July 22, 2008
Filed under: Science — ian @ 9:45 am
Review by Deirdre Sinnott
The Annotated Turing, by Charles Petzold
Wouldn’t you like to know the outcome of your actions before you decide what to do? Looking into the future, you could see if biting that apple was a good idea or something completely different and unexpected.
However, there’s no way through it but to do it.
Well mathematicians and computer programmers have the same problem. British mathematician, Alan Turing, proved that there is no way a computer can be designed with the correct set of instructions (program) so as to be able to determine if any other program will work properly. The program in question must be run — come what may.
By proving that to be true, he also proved that there was no set of instructions or number of actions that could analyze a mathematical formula and see if it’s going to work (or be decidable) except doing the math.
It sounds simple, and my husband Charles Petzold almost makes it seem simple in his new book The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour through Alan Turing’s Historic Paper of Computability and the Turing Machine.
You like that sly disclosure? Here is another one. I haven’t ever read a mathematical paper. I haven’t thought much about math since I took my last class in it in 1977. Although I did receive a Math/Science Regent’s Diploma from Clinton Central School in 1978, I did so without taking either subject my senior year.
Did I understand Charles’ book? Yes. I read it carefully and I think I got the first eleven chapters. Please don’t quiz me, but I seemed to follow the basic idea. I tried to ask him few questions as I read. I will admit that I’ve been listening to him talk about the book for the last nine years though. I will admit to being overwhelmed in the chapters on mathematical logic. They were words and numbers on a page.
However, if anyone out there is a computer programmer or a math whiz, take a look at the book. Alan Turing’s
paper, “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem,” was historic for many reasons. He solved one of Hilbert’s famous problems. He imagined a machine that could do what all computers do these days. And he showed the limitations of computers and software before they existed.
Charles is a great guide in this endeavor. Impress your professors, read it this summer and dazzle them this fall.
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July 16, 2008
Filed under: Events, poetry — ian @ 12:49 pm
Sunday, July 20th
SUMMER READINGS
Two events too cool to miss
11am, POTLUCK POETRY
Hosted by those divas from the Beaverkill, Mermer Blakeslee and Mary Hall Bring a poem to read (not your own, that’s the afternoon event) and see how the conversation ebbs and flows
3pm, OPEN MIC
Hosted by author and blogger extraordinaire, Dierdre Sinnott Writers, poets and songsters sign up for you 8 minutes of fame by stopping by the bookstore or e-mailing us at Info@hamishandhenry.com This is the perfect opportunity to perform for 8 minutes before a supportive crowd. Listeners are welcome
Light Refreshments
Hamish & Henry Booksellers 34B Main Street Livingston Manor 845-439-8020
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July 13, 2008
Filed under: Essay, Religion — ian @ 5:33 pm
Mary Hall preaches at the Beaverkill Church in the C atskills, and offers this recent sermon, which evokes Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” We often forget that until the last century, books of sermons and theology (think John Donne, or Laurence Sterne) were the best sellers, so even for the many heathens up here, this is a considered and interesting look at exile.
EXILE AND EXCLUSION: HAGAR AND ISHMAEL
6.22.08
Genesis 21: 9-20
In the story from Genesis, Hagar and her son Ishmael are banished from Abraham’s household and made to wander in the wilderness at the behest of Sarah. They are in extremis and Hagar believes that they will both die of thirst and exposure when finally God rescues them. It’s a cruel and curious story because it goes against the rules of benevolence and responsibility that we are usually taught, and it’s disturbing that the exile is not only requested by Sarah, but also accepted by Abraham and by God. How could this have happened and what’s it all about?
We can think about what it really meant for Hagar to be “cast out” and why she was. And we can think about what those things mean in our own time. Even though our circumstances are different, in many ways these same kinds of things keep happening and we might wander why they do and what the consequences may be.
Now, to be banished into exile in the desert of the Middle East is not a good thing. Tribal life arose as an arrangement for civility and law but also to shelter its participants from the worst hardships of unprotected life in nature. The land is stony, the water is scarce, the daytime sun is blazing hot, the nights are frigid. There are no comforting shade trees and nestled valleys in which to find respite. Plus, there are roving bands from other tribes and they might not represent rescue, but rather danger. It was harsh, and banishment to the desert seemed pretty much a death sentence unless one happened to encounter a well-intentioned and well-provisioned traveler. Or, as in this case, unless one had a son for whom God listened. (Many of you will remember that the name of Hagar’s son, Ishmael, means, “God hears.”)
In any case, Sarah was not kind to Hagar when she told Abraham that he should cast her out. These two, Sarah and Hagar, have had a history of acrimony: Hagar was a slave taken from Egypt; she bears Abraham a son when Sarah is barren; Sarah abuses Hagar; Hagar runs away from Sarah until God tells her to return. It’s reasonable that Sarah should not think well of her, but more than that she wants to be rid of her and especially of her son Ishmael. Ishmael might compromise the future of Sarah’s own son Isaac for Isaac is the inheritor of Abraham’s legacy. Sarah does not want Abraham to have to choose among the sons or to divide what he will leave to them. She wants it all for him. And, indeed, she may be afraid that should the sons come to conflict, it might be Ishmael that wins in the end, Ishmael that takes everything. So she uses the power and influence that she has to get rid of the grievous danger that she sees to herself and her son.
There are lots of reasons that people get cast out, some as individuals and some as members of a group. I’m reminded of a movie that some of you might have see called “Breaking The Waves.” It’s about North Sea oil drilling and a tiny town way up in the cold and barren north of Scotland. A young and maybe simple woman believes that she is helping, maybe saving, her dying husband when she behaves wantonly. She is cast out, banished by the chilly church to which everyone in the community belongs, and consequently she cannot be sheltered even by her family or neighbors. She is homeless in this rocky place at the edge of the sea. Of course, she relies even more completely upon her unfortunate behavior and eventually she is killed.
I read recently about a contemporary Dutch painter who was born in Indonesia, but as a little child was exiled when Indonesia declared independence from The Netherlands. In freeing itself from its colonial masters, the Indonesia also wanted no remnants of that culture that might compete or stir up resentment. So even a 6-year-old child is cast out, just as Hagar and Ishmael are. The Dutch painter is now in his 50s and has, it seems a perfectly viable life, but he is wounded, dislocated and resentful even now.
There are lots of reasons that individuals and groups get exiled: competition for scarce resources; cultural, political, religious and ethnic differences; histories of acrimony and feuding; so-called peace treaties, and so forth. Sometimes these things seem inevitable. How can two individuals live together inside the same tent when they each want the whole tent for themselves, when they can’t stand the sight of each other, when the very thought of the other gives rise to overwhelming anxiety and anger. This must have been something like the case of Sarah and Hagar. Surely, it seems, it would be better if they lived in two different tents.
But what if there aren’t any more tents? Hagar didn’t have one. What if, even in separate tents, the overriding desire of each of these individuals is to burn down the tent of the other? It seems as though it might be better to attempt to introduce some kind of accommodation from the beginning. It might be better to observe the old adage that one is better off with one’s enemy inside the tent turning his intentions outwards than outside the tent, turning his intentions inward. In other words, make common cause with the enemy so that they are no longer the enemy, but the ally. We know, however, from what is going on all around the world right now and throughout history, that this is no easy task.
Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile contemplating what might have happened in some of our earlier examples. If the grief-stricken young woman in “Breaking the Waves” had been helped by her family instead of turned away, surely they all would have been better off. But, that would have required a different outlook, different people, a different culture. If the Dutch painter had been allowed to remain in Indonesia instead of turned out as a young boy, perhaps he would now be an Indonesian painter, helping to enhance that country’s cultural legacy. But post-colonial politics are fraught with fear and resentment and pride and are not often blessed with a long and broad perspective.
We have all, I am sure had situations in which we have pursued the narrow and short-term choice rather than taking the longer, perhaps more benevolent view. As I was thinking about Hagar and Ishmael, I myself was making a choice and casting out one group in favor of another. Many of you, I’m sure, have like us have been beset by caterpillars, if not this year then last year. I’ve been making it as difficult for those caterpillars as I possibly can and if I could cast them out into the wilderness, I surely would. I’m trying to get rid of them because I believe that it’s them or the trees. Now, I know in actuality that it is not a zero sum game. I know that if the caterpillars succeed in eating leaves of the trees, and lots of the trees are defoliated, then next time they won’t be back because there will be nothing for them to eat. And then, eventually, the trees will come back, and then, eventually, so will the caterpillars. But I don’t have that kind of long-term vision. I want my trees… and I don’t want the caterpillars.
Now Isaac means “God smiles” and Ishmael means “God listens”. I can’t help wondering how it would have been if God smiles and God listens had grown up together in the same tent; if instead of being resentful of each other they had played together and become used to each other and perhaps learned to become partners. Perhaps instead of competing for water and sheep and resources, they might have worked together to expand what they had so that everyone could be more prosperous. Perhaps their squabbles and wrangles in boyhood would have strengthened them instead of weakening them and Abraham’s inheritance might have been used jointly and more creatively because they were behaving as a team.
Of course, we can only speculate what would have happened if Sarah and Abraham had kept Hagar and Ishmael in the fold instead of casting them out. As it was, God took care of each of them. He said, (for) “Isaac, I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, … I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” And, we are told that Ishmael became the progenitor of the Arabs as Isaac did of the Jews… and, of course, there has been trouble between them every since.
It probably would have been impossible for them to have grown up together in the beneficial way that my fantasy imagines. God did what he could with the materials that he had and, no doubt, the resentments and difficulties which would have emerged, especially considering the cultural mores of the times, might have resulted in the death of one or the other or both of the children.
But, I can’t help thinking that maybe we’ve progressed a bit now. Maybe next time we can think about inviting into the tent our latter day Hagars and Ishmaels for some creative brainstorming and economic development sessions. Maybe we’re better than that now… or, as the Bob Dylan song says, “I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.”
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July 11, 2008
Filed under: poetry — ian @ 8:17 am
Carolin Brown
After-Winter Fest
Livia complains: I’m always bloated at these shindigs.
Max sits in the kitchen counting cultures in a sink of pickled dishes.
Virginia’s wearing someone else’s pink cashmere sweater.
Having succeeded another winter we reveal a tender edge.
But the real leitmotif is the poached adventurer on the table.
Present are thick clusters of grapes from CA and curious nerves endings.
Seeds are spit in lines of two to ward off another emergency phone call.
Someone mentioned this theory doesn’t hold in the mountains.
I’m conscious of your equilibrium trailing off into a muddy snow angel.
A Golden pees on the tip of your right wing, a mongrel follows.
Now your angel smells like quarantine somewhere over the English Channel.
Somewhere is a word nobody can pronounce across the river.
Somewhere is a modest pillow stuffed with horse hair and fins.
Somewhere the image of Dorothy appears slamming into a pile of concrete.
O when we have time to sit on knobby chairs I’ll confess to my hilarious suicide.
You’ll find yourself in stitches as I break my heart over your left knee.
If you’re still conscious I’ll ask you to remember the time we spent in the desert –
counting coyote on one hand. You won hands down when you spotted one
carrying a dead duck in it’s sleazy mouth.
O you morbid winners.
The evening ends on a tangent of pressed nails.
We grind them into the wooden floors as we shuffle back into the wilderness.
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July 3, 2008
Filed under: Events — ian @ 4:53 pm
Friday July 11th at 6:30pm
Dramatic P.A.W.S.
Come join Performing Arts Workshop (PAW) in reading aloud the first half of Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew. Come in and sign up on the 11th. The moderator wll cast the play from the signup sheet. (Or don’t sign up, and just listen.) Who Knows? You might have a hidden talent!
Wine & cookies will be served.
For more information call 845-439-8029 or send an e-mail at info@hamishandhenry.com
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June 4, 2008
Filed under: Essay — ian @ 3:47 pm
Memorial Day Musings
Ian Willams in the Guardian
It was an idyllic, sunny Memorial Day up in the Catskills region of upstate New York. At our local parade, the firefighters marched along the short Main Street to the firehouse in dress uniforms, the school choir sang the Star-Spangled Banner, and a boy scout recited the pledge of allegiance. The deputy sheriff, and the fire chief addressed the gathering and hoisted both the stars and stripes and the POW/MIA flag which also customarily flies from the local firehouse. Your average British fire-station is a hive of leftwing subversion if their union is anything to go by. That is not the case in the rural USA.
Even so, none of the speakers made partisan points about the current conflict, where sand and cities have replaced the jungles of Vietnam in a replay of pointless tragedy. Ironically, their orations were drowned out by aging bikers, of the kind who customarily wear POW/MIA insignia, as they revved their unmuffled hogs up the hill past the ceremony for a spin in the mountains.
Last weekend I re-read several Kurt Vonnegut novels, and the memory rippled through. That iconoclastic war veteran, survivor of Dresden and representative of another, more skeptical USA, described the national anthem as “gibberish interspersed with question marks.” As a near-miss MIA himself, he had little time for vexillolatry. He could have ended up in dead in a ditch in the Battle of the Bulge, or a handful of cinders as a “friendly fire victim” in Dresden as the Allies did their best to recreate the Inferno on Earth. Flags were not to die for in Vonnegut’s opus.
The POW/MIA cult seems to have ebbed from its height a decade or so ago, when so many fervently believed that the Pentagon and Hanoi were in cahoots to hide hundreds of imprisoned GIs. The conspiratorial rationale was that Hanoi hung on to hundreds of prisoners as bargaining chips to ensure payment of US reparations. But there could be no bargaining unless you disclose your chips, and reveal the hostages.
The fervour played to the best and worst of America simultaneously. There was a determination that the government could not reduce individual citizens to anonymous statistics in a faraway land - but there was also a complete insouciance about Indochinese casualties. One must wonder what the Vietnamese think when they help American teams scour for the remains of relative handful of US casualties in jungles strewn with the unmarked graves of up to five million Vietnamese, one-eighth of the country’s population.
Nonetheless, faced with grieving relatives grasping at hope, Federal and state legislators in the 1990s succumbed and made the black flag of the movement quasi-official, sanctioning its hoisting alongside the stars and stripes.
Yet, both senators John McCain and John Kerry were united in the Senate committee report on the subject, that “while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.” Ironically McCain, as an ex-POW himself, is getting heat for that from some of the last of the true believers.
Checking the previously fervently conspiratorial sites on the matter, the white heat of that earlier speculation is fading. The POW/MIA flag is becoming the insignia for all those lost in action, presumed dead. It would be a very brave legislator who moved to have it hauled down.
Yet, why support ill-founded conspiracies when there is clear evidence of a real one, the Bush/Cheney plot to send more GIs to die in a pointless struggle?
So it goes.
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Filed under: Science — ian @ 3:43 pm
Deirdre Sinnott reviews:
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind,
by Gary Marcus
“My brain! It’s my second favorite organ!” said Miles Monroe, aka Woody Allen, in <i>Sleeper</i>. I agree! And now Gary Marcus comes along to explain that the brain is just a patched-together mass of cells that rarely interact smoothly. How shocking. So much for God’s loftiest of creations–humans.
There are three layers to the brain and each developed at a different period of human evolution. The hindbrain has been around the longest and is in charge of the real basics, breathing, hunger, balance, awareness, things that animals need from humble newt on “up.” The midbrain, built right on top of the hindbrain, takes on eye movements, coordinates visual, auditory, and reflex functions. And the newest area, the forebrain, sits atop the rest and governs language and decision making. This is the part that all of the fuss is about. It’s what makes our brains “big” and demanding and gave us that leap of cognition that has been so useful.
The three layers indeed communicate, but sometimes badly. Hence a tasty goody may be too much to resist despite a long-term rational goal of healthy eating.
Marcus has illuminated the reasons that our minds can work both logically and illogically. Natural selection is a messy system where solutions only have to be “good enough” to give a creature the edge. It’s not about perfection, just function.
I hope the book and Marcus’ 13 suggestions for becoming a better “thinker” stay with me. I’m trying to run on all my circuits, not simply the ones that evolved first.
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Filed under: History Review — ian @ 3:37 pm
In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India, by Edward Luce
Reviewed by Deirdre Sinnott:
Suppose you threw a dinner party and your guests represented the entire population of the world. You only have 22 seats at your table, so some gusts must share. Because of its dangerous nature, you decide that the US gets one whole seat to itself. India gets almost four of your remaining chairs and China takes up the next four and a half. By contrast, England must share its seat with five other nations.
Clearly when you take up that many plates, you should be paid some respect. Yet other than talking about India’s foray into the service economy, including articles about outsourcing US jobs to a youthful and educated workforce, few news stories discuss India’s complexities. Edward Luce offers a peak into his experiences of living, traveling, and reporting from there for five years.
Luce touches on India’s non-violent struggle to break the chains of British colonialism led by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru through its leadership in the Non-Aligned movement that sought to unite “third-world” countries who tried to remain neutral during the Cold War. He also discusses the immense diversity of the population from the various “castes” to the relations between Muslim and Hindu religious followers (including the break off of Pakistan in 1947 when the British made a formal partition). He interviewed leaders of some of the country’s strongest political parties and discussed the legacy of the British rule including a sustained bureaucracy and the economic North/South divide that characterizes the country today.
By necessity the book can only scratch the surface, but it is a pleasure to glimpse a small slice one of the most populous and important countries in the world.
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Filed under: Politics Review — ian @ 3:10 pm
Prisoner of Conscience
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Ian Williams 4 June 2008
Ian Williams
Scott McClellan’s memoir shows him to be more of a Bush loyalist than the criticisms of his former White House colleagues would let on
Ian Williams
June 3, 2008 10:45 PM Guardian Comment is Free
He might not be up there with St Augustine, but former White House press secretary Scott McClellan gives an honest depiction in his book of someone wrestling with his conscience. He is legibly torn between his loyalties to his country and to the president he helped elect. As Mr Everyconservative, his signposts on his personal road to Damascus are indeed those that define why the American public lost faith in the administration: the still unexplained rush to war in Iraq, the abysmal handling of the occupation and the inept response to Katrina.
The media reaction to his revelations on the duplicity of the Bush regime led to some unkind thoughts of front-page headlines on ursine defecation in the woods and papal Catholicism. Five years on, it is hardly the stuff of Pulitzers that the White House was not entirely candid over Iraqi WMDs and the Niger uranium letter, or had played a role in the vindictive outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The surprised reaction to his book tends to weaken his argument that most of the press were doing a fine job all along. In fact, Arianna Huffington’s new book has an honour roll of the press who did not go dizzy with the spin from McClellan and his colleagues. (In a spirit of full disclosure, she includes me in her list).
McClellan and his former chums were doing their job, which was to be as parsimonious with the truth as possible in what they fed to the White House press corps, which in turn seems to have bought the overall picture. While his apostasy from unwavering belief in a personal GOP with all the answers is impressive in itself, the sound of silence is still deafening. Perhaps the most egregious example, both of selective silence and of his professional stonewalling is his evasive refusal to answer veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas’s questions about whether Bush had been sentenced to community service while he was supposed to be serving in the Texas Air National Guard. After 15 minutes, in February 2004, McClellan had not conceded a single word of substance.
Remarkably, neither Thomas herself nor the incident appear in McClellan’s book. Also absent is mention of her exclusion, together with correspondents like her, from McClellan’s list of journalists who were safe for the president to call on at his few and nugatory press encounters.
It seems that McClellan has not yet completed the 12-step programme to break his Bush dependence. McClellan shows he is still under the spell when he mentions the CBS 60 Minutes scandal over Bush’s war record. He mentions it en passant, calling the documentary evidence “dubious”. But the programme showed what others had demonstrated - that the story was substantially correct. Bush did dodge the Vietnam war, he did not fulfil his National Guard duty. And throughout, his answers were the presidential equivalent of pleading the Fifth Amendment.
McClellan explains how he began working for Bush because he thought the Texas governor would work in the White House in the chummy, bipartisan way that McClellan saw him at work in Texas. He is Texan himself, so he perhaps does not realise how anomalous the cozy condominium betweens the Dems and the GOP was, spanning as they do the full political spectrum from centre right to John Birchite.
Nevertheless, McClellan’s honesty comes through - even though one has to wonder, first at finding a Texan Republican opposed to the death penalty, as he was, and secondly how he could work for a governor who put down more humans than most vets have cats.
He is still conflicted about Bush, in whom he sees reserves of intelligence, if not quite intellect, that most have not. He clearly has a point. Vituperation apart, it was Bush and not the more visibly cerebral John Kerry or Al Gore who is just finishing two terms in the White House. Even allowing for Cheney and Rove as puppet masters, which McClellan does not really see, McClellan is surely right that Bush is not as stupid as may appear to the rest of us.
But there is a complexity to Bush and his past, which McClellan hints at without really explaining. The British political euphemism “economical with the truth” never had a stauncher practitioner than the president, who carries an Orwellian memory hole in his jeans pocket. McClellan mentions that when he wanted to get Bush to sign a bill on drunk driving, longtime aide Karen Hughes told him that the president wouldn’t because of “something in his past”.
The precise issues came up later when he ‘fessed up to a DUI citation, which was then cemented over far more hermetically than Clinton’s tortured smoking without inhaling. Incrementally, under questioning, Bush put back the years to which he was prepared to say he had not used cocaine, but miraculously escaped answering the direct question whether or not he had used it.
McClellan recounts his growing doubts about the methods used to get into and get out of Iraq, and loyally but unconvincingly explains that while Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons all had their different reasons, the president’s concern was for freedom and democracy in Iraq. He begs the question of why Iraq should be the sole country out of so many with a democratic deficit that needed such attention. Sometimes, one supposes, freedom’s just another excuse when there’s nothing else to use.
The Joseph Wilson/Plame outing was the real turning point for McClellan, who was loyally prepared to be parsimonious with facts when ordered and happily took an asymptotic line with his statements, which may have approached the sphere of lies but never quite touched it. The president, Cheney and Rove cozened him into telling absolute lies about the leak, which clearly hit his own personal integrity and his sense of loyalty to country rather than dynasty.
He is still prevaricating about whether Bush knew about the leak, but he should have read up on Henry II’s meant-to-be-overheard exclamation about Becket: “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Bush’s attachment to fixed ideas like invading in Iraq, combined with his impatience with nuance, may have occasionally seemed to his many opponents like a convincing display of retardation, but if he seemed moronic, there is obviously method in it, allowing him to disclaim the messy details needed to fulfil his eschatological visions.
But in the end, McClellan’s book is well worth reading. For anyone connected with any recent administration to admit that they were wrong is a major step forward for Beltwaykind. And one cannot help suspecting that as he clears his mental lungs of the mephitic atmosphere of the White House, his recollections and analysis will improve even more.
Labels: Bush, Bush. Deserter, Scott McClellan
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April 28, 2008
Filed under: Memoirs, The trade of Writing — ian @ 2:43 pm
Deirdre Sinnott reviews a book in hommage to the theme!
Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.
Brilliant Idea.
Totally Addictive.
Amusing. Provocative.
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Deirdre’s Own Six Word Memoir:
Molested…
Fermented…
Arrested…
Reinvented…
Manifested…
Contented.
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