the guy by the door …

The top story in today’s New York Times Science section is the closing of Harvard University’s [Cambridge, MA] Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, MA. The reason? Light pollution due to encroaching development. The article mentions efforts by Arlington and West Medford Representative Jim Marzilli to address light pollution by requiring larger reflectors on streetlights that cast more than 30% of their energy upwards. The lighting industry has defeated his efforts several times. My question for the environmentally inquisitive; With crude oil trading at close to $60 per barrel [[[I’m old enough to remember $5 per barrel.]]] would the savings of these better street light fixtures make sense to municipal budgets and the balance of trade, [not to mention lessen the need for military incursions?] Anybody?

Update 7/8: The connection between U.S. domestic energy usage and Middle East foreign policy has been acknowledged by an apostle of the mainstream media. TV newscaster and author of “The Greatest Generation”, Tom Brokaw said on David Letterman, “If we don’t get our snout out of the oil trough, our relationship with that part of the world will continue to be … uh.. complicated.” I had asked a question pursuant to this of  former Chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisors and current Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw. Unfortunately, in his view of journalistic ethics, I’m not allowed to tell you. More as the situation develops.

On comparative economic systems. Young Dr. Rainer thinks he knows what I think. He is probably wrong.
I will not presume to deny the barbarism that his relatives may have
suffered due to Joseph Stalin. I am in general
unequivocally opposed to denying
holocausts. However, capitalism as currently configured does need more
than a light rinse. The Russian economy, however, is a problem. If
Prof. Cohen is right, that it cannot be considered capitalism by any
reasonable standard, is it an outlier? Millions of peoples lives
reduced to a dot that the “rational mind” should ignore. Weird
“science”. Worse than dismal.

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Perhaps something like this will make a cleaner wash.

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further, this is being done by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. [I’ll look into the treatment of the Electrical Sisters.] This windmill is in Dorchester at the Freeport Street headquarters of Local 103. [And management says labor is Luddite!
Pishtosh I say! ] So bravo for the Brothers and Sisters. But are the
rest of us moving fast enough to avoid the further ravages of peak
oil?  Dr. Hubbert turned out to be right about U.S. oil production and predicted a similar phenomenon for world oil production. I can prove his theory. It was mentioned in an episode of the West Wing. Qued Erat Demonstrandum. I’m betting with him.

Like everything else in my life, this is a work in progress. I need to
see what fraction of GDP goes into the financial services sector before
deciding if the “free market” is really a costless allocator of
capital. The “empiricists” are loathe to consider this. Also, I need to
consider whether the $0.3 Trillion “incursion” in Iraq can be ignored
as a perturbation or be renormalized away, before I decide if the “free
market” is unconstrained. The answer from upstairs so far, “That was
done by another department.”

 Dr. Hubbert was not an economist, but a geophysicist. But he had an interesting idea about the interaction between physics and economics
or more correctly matter-energy and money.  Matter-energy, of
course, is conserved. Money presumably is tied to real physical wealth,
but the events of late 2001 clearly show how elastic that connection
is. Growth is assumed to be unbounded. [I guess we all agree that the
first derivative is bounded.] I think Dr. Hubbert is onto something,
but should really factor in labor. Marx had to exist, because Smith
understood the power of the division of labor, but not the power of
what was being divided up. This will, of course, get you a job as an
economist, but does it really lead to maximum productivity?

In the U.S. economy over the last three and a half decades wealth has
moved into fewer and fewer hands near the top of the distribution.
[There was a brief uptick in the Gini just before the crash of ’01. The
undergraduate who argued that this was proof of “all boats being
lifted” never came back for re-examination. 🙂 ] This may have
supported the illusion among the movers and shakers that growth is some
kind of magic that is immune to physics. There is something special
about life that it can appear to violate the 2nd Law [entropy]. But,
that is only apparent. And we can no longer afford the illusion.

[Tired. Later.]

This is DotArt:

Faces at DotArt
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and this is DotArt:

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and this is a very enticing DotArtist.

Is she, per chance, single?

Is this DotArt?

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Savin Hill Red Line Station closed for renovation. Definitely Dot, but is it art?

“>
Dr. Gerson simply must play himself in the movie. No casting director
could improve on what the Society of Friends has already done.

My Communication to City Council about the Arrests.

The Mayor made an elaborate claim of no wrong doing. At best he proved misfeasance. Stay tuned.

“You! You’re out!”
“Why?”
“Because!”
Officer More Temperate [also not wearing his badge] said, “Because you’ve been asked.”

Officer UDHBN then pushed me 30 or  40 ft to the gate. I noticed
an Officer wearing his ID. He identified himself to me as Sargent
Ahern. Later he posed for me. I met the ACLU lady. If any onlookers
have pictures of me being ejected from the Free Speach
Zone, I would appreciate your sending them to me. We really do need to
identify Officer UDHBN. I do have pictures for you, but I have to write
up a more detailed
statement for the ACLU.

The bride who was in the limo that became an inferno by Johnston Gate back on April 30 commented my post about it and Ezra Ball’s blog. As my new blogbuddy felicia says,  “you make my life beautiful and excellentacious!” Let me quote the bride here:

I am the bride who escaped from the burning limo – rather dramatic
start to my wedding, but we’re glad everyone was okay. We didn’t crash
into the gate, the limo was basically smoking the whole ride, though
the driver kept telling us it was just “burning off extra oil”…Also, the limo
company was Discover Boston, and they have done NOTHING to compensate
us for this – they haven’t even refunded our money!

An excerpt of her comment at Erza’s RealFake blog:

We were never interviewed by the police, so I’m not sure if there is
any investigation going on. The limo company has done NOTHING to
address the situation. The[y] didn’t even send back up transportation to
get us to the reception! Everyone was fine, but all my bridesmaids’
things (in the trunk) were ruined, and our lives were all at risk. I
feel worst for my bridesmaid who was 8 months pregnant, and for my 3
year old flower girl, and for my poor parents.



Dear Carrie,

There’s a bounty of bloggers who are glad everyone is
okay.  Thank you for shedding light on the origin of the fire.
There were questions of  intrigue and foul play. More than one
blogger wondered if someone  important was in the limo – one
thought maybe the President of Harvard.
I knew that wasn’t the case.
His limo is not white, not a stretch, and has a distinctive license
plate.  [ I know Joe, the driver. He drove for the old guy too.]
But when some bloggers said “oh just a car fire,” I was upset.
Anyone who saw the huge flames [shown by the Crimson and felicia]
could see that something really awful might have happened to someone.
In my view, there WAS someone important in that limo. How very nice to
meet you, I hope to meet the others with you.

Without further ado:

Congratulations on your wedding to you and yours!

 I‘m thinking “yours” means “Mr. Carrie”, but the
congratulations are unconditional. [ I am very proud of the Clerk of
the City of Cambridge, Margaret Drury, opening her office at midnight
on the first day it was legal for gay couples to wed.]

I would not rule out legal action, but we may not have to go that far.
Perhaps if we alert the blogosphere we can shame these folks into doing
the right thing. I suppose we can let the mainstream media in on it
eventually. And if push comes to shove, there are a lot of lawyers near
the Berkman Center where this blog lives.  But we need one thing
from you. Would you tell us which of the several Google hits for
“Discover Boston” is the website of the company you hired? We’ll take
it from there.

4:40 PM Littauer Library, North Yard. “There’s a
fire.” A woman patron pointed toward Johnston Gate where there was a
ferocious blaze with flames a few feet high and clouds of smoke 20 or
30 feet into the air. The Cambridge Fire Department was already on the
scene. By the time I got outside and found a camera angle clear of the
trees CFD had already knocked down the flames. Twenty minutes later,
after we closed the library, this was the scene:

Cause: Believed to be equipment malfunction.
Injuries: [Thankfully] none.

Update:  Sunday May 1, 5:45 PM. Michael Feldman,
who publishes Dowbrigade news, and is also a member of the Berkman
Thursday Blogger Group has pictures and description earlier in the event. Michael is an actual journalist – fully trained and he teaches journalism at BU.

One more picture from Ezra Ball.

Update II: Wed May 3

Felicia, a student based in Cambridge, and a friend saw the beginning of the fire. Her blog has a dramatic picture [taken by Andrew Fong] and an eyewitness account including:

“…when we first saw it from near the body shop, it was just smoldering,
but by the time we went inside the yard and were checking out the john
harvard statue, the limo had become a massive ball of flames.”

The event was also reported in the Monday, May 2 issue of The Harvard Crimson, including a picture by Jonathon Tsao from a similar angle to Fong’s picture, but somewhat closer.

Opinion:  This first hand account seems to rule out
the theory of an explosion. It does, however, confirm that the fire was
fast moving. Jonathon Tsao’s  and Andrew Fong’s pictures confirm
that the event was as dramatic as eyewitnesses [including me]
said.  Questions about the origin were not unreasonable. They are
still worth a follow up. If there was no accelerant of any kind, we
ought to look at whether the upholstery materials used are adequately
fire retardant.

Two examples submitted for your approval and consideration – here in the Berkblog Zone.

Faith married a long time friend. Mr. Faith married really, really
well, In fact, at one point, the ‘not quite decided to be Mr.
Faith’  was told by another long time friend of mine, “If you
don’t marry her I will”. I don’t know exactly when this happened, but
it might have been while we were all anarchist swimming in Spy Pond.

They were a two career couple struggling with just how New Age they
were going to be. Her job was not the career she had imagined for
herself in her youth [ She had had the creative urge from early on],
but it seemed to meet her basic need.  Eventually they decided to
try to make baby. I think it was more her idea than his, but I don’t
actually know. When she became pregnant her job became just fine thank
you very much. When she lost the baby, her job and everything else in
the universe became without form and void.

There was light again, then dark. Light. Dark. I don’t know the exact
number. Maybe I shouldn’t. But eventually the lamp stayed lit. My
brother, 1944, was  “Gee honey I don’t know if I’ll make it back.”
I, 1947, am an accident of enthusiasm at being back. But the daughter
of Faith was anything but an accident.

———

Lisa is a stay at home mom and quite proud of it, thank you very much.
She was an analyst and may be again. But for now, raising the kids is
enough — almost. She blogs her life and  is a significant
contributor to the advancement of blogcraft.

———

So tell me now, is there a relationship between the gift
of creativity a woman has in her womb and the gift of creativity she
has in her mind? Should we [or could we] try to create a partition if
nature thinks otherwise?

The old bachelor by the door who looks after things.
randy.f

… especially one that fancies itself the greatest steward of the humanities in the world?

You
can click the picture for a 2x enlargement. Even so, You can’t see it,
but in the upper right hand corner, Paul Gauguin wrote three questions:

Where do we come from?
What are we?
 Where are we going?

{I
will put up the original french [I’ll clip from the Web 🙂 ] after I
enable French Characters on my [I’m ashamed to say] WinXP.}

As
we sit on the brink of World War III, this last seems most pressing.
Much like the NBER assessment of the economy, we won’t know until we’re
a bit farther down the road. WWW III is actually a small worry compared
to the extinction of our species which we seem to be signing up for.
We’re in deep s**t and could use all the help we can get. Honest
science can help. I say let’s invite the women. [Gee that was a bit
awkward!] Let’s ask the women to help us. [Would a truly efficient
market ignore more than half of the talent pool?] It’s not enough to
wait till University, but it’s a start. Let’s get cracking shall we? We
don’t really know how much time we have.

Professor Stephen, who
recently left us, would be very sad. He quotes Charles Darwin, “If the
misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our
institutions, great is our sin.” Not only are we mismeasuring man,
woman, and child, but we are mismeasuring [or in some cases not
measuring when we should and could] homo economicus as well. Let’s look
at this more carefully shall we? Before we reduce any more economies
and our own to feudalism. A ray of hope is Professor Stephen, who is
still with us. Others though, including some of the most influential in
the University, have, I fear, caused Harvard’s sin to be huge.

I don’t really know why Professor Cornell is no longer here. I did not know him personally. Still I miss him. Google points
me to context of the quote from Professor Charles. He believes that
slavery is a greater sin than what might be caused by the market. Like
Professor Michael, he believes there are moral limits to markets. I
will ask, [real soon now] has ‘market’ ever been defined without
explicit or implicit moral limits? And have the definers been honest
about their purpose?

I apologize to Professor Diana. Her
sweet, beautiful misapprehension was not of the business model of this
University, but a hopefully small portion of our fellows. I will tell
you. And I would like to tell about the day that Professor Margaret
took on all the faculty on Observatory Hill to say what honest
empiricism required her to say.

But what do I know?
I’m just the guy by the door who looks after things.

randy.f

After all we have all this super woopie do e-comm gear. Several answers Here’s the first in three parts.

*The boundaries between different tools are at the moment too sharp. We
need software that allows communicants to move more freely between
different modes. More in a future post.

While I am definitely a contender, I spoke to Jesse at Votes, Bits, and Bytes. He said there are even lazier Berkobloggers. Gollyee!

No I’m not talking about the bogosity in Iraq. I’m talking about
this blog. Somebody posed interesting questions for new bloggers:

1. Who are you?

At age 57, I am still totally bereft of clue. Some people accuse me
of being anti-clue, but that is clearly false. Anti-clue is only a CP
transformation away from clue.

My full legal name is Philip Randolph Fenstemacher.  Philip,
however, means “lover of horses” which doesn’t very
well describe somebody who only uses public
transportation. Randolph, means “shield wolf” or “protector”. I’ve
always liked that and as fate would have it, I ended up working
security for the Harvard College Libraries. If you’ve been in any of
them, there’s a good chance I’ve looked in your bag as you left.
Officially I’m called a Doorchecker, but people don’t seem eager to
steal the doors. Most of the time I’m protecting the collection, but
sometimes I protect the people. Call me Randy.

2. What’s this site about?

My coefficient of clue on this one is the same as above. Although,
it has occurred to me that in a universe governed by quantum mechanics,
clue cannot really be exactly zero. Uncertainty requires zero-point clue.

Shortly , I plan to make my way towards  the Center for High
Energy Metaphyics. However, I will stop short at the Center for Quantum
Blogodynamics [aka the Berkman Center] to see ‘sup? Hopefully they will
help me figure out what this site is about.

3. How can people send you feedback?

Well e-mail works. I suppose Manila will give me niftier things. We’ll see.

wlyb?!

-r