveness in a mate – all rooted in our hunter-gatherer stage of cultural development and to some extent inescapable.

But not every mating results in an offspring.  Our species has worked hard to achieve this result.  (Should every child be implanted with a device – perhaps at puberty - which makes it infertile until switched off?) So why do we still remain so picky?  It’s just an orgasm, for crying out loud!  I think the reason is precisely that.  Assuming we chose the partner, our hard-wired circuits from our hunter-gatherer days deny us the pleasure unless we are “turned on” by partner.  Unfortunately, when forced, the body will often respond physiologically, but without the pleasure. 

So we still seek mates that would make a great pairing 15,000 years ago.

Do other species behave this way?  Does a male dog check out a female-in-heat before mounting her?  “Are her ears perky?  Nose warm?”  No.  He wants to get on with the job as quickly as possible.  No hunter-gatherer nonsense for him.

Does a stallion worry about the health of the mare?  Does he check her mammary apparatus to make sure his foals won’t starve?  

Does any species have a concept about attractiveness in the opposite gender besides mankind?  The answer is a definite “yes.”  For one, the tail feathers of a male peacock dictate his ability to sow his wild oats.  Poor feathers, no luck.  Birds offer other examples, e.g. bowerbirds.

Life for a beautiful girl must be very different from anything I’ve experienced.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Each choice we make causes a ripple effect in our lives. When things happen to us, it is the reaction we choose that can create the difference between the sorrows of our past and the joy in our future." Chelle Thompson

One aspect of being a senior citizen is that one’s vista of your previous life can be relatively long. One can identify events that happened early and had an impact on the rest of your life – a ripple.

When I look back I see several stones that were thrown in the pool of my young life and ripple till now. Some were good – some bad – some consequential – some not so.

One particular stone is the subject of today’s post. I was doing very well in grade school. At the halfway point of my second grade year they moved me into the third grade. I skipped a year. Throughout the rest of my schooling until college I was always the youngest in the class. This meant all of the girls were older than I. All the guys had a driver’s license before me. They started shaving before me. There were other obvious differences revealed in the gym’s locker room. I was a small guy (at that time) anyway but being one year younger accentuated that difference.

Some of those years were years when you develop your social awareness and your personality. Being the “kid” affects your self-perception and the role you play among your peers. I can’t believe that the impact of being the youngest would be as severe for a girl, but perhaps. I do read advice columns wherein some bemoan, “All of the other girls have breasts and I don’t. I’m going to kill myself.” For a guy, their whole masculinity is being defined.

One eventually does mature and your circle of peers gets large enough to include people even younger than yourself. You become more “normal” – at least on the outside. I think the magnitude of the impact on your whole life from such a ripple may be unknowable.

On the other hand, suppose I hadn’t been prematurely promoted a grade. I may have became bored with school, started acting out, became a disciplinary problem and grown a hatred for school. My life would’ve been much worse.

So maybe it’s folly to characterize ripples as being good or bad. We don’t see the alternatives.  It's life.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you." Ralph Nader

           Feeling a bit sheepish about my last posting caused me to examine my political leanings.  Why am I liberal?  Why are some people conservative?  

          A population geneticist I know believes that evolution has resulted in both a “liberal” gene and a “conservative” gene because  - during our hunter-gather stage - depending on the circumstances - each offered a survival advantage.  One can certainly imagine situations in which acting with caution and taking no risks would be prudent.  Other situations might require daring to find food and water.  Leaders would emerge from each camp who displayed the necessary skills to survive in those situations.  If this is the case; the political divide is in the genes, it is a good thing, and we’re stuck with it.

           But if it is not written in our DNA, how do our political inclinations form?  As I grew up my family was not political.  We didn’t discuss politics around the dinner table.  The first political feeling I had, that I can remember, was being for Richard Nixon.  He and I (I felt) had a similar demography.  Kennedy was from a rich sophisticated educated family.  Nixon was a “common” man who had to fight for everything he got. He was the underdog.  Nixon was a symbol that a guy like me could make it.  So I didn’t pay attention to the policies they espoused – just from where they came.  I was wrong.  Nixon was a crook.

          Do life’s experiences shape our politics?  I never served in the military.  I was 4-F but that’s beside the point – I didn’t want to serve.  I’ve never owned a business.  Do these two facts shape my view?  Without having to prove it, it does seem that the military and business produces more conservatives than liberals.  Why is that?  Do the rigors of military discipline and the laws of economics crowd out individual risk taking and altruistic feelings?  Is “big government” just a convenient scapegoat for unfortunate – and perhaps undeserved – failures?

          On the other hand I did thrive in the academic environment.  There’s not much physical labor – pick and shovel type of work - there.  I truly felt lucky to be able to work in an air-conditioned lab doing the things I like to do.  I think it made me feel sorry – and thus develop an exaggerated (?) empathy – for those not so lucky.  I could understand the benefit of “entitlements.”  Big government to me is just our way of organizing our help to each other.

             It’s not easy to write about political beliefs without sliding into the mire of “talking points” and repeating the words one hears from the talking heads.  But ask yourself where your fundamental politics come from.  Why do you believe the way you do?  When were you first aware of them? 

           One common erroneous belief that many, on both sides, have is that in some way they are blessed with a deeper ability to see into the matter and have the “truth.” I think that is the height of arrogance.

            There is no “truth” in politics.

2014 Lester C. Welch

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato

(Reader warning: Blatantly partisan)

There will be lots of analysis of why Eric Cantor lost. My proffered reason is that he played a big part in stopping the government and participated in a significant way in the party of saying, "No," rather than compromising - as Lindsey Graham did, who won handily in spite of authoring an amnesty immigration law. Whatever the prominent issue is in an election debate, doesn't mean that is the issue that decided the election. I'll be subject to correction given the results of the general election. Do Virginians really want Brat?

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." Carl Sagan

I just ate a packaged burrito.  It wasn’t my usual brand.  On the package in several places was the proclamation that no GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) were used.  They obviously displayed that fact because they thought it was a selling point – we do live in a capitalistic system.  But it made me wonder what percentage of the buying population even knows what a GMO is – its benefits – its dangers?  How many just have a gut reaction – “They’re modifying nature’s genes?  That can’t be good!” and are repelled.  Little do they know, apparently, that nature itself is in a continuous process of modifying its own genes – the definition of evolution. 

If one looks at an ear of corn from 200 years ago it bears little resemblance to a modern ear.  It was scrawny.  Nature , aided by man via selective cultivation, modified the corn's genes.  If both nature and man, today, hadn’t genetically modify our corn, – – hundreds of thousands of the world’s children would have died a premature death because of starvation.  Is that better?

The 21^st century is going to be the century of genetic engineering.  (The 20^th century was the century of physics and technology.) We’re gonna cure many diseases caused by genetic faults.   The benefit will be tremendous.  Incidentally, on this path, we may find a way to make corn resistant to pests.  Oh wait, we already have.  It’s called GMO corn.   I have yet to fathom people’s concerns.  Do people think in someway the modified genes will replace some of their own genes and they will morph?  I don’t get it.

This concern about GMOs is just one facet about the public’s attitude towards science.  Another issue is that of climate change.  How can one look at a graph of the rising CO2 levels compared with mankind’s industrial prowess – with knowledge of the enormous impact of CO2 as a greenhouse gas - and not conclude that homo sapiens is contributing to (if not causing) the climate change? 

When is the last time the consensus of university scientists has been wrong?   Believe me, there is a great satisfaction among them to prove each other wrong.  Corporate laboratories – say, for the cigarette manufacturers – can have ulterior motives and lie for profit.  Some university professors can just do bad science ( e.g., cold fusion in 1989 by Pons and Fleischmann) but that is rapidly checked and corrected by others.  Why would most of the scientists lie?

I’ll wait for another post before I start on nuclear energy…

(P.S., I didn't like the burrito and won't buy that brand again.)

 2014 Lester C. Welch

"Man is by nature a political animal." Aristotle

I’m going to try not to be partisan in this post but to examine the nature of political discourse. You’ll have to be the judge as to whether or not I succeed, but my intentions are pure.

I don’t remember political acrimony 50 years ago, but I can’t help but wonder if the reason I don’t remember is that I was not interested in politics at that time and just ignored it. When I read history, the acrimony seems to be there and - in some cases – worse than now. Duels were fought. Physical fights happened on the Senate floor. President Jackson’s wife was labeled a “whore.”

If, indeed, political discourse has never been rational then we shouldn’t be alarmed by the current state of affairs. Business as usual.

If, however, our modern technology – e.g., 24 hour cable news cycle – has spurred an increase in virulence, what can we voters on all sides do to bring about a rational discourse of the issues? Is it even possible?

One view is that the “news” programs on cable TV aren’t meant to be news. They’re entertainment – disguised as news – subject to viewer rating and advertising revenue, so the more outrageous they are the more profitable. Their only constrain is the need to maintain a sliver of credibility so the disguise as news is not totally destroyed.

Another trap which destroys rationality – and one I’ve fallen into – is the perception that the “other side” has overstepped a boundary and exaggerated a bit too much to make their point. So I say to myself, “They started it but I’ll show that two can play at this game.” So I write a letter-to-the-editor where I purposefully overstep a boundary and exaggerate a bit too much. This, of course, prompts a more extreme answer and we follow the path back and forth to ridiculousness. “But, they started it.” At the root of this dilemma, I believe, is that the perception of “exaggeration about an issue” may depend on which side of the issue you’re on.

The political divide in this country I do believe is as wide as it ever has been. I hope I am wrong. I believe our country is suffering from it and I’m pessimistic about any quick solution. I don’t know how it will end.


2014 Lester C. Welch

"We must believe in free will, we have no choice." Isaac Bashevis Singer

I just returned from a family gathering and one of the topics that was discussed by a subset of us (including me) was, "Does 'free will' exist?" It was only a subset because of two reasons. First the gathering was too large (16) for all to participate but, more relevant was the wise attitude of some that such discussions are mental diarrhea. The discussion was spurred, perhaps (I forget), by an article in the latest Scientific American (June, 2014, p. 76).

"Free will" should be understood as the ability to choose between equally possible alternatives. "Sugar or not in my coffee?" "Free will" is not "Shall I become a professional basketball player or not." To become a basketball player requires skills that do not have an equal probability of occurring as not. Similarly the question as to go to college or not relies on factors (role models, family encouragement, etc.) that does not, in general, present an level playing ground for making the decision. Hence a child of a college professor is much more likely to go to college than a child from the ghetto. This  discrepancy is not because of the poor use of "free will."

At the family gathering, immensely aided by a few glasses of wine by each participant, it was a wide ranging and spirited coverage of the issue. I wish I could remember all of the salient points made by others. I made the following chardonnay lubricated observations: I can conceive of no scientific method of determining whether "free will" exists or not and, secondly, the belief as to whether or not we have "free will" is far more important than whether we do or not.

Before the scientific advances of the twentieth century, in the realm of Newtonian mechancs, it was very easy to believe in a deterministic world. Newton formalized cause and effect. Everything was the effect of what had happened before and given complete knowledge of the current configuration, the future was known. The discovery of the laws of electricity and magnetism together with chemical and biological revelations could easily lead to the belief that the brain and thought processes belong to the same deterministic framework as the motions of celestial bodies. It was all predetermined. You want sugar in your coffee? The answer was cast in stone at the time of creation.

Then in the twentieth century, indeterminism rose its ugly head in the form of quantum mechanics. There was uncertainity involved in the most formal and rigorously explored physical systems. Ah ha, this gave an escape from Newton and allowed "free will." The connection may not be clear - "How does quantum mechanical uncertainty play out in the brain?" - but the door was open.

Because of "free will," I choose to end this now. Or maybe not...

©2014 Lester C. Welch