The Mugshot: Need We Say More?

             

                                            

Cute and sultry                              Vain and culty

A winner                                        A whiner

A doozer                                        A loser

What a talented kid!                      What a schmuck

Where are all the aliens?

“Where are all the aliens?” asked Enrico Fermi in 1950. Fast forwards seventy years, just about my entire lifetime, and we’re asking the same question: despite enticing hints, we have yet to find direct evidence of extraterrestrial life. There is a good chance that that will change in the  coming decade.

First, I’d like to document my attitude towards extraterrestrial life when I was a kid. Let us now fast backwards in time to a time not long after Enrico Fermi said his famous assessment of life beyond the solar system. I was almost an adolescent. My uncle Arthur (1898-1958) was building a little retirement cottage in Forked River, New Jersey—the reality of stomach cancer, alas! prevented the realization of his dreams. Our family visited the nearly-completed bungalow many times before my uncle’s death in 1958.

The incomplete kitchen walls were covered with cardboard. All visitors were invited to sign their names on the wall. My brother, Robert, wrote the following:

Arthur Dorsett

3^rd Canal Drive, Mars

Reminiscence of Percival Lowell! Lowell was an American businessman and amateur astronomer, who became famous for his assertion that Mars was inhabited by intelligent life. He saw—or at least thought he saw-- a pattern of lines on Mars that he assumed were canals that brought water from the poles to a dying civilization.

At the time of my brother’s writing on my uncle’s wall, it was still possible to believe that Mars possessed intelligent life. These hopes were dashed when Mariner fly-bys revealed Mars to be a frigid, red desert.

(I remember listening with interest to a re-broadcast of Orson Welles’ 1938 radio play, War of the Worlds, based on a book by H. G. Wells. The original broadcast  caused a great deal of panic by its realistic presentation of a Martian invasion.)

By the time of my yearly adolescence, however, there was little hope that extraterrestrial life would ever be found in our solar system. Now I’m not so sure.

I had been fascinated with Mars. I remember writing with fascination about the red planet and its two moons, Deimos and Phobus. I could almost imagine these two little moons, probably asteroids captured long ago by Martian gravity, passing overhead, no brighter than first magnitude stars, as I imagined myself standing next to a Martian crater. I had been convinced, however, that Mars was a lifeless, frigid desert.

(Ditto with the possibility of life in the rest of the solar system. Who could imagine life on a planet other than ours? Possibly on moons? In our solar system, however, the majority of moons are around gas giants with atmospheres and temperatures that made life as we know it impossible. Or so we thought.

In modern times, the possibility of life on Mars is once again a serious possibility. If life actually exists on that planet, however, there will be no little green men, but, at best, microbial life.

Recent flvbys over Mars have indicated that in the remote past, that  is, billions of years ago, Mars was a much more habitable planet than it is now. There is evidence that the planet once had a surface ocean, perhaps even a kilometer deep. Photos reveal dry riverbeds, shorelines, and strong indications of water erosion. Unfortunately, Mars has a very thin atmosphere and no magnetic field to protect life from cosmic rays. The surface water dissipated into space long ago, but there is evidence that water  exists underground. There are probably aquifers beneath the surface in many areas of the planet. There is evidence of seasonal variations of methane in the atmosphere; methane is a biomarker for life on earth. There is other indirect evidence that has convinced many scientists that life either once existed on the planet or has gone underground. We’ll see.

Perhaps soon: A Mars rover is set to drill about ten meters into the surface, and will analyze the soil for signs of fossils or living organisms.

There is also the theory of panspermia, the premise that life began elsewhere in the universe and came to earth via a comet. It has been proven that primitive life could have survived such a journey. Many comets from Mars have struck the earth. Perhaps we’re all Martians!

Possibilities of life exist in other areas of the solar system as well. Enceladus, for instance, a small moon of Saturn, has a large ocean buried beneath ten kilometers or so of ice. Plumes from that ocean regularly ‘geyser-up’ from the depths of Enceladus. (Material from these geysers form one of the rings of Saturn.) Organic compounds, and more recently, phosphorus, have been discovered in these plumes, further indirect evidence of life.  Other moons, for instance, Jupiter’s Europa, contain subterranean oceans filled with who knows what? Life? We will soon find out.

Even if there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life in our solar system, we must not forget that the universe is an incredibly large place, filled with billions of stars, most of which contain planets. Although no earth-like candidate has been found  among  the five thousand exoplanets discovered so far, search for earth-like planets is just beginning. Some one has said that we have analyzed a glass of water, as it were, while the ocean of the  vast universe remains undiscovered.

Life didn't necessarily begin in a warm little pool that Darwin advocated, it just might have arisen during extreme conditions in oceanic vents. So called extremophiles today live under boiling conditions--no worry about climate change for these guys! When life originated on earth, over 3 billion years ago, conditions were far too hot to support human life. Some scientists believe that primitive life might exist  in the upper atmosphere of Venus, the surface of which is hot enough to melt lead!

There are thus at least several possibilities of life in our solar system. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if extraterrestrial life is discovered while I’m still alive--and I've been a senior citizen for almost twenty years! Even when we lower our expectations from sublime to slime, the headlines will be splendid. And slime might be a lot more attractive than the slimy humans making headlines today. Who knows? We don’t—yet.

 

Deimos and Phobus, the moons of Mars  with which I was fascinated with when I was a kid, are almost certainly dead. But they probably contain enough precious metals to make a fortune many times over. The mining of asteroids is a distinct possibility for the next generation. This has the potential of enriching humanity to an extreme degree--if we're fair that is, and humankind hasn't been fair in the past, to say the least. Aber das ist ein weites Feld; enough for now. 

Was ist mit mir los?

 Die kurze Antwort: vieles.

ABER...

Letzte Nacht um 5 Uhr fiel ich aus dem Bett. Ich landetete am Boden--Bücher lagen überall, auch auf meiner Brust. Das war aber nicht das Problem: ich konnte nicht aufstehen. Nach einigen Minuten, rief ich zu meiner Frau, die noch schlief. Es dauerte mehr als 30 Minuten, bis ich wieder im Bett lag. Gehbehindert bin ich geworden, jene Pille muss ich verschlucken.

Morbus Parkinson kann man nich wegschneuzen. Das weiss ich gut, Ich hab's versucht. Die Entstehung der Symptone kommen sehr langsam an; es gibt auch kein Bluttest,  Nur wenn die Symptone sich vermehren und schlimmer werden, kann man sicher sein, woran man leidet. Ich wünschte ich wãre zwischen zwei Stühlen; ich bleibe leider auf dem Parkinsonstuhl fest, und starre vor mich hin.

Zuerst wusste ich nicht. was los war. Eines Tages fiel ich die Treppe hinunter--und zwar rückwãrts; Bslance und Laufprobleme, Tremor, u.s.w.  Die Müdigkeit die ich stets spüre, ist wohl das Resultat meiner jümgsten Krebsbehaandlungen, eine andere Geschichte, Oder nicht.

Ich war vorher sehr aktiv: fast tãglicher kõrperlicher Training, lange Spaziergãnge, u.s.w. Der Vorteil ist dass ich jetzt mehr lese, weil ich mich vom Stuhl nicht heben kann!  

Ich habe neulich "occupational therapy," (Beschãftigungstherapie) begonnen. Sie hilft, aber manchmal bin ich zu erschôpft, die Empfehlungen durchzusetzen. Habe auch ein  neues Medikament, das hiflt auch. Sehr sogar.  

Ich môche nicht lãnger warten, bis ich die Medizin gegen Morbus Parkinson beginne. Werde morgen meinen Neurologen anrufen.    Hoffentlich bringt jene Medizin schnellen Fortschritt.

Müde, müde. bin ich Brüder!

ABER, die Hoffnung bleibt  kräutergrün; in meiner Brust liegt Pandoras Büchse--sie behält sie noch so fest, so fest: bald hoffentlich erholt.   

Solange ich mich unter den Sternen noch lebend finde, da bin ich glücklich: überall, überall, überall!                                                                                                                                                                                         

An Historic Day

Yesterday, August 2, 2023, was an historic day. Finally federal felony charges were brought against a former, still very politically active president--in addition to two former active indictments and one more likely to come very soon. Yes, it’s about time. The outcome, a guilty verdict and the prevention of his ever becoming president again, is, however, still very far from certain. At least 30% of the electorate are supporters—in many cases ardent supporters, of a man who should never have become president. His shameless lies are taken to be shining truths by those still under his spell.

I would like to make the obvious clear: I am recording this historic event on my blog not as a pundit, but as an average American—why am I convinced that this news is so terrible?

One thing that has held our republic together for over two centuries is the peaceful transfer of power of the executive branch. Democrats might vociferously oppose Republicans, and vice versa, but if a presidential candidate of the opposing party gains more votes in an election, the losing party concedes and congratulates the victor once the final results have come in. I have witnessed this process many times in my long life; the 2020 election results were a glaring exception. Trump lost, yet—to this date!—not only has he refused to admit it, but without any justification whatsoever, declared himself the winner.

It would be as if, back on October 8, 1981, when the L.A. Dodgers defeated the Yankees and thus clinched the World Series, the Yankees manager at the time, Bob Lemon, refused to admit the result, and proclaimed to the TV cameras after the game: “The Dodgers didn’t win 9-2, we did!” He would have been laughed into an early retirement.

Trump might not be laughing—he looks so angry, he looks so sad—but he still might get the last laugh, potentially upending our democracy. This is serious! Our democracy really is in danger.

Are there extenuating circumstances why Trump refuses to concede? There might be psychological reasons. If this is the case, however, Trump is much more of a pathological narcissist than usually thought.

The reasoning here is as follows: Trump cannot accept defeat. It would destroy the illusory superhero self-identifcation that his narcissism created. Even though he knew he had lost, something inside refused to believe it.

Did Hitler know it was morally wrong to  invade Poland in 1939? Of course he  did. Did he invade Poland nevertheless? Of course he did. Remember what  a monk said to Torquemada, the father of the Inquisition, in Mel Brooks famous film? “Hey, Torquemada, what do you say?” “I just been to an auto da fe!!” “An auto da fe, what’s an auto da fe?” “It’s what you oughtn’t to do, but you do anyway!”

To insist that he won the 2020 election; to insist this despite the fact that he was well informed that he had lost; to claim--even now--that the election was stolen; to continue.

To ignore that all sixty cases of alleged fraud have been rejected; to continue to insist that he won, despite most probably knowing, deep down there, that he lost, argues for a pathological etiology. No president in the history of the United States ever tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after an election. This is much more serious than Watergate. Trump is truly sui generis. 

It might be that Torquemada-Trump can’t help what he is doing for psychological reasons—I’m not sure—but even if this is so, this wouldn’t constitute a legal excuse. The damage he has done and is doing to our country demands accountability. Let’s hope this third indictment--with a fourth likely coming soon—will eventually put an end to all this. 

Yes, let’s hope so—and let’s vote so!