Final Debate

I feel like I should say something, for the sake of completeness, but I half-dozed through it. Anyway it felt like a lot of it was the same, even in the same words, as the first two. And it was less funny because they were getting better at it. Bush was starting to get a method down (ignore the question! Talk about education!) and you could tell he was better prepared, more in control. The only really noteworthy moment was when he denied saying he wasn't too worried about Osama Bin Laden -- c'mon, what's the point? Even if he doesn't remember this stuff, the smart thing is to assume that Kerry's staff has got documentary evidence for direct quotes and explicit figures. Unless Bush does remember saying it, and is hoping that a lot of the people who watch the debates will miss the "actually, Kerry was right" commentary in the media the next day. But it's more probable that people who missed the debates will see the commentary.

I woke up again a little at the end, when they were asked what they'd learned from the "strong women" in their lives. Housemate Nick felt this was a fluff question, a give away, a chance for the candidates to make themselves look warm and likable. Maybe, but that's not what they did. They were patronizing and condescending toward their own wives and daughters. Bush more than Kerry, of course, -- Kerry made an awkward joke about Tereasa's money and then told his "my mother told me the most important thing is integrity" story, and these fell a little flat, but didn't make me feel as though I were being patted on the head. But both of them also talked about how their wives "didn't let them get away with anything" and made them mind their manners. Well, thank goodness they don't have any policy ideas in those pretty little heads! (Unlike Hillary.) What I'd've liked to have heard about their wives: "She's someone I can discuss things with, when I need to understand something. She helps me clarify my own ideas and consider new perspectives. She can hold up the other side of an argument, when I need to see how my logic stands up. We've always been able to bounce ideas off one another, and I need that now more than ever." And their daughters... probably provide what any child provides, an incentive to think about the future, to see the world from a fresh point of view.

Anyway, Tribune columnist Mary Schmich seems to have felt the same way. I'm glad she agrees with me. I wouldn't like to think I was just being touchy. But I don't think it was just me that had a bad taste in my mouth after those "sweet" answers. They really were a little over-ripe.

Second Debate

Let me just transcribe my notes. You can draw your own conclusions. "B" is "Bush" "K" is Kerry and "G" is Gibson. These are not verbatim, because I can't write fast enough.

Basically, I thought these questions were incredibly hard, and the answers incredibly revealing, and the gaffes incredibly hilarious.

B: "You gotta be consistent when you're the president -- there's a lot of pressures!"
"I wasn't happy when we found out there wadn't weapons." He organized an intelligence review to find out why.

G: (to Bush) "Well, I was going to let you do a rebuttal, but you go ahead."

K: "The goal of the sanctions was not to remove Saddam Hussein. It was to remove the weapons. They worked."

B: "I know how these people think! I work with them every day." IE I'm a world leader! Really! "They won't follow someone who says wrong war wrong place wrong time." IE if you made a mistake, the least you can do is stand by it! "It's working." Um.

But he insisted on the connection between Iraq and the war on terror more this time -- that Saddam could have given away his weapons... So if there were no weapons, doesn't that make it the wrong war?

He said some stuff I think he believes about unpopular decisions. See the comments to my last debate post...

He looked incredibly uncomfortable when Kerry was talking.

He asked the generals, "Do you have what you need for the war?" You shouldn't patronize generals.

K: "Didn't close the borders, didn't guard the ammunition dumps." And I love that he's campaigning on cutting our nuclear weapons.

B: "We're doing what Senator Kerry suggested we should do." (Kerry's a smart guy, huh?) We're getting the "Brits" and the Germans involved. But apparently that doesn't work in Iraq?

"I hear there's rumours on the internets, that we're going to have to another draft." The all volunteer army works, "especially when we pay them well and provide housing." Too bad he's cut those things.

And he is scaling back troops, in North Korea... Which a minute ago was a huge threat.

"We need to be more facile"?

K: (looks interested when Bush is talking. No Gore head-shakes.)

Has a long list of generals for Kerry.

B: talking over the moderator! "Tell Tony Blair we don't have a coalition!"

K: Missouri would be the third largest country...

K: "Out into the homelands"?

B: "The best way to defend America is to stay on the offence." He believes that.

B: "If Iraq were to fail, it would be a haven for terrorists." That's what his critics say.

"This war is a long, long war..." Ditto.

B: Why block drug importation. "I haven't yet." Yet? "It might be from a third world."

K: Four years ago Bush was in favor of importation. Made it illegal for Medicare to bulk buy, like the VA does.

B: "He has been in the U-nit-ed States senate 20 years."

K: "OGBYN's and brain surgeons." (pointing to head.)

B: "...named Senator Kennedy (sic) the most liberal senator..." "That's what Liberals do! They create government health care." Oh, that's what liberals do.

Why don't you have a better fiscal record? "We have a deficit!"

(On cutting taxes.) "It increases demand, or investment." Or something?

K: The first time we've had a tax cut when we're at awar.

Question: "How will you improve the economy?"

B: "It was going down before I got into office."

K: "I'm pledging I will not raise taxes. I will cut taxes on families earning less that two hundred thousand dollars."

B: "We got battling green eyeshades." (This confused my friends.)

"He looked at me like my time was up." Um?

"I got a plan to increase the wetlands by three million." This reminds me of a boot-up error I got once. "Windows needs 7". Next time someone leaves units off on a lab report, I'm writing "Two point five what? Two point five wetlands?"

K: "I was broke[,] with my party."

"I'm gonna be a president who believes in science.

Question: "How can the U.S. be competitive given the wage gap?"

K: Make American companies hire Amerians.

B: "I want to incent" companies to keep jobs here.

My absolute favorite--

B: "I own a timber company?(??) Nobody told me. Anybody need some wood?"

(boggle) Why would you deny that? Did he seriously think Kerry might have made up such a specific factoid? And such a checkable one? Who would make up a thing like that?

K: "The Wall Street Journal says my tax plan doesn't affect 96% of small businesses."

B: "It just does!"

B: (on the Patriot Act) "I really don't think your rights are being watered down. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't support it if I did." He says that like, "it might surprise you to know..."

B: Stem cell research is wrong, and I'm the first president ever to fund it.

Question: "Who would you nominate the the Supreme Court?"

B: "I'm not tellin'."

"Strict constructionist." No Dred Scott cases -- but strictly, the Constitution allowed slaves to be treated as property.

Wouldn't it be great if there were really a litmus test (like a strip on the tongue) and you only got the job if it wasn't acidic?

K: Dodged gay marriage, on the Supreme Court question.

Catholic, but for funding abortion.

B: Reasonable ways to decrease abortion. (I agree.)

K: Not so simple. (I agree.)

B: "Yuu can run, but you can't hide. Reality." --- What?

B: (on mistakes he's made -- great question! But he was coached.) "Appointments to a board you've never heard of..." "I don't want to hurt anyone's feeling on national TV."

B: "Saddam would still be in power, and the world would be much better off."

Closing statements --

G: "Kerry will go first as agreed."

B: "Well actually."

K: "You wanna go first."

B: "Either way."

K: "We won't cede authority to any nation, any country, any institution..." Are there any countries that aren't nations? Maybe Wales? We won't cede authority to Wales?

B: (listing his achievements?) "We've been through a lot together recession, corporate scandals, war..."



And finally, was it just my TV, or did Bush's hair look green? And what's with the moderator's teleprompter showing up at the end?

Next Year

Well, the season's over, but the Cubs had a winning record and were in playoff contention right up to the final weekend. And I've had a great time watching. Thanks, Dusty and everybody, for a fun summer.

The Reds game I saw on Wednesday was really our last hope. And we blew it -- but just barely. In the ninth inning we were up by two points, and the Reds already had two outs and two strikes on their batter. All LaTroy Hawkins had to do was throw it past him one more time... But instead he threw it over the plate and watched it sail back over his head, out of the park, for a two-run homerun. We stayed alive into a twelfth inning, but another two-run homer ended the game, and effectively, the Cubs' season.

And yet, it was still a great day to be at the ball park. The excitement was palpable. The weather was gorgeous. Wrigley Field is a stunning setting. The game was full of thrills, and of sentiment. The stands were full of the smell of beer and hot dogs, and of cotton candy and peanut shells and joy, at least the beginning. And we've got such a talented core team, and such a brilliant manager in Dusty Baker, that you just know next year we're going all the way.

That's right, I'm an archetypical Cubs fan now. We'll be buying some tickets in April, the season of hope.


These are pictures-of-pictures, and I apologize for the quality, but hopefully they give some sense of the excitement.


Fans enjoy their Ron Santo autographed baseball, one of five hundred given away randomly. Santo, the former Cub third baseman who now calls games with Pat Hughs for WGN radio, has become even more of a local hero since a movie was made about him (directed by his son) and his struggles with diabetes, which cost him both legs. He sang "take me out to the ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch, waving to the crowd from the broadcast booth.


Moises Alou's distinctive knock-knee'd batting stance.


Sammy Sosa's almost-grand-slam -- three runners go, the pitcher watches it sail, Sammy hops, and fists pump. But it was foul by a foot.


Southpaw Glendon Rusch (the figure walking away at left) with the bases loaded against him, after pitching a top quality game, and a top quality season as the Cubs sixth starter... And getting this game's only Cub home run.


View from the stands,with the lake at one edge, and the apartment buildings across the street topped with roof-top bleachers.


Harry Caray, the former voice of the Cubs, looms over the crowd at the corner of Addison and Sheffield. Wrigleyville on gameday, after a loss: forty thousand disappointed people.

Presidential Debates

The transcript is already up.

First, I was surprised by the amount of real substance. The questions (all on the subject of foreign policy and the military) were hard, and the answers actually addressed them. Second, I was surprised to see Bush losing his cool. He nearly interrupted a couple of times, and frequently demanded the opportunity to reply, and once said "Let me finish" even though his time wasn't up yet. Third, I was surprised to find myself genuinely impressed by Kerry. He mentioned Vietnam only once or twice, and it made sense in context when he did. He had at his fingertips the hard facts that the blog-world loves, on Bush administration failures. His self-control was better than Bush's, and he seemed neither stiff nor aristocratic. He said about four times as much as Bush did, in the same amount of time, because Bush hesitated and hemmed and hawed and repeated himself. Before the debates, the rumor had been that the Kerry team wanted the air conditioning down low so that no one would see their candidate sweat, but it was Bush who looked like his collar might be getting damp. Incidentally, Bush's blue suit and blue tie looked less assertive, in my opinion, than Kerry's black-with-red.

Afterward I talked to my dad, who is my prototypical Bush voter. He agreed that Kerry had "won" the debate, in the sense of being better prepared, and making more unrebutted points. But he thought Bush's hesitations played well to some extent, as though he were "speaking from the heart" instead of reciting memorized lines. We agreed that it was unfair that only Bush could get away with this. He also thought Kerry hurt himself with undecided voters by talking so much about the U.N. In particular, when answering a question about whether he believed in the validity of "pre-emptive" wars, he said "No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." The words "global test" and "prove to the world" made my dad's eyes roll. He doesn't believe the US should be answerable to anyone else. I do, but I can see his argument, and I think Kerry did step into a trap there. The other thing he didn't like was "If the president had shown the patience to go through another round of resolution, to sit down with those leaders, say, 'What do you need, what do you need now, how much more will it take to get you to join us?' we'd be in a stronger place today." That really was a trap, because Bush had just said "And if he had been in power, in other words, if we would have said, 'Let the inspectors work, or let's, you know, hope to talk him out. Maybe an 18th resolution would work.'" He walked right into that set-up.

My dad also thinks that Bush's "on message" strategy is almost foolproof, and that as long as Bush keeps repeating "flip-flop," it doesn't really matter what Kerry says. Unless, of course, he gets a simple message or two of his own. My dad thinks that the Clinton staffers he's taken on are telling him that message should be "The Iraq war was bungled," with a side of "This president has cost us jobs" in the domestic policy debate. Those are pretty good messages, even if they're still a little too nuanced, in comparison with Bush's. At least Kerry's message is no longer simply, "I served in Vietnam."

I think he did a pretty good job summing up his position on Iraq in one of the thirty-second extentions, and it does seem consistent with all of the other things he's said: "I know exactly what we need to do in Iraq, and my position has been consistent: Saddam Hussein is a threat. He needed to be disarmed. We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force in order to be able to get him to do something, because he never did it without the threat of force. But we didn't need to rush to war without a plan to win the peace."

(I'm not sure he really needed to be disarmed, since he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction after all, but at the time, of course, Kerry didn't know that.)

The most right-on moment for me was near the end. The question was, "What is the greatest threat to national security." Kerry's answer was, "Nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation. ... You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, 'You can't have nuclear weapons,' but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using. Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation." (But I'm sure my dad didn't like that.) I was impressed that he said he would send troops to the Sudan, if it were necesary and possible, with our already overtaxed military. I was also relieved to hear Bush say, "The military will be an all-volunteer army," out loud and in public.

Kerry's best jabs were better than Bush's, I think. He got Bush good on the subject of nuclear weapons in places other than Iraq, in particular North Korea. (Again, Bush's "too manly to lose face by holding bilateral talks, because that would be "giving in," probably played well with my dad. Better they should have nuclear weapons than we should compromise.) Bush protested that this was his priority too, but Kerry pointed out that Bush has already had four years to do something about the problem, and has accomplished almost nothing. Kerry -- and Jim Lehrer -- made Bush's friendship with President Putin look pretty bad too. "Mr. Putin now conrols all of the television stations. His political opponents are being put in jail." And, of course, he's consolidating power anti-democratically. Bush all but called him "Vlad." And Kerry's description of the sucky situation in Afghanistan, and the half-hearted effort to find bin Laden, really ought to cost Bush a dozen percentage points, if there were any justice in democracy.

Bush's very worst moments were in the mode of "protesting too much." Paraphrased from my own notes: "Allawi is not a puppet!" And after he answered the question, would he ever lead us into another pre-emptive war, with "I would hope I never have to..." and then "The enemy attacked us." Kerry: "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us." Bush said: "Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that." And Bush's protests rang a little hollow, because earlier he had pulled a Rumsfeld: "Of course we're after Saddam Hussein... I mean bin Laden." He also managed to repeate the phrase "hard work" in every other sentence, and said of Iraq, "I see on the TV screens how hard it is."

One moment which should be counted as an embarrassment for Bush was his answer the the question "Would a Kerry win increase the risk of a terrorist attack in the US?" The right answer to that was, "Of course not. And even if it did, would you really want to let possibility of a terrorist attack influence your vote? You want the terrorists to decide our election?" But that's not what Bush said. He said: "No, I don't believe it's going to happen... I believe I'm going to win, because the American people know I know how to lead. I've shown the American people I know how to lead." That is shameful.

Bush's message was that the US won't let our allies influence our policy. By contrast the terrorists, as he likes to emphasize, have already influenced almost everything in our political life -- have "changed everything" and left no room for "pre-September tenth (sic) thinking". Unfortunately the average undecided voter may actually see a greater loss of honor in domination by our allies than intimidation by our enemies. Those Kerry gaffes that appalled my dad may have repelled more undecided voters than Bush's over-protesting. So while in the end I was pleasantly surprised by the format, the content, and Kerry's performance and would have to declare him the winner... Bush may have won the sympathy of more undecided voters.

My mom has decided she's not voting for either.

Potential Posts

I really haven't meant to leave six days between postings, and the last one only a poem (which involves very little effort on my part) and before that just news about myself, and before that a hiatus...

I was going to post something today, but there aren't enough hours.

So here, just so you don't think I've abandoned you entirely, are the next few posts I have planned:

Cubs game: Ken and I finally went today, but I want to post pictures, and I forgot the bring the digital camera, and anyway we lost. So now I'll wait until I get my film developed, then scan a couple in. It's worth writing about anyway. There were some great moments. Part-time pitcher Glendon Rusch's home run; Sammy Sosa's grand-slam-that-wasn't; and being one pitch away from the win in the ninth, before LaTroy let us down... (Now we're half a game behind Houston in the Wild Card race.) And also the train, the fans, the evil security guy, Wrigleyville, the old lady in the baseball-dress, Ron Santo, and dinner afterward, with a side trip to the Music Box.

EIT: That stands for Electromagnetically Induced Transparency, and it has a lot to do with this project I'm starting work on, and related to Ken's (separate) project as well. Working with him, I'm finally starting to understand some stuff, but it will help me if I try to explain it in simple terms for other people. The project itself is an optical gyroscope, and interesting in its own right. The connection is that you can make the gyroscope hugely more sensetive by slowing the light in it down to a couple of meters per second using a side-effect of EIT. I'll probably need more than one post for this stuff, actually.

Presidential Debates: I'm sure everyone else in the blogosphere will be taking these apart in detail, but I don't think I'll be able to resist the temptation to add my two cents' worth.

So watch this space.

As Freedom is a Breakfastfood

It's poetry time again. I have no idea what this means, but it sounds cool. It looks cool. It tastes cools. It's e.e. cummings, which you can probably tell just by looking...

Although, now that I think about it, maybe it's something about how we play pretend, like kids who make believe they're soldiers. We pretend we're better and more important than we are, and that makes us better and more important than we are. Is there any difference between something we pretend is symbolic and something that really is symbolic?

Or maybe it just sounds cool. That's more important, I think.


as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
--long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men's hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
--long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind
and robins never welcome spring
nor flatfolk prove their world is round
nor dingsters die at break of dong
and common's rare and millstones float
--long enough and just so long
tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words but joy's the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
--time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough

Yes, Master

I promise I'll write another real post, which might possibly be of interest to people who aren't me, soon. But in the meantime, I've got more fun mail that I can't resist sharing:

"Just for your information.... For those of you who recently passed all of your qualifier exams, if you have also completed all of your core course requirements plus 2 electives you now qualify for your Master's Degree. If you are interested in obtaining it please stop by my office to fill out the necessary paperwork. If you enter into Master's Candidacy by Sept. 29th you will get your degree in December."

Might as well, right? Although I'm a little disappointed I don't get a Mistress Degree...

I will expect everyone to begin addressing me as "Master Mary."

You've Got Mail

Congratulations! On behalf of the Physics and Astronomy faculty, I am pleased to inform you that you have fully satisfied our department's preliminary qualification examination requirement. Best wishes for continued success in your research and studies.

I Am Blogging

I'm emerging from my exam-bunker, now, and have nothing better to do, so you are going to get all of the stuff I've thought about blogging in the past little while in one big lump. After this, I am planning to spend the next few days doing nothing but reading and watching back episodes of the Daily Show on my parents' DVR (for those that don't know, that stands for "not technically a Tivo.")

The first book on my list, which I finished this morning, was Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night. It's the story of an American who becomes a propagadist in Nazi Germany, sending coded messages for the allies through his anti-semetic radio broadcasts. But he does his cover job too well, inspiring rank-and-file National Socialists, propping up their rationalizations, earning a prestigious place for himself in that society... He absolves most of his Nazi friends of real guilt, saying that they forgot the difference between fantasy and reality, but finds himself guilty of crimes against himself, because he always knew when he was lying. And he has something to say about how societies come to celebrate death. In the book, Hitler sends him a note after reading his translation of the Gettysburg Address: "Some parts of this almost made me weep. All northern peoples are one in their deep feelings for soldiers. It is perhaps our greatest bond." And later, back in America, someone tells him the flags and the closed shops are for Veterans' Day. He says, "This used to be a day in honor of the dead of World War One, but the living couldn't keep their grubby hands off of it, wanted the glory of the dead for themselves. So typical, so typical. Any time anything of real dignity appears in this country, it's torn to shreds and thrown to the mob."

It was in that light that I watched this segment from the Daily Show. In case you don't have Media Player 9 ('cause the Daily Show is now an all-Microsoft shop) here's the beginning:

When Abraham Lincoln was shot, it took an entire century to come up with the Presidents' Day mattress sale. But these days we move a little quicker. So quickly we've already turned the tragedy of Sept. 11 into a holiday: Patriot Day. Hallmark has already gotten into the spirit, creating E-cards like this one. It's all part of America's stages of grief. Denial, anger, depression, acceptance, and finally exploitation."

Patriotic roses, "A tower to celebrate America" of brownies and cookies, discount cottage rentals for the Sept 11th weekend, National Collector's Mint coins plated with silver recovered from ground zero, and Valor the Eagle, whose tag says he was "born on September Eleventh."

Meanwhile (also via the Daily Show) Donald Rumsfeld has forgotten Osama Bin Laden's name. Here are some excerpts from the DoD's transcript of his remarks to the National Press Club: "The leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Massoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein -- by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co- conspirator." And then: "Saddam Hussein (sic), if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001. Now he's got to be busy. Why is he busy? It's because of the pressure that's being put on him."

And things are even worse in Russia. In the aftermath of the "bloody outcome of the Beslan school siege," President Putin is asking for constitutional changes. "Curiously, however, the Russian leader's proposals focused largely on electoral changes. Putin said he would propose legislation abolishing the election of local governors by popular vote. Instead they would be nominated by the president and confirmed by local legislatures. He said the change was needed to streamline and strengthen the executive branch to better combat terror. Putin also asked for a revision of the method by which Russians elect their parliament. The entire 450 seats would be chosen from candidates on party lists." (from the CNN coverage)

...

But not all the news is bad news. Kansas City may be getting a new sports arena. Why do I care? Because Kansas City still feels like my home town, and I'm still angry about what's happened to it. White flight, an infinitely expanding suburban ring where the wealthy people go to be among their own kind, protected from mere mortals. And the city itself dies by degrees. Small businesses can't compete with the chain stores on the outskirts, and anybody who can't afford to live in the new McMansions has a hard time finding a job, and no chance at all if they can't commute out by car. What's left is a place with a hollow heart, all suburbs and no substance. There's no city left in Kansas City. So yay for downtown renewal! Even better, it turns out it's the home to lots of sports architecture firms, who want to collaborate, to make the building a kind of advertisement for the hometown industry. But they have competition, from a group that includes the infamous Frank Gehry, designer of the Experience Music Project and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, both of which I got to see during construction, and visit almost as soon as they opened. I basically hate the EMP and love the Pritzker Pavilion (because what works for a band shell does not work for a museum. And because the EMP is partially painted pink.) I'm interested to see what he would come up with for poor old KC.

And then there's this obituary which I somehow find more encouraging than depressing, and the stunts pulled by the Fathers-4-Justice, in particular the Batman who climbed Buckhingham Palace. The Tribune had a great photo of him leaning imperturbably on a ledge, meeting the eye of a security man with an expression that said, "So what? I'm Batman." Neither Thomasz nor I could find it online, unfortunately.

Oh -- and since I mentioned Vonnegut at the beginning? You know that "Sunscreen Speech" that he supposedly gave? It was really by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, of course, and in a column this week she answered the question, "What kind of sunscreen?" Apparently she recommends PreSun SPF 30.

The next books on my list are the complete works of Lemony Snicket. My sister wants me to read as many of the books as I can while I'm home. I think these will suit my current mood very well.

I'm Not Blogging

No indeed, not blogging. Studying. Only the stuff that's been happening in the lab is too entertaining not to write up, while I remember it. Also, I have more pictures. I'll attach them to this post, after I'm done.

I think the first picture will have to be the bolt that I twisted in half today. See, last time I was putting vacuum stuff together, Ken was still able to tighten everything a lot after I was done. And when he tightens stuff, he looks like he's putting real effort into it. I figured that I couldn't really tighten too much (after all, we're trying to get a really good vacuum) and that even if I could, I probably couldn't, with my girly muscles. I hauled on the wrench with most of my weight and nearly fell over backward when it slipped at one point, but still, when I went back to the ones I'd already tightened, they'd be a little loose again. Because, you see, in tightening the others I'd squeezed the plates closer again. Anyway, I was just about done when suddenly one of them felt really loose.Stainless steel bolt. Six inch handle on the wrench. It's all about the lever arm.

This is not by any means the biggest crisis we've had in the lab, though. Two days ago, we managed to overload a circuit. Ken thought it was just the surge protector -- which really should have blown first -- and didn't realize that all of his pumps had shut off, not just the one gauge which he plugged in elsewhere. When he realized, forty minutes later, what had really happened, he came into the office where the group was meeting looking like he'd just seen someone die. The whole group started tracing wires around the room, looking for breaker numbers, so they could flip the switch back. It took overnight for the vacuum to go back down. Ken was in checking on it at one a.m. (The two post-docs who normally would have been responsible for this stuff were both out of town.) And then after he left, the circuit blew on the other vacuum. That one's still not down to where it was. They're baking it -- that's what the picture of the thing wrapped in tinfoil is.

As for me: I tried to make a mu-metal box to shield something one of the other post-docs is working on from stray magnetic fields. This involved tracing and cutting out patterns, weirdly similar to sewing. I have also spent a fair amount of time waiting for rubidium to boil. A watched rubidium oven never does. And today I was doing dishes. Or anyway, cleaning out the ultrasound machine. Lab techs and housewifes have more in common than I would've thought.

The other pictures are a couple I took with the infrared viewer up against the camera lens. You can't quite make out the fluorescense in the vapor cell unless you know what you're looking for (the IR viewer is hard to focus, when you're not looking through it) but you can clearly see the infrared laser light bouncing off mirrors in the other -- those bright spots are not there at all to the naked eye.



Grr. Take that, stupid bolt!


Baking. Like you'd bake a potato.


The thin line at the center is the fluorescense.


Nothing is glowing when you look without the viewer.

Official Hiatus

I've temporarily unsubscribed from my newsgroups, and I'm not showing up to the lab after tomorrow. I haven't watched the last two or three Cubs games, or the last week's worth of Daily Shows (which is all the TV there really is to watch, in the summer). Ken's making an effort not to invite me to do things with him (except study) because he knows I'll say yes. I've even been taking slightly shorter runs.

In spite of all of this I still seem to be incredibly unproductive. But I might as well try to marshal whatever resources my brain reserves for blogging as well. If I want to stay (and I do!) I've got to pass. If I want to pass, I've got to work. I expect I'll post again sometime in the week after the 16th, when I'll be visiting my parents. In the meantime, wish me luck. And if you see me, nag me.

Labor Day in the U.S.A.

The Chicago Tribune has a couple of interesting Labor Day pieces:

'American Dream' Goes Up in Coal Dust:

" CHRISTOPHER, Ill. -- Twenty-eight years breathing coal dust and diesel fumes wasn't enough to kill Gary Bartolotti. Neither was a falling 1,500-pound slab of shale that pinned him to the jagged floor of a mine shaft, shattered his right ankle and pelvis and ruptured his bladder. He never lost consciousness, never even went into shock. [...] The company that ran the mines he worked went bankrupt, and a federal judge recently granted Horizon Natural Resources' request to cancel the health-care benefits of active and retired employees. By early October, Bartolotti and at least 1,200 other retired southern Illinois miners and their dependents will lose the lifetime health-care coverage they'd been counting on."


Executive Privilege:

"The simple answer is that some CEOs lose their sense of reality and feel entitled to whatever they can get away with, psychiatrists and corporate governance experts say. Instead of thinking about what is fair or right, some chief executives look around to see what their peers at the top of the heap are getting in cash, stock options and perks, such as corporate jets and club dues. They want that--and more.
[...]Of course, no dysfunctional individual exists in a vacuum. In the corporate world, chiefs who are losing their bearings have boards of directors that are supposed to help them maintain perspective. But boards often are stacked with friends of the top guy, which makes it hard--indeed, almost impossible--for them to say no, said Nell Minow, a corporate governance specialist."

(Reading that story reminds me of reading history -- over centuries under the feudal system, monarchs grew more powerful and the aristocracy which was supposed to be a sort of check on that power grew weaker. Monarchs measured their rights by comparison with other monarchs. What we need is a sort of corporate Magna Carta, I think.)


NPR has a good Labor Day story as well, a piece on Studs Terkel, with some clips from his original interview tapes, for the book Working.

The book Ken gave me for my birthday (Chi Town by Norbert Blei) has a cool piece about Studs Terkel too. It's a collection of essays about Chicago, and Studs is so much a part of Chicago history and culture that a story on him is almost inevitable. Blei had the good fortune of sitting in on one of his interviews once -- with Dave Brubeck, another Chicago legend.

One of Blei's other heroes is a new discovery for me: Sydney J. Harris. After reading Blei's ode to him, I did some searching, and found treasures. I've only just started working my way through this remarkable collection, but already I'm coming to worship this guy too.

Here is a sample:

"The fact is that nothing is harder in life than knowing what should be done, for there are dozens of ways to do something wrong, and usually only one way to do it right.

"'It is easier to be critical than to be correct,' said Disraeli, in rebuking his parliamentary opponents - neglecting to add that this was as true for his own party.

"The process of learning consists in collecting 'non-answers' rather than in finding answers. We find out the things that don't work through trial and error, usually repeated many times in different ways, before we hit upon the answer, if we ever do."

And on that note -- I've really got to study some electromagnetism today.

Have a Good Time

What with the Republican convention (speaking of which, I've been meaning to link this article about the latest incarnation of loyalty oaths at Republican rallies) last night, and my little birthday party, and everything, this song has never seemed more relevant. Only my life's not really a mess. Not unless I fail the quals. But this voice in my head....



Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life's a mess
But I'm having a good time

Oo, I've been loving and loving and loving
I'm exhausted from loving so well
I should go to bed
But a voice in my head
Says "Ah, what the hell"

Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it's all overdone
Exaggerating this and exaggerating that
They don't have no fun

I don't believe what I read in the papers
They're just out to capture my dime
I ain't worrying
And I ain't scurrying;
I'm having a good time

Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

Maybe I'm laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I'm blind to the fate of mankind
But what can be done?
So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless our standard of livin'
Let's keep it that way
And we'll all have a good time

Repeat and fade:
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

Words & music by Paul Simon



(And continuing the theme of birthdays and poetry, I also wanted to find a way to incorporate a link to Ted Kooser, the new Poet Laureate of the US. Apparently he's obscure and thus a controversial choice, and from Nebraska, which makes him a "poet of the plains." It turns out he has a relevant work. Not bad, I think. And I think I want to include this link someone posted to AFP. Twenty-four hour watches. These appeal to me a lot, especially the mechanical ones, and the one that shows where it's dark and where it's daylight across the world. Maybe for my birthday next year. Okay, so that's not really on the theme. But how else am I going to work it in?)