danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

Everyone in America was apparently glued to the television last Thursday, when it appeared that a young boy had been carried aloft by a weather balloon that proceeded to float across eastern Colorado and land in the middle of a farm.  Admittedly, it makes for a dramatic story, particularly when it was accompanied by live video.  As the balloon drifted toward high-voltage power lines, I can understand how so many would feel so much anxiety for the safety of that boy.

We know now, however, that it was a hoax perpetrated by the child’s whore parents, in a shameful effort to attract attention they could parlay into a “reality” television deal.

Hearing about this fraud instantly brought a host of questions to mind.  Did these people think they were going to get away with it?  Do they have any concept of morality?  Does it bother them that, across the country last week, millions of genuinely anxious people wasted millions of honest prayers?  Is this how far our society has degenerated?

The answers to the first three questions are: apparently; apparently not; and I don’t know.  I was tempted to believe that the answer to the last question was a resounding yes – that our society has, in fact, been driven to the point of moral bankruptcy in the short span of our living memory.

Then yesterday Wikipedia stepped forward unexpectedly to challenge my perceptions.  It reaffirmed that we are indeed living in an age of depravity, but it moved the date of our moral degradation back nearly three hundred years, to 1726, to be precise.  In that year, a woman from Surry named Mary Toft perpetrated a hoax that seems so obviously unbelievable, so completely ridiculous, that it is hard to believe anyone could have fallen for it.  And yet people did, and some paid dearly for it.

Mary Toft suffered a miscarriage.  That much is true, and that much is surely worthy of pity.  But Mary Toft took things to another level.  A totally crazy level.  There’s no polite way to tell what she did, but, put simply, she cut up some rabbits and stuck them in her hoo-hoo, and then claimed to give birth to rabbits.  Some doctors heard of this and went to see her, and when they pulled more parts of rabbits from her hoo-hoo, they thought, “hey, this lady’s full of bunny babies!”  Now, you and I would immediately suspect something was amiss, because we know that there just wasn’t enough time since her miscarriage to carry rabbits to full term.  Also, people cannot give birth to rabbits.  But some people believed her.  In fact, some people had the hilariously ignorant idea that a woman could give birth to whatever she had been around.  So, let a cat sleep on your bed, and you’re going to deliver a kitten baby.  When the hoax was discovered (and I can’t believe it took as long as it did), the reputation of a prominent doctor was ruined, and the medical profession in general suffered.

So, let us not grieve for our lately-departed sense of decency; it has been dead for a long time.

UPDATE – 23 December 2009: The parents of “Balloon Boy” (a sort-of inaccurate name) were sentenced to time in jail today, and prohibited from profiting from their story for four years.

Filed under: Current Events, History, Musings on October 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

The morning of our second day in Puerto Rico took us to the mountainous interior of the island.  Heading west out of San Juan wasn’t too bad, since all the traffic in the morning comes into the city.  As you drive, the view to the south is one of rugged mountains.  The nearer ones are not so intimidating, but behind them, further inland, is a much more fearsome range.  That was where we were heading.  I’ve written already about the dangerous and unsafe mountain roads.  However awful they are to drive, they lead to interesting places.

Our first stop was the Arecibo Observatory.  Operated by Cornell University, it is one of the largest radio telescopes on Earth.  Pictures don’t do it justice.  It is really enormous.  I seem to recall the tour guide saying something about twenty-five football fields fitting inside.  Astronomers chose this specific location for a few reasons, of which the most significant were the proximity to the equator, and another being the big hole that existed naturally between the surrounding mountains.  The had to do only a little blasting to fit the reflector.  Looking at the different antennas from the rim of the reflector you cannot tell how large anything really is.  But when a man passed in a basket over head, his tiny size gave some indication.  The short film we watched in the visitor center explained that the round sub-reflector suspended high in the air is the size of a three story building.  The pointy antenna next to it is almost a hundred feet long.  Three colossal concrete towers support the cables, and those cables are embedded in massive concrete anchors.  The air at Arecibo was fresh and in the shade I felt so cool and comfortable that if I closed my eyes I could imagine that I was in the North Carolina mountains.

Our next stop that day was to be the caverns in Camuy, but we arrived to find that all the tickets had been sold for the day.  We decided to head instead to the nearby Caguana Ceremonial Ball Courts.  The Taíno lived here in pre-Hispanic times, and left petroglyphs which are on display and are fascinating.  Now, a cynical person might say, “well sure, this place is interesting, but while the Taíno were drawing on these stones, the French were building the cathedral at Riems“.  That may be so, smart guy, but as Jared Diamond points out in Guns, Germs, and Steel, geography and technology are crucial to the development of any society.  Europeans lived in the most fertile place in the world, had horses and access to almost unlimited resources.  The indigenous people of the Caribbean had to cope with frequent hurricanes, occasional earthquakes, land that was far too rugged to sustain substantial populations through agriculture.  The ball courts at Caguana are fascinating, and you could see how the stones surrounding them were brought up from the river running through the canyon below.  All around the site were enormous Ceiba trees, which were easily over a hundred feet tall, with massive trunks that dwarf a man. The park was practically deserted, and the weather was lovely.

The drive back to San Juan gave me another opportunity to experience awe and terror, as I passed gorgeous scenery, and treacherous driving conditions.  At one point, a convoy of ambulances approached from behind with lights flashing.  I moved over to allow them to pass, but they didn’t go any faster than anyone else.  I concluded that emergency vehicles in Puerto Rico must always just travel with flashing lights.  Meanwhile, when I did hear a police siren, I looked around expecting to find a patrol car.  Rather, I discovered a motorcyclist and his girlfriend, using a police siren to attract attention.

We joined our friend Maggie, who lives in Puerto Rico, for dinner at a restaurant with a cool Egyptian theme.  At the conclusion of the meal, a belly-dancing girl came out and entertained everyone.  I can see why that custom is so popular.

It was after ten o’clock when we arrived back at our hotel, and I was ultra tired.  The next day we would explore San Juan.

Filed under: History, Technology, Travel on August 30th, 2009 | No Comments »

The history of civilization has been punctuated by events that altered empires, advanced science, and witnessed creative genius.  I believe that that history can be divided into two eras.  In the latter era, men have walked on the surface of the moon.

The year 1969 must have been one of the most exciting to experience.  I wish I had been alive that night–forty years ago–to watch Walter Cronkite, with an expression of obvious joy, announce that Neil Armstrong had taken that “giant leap for mankind”.  It represented the conclusion of the dramatic story arc begun even before Cronkite informed America that President Kennedy had died in Dallas.

Today, Walter Cronkite is dead, and the astronauts of Apollo 11 are almost eighty-years-old.  Most Americans alive today were born after July 20, 1969.

Men from the dawn of time pondered the moon.  Even when the ancients understood the lunar cycle and the moon’s effect on tides, so much was still shrouded in mystery.  That mystery inspired artists, poets, and entire religions.  It also inspired men of science, who, by 1969, had at their disposal the technology needed to lift that beautiful veil.  We lost the mystery and wonder forever.

I do not know what the future holds for civilization.  Whatever great strides we may make, we will never equal that “one small step for a man”.

Filed under: Current Events, History on July 20th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Today is the 200th birthday of the greatest American, Abraham Lincoln.

As a number of recent books and documentaries point out, much of what is believed today about Lincoln says more about us than about him.  That is to say, Lincoln is such a towering figure, that everyone wants to have Lincoln on his side.  So, whatever beliefs or ideals you hold, you will attempt to ascribe those to Lincoln.  The problem with this is obvious.

Meanwhile, I find it vexing that some today try to vilify Lincoln because his words and actions do not live up to the idea of perfection we have attributed to Lincoln.  For example, as twenty-first century Americans, it shocks some that Lincoln did not believe that blacks were the intellectual equal of whites, or that Lincoln used “the N-word”.  Some take this fact and reach the unreasonable conclusion that Lincoln was a “white supremacist” and a racist.  The problem with this, of course, is that these people are not acknowledging the reality of context.  When Lincoln lived, almost every white American was incredibly racist and almost nobody–and certainly nobody in the mainstream of society–was arguing for full equality for blacks.  The truth is this: Lincoln was always opposed to slavery, and no other man with a realistic chance of becoming president of the United States in 1861 was as open-minded, or better suited for that office, in those circumstances, at that time.  It is difficult to imagine anyone else but Lincoln having the wisdom and tenacity to preserve the Union.  Abraham Lincoln personally did more good for his country than any other man.  If you care that Florida and Vermont are in the same country today, thank Abraham Lincoln.

Meanwhile, as one who appreciates good writing, I am endlessly impressed by Lincoln’s words.  One of the best teachers I’ve ever had, Professor Brian McCrea, often quotes Lincoln’s second inaugural address, and cites it as the ideal example of parallel sentence structure.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up our nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Setting aside the beauty of the language, and the nobility of the content, that sentence is structurally brilliant.  It is remarkably long for one sentence, but it is held together perfectly by its parallel structure.  It even follows Dr. McCrea’s convention that the last clause in a parallel sentence should be the longest (in this case, “to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”).  A politician today would not have said the preceding the same way.  He would more likely say, “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.  Let us bind up our nations wounds”, etc.  Parallel structure, as Dr. McCrea would say, is a feature of sophisticated writing.

Happy Birthday, Lincoln.

Filed under: History, Special Occasions on February 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

It isn’t easy to say much more than I’ve already said about today’s historic events.  Let’s simply say that I feel very proud and very happy.

On an unrelated note, though the temperature in Gainesville today reached 49 degrees, I nevertheless felt colder than I have ever felt in my life, including occasions in which I have been flat on my back in a mountain of snow.  I don’t know if it’s me or something else, but I felt certain I was freezing to death.

Still, I’d have gladly endured sub-freezing temperatures to have been in Washington today.  I couldn’t sleep last night, and tonight I’ll probably be too excited again.  I’m very happy.

Filed under: Current Events, History, Meteorology on January 20th, 2009 | No Comments »