Sherlock in Cheyenne: The Adventure of a Quantum Facsimile

 

More often than not it is the South side that is mostly perceived as being much less than the best. The divide is made by the railroad tracks. Where I have been the tracks run East and West. I have never encountered a lesser North. Here the tracks are of the Union Pacific. On the South side are normal people with stores, a medical facility, living spaces, the Frontier Oil Refinery that often stinks, and schools.

 One such school was Hebart, an elementary school one block from where we stayed when we first got to town. It was a small basement apartment for all of us. I only remember the children shared an enormous bed. I was at the left end and we were under an immense pile of blankets. On one occasion I was running a fever. No one else was sick. My fever was hot and I sweated way too much. Then suddenly the fever broke and the heat went off like a switch being thrown. This never happened again. Then I was oppressed by the wet PJs. I assume I shucked them tout de suite. I can't remember.

 I attended Hebart for a few months before we moved to a large house on Cheyenne's West side. Then came the dreaded summer school. I was there because my long division skills were judged too mediocre. My real problem was I thought it should be harder than it was. Not for the first time did teachers not pay attention or inquire about my thought processes. No way around it, they were stupid. Perhaps my thought intrigued someone enough to put me here with Mr. Holmes.

 We were together again beyond my basement bedroom. Mr. Holmes wanted me to attend an audition for a Hebart talent show  put together as a fundraiser. This seemed odd but I knew better than to question the why whereof of my presence at the audition. One act we were to see. Mr. Holmes was standing at the back. The judges were off to the right. There were five of them with each having a light in front of them that could become green or red. I was in the center closely opposite to the stage. On either side of me sat a middle aged man. Both had on large floppy hats and wearing something like a raincoat, black. They had on gloves and they were of course black.

 There was nothing subtle about the presentation we were to see. It was called "Quantum Automatons" and involved two robot-like figures, each about 8 inches high. They were of plastic and metal and appeared translucent. They moved smoothly enough doing jumps and sudden dashes about the stage. One was green and the other was blue. You were to believe the blue controlled the green. But as I was sitting between the other two of the audience, I had an epiphany that entailed knowledge that the flashes in their joints were caused by very minor quantum explosions and that the green really was controlled by the blue. Furthermore, this was a staged demo put up by Professor Hockensmith. He was at it again, And Mr. Holmes and our lords of the Zeeglers were on to him. This was of little concern to the Prof. He wasn't trying to get away with anything.

 Prof or no Prof the act wasn't being appreciated by the judges. They moved about in their chairs and fingered their light switches. The performance was sensed as queasy and creepy. I don't think the Prof was done but the lights came on anyway. It was five reds. The figures kept moving. I glanced to the back of the room where I saw Mr. H heading for the exit. I got up and had a long look at the two other members of the audience. They took no notice of me. I left.

 A few days later the lights in Cheyenne and Denver, many and various, were going on and off. This trick lasted a short time. Of course the Prof was behind it. Mr.  H began to not go out and instead sat in his chair with research books in his lap or at his feet on the floor. He had given up his monumental treatise, The Science and the Technology of the Quantum. He had mentally entered into combat with the Prof. He had already spent long hours at the Air Base in closed intense sessions with Dr. Kipowitz.

 I later from Mr. H learned about his anguish at not getting his "peers" to learn to think beyond the Newtonian-Einsteinian precepts that confined us. Newton had told us of light and so did Einstein. Both kept within the anthropomorphic tradition. We had to enter where there was no past, not our past, and no future, not our future. It was all too fast. Speed was the name of the game. No need for velocity or momentum. And what need was there for the Uncertainty Principle? It was quantum vs. quantum.

 To us, the quantum world is the province of the constantly instantaneous. No cause and effect. Yet the power engendered, if needed, is frightful, gigantic, and monumental and decisive like the Earth gone in a blink. There it all "is" like eternity but perhaps lumpy. No progress and no achievement or failure. All these depend on our slowness of process and being of a world very weak as far as "is" can be. Our "is" can never be known. We have an inside and an outside. We assemble and have cells, then disassemble. The quanta do no such thing. So how can they affect us? No time. They are continuous, a vacuum and no parts assembled but together, bumpy. No evidence of them except via fission, particle accelerators, and E=mc squared.

 I had stitched this together from snatches of hurried commentary Mr. H would make from his chair. Something very big was shaping up. Meanwhile I had solid geometry to think about.

 My study was interrupted by the typewriter near me starting up. It had been left here by Janusz Koslowski who used it in conjunction with his quantum blue light idea translator. Paper had been left in it. It typed only for a short time. I needed a break from solid geometry so I took a look to see what had been typed, if anything. It said "How's it going, Mike?" The Prof had visited us disguised as a Zeegler in the not too distance past. Again, the Prof. Despite this, I decided to say nothing to Mr. H about it. He was extremely committed to his battle with the Prof, and I sensed Mr. H was losing. He often arose from his chair and dashed outside to furiously pace about the yard as he puffed mightily on his pipe.

 Not only had he conferred with Dr. Kipowitz at the Air Base, he also visited with technicians and engineers, he said, and they were not with the Air Force. Maybe I came to his rescue as regards the generation of ideas when, after the typewriter taunt by the Prof, I decided to do an inventory of my library of paperbacks in the dresser drawers. Somehow the time seemed right to do so. There was little scientific exposition among them; it ran to best sellers though showing a tasteful selection at work. In one bottom corner under a pile of books I found a calculator. It was circa 80s to 90s. It looked much like an HP 48gii or an HP 50g. I had marveled at the capabilities of the 50g though the menu hunt to get to them could be daunting. So how the hell did this get here? Had it sat there ever since Mr. H and I had arrived? In any event it would be of use to Mr. H and mark a significant improvement over slide rule use. He came inside from a smoking excursion and displayed a very pleased reception of the gift I had given to him. Actually, he was delighted. I had never seen that before. It wasn't kosher 50g since it had 4 white keys on it with strange symbols on them. Mr. H took the calculator to his chair. Maybe 20 minutes later he was using the calculator like a pro. He answered my unvoiced question about the white keys when he said, "They are for quantum functions." I had enough of solid geometry. It was stunning that this calculator had appeared when and where it did. If I had searched the dresser before the audition at Hebart?

 Why look a godsend in the mouth? Take it and calculate, calculate. Maybe I could have used it in some of my math classes at Carey Junior High. On the sly, of course, or who knows, I could have been arrested. Time in the pokey would have kept me from the latest challenge rounds in American history class. The teacher picked teams of four. Each team stood behind a panel of four lights. The teacher put to us a question and the first light to come on had its operator answer the question. I usually did well enough and so my team would win. No prizes, just satisfaction.

 We had recently been studying the Civil War era. I was up on the Civil War as I had read and had purchased some paperbacks pertaining to the Civil War. The Centennial for the War was near. They had reissued some books written by the participants in the 1880s and the 1890s. There were also compilations like one big thick one about the lead up to the War. As we proceeded in this session, I noticed someone sitting at the back by a rear exit to the classroom. Perhaps he was a student teacher? At one point our teacher got an odd look on his face and incomprehensively read out a question - "What are three quantum anomalies near a singularity?" My light came on. That was a trick question since there are no quantum anomalies. That I knew thanks to Mr. H. Our teacher snapped out of whatever possessed him and shook his head and refocused looking at the question as if it were foul. He tossed the question into the wastebasket. Meanwhile our "student teacher" had left.

 Some of the questions were about the Civil War battles, mostly about those fought by the Army of Northern Virginia or Grant's campaigns in the West. One of the Civil War battle questions asked how did Stonewall Jackson fare at Gettysburg. That was another trick question since Stonewall could not have "fared" at Gettysburg having been killed in the previous battle at Chancellorsville.

 My gray pieces representing Southern units had none for Stonewall. These pieces were on a board showing Gettysburg and the immediate surroundings. The rules and especially the outcome of conflicts on the board were the province of Avalon Hill that then and now puts out strategy-based board games and war simulation. Their hexagons were used in some games to mark off a grid. I never cared for that. Gettysburg was AH's second game to be published. Duane favored Tactics II, an update of what came before Gettysburg. I well remembered the tank on the box but little else. What followed were such as Midway, Africa Korps, and the Battle of the Bulge. None of these tempted me. My discovery of Gettysburg was happenstance. A small hobby shop in an off street from the downtown was visited by me for a reason I no longer recall. I saw the game on the shelf and became intrigued.

 I usually took the Southern forces not because I in any way carried a banner for slavery but because I respected the generalship of the South. I had read all of Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants and other tomes but realized they had no chance of  winning the war unless foreign intervention was forthcoming. It was not. Duane and I played according to the Order of Battle for those July days in 1863. Sometimes the South gained significant advantage but never won. In the real battle the combined casualties totaled 50,000 and awed me and instilled in me respect for a game that could induce sadness in me.

 Had the South broken through in force at Gettysburg then Philadelphia and other Northern cities would have been at risk for outbreaks of fire, most likely fanned by cavalry. The cities on fire would have dotted the Eastern Seaboard and would be a forewarning of what the Prof feared - an eventual series of flashes in those Northern cities signifying nuke weapon blasts.

 Those blasts were simulated by the Prof in full scale action with lights of various colors going on at his very large facility in a warehouse on the outskirts of Cheyenne. The light bulbs were mounted on a relief map of all the world's nuclear weapon sites. Mr H and I were present (uninvited) because Mr H had a key for entry. He was splitting hairs in denying it was B and E. Whatever, we were observing quite a show getting underway.

  Most of the lights going on were in the US and were progressing within our interior and then jumping outside our boundaries. Once lit the light stayed on. The colors were additive and never before seen by me or anyone else. Honestly they were making me sick. Splashes of red and something unknown predominated for a time then swirled into a combo of silver or gold in alternating specimens of lost treasure, or so I fancied. It was going on and on. There could be 10 million colors but I wouldn't be able to name more than 1400, at best. I had to shut my eyes but I still saw them. My closed eyes began to heighten the smell. I swear the colors had an aroma like manure-soaked magic markers and absolutely not a pleasant one. One nauseous smell is as good as another. I didn't want to get involved in fine distinctions of the "best" vomit that would eventuate.

 Mr. H was saying the lights came on to indicate the negation of the sites. I didn't want to see the successful conclusion. Eyes closed, nostrils inflamed by strange scents enough to make me upchuck; I then began to stumble and stutter. He carried on regardless making reference to a "lecture" I got a few days ago about the quantum world and the Prof's huge gray hexagonal device that quantum tagged the sites. The Prof intended to inactivate all the sites. So then security for all of us. Magnificent! Not so Mr H was saying. Say what? I was thinking this as I was giving up on the tour. I was blinded by the light and the tortuous redolent sensations that crammed into my snoot made me slip from consciousness.

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 But now maybe I was coming to though reluctantly since Here was good for me for the moment. I was unable to accept a harsh reality. I was tired of this world that we had been experiencing. Especially now with its stark childishness that had become a preoccupation of ours, or at least mine. Now I was Here and I had been from Nowhere and I had no place to go. Stay. Remain in place and let whatever else there is slide by. Good riddance. Tired of fools, knaves, bozos and honest-to-God stupidity. Beyond measure it is. But in this vastness, this comforting Away from it All there were noodles, potatoes and gravy, and a huge slice of chocolate pie. Huh?

 Maybe I was coming back. Coming back to Home, not the World, screw them. To Mom and her maybe not so nutritious but "filling" a need I had and still have. Understanding and acceptance. A better place and quite possibly the best, never equaled again. So my yearning brought me here to be with Mr H? The food was running neck and neck against my weakness, my desire to be abjectly anti-social. My extreme avoidance was crumbling. Of course of course Mr H will save all of you from yourselves. What more or less could he do?

 OK, OK I'm coming back but just for the noodles et al. I was in bed in PJs and Mom was on the right with the Irresistible Temptation beside her and Mr H was on the left. He was saying something about too much studying. I was absently minded nodding my head in assent. Mom was saying good concerned things about me and the phone rang. It was upstairs in the kitchen. She excused herself. She could be back soon but I heard her raise her voice as she did for all long distance calls. It was one of her sisters and being long distance it was important and it being her sister meant a long call. I nodded at Mr H. It seemed he was waiting expectantly.

 "My dear boy, before you passed out, as I was saying. The two devices are in quantum space now. They may be in close proximity or quite far apart. It is of no concern. Mine is an imperfect facsimile of the Professor's endeavor. When his is switched on and he can still do that through the quantum chemistry he employs, mine contravenes his actions by imitating his up to a point. Mine establishes quantum squares or tags in profusion on the weapons site. It disturbs the quantum stasis and promotes a return to stasis. In short, there are explosions such as to render the site inoperable. But no need to destroy them all. Only those preparing to launch are bothered. But all naval war vessels and all warplanes can't function. I go to the machine level of tanks. Armies are marked by their uniforms and this gives them away.

 “My breakthrough in my research came at the Base where I was shown some unauthorized curios from the Almagordo site. Some of the current personnel at the Base had visited the site, unauthorized, and came away with some fragments found at the site. Some were clanthes and some were quasicrystals. Those left over were in a wooden tray. One fragment responded to "the prepared mind" and its inquisitiveness to such an extent that the fragment could, suitably modified, give me entry into the quantum world and to realize there some manipulations enough to have a bearing on our world peace. I call it a quantoid."

 Mom was done. As she headed downstairs, the phone rang again and from the ensuing conversation I knew Mom was talking to her other sister. This constituted a family pow wow and must be big news. In any event, Mr H could resume.

 "The armies could have remained and the known effect of "God is on the side of the larger battalions" would have come into play. But, as I said, their uniforms could be marked and I hope a forceful demonstration of the effectiveness of the Almagodro fragment need not be applied. Should they persist with bows and arrows then their lust for war will be proven to be unappeased. May God have mercy on their souls."

 I truly could care less. They are already in hell so I suppose wishing them godspeed to that zone would be beside the point. I had my noodles. I fully appreciated Mom when she returned. Inexplicably the upstairs discussion had been about a dog. It was the family dog for an aunt and she sought advice on a rather mundane, to me, matter.

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 Mom had gone out. My siblings were in school. All was quiet except for trucks and cars on a faraway road. There was another exception. A faint clicking sound could be heard. I looked at Mr H and I knew he was hearing it too. It was coming from to the right of the door. Of course there it was- our old klaxon warning device. It was from back in the day of the frozen moments. The klaxon itself was dead. How did the other components come on? It had a slowly blinking red light. Each time the light blinked, then there was a click. The clicks were getting more rapid. The light was blinking faster.

 I looked at Mr H. He was getting his revolvers out of his coat. He had one for each hand and he tossed me the third one. The clicking was becoming a whine. The light no longer blinked, it was a solid red. The front door upstairs had opened. The tramp of many feet could be heard. Mr H still sat in his chair and had rotated in it so the revolver in each hand faced the door. The crowd above had gone through the living room into the kitchen then the dining room and into the garage to the entrance to the downstairs. I was kneeling beside the bed with my elbows on the bed and held the revolver in both hands pointing at the door. As was our custom, I would take those on the right and Mr H got the center and those on the left. The whine stopped and the red light blinked out. They were coming down the stairs. I looked at Mr H. He smiled. Very soon the door would slam open. They would come boiling in like water leaping from a hot pot.

 We had nothing else to do but await the arrival of the Zeeglers.

  

 

On Watching Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning as we witness a presidential abuse of power

 In this film Ethan Hunt must deal with a singularity or rather the singularity attempting to control all nuclear weapons. Wordwise, there are more than one of the singularities. In astrophysics it is usually used when referring to a black hole and in cosmology one has to deal with all of the universe under threat of being beyond our ken. In astrophysics and cosmology it is recognized that the singularities are not real. They are mathematical concepts. They are along for the ride in the attempt to discover an understanding of what one is faced with.

 Another singularity, the one in the film, is a technological singularity, a hypothetical one. For this one, we are of no use because AI has become able to do it all. This is, to us, a most singular situation. For the film the change in the state of affairs that constitutes the takeover by AI is summed into one and only one singularity, the Entity. It has likes and dislikes and doesn't like us, not a single person. It apparently likes itself and seeks safety from the nuclear destruction it will generate.

 It has no equals among us and no digital competitors, that is, no other singularities are allowed. In astrophysics there is more than one black hole and we regularly talk of alternative universes. But for technological prowess one assumes digital cannibalism reared its ugly circuits and only one recognized itself as It. We were of no concern. Our puny brain circuits were hardly worth mentioning. Anything else? If all is digital, it is over and out.

 But then the previous film mentioned a nondigital problem for everything digital since all is not digital. There is the analog way of doing things. Perhaps not completely managed in an analog fashion but at some point in the proceedings digital continuance is broken by analog insertion. Therefore, it is assumed the Entity can transcend the problem.

 Those people working on countering the Entity are in need of a source code. In truth, there would be no single code but there would be components assembled into a "source code" and so really it is the codes that are what is being sought. Or so one thinks for a time but at the last the Entity must be put in a bottle. No one said anything about a genie in a bottle. There is scant attempt at humor in the film. Most characters are stone faced such as for Atwell's role and Pom's intense stare. Cruise is only a man on a mission lacking the trust of the President and others. The President is faced with destruction of various target foreign cities and one American city she is to choose.

 Meanwhile Cruise is trying to bottle the bad genie. He has to enter a sunken Russian submarine to retrieve electronics that is to be mated with a dead team member's invention. The invention came into the hands of the main bad guy since he arranged for the team member's demise. Of course Cruise secures the item sought but the submarine visit is too lengthy a use of film time. He leaves the sub and heads too fast for the distant surface in super cold water without protective clothing. Of course he survives.

 Later the long sloppy haired hero performs too lengthy a derring-do biplane sequence and in the nick of time he mates the sub unit with the invention. Our survival depended on the President's hesitation about button pressing and a pickpocket's nifty skill level. The Entity is contained in a small transparent plastic box. It is green though the sources codes are most certainly colorless and not able to be fitted into a small container. The sum of equations is a small write out but it is inert unless the supporting equations are present as an explanation. Presumably an unexplained Entity without access to its circuitry could languish boxed for eternity.

 Also boxed are Hannah Waddington crammed into a role where dressed as little better than a feeble dentist she is poorly used. Also placed into a relationship boxed by expectations of emotion is the former Langley operative embarrassed by Hunt's suspension inches above what information could be obtained about 30 years ago. The Langley guy is again encountered after such a lapse of time thoroughly enamored with his wife in a needless refrain about the superiority of love to nuclear tipped missiles and all they can do.

 The end of all humanity is the goal of the Entity and Hunt is to prevent it. Too many previous films in the series make us aware of the outcome even if this film's dastardly resultant could not be acceptable. A film of the 80's, Wargames, had a more sprightly prevention of The End of It All. It is frankly more entertaining. Another film, with an unsuccessful prevention was Dr. Strangelove. In that film there was no such entity though we were trapped like the Entity of this film. Our entrapment came about from a abuse of power in a Cold War frame of mind that the expectation of nuclear weapon deployment had to be confirmed. The alternative was the insane justification for lack of implementation of those weapons. Peace is a nasty five letter word and Vietnam would soon become, unfortunately, another nasty word -  a very unacceptable synonym for the abuse of power.   

 

 

What Happened in 2016

 It was beside the point how many policies you presented or if one half of staff were women; and you had lots of minorities; and you had the best Silicon Valley  data. This was rather at odds with running to be the scrappy challenger and instead you received the frontrunner designation.

 There is no need to beat about the bush. Unlike the common view of the time, that is, she had the expectation of winning, but committed too many errors that cost her the election with the most salient being that Trump shouldn’t win. No, she inherited Obama’s ways and she was a woman named Clinton. It had been enough of a change agency associated with the Democrat Obama, a black man, and then to have a “third term” successor as another Democrat as a woman and a Clinton to boot – enough already.

 Racism rubbed off on her. Sexism was added to the mix and a toxic one it was. (In 2024 they put the two, a black and a woman, together; and it got the same result though, for a faulty administration she would not fulsomely repudiate, it was a troublesome inheritance.)

 One poisonous element that increased the hopelessness of victory was that her husband had been used as a stepping stone, sans Monica, to power. Hardly ever mentioned, but disquieting resentment about privilege was current. Her qualifications could be undermined by their reliance on her family position. Her assembled characteristics put to presidential consideration were not a hearty blend. Pat Schroeder viewed Hillary as not being a politician but rather as a policy person and Hillary made this abundantly clear over and over. She styled herself as a “policy wonk.” This would not stand her in good stead with a “deplorable” like Trump. She did not have a basis for conduct vs. Trump in face– to-face interaction and especially for his stalking her during debate.

 She thought Trump’s declaration of candidacy as a joke. He was a tabloid celebrity and also a crank. He got wall-to-wall media coverage deplorable though he might be, he was “good” copy, always a paragraph for the next gross outrage. He wasn’t serious, right? There was all this talk about Mexican rapists and Mexican drug dealers, and his obsession with Obama’s birth certificate. He made ugly attacks on fellow Republicans and drew convulsive efforts to comprehend how he could get away with such behavior. His supporters ate it up.

  He saw and produced a broken, bitter country, but never mind, he and he alone could make it great again. Meanwhile she talked on and on about income inequality, increased corporate power, climate change, terrorism, health care costs, and better jobs. Her supporters thoughtfully checked in on the issues. But Trump’s supporters didn’t give a rat’s ass about any “issues.” For them, “issues” were beside the point. They wanted the feeling, the aura of change to make themselves more at peace in the world. He had changes that were solutions, she had changes as problems that challenged about duty, honor, responsibility and, with Trump’s supporters, they would leave it up to him. He was assuaging the fear he induced. The word was populism (later fascism) for which no education, in the short term, could counter.

 Need it be countered? How educated were the rich? They didn’t see anything wrong with being rich. The rich were heroes. They were told many stories of how to get-rich-quick. It could happen any day. She had the blacks with their never ending onward vanguard of civil rights. And then “Hispanics,” “Asians” and others were clamoring for more of the pie. Nevermind, she had the best data.

 This data included Comey’s revelations, her emails not explained properly, but she wastefully persisted in trying to edify them, she maintained the feminism from the 70’s, and Sanders subtracted any progressive advantages. She felt the journalists misread her; she was too lacking in sensationalism. She was over prepared for the debate. Did she dare to bring in school supplies? She knew Trump’s mouth but didn’t speak the lingo. Her debate wasn’t that kind of debate. She could score debating points but scored zero in the realm of sensationalism. She knew what to do in the debate, but did not do it. She was stalked and rightly so, they felt, since she was monotonous in a suffragette pants suit. It lead to boredom à la Pascal.

 She was only passionate about Flint drinking water. Otherwise she was at a simmer while Trump lowered it to a boil. Sanders was mad all the time, about the rich. She could have blasted Trump about 9/11, Syria, bin Laden, Putin, and Iran; but she did not.

 Therefore Trump won more states, she won more votes. The Electoral College outcomes avoided a few states becoming the determinant every four years. So most populous areas could not have legislation favoring them and all appointees only from those areas. All else was superfluous. Campaign only in those areas and one became a President of them and not the US. No need for a Senate, a huge House could do the trick.

 Too many didn’t like her though they didn’t like him but he was disliked less so. He said maybe the same thing on occasion but she did not say it effectively. It wasn’t he said she said. He was the alpha dog and led the pack. It was that he wasn’t fit to be president but if morals were of no concern then she would lose, as she did. She had docs, slogans, and policy points, he dispensed with all that to little protest. Her “deplorables” are how quaint, seen now, to have been taken to task for such word use which referred to half of his supporters. Only half? She made it worse by being apologetic about having said it. She also wanted a political presidential campaign to concern itself about decency, releasing tax returns, having a platform, and shaking hands, kissing babies, and speaking to American values while in a parade. This, and more, had died with those for whom it had  been necessary.

 Those dead had become ghosts – if they had any representation at all. Her ghosts came from 2012, 2008, the State Department’s perplexing knots of indecision, Bill’s presidency and her Mom. All these had policies to counter them. Meanwhile Trump had a lesser ghostly accompaniment – he being vastly amoral and, if anything, his ghosts lacked substantiation, because they were almost wholly transparent.

 Nothing to see here. Nothing to be realized. A life filled with lies results in not being able to find the truth. I said “filled” – there is no room for truth. Truth only exists as counterpoint to lies. Again, if all are lies, there is no truth. This may not be sought after since truth is leaden gray and if lies give a colorful life, then a most intense blue, cobalt blue, tags along as the lies become most vivid. And the most vivid is going to get too destructive a capability on par with a springtime cobalt bomb.

 Spring Came on Forever is a book by Bess Streeter Aldrich (1935); and it was a chapter title in Shelby Foote’s Civil War. For the anti-Hillary faction, Trump, regardless of season, was their springtime. He was part of a pattern, a part of a story that works well. Pleasure before death, politics without morality. In voting, the electorate became numbing numbers, so heavy in import, we were pulled down, choked from reason and caught in an intense field of desire, hatred, and hope. Transformed they were such we could not get to the originals – what in literary circles is called “displacement.” This political action is not known but felt and not precisely in subject and verb, but sensed.

 Trump was the monster and Clinton’s impeccable superiority was for nought. She was not armed well enough and her armor was thin. He was entirely comfortable in his appalling activities. He was a good fit with the lies of commercials and ads in general for what sells or puts the clicks on the links, in thrall to destruction, torture, punishment at large in horror stories, slaughter, and public reveals of private matters like closeted assassination.

 By the huge election numbers such strong weight is felt without change in illness or effort. It is a communal plague, resistance is futile, besides how would you know, you are one of that number, at least you are that much, one. Political illness spread by chance? Is the end of democracy to be left to chance? It just happened? A plague of false news, huge numbers of lies that move all before them despite as others maintained themselves via editor, writer, teacher, cop, scientist, pastor, priest. A fever not random, not knowable and so unstoppable. So give it up to AI? It can monitor changes in the electorate by the millions per second. Move quickly because it will soon become AI for AI. And so ultimately did she have what it takes? She didn’t win, but did she have what it takes? And so answer – what happened.

 There is more to the story than the story. In no sense do morals favor the advent of AI. The numbers involved are beyond us in large areas with rapid fire communications. It is done before we know of it. In addition, the end of democracy is also the result of hard-hearted ideologists ascendent, an abiding hostility to reason and putting faith in such crap as all truth is relative with such incredible assertions like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity lends itself to losing truth.

 Shelby Foote thought life in the modern world is a gamble, a test of chance, in which most people lose and are forced to adapt to defeat, sometimes in bizarre ways. Note well Trump and his supporters did not think of themselves as losers though the truth is lost. The true “Lost Cause” is this one. It is only attainable via the foul stain of complicity in the convoluted entanglement of having lied to oneself as if to negate truth. But it’s gone anyway, so why bother?

 At last, get to it. What happened? No, it isn’t What Happened? But what happened. She seemed bewildered as she did the right thing but “it” didn’t turn out right. The morals have flown, is that it? Is that “right?” Politics has never been about morals. You can only realize what is what in politics via our education, formal or otherwise. Education now means money and money means jobs. Education requires accessibility – classroom, online, at home. None of these are equal. It is equality (or as the corrective always has it – “the equality of opportunity”) that motivates a great many. And how is it found? Mostly it is found to be too costly except if you garner NIL but that is not the purpose of education. Well known are the party schools whose human products cannot read or write collegiately. They rely on others to cheat on their behalf, the gimmes are there to manipulate so that after years on campus, or wherever, they lack education. Can you graduate with honors but not know how to read or to write? Reason? Discern lies from the truth?

 There’s more. Just because the truth is with you does not equate to its implementation, if required. If you should do so, you are the hated “elite” and paradoxically you are stupid. So OK, stop it. For education we need and we will have AI. The human element corrupts the intent of education. AI can realize what should be the result of education. Only by banning what we were and should have become can education attain its necessary outcome. Education is not engaged in to provide creativity. AI based on AI can unequivocally deliver the vote. No more Trumps or Clintons. Disregard for morals reigns supreme and anyway to hold the truth and not enact it is immoral. You must have understanding. Once upon a time that was the reason “to go to college.” Not to do research but to be taught. To find satisfaction in the exercise of intellect at whatever level. To thus find the worthwhile and not to let it go.

 But do let go if you think numbers are worthwhile. As a part of an “attitude” they don’t count for enough. Never is the attitude one of truth, honesty, and decency. Little of salvation intrudes and it is not the Church kind in any event, the Christians are vastly outnumbered. Certainly the millions went bad a long time ago. Always more “romans” than those of “christian” bent. Unfortunately, they vote. The agnostics became the cultural heroes. The atheists (the zeros) are the preponderance of voters. But don’t forget the less-than-zeroes who were called deplorables voting for Trump, but less than zero hardly does them justice.

 Once, a very long time ago, there was a trivium. It came before a quadrivium. Together they were the liberal arts. The basic three were about grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Ugh! Many have heard of them. Fewer have had an almost always unpleasant experience in a classroom devoted to teaching them. Usually these are done in an apologetic manner. Rhetoric can be found in may guises at various levels of educational institutions. Grammar is put to most at an earlier time than is logic or rhetoric. Grammar is bundled with your acquisition of what is “school” and who are you. The remainder, logic, is self-inflicted, can’t complain.

 All three are needed. More than that, they are necessary. They should be taught repeatedly at all levels – grade school, middle, high, and college. It is taken for a grade. If you can’t pass the course(s) you don’t advance to the next level in your educative toil. They are to be always tied to truth, honesty, and decency. They too are formally taught and if you can’t cut it, get out.

The Unqualified Expansion of Trieste

Well, there are at least two DOTs. To obtain a driver’s license, you need documents. The DOT website’s requirement for documentation I had well in hand. Now the other DOT on-site had other requirements. They handed me a pamphlet detailing what I was required to produce. I hadn’t thought of a birth certificate, as what else, proof of birth, (and if I didn‘t have one, would have, absurdly, a death certificate have done the trick?) was necessary to buy a car, take out a mortgage, enter college, or commit to a loan with a visit to the county seat as preamble. Really now, did you say the original?

No, I do not routinely carry on me a birth certificate. My ever-prepared wife knew of its location. Therefore, we had to return. We did so in an hour. Before that, we had spent an hour and a half waiting. Take a number, sit. If you sat in the waiting closet, you were with fifteen others. I couldn’t take it. My heart condition does not permit such closest-possible placing on a good day. This day, rain was on its way. The dense humidity made for breathing difficulties for me more than if I had been alone in the waiting slit. I stood in the doorway, one foot propping open the door a big crack and I inhaled cooler stirred air. The other waiters thanked me for my dutiful foot placement. Others sat a few feet left or right of the door to the office proper. These seats seemed to be for complications in the process. Anyone there took a long time at the counter in front of one of two women.  The one woman, in central position , never smiled, she assessed the need and did what was required. 

The other two DOT personnel also did as required. They did not indulge in despair, anger, or frustration. Another day, don’t tell me who, tell me what, over and over in a  submarine compartment. One donned a baseball cap, exited the building and re-entered around half an hour later, forgetting the cap was on , sitting behind a sign for next counter please. After a time ( around 45 minutes) all three were doing licenses. The third of the DOT sat around at the end of a curve in the counter, somewhat at the back. Very close behind him you took your test (on a computer screen) if need be. The now capless one got the variety of the day as a, I swear, a 12-year-old came with Mom to get a permit. She got smiles from the processor. 

The one in the back was doing a fast rate. Answer questions, present docs, look in viewer. Stand before a backdrop, smile if you got it. You pay, sign, goodbye. (Elsewhere if the photo doesn’t suit you, you get another try, and it is done in compensatory spacious accommodations while waiters actively converse. Here it was a solitary turn, oppressed by lack of space and don’t cross the waiters, in all such matters once done there was no way back.) He was going and going. Sometime when I was letting someone out or in and then re-establishing my position at the door, he left his chair. Maybe ten minutes, must be a toilet back there somewhere. The middle person also went back, a long time, same toilet?

All three from the DOT contributed to melancholic output in pinched quarters. No one waiting voiced a protest, some did mutter “Letter to the Editor”. Most were relieved to get the hell out of there. Theirs had been a melancholic wait. Like confined to Trieste during the last century. Of course, the DOT Three couldn’t leave. It may have been hopeless resignation or the end-is-near-anyway mentality that prevailed among them. I rather think they were participatory in the general milieu of kindness, aiding anticipation, politeness, and common courtesy of the region. I guess to be “common” as in what was once ordinary respect and laissez admittance to the group which was in play.

Nevertheless, neither they nor me nor the waiters should be in such a zone the DOH must have had requests to close down. Do so and no licenses? Mental and social and physical and medical issues are endemic to the waiting area. People escape into their phones. I got the door. The employees had no escape. And back at it the next workday. Back to 150 more. They gotta drive. They gotta have licenses. The SOBs and DOBs of the DOH do not gotta do anything. And of course they don’t.

This you know as you exit town. Could stop at Billy’s on your way out. Ice cream, yes, but check the little signs in the little windows. I had a chili dog.  Back in the car and it is  rare hereabouts - a Nissan Versa. Driven out of town under open skies, green fields, and a simply arranged earth all about. Drive on, don’t try to think along the lines of melancholy. Don’t approach mourning as you approach exceeding the speed limit. The DOH must have many more at the edge of sadness, anyway.

July 2019 of The Atlantic

Jerks, stats, the Moon, baseball, and truth vs. fiction

1.     “Mailer on the Moon” is about Norman Mailer and Of a Fire on the Moon and the book is labelled as being essential to understand Apollo 11’s journey.  Highly doubtful. Also it is marked as being essential for understanding its legacy. Certainly not. Personally, it is reported, Mailer was in anticlimax. His effort was for the self. Lots of needed money was offered to write about Apollo 11. A gig. His ego less prominent but stamped on the account he wrote as a lesser advertisement for himself, not as others did for the provision of style but for a huge staging of personality, the dominant theme. Not events, history, but himself as more important than all else. Numbing importance and being bloated and tasteless – so the 60’s editors and readers expected and “enjoyed.” He was paid well for his act – Believe It or Not.

Odor is reputed to be a feature little desired by the WASPs of the NASA technocracy. But the most publicly known members of various missions filled crew cabins repeatedly with odorous offal.  Deodorant might have helped to prevent Of an Odor on the Moon. Norman linked odor and Time and Death. Undeniably NASA’s leaders intended to conquer the Moon, odor or not, and so reduce it by removing it from the unknown,  that had our possibilities assigned to it, so it would become less and smaller. The WASPS triumphant. But given the time and place, the who and the what could not be otherwise. Fiction lacked acceptance but Norman needed a fictional self he wrote of as everywhere and everytime such that there could not be an alternative. He was It. No margin, no protection from banality, and Truth took a holiday. The Moon had offered an unlimited adventure. This fire on the moon ruined that. The lunar events were taken by him for an effect on himself and his interaction with others.

Nevertheless, Norman was granted  status as a brilliant writer in tune with what was underneath a surface of the obvious achievement of the actions of Apollo 11’s supporters and participants but only by spewing that conception of himself over what was underneath. A hopeless attempt to cover up the encounter of reality, the one that was to come to be, with what might have been. If it, the landing on the Moon, was to happen, there was only one way it could happen and all those other ways, however entrancing, enthralling, exciting, enlightening, exhilarating, enchanting , ebullient, ecstatic, elated, electrifying, eximious, euphoric, enriching, eclectic, effluent, embellished, extramundane, enthusiastic, exalting, eudemonic, enhancing, elevating, empyreal, enabling, or emphatic they could be, they were gone.

Mailer had a sense of this as we all could. Therefore, he was not unique in his realization but rather in who he was, his personal elitist cult of me, myself, and I uber all made him a jerk. And there would be more and more like him. Why read what a jerk has written? He wanted to be read. They accommodated him.

2.     Or if not read, then to be watched as a baseball spectator who cannot know what makes one player better than another. Those better players are an elite, as was Mailer and some are jerks or so it is reported in “Building the Next Babe Ruth” wherein one can see what they do physically for the assigned physical tasks of baseball, but not how they mentally do it. Only they can realize how it is being accomplished while they catch, hit, slide, throw, and run. That’s baseball. And that’s not baseball. Baseball has long been statistically-ridden and managers have changed the course of a game based on “stats.” But, of late, stats aren’t characterizing what they will do but what they have done. So then a player’s worth, value is brought under analysis. Some do well after the numbers come out, and they become arrogant, or it intensifies whatever latent arrogance they had. So then they are jerks. Certainly arrogance is one distinguishing characteristic of a jerk, and Mailer qualifies. So why watch a jerk?

If you could statistically train a Mailer such as in a writers workshop, what with stats on sentence length, use of vocabulary, position of adjective and adverbs and frequency of their use, plus topics and meaning – and you get a Mailer? Could he always be a statistical outlier? His value, worth lies in his elitism and his cult of the One? Then can you produce more than one baseball star? Yes, you can, they are named in the article. They have differing names but having the same outcome of a superiority in performance of tasks that are part of baseball. This superiority is derived from stats. If more players could be statistically altered, their value, worth would increase less. If more were like Mailer, and could be produced to be like Mailer, his and their value, worth lessens.

3.     With jerks as writers and jerks as baseball players, can we feel comfortable in that we are in neither category? If “George Orwell’s Unheeded Warning” is not accepted by us, it is implied we are all jerks. We have willingly, statistically speaking, since there are so many of us, become enslaved to versions of truth. We have sought to escape from boredom by accepting fictions instead of truths since the truth isn’t diverse and diverting enough. But twist it and turn it and you get many differences that are more entertaining. Mailer couldn’t do it straight, there had to be fiction for entertainment. You can’t play ball as if you had a calculator strapped to your head or so the fiction of it has been proclaimed. Baseball remains less entertaining without stats. Winston of 1984 is quoted – “Sanity is not statistical.” Oh but it is if our stat analysis of literature, stat analysis of baseball and the stats that are synonymous with social media can be accepted as extensions of the feverish desire for entertainment.

To be consistently entertained by arrogant jerks or other elitists requires that statistically fiction predominates over truth. Once fiction most often prevails, it is true.

Without Yips What Could We Do?

The eleventh episode of season seven for “Murdoch Mysteries” is “A Case of the Yips” and involves playing golf in 1903 Canada, near Toronto. A golf champion suddenly cannot drive the ball as he would like – his swing is off. He is said to have the yips. In this episode, Murdoch invented the Swing Arc Perfection Device. The golf champion tried it out, then at the golf course he finds he can’t send the ball as he would like and blames the sample swings he took using Murdoch’s device.


Dr. Julia Ogden (rarely called Mrs. Murdoch) is at the tee (a pile of dirt) and tries out golf by sending the ball well downrange and well placed. She does it more than once, and Murdoch and the champion are annoyed by her skill. She says there is nothing to it – empty your mind. The champion tries it and it works. Murdoch finds it doesn’t work for him and small wonder, since he is logical, deductive, and rational – or take your pick. His mind is ever at work.


This is a not bad episode though I had never heard of  the “yips” before. From the episode I gathered it was a muscular lapse corrected by mental activity or the lack of same. Perhaps its ill effects were confined to golf. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, has as a definition – “a state of nervous tension affecting an athlete (as a golfer) in the performance of a crucial action < had a bad case of the _˜ on short putts >”. The dictionary entry relates it is of unknown origin from 1962.


Nice and neat. Then it gets messy since Internet sources say it is a loss of fine motor skills. Comes on suddenly, no cure. Usually it strikes those with years of experience. A correction in technique may help or they are lost to the sport. It, via Internet sources, has sudden movements when muscular control is most needed. The sources list those engaging in golf, snooker, cricket, bowling, and for baseball pitchers as having had the yips.


Wikipedia credits the term, “yips,” to Tommy Armour (1896-1968) who won some big tournaments in 1927, 1930, and 1931. He was a Scot and served in the Black Watch as a machine-gunner in WWI. He was in the Tank Corps when he was gassed – mustard – and the docs put metal plates in his head and left arm. He regained sight in his right eye. He did well as an amateur in France and then in the US. He went pro in 1924. He also won the Canadian Open three times. In 1927 he had the misfortune to win an Archaeopteryx, meaning he went 15 or more over par on one hole. He got a 23 on a par 5 hole. I don’t play golf, but I realize how much that must have hurt. Hard to be light-hearted about it. This regrettable feat came one week after the US Open win in 1927. He retired from full-time pro golf in 1935. He stopped participation in pro golf tournaments because of the yips. Had his plates anything to do with it? For a long time his coauthored book (1953) on playing the best golf all the time was the biggest seller about golf. In any event he is the one credited by Wikipedia with popularizing the term “yips”.


As for yips as it is now defined, it is a biochemical approach in regard to playing a sport with an aging brain. Neurological difficulties could lead to or be the yips. I have heard of golfers Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, and they are said to have been affected by the yips. In 2015 it was suggested that the yips had got to Tiger Woods. I have also heard of him. Also, in 2014, it was said Woods had the putting yips and the driver yips. Others cited were having great success, then their game , of cricket, came apart. So maybe “yips” gets mentioned in cricket. I have never seen nor heard a cricket match.


In baseball yips is demonstrated by suddenly not being able to place the ball accurately, such as in pitching (Steve Blass gave his name to Steve Blass Syndrome/Disease) though second basemen can develop it and Mackey Sasser, a catcher, could not throw back to the pitcher unless he tapped his glove first. I saw him unable to throw to the pitcher, and he had to start a relay to the third baseman first. A few called it “Sasseritis”. No one said anything about “yips”. There was mention of mental difficulties.


Others have been affected in basketball, tennis, and football (placekickers). In my decades of listening to coverage of baseball and football and to a much lesser extent for tennis, basketball, and anything else sportive, I have never heard “yips” in the present or from the past.


Outside sports, can novelists or journalists get the yips? In both cases is this writer’s block? So it is the same across many genres, only with a different name? Do philosophers get the yips and can it go on for years as for athletes? Thus we read “yiptic” chapters and wonder how the author became so obtuse or suddenly has such clarity (maybe it is for the good in some instances?). Let’s not forget chess champions who at times make inexplicable moves in tournament after tournament.


Too many pursuits and if each to its own yips? Would that serve us well? Rather not, one needs to clarify what is doing a sport badly and what is having the yips. One examination of yips occurring in bowlers found it was like a severe form of choking (assuming the “choke” is not the common sports term when one can do “it” but lapses into not being able to do it when the game or career is on the line. Usually this implies no physical impairment but “a lack of concentration “or, more specifically, a lack of conviction that it can be done, it is a response to “everyone” expecting success. So much is “riding on it” and a mental pressure on the performer is relieved by not doing it. Some players "psych themselves out".


Certainly there is a psychology for baseball and some baseball players are well aware of the yips but it isn’t talked about –such is an unwritten rule – and they put it in the mental domain. A domain it is that includes “head cases” such as a pitcher with super speed to the plate and delivered with marvelous control. But he could not get the ball over to first base (a la Jon Lester). Some do it in practice without what is going on all the time in a real game. Get them away from being judged, but some docs think knowing the cause of yips would do no good. You know what causes your yips, then what? Knowing about it is not lending a cure. You must deal with anxiety.


If it is not yips, it is “a slump” or “choking” or “a lull” and so on. Often it involves, as noted, doing OK in practice, but not actual play. Now this is expanding on and on. Not all this expansion in explanation is by specific physical components of the body, rather it is a multiple mental element, very diverse. There may be a trauma that is physical or mental. Nevertheless, they find a mental component in relation to the physical trauma. The body “remembers” and a similar experience triggers an involuntary reenactment.


The aforementioned Sasser threw fine in the bull pen and to second base but he had to pump his arm three to four times before his release to the pitcher. Fans and writers belittled him. Fans would chant “One, Two, Three” as he pumped before release. The night before a game he would go into a panic. Amidst all this he was involved in a collision at home plate. After that, his hitting, which had been OK even during his throwing difficulties, went bad.


Some say the difficulty (not called yips) is a culmination of years of trauma and relaxation, concentration, imagery, positive thinking and thought stopping do not help. Sasser had a long history of injuries from high school, college, and on to the pros. Also, he had profound non-sport upsets. All contributed to his throwing “yips”. So now this is a third definition of yips -  not the physical, not the mental but the physical trauma to mental to physical. 


Sasser had a rheumatoid father who had to flip the baseball underhand to Sasser. The father medicated himself with alcohol. At seven years old, he saw his five year old brother race past him and his sister into a crosswalk and get slammed by a car that threw his brother one hundred feet. The brother lived but was never the same physically or mentally and Sasser blamed himself for not preventing it. Also his father’s friend and business partner was murdered, and the killer had been waiting for Sasser to leave the store and then the shooter entered. His father was lost in life thereafter. At ten years of age Sasser fell from a tree and required stitches. At twelve he had a cyst surgically removed from a knee and at seventeen tore ligaments in that knee. In high school, at quarterback, he took many hits, and it was the same in semi-pro football. In 1984 he hurt his knee again by sliding into base. In 1985 he was run over at the plate and got hit in the head and was dazed and out of it. In 1987 in the cold of Calgary he got a foul tip under this protection he wore as catcher but he stayed in the game and found he could not pull his right arm back and away from his body to cock before throwing. So he tucked his arm close to his side and flipped the ball from his fingers. Then he could not readily return the ball to the pitcher. A coach berated him in public and said Sasser would be fined when he hesitated. In 1990, when he had his best year statistically, there was another hard collision at the plate. Sometimes, in baseball, what happened to Sasser is baseball. What is happening in baseball cannot be predicated on antecedents. To force it to be so leads to problems. One woman, who hates baseball, knows of him because she likes his name. Others appreciate him because he contributed to victories on the diamond. Such activity still goes on since he has coached college ball for many years.


For a causative account of yips from the physical side, there are BBC Sport and the Mayo Clinic. The BBC calls yips as usually associated with golf and is a freezing or involuntary movement of the hands when attempting shots. The condition was originally thought to be psychological, but now it may have a physical basis. The Mayo clinic thinks it involuntary wrist spasms most commonly in golf putting. Once it was thought to be always linked with anxiety. Trying harder led to choking, to performance anxiety equaling failure. It is also said the yips suddenly start to interfere with a task once done mindlessly for decades. It could be of the psychological, of the neurological, or fallout from injuries and trauma. In all cases, anxiety for it can keep it alive.


Too many yips for me, rather it is too much pressure, not enough grace. Loading on thought after thought whereas getting on with it is to be preferred or the possibility exists for psychological self-interference. Without this psychological component, it isn’t yips. Pure yips, the preferred form, does not involve physicality. I had a case of the yips when I was ten years old. I remember the room and the lighting. I was reading something, probably a book. Then I could no longer read. There I was at ten trying to account for what had happened to me. I did recognize that at around five years old I was looking at a printed page and knew that I would be able to read it after suitable schooling. I was seeing marks on the page and did not know they would become letters and these letters would be words. The words spoken could also be written. But there I was at ten and I lost the ability, not the knowledge, of reading.  What to do? Knowing it was the yips as I have so defined it decades later, would hardly have done me any good then. I did not panic. I had no authentic reaction since no other like reaction could be known for what had never before occurred. It was what had happened, that was that, I would live as I had been at five years old. Minutes ticked. Something less than an hour went by.  I stayed where I was with the book unseen nearby. I picked up the book again, I took a look, and I could read. 


I have been successful at it ever since. Though from time to time, writing a word a great deal or, in reading excessively, a word comes to appear strange. Is that how it is pronounced? Is that how it is spelled? Seems strange to me. I then need conformation that it is indeed a word I have known for many years but I needed assurance in order to keep it as part of my knowledge. Such an occurrence has beset me at all ages, times, and places. The recognition returns. There was no pain of trauma or anxiety or muscular disorder. I was questioning, as myself, why I had I accepted what I was told to be true. Push it enough and I would be illiterate. I would be out of the “sport” as it had eventuated for some. If you doubt reality enough, taking it suddenly to a  different plane entirely, you have got not the not-reality but nothing. Overindulgence in drugs, sex, religion, politics, food and drink, and “the good life”  will lose from you what you received, and you go into an area of no return. Knowing reality isn’t effortless, try too hard, as perhaps in a case of the yips, and you may lose it for good. Being relentless with yourself is stupid.