A speculative mind

Rich people, not all rich people, but a lot of them, believe that poor people get what they deserve. They are poor because they are lazy, or stupid, or not deserving of money. Why should they help poor people when they won’t even help themselves? I guess it is what they tell themselves to make themselves feel better sitting in one of their three homes, while vast numbers of homeless people wander the streets in search of a place to stay dry. Yeah, those bad homeless people deserve what they get. Now, shall we vacation in Venice or Tahiti this month? Many rich people believe that homeless people are homeless by choice. Really? Have you ever talked to one? Of course you haven’t. Why would you do that? You never even see them. The champion of these rich folk is Ronald Reagan. Of course he is. He made them richer. Reagan and his congress said it was unfair to tax rich people for 70% of their income. They reformed the tax code and cut that top tax bracket way back. I remember. Eve...

The other day a workmate asked me what I could tell her about introverts. I said, “Well, I am one.” She said, “What? But you, like get on stage in front of hundreds of people.” As I may have mentioned before I participate in community theater, or ‘amateur theatricals’, as the British say. And I have performed many different parts in many different plays over the years. So, she was correct, and my reply was, “yeah, so? I would guess that most actors are introverts.” She was amazed by that statement. I haven’t ever seem any statistics on this nor have I done a scientific study. It is just my observation that many if not most actors that I have worked with tend to be introverted. Not all, to be sure, but a lot of them are. Why? A person might think that being on stage is the last place a shy person would want to be. Introverts have the same need for creative outlets as anyone else. And (I am speaking from personal experience now) when you are on stage doing and saying outrageous ...

As I may have mentioned, my wife and I just got back from a once in a lifetime trip to Europe. Anyone who travels nowadays has the joys of dealing with airport security (not that I begrudge airport security. We all have our jobs to do, and it helps keep us safe. That doesn’t mean I have to like going through it). We went through a security line of some sort or another no less than eight times on this trip. That’s not counting the little scanners in stores and miscellaneous places. The following is the security adventure we went through at Edinburg Airport: First you have to stand in line waiting for your chance to go through the line. When it comes your turn, they want you to move it, move it, move it! I got a bin for my carry-on suitcase and another for my backpack, coat, and hat. They told me to put my passport in the bin as well. I was about to step away when I realized I still had my cell phone in my pocket. I quickly put it in my wife’s bin with her purse. She went thr...

We were at Edinburgh Castle following a long walk up the hill. Back in the day, it made sense for castles to be on top of hills. It helped make them easily defendable. This is a common war strategy; you go for the high ground. Of course defending against the invading English horde is no longer a concern. At this point the castle’s main function is tourism and speaking as a tourist I can say, the hill’s pretty steep. We made a circuit around the rocky crenulations and saw the sights of the city as well as the features of the castle. Near the top, we saw a long line to get into see the Scottish Crown Jewels and we opted not to stand in line, but it got me to thinking about crown jewels in general, be they Scottish, British, or any other crown. I got to thinking about the value of the crown jewels. A thought popped into my head that crown jewels are essentially valueless. I don’t mean to say priceless, which of course they are, but I really mean they have no value (no monetary val...

I have recently had the opportunity to visit London, Paris, and Edinburgh. That is why my blog has been absent the past couple of weeks. One of the things my wife and I did was to ride the Eurostar train from London to Paris (through the “chunnel”). Something that struck me, is the similarity between a high speed train and an airliner. The interior cabin looks very similar. Walking into the train, if you didn’t know better you might think you were on a plane. But it is the external appearance that I want to talk about. Both the high speed train and the airplane need to be streamlined to minimize wind resistance. You don’t want a lot of wind resistance (except under the plane’s wing where wind resistance is a good thing). The streamlined design carries with it an inherent beauty, symmetry and smooth lines. Space ships also need a streamlined shape if they are going to be travelling through an atmosphere. But if they are not going to be travelling through an atmosphere, they ca...

How can a children’s nursery rhyme teach you about the laws of Thermodynamics? “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.” This is an illustration of the second law of thermos dynamics. “All the King’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.” This is an illustration of the first law of thermodynamics. Let’s look at Humpty falling down first. In short, things fall down; they don’t fall up. Left to their own devices, things always eventually proceed from energy states of higher order to energy states of lower order. When Humpty is sitting on the wall, he (is Humpty a he? I don’t know that Humpty’s gender has ever been definitively stated) he has potential energy. In the act of falling, Humpty has kinetic energy, the energy of motion. When Humpty comes to the big stop at the end he becomes less orderly. Yeah, in fact he is a mess. But also the kinetic energy is converted to heat (infrared radiation) which is the least orderly state of...

The paperback version of my novel Star Liner came out a month ago and this allowed a number of my friends (who won’t read ebooks) a chance to read and comment on it. One of them said something to me the other day that struck home. The novel is a science fiction space opera that is part murder mystery and part action/adventure. But she said it seemed to her that there was an underlying theme to the novel. It is about art. Even though I was not consciously trying to make a statement about art, it is there. I can see what she means. In some ways even though the story of Star Liner takes place centuries into the future, in some ways it is similar to our own. Jan, my main character, is an artist. I am using artist in a broad sense to encompass any form of artistic endeavor. Jan himself is a singer and actor, but it would not matter if he were a painter, composer, sculptor, or a poet. The same problem faces artists of his century that face artists in our own time: it is really ha...