Author: ssw15

Funny – I thought yesterday was summer solstice; d’uh, it’s actually today – the time of year when the natural light is out that much longer (even at the hour in which I’m writing this blog). See, I like summer for this one reason – the light (not the humidity – so help me Gosh, definitely not the humidity – I’ll can swallow the heat, but not the perpetual dampness that summer in NYC can bring).

Finally finished reading Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe”. Took forever, but I did it. Greene’s a good writer; very poetic stuff in trying to understand the mysteries of the universe and the possibility of one theory to explain all the theories of physics. Greene’s a string theorist and is real smart and it shows. Lovely. My only quibble is that try as I might, I still have trouble understanding the scientific explanations (yep, I’m the one who undermines the Asian-American stereotype by having not been good at higher mathematics and physics (which was not my best science subject)).

Then again, I liked how Greene showed how the latest thought in string theory specifically and physics in general almost cross into philosophy: what is reality; if Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle says that the subatomic world is awfully uncertain, what can we be certain about at the normal level?; if Einstein says things are relative at the galactic level, that’s just… powerful stuff; are there alternate dimensions (Greene says yes; and there are bunches of them) – and what does that really mean for the rest of us (umm, besides being fodder for sci-fi consumers); and what is the meaning of what science is leading us? I liked this one line from Greene, which I’ll note here:

[S]cience proceeds along a zig-zag path toward what we hope will be ultimate truth, a path that begun with humanity’s earliest attempts to fathom the cosmos and whose end we cannot predict. – Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, p. 20, 2003 paperback edition.

It just sounds nice, that’s all. Although, keep in mind – the book is actually written before 9/11, so there was this odd reference to the World Trade Center (an analogy used to explain something about wormholes, if I recalled correctly); nothing bad, really; notably, Green’s 2003 preface notes that the latest scientific developments are still taking time (doesn’t help that particle accelerators take time to be built and cost serious moola), so his book is hardly out-of-date.

Greene’s from NYC, and he’s currently teaching at my Alma Mater, after having done stints at
other Ivy League institutions and Oxford (yeah, he’s really really smart); in fact, Alma Mater offers “Physics for Poets” (which I heard was no easy class anyway), so thanks to the good Prof. Greene, I guess I can now fully accept that physics can be poetic – no doubt… (sidenote – local PBS in NYC will be showing Nova’s version of “The Elegant Universe” in July – so, set your VCR’s – the three-part series is watchable, in a not-too-explanatory style, but-ok-for-the-junior-high-and/or-not-too-scientific set of folks out there)….

My streak this weekend sucks (pardon my language) – I managed to miss the Madonna interview on 20/20 this past Friday and the Clinton interview on 60 Minutes yesterday. Gee, I hope Barbara Walters and Dan Rather (forget Madonna and Clinton) will forgive me. (I had other things to do, to say the least).

Let’s go Mets; let’s hope we can at least be positive (maybe; hopefully; ideally; eh, whatever goes). The hometown National League team swept the Detroit Tigers this weekend; can we dare look forward to the upcoming games against the Yankees? Can Jose Reyes stay healthy and keep the team energized (and be mature about it)? Can the team owner himself keep things going without resorting to making things go bad? Hmm…

Have a good week….

Following the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Europe, let’s not forget that WWII had a warfront in the Pacific side, and so the NY Times reports how, with less fanfare, Saipan of the Northern Mariana Islands honors the D-Days of the Pacific. The article notes;

[M]any Saipan veterans and their supporters gathered here on Tuesday said that just as in World War II, the American popular mind continued to relegate the Pacific theater to second-class status…. Jerry Facey, co-chairman of the Saipan’s 60th Anniversary Committee, said that during two years of organizing Tuesday’s events, he received a long series of “no’s” from Washington politicians and Pentagon brass who were invited to attend the ceremonies. Recalling the last big commemoration that he organized, he said: “It is just like the 50th, we were overshadowed by Normandy. We are so remote, people just forget.”

Recollecting the liberation of a region from Japanese occupation, and reflecting after 60 years of lives lost and lives changed:

On Sunday, a memorial was dedicated to the 933 indigenous people who died in the World War II battles and their aftermath.

On Tuesday, this new monument was at the end of the short parade, which saw some of the octogenarian veterans walking, others riding while standing in the backs of two balky World War II-era military trucks.

“It’s changed a lot, but we sure love it,” Hal Olsen, a Navy veteran from New Jersey, shouted down from one truck, referring to Saipan, and perhaps to the open-air thrill of riding in the back of a truck.

Hmm. Must be very nice there at this time of year, a nice one more chance for the veterans to enjoy paradise and recall how it was once not paradise.

The NY news cable channel NY1 is having “Brooklyn Week.” Such a nice coverage, especially the stuff on Brooklyn cuisine, (Brooklyn being a place of different restaurants and livelihoods).

Fascinating story on Simmie Knox, the artist who painted the official White House portraits of the Clintons – who just happens to be the first African-American commissioned to paint a presidential portrait.

Interesting article in Law.com – top-notched law professors being poached, traded, and signed like they’re professional athletes, and the law school deans or presidents who talk about this. Amusing.

Law.com also had this inspiring article about Vanita Gupta, a young Asian-American attorney, and the progress of her legal career.

And so there you go. Some stuff.

Hmm. Could it be – that the LA Lakers are going to say bye-bye to its winning ways? Could it be that the Detroit Pistons are the NBA champions? Hmm.

Linda Greenhouse of the NY Times puts in her two cents on the Pledge of Allegiance case. I like the way she highlights irony in the whole situation:

The competing opinions [between J. Stevens vs. the opinions of Ch. J. Rehnquist, J. O’Connor, and J. Thomas] on Monday were portraits in irony, some probably intentional and some, perhaps, not. Justice Stevens, one of the court’s most liberal members, offered a paean to judicial restraint in explaining why the court should not reach the merits of the case.

The “unelected, unrepresentative judiciary in our kind of government” should not reach out unnecessarily to decide cases, Justice Stevens said, quoting from an opinion written in 1983 by the conservative icon Robert H. Bork, then an appeals court judge. Justice Stevens is a consummate craftsman, and the sly reference was clearly intentional.

Greenhouse also notes:

In her opinion, Justice O’Connor called the pledge a permissible example of “ceremonial deism” rather than religious worship, similar, she said, to the words the Supreme Court’s marshal intones at the start of each session: “God save the United States and this honorable court.”

“Ceremonial deism”? Uh, ok. But, just because it’s ceremonial doesn’t mean it’s constitutional, is it? But, if we had struck down the “under God” of the Pledge, what would it mean for “God save the United States and this honorable court,” and “In God We Trust” – traditionally entrenched, if nothing else (“traditionally entrenched” makes more sense than “ceremonial deism”). Well, I’m not a justice of the Supreme Court.

I’m trying to figure out whether the Jackie Chan version of “Around the World in 80 Days” is worth it or not. Stephen Holden of the NY Times says it’s okay, but Reuters says it isn’t. I liked the David Niven version (1956). It felt more like the book (which I also liked), with Passepartout (even if he was played by a Mexican actor) the French valet doing quirky stuff and the Indian princess charming Niven’s Phileas Fogg. Indian princess, folks – an Asian woman presence (even if she was played by Shirley MacLaine, a white woman). Chan’s version foregoes bothering with actresses posing as Asian women; his Passepartout (yeah, Chan plays a faux French valet this time; will Passepartout ever be played by a Frenchman?) works for a Fogg whose love interest in a French woman (huh?). Oh, and California’s Governor Shwarzenegger makes a cameo appearance (which he did before becoming governor). If someone sees this movie, let me know how it went; hard to say if I’ll see it. (sidenote – a tv version with Pierce Brosnan as Fogg was especially good, if I can remember it).

Yahoo.com gives more for free storage. Ooooh. Awesome. See what happens when capitalist competition works? Yahoo felt threatened by Google’s Gmail, and thus gives the Yahoo’ers more. Yeah!

Pardon me as I go Yahoo…