Nice View from a Fascinating Neighborhood…

Folks,

Right at this moment, there are six folks making a living by working in outer space. Think about that. Humans can do this stuff. We can also take some meaningful pictures to share with folks still having their feet on the ground. A fellow named Doug Wheelock kept a little scrap book, during his time two-hundred and sixty miles above the Home World. Here are just two shots.

S

Sunset seen from orbit. Look at the gentle curve of the Earth's horizon. We know how big our world seems to us here, and even from this vantage it looms large. Then look at the thin layer of atmosphere. It is proportionally thinner than the skin of an apple stretched across that fruit… and that is all we got.

Here's a lady named Tracy. She taking a break from work, looking out the window of her office.

Uncle Al's Mistake…

Folks,

Here's an article by a fairly bright guy, a physicist named Brian Green. It's a little technical, but written for the popular audience. Anyhow, it made me remember back to when I was eleven years old. I'd just discovered the Beatles, girls, and a couple of other fascinations that caused me to cause some trouble in the coming years.

But one day, at my Uncle's house, I stumbled upon a biography of Albert Einstein. Nobody else was up in the house, so I started reading. I became wrapt. I devoured that book in one morning. Tho having no sense with math, the way the old man, dead in the year that I was born, described the flexible mesh of Space-Time was simply common sense to me. The fact that he got to his vision by pursuing a question that he'd had since he was six years old… that made sense, as well. I had been furrowing my young brow with such questions for some years, as well.

S

Sometimes the true nature of reality beckons from just beyond the horizon.

Folks,


A long time ago, in 1861, a fellow named Fitzhugh Ludlow wrote these words about something that I experience today, and have since I was young; synesthesia. Here he is referring to his experience of some years earlier, after eating a chunk of hasheesh. But, as I have learned, you don't need to get chemically altered to experience this sort of stuff. Truly, the creek near your house can speak to you. Music can be seen. Colors tasted. Human feelings can be seen.

The variety of Human mind and perception is to marvel at. We are small creatures living on a dust mote in the Cosmos, but Mind is vast. This old guy's description of his own experience is just splendid in its Victorian manner.

Anyhow, if you're curious, seek out more of this guy. He was Mark Twain's confidant, and a noted American literary figure for a brief time. He did leave behind a treasure of information from the vanguard of ideas.

S

"The soul is sometimes plainly perceived to be but one in its own sensorium, while the body is understood to be all that so variously modifies impressions as to make them in the one instance smell, in another taste, another sight, and thus on, ad finem. Thus the hasheesh-eater knows what it is to be burned by salt fire, to smell colors, to see sounds, and, much more frequently, to see feelings."

I Like Ike…

Folks,

Eisenhower was an enormously underestimated civilian leader. When I was just six, I was sitting with my dad, watching our little black and white TV, as this dude that took out Hitler and kept the Soviets at bay in the aftermath WWII said so-long to public life. Dad explained that I should remember the speech, referenced below. I remember he said it had something to do with the danger of having too much power and being careless with wealth and power… that I should remember the message.

Eisenhower's words resonate even more profoundly today, than in 1961. We live in the world that he warned us of, and right now, right here, today, is more than ever the time to consider what this warrior had to offer.

S


Ike's Clear Warning…

A Very Fine China Cat…

Folks,

Here the boyz are in fine communication, and having some fun with a fine old tune. Each one of the fellahs is listening close to the others, doing his job as it comes to hand, and hammering in the rivets of a Star Ship. Serious business.

S

A Quite Nice Cat…

Folks,


A young friend was asking me about the film "2001: A Space Odyssey". When I was a kid, back in 1968, my dad took me to see it. He was thoroughly mystified. I totally got it. In fact, that experience rescued me from my teenage depression. I totally related to HAL, the computer, and knew that the unstated message was that the Humans had become machines, mistreated their electronic creation, and that's why there is hell to pay for being careless with other minds… even the ones that we would someday build with our own hands.


I was also encouraged to look to a future where Humanity might actually stumble upon an intelligence other than our own or those of our fellow species on the Home World. That may still happen in my lifetime. We'll see. I doubt that they'd come here to have us for supper, so I'm optimistic. They might also have something or another to teach us. I'm not a UFO crazy, but I do entertain the possibility that they've already been here. We might be their experiment, and our lovely piece of lint in the almost infinite vastness is a cozy petri dish that may, someday, produce something of interest upon their return.


S

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  "2001" is not like any other movie. There is only about half an hour of dialogue in the story's entire couple of hours. Visually, it borders on perfection (tho, there is a now corny trippy sequence near the end). The narrative and themes are timeless, and it is drenched in mystery. After you see it, it may take a few days, or years, of reflection to understand the story and its implications.
  
  What is most compelling to me, these days, is not the film as simply superb art. It is the precision with which Kubric and Clarke described the sort of Human/Machine world that we now must reckon with. Not all the tech details are right on (it was written forty years ago), but the moral and ethical issues stand firmly where we live.
  
  This week, IBM rolled out a computer that understands jokes and word play, and is "smarter" at answering questions thus posed than humans. That is a distinctly non-trivial achievement. It won't be long before we have to ask ourselves if it's okay to turn off such a machine… or is that murder? And, what will such machines make of their creators? Let's be sure to "program" some reverence into their circuits.
  
  Wow. Things are going to get stranger. Let's get on with the show!

  
  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  
  

A Fine Story of Real Humans…

Folks,

If you were a kid back in 1966, you might remember the grownups being a little freaked out that the Captain of a star ship, a white fellow, kissed a black lady on television. Now, it was quite obvious that the beautiful woman was quite deserving of a kiss by any man that would dare approach a proud striding Human, one such as Lt. Uhura. A guy with the best star ship in the galaxy was an appropriate candidate to deliver that smooch. No big deal. Well, except he did get to kiss her. Our nation's knees turned to jelly with that momentary embrace before the commercial for Jiffy Peanut Butter.

As we approach the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, it is interesting that MLK had a little something to do with arranging that kiss. History is fun! Who knew?

May Nichelle Nichols Live Long and Prosper.

S