Voyagers on Earth

 

Remember that time on Star Trek when they were facing a new unknown enemy? The ship was a machine ship with no carbon based life forms aboard.  It was called VGER.

As it turned out, VGER was short for Voyager, an evolved artificial intelligence that returned to Earth in Star Trek (the Motion Picture) and ascended to explore higher levels of existence. It is probably the most powerful artificial entity encountered by Starfleet.

Now I'm not a big Trecky fan, but there were a lot of things that I appreciate that came from the mind of Texan Gene Roddenberry. One, the cast is multi cultural and multi species.  The purpose of the missions was to explore the universe. There is no such thing as money.  There is no pursuit of capital just pursuit of knowledge. 

In the real world, our Voyagers are now almost 20 billion miles away and they have entered space where the solar winds no longer exist. It takes about a day to send or receive a message from them.  And we lost contact with VGER 1 just last year.

This from BBC's Sky and Night:

"On 14 November 2023, the spacecraft suddenly began transmitting unintelligible data instead of its usual engineering and science report.

The spacecraft still appeared to be receiving commands and operating normally, allowing the team to diagnose the problem lay in Voyager 1’s software and develop a fix.

On 20 April, the team received the first understandable message back from the spacecraft in five months.

In 2012, Voyager 1 passed through the heliopause, the boundary at the edge of the solar wind’s influence and the start of interstellar space. The twin Voyagers are the only spacecraft to have ventured into this region, making their invaluable data worth fighting for.

After 47 years in space, both Voyager 1 and 2 are beginning to reach the end of their usable lifespan. Both are powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators, using radioactive material to generate electricity. As this radioactive material decays over time, its power output slowly decreases. 

Even once all its scientific systems are shut down, Voyager will continue transmitting a locator signal back to Earth, which will remain in range of the Deep Space Network until 2036.  At that point, the Voyagers will sail beyond our sight, but will continue to travel ever outward into the depths of the Universe."

But if they do wind up in some other galaxy, they know where to find us, thanks to the copper plates we put on them at the suggestion of Carl Sagan.  We also included a golden record. 

This from Wikipedia:

The Voyager Golden Records are two identical phonograph records which were included aboard the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977.^[1] The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them.

Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Whether or not VGER returns as advanced AI, who can say.  But we can say that our own AI on this planet is clearly headed into distant regions of Cyber Space.  I saw at least three different softwares advertised during the Olympics, one suggesting that students should use it for thank you notes.  The message of Verner Vinge and the Singularity seem particularly relevant as we earthlings find ourselves hurling threw Space/Time.

We are all Voyagers on Earth.  And we need to look forward to find our place in this universe and in this time. The Merchants of Fear will always be with us. But as it is said, We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

And as we dance to the hopeful beat of the Harris Walz, I choose to be optimistic about our future despite the urgent need for climate stabilization and the nuclear wars and starvation that will follow our non-action.

And like Earnest Tubb and Willie Nelson,

 I'll Walz across Texas with you by my side.

for  When we Dance together

 my world's in disguise

 it's a fairyland tale that's come true.

 

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Mourning Mary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Bess Faris  

1933-2023

 

 

I didn't meet Mary Bess Faris until about 17 years ago.  She was the partner of the father of my partner's best pal from medical school.  And it was then that we started having Sunday Brunch with at  least the five of us... Dan, his son Steve, my partner Dana, and Dan's partner Mary.

I knew Mary as a potter.  She would show her beautiful works at the Food Coop every year when they would have that wonderful arts and crafts show in their parking lot.  Her work was delicate and lovely, much like she was.

Actually Mary met Dan through Dan's two sons, Steve and Ross.  But make no mistake about it, Dan and Mary were the kind of late-in-life couple that you loved to be around.  They would go out with us to all kinds of events. We would take them to concerts, even outdoor events with dancers swinging from on high with all kinds of gear and tackle.  They even showed up with a gift for a Quiñceanera party for Dana's dog Misha. They were game.

We traveled a little with them.  One trip to  upper New York State was particularly enjoyable as we enjoyed the upper Hudson River Valley where the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts had their summer places.  We spent a good amount of time at FDR's home and presidential library.  It was not only the first, it was a working library and office for the four term president.

On occasion, we went to their quaint cabin on the Guadalupe River just north of San Antonio.  There, Dan and Mary lived for parts of many years in that cacophony of buildings that Dan had created.  And it was right down on the river, or as close as you would want to be given the nature of Texas rivers.  They could bathe and shower outside and watch the time roll by. It was funky but nice.

Up until the pandemic, Mary and Dan were about as active as two octogenarians can be.  They would hike in Big Bend, sometimes at their land out there. Mary was good with plants and trees and she knew them well with the aid of her luminous mind and quiet but powerful intellect.

And along with Dan and Dana,  it was Mary and I that responded to the infamous tree report that called for the removal of almost every one of your favorite trees at Barton Springs Pool.  I will always remember Mary and I walking the grounds marking each tree scheduled for removal with a small but official looking sign and iridescent surveyor's tape.  She carried a clipboard with a list of the tag numbers of the endangered trees. I  would read the tag number, Mary would check it off on the clipboard, and then we would wrap the tree with our signage.

Midway through the process, the manager of the Pool came over and asked what we were doing and that we were freaking people out.  I said I was with the City  (the utility) and that these trees were scheduled to be removed and part of good government is communicating these plans to the public in a timely, effective way.  The manager said, "OK good."

But the bulk of our time together was in our weekly brunches.  Almost every Sunday we met at noon at  various Mexican Food restaurants.  We started out on north Burnet Road at Elsie's, but over the years, we met south at El Meson, and later in central Austin at Santa Rita.  Occasionally, we would even go to the venerable classic Green Pastures.

Mary would almost always eat a bean chalupa or enchilada-like something, but she wasn't too proud to not eat some chips and queso.  We would talk for hours, almost always about the condition of our politics, be it local or national.  Every subject was on the table, and Mary would almost always listen except for when she did speak. And it was always worth the wait.

Mary's partner, Dan, was and is quite a thinker.  He retired young from his career in law, and became a Siddhartha for the last third of his life.  I would always joke that Dan spent the last 30 years looking for God, when he was partnered with the actual Oracle from the Matrix.

Mary was so special.

And we all knew it.

Normally I would post the official obituary at this point, but Dan sent me some hand written notes instead.

Mary Bess Faris was born in Houston on October 22, 1933.  After graduating from High School, she went to Baylor for a couple of years.  There she  married Douglass Hanson who she met in High School. She then went out to San Diego State and managed to have two daughters, Linda and Jan who were born in 1954 and 1956. When she returned to Houston, she had a son, David, on October 2, 1960 in wedlock with Bob Turner in 1959.

She graduated from the University of Houston and then got her Masters Degree at UTMB Galveston while living in  La Marque. Over the next 15 years, she worked in labs and other institutions like MD Anderson. And she also studied microbiology at the Med school in Galveston in the late 60's.

90 years is a good long run and how fortunate Dan and Mary were to find each other as the millennium turned.

And how fortunate those of us who had brunch with her almost every Sunday were to know her serene, quiet, yet knowing presence.

Mary had been getting weaker and weaker over the last few years.  She had to keep her oxygen handy, but she didn't make a peep about it.

We saw her less and less as the Time of Covid wore on.  The last time I saw her, we walked her out to the swimming pool so we could celebrate Dan's 90th in September and her 90th to come as the Sun moved from Libra into Scorpio.

As the Spring peaked its head out, we heard that she had gone into the hospital.  A few days later on March 14th, one of her favorite doctors stopped by to check on her.  He found her growing even weaker, so he called Dan.  

And there with Dan on the phone, the Oracle passed.

"Mary passed this morning at 9:33 am while I was on the phone with Dr. Wolf at her bedside. 

No rehab, no hospice , no more palliative care , as Steven put it,  

Mary retired undefeated."   Dan Crow

 

 

 

 

 

Mary's service will be this Wednesday, April 19th at 10:00 AM  at Oakwood Cemetery just east of I 35 and 16th street.

 

 

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The EcoNuclear Brink

(The Pale Blue Dot inside the circle is Earth as seen by Voyager 1 space probe leaving our solar system)

"Today, science has brought all the different quarters of the globe so close together that it is impossible to isolate them one from another.

Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, April, 1945

At this time in our journey, it is important for the human species to understand who we are and where we are on the map. 

We are primates, designed to live in extended family groups, like other primates who gather and hunt. We live in 5 kilometers of breathable air in a twenty kilometer wide life space delicately painted onto our planet. 

Several thousand years ago, we started recording our history.  Since then a lot of very complex culture and technology has happened. 

Many species outgrow their environment's ability to support them, a species

pincer point, at which time a species either collapses or becomes completely extinct. 

We have developed two unique, looming species pincer points.  At any second, our life as we know it could end in an intentional or unintentional nuclear annihilation.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and we are grinding toward catastrophe due to climate change. 

It is a fundamental error in planning for our survival to view these threats as separate. 

Please think about this. 

Does the collapse of human civilization due to climate change make intended or unintended use of nuclear weapons less or more likely? 

The traditional nuclear weapons understanding of Mutual Assured Destruction is a system, just like our communication services.  Does the nuclear destruction system become less or more unstable, as other systems fail?

As the mouse begins to starve, does the cheese on the trap become less or more dangerous? 

Countless actions by countless human beings over thousands of years have led us to The EcoNuclear Brink.

We did not plan our potential doom, but we did create it.

This is where we are on the map of our survival.

We have made our home here very small and unsafe, and we don't have much time to use what we have learned about ourselves to save ourselves.  We do not have much time to build the true mutually respectful human society that will help us survive this era. 

Respectism is the belief that a mutually respectful society is a pragmatic necessity for survival.

Sincerely advertise and promote respect for self, others and place.

Respectfully keep the abusive from power.

Promote just, fair dealing with honesty, equality and listening dialogue to back away from the brink.

We should start now.

Love is the soul of respect, and respect is the language of love.

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I want Roosevelt Again.

In mid October, we went to New York and stayed with friends at their cabin in the Catskills.  The town is a charming little hamlet called Phoenicia.  Its just a few miles from another town known as Woodstock. Their cabin, called Bear Cottage, is absolutely charming and is available through air B and B.

The last time I was in that part of New York, I had come to a little concert up a little further north of there.  My girl friend from the City called me and told me I should quit my summer job in New Mexico and get myself up there.  Well, I had pretty much finished my work in Albuquerque, so I thought "why not"?

Within hours, I was on my way back to Amarillo where I borrowed an American Express card from mothers sisters husbands younger brother.  I have no idea why he did it, but he did.  Remarkably, in a few days, I was landing in upper New York state and on my way to meet my girl friend and head to the concert.

Oddly enough, after we met up, we never made it to Woodstock.  So all my life I've told folks that I went to Woodstock.  I just didn't get there. It was 1969.

Well,  47 years later, I did.  I made it to Woodstock  (not the site of the concert)

While we were there, we made a big day trip of going to Hyde Park and to the home of FDR. Here at Springwood,  the 32nd president of the United States is buried in the rosegarden with his remarkable wife and partner cousin Eleanor.  As luck would have it, we were there on Eleanor's birthday, so we got see other Roosevelts while visiting.

We toured the house and the presidential library and even went over to Val Kil cottage which was Eleanors's hide away from Franklin's mother, who as a Deleano, inherited perhaps 10 millions dollars in the early 1900s when her father passed on.

From Wikipedia:

Roosevelt was born in 1882, to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County, New York. He attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School and Harvard College. At age 23 in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president with presidential candidate James M. Cox, but the Cox/Roosevelt ticket lost to the Republican ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

 Roosevelt was stricken with debilitating polio in 1921, which cost him the use of his legs and put his future political career in jeopardy, but he attempted to recover from the illness, and founded the treatment center for people with polio in Warm Springs, Georgia. After returning to political life by placing Alfred E. Smith's name into nomination at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt, at Smith's behest, successfully ran for Governor of New York in 1928.

In office from 1929 to 1933, he served as a reform governor promoting the enactment of programs to combat the Great Depression besetting the United States at the time.

Here is this great man that was much bigger than life...he was after all on the dime when I was growing up.  As we toured the house, I couldn't quite get over seeing his home, his bedroom, and the giant living room where many fireside chats were delivered.  The home is nice, very nice, but not ostentatious.

But what stuck with me was seeing his bathtub, the bathtub where FDR probably took thousands of baths in his lifetime.  He was born in that house. There is  probably FDR DNA all over the place still.

One of the bedrooms was slept in by not only  King Edward but also Winston Churchill.  It was nice but not royal.

When we went outside, one of us said,  "that house was a HOME"

FDR actually was the architect of the rather large addition that doubled the size of the house when he was a young man.

The FDR story is a remarkable story but his victory over the Depression and over the Axis powers was foreshadowed by his remarkable spriritual victory over POLIO.

After touring the house, we went through the presidential libary, which unlike other presidential libraries, was built while FDR was still president.  He actually had a private study in the library.

Later we went to the gift shop.

I bought some campaign pins from his third run for office.

They said I want Roosevelt...Again.

I do too.

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A New Social Contract

We need a common social contract that informs all other contracts. A contract that can be recognized by children, presidents, corporations, common wisdom, local custom and international law.

The contract must be so basic that it can be understood by anyone over the age of three. The contract must encourage every human being, group and institution to respect one's self, others and place on earth at all times to the best of their abilities.

There are many barriers to such a universal contract. All over the world, there are individuals who, probably both by nature and by nurture, are compelled by selfishness and greed. Many leaders, big and small, all over the world, fit into that category, using their power only to obtain wealth and power for themselves.

The minds of many are ravaged by addictive disease, and others by severe psychiatric illness. Much of the world's population is illiterate or poorly educated. Xenophobia, or fear of strangers, is a common human trait. Intolerance of all types abounds.

Although we have traveled with these stubborn conudrums of human nature and society since the beginning of recorded history, we can no longer survive without acknowledging that they are herding us to the abyss.

Just that.

Like an alcoholic taking the famous first step to recovery, we must admit that the problem is ourselves. If we don't admit that, talk about it, think about it, promote it, research it, understand it and overcome it, then we are doomed.

We will never be able to solve all the complex issues surrounding violence and waste, unless we first solve the universal problem of disrespect that keeps us from solving anything else. Respect is the central issue that defines all others. We cannot wait any longer to recognize this.

To quote one of the great Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships -- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace."

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