Deep But Not Profound

Many, many years ago when the kids were still in high school I was a willing victim of their word-prank they called, "Deep but not Profound". The cleverness of it was that I participated in the whole thing oblivious to their plot that appeared to have all the innocence of playing among themselves to which I was lured into joining. It started with one of them saying, within earshot of course, "Deep but not profound". Then followed by another who said, "School but not playground". Everyone chimed in with approval of the pairing to say, "that's good". Then, "Steel but not iron". After listening to a few more of those word-pairs, I figured what they were doing, or so I thought. I said, "okay, I got it". I said, "Stool but not chair". Nope, that was not it. I came up with more only to be rejected with laughter over a joke only they understood. I came up with many different pairings of words that I knew for sure were in the same logical mold as "Deep but not Profound" only to be discounted again. How did the pairing like "Cheese but not syrup" made sense to them while everything I said with apparently similar connections and even cleverer alliterations did not? Then I blurted out, "Stool but not sofa" and they all burst into laughter because I got it right. But the joke was still on me because they knew it was a lucky guess since the rest of what I thought were equally clever successions of word-pairs did not make the cut. The more frustrated I was the funnier it was to them.

Do you get the connection from those examples? Why "Creek but not river" makes sense but "Pond but not lake" does not. I will pause here to see if you got it.

You'll find out at the end of this musing.

In ordinary every day conversations 99% of what we talk about are far from deep and even less likelier to be profound. Deep and profound subjects take a lot of effort to promote  in a conversation, and much too hard to sustain.

"There are three great things in the world: There is religion, there is science, and there is gossip."     ----------Robert Frost

It is understandable that during the time when the famous poet said that, he probably never thought politics was, or will ever be as pivotal as it is today. Granted, not every one is into it. But a good slice of the population does engage in it with confident punditry. Today we cannot ignore that politics plays a role in people's lives because running the government stems from political power, where politics determine who gets to wield that power. Be that as it may, all four - after we include a fourth to Robert Frost's three - have a potential to evoke deep sentiments and emotions and can have profound impact on society. And, yes, gossip, which is usually relegated to the shallowest part of the intellectual pond, can no longer be shushed because social media can easily fill that pond with  clear water and as easily with mud. So, it is best to stay clear of politics and gossip. I already had my say on religion in my earlier blog, "Everything Happens for a Reason" at:

https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2018/02/everything-happens-for-reason.html

That leaves us with science which many may consider a deep subject but not necessarily always profound. For example, it takes deep understanding to fully know the physics of how water turns into ice and vice versa but hardly does the average person think profoundly about it. But I dare say that science is employed often by folks to promote an argument or push an agenda. And here I begin to argue the profundity of it. What does that mean? Well, science might be deep to English or history majors but it is sometimes profoundly lost to those who use it to advance a political argument as in, shall I dare to say, climate change.

Surprisingly, to those who remember one or two positions I have on climate change, this will not be to argue against but to agree with the popular notion. I will even go as far as to accommodate what ever is the latest alteration, that is, where it used to be global warming to what is most popular today - climate change.

We can even say we are in the midst of global warming. The debate, however, had always been about whether it is man-caused or nature doing its thing. We can also avoid having to do that. After all, it would require a very deep discussion into all the different models used to project temperature increases based on all the different scenarios that will have the most profound effect on climate, whether it is because of our activities or not.

Of course, the whole debate is about how bleak our future is going to be if we do not change what we do today and by our actions or lack thereof from hereon in. We will not even debate about how much had been done to mitigate a lot of the bad things done to our environment during the past several decades. There is even some serious projections that as early as ten years from today, there will be so much unimaginable devastation never seen before. We will not touch that either. Let us just say that future events are debatable but we will not even determine, for now anyway, who is right or has the right to absolute certainty.

Science is a unique human achievement that took centuries to accumulate, fathered by countless brilliant individuals from histories past, from not too long ago, and from the present day, and certainly from the infinite future to come. The sciences are either settled by rigorous experiments and collaborated by many, or conjectures with very solid arguments behind them, or projections based on presently known facts. Science had also been known to be revised when new methods of observation brought new or differing results. 

Sciences that look back at history, at this point in time, after all the corrections and examination of data, have established a pretty good baseline with evidence that are still around today. The science of geology has given us layers upon layers of evidence about what earth was like thousands and millions of years ago. For example, along the walls of the Grand Canyon and many similar formations around the world are layers of stratified evidence that, on average, represents several hundred  or up to a thousand years each.

Today, plate tectonics still continue to play an active role in continuing to reshape the continents. Earthquakes occur with regularity, volcanoes erupt in diverse places and mountains continue to rise. Mount Everest is still growing. Climate will continue to change as it had done thousands of times in the past. Montana and Minnesota were once tropical forests and so were France and Belgium and Equatorial Guinea and Sumatra were  temperate locales comparable to the Mediterranean today. Of course, all of the aforementioned places were not shaped the way they are today. Actually, these locations as we know them today are merely place holders on top of  very dynamic moving, almost malleable, plates over the  earth's crust that is being manipulated by a smoldering, super hot mantle.

If that were not enough to make us totally helpless, the earth had switched its magnetic poles a few times before - North and South Poles reversing their locations. The earth's tilt changes or wobbles a couple or so degrees from its axis affecting geographic temperatures  as sun exposure varies. But even that little bit of variation is enough to dramatically alter climate. The sun itself is not exactly a model of consistency on how much sunlight and heat it puts out over a calendar period measured in millennia. Every eleven years it goes through a tantrum by ejecting more solar material, increasing solar radiation, changing the severity and frequency of solar flares and sunspots, etc.  

Lastly, ice ages and warming of the earth had occurred several times in earth's recent history. And we're talking just thousands of years, not millions. So, the last ice age was 14,000 years ago. Obviously, we're not in that now and, in fact, agreeing with almost everybody, we are in the midst of a changing climate that is warming. The warming of the planet is not something we are experiencing just recently.  Tell that to the woolly mammoth, mastodons and saber tooth tigers. They're no longer here but they were around during the last ice age.  Let's see and transport ourselves back to that time. Canada did not exist because its verdant fields and tree covered hills were under ice two miles thick, its mountain peaks today were hilltops above an ice sheet. There were no Great Lakes in North America. Iceland is unidentifiable and animals - those that were suited to arctic weather - could have walked or migrated back and forth over all the places we know today to be Denmark, Sweden, Norway, including Iceland. etc. Since much of the water was in the form of ice mostly at the poles, Japan, The Philippines and other island-nations detached from Mainland Asia presently were all within land migration routes. Animals and people went back and forth along land bridges. I can keep going but let's not do that.

To sum it up, if not for global warming, much of the countries we know today will not exist. Island nations that are now beach and vacation destinations were not as enticing then. We are likely to be covered with fur, or at least we will have fur for apparel, except those at or very near the equator. Siberia would not have become The Gulag because, well, The Soviet Union may not have been the country it was in late 19th to early 20th century. It would have been all ice from one to three miles thick. But then, without Russia we would not have had ballet, vodka and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 or The 1812 Overture.

Am I making lemonade out of lemons? Maybe. Suffice it to say, we are presently humanity's latest reincarnation - a successful survivor of climate change, of global warming. And the good news is that we still have in us the genes of Neanderthals and Cro Magnon and other ancestral cave dwellers to prepare us for the next ice age, as it is bound to re-occur again. Given that, our ability to adapt had a very good track record. Let me digress for a bit. The macaque monkeys are a species common in Africa, Asia and Gibraltar. During the ice age some of them migrated to Japan and those that survived up in the cold mountains have evolved to become the Japanese snow  monkeys. They have much thicker fur and are highly successful in a snowy habitat on the highlands of northern Japan. All human races have pretty much shed the thick fur of their ancestors but have evolved by adapting  to suit their environment by modifying their skin pigments. The darker skin is able to block much of the harmful rays from the sun but absorbing the proper amount of vitamin D, while those who live in temperate zones where the sun's rays are inclined away from the vertical, hence less intense, developed paler skins so they can absorb the much needed vitamin D. The brown skin adapted well within the halfway range since their habitat is between the equatorial ring and the temperate zone. It took thousands of years but the adaptation is nature's gift to all living things. For most of us it is The Creator's Gift.

Was that too deep but not quite profound to be meaningful today? It is not because  if we are looking at a hundred thousand years condensed to a calendar year, we are worrying today about a mere minute of it.   

Now, about that word-prank. It will take  two or more conspirators and a hapless victim for it to  work. Notice that deep but not profound are two seemingly connected words where the first, ,deep, has double vowels like "ee", and it is one syllable. Profound is two syllables but no double vowels. That is why "stool but not chair" did not work for me but "stool but not sofa" did (both pairs seem properly connected). It is silly but  not so when you are the only one who does not know what is going on. That is why we have to be careful when we confront subjects like my favorite - global warming. We cannot be too deep but we must find profound ways to advance our argument.

A Case for the Limitless Minds

We will always wonder whether there is a limit to what our minds can do. While it is difficult to imagine a limitless mind, one that is defined by the capacity to solve all problems or the ability to accumulate all knowledge or one that has the ability of total recall, it is also hard to imagine what could possibly limit it.

Unfortunately, imagining, thinking and contemplating are all components of the mental processes which makes measuring an impossibility when the measuring rod itself is unknowable. Back to this later.

Today's technology is of course trying everything to enhance the capability of computing, or get over the threshold of the limits of computers by providing users with the help coming from somewhere almost magical. We can now store data, stash photos, records, or convert hard copies of documents electronically, and depositing them into the ethereal vault and filing cabinets and folders in an  imaginary repository located somewhere else, yet instantaneously accessible with just a few keystrokes. To make this innocuous offering so enticing, service providers had come up with one equally innocuous, very reassuring, location for users to stash personal data -  by calling it "the cloud". While it is mostly free, or with a fee so negligibly small, we know there is some other cost we indirectly incur. It is either because we, the users, have become the merchandise peddled by the very infrastructure that provides the services, or we pay with the erosion of our privacy.

Artificial intelligence has become the proverbial definition of everything humanity had always wished for - the god-like source for answers and super human mental abilities - from computing with the speed of a magic wand, making predictions or at least attain the capability to predict certain future events with algorithms every self respecting soothsayer, oracles and clairvoyants  would like to have. Artificial intelligence and robotics have paved the way for physical abilities to make Hercules an envious weakling or give new meaning to herculean achievements that transcend beyond mere strength and speed by doing tasks repeatedly and accurately with untiring enthusiasm and free of the human workers' proclivity to boredom.

But what price we may have to pay or already have? Breaches into private data, hacking into computer systems, simple mischief that used to be the young hacker's idea of Jack climbing up the beanstalk to venture into the clouds have now turned into a criminal enterprise. How did we get to this point? Is it the price of progress? Is it the insatiable quest for expanding the limits of our capabilities because we can, or have we given up so easily to the new task master - technology. We have latched on to the idea that machines will free up much of our thinking or do away with the difficult processes of thought so we can enjoy more of what we believe to be more pleasurable to the mind? The quick but incomplete answer is that progress is the unstoppable force that can pierce through the soft tissues of human nature. We should accept it because technology paves the shortest distance between each stage of development of any civilization. Progress is the overlord of a malleable society, technology is what propels it to go where it wants to go because we have become the reluctant passengers only too willing to acquiesce.

However, we should not easily give up on the human mind. We gave up and gave in so easily and so quickly. We can say that this 3-pound mass of tissue encased in our cranium has its limits. The question is and always had been about whether those limits had been reached. It is not an easy question, likely impossible to answer. 

Actually, the more we use technology to do the thinking for us the less likely future generations will ever find out the limits of the human mind. Or, the less likely they will have an appreciation for what the mind is capable of. Within just a handful of decades we have outsourced tasks that the mind used to do with the idea that perhaps we can then focus our attention away from the mundane. In actuality, the more the machines do much of the work, the more our world had become mundane. In the process we have carved out large slices of time in our everyday life only to squander them in social media, much to the delight of Facebook and Instagram and other providers.  We know now that much of social media providers are a marketplace where the users are themselves both the merchandise and the consumer. It is a vicious loop so cleverly contrived.

Now, let's inject the 1999 scifi, "Matrix", into the mix. It came out in 1999, a time long before we heard much about artificial intelligence. The film was about a world two centuries later from that year - 2199. As improbable as the plot was, writers and producers had a basis for their bold scenario. After all, a mere 60+ years elapsed between the first rudimentary flight of 120 feet to landing on the moon. Who knows what could happen in 200 years.

In 2199, AI, machines whose artificial intelligence humans had come to rely on, had won the battle between man and machine. By that time, what remained as a source of energy was bio-electricity produced by the human body. Enslaved humans were held in perpetual captivity for as long as they were alive, hooked up to electrodes gathering body-produced electrical energy to power the machines. AI knows the importance of the human mind so it had devised a way to entertain the mind with continuous but passive stimulation by a software program that simulated a virtual reality. The machines knew that the brain, a mere 2% of the total body weight, could consume 20-25% of the energy, so a passive stimulation rather than deep thought was all the brain was allowed to do so more of its bio-electrical energy is "harvested". 

If there was a redeeming value to the story, it was the acknowledgement by the machines that the human mind is much too powerful than any artificial intelligence can ever muster to duplicate.

That takes us back to the second paragraph above. How are we to measure the limits of the human mind? We are faced with the idea of a measuring rod that is the human mind to measure itself or one other mind. IQ tests and psycho analysis are limited exactly by that paradox. These tests may approach but will never reach proximity to or even be near a modicum of certainty to be reliable.

So, why was Albert Einstein so smart or Thomas Edison a prolific inventor, or why was Nicola Tesla able to conceive new insights into electricity? Why are idiot savants capable of performing tasks none of us ordinary humans can, yet be so socially inept or mentally incapable of other things we can so easily do?

This is just a theory. In the case of idiot savants, their minds are so unsaturated with stuff that average folks must contend with and accumulate in their brains in the course of normal development. Unsaturated minds can have a very narrow focus with laser-like dedication to just that one task done at the very highest level, while failing in almost everything else. Can we then assume that each brain may have the potential  to multiply multiple digits by another multiple digits without fail or blurt out the day of the week September 21, 1872 was? Is the reason the average person can't is because we somehow have a saturation of data and other things to occupy our mind to excel in just one task? It is the proverbial constraint that universally proves, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".

Einstein's thought experiments made it possible for him to contemplate what it was like to ride the tip of a light beam. It allowed him to imagine what the rest of the world looked like or behave relative to himself on a streaming vehicle at 186,000 miles per second. How can someone formulate two theories that transformed the world, to redefine Newton's standard theories, yet was forgetful of day-to-day activities, failed calculus at one time, or needed help from other mathematicians with calculations, or socially awkward, even neglectful of family obligations at times? Many of these folks have somehow managed to free up space in their brains as to accommodate only the things that mattered most to them. They have unsaturated compartments in their minds or have outsourced much of the stuff that they considered unimportant. Or, is it?

This takes us back to freeing up space in our personal computers by dumping data to the "cloud" or transferring them to USB drives or other external storage.

There lies the quandary of the human mind. Yes, we can perhaps fulfill a mass ejection of memory to free up space in our brain but we do not have the luxury of a retrieval system, let alone know for sure if we have actually completely ejected them. However, how do we know we need to get rid of stuff from our mind if we do not know for sure if we need to? You see, unlike computers where we can look in to find out how much memory storage space remain unused, we do not, or cannot, know what our mind has left available. Even more interesting, as studies have shown, is that in some instances the brain is shown to learn new things in individuals whose advanced age were previously known to be incapable of  knowing or how to do new stuff.

This is the message folks of my generation ought to deliver to those poised to inherit the world we are about to leave in their care. Keeping our minds sharp to the extent of proving to them that we still can is a way to show that our minds are not quite that saturated but that the storage capacity of the human mind shall remain a bottomless well, able to continue to absorb and remain an invaluable source of information and wisdom. We should not succumb to the temptation of dumping data to free up space because what memories we have are there for permanent companionship and a wealth of knowledge free to anyone who wants or needs them.

The wisdom of the aged are after all the ultimate free lunch for the youth.


Similar suggested musings:

https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2017/10/gehirn-geist-verstand.html
 
The Age Old Phenomenon of Aging:

https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-age-old-phenomenon-of-aging.html

Somewhere in Time in Michigan

"Why Michigan?"

That was the question most of our fellow travelers said they were asked by relatives and friends when they revealed their travel plans to tour the mitten-shape Midwestern state. Why Michigan, indeed?

Many expressed their own reasons and I have mine that a few others shared as well. This requires some explaining later, as to why Michigan was in my bucket list of places to visit. I must confess though that America has 90% of the places in that bucket list; which begs another question: Why America? There are more spots and patches that are  hidden gems in this country to last anyone and everyone a lifetime to visit and to experience them all. There is so much more beyond the popular sites and familiar tourist destinations for anyone willing to venture and immerse in America, even if only briefly. We could and should set aside moments to experience the charm of small towns or understand the unique histories of those who were here first and those who later made America what it is today. You will know why.

Mackinac Island and The Grand Hotel that was the setting of the 1980 film, "Somewhere in Time", were the two main reasons that motivated me to choose this particular journey. For years after watching that movie, off and on, I'd talk to my wife that perhaps someday we could visit the island. It took many decades to fulfill the yearning but, at last, we did. And to spend two nights at The Grand was the proverbial icing on the cake.

As it turned out, there was more, a lot more, about Michigan that made this trip akin to discovering more "best kept secrets" of places we never thought of or anticipated. After just a week and a day I am compelled to say, 

"Indeed, why not Michigan?"

So, we flew from Houston to Traverse City, MI. Now, you've heard of Traverse City, if you haven't before. The Cherry Capital Airport, so named for the cherries that the county of Acme, MI is known for, is a flight destination by commuter planes - typically from O'hare International in Chicago, IL or Detroit, MI. Mild weather travelers that we (my wife and I) are, this is the perfect time to be in this area. Autumn, when fall colors are at their best,  would have been great but we did not want to risk abrupt cold weather fronts to dampen our enthusiasm. Actually, for a couple of days the weather did turn colder but thank goodness, only briefly.

Coming from two huge airports of Houston and Chicago's O'Hare - both associated with the din and fast walking travelers - the Cherry Capital Airport was as quiet as a library on Sunday. But that did not take away the gentleness and sweet demeanor of the Mid-western residents there.

Our first impression was immediately and firmly set by the folks we first met when we landed. Traverse City, sparsely populated by people like the retired administrator for Los Alamos National Laboratory who picked us up from the airport with his Uber Lincoln MKX, foreshadowed everything about Michigan and Michiganders. The tour director quickly pointed out that there is no "Michigoose". Just Michiganders.

We were fortunate to have for a tour director a native Michigander who grew up in a small town and who loves the state. She was the quintessential tour director with a mind full of information sprinkled with humor and a mid-westerner's clear delivery. And it is always the little things, as often the case, that mattered the most. For example, carrying a bagful of extra warm clothing for travelers caught wanting when the weather turned unexpectedly cold.  She went about it tirelessly, checking on everyone to make sure they were warm and comfortable. And there were more extra little things she did to make sure everything went well and doing it with such energy and calm demeanor that I thought exemplified the tour director's Michigander spirit. She is the only tour director we've had the pleasure to travel with who unfailingly called our room at each arrival after check in, like clock work, to make sure we found everything "okay". 

Not to be taken for granted were fellow passengers with whom we shared the journey. These seasoned travelers - retired accountants, doctors, military retirees, a farmer, teachers, newspaper editor, etc. - were  the finest people from across America who have a similar fervor to see more of the country while they still can, as are we. 

Took these photos below on our first day just before the sun slipped under the horizon. Used to viewing sunsets from the shores of a Pacific island I thought this one over Lake Michigan was equally captivating.

                

Late in the year, this coach that took us mile by mile around Michigan was not a common sight as it would have been in peak summer season. Come to think of it, we saw only one other coach.

First stop was at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore. Lake Michigan, like all the Great Lakes, was gouged out from the terrain by glaciers thousands of years ago and when they retreated as the planet warmed up the lakes were created and sand dunes and beaches rimmed the water lines. Michigan's coastlines are almost equally shared by two of the Great Lakes - Lakes Michigan and Huron.

Before steam ships and oil-fired engines, but after man-powered canoes, sail-powered schooners like this one - "The Manitou" - carried people and goods across and around the lakes. This ship was manned by just a crew of four, two young women and two men; and one of the ladies was the captain.

When the captain asked for volunteers to help raise the sails, men volunteered but it was obvious the young lady crew member (foreground) did most of the work. 

The Music House Museum in Acme County is truly one of a kind. An architect and an engineer decided in 1979 to restore, refurbish and preserve old automated musical instruments and housed them in an old barn which they also restored. It was worth every minute we spent there listening to two of the most animated tour guides - Tom and Christina - who regaled us with stories behind the instruments that were displayed there. Anyone, music lover or not, will be fascinated by what the museum offered. Not only did the instruments played by themselves, the sounds were unbelievably live and acoustically reflective of the era. The place was filled with antique music boxes, vacuum tube receivers and jukeboxes, etc.
.

A reproducing piano is different from an automatic piano player in that additional perforations on the paper roll coded nuances like pedal force, softness and quickness of the key strokes, "expression and phrasing", that were there during the actual recording. The above reproducing piano played the "Rhapsody in Blue" as it was originally played by George Gershwin himself. It was as if Gershwin's ghost was playing when the piano was turned on, especially since this recording included extra codes that the artist/composer added by recording "over" the first one for additional lyrical notes, as if twenty fingers or four hands of Gershwin were on the piano. 

The 1922 Montier Dance Hall Organ, its face as large as the facade of a small barn and one of only two remaining working instruments in the world, played "can-can" that took the listeners back in time to that era.


Herbert Henry Dow founded Dow Chemicals in 1897 when he invented a method of extracting bromine that was trapped underground in Midland Michigan. Its headquarters is still in Midland. While Dow is widely well known, there is a little footnote that can only be learned while visiting. His son Alden three years into a chemical engineering degree dropped out to pursue a career in architecture. In the 1930's, long before the concept of "home-office", he built a house that served as his office and work area for draftsmen and other architects while his family lived in upstairs bedrooms. We were not allowed to take photos of the interior but his fondness for straight lines, triangles and even hexagons were evident, which showed up in buildings he designed - two of them we saw around Midland. His home, now a museum, is in the background.

Note the triangles and straight lines of the exterior of the Alden Dow "home-office".

A tour of Michigan would not be complete without visiting Detroit.  The city, by the way, is undergoing a revival after years of decline due to suburban migration. It would not be complete without visiting the assembly line of a modern automotive facility - known as the Rouge Factory. We visited this Ford assembly plant where the world's most popular vehicle (of any make or model), the Ford pick up truck F-150, was being put together in real time by workers and robots during normal work hours from a viewing gallery above the assembly floor area (but we were not allowed to take photos). Keep in mind it was Henry Ford who came up with the first assembly line production of motor vehicles - an idea he picked up from a meat processing plant. It was the production of the Model T that first put ordinary Americans on the road. 15 million Model T's were produced. The Henry Ford Museum also had one-of-a kind exhibits: the original bus where Rosa Parks made Civil Rights history in Montgomery, AL on Dec. 1, 1955 (as a footnote, Ms. Parks moved to Detroit afterwards and lived there until she died at age 92). Four Presidential limousines, including the Kennedy car, are on exhibit there. No new modern Presidential limousines will ever be displayed ever again because they are destroyed after their service life is over in order to avoid revealing any modern counter measures and special materials used in the production. Visiting Michigan and Detroit in particular would not be complete without visiting Motown's landmark recording studio, but we were more fortunate that the tour set aside an evening of dinner and dance to Motown music performed by Phase 5 live with their rendition of "My Girl" and other old favorites. Fellow travelers could not and did not resist dancing to the songs.

The Rosa Parks Bus

My wife was a trooper for going through with the trip despite barely finishing her radiation treatment for cancer, the journey I described in the blog just preceding this one. 

Phase 5 performing Motown favorites.

  

Oldies dancing to the oldies

The 240-acre Greenfield Village, adjacent to the Ford museum, was created to accommodate pieces of Americana that Henry Ford acquired. It includes Thomas Edison's original workshop, the Wright brothers bicycle shop before they built the first airplane, the first Ford wooden building and rides that include the Model T. It would take two days, if not more, to explore both the museum and village. 

Common theme, as in almost all human developments, everything started small. The first airplane flight was only 120 feet long, Edison's first light bulbs did not last for very long and he failed 1000 times before getting it right. Of course, Edison's take on the failed attempts was that, "I've not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work".

Note wooden bicycle rims

One of Edison's work tables

Let me get back to the 1980 film, "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The film met lukewarm reception  from movie critics back when it first came out  but was popular among those who liked romantic movies, or "chick flicks" as they're often labeled. And it was definitely not a box office block buster, even though this was two years after Superman, which established Reeve's star power and Jane Seymour's portrayal of Solitaire in a James Bond film, "Live and Let Die". It only made $9.7 M on a $4 M budget. Today, Amazon reviewers overwhelmingly give it a 4.7 out of 5 Star ratings and a fan club whose members are counter-intuitively shy about telling other folks of their  light headed obsession for the film and story. It is worth a Netflix or streaming rental, given the kind of movies we are offered these days. A DVD costs less than $10 online.

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island on Lake Michigan was the setting of the aforementioned movie. The 1972 book it was based on had set the story in Hotel Del Coronado (San Diego). Grand Hotel was picked because it is clearly reflective of the period, whereas Del Coronado was already surrounded by modern structures that included TV towers and modern buildings around. Below is a bit about the plot.

"On May 19, 1972, college theater student Richard Collier is celebrating the debut of a play he has written. During the celebration, he is approached by an elderly woman who places a pocket watch in his hand and pleads, "Come back to me." Richard does not recognize the woman, who returns to her own residence and dies soon afterward".

The metaphysical nature of the film aside, a musical score apart from the movie theme was actually what motivated me. The music is first heard as the scene cut away from the party when the elderly lady, Elise Mckenna, now shown in her bedroom, turned on the record player, listening to the music, just moments before she died. The story unfolded from there. I'll talk about that particular composition later.

Immediately, one will encounter a strange peculiarity: The island and the bridge are spelled, Mackinac, while the city from which visitors embark the ferry to take them to the island is spelled Mackinaw. Both names are pronounced with an "aw" at the last syllable.

Motor vehicles are not allowed on the island. Only horse drawn carriages and "taxis" may ferry people and goods. Even Fedex, UPS and Amazon packages are delivered by these - the most ultimate laid-back method of transportation.

One of waterfront "cottage" homes that dotted the island - used to be summer homes of the super rich in the early 1900's. Guess why those flowers - seen all over the island - are so productive. Hint: horses.

The bridge connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. Mackinaw City is at the southern end while St. Ignace is located at the northern end. Mackinac Bridge is three times longer than the Golden Gate, and unlike the latter, it does not allow for pedestrian traffic, except on Labor Day when people cross the bridge on foot in celebration of Mackinac Bridge Walk. 25,000 were estimated to have walked across last year, that ordinarily takes two hours, but speed walkers had done it in under forty minutes.

The tour included a two-night stay at the majestic Grand Hotel where we enjoyed 5-course dinners in its dining hall that can accommodate 750 people in one seating. Needless to say, no reservations are needed, except that men are required to wear jacket and tie and women in their finest. For breakfast, one may order an entree and go to buffet as well.

Dining at the hotel is one to behold, an experience to remember forever.

Carriages go up and down the driveway on the left, where passengers will either dis-embark or embark under the awning at the front of the hotel

The length of the porch line with white rocking chairs is about as long as the hotel's facade is wide. It is the world's longest porch.

No two rooms are the same and we were fortunate to have this one.

Obviously, we took more pictures than I can possibly fit in this blog, more stories to tell than can be written, but if I must add a few more tidbits, it will be about:

A) Michigan was at the center of The War of 1812 between the British and the Americans after the Louisiana purchase from the French. Inevitably, we see French influence still and names like Cadillac and Chevrolet as part of that. Detroit was in the early 1900's the Silicon Valley of today. More money was made and lost (1929 market crash) there than anywhere else. The car makers of today emerged from what once was a vast field for survival of the fittest among dozens and dozens of car makers. Henry Ford's wealth at that time, in today's dollars, was valued at equal the combined wealth of the top two billionaires today (as in Gates and Bezos).

B) One piece of music was how it begun for me and why Mackinac island made it to my bucket list. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer and pianist who, after the Russian Revolution, immigrated to America in 1918. He completed only six works since then and one of those was Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, 18th Variation. That was the piece of music that Elise Mckenna played on the phonograph in the movie. For some reason that I cannot fully explain that piece of music stayed with me. If you listen to it, you may understand why it was the piece the director picked for the movie. Because Rachmaninoff was a modern-day composer, people actually heard him perform his own compositions. Songs were derived from some of his concertos, such as, "Full Moon and Empty Arms" from Piano Concerto No.2; as was "All By Myself"  derived by Eric Carmen. 

Michigan has a special story to tell, unique places to show, and a contribution that literally mobilized America when car manufacturing begun there and continues to be a huge part of the economy. When one must think about it, roads and highways, oil and gasoline, commercial land transportation and the distribution of goods, mechanized farming, etc. all came about because of the automotive industry. Michigan is still the largest producer of automotive products (vehicles and accessories combined).

Next time, you think of a destination, ask, "Why Not Michigan?"

More Than Ordinary Days

It was more than an ordinary day - that one day. It was not like all the other ordinary days months earlier. Our lives are usually filled with those kind of days. Until that one day. And then followed by many more of the same days.

It was one ordinary April day when my wife, as part of her yearly physical, went to have her annual mammogram. She dreaded it every time but since she has it every year, it was ordinarily routine, even though it was not something she looked forward to. It was customarily ordinary for her to come home and relate her ordeal with the machine. How unfeeling the technician was, even as my wife winces as those two inanimate, mechanical plates pressed down on her breasts, flattening them to spread the tissue for a better definition of the mammography. It was still an ordinary day, a few days later, when the nurse called and told her they needed to do another mammogram (they had done it once before). And also, a sonogram of her right breast on that same visit. She went and had it all done. Maybe that was a little bit out of the ordinary. It sure was, but not alarmingly so.

It was not an ordinary day when days later the nurse called again to say the doctor wanted a biopsy done. The radiologist was concerned about one little spot that both the mammogram and sonogram showed.

The procedure was definitely out of the ordinary. There was pain. There was worry. There was fear. That was no ordinary day.

But ordinary days followed since. That's much of what most people experience in life in general, isn't it? A lot of ordinary days, a few out-of-the-ordinary ones, but extraordinary days were fewer still (usually good or sensational). Then the call that came one day was dreadfully not ordinary. They scheduled her to see a surgeon. The drive to the doctor's office was somber and filled with questions after questions. We just said them, uttering them as if there was a listener or listeners in our midst, riding with us in the car, to blurt out the answers. No answers came.

The answer was at the doctor's office.  He didn't waste any words. It was direct, immediate and clear. Doctors these days are probably trained to get to the point right away and allow for thirty seconds to a minute for the patient to absorb the news. I heard the words because I was there sitting next to my wife. Those seconds felt, to me, like five minutes as I cram all the thoughts that came rushing through. To my wife, it was a lightning bolt and the thunderclap that followed may have deafened her ears or froze the processing unit in her brain after the words, "the biopsy was positive, there is a malignant tissue the size of a pea in your right breast. It is stage 1 cancer..." She could not recall the rest. It dashed all hopes that perhaps, as we so hopefully wished, it was just calcified tissue that needed to be taken out. 

The surgery must be done as soon as possible. It will be limited to excising that tissue and three lymph nodes will be removed as well. It was going to be a lumpectomy, not the full blown mastectomy. Not that it mattered much. Surgery is surgery. Cancer is cancer. It was scheduled for the following week. 

The night before the surgery  she was instructed to shower, use a particular soap, and follow a specific procedure, particularly on the area where the surgery was going to be done.

We needed to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. We set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. The alarm radio never got a chance to do its assigned task because we were up before it could. We got to the hospital before there was any valet to park the car. It costs the same to use the valet service as to self-park and the latter would have required me to negotiate a dizzying spiral to get to the multi-level parking system. I was dizzy already from the mental maelstrom of emotions, worry and the utter helplessness derived from uncertainty, that driving up the level after level for a parking space was going to be an unforgiving chore. As instructed we left the car in front of the lobby and took the keys with us.  Someone later went up to pick them up in exchange for a claim check. I am recounting all of these because even though this was nerve racking for us both, indeed a serious episode in her life, I realized that that day for everyone else  was just another ordinary day. To the registrar at the 8th floor receiving area, taking the information from us, checking everything was all set, the day was ordinary for her. When we were finally called in to the prep area, the place  was busy but the nurses were going about their chores in measured steps but definitely not quickened in a manner I expected a hospital to be. We were tense but everything else around us were ordinarily routine, as if we were actors misplaced at a different stage play! There is a point to all of these later.

The first thing I noticed was the repetition of the same basic questions asked over and over every time a new personnel came along. "When is your birthday, what are we going to do today, which breast is it ...? I soon figured out that at the hospital these days, no one can be too careful. These questions are repeated as a precaution against medical ID mistakes. Soon it became an ordinary routine. The questions were asked by the first attending nurse who took her vital signs, then when the ID bracelets were put on her wrist, then she was brought to another prep area for a critical procedure - insertion of a very thin wire that went through skin and tissue right into the exact location of the area that the doctor will excise. Then back to the first room where later a technician came to inject the radioactive dye to the three lymph nodes that will be removed. The same questions even when the brightly colored bracelet had all the information in it. To those folks asking the questions, it was ordinarily routine but crucial in insuring that it is exactly the right person who is getting the treatment. And the guess work is avoided because the surgeon was not going to look anywhere but where the thin wire pointed to exactly and what the dye "illuminated".

It was out of the ordinary though when we were told her surgery was going to be delayed because the operating room wasn't ready caused by delay in the prior procedure (by another doctor). Apparently, operating rooms are used multiple times in a day, though not necessarily for the same procedures. Well, that was ordinarily routine.

The waiting area was barely aglow with subdued lighting, relatives waiting and conducting muffled conversations or their heads were down looking at the bright screens of the ubiquitous smart phones. I waited idly because I couldn't focus on a magazine article or anything else. Then my phone rang. It was the surgeon. "The surgery went well, she will be fine and she's now in the recovery area. It could be for another hour or a little bit longer before she's ready to leave. She is going to be fine". It was now one in the afternoon.  I went down to get a sandwich. Lunch that was impossible to have before the doctor's call couldn't have been more delicious -  at the hospital cafeteria.

The recovery area was again filled by nurses, different ones from the prep area, who went about their duties in what had become now ordinary images from my point of view. The only one that was out of their ordinary routine was saying their goodbyes to one nurse who was on her last day there, she was moving somewhere and there were congratulations and well wishes and such. The scene was no more different from offices anywhere. Ordinary things happening and perhaps one extraordinary one (the joyous goodbyes to the departing nurse).

That was what struck me. It dawned on me that ordinary things do and should occur at places like the hospital. We want it to be ordinary, as routine as possible, in fact, because that means that everything is just going as it should be. We don't want the nurses, doctors and staff to have out-of-the ordinary episodes while at work because that means that there could be problems or issues not planned or anticipated.

It was 3:00 in the afternoon by the time we left the floor and in a few minutes after that  the valet attendant brought the car down. He had been doing that all day and it appeared that he was just having an ordinary day.

The first night was definitely out of the ordinary as the pain medication started to wear off. She didn't want to lie on the bed to sleep. She preferred the recliner in the family area; she didn't mind that I sleep on the regular bed as soon as it was time. That evening, I picked the other recliner next to her and we spent the first night, for the first time, sleeping on the recliner until morning.  That was out of the ordinary, although I had fallen asleep there many times in the past while watching TV on ordinary afternoons.

Days passed since after the surgery. Follow up visits to the doctor came and went. Both oncologist and surgeon confirmed that chemotherapy was not necessary but a month-long daily radiation therapy was needed to insure that straggler cancer cells are totally eradicated from around the surgical area. The daily radiation sessions also became ordinarily routine.

It was her last day of radiation last Wednesday. The previous day, Tuesday, she brought specialty pastries and candies for all the staff at the radiation center and personal thank you notes to some of them. When all is said and done, there is not enough said of the care givers - nurses and technicians - who attend to cancer patients. These were the nicest people one could encounter at times like these. These are whom one should wish for or for a loved one stricken by an illness like this. These are well trained professionals that I know are likely selected for their aptitude and excellent bedside manners. They made ordinary days of "out-of-the ordinary".

Customary to all patients who finish their therapy, they get to ring a bell right by the nurses' station. Part of a tradition that I understand is now widely practiced in radiation clinics.  My wife rang it vigorously.

The other facet of the experiences was meeting the other cancer patients that were also undergoing radiation therapy.  After a while the faces became familiar and soon we were talking with them and their family members. That was the amazing part. Everyone, as if on cue,  was supportive of each other, as if they had known each other a long time, emphasizing the positive, harboring no bitterness but hopeful of the prospect that all of these were going to pass.


I now have a better appreciation for ordinary days. And thank goodness for yearly mammograms and annual physical check ups. And for ordinary prayer.

This is the "Graduation" Bell

One HAFTA after ANOTHA, next CANADA?

Once there was a trilateral called NAFTA, that for a while was deemed the best there was. Between three neighbors - each willing to win and all betting on a trifecta. The past tense introduction that was the first sentence, while intentional, is merely a presumption of NAFTA's impending end.

1994 was a long time time ago. Since then the seats of power in each country-member turned over a handful of times. Economic conditions changed. Political winds had swerved and swirled to alter the makeup of each other nation's hierarchy of needs and aspirations. NAFTA, like most transformational agreements created by man, had the inertia of an ocean liner. But inertia was the least of its problems. It was either three captains were steering the ship or, worse, there was no one keeping the ship on course. Furthermore, there was no course correction whatsoever, even if it was needed badly, or perhaps because nobody dared to say something. Or, was it doomed from the very start? Is that a dire assessment?

NAFTA's future should not be under threat and should survive, even flourish, had all that it was meant to do and accomplish came to be. What was its main purpose, without going through the weeds of every minutia that are in the hundreds of pages of documents churned and printed at its inception? It was meant to promote fair trade between the three nations  while encouraging robust production and exchange of goods with equitable tariffs or none at all and, in the process, raise the standard of living in all three nations. In theory, that sounded good. Each member country that is producing certain higher quality goods efficiently can capitalize on that, export those goods while in return import the goods that the other members do so well themselves. Competition, that are costly by nature, for exporting and importing the same goods that each country produces can be alleviated and resources can be focused on what each does best. In theory, that sounded good. As a result, the goal is for the standard of living in each member-country to rise accordingly. Illegal immigration from Mexico will lessen, if not completely eradicated, as the standard of living rises with the rising tide in the same sea where all three trading partners float (presumably equitably). In theory, that sounded good.

But what happened?! A lot did. It was not so much as fair trade as water seeking its own level. Companies moved their manufacturing from high labor to low labor areas of production. But it was a one-way move! Moving manufacturing from the USA to Mexico was as sensible as water naturally flowing from higher elevations to the lower plains. No Mexican or Canadian manufacturing moved from there to here. Labor organizations in the U.S. suffered from job losses. The irony is that wages in Mexico did not go up accordingly. Standard of living remained stagnant south of the border. It would seem like a logic-defying phenomenon but sensibly so when per hour rate in the U.S. manufacturing sector is, say, $20, and in Mexico it was and still is at $3. Mexican workers are better off risking illegal crossing since they know even a menial job at the other side of the border is at least triple what they can get in their own country. And that is assuming they can even get a job within their border. But wait! American consumers were benefiting from lower prices on goods coming from Mexico. Yes, but how does that achieve the lofty ideals of floating on the same high tide? Is this not the same as bringing in Chinese goods from half a world away? Did we not move manufacturing from here to China as well? But the Chinese workers are not largely the beneficiary. The Chinese regime does and its military build up and its foreign expansionism are the direct result of its overflowing treasury.

That was just one example. Now, north of here is one entirely different issue. There are tariff inconsistencies on dairy and lumber products. Car manufacturers have moved there as well as it did to Mexico. Did American consumers also benefit as they did with Mexico. Perhaps. But what about U.S. exports? U.S. exporting companies complain about being disadvantaged when it comes to exporting to either country. Again, maybe. But it is true that if the dollar is strong then its exports to the two member-countries would suffer as a consequence. 

And their lies the problem with the trilateral agreements of this nature. It is complicated to begin with - wage differences, currency mismatches, uneven base economies, even cultural differences - but every time there are more than two parties entering into an agreement, issues multiply with each additional participant.  It is difficult enough to get a bilateral deal but with each additional participant the issues inflate with the variables associated with each additional membership. That is why even the fabled "Round Table" of King Arthur lore failed. That was an allegory about interests of several are not necessarily the interests of what was supposed to be the ideal. And then, what is ideal is in the eyes of every beholder (member). The UN is not the success its dreamers and founders hoped to achieve. The EU's shelf life is about as fragile as most multi-member organizations had and will always have. Is NATO a stable alliance? Ask Russia about the Warsaw Pact. ASEAN at the opposite side of the globe is no more a pillar of organization as the EU. The success of multilateral organizations is inversely proportional to the number of its members. Alliances throughout history have been put together by well meaning idealists. Those have all come and gone with very little to show of any enduring legacies.

Well, here we are today. A wrecking ball that is the U.S. President is deemed a bucking bronco in a China shop, all puns intended. He wants to break NAFTA and by the looks of it, HAFTA is how he goes.  And it looks like Canada is not going to play ball. Immediately, the press calls the President out. What he is doing is madness, and in a few instances declared him mad by those not even in a position to write up a psychoanalysis report.

Is what he is doing madness? Or, are we failing to see a certain method to this "madness"?  Well, let's see. A few weeks into his presidency, pundits practically ruled in World War 3.  Economists thought the market was going to tank, the economy ruined, and the administration will fail at every turn. Some are lashing out madly and passionately. But, is it not that the madness that is filling the air is how detractors feel and harbor because none of what is happening today has been observed before? We can question what the President is doing and that is the right of every citizen. But, of course, it is as much a prerogative of a leader to do what he or she does as it is the responsibilty of the two other branches of government to provide the checks and balances that will counter-weigh the actions of the President; and ultimately by the power of the people at the polls when the time comes, of course. 

We will not have good answers, at least not simple ones, to the complexities of all that are happening. However, we can explore what if any can be potentially a favorable outcome. Should we not at least try to see if governments can plug the loopholes that were in the agreement? Chinese manufactured parts are finding their way into Mexico that ultimately get into the finished products that are then exported to the U.S.? Is Mexico taking advantage of cheap (likely also inferior) parts from China to reduce their costs? It is bad enough that Chinese goods are populating store shelves here already. Has the U.S. been too lackadaisical in the past when its wealth provided much cushion to feel the ill effects of a handful of wrong decisions but now it is discovering the layer of protection has now been eroded to the bone?

Bilateral agreements can be complicated but trilateral and multilateral agreements can be more so. Doesn't it make sense that the needs of two countries and what each can offer the other better negotiated and managed by a bilateral contract? No two nations are the same. Relationships are better understood and addressed one-on-one than when all three or more are trying to fit everything under one blanket.

All of these are not lost to the policy makers in China. They should be worried because a strong trading partnership with a neighbor that shares a border with the U.S. is going to be remarkably efficient and a bilateral contract is a stronger bond. That is the reason China wanted TPP and WTO. They can operate with stealth and opacity  effectively where attention can be distracted too easily. 

Perhaps we see madness. Perhaps we see a method to the madness. Perhaps we are seeing that multilateral deals are maddeningly and singularly the wrong way to do trade agreements. The U.S. will HAFTA go this way.