Jan Theodore Galkowski

STICKY POST

exuberant exhortation

Sunday, 11. January 2009, 20:10:07

materialism, atheism, exploration, seas ...

exhuberant exhortation
why this is a big deal.

	YM handle disneylogic AIM handle disneylogic
stellar
the gutsy explorers at Woods Hole Oceanographic
exploring Earth, the Ocean Planet
this is ekzept

As a matter of practice, I do not friend members of the Opera community who have blank profiles or minimal pages and blogs

3 comments

raving about capabilities related to nuclear weapons

Friday, 20. November 2009, 03:21:44

The article at Metropulse for greater Knoxville, TN addressing proposals to modernize some of the United States DOE facilities at the nuclear plant dubbed Y-12 is misguided. I wrote a response there, but exceeded a character limit in the response. Consequently, I am placing my entire response here:

Okay, based on the information provided, it is Mr Hutchison who needs to explain how his interpretation that a new Y-12 UPF is "likely to provoke unprecedented global nuclear proliferation" is consistent with Mr Wyatt's official characterization of its mission as "nuclear weapons dismantlement, supporting nuclear nonproliferation missions, providing low-enrichment fuel for research reactors around the globe, providing the feedstock that powers the nation’s nuclear navy and our mission to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile". Mr Hutchison may believe that based upon an assessment that DOE and NNSA simply lie, but, if that is so, he should come right out and say it.

I believe zero nuclear weapons is the sensible and rational number for everyone to have, but in the interim a couple of thousand is a pretty good number compared to the tens of thousands which terrorized the planet (unknown to most Americans, molified to believe the principal deity was on their side). Let's be grateful for some progress.

Facts are programs for nuclear weapons dismantlement facilitate removal and destruction of many other countries' nuclear stockpiles as well as our own, and monitoring or countering nuclear proliferation elsewhere takes specific technical skills which cannot be obtained by pursuing a purity of philosophical soul.

I think Mr Hutchison and his associates are locked into an unproductive, unthinking, and possibly self-promotional pattern of simply opposing anything that DOE seeks having any nuclear component. To that extent, Mr Hutchison is sadly on the wrong side of concrete proposals to try to help contain environmental damage creating climate change. Any feasible mix of solutions, however unpopular, necessarily require a major investment in nuclear power, both here and abroad. Opposition to this may be morally pure for the individuals involved, but in the end will own the moral consequences of accelerating climate change and climate injustice.

3 comments

nadir

Thursday, 19. November 2009, 23:03:17

The Hollow Men
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
.........................For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
.........................Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
...................................For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

-- Thomas Stearns Elliot

2 comments

for my ballerina

Monday, 16. November 2009, 04:56:13

dancing, Special EFX, ballerina, Autumn

A song for my beautiful ballerina (4 MB MP3, mono to keep small).

Autumn, m'love, I dream of us dancing long hours, arms entwined on a warm western coast, while the sun sets, deep and red.

("Ballerina" by Special EFX. Here's the full stereo 10 MB version, MP3.)

1 comment

places to live and the unreasonable potency of the Wah Effect

Sunday, 15. November 2009, 21:23:57

the Wah Effect, economics, why does someone live somewhere

What makes places to live attractive? Why does someone choose to live one place or another? And why is the Wah Effect so creatively potent?

It certainly seems to matter a lot where you live. These anecdotal reports raise, of course, the possibility of fallacy even on the philosophical level, as concerns Taleb and others. There are four broad categories of purpose, reason to live somewhere:

reasons of constraint
reasons of opportunity
reasons of affection
reasons of well-being

Reasons of constraint occur when your place of residence is limited by statute, or operational legalisms, often prohibitions. Race and religious biases enshrined in law are examples. Prohibitions against immigration are another.

Reasons of opportunity are the pushes and pulls of jobs and financial circumstance, moving overseas to take a more lucrative job, or maintaining two wildly separate holdholds in a relationship because each partner has their own career to pursue, and this is deemed best for them separately and together.

Reasons of affection are simply wanting to live places in order to be close to those we love, whether significant others or communities with which we have emotional bonds.

Reasons of well-being are motives which make some locales more attractive because they are comparatively safe, whether that marginal safety is actual or not.

I'll drop constraint and well-being from consideration, concentrating on the tradeoffs between opportunity and affection.

While materials and things enable, empower, and further, they can also constrain. If lack of opportunity pushes people to violate reasons of constraint or reasons of well-being, there isn't enough opportunity, and this can be bad. If opportunity compromises affection, however, there is a serious risk of ending as Don Quioxte observed, wondering on your deathbed why you had lived. This is the theme of the song "Lyin' Eyes" by The Eagles.

So says the rational analysis. I prefer another.

The minor biblical figure Naaman took wagonloads of soil with him, in gratitude for his apparent cure from leprosy by the god of Israel. Naaman felt he needed the soil of the Land in order to worship this god properly. In short, he used his power, wealth, and influence to bring place with him, or an approximation of it. I would prefer to think that we have more insight and wisdom than Naaman. Whether it is a J.K.Rowling or a Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in a Silicon Valley garage, those passionate in and with creativity can find ways of transforming their situations into greatness. It's not always possible, and it doesn't always work, but the wah-wah pedal can transform a good performance into a heart-wrenching great one, a singularity of the spirit.

And the Wah Effect is not that special, an accidental distortion in frequency. Yet masters to use it create rivotting emotion out of the expected, almost out of nothing.

Every place has its wah-wah pedal. And Naaman was just wrong.

Song, Feelin' Stronger Every Day by Chicago (8 MB MP3). Only some of the lyrics apply, only the happy pro-coupling ones. Music's great, though.

No comments

mean free path

Sunday, 15. November 2009, 15:03:00

lives, love, choice, happiness ...

Definition. The mean free path of a particle is the average distance a particle travels between collisions with other moving particles. Related concepts include mean time between collisions, a more complicated expression involving mean free path and a distributon of particle speeds. Analogously, in life, mean free path is the time between homes, or between regions of comfort. People are, to borrow and stretch the physical analogy, highly inelastic, so when they "collide" with a new home, they remain there for a while.

I'm on a journey to happiness, in the delightful throes of romance and hope, and am very much kinetic. I don't know the future. Being in flight carries anxiety, and some discomfort doing the things that just need to be done, in the hope that amidst all the burden of necessity there will be time for sharing.

These photographs document a stop along the way, places of love, busyness, ceremony, joy, tears, and my active choice to pursue these, after so many many years of being buffetted by shoulds. So, unlike the particle, I am steering this course, I am sailing this ship, even if I need to tack.

"Will someone not rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Saturday, 14. November 2009, 19:08:54

power, Catholic Church, baptism, Vatican

Does anyone else find it deeply disturbing that, according to a story on NPR News today, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops managed to get Pelosi to (effectively) agree to an anti-abortion plank in the recent health care bill passed by the House of Representatives? Or that this organiozation, the Catholic Church, entrenched in privilege, power, and shielded from taxes, wealthy in property, can nonetheless use the power of pulpit to advance its own narrowly-defined non-universal causes?
(posted by cellphone at laundromat)

No comments

Hear Me Calling

Wednesday, 4. November 2009, 21:55:28

rain, romance, sadness, Enya

(a blog post for Autumn)

It's in the Rain

as performed by Enya

Every time the rain comes down
I close my eyes and listen
I can hear the lonesome sound
Of the sky as it cries

Listen to the rain
Here it comes again
Hear it in the rain

Feel the touch of tears that fall
They won't fall forever
In the way the day will flow
All things come, all things go

Listen to the rain, the rain
Here it comes again, again
Hear it in the rain, the rain

Late at night I drift away
I can hear you calling
And my name is in the rain
Leaves on trees whispering
Deep blue seas, mysteries

Even when this moment ends
Can't let go this feeling
Everything will come again
In the sound falling down
Of the sky as it cries
Hear my name in the rain

Written by: Ni Bhraonain, Eithne Ryan, Nicky Ryan, Roma Shane

(MP3 link, 5.7 MB)

Amarantine

as performed by Enya

You know when you gave your love away
It opens your heart, everything is new
And you know time will always find a way
To let your heart believe it's true
You know love is everything you say
A whisper, a word, promises you give
You feel it in the heartbeat of the day
You know this is the way love is

Amarantine
Amarantine
Amarantine
Love is always love

Amarantine
Amarantine
Amarantine
Love is always love

You know love may sometimes make you cry
So let the tears go, they will flow away
For you know love will always let you fly
How far a heart can fly away

Amarantine
Amarantine
Amarantine
Love is always love

Amarantine
Amarantine
Amarantine
Love is always love

You know when love's shining in your eyes
It may be the stars fallen from above
And you know love is with you when you rise
For night and day belong to love

(MP3 link, 4.4 MB)

2 comments

Autumn

Friday, 23. October 2009, 13:57:43

Autumn, Charles River

Early a wonderful, vibrant, creative, love-filled Friday morning, 23^rd October 2009, by the Charles River, near Harvard.

1 comment

strange courage from Tennessee

Friday, 23. October 2009, 01:54:32

Tennessee, Wallace Stevens

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

-- Wallace Stevens

Nuances of a Theme by Williams

It's a strange courage
you give me, ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!

I

Shine alone, shine nakedly, shine like bronze,
that reflects neither my face nor any inner part
of my being, shine like fire, that mirrors nothing.

II

Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses
you in its own light.
Be not chimera of morning,
Half-man, half-star.
Be not an intelligence,
Like a widow's bird
Or an old horse.

-- Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens is my favorite poet. I've cited him before. I so enjoy his metaphysical, rational passion, a combination of things which probably can only be expressed in poetry and song.

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long discussion on the Kullback-Leibler divergence

Thursday, 15. October 2009, 23:27:51

AIC, comparison of models, statistical inference, Kullback-Leibler divergence

There's a long discussion about the Kullback-Leibler divergence and its relationship to the Akaike information criterion available, one to which I contributed. This turned rather philosophical, which I don't think was strictly necessary, or important.

No comments