End of the World?

After the American Century

I think we can now say it is official: the world did not come to an end on May 21. This was announced as a certainty in full page advertisements in many American newspapers, including USA Today, which I get slipped under my door every day in the hotel where I am staying.

This apocalyptic vision is nothing new, of course. The Puritans were certain that the end of the world was close at hand, and the first best-seller in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a "The Day of Doom" a long poem about the Last Judgement. In case you did not see the now expired prediction, it was worked out as part of a larger chronology of the history of the earth that Charles Darwin would find rather silly. It goes as follows (according to eBible fellowship)

TIMING OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN HISTORY 

(My students should  take note, I do not endorse this chronology as a study aid for the final exam in US history)

11,013 BC—Creation. God created the world and man (Adam and Eve).  

What about the mosquito. Was it also created in 11,013 BC? And why did God not begin at number 1 and count forwards?In any case, note that on this date, too, were created all the geologic strata that apparently falsely suggest that the earth is millions of years older. No doubt these were laid down as a snare to trap godless scientists and the unredeemed of little faith.

4990 BC—The flood of Noah’s day. All perished in a worldwide flood. Only Noah, his wife, and his 3 sons and their wives survived in the ark (6023 years from creation). 

I have always wondered about the whales and the fishes (the Bible usually speaks not of fish but fishes) which should have been able to survive the flood rather easily. Also the octopi and the sharks. And what about ducks, which can paddle about quite comfortably in water?

7 BC—The year Jesus Christ was born (11,006 years from creation).  

This seems rather strange, this 7 BC. How could Christ be born 7 years before Christ (the meaning of BC)?

33 AD—The year Jesus Christ was crucified and the church age began (11,045 years from creation; 5023 calendar years from the flood).  

I am rather surprised that they think Christ was 40 years old when he died, as I had learned when preparing for confirmation that he did not live that long.

Remarkably, nothing much of note then happened for a long time!

1988 AD—This year ended the church age and began the great tribulation period of 23 years (13,000 years from creation).  

Why 1988? Because it was the end of Reagan's presidency? Because the Soviet Union was falling apart? And there seems a mistake here. Surely 1988 + 11013 would be 13,001. So the end of the "church age" should have been 1987, right? Maybe that accounted for the big drop in the stock market that year.

1994 AD—On September 7^th, the first 2300-day period of the great tribulation came to an end and the latter rain began, commencing God’s plan to save a great multitude of people outside of the churches (13,006 years from creation). 

Suddenly, we get a very specific date - September 7. Where does this come from? It seems quite arbitrary. I think it may have been Labor Day weekend. But surely the salient fact there is that the first Miss America pageant ever was held on September 7, 1921. That would be precisely 73 years before.

2011 AD—On May 21^st, Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great tribulation. On October 21^st, the world will be destroyed by fire (7000 years from the flood; 13,023 years from creation)  Again, I am confused here, as 1998 + 23 does indeed equal 2011, but where did the number 23 come from? It seems to be plucked out of the air.

I suppose there is still a chance that the final consumption of the world by fire could take place on October 21. However, I want to register a complaint: the World Series of baseball is scheduled to begin on October 19, and even a four game sweep will take at least five days, with one day for travel. How can you destroy the world in the middle of the World Series? This makes no sense. It strikes me as downright un-American. [It turns out that October 21 has passed without the world being consumed by fire, which suggests a heavenlyk interest in the World Series, after all.]

I do note that October 21 (1833) is the birthday of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. Ending the world in fire on that particular day looks decidedly unpeaceful, and might be an unnecessarily spectacular advertisement for Nobel's explosives.  If it has to be done, though, then I propose we wait until 2033, which is the bicentennial of his birth.

But that does not solve the problem of a forever incomplete World Series.

Meditations on Borders Bookstore

Good bookstores select their books and know them.

After the American Century

More than three decades ago I spent some time in Ann Arbor while doing some research. I fell in love with a wonderful bookstore that was local. Later was pumped full of steroids, franchised, and made a national chain, and then an international chain. That local store was Borders, and it had a wonderful selection of academic books, and it had clerks who really knew about the books. In the process of becoming a chain, however, the quality of the store deteriorated and it became largely market driven, pushing best-sellers and whatever the New York Times happened to review. 

This process has continued, until now there are some disturbingly bad books on the shelves. Books that are long on attitude and very short on logic, research, or balance. Books that the old Borders of c. 1975 would never have bothered with. In my visit there tonight I could not find a clerk who knew anything about the books. They were so patently not interested in reading that I wondered how they could get hired. Ann Arbor is a university town, and some of the students still must read words bound in paper. 

I asked one fellow if they had any books on the assembly line, and where they might be located. He immediately turned to a computer and started to type, but then stopped and asked me how to spell assembly line. He did not know if the store had a section of books on business, labor, or the history of technology. The upshot was that after an hour of browsing without help from an incompetent staff, I was unable to find anything of interest on the assembly line.

Note that Michigan is the center of American automobile industry, and that the assembly line was invented in Detroit. You cannot get into a cab or sit on a bar stool without running into someone who used to work on an assembly line. One would think that a bookstore in Michigan's largest university town would be able to muster something on the subject. Worse, all the other non-chain bookstores seem to have closed, at least according to what people tell me, and what I can see in walking around.

You can also read in the newspapers that Borders, the chain of bookstores, is losing money and closing many stores. The conventional explanation is that on-line stores have killed the local stores. It seems a little more complex than that. First, the local stores were assaulted by bookstore chains, such as Walden Books, Barnes and Noble, and Borders itself. This was going on in the 1970s and 1980s, before the Internet was a factor.

The bookstores of the United States are fast disappearing. Back when I was here years ago I was told that the best bookstores in Detroit were all in Ann Arbor, i.e. an hour's drive away. Today, is seems possible that the best bookstores in Michigan may be in Chicago, Illinois. 

A good bookstore is a repository of public memory.  Once you lose good local bookstores,  local culture and the distinctive sense of local history begin to fade out.

Follow up note: Since I wrote this piece the entire Borders chain of stores has gone bankrupt.

Who Can Replace Trump, for Campaign Comic Relief?

After the American Century

I am sad to see Donald Trump quit running for president. He would have been a miserable choice, but what entertainment we could have had! Imagine him debating other Republican wannabes. Think of all the great editorial cartoons, with his trademark bad hairpiece!

Trump is the too-often hidden face of the Republicans. Not a Bible-thumper but a nasty New York businessman with contempt for most other people. A man of equisite bad taste, he has the great virtue of not pretending. He does not put on a bland face, but gets right in-your-face. Trump would have been the perfect candidate to run against Obama, in the sense that he would both lose and represent the business Republicans, i.e. the people who run that party, even if they have trouble, sometimes, steering the gaggle of lunatics they have recruited as foot soldiers.

Nonetheless, we can only hope someone equally colorful will emerge to give the coming election some comic relief. My guess is that Sarah Palin will not be able to resist running, but there is the danger that she will make stolid Mitt Romney look intelligent and responsible by comparison.

It may be time for a groundswell of enthusiasm for the resurrection of Dan Quayle - whose gleaming stupidity gave us some of the comic high points of the 1990s. He is now just 64 years old, and the only former Vice President the Republicans have that is healthy enough to run. He ought to be out there saying silly things. This is the man who apologized to Latin Americans for not being able to speak Latin.  His immortality is assured, for he also declared "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." Not to mention his shrewd economic analysis: "“Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.” Such subtle insights no doubt explain why since 2000 he has been a member of the Advisory Board of Cerberus, an investment house.  

With Trump gone, we need Quayle back. We need to smile again.

Euro Song Contest Maintains its Tasteless Traditions

After the American Century

It must have been that crazy European song contest. I cannot sleep tonight,  nor can I sing a single line from any of the 25 songs I heard. After at least a decade of steadfastly ignoring the event, I decided to watch. The day before I heard a long discussion on the radio, in which several university lecturers explained how the event had evolved over the years. Its style had been affected by American Idol and similar contests. It displayed a variety of ethnic and regional song traditions. The choreography had improved. The contest stimulated European integration. And on and on. I decided to watch again, to see how the contest had been transformed.

What I saw, however, was depressingly familiar. There were many bad copies of American popular songs, most of them sung in something like English. None of the songs was memorable enough for me to hum a line now. None of the lyrics told a story, so far as I could tell. The event was held in a football stadium, and its acoustics, at least on my television, were poor. There were some terrible costumes, and silly but very athletic dancing. Several of the contestants could not sing on pitch, notably  the French entry, who was a master of bathroom bathos. Quite a few female contestants seemed to have been chosen because of their beautiful legs, which were displayed all the way up. Much cleavage also was on display. Cyprus gave Greece 12 points. Romance language countries voted for each other. Former Soviet countries all voted for each other. Nordic countries voted for each other. Truly atrocious songs did rather well in the voting. In other words, this is the tasteless event that I remember from decades ago. It has maintained its traditions.

Azerbaijan won, which is perhaps the best thing one can say about this year's event. And, oh yes, Denmark finished a quite respectable fifth. Not too bad considering there were 25 finalists, selected from 43 national entries in the semifinals. Sadly, however, the Danes finished behind the Swedes, who will remind them of this frequently for the next year.

In this contest, unlike the European Cup in football, little countries have a good chance of winning. Britain lost, despite sending a professional band that I thought was rather good. Ireland did better, and should have been near the top. But it did not appeal much to the Eastern Europeans. 

For Azerbaijan, the victory is proof that it exists in the eyes of Europe. It is an invaluable advertisement. I am considering already when to go there on vacation - it looked so quaint in the video before the song. But it will absolutely not be to see next year's event.

The Coming Meltdown of Cyberspace?

After the American Century

The sun may be shining brightly in the real world, but there are cloudy skies in cyberspace. At least once a month one hears about vast amounts of personal data, including codes that get one into bank accounts, being stolen from a server, or about a laptop being lost containing lots of sensitive information. Security is becoming a major problem, with identity theft on the rise and a black market in stolen credit card numbers.

I know, because my information was stolen last year, and one of my credit cards was used by someone in Florida for about a week before the bank realized it. (The good news is that almost all the money went back into my account, eventually.) 

But there are other problems, too, as every institution rushes to go on-line with as much as possible. I wrote a 30-page report a month ago as part of my work at the university, and then lost control over it, and could not even see it. The final editing was to take place on a new platform that was supposed to make it easier to nail down a final draft, as it let several people work on it in a common space. But I never could manage to open the document again, much less edit it, and I no longer feel that the document is mine. I send in specific changes for someone else to put in, but that is not the same as editing.

The problems of cyber-security and of retaining some rights over what one is writing, seem, to me at least, similar. The report has now passed into the control of well- meaning (really!) administrators. The money on that credit card passed into the control of an unknown cyber-thief. Obviously I can go and speak to the former but have no contact with the latter. But soon the report will move on into other realms of cyberspace, to be read, and perhaps edited again without my involvement. In this case, I am not much worried, but in other cases I might begin to feel that I had been robbed of my intellectual property. 

These are just clouds on the digital horizon, for now. But there seem to be more problems with a digital world than when it was mostly just a place to exchange emails.

The Cultural Value of Choirs

After the American Century  

Since I was seven years old I have been singing in choirs. There have been a few gap years, when for one reason or another I was not singing, and that was always a mistake. Because a person gets much more from being in a choir than the music itself, though that is sufficient reward.

Consider the difference between singing in a choir and being an athlete or working in a business. In both of these, the high priorities are winning and advancing.  Individualism is the main value. All too many things in life seem to be about beating the other fellow, coming out ahead, proving that you are better.

Choral singing is not about any of these things. The point is not to stand out, but to blend in. Not to get to the end of a phrase ahead of the others, but to get there at the same time. In a choir, you have to learn to listen to others and make small adjustments in order to create a common sound. All the tenors have to agree not just on the notes, but the dynamics (loud/soft, vibrato? staccato? bright/dark, etc.), the pronunciation of the words, and the phrasing of the lines. Only with such adjustments comes harmony, indeed, sometimes more than harmony: on good days you get overtones and harmonics.

In a choir, your age does not matter, and it really is not important whether you have an impressive job title or not. Pensioners sit alongside students, natives beside immigrants. What brings the group together is the music, and often I do not even know what someone does for a living, even after singing with them for years. It just isn't important.

Choirs teach people how to work with a group; how to blend in; how to compromise; how to listen and harmonize. In a well-functioning choir, the rehearsals are not only fun, they blot out your worries and problems. For a couple of hours a week, at least, you are living in the immediate moment, working to make the sound right and having a good time. There are usually a few laughs, too. 

In a choir, you learn (or re-learn) the pleasures of working together for a common goal. 

Unfortunately, not so many people are having this experience. Choirs seem to be having trouble recruiting new members. For some, karaoke singing to a mechanical accompaniment has taken its place. For others, no doubt, choral singing may just seem old fashioned. I am pleased, however, by the phenomenal success of "Glee" - a TV show which suggests the pleasures of being in a choir. although it mistakenly over-emphasizes the importance of choral competitions. 

The choirs I have been in have occasionally been in musical festivals or other events involving several groups. But the best thing about these occasions is not a competition to be the "best." Every choir has its own style and repertoire. I once heard a Bulgarian choir perform some of their national folk songs that would have been hard for anyone else to do in the same way. Give the same music to that choir and to some Norwegians, and their performances would be quite different. The pleasure is in hearing these differences, especially when choirs from several countries sing for each other. 

Each choir is different precisely because it works to create a common sound. Each choir becomes distinctive because it blends the particular voices it has and the musical traditions that it knows. under the direction of a particular conductor. Good choral singing is not about winning but about learning to value the special sound only you can make together. Echoes and audiences tell you when it is all coming together.

Want to live in the moment? Combine discipline with pleasure? Reduce the tensions of race and social class? Appreciate cultural differences? Shut off your electronic equipment and live in the NOW? And do all that as a secondary result of having a good time? Then go make some music. Join a choir.

The Coming US Government Shutdown

After the American Century

In another triumph of ideology over practicality, the Republicans are refusing the compromise on the budget, and seem now almost certain to force the United States government into a shutdown. What does this mean, for ordinary people?

For government employees, it means a forced vacation, for which they will be paid later. They may suffer a little bit if they have little cash on hand, but long-term they will be OK, financially speaking. But they will be frustrated knowing that important services are not being provided to the public.

For it is the public that suffers most in such a situation. Anyone who planned to travel to or from the US may be affected, because the passport and visa operations come to a halt. Anyone without a valid passport will just have to stay home. Foreigners, who typically do not apply for a visa to the US until shortly before traveling there, might be able to get a visa, but do not count on it. So the travel industry will be affected.

Suppose, however, that you are a foreign traveler who does get to the US. What will a government shutdown mean? All the national parks will be closed, for one thing, so forget the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and all the others. You can still see Niagara Falls, however, as the best views are from the Canadian side. Virginia's Natural Bridge is privately owned, and therefore will be open. Quite likely all those Washington DC museums will be closed too, but you can still see dinosaurs wandering the halls of Congress, and various human oddities in federal office buildings. 

For a look at really strange evolutionary life forms, however, go by the headquarters of the Republican Party. There you may catch sight of such rarities as homo gingrichiensis, a grubby self-inflating hypocrite that almost became extinct in the 1990s, but has been reconstituted from DNA found in Georgia.

Another politically endangered species, once thought unable to survive in Washington is the candidatus mormonus. Once a polygamous rarity confined to Utah, this creature has been seen as far east as Massachusetts. Moreover, they are hard working and can be trained.

But perhaps the most interesting new life form on view at the Republican National Headquarters is a species of rodent that scientists have discovered subsists primarily on tea. These creatures are definitely worth seeing, but caution is advised as they can be extremely aggressive. Do not be deceived into assuming they are harmless by their careful grooming. A particularly venomous variety carries the Bachmann worm, which attacks the brain, and if not treated in time leads to imbecility.

Despite the possible shutdown of the US government, in short, there are still rare sights to be seen in Washington, even if the museums and parks will likely be closed.