A May Song

I need a May poetry post. Let me see, what can I find on the American Poems archive? I'll look at poets who were young in the '20s and '30s. I like that period, for some reason.

Oh, Gwendolen Brooks was born in Topeka, moved to Chicago, and became poet laureate of Illinois? Nice. Let's hope she has something interesting... Oh, I like these. And, this one seems very appropriate:

The Crazy Woman


I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I'll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I'll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."


Yes. I'll post that.

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Only a Sith Speaks in Absolutes

I've seen Revenge of the Sith twice already. Ken kidnapped me away from work on opening day, and then we went again on Friday.

I'm not gonna write a review. Obviously I loved it. I was always going to. I liked the other prequels too. I don't think dialogue or acting has ever been the point. Spectacle and melodrama are respectable art forms too -- look at opera, or ancient Greek dramas. Critics may think Star Wars was made to a formula, but if it were easy to make something larger-than-life on this scale that doesn't collapse under its own weight, it would have been done more often. Star Wars isn't literature. It's architecture.

Anyway, I found it thought provoking. First of all, and I'll leave this vague for spoiler reasons, I want to know if we're supposed to consider the question of Anakin's parentage resolved. The hint was too subtle for me (Star Wars isn't supposed to be subtle!) but Ken thought it was obvious, and intentional, and if so, it makes me like the Phantom Menace much better. The virgin-birth-via-midichlorians thing was always my least favorite part.

Secondly, I've been thinking about Anakin's incredibly sudden change of heart in his scene with Mace Windu. I've decided that when he was lecturing Mace on the Jedi way, he wasn't really stating his own beliefs about good and evil (which then suddenly change.) He was reminding Mace of what the Jedi are supposed to believe. I think by this point Anakin has convinced himself that the Jedi are hypocrites. They've asked him to spy on his own government, his own friend and mentor. They say they defend democracy, but their own heirarchy is rigid, and closed to him. They took him away from his mother. He has had to keep his relationship with his wife a secret. When he goes to them for help, to save her life, they seem not to care. They preach about peace, but they are warriors, and have trained him for war. And they may say they don't want power, but they do definitely have strong opinions on how the galactic government should work, and are willing to use violence and deception to achieve their ends. Whatever ethical problems they may have with a clone army, ultimately, they use it.

Anakin has never really believed in those things the Jedi profess. As Ken points out, he didn't have a problem with dictatorships, in the second prequel. He did the very thing he's telling Mace Windu not to do, at the beginning of this movie. All he's trying to do is appeal to the principles Mace claims to live by, to stop what's happening... And when Mace shows himself a hypocrite, Anakin finally decides, I think, that there really is no difference between the Jedi and the Sith.

Orson Scott Card says Anakin's not wrong. But I don't judge the Jedi as harshly as Card does. Their redeeming virtue, in my opinion, is that they know they're hypocrites. I see Obi Wan's line, "Only a Sith speaks in absolutes," as an admission that the Jedi don't always know, can't always know, the right path either. Their fortune cookie maxims have exceptions.

In the end, everyone who has any principles betrays them sometimes, for the sake of the people they love, for the sake of their other principles. The Jedi know that just because you have to violate your principles sometimes, that's no reason to give them up entirely. Anakin doesn't understand this. That's why Anakin becomes a Sith. Only a Sith speaks in absolutes.

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Google Cool

Some free advertising for Google...

Ken tells me about Google sets (try putting in "Xander" and "Willow" or "Scooby" and "Shaggy" or a couple of Kevin Bacon movies...) and Google suggest (you only need to type "Mary Mes" to find me...) and Google scholar (for those of us who still have homework to deal with...) He was also playing with Google ridefinder which Chicagoist is apparently just now discovering. They've also got links to all kinds of other super-neat Chicago-centric things to do with Google maps, like househunting, looking at crime stats, checking traffic, locating an El station (though I haven't gotten that to work yet) and photoblogging.

You go, Google.

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Real ID

There must be a huge debate about this "Real ID" act somewhere, but I've missed it. Seriously snuck in under my radar. Probably that's just because I've been busy. Probably this received the huge news coverage and public debate it deserves. Right? Anyway, C|Net seems to have a nice summary.

What does it mean for me?
Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards.

What's going to be stored on this ID card?
At a minimum: name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, address, and a "common machine-readable technology" that Homeland Security will decide on. The card must also sport "physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes." Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements--such as a fingerprint or retinal scan--on top of those. We won't know for a while what these additional requirements will be.

You said the ID card will be electronically readable. What does that mean?
The Real ID Act says federally accepted ID cards must be "machine readable," and lets Homeland Security determine the details. That could end up being a magnetic strip, enhanced bar code, or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. In the past, Homeland Security has indicated it likes the concept of RFID chips. The State Department is already going to be embedding RFID devices in passports, and Homeland Security wants to issue RFID-outfitted IDs to foreign visitors who enter the country at the Mexican and Canadian borders. The agency plans to start a yearlong test of the technology in July at checkpoints in Arizona, New York and Washington state.

Will state DMVs share this information?
Yes. In exchange for federal cash, states must agree to link up their databases. Specifically, the Real ID Act says it hopes to "provide electronic access by a state to information contained in the motor vehicle databases of all other states."

Oh. So, that's scary.

And it's already been passed by the House and the Senate, and Bush has said he supports it...

'Cause, you know, it's so consistent with those Republican principles of small government and limited federal power.

I want to immigrate to 1998. I know some of my Republican friends will tell me about the moral problems of the Clinton administration, but I can't see how Bush and Delay and Cheney and Co. have actually improved any of the situations they've objected to. My Republican friends have been betrayed.

And I'm getting tired of being an advocate for the Devil, with my Democratic friends.

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Obligatory Links

You've probably already seen these links, if you're interested at all, but to keep my geek credentials valid, I must post about these things...

Star Trek is ending I don't really mind. I'm only really fond of the original series, which ended well before I was born. Orson Scott Card doesn't mind either, because he wasn't fond of any of it.

The Serenity Trailer is out. Yay!

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is in theaters now. And it's awesomer than I thought it would be. Even though I knew it would be pretty good after I read this interview. It's by one of the screenwriters, who also wrote "Chicken Run."

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. Yeah, I know that would've been more useful information if I'd got around to posting before Saturday. I got a Star Wars comic.

(And Sunday was mother's day. That's a little late notice too, for anyone who forgot...)

And I went to Wrigley field on Friday to watch the Cubs lose their seventh in a row. Curse you LaTroy! I'd write up a nice little report, but someone with a life that is scarily like mine went on Sunday and did a better job.

Man, talk about your old news. That's what I get for putting off posting.

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Physics Filibuster

So, you know how Democrats have been filibustering some judicial nominees and Republicans want to shut them up?

Well, it appears some physicists are filibustering to show support for the Dems. By reading from a Griffiths book.

Griffiths rules, by the way.

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More on Gas Prices

For non-rss readers: I updated this post with a link to this post which in turn links to this fascinating article. It's worth reading.

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Conversation Galante

I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon!
Or possibly (fantastic I confess)
It may be Prester John's balloon
Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
To light poor travellers in their distress-"
She then: "How you digress."

And I then: "Someone frames upon the keys,
That exquisite nocture, with which we explain
The night and moonshine, music which we seize
To body forth our own vacuity."
She then: "Does this refer to me?"
"Oh no, it is I who am insane."

"You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
Eternal enemy of the absolute
Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!
With your air indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute-"
And -- "Are we then so serious?"

T.S. Eliot

(typed from memory, 'cause I just recited it at Andy's fledgling poetry recitation group "SpeakMuse," and then corrected from Bartleby.)

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Busy

This is the busiest I've ever been in my whole life. It's not just that I don't have time for TV and internet. It's tough finding time to eat and sleep.

And as busy as I am, Ken's busier. He doesn't have to teach labs (I've got three this quarter, as opposed to two normally, and one of them is at 8AM) but he is moving, and he's got a talk to give. The rest of the stuff -- I don't even want to list it all -- we share.

Anyway, blogging and phone calls are suffering. I apologize for that.

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Slow Light

Phew. It's finally finished.

I gave this talk for my advisor about "slow light". Because the experiment we recently finished involved slowing light down, and he wanted me to learn about how that worked, and then prove to him I understood it. (Of course, light slows down when it travels through any medium, including air, water, glass, etc. It's why lenses work. But we slowed it down a lot more.) When and if that data ever gets published, I'll add a couple of slides to my talk showing that this theory actually describes reality. I'd also like to clean up my references, and make sure the solution I got for the differential equation I used actually matches the one I found on-line. (But I know it will.)

And, for the benefit of those who haven't studied differential equations, I'd like to write a layman's-terms version which introduces the ideas of absorption and energy levels and electromagnetic waves, and answer everyone's favorite question, "What's it good for?"

But I'm going to put off doing those things for a while, 'cause I'm tired of working on it, to tell you the truth. Anyway I think what I've got, as it stands, could be useful to some people... Undergrads maybe, or people like me, starting out in optics research. So I'm going to make it available on the internet, and anyone who isn't interested in physics, but is curious about what I do at work all day (hi, Mom) can take a look too.

Ken worked with me on every step of this, coming up with answers to my questions, asking me questions that forced me to clarify my ideas, teaching me what he knew and learning with me. So really this is a joint effort (though any errors, of course, are my own). Every scientist should be so lucky.

Here it is, as a PDF:
An Introduction to Slow Light

(n.b. They took away our webpages! I'll upload this somewhere else, when I get around to it.)
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Gas Prices

UPDATE II:

Fred Clark's post is a lot more like the one I would have written, if I'd written a post about this, including speculation (not his, quoted from a
book by James Howard Kunstler) about how cities will have to change:

"Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away. The turbulence of the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers, and many of these will be members of an angry and aggrieved former middle class."

...
"The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract substantially."

For some reason, I find these scenarios a lot more plausible than the world we actually live in. I keep expecting civilization as we know it to end any day now, but maybe it won't be an apocalypse after all... Or can you have a really slow apocalypse?

Anyway, I'm glad we're planning to go to Europe now, because according to this guy, "The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish."

I really believe this stuff is going to happen. How can it not? More technological miracles will save us? We've already had more than our share of miracles. It can't continue forever. I just wonder how much of the change will be in my lifetime?

UPDATE:

John Scalzi has blogged about this topic in much greater depth. This is the kind of post I probably should have written, if I'd felt like I had time. Only my version of it would have had a lot more stuff about how the suburbs as we know them may be doomed, and how that is probably a good thing. And then I might even have speculated the changes the automobile has caused to our social lives -- how many more people we meet, how that's changed dating and marriage and the whole concept of the extended family. I might have talked about how strange Western society is compared to the kind experienced by the vast majority of the world today, and by everyone, historically... And I might have speculated about the value of plastic rising so that the stupid little fake jewels you see on clothes everywhere today could someday be as valuable as the real thing. (Imagine taking a handful of plastic jewels back in time. Only kings and queens would wear them.)

But for a more realistic and informative summary of the subject, you should probably read Scalzi's post.

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Boy am I not an expert on this subject. But I can remember a lot of hand-wringing a couple of years ago when they got above $2 a gallon in Seattle. Now the Shell Oil by my house wants $2.59...

I get the impression that, adjusted for inflation, the prices are still nowhere near what they were in the seventies and early eighties. But that was an artificial crisis, oil witheld, not an oil shortage. And they're higher than I can ever remember, and hardly anyone's reacting, the way I remember people reacting in the past.

With all the talk about "peak oil" I have to wonder -- how do we know the prices are going back down this time? I mean eventually, there is going to be less and less, and it's going to get more and more expensive.

It's inevitable, and our society will have to change. Aside from producing fewer SUVs I mean. (Thanks for the link, George.) Our cities will have to change...

What will happen? And is it starting now?

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Reference Works

Just a list. (I've linked to a couple of these before.)

The Encyclopedia Mythica
The Internet Classics Archive
The Encyclopedia of Arda (Tolkein's world)
A Jehovah's Witness Jargon File
The Original Jargon File
A Catholic Encyclopedia
A Jewish Encyclopedia
An Encyclopdia of Philosophy
A cooperative encyclopedia project
A cooperative guide to the galaxy
Mathworld
Project Gutenberg
Bartleby.com (lots of reference works)
The Skeptic's Dictionary

There. That ought to keep you all busy for a while.

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Chicago

Chicago
Carl Sandburg


Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders;

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have
seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall
bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted
against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Bulding, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked,
sweating, pround to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

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