Corruption

Something bad happens. Let’s call it X. And let’s also assume that X is a random event that happens to a great number of people.

I discover or invent or otherwise create something that keeps X from occurring. Call that Y. Y prevents X from occurring. I start a business to mass-produce Y. But my livelihood depends, really, not on the production of Y, but on the existence of X.

Now, a question. Why on earth would I ever want X, that something bad, to ever go away?

If it did, if Y was successful to the degree that X completely went out of existence, how then would I make my livelihood?

Let’s take this scenario a step further. If Y eradicates X, and my income depends on X, wouldn’t it be better if I spent my R&D to develop or discover or otherwise create something else that doesn’t quite eliminate X, but rather, alleviates it’s effects or temporarily makes it go away? The result is that it makes X less bad, but keeps X in existence, so my livelihood remains in existence. Call this second discovery or invention or creation Z.

X is something bad that happens to a lot of people. Y causes X to disappear. But Z causes X to be not as bad as it is in its original form.

Wouldn’t it make economic and financial sense to shift from mass-producing Y to mass-producing Z?

Is this ethical? More concretely, is this right or wrong?

Emphasis on Z at the expense of Y to deal with X. This seems to be the standard operating model for 20th and 21st century America. Well, let’s not bash this great country of ours (and I mean that sincerely) too much. It’s the working model for the majority of our global capitalistic society as a whole. I can see how hundreds of books can be written on the previous paragraph alone and I suppose more than a few have. But it really bothers me.

X, Y, and Z can be lots of things. A small example: just recently my kitchen was overrun with teeny little ants. You’d never see more than ten or twenty at a time, but they were always there, on the countertops, near the sink, on the walls. My wife would open a cabinet and see the ants scurry, noting that it was like the watching the running of the bulls at Pamplona. Nothing we tried got rid of them. So we called an exterminator.

Here, our ant infestation is X.

What did the exterminators do? Put us on a program where they’d come out quarterly to spray around the foundation of the house to keep the little guys away and we’d pay them quarterly to do this. Now I’m no expert on insects or insecticides, but to me this sounds like a perfect Z. If a one-time spray eliminated the ants (Y), how would the exterminator make any money?

What about other X’s? What about the X of disease? Cancer, heart disease, you name it. What are the Y’s and Z’s for disease? I have a lot to say on this topic in a future post.

How about the X of, oh, let’s say auto repair? Or our oil- and gasoline-based economy? Or computer technology? Or crime, or poverty, or Iraq, or … well, you get the picture. How much of our bloated government bureaucracy is a result of this Z thinking? It can get downright depressing. And that brings to mind the X of psychotherapy. Oh dear.

I suppose the best strategy would be to take matters into our own hands as much as possible, and switch to individual-based Y thinking.

More later …

The Funniest

… book I’ve ever read – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hands down. Douglas Adams is the funniest writer period. Every page has a guaranteed chuckle. Occasionally, you’ll be forced to put the book down from laughing so hard. I have a smile on my face right now as I read this, recalling some of the jokes, characters, and setups. The trilogy has five books, and I burned through them all the summer of 1989, and occasionally re-read them from time to time. Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a close runner-up.

… music CD – Tenacious D. Yeah, it’s got side-splitting comedy bits interspersed among the songs, but some of the Jack Black-Kyle Gass compositions are hilarious. My favorites are "Dio", "Kyle Quit the Band", "Friendship", and a song whose title I can’t print here. It was the CD for me during the summer of ’07 and I almost wore it out.

… movie experience I ever had – Borat. I say ‘experience’ because, well, let’s face it, I could name at least twelve or fifteen genuinely funny films, but in order to choose a definitive one, I had to go with experience. I saw Borat almost two years ago with my friend and his father, in a packed movie theater, and everyone was on the same page. We were all one under the barrage of jokes and incredibly goofy scenarios, and we all had an awesome time. What a great way to bond with two or three hundred people.

… show on TV – The Office. No contest, here. There’s not a funnier show, or, I might add, one more uncomfortably enjoyable, to watch on the tube nowadays. Created from a hugely successful British show to be a vehicle for Steve Carrell, The Office is filled with hilarious and human characters. I have never cried harder, hoarse with laughter, unable to breathe, watching anything else.

… person I’ve ever known – Bob. Also known as Tank, Boogie Dog, and the Master of Unreality. Purveyor of the Slow Treatment. Replacer of the star with a streetlamp. Bob, you with the palindrome name, you know who you are. I’ve known him since 1984, though we’ve fallen out of touch over the past decade or so. We found ourselves in similar straits at the tail end of the ’90s, and those weekly hard-drinking sessions were some of the funniest times of my life, ever. If you’re out there and come across this, drop me a line.

Huntin’ Satellites

"What the heck was that?" my uncle cried.

We were all reclining around the campfire in the semi-nirvanic state that roaring outodoor fires seem to put people in. Some of us had beers, some didn’t, some were chatting, others were silently making their way through the myriad of stars shining down from the crisp and clear night.

Uncle was one of those others.

What did he see?

A faint yellowish object, similar to a star, except that it moved. Not a quick flashy jump like a meteor. No, this was a deliberate, straight trek across 25 or 50 degrees of sky. Then, it simply vanished.

No one believed him at first. Then he spotted another.

That piqued everyone’s interest. Soon, several more were spotted. My brother became quite adept at predicting where one would pop up. The shiny objects all appeared in the same general area of the sky but in difference places, all doing that slow orbit for a couple of fists-at-arm’s-length across the celestial backdrop, then fading out.

It was determined, after some debate, that we were sighting satellites.

After half-a-century in the business of heaving junk past escape velocity, mankind has succeeded in placing about 10,000 satellites in orbit. Some are planned and purposeful, such as communications, weather, and spy satellites, some less so, such as discarded rocket stages and the occasional lost wrench. Apparently, now, hundreds of these satellites are visible to the naked eye.

Since they’re visible only because they reflect sunlight, satellites are only spotted, say, between 45 and 90 minutes before sunrise or after sunset. After that, the earth’s shadow prevents sunlight from reaching them. They range in altitude from about 100 miles upwards to 25,000 miles. Though the size of individual satellites vary greatly, most of the ones you can spot are about the size of a small bus or a large SUV.

There’s three broad types of orbits these satellites can assume. First, there’s the geostationary orbit, which plants the satellite above the same spot of Earth because it’s period of revolution is the same as our planet’s. These are generally too far to see without the aid of a telescope. The other two types of orbits are polar, ’cause they orbit north-south and go over both poles, and equatorial, which are perpendicular to polar orbits. The lower the orbit, the faster it’s revolution. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit, about 185 miles up or so, take about 90 minutes to orbit, so you might catch ’em twice in one viewing. And if you see what appears to be a blinking satellite, it’s likely to be that discarded rocket stage tumbling along in orbit.

There’s a whole group of communication satellites called Iridium that are parked in orbit 492 miles up that offer excellent viewing. Silver-coated Teflon antenna arrays mimic mirrors, brightly reflecting sunlight down to the darkened Earth below.

The space shuttle and the International Space Station are the brightest man-made objects you’ll see up in the skies. I don’t think we ever spotted them, though. I kinda think we’d know it, you know?

If you’re curious enough to try to spot a few, the website www.satobs.org is a good place to start before you head outdoors. And www.heavens-above.com offers a when-and-where guide to help you find the best, biggest, and brightest satellites.

My uncle may have started it, spotting our first satellite oh-so-many years ago – now it’s your turn to finish it!