What is a boy?

Laura recently found this in our attic. I had forgotten about it. It was on the wall in the farm house when I was growing up (click on the photo to enlarge):

The old man is J. Kinsley Putnam, Pager's father. Beth, Bill and I think that the baby boy in all the photos is John. That would make sense. John was #2, and the first boy. I think Mother found him a LOT different from Beth. And then there were two more boys after John! Mother never had a brother, having grown up with only sisters. I think she found raising boys an unexpected adventure, one that she wasn't initially prepared for, and my guess is that she put this up on the wall to help her keep her sanity.

Too many words

One of my concerns about modern government is that there are too many words expressing too many rules. No one can possibly read all the words, let alone follow all the rules. But it's even worse than that, as described in this opinion column in yesterday's Boston Globe:

Lawmakers, read the bills before you vote

The people making all those rules don't read all those words themselves!

Watson Camp

On May 25, 2009 (Memorial Day) we climbed Sterling Mountain. Sitting on the (stationary) chair lift on top:

Climbing Sterling is not unusual for us. We hike up Sterling a lot. What was unusual on this trip was that we hiked over to Watson Camp on the north side of Sterling Pond, and found it on the ground:

The Green Mountain Club has been talking about removing this camp for a while, so I think the camp was taken down intentionally. From their web site: "Other things we hope to get to in 2009, depending on funding and the number of volunteers available: ...completing the dismantling and removal of Watson Camp..."

I cannot find a history of Watson Camp online. But my recollection is that Thomas J. Watson, Jr. bought land on top of Sterling Mountain and built this camp as a private camp. He later gave the land and camp to the GMC. I remember being told that this was the first land (about 1/2 acre) that the GMC ever owned, and for some years it was the only land they owned. (Now they own a lot of land.) I believe that a related part of the story is that the reason there is an IBM plant in Essex Jct. is that Mr. Watson liked skiing at Smugglers Notch Ski Area, and he reasoned that at least some IBM employees might like to live nearby. (As noted in the link, Mr. Watson had a great deal to do with starting the Smugglers Notch Ski Area.)

On a different subject, but the same hike, here is a photo of the hunter and his dog in Smugglers Notch (the dog is in the trees):

Pager and Cat

In Pager's lilac garden on May 24, 2009 (Memorial Day weekend):

The photo isn't about the lilacs; it's about the cat, which had hopped up on the potash kettle for some attention.

A Scout is Cheerful

I recently listened to a course from The Teaching Company titled "Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions." The course was taught by Dr. Robert Solomon, who was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. (He died in 2007.)

Emotion and reason are like yin and yang. They are an excellent example of complementarity. This course was an interesting discussion about the emotional half of that duo.

Overall it was a good course, but one small section seemed odd. In the last lecture, titled "Happiness and Spirituality," Dr. Solomon discusses cheerfulness, as opposed to happiness:

Now I'm suspicious of cheerfulness, partly because, as you can probably tell, I'm not a particularly cheerful person. But also it seems to me that, it's been pointed out by many people in the world, Europeans, Asians, Africans, and so on, that there's an American facade, and the facade is one of being happy all the time (a very good novel, by the way, by Laurie Colwin some years ago).

But the idea of cheerfulness, again, is perfectly superficial. And it has an interesting history. Two centuries ago, we were very much like our European heritage and the proper temperment for a good American was one of seriousness and piety and a certain amount of concern because everyone knew that life was tough, that it ended badly, that there were serious issues in the world, and so it was considered simply inappropriate to be too cheerful.

That changed, interestingly enough, in the 19th century when, for example, employers found that they were having trouble with their workers because they didn't really like their jobs. And so job satisfaction and cheerfulness were encouraged as necessary parts of employment. And in the home, women were getting a bit unruly and were often embittered by their situation. And so cheerfulness became a kind of facade which they were expected to put on as a way of confronting what was otherwise perhaps an intolerable situation, but in any case it caused their husbands much less trouble.

Now these are not very pretty pictures. But the idea is that cheerfulness is something that Americans have learned fairly recently as a facade to the world which, needless to say, most of the world does not find very amusing. Most Europeans look at Americans with their constant cheerfulness as kind of, well, sort of idiots, because life isn't to be that cheerful about.

Curses on those wicked American husbands and employers! Oh wait, that's me. Well, since the secret is out, I thought I would come clean and disclose the secret training I have received in this area since I was a young lad.

It began in Boy Scouts at age 11. Lord Baden-Powell started Boy Scouts in 1907. In the U.S. version of Boy Scouts, there is a 12 point Scout Law, one of which is "A Scout is cheerful." Bingo! If this isn't the source of the problem (after all, 1907 isn't quite in the 19th century), it must be at least a major milestone on the American path to subjugate the world with cheerfulness.

Never mind that the Scout Law is about improving oneself, not telling others what to do. Never mind that Lord Baden-Powell had nothing to say about workers (he was a military man, not an industrial magnate). Never mind that nothing in Boy Scout teachings has anything to do with women. Never mind that Lord Baden-Powell was British, not American. Never mind that Scouting has become a world-wide movement in over 200 countries, headquartered in the very American city of Geneva, Switzerland. And while the international version of the Scout Law is slightly different from the U.S. version, never mind that it says: "A Scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties," which sounds like cheerfulness to me. Clearly, what's wrong with the world is that Americans are too darn cheerful. After having figured out how to use cheerfulness to subjugate their women and workers, Americans have infused their whole culture with cheerfulness, even brainwashing young boys, to the point where the rest of the world thinks we are idiots for it.

Oh, by the way, Lord Baden-Powell also started Girl Guides in 1910, due to popular demand. At first he was helped by his sister, and later by his wife. (He married in 1912.) The original version of the Guide Law included this: "A Guide smiles and sings under all difficulties." (source, pp. 6-7) In some countries, including the U.S., Girl Guides are called Girl Scouts. It is interesting to note that the U.S. version of the Girl Scout Law contains no mention of cheerfulness, no mention of smiling and singing in the face of difficulties. Obviously, they were onto the Boy Scout plot.

As further evidence that cheerfulness is indeed valued outside of America, even if the U.S. Girl Scouts and American university professors are having none of it, I recommend this video from Thailand. It will put a cheerful smile on your face!

Lost Men on Campus

Well over half of all college students are women. Why are fewer men than women attending college?

Inside Higher Ed recently had an article on this issue: Lost Men on Campus.

I don't normally read Inside Higher Ed, but one of the bloggers I sometimes read (Instapundit—a law professor at the University of Tennessee) wrote about this article: "the mentality revealed in this story is the problem." He also quoted a reader's favorable mention of the Boy Scouts. Read the whole blog post. He also wrote in 2005 on this subject: Where the Boys Aren't.

Instapundit's answer to the question in the first paragraph is: "because the environment has become hostile."

UPDATE 6/14/09: For an example of what Instapundit means by a hostile environment, see this post where a university professor blames men for, of all things, cheerfulness.

Belvidere Mountain

All five of us climbed Belvidere Mountain on May 24, the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. On top of the fire tower at the summit:

And reflected in my sunglasses:

Nancy didn't climb the tower. She is on the rocks below. Note the shadow of the tower with the rest of us on top:

Looking out over the old asbestos mine:

Laura took flower pictures on the way down:

In addition to spring beauties and dogtooth violets (above) we saw red trillium, white violets, purple violets and crabapple blossoms.

Wolfram|Alpha is live!

Wolfram|Alpha went live this weekend...check it out!

To get an idea of what Wolfram|Alpha can do, click the link for "Watch Overview Video."

Below is an example output. I entered "gdp vs. arable land". Wolfram|Alpha generated this scatter plot of all the countries in the world. If you hover over any dot (on Wolfram|Alpha not here) it will display the name of the country. Pretty cool!

Brighton Beach Memoirs

I saw the play Brighton Beach Memoirs at the Hyde Park Opera House on Friday, May 8th. Bob Giroux and Lesley Ryan had invited us. Nancy was in Maine and could not go. But I did. Many other people we know were also at this opening night performance, including the Tobins and the Duchaceks. The play was interesting and the acting was terrific. I had a wonderful time.

Brighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon about growing up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1937, as war loomed in Europe. The protagonist is a young teen-age boy, Eugene Jerome, who is just becoming interested in girls. (Neil Simon was 10 years old in 1937, so the timing is off slightly to be a true autobiography.) Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, and Eugene was a beginning writer who was observing and writing about his family, hence the "memoirs" in the title of the play.

The best parts of the play were the many hilarious lines about Eugene's new interest in girls. This is not a play for children. The themes are definitely adult.

In addition to the coming-of-age theme, the play is also about the problems this extended family faced. Part of the family had lost its breadwinner, resulting in extra relatives moving into the Jerome house. The house was crowded. The extended family members did not always get along. Jobs were hard to come by, and there was a perpetual lack of money. This was, after all, during the Great Depression. And more extended family members were expected (at the end of the play) as refugees from Europe, where Jews were fleeing persecution from the Nazis.

How did this family cope with its problems? With laughter and tears. With imagination, determination and hard work. With bickering and arguing. But what struck me was that it was the family that coped with the problems. There was no mention of the government coming to the rescue. The play took place almost five years after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in November 1932, but there was no mention of the New Deal. The only mentions of government were the police (who brought Eugene's father home after he had a heart attack on the subway) and the military (preparing for war). These are traditional functions of government. It is startling to realize how much our society has changed in terms of what we expect from the institutions of family and government.

This play made me think of Richard Feynman, who also grew up in a Jewish family in New York City (Queens) at about this time. Feynman was 19 in 1937, about the same age as Eugene's older brother.

The American Form of Government

What form of government do we have in the U.S.? We often say we have a democracy, but a better answer is that we have a republic.

This video provides a good overview of different forms of government, including the difference between a democracy and a republic. It's a good video and I recommend it. It is about 10 minutes long.

Note: Scoutmaster Roger Allen brought this video to my attention, as he knew that it pertained to the Citizenship in the World merit badge that I have been a counselor for. Some time ago I created a web site for this merit badge. The requirements have changed since then, and I need to update that web site. But in the old requirements, requirement 7 was about different types of governments.

Wolfram|Alpha Blog

Well, it's May 1 and no Wolfram|Alpha yet. But there IS a Wolfram|Alpha Blog. Check it out for some color on what Wolfram|Alpha is all about.

UPDATE 5/02/09: The Quest for Computable Knowledge - A Short Timeline is an interesting document found on the Wolfram|Alpha Blog. It lists many interesting milestones in the development and organization of the human body of knowledge.

It is interesting to note that a lot of things happened before 200 BC and a lot of things happened after 1600 AD. But there isn't much on the list for nearly two millennia between those dates.

Wolfram|Alpha

Stephen Wolfram has brought us Mathematica and A New Kind of Science. Next month he promises to bring us Wolfram|Alpha, a "computational knowledge engine" for the web.

Click here for his blog post about it.

Click here for a news article about Wolfram|Alpha.

UPDATE 4/13/09: Another news article about Wolfram|Alpha.

NOTE: Stephen Wolfram is another interesting person who, like Freeman Dyson, intersected with Richard Feynman. Wolfram earned his PhD in physics from Caltech in 1979 at the age of 20, and was on the faculty there 1980-1982. Feynman was at Caltech from 1950 until his death in 1988. Wolfram and Feynman also collaborated in the late 1980s on the Connection Machine being developed by W. Daniel Hillis. (Feynman's son Carl also worked on this project.)

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From the Beaten Track (2005) is a collection of Feynman's letters compiled by his daughter, Michelle Feynman. In it is a letter of recommendation that Feynman wrote in support of a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellow Award for Wolfram. Wolfram won the award (commonly known as the Genius Award) in 1981, the first year of the award. The book also includes a 1985 exchange between Wolfram and Feynman about Wolfram's idea to create his own institute to support his research. Feynman recommended against the idea, but Wolfram went on to create the successful company Wolfram Research.

I heard Dr. Wolfram speak at UVM in 2005 and 2007.