Dream

No attempt to make sense of this - more of a documentary effort, capturing images, impressions.

I was in a northern country, maybe Sweden. An indifferent intelligent place. I might have been with criminals, people who didn't belong here, who were up to no good.I might have one of them.

I met a girl in a public place, maybe a gallery that featured sparse bloodless art. She was thin and blond - pretty - not exactly friendly or inviting. She seemed bothered by something and suspicious of me. But she came with me anyway - as if I offered unlikely hope.

We were in a room and I noticed the ocean beyond the window. The water was covered in snow and ice but people played in it, swimming in paths they cleared through the snow and ice. They seemed to have fun, not to notice the cold.

I was asleep and she was nearby. I became aware that it was the most restful sleep in a long time. I savored that, at peace. Then I peered in the half light at the girl lying beside me. I saw her cat eyes looking back at me, amused but sympathetic.

Evan Birthday Pics - 2011

Thanksgiving, 2010

Other Worlds

We talked about other worlds.

(Bob was told by a close relative who once worked in a criminal law office that two inches below the surface there is another world the rest of us don’t know anything about.)

I still think about it.

 

The place where they sold roasting hogs was another world.

Crossing the mountains into Burke’s Garden was like entering another world. In places the mist was so thick you could barely see the road, just hear the gravel crunch and feel the ruts, knowing that on one side the mountain loomed, unseen but felt, and on the other side the edge crumbled off into nothing. The road could have forked, gone somewhere else, and we would have not known it.

It was another world on the Appalachian Trial where I walked out to pee (knowing that I would write “I pee in the mist on the Appalachian Trial”). After a few hundred feet I could not see Bob or Big Boy (the Land Cruiser). There was just the sound of my own water splashing on the already wet ground and the whisper of wind in the trees, like the sound of old hymns. I could have gotten turned around and gone the wrong way into the wilderness.

The Burke’s Garden Café and General Store was another world.

We had crossed the last mountain and were in the valley, driving down a narrow paved road past well-kept farms. The mist had lifted but the sky was still overcast. At first the building seemed abandoned. There were no vehicles visible. But going past, lights shone from behind chintz curtains on the front windows. There was a sign. And in the parking lot on the other side, we saw an old Mercedes diesel sedan with a sooty rear bumper and a faded red Subaru Outback.

Note 9/27/2012 - Got this picture wrong. Here from the trip with Karen is where Bob and I ate. By 2012 the place was closed. The Subaru is Piggy.

 

I said, “Let’s stop here and eat lunch.”

 

Bob said, “Sure” and turned around.

 

We parked beside the Subaru (it had a Vermont tag; the Mercedes was from Virginia) and walked around to the front. I pulled back an unpainted screen door. Hinges creaked. Inside the place seemed bigger than outside. That might have been because the rear was filled with cases and shelves illuminated by a few dim lights. I could not see the back wall, just those individual pools of clarity.

 

But it was cheery up front, six tables on one side and a counter and small grill on the other side. A couple sat at one of the tables, heads inclined toward each other talking in low voices. They seemed middle aged. He was balding. She had short blond hair, suggesting a recent bout with chemotherapy. They were dressed in clothes that might have come from LL Bean, but not this year.

 

A tall woman wearing jeans and a baggy blue sweater stood at the grill, facing away from us. Her black hair was fluffy and streaked with gray. There were holes in the elbows of her sweater. Her jeans were snug but not tight. The left back pocket was frayed. When the screen shut she spoke over her shoulder, “Sit anywhere you like. I’ll be over in a minute.” She had high cheekbones like an Indian or a Russian. Her eyes were green. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Bob and I took the other table by the front window. Down the road to the left was an old white frame church. A rock wall bordered a large graveyard. Tombstones gathered on the hill like curious children.

Bob nodded toward the people at the adjoining table. “Good morning folks.”

The man glanced up; his lean face breaking into smile. “Morning.”

 

The woman nodded and smiled but didn’t say anything. Her thin face was pretty; her skin was translucent.

I said, “Interesting place. Unexpected.”

The man looked around as if he was just now aware of his surroundings, “Yes it is interesting.”

The woman spoke. Her voice had a fragile bell like quality. “But not unexpected.”

The brunette woman came out from the behind the counter. She placed plates in front of the couple and leaned over and patted the thin woman on the shoulder, her hand lingering like a caress. Then, walking over to our table, she pointed to a chalk board on the wall. “Gentlemen, my name is Grace. That’s what we have for lunch today. Drinks are tea, homemade cider, lemonade, coffee. Do you need a minute?”

We glanced at the board.

I said, “I see something. Let me try the scrapple sandwich. And I’ll have tea.”

The woman laughed, a throaty, rich sound. “Do you know what scrapple is?”

“Like North Carolina livermush, right?”

“You do know. Ours is home grown, put up right here in the valley. In the sandwich it’s fried with a slice of onion, cheese, mayonnaise and mustard. The bread is homemade, sliced thick.”

Bob snorted. “Thank you Grace. I’ll stick to the BLT. And I’ll have tea.”

The couple at the next table resumed their low conversation. Occasionally there was the sound of a fork striking a plate. They did not seem hungry. At one point the man reached across the table and touched the woman’s hand. I imagined that it must be like silk or parchment. She patted his hand on top of her hand.

Paws. That’s what Brenda and I called hands.

Bob and I talked about this and that. About the ghost town of Thurmond where we would go this afternoon. About Beckley where we had reservations tonight in a Hampton Inn and where tomorrow we would visit a coal mine.

In 10 minutes or so Grace brought our food. I was right. Scrapple was like livermush, but not quite as rich. Bob said his BLT was good.

Leaving our table Grace disappeared into the back of the store. She walked like a ballet dancer or an Indian. The couple stared into the shadows. In a few minutes Grace came back out. Looking at the thin woman, but speaking to both of them, she said, “Would you like to look around?”

Before the man could say anything the thin woman said, “Yes.”

They all walked to the back. The thin woman moved carefully, as if she might break. I heard voices then it was quiet.

Grace returned. Stopping at our table, she said, “Would you like a fried apple pie? The church ladies made them last night.”

Two Encounters

Story from trip described in travelblog, Big Trip Up North.

The Frenchman.

It was at the start of our day trip along the Cabot Trail around Cape Breton. We stopped at the Gaelic College gift shop, one of a dozen or so modest structures dedicated to the culture of the settlers of this part of Nova Scotia.



Out front, a boy wearing kilts played bagpipes in the misty rain. Later when I encountered the Frenchman I tried to imagine the music was martial but really it was just sad noise played by a wet kid. (Bob said the boy tried to get out of the rain but the big jolly woman who ran the gift shop made him stay out front where he could be seen and heard by potential customers.)

Bob went to the other end of the store looking for gifts which he would ask the gift shop to mail home to his family. I looked at smaller items that I could fit into my side of the BMW's trunk.

I was standing in line waiting to check out my few purchases when the Frenchman came in. I assumed that's what he was. A big handsome fellow with a roman nose, he had the same proud manner that I had come to associate with the French Canadian motorcyclists we encountered throughout Nova Scotia. Not exactly looking at anybody he seemed to offer to fight every man in the place. Standing up a little straighter, hearing the kid's bagpipe music, I imagined strutting over to the big man and saying something insulting to see what he would do. I could imagine getting in a lucky punch.

But I didn't start anything. Smiling at the puzzled man, who frowned then turned away, I paid for my items and went outside to wait at the car for Bob. I snorted to myself, at myself.

The woman and the old couple.

It was a modest place, probably depending more on locals than tourists. It's atmosphere was no atmosphere. Bob thinks it was below Digby, where the ocean-going ferry deposited us after our passage across the fog-bound Bay of Fundy. I think it was somewhere north of Halifix. (Where the previous night we had stayed in Sherborne NS at the Cape Cod Motor Inn - where Bob's TV didn't work and my commode quit at 2:00 AM.)



That doesn't matter. We stopped for lunch.

Our hostess told us we could sit anywhere. We picked a table at the front with a view of the parking lot. An old man and woman sat nearby. Across the room a group of women gathered at another table. One of the women was in her mid-forties. She wore a low cut sun back dress. Her skin was dusky smooth. Her eyes were big and her hair was curly and dark.

Breaking over from my vegetarian regimen I ordered a roast beef sandwich. It had thick slices of beef on white bread slathered in mayonnaise and mustard. I chewed the meat and every time I looked up the woman was there smiling at something one of her friends said. Twice she glanced at me then turned away.

Nodding toward the old couple at the other table, Bob mentioned that the man was certainly colorful. I agreed. I don't remember the exact colors - pastels, maybe a yellow shirt and blue pants. He also wore a fisherman's cap; it too was pastel. But his face was weathered and red, either from being outside or from drinking. (Bob figured both.) Obviously this was not the man's normal attire; that was probably a real fisherman's smock. Today he was dressed up to go somewhere.

When they rose to leave, the old man had to help the woman. He supported her as she shuffled out the door and down the steps to the parking lot. He was patient. She was dignified and accepting. I speculated that maybe they were driving from one of the smaller towns to a medical facility in Halifax, or some other bigger place. It was the sort of trip I was familiar with. Bob said maybe so and we both tried to see the car and the tag but there was a distraction and we missed it.

When it was time for us to go our waitress/hostess asked us if we were ready for our "slips". We were in a foreign country.

Leaving the restaurant I glanced over to the pretty woman. She did not look up, but I got the impression she had only just turned away.

It was my turn to drive. Perhaps I sauntered a little walking over to get behind the wheel of Bob's expensive little convertible, wondering if the woman could see me.

Then I remembered the old man.

Girl Who Looked Like Brenda

Story from trip described in travelblog, Big Trip Up North.

Both Bob and I thought that the young waitress at the Chili’s in Bennington, Vermont looked like a youthful Brenda - creamy tan, high cheekbones, serious manner, cat eyes, blond hair hanging in a loose braid off one shoulder. Like Brenda, she resembled the actress Kim Novak. When we returned to the Hampton Inn a few miles down the road I got the key to the BMW and went back out.

She had not been our waitress before. I said to the hostess, another pretty young woman, “Remember me?"

She claimed that she did.

Putting on my best Big Daddy manner, I asked, "Would yall please seat me at a table waited on by that lovely girl with the long blond braid?”

The hostess frowned. I waved my hands and added, “No, no child; don't get the wrong idea. I know I'm old enough to be her daddy.” Leaning forward I added in a confiding manner, “That’s who she reminds me of. My own little girl. I just had to get a closer look.”

The pretty hostess snorted. “This ought to be good. Sure. Why not. I’ll put you in Abbey’s section.”

She seated me in a booth separated from the bar by a Tiffany-style stained glass (plastic actually), partition. By this time the dinner crowd – family locals – had been mostly replaced by the bar crowd – single locals, their nasal New England voices getting loud and good humored just beyond my low wall.

Abbey showed up in a few minutes. She stood well away from the table. Her cat eyes were narrow; her full mouth neutral. Up close her skin was even smoother. I felt ancient. She said, “Yes.”

Big Daddy died. I managed to get out, "Ah, just coffee and dessert please. Apple pie."

Her face softened. She must have felt sorry for the old man who looked at her then looked away. "You asked for me?"

I said in my usual voice. "Yes, you remind me of somebody. You have heard that before?"

The corner of her mouth lifted a little. "Sure. " - she hesitated - " I am supposed to remind you of your own little girl. Right?"

I peered at her more closely. "Well actually you might look a little like her. But that is not who I had in mind. It's my wife."

She laughed. "That's familiar too. And where is she now?"

"Ah, she is dead."

Abbey's face dropped. "Oh". She added, "I've heard that one too. Yes, well, I'll get your order." As she walked away, I noticed that from the rear she was a little sturdier than Brenda, more like the real Kim Novak.

She returned in a few minutes with the pie and coffee, which she placed on the table before me. As she started to walk away, I said, "I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable. But you do look like her. I was in here earlier with my travelling companion - we are staying at the Hampton down the road - and both of us commented about the resemblance. I had to come back."

The girl hesitated. "When did she die, your wife?"

"About nine months ago."

"Where are you from?" Her smile now was friendly. "Somewhere south I know."

"North Carolina, near Charlotte. Have you ever been there?"

She shook her head, "Nope, never have."

As she stepped away again. I said, "You ever hear of Kim Novak? That's who you look like - who Brenda, my wife looked like."

She turned around and stared at me. "My mother told me that. I've seen some of her old movies. Picnic and Vertigo. It's sort of freaky. Your wife - Brenda - she did too?"

"Yep."

The girl looked at me closely. "You are not like that guy in Vertigo are you?"

"James Stewart?"

"Yeah the man who was trying to turn the second girl into the first girl - the one that drowned ."

I laughed. (My heart skipped a beat. Literally. That's what it does.) "No. I'm harmless. Just an admirer."

The girl smiled. "Well I've got to go back to work. " She reached down to touch my arm. Her hand was smooth. She smelled like fresh soap.

She said "Thank you for dropping by - ?"

"Tom."

"OK Tom."

"OK Abbey."

She walked off.

Later when she brought me the check and I left her a good but not immoderate tip she said, "Take care of yourself Tom."

I said, "You too Abbey."

It wasn't that night in Bennington but the next night, in Altoona, that I had the dream and woke up not knowing who or where I was - not remembering the dream except that it might have involved another woman and another life that was more real than where I was.

I say sir, who are you calling a bat?

Story from trip described in travelblog, Big Trip Up North.

(Tour bus - old people in distance)

The blind man with the cane started it. But the other was not blameless.

It was near Pleasant Bay on Cape Breton Island. One of those impossibly beautiful places where the land drops into the ocean. We had pulled off at an overlook, hoping that the sign was right and that we would see whales.

The first tour bus was already there when arrived. It had deposited about 30 - 40 seniors. Most stood at the rail looking out at the gray water. Some, pushing walkers or thrusting out with canes, roamed the parking area. Everybody seemed in good spirits.

No whales were in sight.

The second bus pulled in a few minutes later. The driver maneuvered around the first bus, tapping his horn to clear wanderers out of the way.

(Several of the wanderers seemed offended, which might explain what happened happened a few minutes later - the ferocity of it.)

A lady wearing a baseball cap and a blue wind breaker muttered "Asshole" as she scuttled to one side. A man, moving just enough to let the large vehicle creep by, said, "Stuff it." He carried his walking stick like a weapon . He might have been ex-military or police. Probably an NCO.

After the passengers from the second bus disembarked, the overlook became crowded. People bumped into one another. Walkers got tangled up. There wasn't enough room at the rail. There were muttered apologies and and a few complaints. ("Sorry". "You stepped on my foot." "Watch it." "Be careful." "Ouch.")

The last person off the second bus was a blind man. He seemed especially disturbed. He swung his white cane in wide arcs as he moved around the parking area. His ashen face was contorted in a grin or a grimace. I don't know where he was going. Nobody looked after him; his companions from the second bus stood out of the way. It was only a matter of time before he hit somebody.

As luck would have it his cane slapped the the leg of the man who had made the "Stuff it" comment.

The man bellowed, "Eooww! Watch what you are doing you blind old bat!".

The blind man stopped, pulled himself erect, and, turning in the direction where the other stood, said in a precise British accent, “I say sir, who are you calling a bat?”

The “Stuff it” commenter stepped closer. “You. You blind bat.”

The blind man cocked his head and seemed to concentrate. Then he swung his cane precisely in the direction of the “Stuff it” man’s cranium. However, “Stuff it” must have been anticipating the move because he raised his own stick to block the strike. He pulled his stick back, preparing a counter blow, but the blind man maintained contact between his cane and the other’s stick.

They moved around the parking lot like that, grunting, mouthing breathless curses. Occasionally the blind man would pull his cane back and take a swing which the other blocked. “Stuff it” never managed to get his stick free for a blow.

Members of the two groups offered encouragement, riders from the first group shouting, “Go Fred!” and those from second group yelling, “Whack him good Nigel!”

The two tour bus drivers tried to break it up but seemed reluctant to get in too close. (The driver of the first bus was tall and skinny; the driver of the second bus was short, fat and red-faced.)

After several minutes the participants were gasping for breath and the fight appeared to be winding down. That is when the driver of the second bus, angling into position to grab the blind man thrust his large butt into the stomach of the woman in the baseball cap and the little blue jacket. Screeching "you bloody oalf" the woman flailed out with her hat. Turning away from the flurry of blows, the driver stumbled over another woman from the first bus. She hit him in the crotch with a large handbag. He went "oof!" and staggered into another man - also from the first bus. This man, pink cheek and merry, pulled a canister of pepper spray (the Mace brand I think) from his pocket which he emptied into the fat bus driver's eyes.

The fat bus driver screamed.

Passengers from the second bus joined in to rescue their hapless driver. Insults were offered. Blows were exchanged. A general melee ensued. The parking lot was a sea of thrashing old bodies. Walkers were used as battering rams, canes as swords.

Bob and I managed to sneak away without getting involved. But as we were pulling off, a man, false teeth grinning through the sheen of blood that ran down his face leaned over the door of our open car and said, "I saw you two in Sydney. You really out to join us. It's loads of fun."

In the Gorham Cemetery

A story taking place in Gorham New Hampshire, near Mt. Washington, proud home of "the worst weather in the world." See the travelblog, Big Trip Up North.




Walking back down US 16 at 5:30 AM from McDonald's to the Gorham Motor Lodge. Not a serious walk; I was wearing my Crocs.

I stopped by the cemetery for a closer look at one of those vaults where they used to put people in the winter when the ground was too hard to dig graves. Like other vaults we saw throughout New England this one had a heavy metal door and was covered in earth and grass (Whitman's "grave hair"). The structure resembled a bunker that seemed designed not only to protect the inside, but the outside , as if the dead might spontaneously explode. (I can imagine them going off in late winter or early spring with a muffled "Whump!" and locals proclaiming, "Eh ah, waited too long on old Fester.")

Sipping coffee from my insulated McDonald's cup I wandered past the vault toward the back of the cemetery. The main drag was no longer visible and I was not surprised to hear a voice say, "Hello."

It was a man sitting on the edge of a large rock outcropping. He seemed to be wearing leather clothes. I took him to be one of the French Canadian motorcyclists who frequent this area. Beside him sat a huge dog - something like a Sheppard. The dog stared at me with yellow eyes. I could see no leash or collar.

I said, "Hello, how are you?"

The man said, "Just fine. Out for a morning stroll?"

His accent was not French Canadian - but something from further down the Appalachians. "Yeah. I was walking by, thought I would look around. Interesting place." I glanced at the dog. "You and your friend also out for a stroll?"

The man stood. It was odd. He didn't lean forward, use his hands to push up from knees. He just straightened up. He was big. At least six feet six inches tall. His hair was long and white. His motorcycle garb, if that is what it was, was brown and appeared to be hand-stitched. The dog also rose. The dog was not a dog but a wolf.

"You could say that."

"Your friend is a wolf I think."

The animal loped over to me. I held out my hand. He touched it with the tip of his nose, wagged his tail and stepped back.

"Yep, Sam is pure timber wolf. He likes you. I'd take that as a good sign."

"I do."

I had seen several motorcycles with side cars and persisted in the idea that this man and his friend were bikers. Gesturing toward the road, I said, "You and Sam ride in, stay at one of the motels in Gorham?"

The man gestured with a turn of his chin to the mountains behind us. "No, Sam and I are from up there - south of here. Sam likes cheeseburgers so we come into town every now and then. That crazy guy at McDonald's - you probably met him - brings them out back. " The man laughed. The wolf seemed to smile. "He thinks we are spirits."

"I saw that man. He was mopping the lobby. Are you? Spirits?"

"John - that's his name - has consumed too much weed. Messed up his mind. He thinks there are spirits up and down the Appalachians, on the ridges, in the woods. A 2000 mile wilderness filled with ghosts." The man laughed again. The wolf still smiled. "He sees yellow eyes whenever he drives through. He thinks we hide in the undergrowth, watch people go by."

"No wonder John is crazy."

"No wonder."

"Anyway, it would be boring - just watching."

"You can see a lot watching. And of course there would be other things to do."

"Of course."

The man turned and headed toward the shadows behind the last graves. He said over his shoulder, "Well, Tom, we have to go."

"How did you know my name?"

"A lucky guess. You look like a Tom. Come see us sometime."

He and the wolf disappeared into the woods. I walked back to the front. Bob rumbled by in the BMW. I walked to McDonald's for another cup of coffee and an orange juice.

John was putting out napkins.

I said, "Hello John."

He looked at me with crazy eyes.

The Execution

Story from trip described in travelblog, Big Trip Up North.



It was the damnest thing, when the reenactors grabbed that old man, him yelling in Japanese. I suppose it was our fault.

Bob and I had stopped at the Halifax Citadel, which is an old fort in the center of the city, strategically overlooking the harbor. We had time because the ferries from North Sydney to Port Aus Basques were all booked up by old people in campers and the trip to Newfoundland was out.

(When pausing too long at a complicated intersection we were yelled at by a young man in the traffic behind us. "Just go, go - sir!" Maybe that prompted Bob to drive up to the fort.)

We parked the Z4 in a lot at the top of the hill and walked through a passage in the wall to the interior. Bob said it reminded him of the fort in Puerto Rico near where he had been stationed in the Army. He was an MP. I think the fort was El Morro.

Inside was a large white gravel parade field, old barracks and other structures, including a gift shop where some tourists were gathered. Cannon emplacements were located around the top of the wall. A squad of reenactors, dressed in military kilts practiced drills. They'd march a couple of hundred meters this way, then do a turn or a wheel and go the other way. Their rifles seemed real.

I said to Bob, "I bet I could still march those men." and muttered, "hup thrup threep four, left,left, left right left."

Bob drawled, "Well you go ahead."

An old Japanese woman who was with an old Japanese man and several generations of family frowned at me. She wore a sky blue golfing hat with just a brim. Their little boy screamed like a samurai and went running off, crunching in the gravel.

The young man calling cadence for the squad of reenactors had a voice like a bull. He was accompanied by another pretend NCO who walked alongside the squad telling them to dress up the line, to straighten up, not to bounce. The boys, red faced and serious, seemed to get into it and for a time I thought they might be the real thing, maybe soldiers on loan from a local garrison. Bob thought they were silly.

Bob and I climbed to the top of the parapet, looking back down on the parade field and out across the city. The walk was about the same height as the town's taller structures. My friend Max once said he'd like to live here and I tried to figure out what made the place appealing. Maybe because it is a nice size and picturesque.

A boy wearing kilts and a khaki shirt was standing by one of the gun emplacements. At this point I still thought the reenactors might be actual military and asked him about that. He said, "Not really. Although some of us were in the Army. I was for instance."

Then I asked him if this fort had ever repelled American invaders. He grinned, "No, the Americans never got this far North."

Bob, who had been standing to one side, leaned over and drawled, "You know son, you could make these reenactments a little more exciting."

The boy said, "How's that sir?"

Bob pointed to a long brick wall at the base of the opposite parapet and casually advised. "Well you could stage a mock execution."

"Eh, an execution you say."

"Sure just grab somebody - a tourist even - and drag them over to that wall and pretend to shoot them. Don't even tell the person what is going on. Just take them kicking and screaming. It would be fun."

The boy said, "Uhm."

We walked on, continuing our tour of the parapet. Another group of pretend soldiers, dressed in different uniforms, were running signal flags up what appeared to be a ship's mast.

We were back on the parade field when the yelling started. Stepping around the barracks we saw four members of the reeenactor squad dragging the old Japanese man over to the wall. The remainder of the squad, led by our friend from the parapet, were forming into a line. The old man yelled and kicked. The old woman screamed and beat at the young men with her sky blue cap.

But the reeanactors, faces fixed into polite smiles, persisted and got the old man placed against the wall. Two held him more or less in position while the rest ran back to join the firing squad.

While the other tourists, including the remainder of the old man's family watched, the reenactor NCO quickly yelled, "Ready, aim, fire."

At "Ready" the squad brought up their rifles; at "Aim" they pointed them at the old man, (who now faced his executioners with stoic composure), and at "Fire" the group yelled out "Bang!"

After a moment, the onlookers, including the Japanese applauded. The old man's son, who was carrying an expensive looking Nikon, said, "Again please. I want to shoot a picture."

He said something to the old man who did not have to be restrained this time. The old woman still seemed mad. But at the command of "Fire" everybody yelled "Bang!".

Everyday Epistemology #2

(Second post trying to figure out how to figure stuff out - or something like that.)

I know this nice young woman with an improbably exotic name who is a fan of Libertarian Ron Paul. A few months ago she expressed concerns about pressures to force her children to have the H1N1 vaccine. She cited experts whose views contradict the establishment opinion that the vaccine is a good thing. We are not close friends so I don’t know if Libertarian principles influenced her opinions but based on what she wrote in FaceBook I’d guess so.

I also “know” (in the cyberspace sense) another nice fellow who owns a liberal political blog. He writes a lot so I can’t find the particular post, but he said something about “anything being possible”.

Then there is the debate over climate change which is now heating up (having never cooled down) at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. The proponents and deniers of global warming/climate change are trotting out the same old arguments, citing the same old experts.

So, you ask, “What’s your point?”

Well, I think it’s pretty obvious. Stuff has gotten out of hand. It’s too hard to figure out. We often have to depend on experts; but, we don’t know which experts to trust. And sometimes to defend an unlikely position or just because we don’t know, we’ll proclaim “Anything is possible.”

It’s bad.

I think (for what it’s worth) that this is THE issue of our age. It’s not the questions we ask but how we figure out the answers.

People being people, this has always been a problem. However, I think it is worse today because so much is so complicated. Many of our questions are linked with technical issues about which even the experts disagree. The layperson has little hope of getting much more than a superficial understanding and that often comes from biased sources. What seems reasonable and true often isn’t.

So what’s a poor truth seeker to do? Other than be aware of the problem and sensitive to bad thinking (ours and others) I am not sure. However, I have written some things which may or may not be helpful.

The Freedom vs Fairness blog tries to tease out the roots of political biases. Although my liberal bias certainly shows, I think the underlying premise is correct - that liberals are more motivated by issues of fairness and that conservatives are more motivated by issues of freedom. Knowing where arguments are coming from might promote not only understanding but sympathy - maybe even empathy. Since doing these posts I am less likely to dismiss conservative positions out of hand.

The Nassim Taleb Black Swan post in the Book Reportz blog (better yet, read his book) examines wrong logic and the way of empiricism. In the interest of explaining the black swan phenomena, he rips apart all kinds of faulty thinking.

Regarding the problem of finding experts, consider these posts in Tom’s Topical Topics blog:

Everyday Epistemology # 1

Getting Ready For The Great Climate Change Debate

SECULAR FAITH IN A SANE UNIVERSE

I try.

Context #1

I have always been interested in the notion of context - how things get meaning from their surroundings. (Is meaning absolute/transcendent or relative/subjective? You know, existential shit.)

The latest round started when a friend complained that there were no overview manuals at her new job, just a lot of detail documentation. She was having trouble figuring out how stuff fits in. She needed a big picture, some context.

That reminded me of something I had read and blogged about a few weeks earlier, about how cell phone users create their own private conversational context and lose contact with their immediate physical context - which can cause problems, say, when driving a car.

After that, examples of context (or the lack thereof) kept popping up.

More-or-less randomly…

Columnist David Brooks wrote an article about how some psychologists believe that behavior traits change from context to context - e.g., that we are different people for different situations. We don’t exist in one big context but a lot of little contexts, each of which defines us.

Brooks wrote another article comparing dating habits of people in the “Happy Days” era to the extreme daters in the cell phone/computer era. The former met in the larger context of schools/churches/workplaces whereas the later interact in the smaller contexts of self-defined social networks.

Back at Cardinal doing training films, we always preceded tight, detailed pictures with wider, establishing shots. This was to provide a visual context. Otherwise the close shots would make no sense.

Working as a tech writer at IBM in 1989, there were no overview guides for the documentation I was updating. Just a huge collection of detailed reference guides. The user was expected to provide his/her own context to the material.

I have read (and probably written) many wordy introductions over the years when all I or anyone wanted was simply to find directions for getting the job done. There are times when the big picture is too big - too abstract.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard for documentation seems task oriented rather than concept oriented. This latest scheme for organizing technical information is about doing the job rather than explaining the larger context of the job. Although DITA includes a concept category, the descriptions I’ve seen don’t seem especially interested in providing larger context.

And on and on.

I am not sure what any of this means - if anything. But in my own search for context, I wonder of I have discovered something about context itself? I wonder if technology and human inclination are moving us into more narrowly defined contexts - maybe more subjective?

I don’t know. More on this later. (I am plagued by other possibilities. What about modern science? Does the subjectivity of quantum uncertainty and relativity represent a narrowing of context? What about modern philosophy? There hasn’t been any grand shit philosophy since Kant. Aside from the post-Kantian sputters of the 19th century it's been narrow and technical and just weird - context writ small. Are we getting smaller while the universe gets bigger?)

Disliking Other People's Cell Phone Conversations

It's probably an age thing.

But I dislike being around people using cell phones. It isn't just the voices - loud and oblivious; it's the generally distracted air that envelops such people. The sense that they are somewhere else. To me, cell phone users look vaguely foolish - sort of the way people look when having sex. (Somebody - Chris Rock, Richard Pryor did a piece on that.)

I'm sure part of it is simply resentment. (I refuse to text. I will not tweet. And sex... well.) However, based on something I read, my bias, although still mostly an old person's nattering, might have some scientific justification.

My active interest (more than just vague annoyance) began with recent stories on TV citing studies about how dangerous it is to drive while using cell phones (to text or talk). Apparently driving while using cell phones ranks right up there with DWI and DUI (although I suppose the latter could technically include any sort of influence).

What surprised me was that it is not just the mechanical difficulty of simultaneously handling a cell phone and driving a car. Even using a hands-free device is dangerous. It is something about the cell phone conversation itself.

This led me to wonder if talking on a cell phone is more dangerous than talking with someone who is physically present in the car? Which led me to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology .

The study shows that talking on a cell phone is more distracting (and dangerous) than talking with someone who is physically present in the car. The difference is context. People in face-to-face conversation share a physical context. When in a car, both people are aware of their surroundings, of the traffic. The surroundings can become a part of the conversation.

People in cell-phone conversations do not share a physical context. They don't even exist in the current physical reality. Each speaker, withdrawn from the here and now, exists in a third reality of the conversation itself. There is only the other person's voice. It is another world. No wonder technology that enables such escape sells so well.

It easy to see why being oblivious to physical surroundings would make cell phone users so dangerous behind the wheel.

It might also help explain why cell phone users are so annoying. Being oblivious and indifferent to one's physical context means being oblivious and indifferent to the people who share that context. It seems rude. Maybe when we withdraw into cell phone conversations we violate basic protocols that define how strangers share space. Perhaps a minimal awareness is required (not eye contact at least not in urban environments - maybe just a sense of others presence).

Then again we the offended might simply have personal boundaries issues, be paranoid, - be old.

(And yes, I do have a cell phone and I use it.)

Relativity

In “Descartes’ Bones”, the book we are reading for this month’s meeting, the author seems to blame Descartes for moral relativism which makes me nervous because I figure that an assault on secularism is coming next - and I have been enduring that crap all my adult life.

However, it is interesting, the relativity thing.

Galileo posed the first scientific theory of relativity. He said that all uniform motion is relative - no absolutes. For example, if you’ve got one spaceship in an otherwise empty universe there is no way you can say the spaceship is moving or not (unless it is moving in a nonuniform manner). If you add another spaceship moving relative to the first, the only thing you could say is that there is relative motion between the two - not whether one or both are moving or one (but not both) are standing still.



Another example is when two trains pass one another on nearby tracks. If the motion is smooth and uniform you have a hard time telling if it’s your train or the other that is moving (or if it is both).

Not having a fixed frame of reference can be pretty disorienting which might explain why some people are so disturbed by moral relativism. However it should be noted that Galileo’s relativism was part of a theory which said that if the laws of mechanics are valid in one coordinate system (stuff moving together in uniform manner) they are also valid in another coordinate system (other stuff moving in a uniform manner in another direction or speed). In his theory Galileo preserved a larger absolute - the laws of mechanics. He ensured that the universe stayed sane.

Einstein did the same thing when he extended Galileo’s theory to include all the laws of physics - including electromagnetic phenomena like light and radio waves. The problem was that in the decades prior to the time Einstein wrote his Special Theory of Relativity, the speed of light had been proven to be the same regardless of the motion of the source. In some clever thought experiments Einstein showed that this meant that no object could be measured exceeding the speed of light.

That’s when things got weird. Replacing the simple Galilean formulas used to transfer measurements between coordinate systems with more complex transformation rules, Einstein described a strange new universe. Relative to an outside observer, the faster you go, the more your clock slows down, mass increases and length shrinks.

However, like Galileo, Einstein was ensuring that the universe stays sane. If objects could exceed the speed of light, events could precede causes and things could get seriously out of whack. Both men restricted personal claims to knowledge in order to preserve larger, universal absolutes.

I don’t know if this has any bearing on Descartes and moral relativism - but it is an interesting point. Maybe next time.

Here are a couple of crude little videos illustrating some of these points:





Other such videos can be see on the bog "Einstein - Evolution of Physics".

Everyday Epistemology # 1

How do you know what you know?

If you don’t know what you know, can you trust anybody else to know it for you?



Be very suspicious.

Everybody is biased - coming down on one side or the other of various issues. For instance there is the freedom -vs- fairness divide . Liberals want everything to be fair - treatment of the planet, treatment of poor people, treatment of threatened species, treatment of rats if you belong to PETA, etc. Conservatives want to be free to do whatever they want to do. They don’t want anybody telling them anything. They don't care if the world goes to hell in a hand basket so long as they get to own the basket.

Everybody is scripted - unwitting players in the family and class dramas by which we view the world and organize our biases.

“I worked hard for my money and now YOU want to give it to THOSE people.”

“Hey man, you know THEY will always keep a brother down.”

Everybody hates - something or somebody. If opposing sides didn’t exist we’d invent them based on our biases and scripts. Although we are a cooperative species we are also a combative species (can’t have one without the other). We need villains.

So, who can you trust?

Not those with biases, not those with scripts, not those with hatreds. Their opinions and ideas are tainted.

(And as I have noted in a previous post, you also can't trust passionate people, people who seek credibility by citing lone-wolf PhD's from MIT, people who place too much faith in single subsets of data, and conservatives with ties to the fossil fuel industry.)

Who does that leave?

Something seems wrong here.

(More to come.)

Getting Ready For The Great Climate Change Debate

A Lincolnesque Moment?

The debate over climate change legislation is coming this summer to a congress, cubicle, bar, and blog near you.

You don't hear a lot now, but it could be pretty big stuff. After all, if the global warming people are right, the fate of the planet could be at stake. (I like to think of the debate as a little black swan being trailed by bigger, nastier swans.)

Given that this might be a Lincolnesque moment (but probably without a Lincoln) it behooves us to get ready - to figure out what we believe so that we can send emails to congresspeople, argue with friends, etc.

Who Not To Trust

Because the subject is so complicated, for me it is mostly a matter of figuring out who to trust and not to trust. Should I trust liberal Paul Krugman, conservative George Will, somewhat conservative David Brooks - or the sincere lady down the hall who says she gets her answers from an MIT PhD?

I have come up this personal checklist regarding who not to trust.

I tell myself to:

• Watch out for really passionate people. As the poem says, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". They often confuse certitude with rectitude, and like the guests on Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer are inclined to drama.

• Be especially wary of passionate people with distinct conservative or liberal biases. As argued in my Freedom -vs- Fairness blog, both sides can be tainted. Conservatives, who value economic freedom above all else, resist restricting anyone's freedom to make money - even if that freedom does damage to others. They cannot even admit the need for restrictions. Liberals, having extended the notion of fairness to include equal treatment of the planet itself (not a bad thing) can also be suspect. Even if it were proven that there is nothing we can do to counter climate change, I expect that some liberals would want to enact punitive legislation just for the damage already done.
  

• Be alert to those who seek credibility by citing lone-wolf scientists from MIT (or Harvard, Yale, Cal Tech - wherever). They can be very seductive. Enough PhD's have been produced by prestigious schools to support any position imaginable. Because these people are crazy does not mean that they aren't smart or smart sounding. Even legitimate scientists are not to be trusted individually. That's not how the process of public prediction and confirmation works.

• Try not to place too much faith in any single subset of data. In a field as huge and complex as climate change it is possible to find observations to support any position. Those crazy PhDs noted above are not without their empirical evidence.

• Be very very dubious of conservatives - passionate or otherwise - with ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Who To Trust

So, who do you trust?

Some people argue that you should study the subject and become sufficiently well versed to have your own legitimate opinions.

I don't think that's possible, even if you have a PhD from MIT. As proposed in the SECULAR FAITH IN A SANE UNIVERSE post in this blog, I think that complex issues are best answered collectively by the largest creditable community you can find. That's how science works. The weirdness gets averaged out and what's left is the best opinion at the time.

Based on my web browsing (if you trust me), the best consensus on climate change comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cited on EPA's Climate Change web site.

State Of Knowledge

So, what do we know?

Quoting the State of Knowledge, from the EPA and the IPCC:

Scientists know with virtual certainty that:

• Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
• The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
• An “unequivocal” warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7°F occurred from 1906-2005. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (IPCC, 2007).
• The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
• Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

What's very likely...

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations" (IPCC, 2007). In short, a growing number of scientific analyses indicate, but cannot prove, that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are contributing to climate change (as theory predicts). In the coming decades, scientists anticipate that as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise, average global temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise as a result and precipitation patterns will change.

What's not certain...

Important scientific questions remain about how much warming will occur, how fast it will occur, and how the warming will affect the rest of the climate system including precipitation patterns and storms. Answering these questions will require advances in scientific knowledge in a number of areas:

• Improving understanding of natural climatic variations, changes in the sun's energy, land-use changes, the warming or cooling effects of pollutant aerosols, and the impacts of changing humidity and cloud cover.
• Determining the relative contribution to climate change of human activities and natural causes.
• Projecting future greenhouse emissions and how the climate system will respond within a narrow range.
• Improving understanding of the potential for rapid or abrupt climate change.

What Next?

Given the State of Knowledge quoted above, doomsday seems possible but not inevitable - at least not yet. Therefore, when I write my emails and present my arguments, I'm going to propose that we do something but not everything - holding out the possibility of doing more should accepted science indicate that the doomsday scenario is more likely.

A cap and trade system seems fine, or maybe a straight carbon tax. Because there is no doomsday consensus yet, there is probably not the political will for really effective action. But a public policy tipping point might be possible. And regardless, "going green" seems like a good thing. Although nobody knows for sure (that's how black swans work) it seems reasonable to believe that the various green initiatives might develop new technologies that could actually spur the economy rather than drag it down.

Link Summary

• Global Warming Stobz (a graphical topic map of main issues with links to sites of interest)
• Freedom -vs- Fairness blog (finding core differences between liberals and conservatives)
• SECULAR FAITH IN A SANE UNIVERSE post(what Tom trusts)
• EPA Climate Change web site
• IPCC report
• Black swan stuff