our limited minds cannot grasp mysterious forces that sway stars
Adapted from a statement made by Albert Einstein in the interview, What Life Means to Einstein, for the book, Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930) by G. S. Viereck.
Mr. Einstein said: We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.
As much as this should focus on Einstein and God, I am not so sure that Mr. Einstein did not play to the media of his day with statements like this.
More, today, I was struck by the imagery.
The imagery of the child in the library, the huge library.
Focus on that child for a moment.
What kind of child?
There no other descriptors.
There are no limits.
Not a small child.
Not a smart child.
Not a child of any race, age, religion or any thing else.
A child.
And that’s us.
And BOY Howdy, our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations, we can’t even grasp, by how much.
July Seventeenth has been my birthday since the day I was born
1962 maybe??
I was born 62 years ago today.
Hard to believe that I have made through 62 years, but I have always accepted that my guardian angels rack up a lot of overtime.
Like that moment I talk about when, standing behind a parked van waiting to cross a street, I didn’t bother to look and started walking out into the street.
My brain gave the command to start but for some reason my legs refused to move.
It was as if, I felt at the time, someone had a hold of my coat and I was frozen for a second.
Then a car went zooming past inches in front of me.
A car I had never seen coming.
I had never bothered to peek around the corner of that van.
Had my legs worked, I would have been a greasy spot on Lyon Street with no one to blame but myself.
I don’t go all Maradona-hand of God here but something, someone held me back.
BUT I DIGRESS.
I know the story of the day of birth.
I know it because it was told so often.
Not sure why, but in a family of 11 kids, it was my birthday that got talked about.
It was a Sunday in July and earlier that weekend, my Mom felt good enough to decide to have a big Sunday dinner.
Even with me on the way at any minute and seven kids already there, she also invited my Uncle Bud’s family to come over as well.
It was so exciting that I decided I wanted to show up but before my Mom and Dad went off to Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my Mom called my Aunt Marion and told to her please still to come over after church that morning and could she get dinner on the table?
So it was that a little bit later that afternoon my Dad came home to see all his kids and guests around the Sunday Dinner table and announced, “It’s a boy!”
Many is the time my Aunt Marion would sit with me in our kitchen and point down the back hallway and say, ‘I can still see your Dad coming in, one hand raised in kind of a salute, saying, it’s a boy!’
My four brothers, now with a clear majority, cheered.
My three sisters, hoping for a fifty-fifty split all cried.
At least that is the story that was told as long as I can remember.
As for name, Mike, that had been picked out for years.
When my brother Tim had been born in 1956, he had been named Mike for a couple days.
Family history has it that when my Dad went down to fill out the paper work, he had one more look at the new baby and said, “Nope, he’s not a Mike.” and filled out the birth certificate for Timothy John Hoffman.
‘We will save Mike for the next one,’ Dad told Mom.
What Mom was thinking about ‘the next one’ at that moment has not been recorded.
And the next one was a girl, my sister Lisa.
But four years later, I showed up on that Sunday and my Dad took one look and said, ‘That’s a Mike.’
Since that day I have learned that there is something to that.
Think about it and I am sure there is in your life ‘a Mike.’
When folks tell me they chose the name Mike for a new baby, I shake my head and say, ‘You’ll be sorry.’
Mike Mike Mike, there is just something about the name and what can I say as it seems to be more of a label for what’s in the jar rather than just a name on the jar.
So July 17, 1960, to quote, Mr. Dickens’, I am born.
Born to cheers and tears and a used first name that would not have fit with anyone else in my family.
What a long strange trip it’s been … so far.
Mr. Dickens’ writes in his book David Copperfield:
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.
I will have to look up what being born on a Sunday at Noon means.
I have been a lot of things in life, but I can’t call unlucky one of them.
I hope I am smart enough to both enjoy the sunshine of God’s benevolence in my life as well as smart enough to not question my good fortune.
Because, you see George, I really have had a wonderful life.
this establishment – conservative progressives? this isn’t normal
Reading this week in the New York Times, two opinion pieces caught my eye.
The first was by David Brooks in his piece, “A 2024 Presidential Candidate Who Meets the Moment” where he commented that:
I’d like you to consider the possibility that the political changes that have rocked this country over the past six years will be nothing compared with the changes that will rock it over the next six. I’d like you to consider the possibility that we’re in some sort of prerevolutionary period — the kind of moment that often gives birth to something shocking and new.
And …
If ever there was a moment ripe for a Ross Perot-like third candidate in the 2024 general election, this is that moment. There are efforts underway to prepare the way for a third candidate, and in this environment an outsider, with no ties to the status quo, who runs against the establishment and on the idea that we need to fundamentally fix the system — well, that person could wind up winning the presidency.
He commented that:
Democrats had a larger share of support among white college graduates than among nonwhite voters. These white voters are often motivated by social policy issues like abortion rights and gun regulation.
The Republicans used to be the party of business, but now they are emerging as a multiracial working-class party.
In other words, we now have an establishment progressive party and an anti-establishment conservative party. This isn’t normal.
So I gots to ask, what is normal.
When the Founding Fathers set all this out, they went to great lengths to protect the rights of the minority.
They did this, in my humble opinion, because they thought THERE would be a minority and a very generous MAJORITY.
I feel that what they thought would be normal would be a strong Executive of one Party and a strong Legislative of another party that would serve as a check and a balance on either (with an impartial Judicial keeping an eye on both.
Oh those Founding Fathers!
You silly fellows.
You have to admit that their plan worked out rather well when Mr. Nixon mis-behaved and a Congress of another party called him on it and a court with 4 Nixon appointee’s held to the law.
But in a time with hair splitting differences between leaders and losers in the Executive and the Legislative, normal does not seem to be working out too well.
One vote can control the Senate and that is because they messed with the 60 votes that used to be needed to approve stuff or nothing ever would have happened in the Senate.
In the house, political scientists can point to just 20 congressional districts out of 435 where the fate of the country will be decided.
This isn’t normal.
Is it?
The other piece that caught my eye was Only Saudi Arabia and Israeli Arabs Can Save Israel as a Jewish Democracy by the ever popular, Thomas l. Friedman.
It is a very thoughtful account of the current state of affairs in Israel.
Mr. Friedman points out that Israel is going into their 5th leadership election in 4 years.
Israel has a Parliament style government where which party can put together a majority coalition gets to be in charge.
With 120 seats, you need 61 to set up a goverment.
Mr. Friedman writes, “Neither the Israeli center-left coalition nor the Israeli right-wing religious nationalist coalition has enough votes alone to create a stable governing majority anymore. That’s why Israel keeps having elections.“
So if the Israeli center-left coalition or the Israeli right-wing religious nationalist coalition wants to be in charge they have to make a deal.
There is another party with 12 seats.
If either the Israeli center-left coalition or the Israeli right-wing religious nationalist coalition makes a deal with this group, they win.
And who, you ask, is this group?
Those 12 seats belong the members of parliament elected by registered to vote, Israeli citizen, Arabs that currently make up 21% of the population of Israel.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
If you think it sounds simple say outloud:
The ruling Israeli center-left / Arab coalition.
Or,
The ruling Israeli right-wing religious nationalist / Arab coalition.
Maybe making a deal with that Joe Manchin doesn’t look so hard.
BTW, Mr. Brooks did find that person he thought might be the best candidate for 2024.
subject to ruthless pseudo-efficient logic of acquisition
I liked yesterday’s essay so much I created another haiku from the same line in the same piece.
The haiku is different but my thoughts, a day later, are still the same.
Today’s haiku is adapted from the line, These teams in their ancient configurations, which emerged through years of slow, organic development, should be the objects of harmlessly fideistic devotion by fans, not subject to the ruthless pseudo-efficient corporate logic of endless acquisition, in the opinion piece, The Big Ten Is Growing, But All I See Is Decline, by Matthew Walther in the New York Times.
Mr. Walther as might be guessed, was writing about college sports in general and the Big 10 and Pac 12 announcement of either a gain or a loss of two teams.
But it was this statement that expressed my feelings exactly about college sports except for the conclusion.
Like so many of history’s great tragedies — the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the French Revolution, the end of ashtrays in cars — the decline of college football began with reasonable calls for reform. There really was something odd about the fact that Michigan and Nebraska, two undefeated football teams that had never played each other, were both able to call themselves the 1997 national champions. Surely, fans thought, it should be possible to come up with a system that determines who the real champion is. But it was precisely this uncertainty that once gave college football something of its idiosyncratic charm. To this day, in any dive bar in Michigan or Nebraska you can meet fans who will offer lovingly detailed arguments for why their team would have won 25 years ago if the two schools had faced off. (In 1998, a group of dedicated Nebraska fans went so far as to script and record a mock radio broadcast featuring the hypothetical matchup.)
These conversations were part of the sport’s appeal. They also belonged to a world in which college football was, in ways that are scarcely imaginable today, a regional and somewhat parochial affair. Who cared if a bunch of newspapermen decided (as they did in 1985) that Oklahoma was No. 1 and that a Michigan team with an identical record and its own victory in a major bowl game was No. 2? What mattered was winning rivalry games and conference championships.
Rivalries often involved implicit, class-based rooting interests: urban versus rural, research versus land grant, upper-middle-class professionals and the exurban working classes versus middle-class suburbia. These games were played for ancient, often absurd trophies such as the Old Brass Spittoon, which goes to the winner of the annual Indiana-Michigan State game.
When Mr. Walther wrote, … the decline of college football began with reasonable calls for reform. There really was something odd about the fact that Michigan and Nebraska … I saw this as the silver in the lining, not the sliver in the eye of college sports.
Mr. Walther states that ever since 1997, that season is still a daily presence in the lives of fans just because there was no clear winner.
When the Cubs finally one a World Series, I felt the price, that they won, was too high to give up the 100 years plus memories of trying.
How many teams have won ONE World Series since 1908?
So many dumb teams I tell you.
And how many teams had not won any?
JUST ONE.
But not anymore.
I can’t even name the year that it was that the Cubs won.
The price was too high
But that 1997 year when Scotty Frost apologized for not being able to pose with a rose in his teeth but please please please vote for my team.
Never ever ever forget.
I have a harmless fideistic devotion to a certain team.
That will not be changed by wins or losses or coaches or player commitments.
That will not change.
That there are folks that do change strikes me as too bad.
That those in charge of the game know there is enough of those people that all the ruthless pseudo-efficient corporate logic of endless acquisition is what makes the changes strikes also as too bad.
configurations fideistic fan devotion emerged harmlessly
Fideistic got thrown out by spell check and that is sure sign that the word is worthy of being in a haiku.
Today’s haiku is adapted from the line, These teams in their ancient configurations, which emerged through years of slow, organic development, should be the objects of harmlessly fideistic devotion by fans, not subject to the ruthless pseudo-efficient corporate logic of endless acquisition, in the opinion piece, The Big Ten Is Growing, But All I See Is Decline, by Matthew Walther in the New York Times.
Mr. Walther as might be guessed, was writing about college sports in general and the Big 10 and Pac 12 announcement of either a gain or a loss of two teams.
But it was this statement that expressed my feelings exactly about college sports except for the conclusion.
Like so many of history’s great tragedies — the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the French Revolution, the end of ashtrays in cars — the decline of college football began with reasonable calls for reform. There really was something odd about the fact that Michigan and Nebraska, two undefeated football teams that had never played each other, were both able to call themselves the 1997 national champions. Surely, fans thought, it should be possible to come up with a system that determines who the real champion is. But it was precisely this uncertainty that once gave college football something of its idiosyncratic charm. To this day, in any dive bar in Michigan or Nebraska you can meet fans who will offer lovingly detailed arguments for why their team would have won 25 years ago if the two schools had faced off. (In 1998, a group of dedicated Nebraska fans went so far as to script and record a mock radio broadcast featuring the hypothetical matchup.)
These conversations were part of the sport’s appeal. They also belonged to a world in which college football was, in ways that are scarcely imaginable today, a regional and somewhat parochial affair. Who cared if a bunch of newspapermen decided (as they did in 1985) that Oklahoma was No. 1 and that a Michigan team with an identical record and its own victory in a major bowl game was No. 2? What mattered was winning rivalry games and conference championships.
Rivalries often involved implicit, class-based rooting interests: urban versus rural, research versus land grant, upper-middle-class professionals and the exurban working classes versus middle-class suburbia. These games were played for ancient, often absurd trophies such as the Old Brass Spittoon, which goes to the winner of the annual Indiana-Michigan State game.
When Mr. Walther wrote, … the decline of college football began with reasonable calls for reform. There really was something odd about the fact that Michigan and Nebraska … I saw this as the silver in the lining, not the sliver in the eye of college sports.
Mr. Walther states that ever since 1997, that season is still a daily presence in the lives of fans just because there was no clear winner.
When the Cubs finally one a World Series, I felt the price, that they won, was too high to give up the 100 years plus memories of trying.
How many teams have won ONE World Series since 1908?
So many dumb teams I tell you.
And how many teams had not won any?
JUST ONE.
But not anymore.
I can’t even name the year that it was that the Cubs won.
The price was too high
But that 1997 year when Scotty Frost apologized for not being able to pose with a rose in his teeth but please please please vote for my team.
Never ever ever forget.
I have a harmless fideistic devotion to a certain team.
That will not be changed by wins or losses or coaches or player commitments.
That will not change.
That there are folks that do change strikes me as too bad.
That those in charge of the game know there is enough of those people that all the ruthless pseudo-efficient corporate logic of endless acquisition is what makes the changes strikes also as too bad.
