The Missing Past and Short Attention Spans: A Space Odyssey

Stan Lebar worked for Westinghouse in the 1960s. He led the developmental team that produced a state-of-the-art camera for NASA---the camera that was taken to the moon on Apollo 11 and recorded the first moonwalk. Most people have seen those images, many times---grainy, fuzzy black & white pictures of something that looks kind of like an astronaut slowly descending something that kind of looks like a ladder on the side of a large object that we are told is the lander. Whatever. We suffered through these scenes, probably many of us annoyed at the quality, impatient that better pictures weren't available. (Better still pictures became available, shot with specially-made Hasselblads, that remain absolutely stunning in clarity and detail, so made up for the sub par video, at least for some of us.) After all, even Hollywood, using by today's standards primitive technology, could create vastly superior space vistas---compare the images from the 1966 film 2001: A Space Odyssey with the NASA footage from a few years later and you grasp the disappointment. (It has long been my opinion that support for the space program waned because NASA managed to take something as exciting and sexy as space exploration and turn it into the equivalent of a lecture on statistics. The late, great science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein chastised NASA at Congressional hearings for not doing more P.R., better P.R. When he was told that the government didn't do P.R., he had further things to say about campaigns and such like and then pointed out "NASA has a press department, doesn't it? That's the job of the press department." Anyway...) The camera built by Mr. Lebar's team was far superior to the poor images we all saw---and continue to see. The recording medium, however, was incompatible with broadcast television at the time.

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Repercussions of Kevin Bacon

I was watching the one hour documentary "How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer" and thought I'd share a few thoughts. Presumably anyone reading this already knows the principle of "Six Degrees of Separation" and the game involving this actor. My thoughts have nothing to do with the actor, but rather with the field of study that actually emerged from this Urban Myth: Network Theory. One thing that jumped out at me was that network theory appears to neatly show how organization and information growth are necessary results of random connections. In other words, organization Just Happens. This has always been observed. It was historically explained as either the result of very, very sophisticated design, or a "goal" of evolution. But now there is a mathematical model showing that systems become organized because of entropy, not in spite of it. Unfortunately, those who doubt evolution usually never get far enough in math to see this. Another thought I had was in response to the observation that a network becomes efficient given many points (or nodes) with few and local connections, plus a few nodes with many and far-ranging connections. These widely connected nodes are the key to the usual success of the game of six degrees, or the stability of the internet, or the synchrony of crickets, or the efficiency of our nervous system, or any other network. I asked myself, "Given a choice, would I want to be a social node of local, or widespread connections?" I'm not particularly interested in how useful I may be as a connection in a game of Six Degrees, but rather how much fuller is ones life given wider connections. More points of view lead to understanding more ideas. I talk to people in all lines of work, of any political or religious affiliation. I converse to listen. Ideas that conflict with what I "know" are interesting to investigate. (At least until I understand why they conflict, and then they are inflicted repeatedly by those who don't understand the conflict.) Although I am a social stick-in-the-mud, I've met relatives who live on 4 continents, and have visited yet another. I gravitate toward people who also collect people. This blog (for example) has authors from several continents. I have also traveled to a few places, many shown on this "Cities I've Visited" vanity map:

And I am always asking questions, and making connections. I enjoyed the TV series, too.

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Healthcare executive: Michael Moore’s Sicko was accurate

Wendell Potter, a former healthcare executive told Bill Moyers that Michael Moore's "Sicko" was on target. Potter agrees with Moore that there is a significant role for government in healthcare and that government systems such as Canada and Great Britain are successful, contrary to the vicious and dishonest spin by the American healthcare industry. Note: For 20 years, Potter was head of corporate communications for one of the country's largest insurers, CIGNA.

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Longitudinal study tells us what makes people happy

What makes people happy? On quite a few occasions, I've posted at DI with regard to ideas that I learned through reading various books and articles (a search for "happiness" in the DI search box will give you dozens of articles). What does that reveal about me, I wonder? Today, I had the pleasure of reading an extraordinarily thoughtful article on this same topic: "What Makes Us Happy?" by Joshua Wolf Shenk appears in the June 2009 edition of The Atlantic. You'll find an abridged edition of the article here. Shenk's article is anchored by the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running longitudinally study of mental and physical well-being in history. It was begun in 1937 in order to study "well-adjusted Harvard sophomores (all male), and it has followed its subject for more than 70 years." The study was originally known as "The Grant Study," in that it was originally funded by W.T. Grant. Despite all odds, the study has survived to this day--many of the subjects are now in their upper 80's. Along the way, the study was supplemented with a separate study launched in 1937 dedicated to studying juvenile delinquents in inner-city Boston (run by criminologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck). You'll enjoy Joshua Shenk's work on many levels. He writes with precision, providing you with a deep understanding of the featured longitudinal studies. You will also enjoy his seemingly effortless ability to spin engaging stories (there are dozens of stories within his article) and his exceptional skill at crafting highly readable prose. I'm writing this post as a dare, then. Go forth and read Shenk's article and I guarantee that you will be thoroughly enriched and appreciative. The Atlantic also provided a video interview of George Vaillant, now 74, who since 1967 has dedicated his career to running and analyzing the Grant Study. As you'll see from Shenk's article, Vaillant is an exceptional storyteller himself. The Atlantic article, then, might remind you of one of those Russian dolls, and that is a storyteller telling the story of another storyteller who tell stories of hundreds of other storytellers. For more than 40 years, Vaillant has not only gathered reams of technical data, but he has poured his energy into interviewing the subjects and their families and melding all of that data into compellingly detailed vignettes of the subjects. Telling stories is not ultimately what the study was supposed to be about, of course, and Vaillant also tells us what those stories mean for the rest of us. Truly, what makes people happy? Vaillant offers answers that you will be tempted to immediately apply to your own situation. Vaillant has a lot to say about "adaptations," how people respond to the challenges they face in life. As a Shenk explains,

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The Family: Trickle down fundamentalism.

Would you like to know about a group of six or seven fundamentalist Christian Congressmen who believe that they have been tapped by God to usurp more power for the already powerful? Then consider Rachel Maddow's discussion about The Family with Jeff Sharlet, author of a brand new book: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Jeff knows about The Family because he went undercover and spent time living among them at 133 C-Street, the group's headquarters in Washington D.C, which is a church that looks like a house. Senator John Ensign lives at the house. So does Senator Tom Coburn. Mark Sanford mentions an affiliation with C-Street while he was having his affair. What goes on at C-Street stays there, thanks to the secrecy pact enter by the members. Wikipedia offers far more. What do these guys want? To do God's will, of course. What is God's will? As long as you are chosen by God, the means justify the ends. Anything is justified, even monetary bribes; they sometimes call themselves "The Christian Mafia." They prefer to operate behind the scenes. Maddow sums up the aim of The Family:

promoting American power, world wide, unfettered capitalism with no unions, no programs to help poor people, all with this idea that godly powerful rich men should get as many resources as possible personally, and they should just privately help everyone else.

Here's Maddow's interview.

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