Blog on "hiatus" (indefinitely)

This blog is officially on hiatus for the folllowing reasons:

(1) I'm too busy with other commitments right now to maintain a blog.

(2) I'm so fed up with, and depressed by, life in general and this world (especially the many stupid and harmful people in it)—not to mention being afflicted with plain old biochemistry-based depression—that I see little point in keeping a blog even if I did have the time. I feel like reading Schopenhauer's Studies in Pessimism and, in fact, just ordered the book from Amazon.com.

To quote one of the 'bots in an episode of MST3K, "Cram it, world."

Unions v. Businesses: Double Standards

I happened to see this story in today's Sacramento Bee newspaper, which someone had left in the break room at work. The story is not particularly interesting. It's about a local dispute between a labor union and Sacramento-based Sutter Health. But it touches on a couple of points that are interesting in the context of general political philosophy. Here is an excerpt:

In an ongoing labor dispute, the National Labor Relations Board's general counsel has determined that eight Bay Area Sutter Health centers violated federal labor law by locking out union employees for four days following their one-day strike last December....

The NLRB's general counsel concluded that the hospitals' four-day lockout last year was an illegal retaliation against the union's one-day strike on Dec. 1, which occurred during stalled contract negotiations. The labor board seeks to recover millions of dollars of lost employee wages, plus interest, for the period hospital employees were locked out.

If you think about it, the facts listed in this passage reveal a remarkable disparity in the way both sides of the dispute are treated. The union is suing Sutter Health for loss of wages because they were locked out of their jobs. But why were they locked out? Because they willingly went on strike. But surely going on strike causes the company to lose money and to suffer other kinds of damages. So why can't Sutter Health counter-sue the employees or the union, or both, for going on strike?

Of course, in today's statist, anti-business climate, the very question sounds silly. But why? Why is it that a worker can sue his employer if the employer refuses to let him work, but an employer can't sue a worker if he refuses to work?

You can also find this kind of disparity in the world of wrongful termination lawsuits. Once you've hired someone as your employee, the law defines the "legitimate" reasons that you can use to fire that employee. If you fire someone for an illegitimate reason, your former employee can sue you for "wrongful termination." On the other hand, your employee can, in most cases, quit for just about any reason he wants, even without giving any notice. And no matter how much money you lose because of your former employee's sudden departure, you can't sue him for a penny. He can quit at any time, for any reason. Why the double standard?

"Well, most companies have deep pockets and can more easily absorb the loss of an employee's sudden departure, even a valuable employee who's hard to replace." So what? We're talking about the principle here. If a thief steals $2000 worth of jewelry from a millionaire to buy drugs, the millionaire can absorb the loss far more easily than a middle-class widow living on her husband's pension, if the thief were to steal $2000 from under her mattress. But that doesn't mean the law will not prosecute the thief who steals only from millionaires. According to the law, the thief is guilty of stealing $2000, regardless of his victim's income, and the law will, and should, prosecute him the same in either case. Why shouldn't the same be true in the case of damages caused by departing or striking employees in comparison with companies firing or "locking out" employees? (Legally astute readers will note that I've conflated two types of legal action here—criminal and civil—but I think that's irrelevant. If it bothers you, simply replace the thief-and-millionaire example with a person who causes the millionaire to lose $2000 through his reckless endangerment or negligence. Same difference)

Weird Question #3: High and Low

Why do we use a metaphor of height to describe things that are better, more enjoyable, more important, or more powerful? Examples: "Upper management," "a high score," "She must be high." Likewise, why do we use a metaphor of depth for things that are worse, less important, or weaker are "low"—for example, "lower rungs," "low score," "I'm feeling low," "That was really low"?

At bottom (no pun intended), isn't this an arbitrary use of the metaphors? Wouldn't it make just as much sense to reverse them, using depth for good things and height for bad things? Perhaps the current system is based on the idea that Heaven, the ultimate good, has always been said to be high, and Hell, the ultimate bad, has been said to be low. But that raises the question, Why were Heaven and Hell assigned height and depth in the first place?

Here is a related question from the field of music: Why are the squeakier notes, caused by shorter waves, called "high," while bass notes, caused by longer waves, are called "low"? Isn't this, too, an arbitrary convention? Wouldn't it be just as sensible to call the notes on the right end of the piano "low" and the ones on the left end "high"? The only explanation I can think of is that in ancient times, people noticed that birds make squeaky sounds, and because they fly high above us, other squeaky sounds became associated with height. But I'm just groping.

Mozart's Symphony No. 25 + How to Explore Classical Music

I am embarrassed to say that after more than 15 years being a fan of Mozart and gradually building up a collection of his works on CD, I have only recently discovered one of his early masterpieces: the Symphony No. 25 in G Minor (especially the first movement), written when he was a teenager. Actually, the opening theme of the first movement sounded familiar to me when I heard a sample of it on Amazon.com. I'm pretty sure I'd heard it on the soundtrack to Amadeus, which I've seen at least four times. Why, then, didn't I find out what the work was and seek it out the first time I heard it? Who knows.

The first movement of this symphony (Allegro con brio) is a perfect example of Mozart's ability to achieve brilliance using a musical theme that is astounding in its simplicity. The theme, which opens the piece, consists of four notes: G, down to D, up a half-step to E-flat, and then diving to F-sharp. Each note takes up an entire 4-beat measure and is played in a syncopated rhythm. On paper, this is a rather weird combination of notes to use for a melody. It takes a genius like Mozart to parlay such a strange and simple phrase into an entire movement for a first-rate symphony.

Even better, I got this symphony on a CD with four other symphonies—26, 27, 29, and 32—by the superb Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner—for the ridiculous price of $9.98! I knew this would be a fine rendition of Mozart because I already had a 3-CD set of Mozart's later symphonies by the same group of musicians, including the No. 40 in G Minor and the No. 41("Jupiter"), and I consider them to be the definitive recordings of these two symphonies. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, because whenever I hear the No. 40 or No. 41 played on a classical music radio station, it's almost always the Neville Marinner and St. Martin-in-the-Fields version.

Regarding the No. 25, Aaron Green sums it up well in his list of the "Top 10 Symphonies You Should Own":

Also a lesser known work, this Mozart symphony [No. 25] combines classical form with Mozart's flamboyant expressions. The first movement, although expressive, maintains a lightness in the sound. The orchestration in the second movement gives its pastoral sound. The third movement opens with a unison melody which remains throughout its entirety. The finale gives you the feeling of being "rushed"...only in a good way. This symphony is a must have for those who love Mozart.

One of the things I like about building a collection of classical music is "the hunt." Inevitably you buy a lot of stuff that is only average, even by your favorite composers. But eventually your patience gets rewarded when you find a gem hiding in the CD racks. A couple of weeks ago, while rummaging through the used Classical section at Dimple Records, I came across a 2-CD set of Bach's six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord BWV 1014-1019. At the time, these works were not even on my radar screen, but the price was right, so I snagged them. Now the first movement of the Sonata No. 1 in B Minor and the first and second movements of the No. 4 in C Minor (I tend to like Bach's minor-key stuff the most) rank among my all-time favorite pieces by Bach. I'm sure the other sonatas will grow on me with further listening.

But such finds are rare in record stores in my area. So, every couple of years I make a pilgrimage to the used record stores in San Francisco and Berkeley. These stores always have very large selections of used classical CDs at great prices. Berkeley has Amoeba and Rasputin's, while San Francisco has—well, too many to list. Even after you factor in the cost of gas and the extra time it takes to drive there, you still wind up saving over 100 dollars that you would have paid if you'd bought the CDs new from Amazon.com. In fact, it's about time for me to make another one of these trips.

Of course, I don't just bumble around with no idea of what I want to buy. With such a copious body of works to choose from, you need some kind of system. Mine is a superb book called Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works by Phil Goulding. For each of these composers, Goulding provides an introduction to the composer's life and works, followed by several lists of the composer's best works. The first is a Starter Kit comprising five works that are most accessible for the beginner. Also, Goulding usually tries to represent the diversity of the composer's works—for example, his Mozart Starter kit includes symphonies, a piano concerto, a serandade, and an opera. After the Starter Kit comes a Top Ten list, followed by a "Master Collection" and, finally, a "Library." (For some composers the Library is omitted.)

Goulding's system is a wonderful way to explore classical music in an intelligent, organized manner. Without such a system, you might randomly pick a work by the composer that is very hard to listen to, causing you to dismiss his music altogether before you've had a chance to hear the stuff you might like. I also use this book to keep track of which works I have on CD and which ones I still need to buy. In the lists, I place a check mark by each work that I already have. I usually try everything on the Starter List before I dismiss a composer as being "not for me." If I like enough of the works on the Starter Kit list, I move on to the Top Ten, then the Master Collection, and finally the Library. I make an exception to this rule if I've heard something I like that's not on the Starter Kit or Top Ten list, if I've read something about the work that convinces me that I'd probably like it, or if I can get a CD that combines one or more Starter Kit or Top Ten works with a work that is not on these lists. After all, these lists are guides, not strait jackets.

I've been using this book for over 10 years and I've never seen any reason to stop using it. If you're interested in exploring classical music, I highly recommend Goulding's book. It has been especially valuable to me in exploring the music of Bach, which can be intimidating for the beginner. The only flaw in Goulding's book—and admittedly, it's a whopper— is that he omits Rachmaninoff from his list of the 50 Greatest Composers. This might not be such a huge flaw if he included other composers that are clearly better or more important than Rachmaninoff. But clearly this is not the case. Every other classical music fan I've talked to about this omission agrees that it's an unforgivable mistake. Goulding, in his introduction, even admits that he took lots of heat for this omission before the book was even published. In his discussion of artists that didn't make The List, he says:

[M]y wife, Miriam, will not stop pleading the case of Rachmaninoff. If you feel the same way, wonderful. Substitute his Piano Concerto No. 2 for one of Liszt's piano works. Or go further. Concentrate on forty from The List and then substitute a final ten of your own. This will do you no dishonor. Or, cheat and collect sixty composers instead of fifty. You don't have to tell anybody. If your library contains every recommendation on this List, you will have the best collection on the block!

I agree with Miriam. As far as I'm concerned, there is no excuse for filling slots on The List with composers like Faure, Borodin, or Couperin instead of Rachmaninoff. When I mentioned this omission to my friend Todd, a fan of classical music from the Romantic period who grew up with parents that were professional classical musicians, he declared, "Goulding can kiss my sphincter!" For those composers like Rachmaninoff that are missing from Goulding's List, my fall-back source of guidance is an excellent Web site called Classical.net. In addition to biographies of composers, CD buying guides, and more, Classical.net includes short lists of works for each composer that are analogous to Goulding's "Top Ten" lists. Here is the site's handy list of recommended works by Rachmaninoff:

*Concertos for Piano (1, *2, *3, 4)
*Études and Preludes for Piano
*Morceaux de Fantasie (Op. 3/2)
*Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Sonatas for Piano
Suites for Piano Four Hands
Symphonic Dances
Symphony #2
Trios for Piano and Strings

Titles of works that are especially recommended have a red star to the left of them (in the list above I've used asterisks to represent the red stars). Sometimes, as a supplement to Goulding's book, I print a list from Classical.net and take it with me to the record store. Anyway, if you weigh Goulding's omission of Rachmaninoff against the value of the rest of his book, it counts for very little. The book is like no other introduction to classical music. I suspect I'll be using it to enlarge my collection for the next 20 years, if not for the rest of my life.

Oh, and one more caveat about Goulding's book: Ignore his lists for Chopin. You can now get all of Chopin's solo piano works, plus his piano concertos, in a box set from the Naxos label for the insanely low price of $62.99 on Amazon.com. The pianist is Idil Biret, a Turkish virtuoso. (In fairness to Goulding, this collection was not available when he wrote his book.) Even if you're not a huge fan of Chopin, if you can get all his piano music for such a low price, there's no point in picking and choosing, paying $12-$18 per CD, to get only a small percentage.

Weird Question #2: Why doesn't air fall to the ground?

There are lots of natural phenomena that are so much a part of our everyday life that we take them for granted. And unless we've taken physics, or looked up the topic in a physics book, we have no idea how these things work. Here is a great example: How are we able to suck liquid through a straw? It's a simple activity that we do every day, but if you've never read about the tendency of air to equalize pressure, or digested the aphorism "Nature abhors a vacuum," or been exposed to any of the other ways of thinking about what happens when you suck through a straw, you're basically lost. For an explanation in plain English and a helpful illustration, see Sucking Water Through a Straw -- Air Pressure and Fluids by Joseph Andersen.

Here is another example that I thought of the other day: What keeps our atmosphere ("air" from now on) from falling to the ground? Think about it. Air has mass, just like every other object. So, like other objects, air is subject to gravity. Sure, the atoms and molecules that make up air are very small and very light. But that's irrelevant. In a vacuum, a particle of dust not only falls to the ground, but it falls at the same rate as a 16-ton weight. The same is true of air.

Of course, those atoms and molecules that make up air are not alone in a vacuum. Each one is surrounded by other atoms and molecules. And they're all constantly bouncing off each other, transferring kinetic energy among themselves and other objects. But this can only last so long. Let's say you shot 100 basketballs out of a powerful "basketball canon" into a small, empty room. For quite a while those balls would bounce off each other, against the wall, against the ceiling, powered by the kinetic energy they got from the canon blast. But eventually they would spend all that energy, the bouncing would peter out, and the balls would stop.

Why should air be any different?

Have you put your finger on it yet? The fact is, some source of energy is necessary to keep the air moving, to keep it from falling to the ground like every other object in the world that is subject to gravity. Here is an explanation from an excellent book called Conceptual Physics by Paul G. Hewitt (p. 229):

Because molecules in the air are energized by sunlight and are continually in motion, and because of gravity, the earth has an atmosphere. If gas molecules were not constantly moving, our "atmosphere" would be just so much more matter on the ground. It would lie on the surface of earth just the way dormant popcorn lies at the bottom of a popcorn machine. But add heat to the popcorn and the atmospheric gases, and both will bumble their way up to higher altitudes.

So our air gets its energy from the sun: good old solar power. Hewitt continues:

Pieces of popcorn in a popper attain speeds of a few kilometers per hour and are able to occupy altitudes up to a meter or two; molecules in the air move at speeds of about 1600 kilometers per hour and bumble up to many kilometers in altitude. If there were no gravity, both the popcorn and the atmospheric gases would fly into outer space. Fortunately there is an energizing sun, and there is gravity, and we have an atmosphere.

When I posed this question to a friend of mine, he pointed out that air always seeks areas of lower pressure; in fact, all gases behave this way. That is why, he noted, a fart spreads throughout a room. (Now you have an idea for little Johnny's experiment for the science fair.) For air to bunch up on the ground would run contrary to this tendency that gases have. Air would be acting contrary to its own nature.

That is true, of course. But it only pushes the question to a deeper level: Why does air—and other gases—act this way? Most important of all, where does it get the energy to go bouncing around and seeking pockets of low pressure? Air is inanimate. Inanimate objects generally don't move around and seek low-pressure areas by themselves. Such activity requires energy. Inanimate objects don't their own energy ex nihilo, out of nothing. That would violate law of conservation of energy. The energy must come from somewhere. In the case of air, it comes from the sun.

What's remarkable about this little discussion is not the complexity of it; it uses very basic concepts—gravity, the transfer of kinetic energy, the conservation of energy. A fifth-rate grad student in physics could probably answer this question in his or her sleep. But us average people? That's another story. Even those of us who know the basics sometimes have a hard time bringing all those basic ideas together in a way that explains why air doesn't fall down. I think this is partly because air is invisible. We're not used to thinking of it as having mass and being subject to gravity, just like an acorn or a car. The physics are simple, but the context is counterintuitive. The next time you're chatting with friends and the subject of science comes up, throw this one at them. Then sit back and let the fun begin.

The definition of "terrorism"

The most common definition of terrorism is this:

Terrorism
Committing violence against innocent people, or noncombatants, in pursuit of a political goal.

This is my own, plain-English statement of it, but it captures the essence that is common to just about every definition you'll hear from any source nowadays, from the FBI and U.S. State Department to the UN Security Council and academic writers. Well, actually I've left out a small part of the definition. You see, governments and their apologists are smart enough to exempt themselves from the definition of terrorism. They always add some qualifying phrase like "non-state" or "except for governments." The result looks something like this:

Terrorism
Committing violence against innocent people, or noncombatants, in pursuit of a political goal by a non-state person or group.

This qualification is, of course, arbitrary and self-serving for reasons I don't have to explain. How does merely being part of an official government make an act OK and non-terrorist? We are never told.

BTW, I'm not even talking about "collateral damage" resulting from the "precision bombing" of military targets such as anti-aircraft guns or power grids. In those cases, some ethicists may try to fall back on the so-called Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). It's a theory that fails, in my opinion, but at least they're trying to come up with a philosophical justification.

No, I'm talking about cases in which a government's primary target is civilians—for example, carpet bombing Dresden and dropping atomic bombs on Japan during WWII. There is no denying that these are acts of aggression toward innocent noncombatants to achieve a political goal. And since noncombatants are the primary target, the DDE doesn't apply. As far as I'm concerned, the burden is on the defender of government to show why merely being part of a recognized government makes these acts OK.

A sophisticated reader might object, "But there are many things a government may do that an ordinary person may not. For example, even a minimal-statist libertarian who accepts the Nightwatchman function of government would admit that only government officials may chase suspects down, shoot at fleeing suspects or criminals, pass judgment on a criminal in a court of law, put that convict in jail, and so on. If the victim of the crime did these things, he would be branded a vigilante and charged with crimes himself."

That is true. But all it proves is that killing innocent people in pursuit of a political goal is not necessarily wrong for governments just because it's wrong for civilians. In other words, the mere fact that it's wrong for me doesn't automatically prove that it's wrong for government. But that's not saying much. Even in the case of police having the power to deal with criminals that ordinary folks lack, we don't say that "anything goes." There are certain, basic ethical limitations that precede our justice system and are considered self-evident by any sane person.

For example, every sane person would agree that it's ethically wrong for a cop to torture a suspect to get a confession. If a cop did that, we'd say it was definitely wrong—not just legally, but ethically—and the burden of proof would be on the cop to show that he can justify it in this case. (I'm putting aside legality and illegality—we're talking ethics here, not law.) And in defending this system, we can easily give reasons for this difference in power that make sense from the standpoint of individual rights. The reasons it's wrong for me (a non-cop) to torture someone I suspect of wrongdoing are generally the same reasons it's wrong for a copy to do the same.

Perhaps a better example would be a victim who punishes their wrongdoer with excessive punishment—for example, a pervert gropes a woman in a lewd manner, and her husband punished the groper by slowly torturing him to death. The reason it's wrong for the husband to do this is the same reason it would be wrong for a cop or prison warden to do the same thing.

Like the cop who tortures a suspect to get a confession or the husband who tortures a man to death for groping his wife, a government who deliberately kills innocent people to achieve a political goal seems to be blatantly wrong in a way that precedes our system of established governments and military guidelines for handling international conflicts. A government shares the burden of the hypothetical cop to show why its killing of innocents is defensible within a framework of honoring and protecting individual rights, but Osama bin Laden's killing of innocents is not. In my view, the prima facie reason that it's wrong for Osama to kill innocent people—namely, that they have nothing to do with the supposed conflict between himself and the victim's government—is the same reason it's wrong for a government to kill innocent people. For the same reason it would be wrong for me to kill the wife or child of a man who wronged me—his wife and child were not the ones who wronged me, so it's prima facie wrong for me to get them tangled up in a conflict of which they have no part.

Finally, let me add a caveat. I'm not even talking about "collateral damage" resulting from the "precision bombing" of military targets, such as anti-aircraft guns or power grids. In those cases, some ethicists may try to fall back on the so-called Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). It's a theory that fails, in my opinion, but at least they're trying to come up with a philosophical justification.

No, I'm talking about cases in which a government's primary target is civilians—for example, carpet bombing Dresden and dropping atomic bombs on Japan during WWII. These are deliberate acts of aggression toward innocent noncombatants to terrorize survivors and achieve a political goal. Since noncombatants are the primary target, the DDE doesn't apply. Here is the relevant passage from the Wikipedia entry for the DDE:

The doctrine of double effect (DDE) is a thesis in ethics, usually attributed to Aquinas. Although different writers state the doctrine in different ways, it always claims that there is a moral difference between courses of action such as the following:

1. An agent deliberately causes harm in order to promote some good.

2. An agent promotes some good in such a way that harm is caused as a foreseen side-effect.

The doctrine of double effect claims that the first action is morally worse than the second, all other things being equal. The name comes from the "double effect" in the second sort of action.

The doctrine has practical applications, for example in just war theory, where the deliberate targeting of civilians to demoralise the enemy may be ruled out, but the bombing of munitions plants may be allowed, even if both actions cause the same number of deaths and end the war in the same length of time.

When I looked up this entry, I was delighted to see that the author uses as an example the very issue that I'm addressing. Clearly, the Allied bombing of civilians in Dresden during WWII falls under the principle in #1 above, whereas killing innocent Germans as a side-effect of bombing military targets in Berlin falls under #2.

Weird Question #1

How did they come up with bubble gum flavor? Unlike candy or gum flavored like actual foods—mint, grape, orange, strawberry, berry—"bubble gum" flavor is in a class by itself, apparently created from scratch in the confectioner's lab. Another example of a from-scratch flavor is red licorice.

I once asked my grandpa, a food scientist who used to work in Research and Development at Del Monte, how food scientists imitate fruit flavors. Do they start randomly mixing edible compounds and tasting them until it starts to taste like orange? Or do they imitate the actual molecular structure of a real orange?

My grandpa's answer was that food scientists imitate the molecular structure of the flavor. They have access to vast "libraries" listing the molecular structures of various foods, written down by scientists over the years. To approximate the flavor of, say, orange for a candy product, they only have to look up "orange" in the library and imitate a few key molecular markers. The more markers you include, the more it tastes like a real orange.

But what about the scientists who first created bubble gum? It would seem that their process would have to have been less systematic. Since they weren't imitating an existing flavor, they presumably had no food libraries to guide them. Or perhaps they started mixing markers from existing foods? Maybe it's time to e-mail Grandpa again.

Small vs. "Corporate" Bookstores

For those who worry about chain bookstores "edging out" local ones, "homogenizing" selection, and so forth, here is an interesting anecdote. About a year ago I noticed a small, hole-in-the-wall used-bookstore across from the locally owned video store I go to. After driving by a few times, one day I finally stepped in to browse around. The selection wasn't too great, so I ended up buying only 2 or 3 books. (Being an inveterate bibliophile, I always walk out of a good used bookstore with a lot more than 3 books.) This was one of those one-man shows: one owner, one clerk, and they're the same guy. I've made some of my best bibliophilic buys at these one-man shows.

When I went to the counter to pay for the books, I noticed a stack of parcels on the edge of the counter waiting to be picked up by UPS. I asked the owner/clerk about them. He said, "Those are orders I got over the Internet. You know, when Amazon.com first started up, I used to grumble about them taking my business. Then I signed on as one of their used book-sellers." Those of you who use Amazon.com know what he is talking about: Even when Amazon.com has new copies of a title in stock, they often provide a "buy used" link that takes you to a page with multiple used-book brokers who are selling used copies of the book you're looking for. He waved his arm over the stack of parcels and continued, "Now my business has actually increased because of all these Internet orders. So now I don't grumble anymore." Please bear in mind that this is coming from a used book seller, not some critic of "corporations" that has no experience with running a small business in the real world.

Think about it: How many times have you bought a used CD or book from an obscure broker a thousand miles away that you never would have known about if you hadn't found them on Amazon.com? I've probably bought between 50 and 100 used books and CDs in this manner. When money is short, I'll buy the used copy even if they have plenty of brand new copies in stock. Sometimes a used copy in good condition costs only $1 to $2, plus about $3 for shipping, putting the total price at $5, whereas the new copy from Amazon.com is $15.00 or more with shipping. And Amazon.com has a very large pool of customers. That means a tiny bookstore in Southern Illinois or West Virginia can expand their pool of potential buyers many, many fold.

Is this a bad thing for small bookstores?

I should add a disclaimer: As a defender of the ethical rightness of laissez-faire capitalism according to a rights-based, non-utilitarian view, I maintain that even if you could prove that the existence of Amazon.com and other nationwide businesses economically "harmed" local ones, this would not prove that there is anything ethically wrong with the situation. I'm merely meeting utilitarian-type critics of capitalism on their own turf by trying to show that sometimes, there may be advantages for the small fry that you're overlooking because you're focusing on those obvious cases that seem to show smaller businesses getting swallowed up. As the French economist Frederic Bastiat showed in 1850 and Henry Hazlitt echoed over a hundred years later, to judge an economic policy you have to look at all the consequences—not just the few sensational ones that make the news. See Bastiat's "Broken Window" thought experiment in his famous essay "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", or see Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.

"World Jump Day"

Here is an amusing story about an attempt by Germans to change the earth's path of orbit by having 600,000,000 people jump at the same time. Supposedly this will move the earth slightly farther away from the sun in its orbit, reducing global warming. They're calling it World Jump Day.

Like every other person with an ounce of sense, I think this is a silly idea. However, I've noticed that most of the reasons given by bloggers and other critics seem totally flawed. Most of them cite either Newton's Third Law of Motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) or one of the laws of conservation, such as conservation of energy or conservation of momentum. Those appealing to Newton's Third Law say that when you push against the earth, you and the earth will move apart, but then gravity will bring you back together at exactly the same orbital path. Result: No net change.

Here is an example of these critiques from the Milk and Cookies blog:

Unfortunately, the physics behind the jump theory are flawed.

Due to Newton's second law (For every action is an equal and opposite reaction), the gravitational pull bringing people back to earth would bring the earth back to people.

Anyways, even assuming everyone in the world participated, the earth would be back in it's original orbit as soon as the last person landed back on the ground.

The only way to actually change the earth's orbit through action/reaction would be to actually jettison material from earth, like a giant fart.

I don't know much about physics, but just a moment's thought about the basics seems to show that this writer is confused. For one thing, he seems to be conflating two kinds of force: internal (gravity) and external (your muscles pushing against another object, the earth). The force exerted by a giant fart is an external force against the earth, just like the external force caused by your flexing muscles when you jump. Here is more about the difference between internal and external force.

Second, yes, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: and therefore, the object you push against will move away from you, just as you will move away from it. True, you and the earth will then come back together—but why are these critics assuming that when both objects move back toward each other, they'll meet at a point in the exact same path of orbit as before? Didn't the kinetic energy you added to this system—force applied by your muscles, powered by the food you ate—cause any net change in the situation? Again, we're talking about the results of two different forces: internal (gravity) and external (pushing). When you push on the earth, you are moving the earth away from you by some amount, and vice-versa—however infinitesimal this movement may be—so that when the internal force of gravity causes you and the earth to stick together again, you are both, presumably, on a slightly different path because you have both shifted position.

A simple way to think about this is to consider the classic illustration of Newton's Third Law. A person in a row boat comes up along side another row boat, reaches out, and pushes against the other boat. Both he and the boat move away from each other, thanks to his expenditure of energy and Newton's Third Law. Of course, if one of the boats is a houseboat, the guy in the row boat is the one who undergoes the largest change in location. That house boat ain't going anywhere. Even more so with a cruise ship.

Now, in our minds, let's start increasing the size of both boats until they're so big that gravity will pull them back together after that initial push. Isn't the earth like the huge cruise ship and the jumper like the guy in the row boat pushing against the other vessel? Before the objects got big enough for gravity to make an appreciable difference, it was possible for one object to undergo a net change in location owing to the external force of pushing. We can agree on that. But why should this principle go away once the objects have become large enough for a second type of force—gravity—to the cause an appreciable attraction between the bodies? Again, we're talking about two separate forces acting at the same time, independently of each other.

Ironically, the critics who say there is not a net change in position seem to be violating the law of conservation. They're saying the kinetic energy you transferred to the earth—which you got from the food you ate—is destroyed, because the final position of both you and the earth has nothing to show for that expenditure of energy! But then where did that kinetic energy go? Either you must end up slightly farther away from the earth, or the earth slightly farther away from you (although this doesn't really matter in space, where direction is relative). Either way, won't the "midpoint" where the two objects come back together have shifted in one "direction" or the other, however slightly? Doesn't the law of conservation demand such a net change in location?

I'm not saying I think this will work; I'm only saying the reasons most bloggers are giving for its failure seem flawed to me. Here is a refutation of the physics behind World Jump Day that seems more plausible to me. Notice that this author does not appeal to Newton's Third Law or any of the laws of conservation. He simply crunches the numbers to show that the force involved is too miniscule to make a difference.

When Did Christians Become Such Hawks?

Well, now I know why so many bloggers are always apologizing for going too long without posting. As a natural procrastinator and someone who always waits till the last minute to meet a deadline, I'm really feeling the pressure. I've been blowing it. So there: I've atoned for my absence in the accepted manner; now I can get on with the blogging.

During the three and a half days Kerrie and I were in Anaheim for Disneyland's 50th Anniversary—yes, I got my free golden mouse ears and plan to post about the trip soon—we ate at an outstanding vegan restaurant called Native Foods. It was a convenient 15 minutes away from our hotel across from Disneyland. While waiting for our food, I picked up one of their free booklets by the Christian Vegetarian Association. I've been interested in exploring the Christian case for nonviolence toward animals for a long time and have read a few things here and there, and reading this booklet prompted me to resume that task.

So the other day I began reading a paper I'd printed a few weeks ago called The Concept and Practice of Ethical Vegetarianism As Consistent with New Testament Themes by DeRonda Elliott. Mr. Elliot's Christian case for vegetarianism is strong, and I'll probably post about it soon. But what really grabbed me was a lengthy aside in which he addresses a question I've had for a long time: How and why did Christianity—a religion of nonviolence and, arguably, even passivism—come to be associated with such a pro-war, "fight-for-God-and-country," right-wing ideology? How did a religion whose founder hung out with prostitutes, lepers, and other sinners and outcasts become associated with heaping condemnation on homosexuals? How did a religion whose founder said to "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies" get associated with the ethical principle "Bomb they enemies into oblivion, and too bad for the unlucky noncombatants who get blown up with them"? Mr. Elliot's answer is suprisingly simple but very persuasive:

How did we stray so far from what it originally meant to be "Christian?" Let us look closely at that. With the post-Constantinian marriage of church and state, the Church, and consequently its members, became officially allied with mainstream values. It was the path of least resistance, for humans, too, can be observed to have the tendencies of ‘herd’ animals and will frequently ‘follow the crowd’ to reinforce their need for security. Beginning around the time of Constantine, because the church was dependent on the state, and the state was influenced by the church, for centuries thereafter, and continuing into the present, it became less and less easy for Christians to depart from the mainstream, although the attitude of departure from mainstream thought was and still is at the very heart of the definition of a Christ-follower. It was less easy to walk a non-violent path in an economic structure that depended on violence to perpetrate the secular values of power and money. Hence the gradual transition of people who called themselves Christians into such state-sanctioned acts as the making of war and also the massive slaughtering of animals for food.

We must however, again recognize that in these earlier times, no one, including Christians, was privy to the body of knowledge we have today about the undeniable kinship of animals with humans. We must also acknowledge that the making of war and the eating of meat were never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. But then, as now, If we truly saw other humans as neighbor we would not make war; if we saw animals as neighbor, we would see that any violence perpetrated on them—whether it be using horses to pull the artillery of war, exploiting and doing violence to all manner of creatures in the name of entertainment, subjecting them to painful and lethal scientific experiments, or institutionalizing the killing of them for food—is merely an extension of other politically and economically approved violence to the attainment of human ends, usually the greed for profit or power. The most important thing to recognize is that contrary to the actual situation in the world today, from the 1st through the 3rd centuries, people became more alienated from the mainstream when they became Christians. Their social status did not improve! Only with the merging of church and state did this change. Prior to that, Christ-followers were offered a new home in heaven, but not a community here.

Ironically, even though this sullying of Christian values began with the Roman Catholics, today's Catholics are probably the denomination that has stayed most true to the origins of Christianity. In my experience, the Catholics are the ones who are most active in establishing and maintaining all kinds of private charities, including soup kitchens, shelters, and even hospitals. (My sister in Illinois tells me that all the Christian charities in her area are Catholic, even though the majority of Christians in her area are Protestant.) And it is at a Catholic service that you will hear sermons focusing on Christ's Double Commandment of Love—that is, the postive side of Christian ethics—whereas Protestant preachers seem more likely to loudly decry homosexuality, sexual daydreams, and other sins—that is, the negative side of Christian ethics. Kerrie attended both Catholic and Protestant services as a kid and noticed this difference. I myself have verified it by comparing Catholic and Protestant services that I've heard on the radio, and before that I was raised as a Baptist until my early teens. I've also noted a faint strain of anti-intellectualism in Protestantism that is less common among the Catholics. But this is, admittedly, more of a gut feeling than something I can back up with lots of concrete examples.

Speaking of Catholics (there's a sentence I don't use often), I finally got up the nerve to watch Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. But first I had to stay up half the night re-reading the four Gospels, since I hadn't read them for a couple of years. I'm one of those people who, if he is going to read the book and watch the movie adaptation, has to read the book first. I can add nothing to the river of commentary, except to say that yes, it is as powerful (even for nonbelievers like me) and bonechilling as everyone says it is. I even got "verklempt" during one scene, and it's unusual for a movie to have that effect on me. It is a great film, for all the reasons given by Roger Ebert in this MSNBC interview. That the film got largely overlooked at the Oscars can only be the result of Hollywood liberals disliking the subject matter. I can't help wondering if they would give such a frosty reception to a film about the founding of Scientology by Tom Cruise—a Hollywood Idiot who has been gracing the media with lots of religious blathering of late. This nut is allowed to erect tents for giving out Scientology pamphlets on the sets of his movies. Would any production company in Hollywood let a Catholic set up a tent on a movie set? I doubt it. Why this double standard? Scientology is a lot more wacko than Christianity, from what I've heard.

To end on a more positive note, here is the Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey's Declaration of the Peaceable Kingdom. This is just one of many Christian arguments for vegetarianism and, more broadly, loving our nonhuman animal "neighbors" as we love ourselves.