Author: RTNM

Give Me Some Space!

It is very difficult for old people to change their ways.
Buford Lister (personal communication)

A few years ago, I got an email from a friend of mine.  As I was reading it, I began to become irritated, then I became agitated, and then…well, I didn’t throw my computer monitor out the window, but I thought about it.  Why?  Was the content of the message that annoying and frustrating?  No, not at all.  I can’t even remember what the email was about.  What I do remember is that the author only put one space after each sentence, and I found that visual to be compact and quite disturbing.  Welcome to my world, a universe unto itself where the spacing between sentences is far more critical than the content of the text itself.

I am 57 years old, which means I grew up with typewriters; back in the day, personal computers were nothing more than a figment of somebody else’s imagination. I learned to type on an old mechanical device.  You had to push down hard on the keys to get them to strike with enough force to make an impression. Also, and this is the crucial point, everyone was taught to put two spaces between sentences.  That was how it was done, no questions asked.

Typewriters use monospaced fonts, which means that every character is given the same amount of space on the page.  An “I” and an “m” get the same area even though the “I” certainly doesn’t need or deserve it.  The use of monospacing led to a consensus that hitting the spacebar twice after a sentence was required to make it easier for the reader to see the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next.

We all know what happened, right?  Computers came along, and word processing programs started using proportional fonts, the type of fonts where an “I” gets less space on the screen, and the page, than an “m” or some other broader letter gets.  Before any of us knew what was happening, people were only hitting the spacebar once, dogs and cats were living together, and the ghost of Shakespeare was seen floating through English departments throughout college campuses worldwide.

The people who argue for one space after sentences hate, and I mean hate, to see two spaces being used anywhere.  They complain about rivers of white flowing through a passage of text.  It somehow offends them that there are still people walking the earth who prefer the two space method.   Sadly for them, I am a proud “Two-Spacer,” and I fully intend to die that way.  Hey, all you “One-Spacers,” do your worst, I am fully prepared for the onslaught.  Present the evidence in favor of your position, of which there is none.  Then sit back and behold the science supporting my position.

There was a study recently done; yes, you heard that right.  People take this stuff so seriously that someone is trying to further their academic career at a university somewhere by addressing this pressing issue.  The author of the study found that using two spaces after a sentence does increase reading speed as well as comprehension.  Take that!  Of course, the opponents say that the research must be flawed, how else could the wrong conclusion be reached.  So it goes…

I recently read a blog post somewhere about an older woman who was asking for advice about this issue.  She explained that she was too old to change, but she didn’t want her readers to think that her text was written by some sort of modern-day keyboard wielding buffoon.  So, what to do?  The reply was genius, shocking coming from a One-Spacer.  The One-Spacer said that the woman should type as she always does.  Keep right on tapping that spacebar twice, continue to do it out of habit, no worries.  When the document is complete, all she has to do is perform a search and replace.  Search for the two spaces and replace them with one space.  In one fell swoop, her document would then be acceptable for polite and sophisticated company the world over.  Not bad, right?

It is surprising (or maybe it isn’t) how worked up people get over this issue.  Lots of professional writers, as well as English professors and random commentators, take firm stances.  Their opinions are strong and unwavering.  While I much prefer two spaces, I am not going to take out a loan, purchase a tank, and go to war over it.  As for some of the others, I think they have already met with their credit unions.

Now for the big reveal, I have secretly left a trail of intrigue in this short essay.  I am conducting my own little, non-scientific study. I put two spaces after some of the sentences, and others got one space treatment.  Did you even notice?  Are you offended at this travesty?  My guess is no one noticed, but I bet you do in the future.  Once that genie escapes, they cannot be shoved back in the bottle.  Oh boy, I just used the word “they” to refer to a singular genie.  Not a bad segue to a future essay that I am finishing up now.  More on that soon enough.

 

Notes:  The article about spacing is entitled Are Two Spaces Better Than One? The Effect of Spacing Following Periods and Commas During Reading.  Rebecca Johnson, an associate professor at Skidmore College, led the team that conducted this outrageous and groundbreaking research.  Three cheers and a tiger for her and her colleagues, they are doing the world a service by putting those distrustful keyboard jockeys in their proper place.

 

 

Breathe Deep

This is a piece of Flash Fiction. The topic: A person goes to a doctor’s office, and a nurse gives him some free sample medicine.

Archibald “Butane” Maclaine struggled to walk into the doctor’s office. He paused to grab the back of a chair, moved forward a couple steps, and then leaned against the wall.  He steadied himself and then made his way to the Reception Desk.

Butane was an old man, he had been around (seen most everything and done most anything), but today he made a mistake, a big one. Hey, he’s only human, right?

The Nurse looked him over, handed him a form, and then told him to take a seat.  As she watched him struggle to walk, she hoped that he would fall and crack his head open on the corner of the coffee table that was a few away feet away.  C’mon, c’mon, you can do it.  Fall, please just fall.  No such luck.

Butane made it to a seat and did his best to fill out all the nonsensical information The Nurse wanted. Had he ever been pregnant? Was he pregnant now? Has he ever used topical ointment designed to promote hair growth? Are his hemorrhoids painful or do they just itch? Only once did he notice the nearly constant stare of The Nurse. One glance, it turns out, was enough.

Author’s Note: I occasionally am willing to give unsolicited advice for one reason or the other. If poor, old Butane had asked me, I would have told him that he needed to keep on walking when he came to that particular office door. Somewhere (actually most anywhere), there had to be a doctor’s office that didn’t have a nurse indebted to The Vampire Mafia.

The details of her bondage are not that important, let’s just say that it was one of those things.  She was at the wrong place at an unfortunate time.  That’s all, she didn’t do anything other than stand near a wall and radiate charm.  A person (you guessed correctly, a vampire) took an unnatural interest in her…and here we are. Know this: she had to do what he and his cohorts said, or things were quickly going to go from bad to worse for the beautiful woman The “VM” only referred to as The Nurse.

On the morning of Butane’s visit, she woke up early and instantly checked her phone to see if there was a new post at Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind.  She was about to read “Professor Bob” when she saw a small package on her nightstand. Her pulse began to quicken, and her chest tightened up as she picked up the box.  It contained a vile vial and a simple set of instructions. Put this powder in Butane’s medicine. She, of course, did exactly what she was instructed to do.

“Archibald, you can come on back now.” Butane hated that name, he preferred the nickname that he had received decades ago. He always told people he got the name Butane because he was often on fire at the poker table. The real story is a bit different and slightly (OK, a lot) more sinister.

Butane followed her back to the exam room. C’mon Zelda, you can do this. Breathe deep…relax.

“Have a seat, Archibald.”

“You can call me Butane.”

“OK, Butane. We have reviewed your files from your previous doctor, and we want you to try this new medicine. Dr. Jenkins is optimistic that this one is going to work.”

“Will I see him today?”

“No, I am just going to show you how this inhaler works, and then you will come back in two weeks.”

She illustrated the ins and outs, as well as the ups and downs of the device.  When she finished, she inserted the poisoned cartridge and hit the plunger. It was all simple enough.

“Here is a free month’s supply. No need to get a prescription until we know if this is going to work, right?”

Butane was old and worn out, but he still had game, big game. He sensed it…he felt it…he knew. He grabbed the sample medicine and, without saying a word, walked out of the office. The Nurse watched as Butane threw the package in the garbage and quickly turned to her and waved. She could have sworn she saw a set of yellowed fangs extend and then retract as Butane smiled at her.

The Nurse knew she was going to get a visit that night. I gave him the doctored medicine, I watched him leave with it.  Her hope was that half-truth just might allow her to see the sunrise.

 

 

Dog Man and Puppy Boy

This is a piece of Flash Fiction.  The topic:  A person finds a die with a missing 6 alongside a quarter standing on end.

Millionaire playboy Jedediah Magillicutty power-walked down the street, waving to his unsuspecting neighbors as he continued his daily morning constitutional. Unknown to all but a select few, he is secretly Dog Man, the scourge of criminals everywhere.

Magillicutty paused as he noticed something unusual; he didn’t have anything like a Spider-sense, but he had the heightened intuition and investigatory instincts of a man who had been fighting crime for decades.  A quick glance down and to his left and then, poof – like Keyser Soze, he was gone. Nearly breathless, he burst into the mansion, up the broad staircase, and into the library.  “Cletus, c’mon.” Cletus, his youthful ward, smiled as he dropped his copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and quickly stood up.

“Hurry, something unusual and possibly sinister is afoot.  It is time for us to suit up.” Cletus shook his head as Magillicutty ran to the bust of Ivan Pavlov that was sitting on a small table near a bookcase.  As he pressed a little button under Pavlov’s chin,  a hidden pocket door on the far wall opened to reveal the Canine Poles.  They slid down into the Dog House.

Puppy Boy started to run toward the Hound Mobile but quickly stopped when he heard Dog Man yelp.  “It did it again, my underwear is on backward.  I was sure I had that thing fixed.”  Puppy Boy examined himself and determined that everything on his crime-fighting suit was where it was supposed to be.  “I think I am good, Dog Man.  I’ll fire up the Hound Mobile if you want to fix your underwear.”  Dog Man wiggled around in his suit, shrugged his shoulders, and raced toward the vehicle.  They leaped into the Hound Mobile and blasted down the road.  After about a minute, Dog Man jammed on the brakes.

Dog Man sniffed around for just a few seconds.  There it was, a red die with a missing six next to a quarter standing on end.  It was just where he had seen it during his walk.  Dog Man adjusted his plastic nose, hiked up his Hong Kong Phooey leotards, stroked his chin, and…paused. He slowly got down on all fours to better examine the clues. Sniff, sniff. “The six is missing. What is special about that?” Puppy Boy thought: Um, well, it is a piece of dice candy, and someone licked six dots off of it, you moron. What he said was, “Gosh, 6 is the first perfect number; if you add up all its divisors – 1, 2, 3, then you get 6.  Also, if you multiply 1 times 2 times 3, you get 6.”

“Right you are my canine companion. Now, what about the quarter?”

Puppy Boy knelt down to examine it. It was clear that it was standing on end because it was stuck in the seam between two concrete slabs. He thought: If it weren’t for that trust fund, I would yell at the top of my lungs that you are a damn idiot who needs serious medical attention. What he said was, “Golly Dog Man, I don’t know.”

Dog Man grew more and more agitated as he chewed on the clues. “6 is a perfect number and next to it a quarter. Yes, of course, 6 times a quarter is 25 fourths, right? Let’s go!”

“Wait…what?”

“C’mon.  Let’s go!”

The Hound Mobile screamed down the road to number 25 Fourth Avenue, the home of Yvette Gregg, the actress who played Bitch Girl in their old TV show (the one aired during less enlightened times).  Dog Man ran into the building, not noticing that Puppy Boy stayed behind.  As Dog Man disappeared behind the heavy, red door, Puppy Boy pulled out his portable Mutt Phone and hit the Canine Alarm button.

Dog Man ran up the nine flights of stairs to Yvette’s apartment.  He quickly knocked the door down with the sledgehammer he kept in his Doggy Belt.   “Bitch Girl, where are you?  Is everything OK?”

Yvette came running out of the kitchen, she was armed with a knife and a can of corn.  She threw the can at Dog Man, hitting him in the shoulder.

“You idiot!  I told you last time that if you ever showed up here again, I was going to call the police. Now get out!”

Dog Man took a quick look around the apartment and then backed out into the hall.  He tried to put the door back in place, but he was going to need more tools than his Doggy Belt carried.

“I’ll have someone fix this for you.”

“Get out!”

As Dog Man reached the door and was about to head toward the Hound Mobile, a suspicious man came bounding down the sidewalk. He looked straight at Dog Man, poked him in the chest, gave him a dismissive wave, and then walked on. He was there only to create a diversion; the straightjacket was on Jedediah before he knew what hit him.

Four men boxed him up, tied him down, and loaded him into what appeared to be an ambulance.  The whole thing was over in seconds.  Puppy Boy waved as they drove off.

Cletus went home and threw his Puppy Boy costume in the garbage.  He unlocked his personal wall safe, the one behind the large portrait of Lassie, and enjoyed what was left of a bag of dice candy.  As he ate, he went over the documents the family lawyer had recently drawn up.  Page after page of legal materials that gave him total control of all of Jedediah Magillicutty’s assets “in the event of said Magillicutty’s death or mental incapacity.”

Dog Man was never seen again.  For years, the local authorities flashed the iconic Dog Bone signal into the night sky.  After a decade with no response, hope began to fade.  Eventually, the disillusioned people of Iriquois County lost all expectations.  They all clenched their jaws and moved on with their lives.

Today, there is a garbage dump located in the southern part of the county.  If you go there and poke around, you will find the remains of a large, rusted spotlight.  Next to it is a broken Dog Man and Puppy Boy Big Wheel.  That is all that remains of a bygone era, a time when the people of Iroquois County left their doors unlocked and stashed their money in their mattresses.

 

THE CLOSING

This is a piece of Flash Fiction.  The topic: A family moves into the neighborhood haunted house.

 

And by signing this form, you acknowledge that you have been informed about any and all paranormal activity that has been witnessed at the property located at 124 Chestnut Street.

 

Noah Kuhn turned and gave his girls one of those famous looks that only a tired daddy at his breaking point can give. It was a look that said Can’t I take you girls anywhere? They both smiled as they continued to kick the table legs. Noah narrowed his eyes a bit more, and they finally stopped. No one (not even Noah) noticed the eerie, unnatural interest the girls were taking in the people across the table.

Noah smiled at the seller, a recently widowed elderly man, and his attorney, a young blonde woman, and then deliberately lifted his pen. “I want another $10,000 knocked off the price of this house, or I am walking away right now.” He was already getting 70% off the asking price, but he knew there was no way the seller could say no to his last-minute change in terms. The lawyer nodded, and with a pen stroke, Noah Kuhn and his two young daughters became the proud owners of a most deliciously haunted house.

 

The three of them drove directly to their new home, where they worked all day. They scrubbed windows, vacuumed, and even washed the walls.  “Daddy, this place still smells like old people.”

“I know girls.  Just keep cleaning.  We will get there.”

They had everything done by bedtime.

“Daddy, we didn’t mean to kill that old woman, you know that, right? We only wanted to scare her. We just wanted them both to leave so that you could buy us this house. You used to tell us all the time that one day you would buy us a house just like this one, you remember, don’t you daddy?”

“Of course, I remember. Look, girls, I know you didn’t mean to scare that poor old woman to death. It wasn’t your fault, she was sick, and she was going to die soon anyway.”

“Daddy, did you notice the old man at the meeting? We stopped haunting this place months ago, and he still looks scared. Stupid old man. All we did was knock a bunch of stuff around and make noises and float in front of him when he was waking up. Boy daddy, it sure doesn’t take much with old people, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. Ok, it’s bedtime. Let’s try to get some rest, hear me?”

“Daddy…guess what?” Noah turned as the girls exited their physical bodies and began the attack. They advanced in unison as they tried to rip their father’s head off. Claws, fangs, spiked tails all employed with clinical precision. One with her fangs in his back while the other tried to rip his throat out with her claws.

“Girls, girls, girls…you know you are no match for your old man. Get to bed, we can play tomorrow.”

As Noah turned out the light, he remembered what his mom had told him long ago: Adolescent demon spawn can be a handful, especially for a single parent.

 

 

 

D’oh!

We, and our many supporters worldwide, have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!
John Richards

Did you hear the news?  Something extraordinary happened a couple days ago.  Much to my surprise, a punctuation mark made international news.  No, it wasn’t the ampersand, or my personal favorite, the interrobang.  The protectors of the mighty apostrophe have served notice that they are out of energy and ammunition and have admitted defeat.  The Apostrophe Protection Society has disbanded, put up an Out of Business sign, and set sail for parts unknown.

I own lots of grammar books, they all have sections about the apostrophe.  I also have Grammarly open as I type this document.  I recently bought the Grammarly program, and I have found that it is worth every penny.  It is working as the editor I do not have.  It is constantly telling me to remove or add a comma, but it also has a lot to say when it comes to apostrophes.

Are you supposed to use an apostrophe when writing “the 80s” or the “90s?”  No.  Both Grammarly and The Apostrophe Protection Society say that “80’s” is incorrect.  The same with CDs, for those of you old enough to remember what a CD is.

What about a name that ends in an “s” or a “z”?  Is it James’ book, or is it better to write about James’s book?  This is where things can get a little sticky.  Publication houses and entities like newspapers all have their own style guides.  They pick one way of doing things and then remain consistent.  In the case of James and his book, I have seen it done one way or the other depending on the guidelines adhered to by the particular publisher.  This doesn’t mean that the pedants among us don’t lose their minds when this topic comes up.  Of course, about half say their way is the only correct way, the other half say the opposite.

Many years ago, I ran into a woman who was a high school English teacher.  She mentioned to me that the school system had stopped teaching grammar.  I was shocked.  When I asked her why all she could say is that they all felt that time could be better spent on learning critical thinking skills.  The idea was that reading and analyzing passages of text was more important than learning where an apostrophe was supposed to go.

I met a young man a few months ago, I believe he is an 8^th grader.  I asked him if he was learning grammar in school, and he said no.  He is a smart kid who wants to study computers in college.  I told him a story about going to school at Harvard.  When you are there, you are judged every time you open your mouth, any missteps will knock you down a couple notches in the eyes of your peers.  What is even worse, if your writing is sloppy, if you misplace an apostrophe or misuse a comma, the results can be disastrous.  You simply won’t be taken as seriously as you might otherwise be.  The ability to write clearly is viewed as an extension of your intelligence.  When I told him this, he said: “And that’s why I’m not going to Harvard!”  Pretty funny, and that is the type of attitude that caused John Richards to shutter The Apostrophe Protection Society.

John Richards is a retired editor from England.  In 2001, he started the site to help people stop abusing his beloved apostrophe.  Richards finally had to give up, and I don’t blame him.  He fought the good fight, but arguing for proper grammar in today’s world is akin to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.  As he said, the battle is lost.  I also believe the war is over.  I hope that Richards, who is 96, enjoys his retirement.  He has fought long enough.

So, how important is this issue?  Is proper apostrophe use fundamental to the English language?  Languages do evolve, things change; not only word meaning and usage but also the punctuation we use to minimize ambiguity in our writing.  It would be nice if everyone would use proper punctuation, but that is never going to happen.  That said, I think I’ll grab some of my Rick James’ CDs from the 80s, put on my headphones, and try to relax.

 

This is a piece of Flash Fiction.  The topic: a second-person account of an individual who picks up an almost empty can of air freshener.

 

Air Effects

You are in your upstairs library, you appear to be reading Proust. Your thoughts, though, are not on the text. Let’s begin there.

Things seem normal until you put down a half-eaten madeleine and pick up a can of Febreze (old book smell can sometimes be overwhelming) and then…well, then things get stilted and awkward. As you slowly squeeze the nozzle, you can see each individual droplet as it slowly exits the cylinder. You not only smell them, but you can also feel each unique sphere. Preoccupied with childlike innocence and amazement, you do not notice that the walls are beginning to lean in. Even worse, the heat suddenly radiating from your chest begins to overwhelm you.

Are you having a stroke? Probably not, you seem healthy enough. Maybe you fell in love, and that is what this is all about. Ahhhh, yes…love is powerful enough to warp matter and slow the flow of time. Didn’t you read that somewhere? What was straight and plum becomes slanted, geometrically unstable. Do you really need me to tell you that you are in love?

You must listen to me: Time and space are part of the same thing, separate them out at your own risk. The fact that everything is in slow motion and the walls are warping is no coincidence. The warmth in your chest?  That is probably part of the same deal, at least you better hope so.

You…you and your logical mind, is all this too much for you? What, you think you are some sort of Vulcan, Spock incarnate? Look around you, the walls are closing in, they are bending at strange and severe angles. Do you even realize it is also getting darker? Open your damn eyes, it is getting darker.

It is totally dark now. Not regular dark but intense blacklight dark. It is pervasive (how unusual); the light seems to be piercing you, invading your essence. You feel it…you don’t like it…not even a little.

The smell, that’s it! It is the smell! The scent of the Febreze reminds you of what Chris’ apartment used to smell like. Unfortunately, your deep insight isn’t helping matters. The walls are so close that you can reach out and touch all four, five, six, seven (what…seven walls?). You wonder how this is possible. There were only four walls here a few minutes ago, weren’t there?

You realize the scent that initiated this fiasco is dissipating. In your troubled mind, this means that Chris is also fading away. Even though you do not know it, people like you are wedded to metaphor; in a certain sense, you live by it and for it. Do you even realize the can is still in your left hand? You do? Then squeeze the trigger. Try again…press harder. What? It is empty? Oh no…

You have just seen and experienced something rare, an unimaginable (almost inconceivable) moment in space and in time. The Fifth Dimension, the one reputed to be of hope and ecstasy, opened up (ever so briefly) around you. What are you supposed to do now? I know precisely what you are going to do next, you are going to buy more Febreeze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Existential Threat

Two things happened in the last couple of days that have required me to spend hours in front of my computer.  First, Harvard Magazine sent me a digital copy of my monthly subscription.  Second, Harvard played Yale in football on Saturday.  Decades from now, people will be writing about that game, not for who won or lost, but for what happened at halftime.

In the latest edition of Harvard Magazine, there is an article about a debate going on at Harvard concerning divestment.  Lots of faculty and students want the university to sell all the stock in the endowment that has anything to do with fossil fuels.  Not only that, they want Harvard to sell any holdings in companies that contribute directly to climate change.  The employees, alumni, and students asking for divestment do not feel that Harvard should profit from the destruction of the earth.  That last sentence seems commonsensical, doesn’t it?  It is also entirely nonsensical that I had to write it.

It is hard to imagine that anyone at a place like Harvard would argue against this position, but of course, the administration is taking a hard line.  Money still rules, maybe more so at Harvard than other universities.   In the article, professors and students offered up their arguments for and against divestment, I found one to be quite powerful.

Charlie Conroy, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, published the following statement.  It is taken in its entirety from Debating Divestment in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, an excellent article written by John S. Rosenberg dated 11/5/19 for Harvard Magazine. 

I am an astronomer. I spend most of my time collecting data and running computer models to understand the origin of our Galaxy. But today I speak to you as a deeply concerned member of our community.

I have grown up with the reality of what we once called global warming: rising temperatures, melting glaciers, species extinctions, destabilizing weather patterns. The consequences for humans have also been in plain view: increased occurrence of famine, droughts, and diseases, and, on the horizon, a refugee crisis unparalleled in human history. And yet, like many people I became numb to the increasingly urgent calls for action. I was busy and preoccupied with issues closer to home: raising a family, conducting research, securing tenure. I focused on small acts—recycling, commuting with public transit, eating locally grown food. What more could I do? I am after all only one person.

That thinking was wrong.

As members of the Harvard faculty we have a powerful platform to effect change. This means that we also have a responsibility to use that power in extraordinary times. And these are extraordinary times.  

As I speak California is burning. UC Santa Cruz, where I used to teach, has been subjected to forced blackouts resulting in canceled classes. Fire-related evacuations are now a routine part of life for many communities. This is the new normal. In recognition of the climate crisis, the University of California system is divesting its $13-billion endowment and its $70-billion pension fund from fossil fuels. 

The ice sheets on West Antarctica and Greenland together hold enough water to raise global sea level by 13 meters. Destabilization of these ice sheets could result in sea level rise of 2 meters by the end of this century and 6 meters by the end of the following century. With 6 meters of sea-level rise significant portions of the Harvard campus will be underwater. As will all of MIT, Fenway, and the South End. Globally the situation will be much worse: 600 million people live at an elevation within 10 meters of sea level.

We in rich countries may be able to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, though the costs may be staggering. Maybe. Maybe not. But island nations, poor countries in South Asia and elsewhere, will not have the option of buying their way out of disaster. 

The predicted short-term consequences of climate change from major organizations such as the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] tend to be conservative. We see evidence of this every year as new reports indicate the pace of change is accelerating faster than predicted. The global climate is a complex system with multiple non-linear feedback cycles that are poorly understood. The near future could easily turn out to be much more extreme than current models predict—during the Pliocene Epoch the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere were comparable to today’s levels. During that time the Earth was 3^° C warmer and global sea levels were 10-20 meters higher.

There is currently five times more fossil fuel in proven reserves than can be burnt if we are to stay within the 2^°C warming scenario advocated by the UN Paris Agreement. Avoiding catastrophic changes to our world will therefore require leaving huge reserves of fossil fuel in the ground. And yet, the fossil-fuel industry continues to devote vast sums of money and resources to identifying new reserves. Despite its profession of support for the Paris Agreement, ExxonMobil has not changed its position since this agreement was signed. In 2015 ExxonMobil projected that by 2040 fossil fuels would supply over 75 percent of the world’s energy needs. In its latest projections from this year, that number has actually risen to 80 percent.   

It is simply unrealistic to expect the fossil-fuel industry to willingly walk away from so much money in the ground. As our colleague Naomi Oreskes has demonstrated through extensive scholarship, the fossil-fuel industry has for decades engaged in deliberate doubt-mongering on the topic of climate change. This includes explicit undermining of public policy and indirect undermining of attempts to move to alternative energies. In light of these facts, the idea of working in collaboration with the fossil-fuel industry is dangerously naïve and counterproductive.

These extraordinary times require big ideas and bold leadership.  

The scale of the problem is so enormous that many ideas must be pursued simultaneously. We should commit to a carbon-free campus on a rapid timescale. We should incentivize reduced air travel and the use of a robust public transit system. We should encourage significant new academic and research ventures. We should engage with our community beyond Harvard. And we should divest from the fossil-fuel industry.

There are multiple reasons to support divestment. There are arguments from history and from economics that my colleagues will discuss. My perspective is this: the degree of action and change required to avoid the worst-case scenarios is far larger than anything we could hope to accomplish on our own, even as teachers and researchers. Every one of us could commit 100 percent of our time and resources to combating climate change, but that would fall far short of what is needed. This is where divestment comes in. It is an opportunity, perhaps our best opportunity, to catalyze action and change far beyond these walls. 

Imagine I came here to announce that a civilization-destroying asteroid is heading toward Earth. Would we wait to act until the probability of disaster is 100 percent? No. Would we wait to act until the impact was days or weeks away? No. Climate change is that asteroid. Its impact will be felt not instantaneously but over years, decades, and centuries. As scientists we have an obligation not only to identify and study the asteroid, but to act upon the clear and present danger it represents, and to join our colleagues in other disciplines in urging responsible action.

Harvard is in a position to lead on this issue. We have a responsibility to do so. Now is the time to act.

Conroy’s points are well taken.  I mentioned that he is a young professor, and I think that is important to remember.  Older people tend to be more concerned about money than the type of world their grandchildren are going to inherit.  That is simply a fact.  As I look around, I see little evidence to the contrary.  How many people do you know who are cutting back on fuel consumption in an attempt to better the lives of their grandchildren?  With that settled, we get to the football game between Harvard and Yale.

Who won the game?  Who cares?  The only important point is that the second half of the game was delayed by about an hour.  Why?  Student, faculty, and alumni protestors from both schools took to the field and sat in protest of older generations’ refusal to take climate change seriously.  The young people are correct, the old folks running things have given little indication that they care at all about what is happening to earth’s climate.  The battle is up to people like 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunburg.  She is an activist on an inspired mission to get the people in power to take action on climate change.  Ms. Thunberg is the closest thing to a superhero that we have.  I will be watching her career through the coming decades with great interest.

How bad is the situation? What are people like Greta Thunberg up against? I often tell people that if New York City is underwater, the people in the Midwest will laugh at them and say: “See…that is what you get.  God’s vengeance and so forth and blah, blah, blah…”  Even then, the threat won’t be taken seriously.  It is quite curious, but I don’t see many older people lamenting the amount of government debt they are leaving their grandchildren.  And they certainly don’t care about a figurative asteroid approaching the earth.  I guess that asteroid is moving a bit too slowly for them to bother.  As for the debt, I think it is a bit too abstract for most people to wrap their heads around.  I am not sure what excuse the politicians have, it appears that they simply do not care.

As for the science behind the warming of the globe, I took a course in Climate Change a long time ago.  The threat is real, the science is solid, the math is inspired.  In recent years it has become clear that the earth is warming at a rate much faster than predicted by the worst-case scenarios.  The professor who taught the course was optimistic that the human race would come to its senses and tackle the problem head-on.  I chuckled to myself when I heard that.  I was not optimistic then, and I feel even more pessimistic about the future now.  We may be at the point where we need a Hail Mary type technological solution that will scrub the earth’s atmosphere.  I have no idea how that would work, neither does anyone else.  I wish us all luck.

One final thought: I read somewhere that there is only one group of people in the world who do not believe in the science of Climate Change.  It should not be too hard to guess that there are old, angry, white members of the Republican Party in the United States.  Why don’t these people believe in science?  It gets a bit complicated, but religion is the main culprit.  Have you ever talked to an evangelical about Climate Change?  The reaction of most of them to the topic is that it is a liberal conspiracy.  There is no such thing as Climate Change because God gave us all that coal, oil, and natural gas.  Why would God give it to us if we weren’t supposed to use it?  Simple, isn’t it?  There is another group of evangelicals, one slightly more sophisticated (I will never type a bigger oxymoron than sophisticated evangelical).  They believe that Climate Change is real, but they think that it is part of God’s plan for the earth and its inhabitants.  Apparently, God wants the planet to warm for reasons that are far beyond simple human understanding.  In any event, neither group has any interest in doing anything about the problem, that would be far too inconvenient.

I will be writing more about this topic in a future post entitled The Science Wars.  This regrettable episode in intellectual history was running at full tilt when I was at Harvard during the mid-80s to early 90s.  The perpetrators set the scholarly foundation for the rejection of science we are seeing in our society today.  Unfortunately, no one knew just how high the stakes were.

 

 

 

 

This is a piece of Flash Fiction.  The topic: A teenage girl gets a letter from George Mason University.

 

Professor Bob

Rosemary bounced through the door, simultaneously kicking off her vans and throwing her backpack against the couch. She didn’t notice that her giant chapstick fell out and rolled under the big, puffy chair her dad used to sit in before he crossed over.

“Rosemary, you have a letter on the table.”

“Mom, geez, you know I hate being called Rosemary! Gah…why do you have to call me that?  Everybody calls me Rosie, you know that.”

“Rosemary is your name.  It was good enough for your grandma, and it is good enough for you.”

“Well…duh!”

Mom put down the parsley she was chopping up to garnish the evening meal and walked over to the dining room table.

“I noticed it was from a university, but I didn’t pay much attention. Which one is it now?  What school is trying to steal my little girl.”

Rosie tried to remain calm; this was bad, really bad. “George Mason mom, well actually it is not officially called George Mason mom, it is just George Mason. I think I’ll go upstairs and research this school. Do I have a little time before dinner?”

“Yes, but first, exactly where is this George Mason University located?  I don’t know how many times I have told you that you aren’t going to school far away from home.”

Rosie pursed her lips as her back muscles tightened.  “It is in Fairfax, Virginia, all right ` It is just outside of D.C.  Guh, do I have some time before we eat or not?”

“A little time is all.  Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

Rosie ran upstairs to the computer room – buttons pressed, switches flipped, levers pulled…and (most importantly) the door locked. Rosie concentrated her gaze at the correct spot as her right eye was scanned.  She then reached between two bookcases and touched the wall in the specified pattern to open the portal. The cylindrical staging platform opened up and began glowing steady neon green.  Rosie put on her helmet, adjusted her goggles, took a deep breath, and headed in.

Total silence.  That was always the thing that bothered her most.  It was eerie.  She stood for a few seconds as wispy particles appeared seemingly out of nowhere to form the bust of a figure, a very familiar one.

“Rosemary, good…you got the letter. I wasn’t sure the teleportation had worked properly.”

“Well…duh.  Of course, I got the letter. If I hadn’t gotten it, we wouldn’t be talking now, would we?  What is going on?”

The conjured figure, a sage-like older man (you would never believe how old!) winced as he told her that perdition was upon them. “Rosie, they got out, they escaped. My last experiment went very, very wrong. You and I both know where they are going. I sent out a communique to all the others, they have all checked in and are on their way. You understand exactly what I am saying, right?”

“Uh-huh.  And I also know this must be really bad if you couldn’t just send a message directly to me.  I don’t want to ask, but why did you have to zap a letter into the mailbox?  What’s that all about?”

The old man saw the look in her eyes. He didn’t want to tell her that they were totally compromised, that a data hack and a simple case of blackmail had exposed nearly everything.   “Now listen Rosie, stay right where you are. You are not to leave your house, and even if they show up on your front porch, you are not to engage them. Do you understand me? That is an order. If they come, you are to initiate a complete lockdown of the premises.  If they somehow get through, you are to get your mom and immediately come to the portal, OK?” He looked at her and knew it had been a mistake to warn her, he should have just sent someone to collect her.  Had he been thinking clearly, there are a lot of things he would have done differently.

Rosie stood at the portal, her hands on her hips.  She leaned slightly to the left and shook her head slowly back and forth.

“Rosie, please listen, there isn’t much time…” Rosie cut him off and skipped away from the portal. She was about to get her battery packs and ammunition when her mom’s voice came through on the communication panel.  “Rosie, there is a group of people on the porch asking for you. What is going on, are these new friends of yours?  I certainly didn’t make enough food to feed all those people.”

Rosie looked out a window and saw the group milling around on the front porch and driveway.  “Hey mom, can you come up here for a minute?”

“What is going on?  Is something wrong?”

“Of course not, I just need your opinion on an outfit.  I am trying to impress one of the boys out there.  He is a new kid, and all the girls like him.”

As mom walked through the door, Rosie quickly wrapped her arms around her, lifted her up, and pushed her into the mechanism.  Risking psychosis by getting into the portal unprepared was better than staying and facing the mob.  Easy choice.  As soon as mom was locked in and protected, Rosie did one of those teenage girl waves and then went to the closet for her duffle bag full of ammo.  She threw it on the table and then quickly moved across the room to open a hidden compartment to reveal a silver case, one full of weapons.  She got all the arms locked and loaded, gave her mom a quick glance, and initiated the transport sequence.  You’ll make it.  No worries.  As her mom phased out of existence, she holstered her weapons and headed downstairs.

Author’s note: If you do a little research, you will find that there is a famous professor at George Mason University who is trying to create life in the laboratory.  Sister, you don’t know the half of it.

 

 

 

 

My Favorite President: A Note on The Pythagorean Theorem

Many years ago I had a buddy named Mariah, she was a high school senior working part-time at a restaurant I used to hang out at.  One day she approached me to tell me about a paper she needed to write for both her Government and English classes.  The topic was a President of the United States, to be assigned at random by the teachers.  I immediately said, “Yes!” and started a discussion with anyone who happened by the bar where I was sitting.  The question of the day became: Who is your all-time favorite President?  The surprising thing is that most everyone had an immediate answer.    

As I recall, Mariah was hoping to get assigned George Washington or Theodore Roosevelt, but she ended up with JFK.  That turned out OK because I think she learned a few things, and she completed the assignment on time and to the satisfaction of both of her teachers.  Sadly, I didn’t get to help her as much as I wanted because she had no internet and I couldn’t get my hands on any drafts.  Believe me, I tried, but every time I saw her, she didn’t have her backpack with her, so no draft of her paper was to be found.

So, do you have a favorite President?  I sure do, and isn’t it curious that I can write about him within the context of The Pythagorean Theorem.  It certainly is mysterious unless you know that one of our former presidents actually came up with a smart and original proof of The Pythagorean Theorem.  You had no idea, did you?  Trust me, most people don’t.

Before we get to a discussion of James Garfield, I need to take a detour, a pretty big one.  I am going to tell you a little about how I write these essays and, in particular, what happened when I started to write this one.

There are many different ways that individual writers approach their craft.  I have heard from many sources that Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite novelist, would write three pages of perfect prose in the morning and call it a day.  No editing or revision of any kind required.  If I tried to do that, I would still be on page one of essay one.  I simply could not do it, I am not capable of writing that way.

There is another popular approach to writing called the “scattershot method.”  That is exactly how I write.  When utilizing the scattershot method, you write whatever comes to mind, you don’t worry at all about grammar, spelling, or punctuation.  It is all about ideas and concepts.  When I write, I just try to get the thoughts down on paper as quickly as possible.  There will be plenty of time to clean things up later, right?

Well, guess what?  I have in front of me a sheet of printer paper that contains an outline for this chapter.  I got the idea for this essay as I was finishing up one about an interesting algebra problem I stumbled upon.  The mechanics of that problem (which will appear in a future post) reminded me of The Pythagorean Theorem.  That inspired to write something about the most famous theorem in math, which made me think of the paper Mariah had to write.  Get it?  It all came together in a flash, so I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down an outline so that I wouldn’t forget what I wanted to write about.  Sigh, much more on that coming up.

Here is a word for word account of what I wrote.  I am reading it off the original sheet of paper.

My Favorite President

-Mariah

-Cohen & Newton

-T.R. & Gould

-Garfield & P.T. proof

I include this because I have a huge problem.  I understand exactly what everything on there means except for the “Cohen & Newton” segment.  Good grief, I know who they are; Cohen is I. Bernard Cohen, the founder of the History of Science department at Harvard University, and Newton is, of course, Issac Newton, arguably the greatest scientist who has or ever will live.  The thing is, I have no idea why I wrote their names down.  I do not know what I am supposed to say about them, I haven’t a clue as to how either man relates to this essay.  I find that a little perplexing.

This is simply more evidence of a disturbing trend, one that I realized a few years ago.  One night some time ago, I was reading an article on a topic relating to evolutionary biology.  I came across an interesting discussion concerning the biological concept of species.  As this was research I was unfamiliar with, I made copious notes in the margin of the paper and went to bed.  The next morning I woke up and decided to quiz myself on what I had read the night before.  I knew there were three major themes that the author had written about.  The big problem is that I could not remember anything about the article.  I couldn’t remember who wrote it or what it was about.  Yikes, that is not good.  I have talked to many other people about this, and they all say that things like that happen to them from time to time, so it is nothing to worry about.  I will say this, I don’t find it reassuring that many of my friends might be losing their minds right along with me.  Seriously though, I hope they are right, and these gaps in memory are not a big deal.  One thing is sure, time, in all its undefeated glory, will eventually chime in with the correct answer.

The fourth line of my infamous sheet of paper reads “T.R. & Gould.”  I know exactly what that means, and I can tell you a little bit about that now.  That line is about President Theodore Roosevelt and Stephen Jay Gould, the greatest science essayist who has ever lived.  Chapter 14 in Gould’s “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History” is entitled “Red Wings in the Sunset.”  It is a neat little essay about Roosevelt’s accomplishments, not as a politician, but as a scientist.  Bet you didn’t know that Roosevelt published an important scientific article, did you?  Well, he most certainly did.

After he left office, Roosevelt wrote a paper on coloration in birds and mammals.  It was published in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History in 1911.  The technical details of the article are not important, the point here is that Roosevelt was, at heart, a scientist – ever curious about the world and all its inhabitants.  Can you imagine?  A former president sat down and wrote over 100 pages about how and why certain animals are colored the way they are.  Such a thing could have easily gotten Roosevelt my vote as my favorite president, but as it stands now, he is a close second.  Who knows, he may move up to the top spot one day.  I am sure his decedents will be sending me fruit baskets with the intention of influencing me.

Now we can get to my favorite president, James Garfield.  Garfield was college-educated, he got his degree in mathematics from Williams College.  As you are about to see, he put the degree to good use, and that is what makes him my favorite President.

A few years before he became President Garfield, Congressman Garfield came up with a unique proof of The Pythagorean Theorem.  The theorem, the most famous in mathematics, states that for any right triangle, the square of side “a” plus the square of side “b” will equal the square of the hypotenuse, known as side “c.”  That special relationship has been known for centuries, but Garfield was inspired to find his own proof for why the relationship holds.  He did it in a way no one had ever thought of.  He proved that a² + b² = c² by taking an inspired look at the area of a trapezoid.  

Here is the trapezoid President Garfield used for his proof.  It is broken into three right triangles.  I love this proof because it is algebraic, you won’t find any geometry in his argument.  That makes for an intelligent, and unusual, little proof.

The first thing Garfield did was find the area of the trapezoid.  That is easily done in the following way.

 

 

Next Garfield, in an ingenious leap, decided to find the areas of the three right triangles.  The equations are as follows.

He then took the sum of the areas of the individual triangles as follows.

Since the two areas have to be the same, Garfield simply set the equations equal to each other.

Multiplying each side by 2 gives:

Subtract 2ab from each side:

Simply astonishing.  I have to admit that I have a secret ambition (not so secret now) relating to this topic.  I want to come up with the worst, most clumsy proof of the theorem that could possibly exist.  I want it to be Rube Goldberg-esque, the foulest string of mathematics imaginable, yet I want the proof to be correct.  This is the only reasonable hope I have as it appears all the good ones are taken.  There are hundreds of beautiful and thoughtful proofs that can easily be found online.  President Garfield certainly did his part in that regard.  I very much admire his simple, elegant proof.

 

 

 

 

  

 

                       

 

 

             

Bonus Eruptus!

Let me begin by letting everyone know that I love The Simpsons.  The show is now in year 31, and I still look forward to each week’s episode.  I will admit that a few years in the middle of the run were pretty lean, but the show is experiencing a renaissance.  The Simpsons are back on solid footing.

Some of you may remember when Dr. Nick introduced us to Bonus Eruptus.  It was episode 21 of season 7.  The episode is entitled 22 Short Stories about Springfield, and that is exactly what transpires, 22 vignettes about the characters populating Homer’s hometown.  I think it is very clever and I have always wanted them to do more episodes like that one.  This particular episode, one of my favorites, first aired on 4/14/96.  Wow, the show has been around a long time, hasn’t it?  I will gladly take another 30 years.

During that stellar episode, Dr. Nick defined Bonus Eruptus as “a terrible condition where the skeleton tries to leap out of the mouth and escape the body.”  Apparently, Grandpa Simpson had this condition, at least that was the diagnosis of the esteemed Dr. Nick Riviera.  I want to take a closer look at the mathematics behind this ostensibly severe condition.  Why?  I think that we might be able to learn a thing or two about probability theory and the inherent problems that come along with mass medical testing.

Please indulge me for a moment.  Let’s all pretend that we live in Springfield USA and that Bonus Eruptus is a legitimate concern.  I know I wouldn’t want my skeleton to try to take its leave of me.

Imagine that Mayor Quimby, in a transparent attempt to get reelected, offers free, yet mandatory, testing to all the inhabitants of Springfield.  Since I have no idea how many people live there, let’s say that 10,000,000 people are living in the greater Springfield area.  I know that is more of a Capital City number but just play along, OK?  Of those, let’s say that 50,000 of them have the dreaded Bonus Eruptus.

Now let’s imagine that Bonus Eruptus is caused by a virus, one easily detectable by a simple test.  Like all tests, though, it is not perfect.  Some people who have the virus will test negative, and a certain percentage of the people who are negative will, in fact, test positive.  Imagine that the false-positive result rate is 2%.  Also, the poor people who have the virus will test positive only 95% of the time. So, the simple question is:  If someone actually tests positive, e.g., Bumblebee Man or Jeff Albertson (extra points if you know who that is), what is the probability that they actually have the terrible disease?  Think about that a while before you go on.  As you might already have guessed, the answer is not nearly as straightforward as you might think.  After all, why else would I be writing about it?

So, here we go.  Of the 50,000 people who have the virus, only 47,500 of them will actually test positive.

50,000 x .95 = 47,500

We know that 9,950,000 total people do not have it.

10,000,000 – 50,000 = 9,950,000

Of the people who do not have the virus, there will be 199,000 who will test positive anyway (the false positives).

9,950,000 x .02 = 199,000

So now, we can do some simple addition and see we come up with a total of 246,500 people who will test positive for Bonus Eruptus.

47,500 + 199,000 = 246,500

Of those, we know that only 47,500 will actually have it.  So if you test positive for the virus, there is only a 19.3% chance that you actually have Bonus Eruptus!. D’oh!

47,500 / 246,500 = 19.3%

Isn’t that interesting?  Without walking through the math, there is no way that a 19.3% chance would even seem to be a possibility.

It is time for me to go.  I have to prepare for this week’s show.  I hear that Homer is going to do something stupid, and Marge is going to get upset.  I am about to burst with excitement.