Ideas for Occupiers

Here are a couple of ideas for the Occupy Wall Street movement:Secret Ballot and Trust Bust--both pertaining to Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.

BILL TROUBLE
In the United States Congress, as in virtually any legislative body, there are two kinds of bills: those that pass and those that do not. That is the key difference. A bill that passes becomes law and effects policy. One that does not pass is essentially irrelevant.  As the joke goes, “Close” only counts in horseshoes, tidddly winks and hand grenades.
You can talk all you want about raising consciousness for a cause, getting sponsors, etc. but when the bill fails to make it, these efforts are in vain.

Nor does a bill that almost passes achieve anything tangibly more than one that is utterly ignored.

Legislators communicate with each other about voting likelihoods—this is allowed—so that they might often vote in ways that are politically advantageous, whereas if the fate of a bill hinged on their vote, they would go the other way.

A savvy politician may pretend to support environmental preservation, for example, by voting for a forest protection bill that has no chance of passage, in order to curry favor of the "green" constituency.

Congressional turnover in the House of Reps. assures that those bills that legislators do not want to pass (due to the moneyed power interest groups' control over them) will wallow around in various committees, possibly appear to be gaining momentum, but fail to get enough supports to become law. It may appear that the bill's passage is an achievable outcome, but before you know it, whoops, congressional elections have arrived, and the process must start all over again, minus, in all likelihood, several sponsors.

SECRET BALLOT
It's clear that Congresspersons are frequently made to feel beholden to powerful special interests in determining how they vote. The best way to minimize the role of lobbyists is to remove the possibility of a vote being "bought". This is doable by instituting a system of confidential balloting--like is standard practice in trial by jury, and was like used in classical Athens, Greece. It would enable a Congressperson to vote his/her conscience without the pressure of accountability to the special interests.

The Constitution can be construed as providing an opening. Article 1, Section 6, Paragraph 2; states that "and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place." A Congressperson who reports repeated intimidation from strong-arming lobbyists or from other politicians should be able to be protected via a secret ballot.

The entrenched, standard policy of posting the vote result in Congress on a name-by-name basis, applies, constitutionally, only to votes following a Presidential veto (U.S. Constitution Art. 1, Sect.7, P'grphs 1-2). So Congress could enact a rule giving itself confidentiality in routine matters. An amendment could subsequently be adopted to cover veto-overrides.

Granted there would be no accountability to John Q. Constituent, either, but nobody really believes their voice matters anymore anyway unless they're tapped into the Lobbocracy, so this proposal might just level the playing field.

TRUST BUSTING
If Congress can't reform itself, it may be time to "break up" the parties—Dems., and Repubs., because they are too big and overconfident (as well as over-cautious), decadent, set in their ways, uncreative, reactive rather than pro-active, and so on.

It's a healthy thing to do—like pruning a bush that has grown too tall too fast. Cut it back some and you might notice how it tends to sprout multiple shoots where snipped—growing back fuller and thence more sturdy and more substantial, less susceptible to wind/snow/ice/pest damage.

Such an action would probably come about as some sort of antitrust argument in the courts--leading ultimately to a Supreme Court ruling to break up the parties like they did AT&T. Clearly they represent a duopoly of the business of political governance. To illustrate, recall the treatment of H. Ross Perot's independent presidential candidacy a few years ago. Even though he was leading in the polls, the two parties conspired to keep him out of debates.

SALARY EQUANIMITY
Towards greater economic equality: one goal of a fair society could be to establish a salary structure that reflects the reality of the workplace. Rank occupations according to how odious, tedious, exhausting, dangerous (to self & others), stressful they are to the average person. Compensate workers accordingly. Also factor-in a position’s complexity, training requirements, etc. And holders of so-called “dead-end” jobs would be rewarded for their dedication and devotion.

Salary structures are not carved into stone, as the labor union movement has proven.

P.S. Note the reality TV show cerca 2008 where the bosses tried doing the dirty work for a week or even a day, with considerable difficulty. It's coming back on in 2012. .

Gift Ideas for One Who Has Everything

Beachfront property! The closer to the beach the better! Here's a nice one in the sand dunes of Cape Henlopen, Delaware.

Why get a yacht or a motorboat when you can get--a transoceanic vessel! The black ship here evidently gets around. Called the Pacific Clipper, it was photographed in Maine.

An antique car! Bonus brownie points if it's still drivable.

A French workhorse! Not as fast as a thoroughbred, but twice the size.

A trip to an exotic place like Egypt for a zany event like the World Arm Wrestling Tournament.

Like a modern-day de' Medici, hire a graffiti artist to paint a couple of walls in the recipient's honor.

A rocket! For the kid in everyone--for having a blast.

A bunch of kitchen sinks--or bathroom sinks (they're interchangeable for the well-heeled)--in honor of that old cliche about having "everything but the kitchen sink."

A large ornate antique hunk of junk to put out in their yard. Like this gorgeous old light fixture on the Columbia University campus.

A full-fledged sculpture park! Buy one like Storm King here in upstate New York. Dig a few dozen holes in the ground, throw some sand around and call it a golf course.

The Gateway Arch! For enough dough the government might be willing to part with the landmark. You'd probably need to disassemble it before shipping.

The Grand Canyon. The one who has everything can spread out his/her toys there.

For the environmentally inclined: a solution to a big problem, such as the runaway greenhouse effect.

A Stairway to Heaven. A fine gift for the religiously and/or musically inclined. Doubters can just try walking all the way up it and they'll find out soon enough.

Give 'em their own crater portrait on the Moon! It could help put them on the map for the space-faring sort of crowd.

Of course, if the One Who Has All behaved particularly badly, Santa's helpers can be recruited to deliver a big Charlie Brown Rock.

SUPERNOVA FORESHADOWED BY A SONG

The spectacular supernova discovered recently in the constellation Ursa Major appears to have been foreshadowed by a Steven Starjet song of mine titled "Big Dipper." The song goes "Big Dipper's burning down tonight", repeating this key line several times. As you may know, "Big Dipper" is more or less synonymous with Ursa Major.

The song is obviously referring to some spectacular, fiery, destructive natural phenomenon happening there and visible from Earth. That's precisely what this explosive supernova is--the brightest supernova seen in a quarter century. If this supernova happened to ber as close to us as the Sun,it would appear several billions of times of times brighter than our home star.

The song "Big Dipper" is on the cd Love Wheel by Steven Starjet, available at cdbaby website and elsewhere.. "Starjet" is a way of describing the explosive path of matter spurting out from supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and black holes (their accretion disks)--these are the most powerful natural events in the universe.

Here are the song lyrics for the first verse:
After dinner take a walk outside
and look up into the sky
there'll be tears in those pretty green eyes
Big Dipper's burning down tonight
Little Dipper's gonna lose a friend
someone better call the fireman
Big Dipper's burning down tonight.

Celebrity Moon Faces & Multi-Galactic Leaves

Above video as discussed in the preceding and following blog entries.

Celebrity Moon Faces
Enormous strange portrait-like features have been spotted on the surface of the Moon using obscure NASA photographs from the 1960's (Figs. 7-4a-l).

A bearded Jesus, Marilyn Monroe ("Moonroe") wearing a top hat (like in her movie with that name), a stringy inside-out baseball face, a couple pairs of fish, and a caped devil with horns were among the first discovered.

The roster of famous figures seen depicted now includes such notables as Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Willie Nelson, Tom Selleck, Bill Clinton, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Charles Chaplin and Babe Ruth. Also on display are the likenesses of Bozo the Clown, the cartoon character Shaggy, a goat boy and Pinocchio.

Furthermore, there are representations of a royal procession (including the British royal guard), a Star of David, an American Indian chief and an Egyptian sphinx. Animal sculptures such the fish, a dalmation, and a deer with antlers are also evident.

Though any of these could have been produced by natural means, it's also possible that they were designed by powerful extraterrestrial intelligent beings, such as the Wormhole Web Weavers, say, as a sort of art class project involving expression, of "native Earth culture” in a geological fashion. Their control over material things and the forces of Nature allows them to create immense and expressive works without
any difficulty or need for crude mechanical devices such as bulldozers and fork-lifts. Their work is virtually indistinguishable from natural forces.

Meet Me on the Moon, Marilyn
Nicknames for the sculptures include: the aforementioned Marilyn Moonroe, Magmoon P.I.(Selleck), and Albert Moonstein (Einstein).

It's possible that some of the moon faces are part of a publicity stunt by time traveling moviemakers who used actors from different periods together--for example Tom Selleck and Marilyn Monroe in a James Bond-style thriller with a title like Double-Platinum Blonde. Some DPB scenes may have been set on the Moon--and even shot there. The rock faces might perform a function somewhat similar to those building-sized billboard advertisements that are common today in places like NYC and LA.

What is truly astonishing is the life-likeness, complexity and richness of the sculptural works. They are in another league from the so-called “face on Mars” (planet #4), which is, by comparison, rather generic and poker-faced--more like a nickel-and-dime-store mask. The faces and figures on the Moon are demonstrable evidence of beings capable of controlling the trajectory and impact of asteroids, meteors and comets, as well as having a profound understanding of human facial dynamics.

These marvelous artworks are site-specific, and so are intended to be seen in their natural setting. Naturally, the appearance of any stationary, sunlit sculpture from a distance will vary depending on the time of (lunar) day--angles and shadows. Nonetheless, as there has been precious little geological or orbital change with the Moon in the few decades since these photos were taken, nor any weathering phenomena such as high winds or rain, they should be repeatable by 21st century lunar orbiters' cameras in the right place at the right time(s).

The above is excerpted from the Steve Kearney book Cosmic Web.  It's available on Amazon Kindlle (including Kindle for PC).

Multi-Galactic Foliage: a Field Notebook

Multi-Galactic Foliage: a Field Notebook

Linking the terrestrial to the cosmic: the speckled leaves of the cultivated evergreen shrub Aucuba japonica Variegata (aka Gold Dust Plant) bear an astonishing resemblance to deep-field telescopic images (See Pictures). This includes, notably, the Hubble Space Telescope's Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) photograph. That image used a ten-hour exposure over several weeks to peer far into space and found an abundance of galaxies.

The markings on the Gold Dust Plant's leaves are evocative of stars, star clusters, assorted nebulae, galaxies (spiral, elliptical and irregular), comets, even asteroids. Also, the leaf spines can look like meteor streaks or spiral galaxies viewed edge-on. Some of the leaf images even appear to mimic the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. All these effects can be particularly impressive when the leaves are viewed in black & white, as on a photocopier--where it's also possible to enhance the view with motion (which can boost nebulosity).

Native to a large swath of Asia, the characteristic Aucuba japonica "variegated with yellow spots" was described by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg in his 1783 botany catalog following extensive journeys in the Orient. Consequently, the horticulturalists who bred this attractive ornamental plant to look that way had to predate deep-field astronomy by centuries.

See my (Steve Kearney) book--Cosmic Web--available on Kindle (including Kindle pc).

See the slide show in the next posting of this blog--Celebrity Moon Faces & Multi-Galactic Leaves for examples of the Aucuba leaves phenomenon.

Desert Island Art

Steve Kearney's list of top 10 artists whose works he'd take to a desert island:

10) Paul Cezanne ( because I'm "not in Paris anymore")

9) Dan Flavin (so I'll at least have some artificial lighting)

8) George Bellows (since there's no TV to watch the fights on)

7) Mark Rothko or Ad Reinhardt (in case there are no blank canvases I can use theirs)

6) John Chamberlain (gives me a source of scrap metal to build something)

5) Georgia O'Keefe (to feel at-home on a desert island)

4) Frank Stella (when something goes wrong I can sarcastically cry out "oh well that's just stellar!"--in my best NY accent)

3) Eric Fischl (so when something goes right I can exult "It's a Fishl!" (i.e. "official"))

2) Paul Gauguin (if I find a genie there I could point to these and wish for an island upgrade)

1) Michelangelo (so I can have a roof over my head)

DC Voting Rights---an Idea Whose Time has Come

The Christmas season is a time for concern towards those less fortunate than us. In a nation that prides itself on its democratic principles, the residents of the District of Columbia certainly qualify. They are nowhere in Congress represented with a vote on national issues.

When I, a Virginian, wrote to one of my Congressman (one of my Senators, actually) several years ago about the DC voting rights issue, I got back this nice letter saying that all is well on Capitol Hill. The US Constitution--Article 1, Section 8--mandates that Congress control Washington, DC. The exact wording is "The Congress shall have Power to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District."

So, in essence, what he was saying was "don't fret about DC being left out in the cold, all of Congress is looking out for her." But about the only time one ever hears about a Congressperson doing something notable in the D of C it's a sex scandal.

The federal government admitted that the Constitution was wrong about slavery, citizenship and voting rights when it passed the 13th through 15th amendments. And it went partway in recognizing the inequitable situation of DC when it passed the 23rd amendment giving Washingtonians a say in presidential elections. If they're allowed to vote for the presidency but have no vote in Congress, that's a glaring inconsistency!

When I, a Virginian--or a Texan, Iowan, New Yorker, Missippian, Arizonan, Minnesotan, Californian, North or South Dakotan, North or South Carolinian, Hannah Montanan, Georgian, Missourian, Floridian, New Mexican, Minnesotan, Pennsylvanian, etc.--want to query or comment to someone in Congress, I've got three people at the top of my list and they've all got a vote--my two Senators and my Congressional District Representative. And they're accountable to voters like me because I voted them into office and I can vote them out.

Now imagine you're a schoolteacher in the District of Columbia--assigned to give a civics lesson on democracy. What are you going to tell them? That at the time the Constitution was written, Washington DC was not a city? That the founding fathers didn't expect Congress to be in session more than a couple of months per year? That DC is a hostage to partisan politics? That home-rule was a failure? Though true, these are not very satisfying answers.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that something is wrong with this picture. Anytime you're calling somebody a "shadow delegate"--she can walk and talk all she wants, she just can't vote--you know it's a farce.

A Public Relations Nightmare
It's a bad thing for the United States--not only because it's wrong, but because it's downright embarrassing. How can you project your image across the world as the defender of democratic ideals, and an enforcer of democratic elections, when within your own nation's capital, the entire populace is disenfranchised? That's about 600,000 people! It's absurd!

Don't think that this disparity between what we say others should do and what we do ourselves--this apparent hypocrisy--escapes the world politic. There are plenty of media outlets covering the US for an international audience these days. Every vote in Congress against DC Voting Rights, and every rally for it, gives networks like Al Jazeera and R-TV another excuse to take a potshot at ole' Uncle Sam.

Surely there's room for compromise. To wit, DC gives up its bid for statehood & senators in return for a full-fledged voting member in the House. Call it the US congressional voting district of Columbia. Making it happen this year would be a good New Year's resolution.


steve kearney