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Happy Summer Solstice
Power corrupts department
Maybe I invested too much in Obama changing Washington, maybe it can not be done, maybe nobody can do it, and, maybe, Obama just isn’t even trying. When he was a candidate, he ran on Change, he ran on Transparency, he ran on the Rule of Law.When asked about Bush and Iraq, he said
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Now, in regards to Libya, where we spent a shit-load of money sending cruise missiles – 110 on the first day – and where we sent actual, piloted, A-10 ground attack aircraft to attack Khadafi’s forces, and where we are still involved; the Obama Administration says
The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition….
This sounds like one of the Bush Administration’s convoluted justifications and, if they had said it, we liberals would have gone nuts. Now we just sit quietly. It is sad. The Imperial Presidency just keep getting more Imperial. Sometime in 2008 I am not sure where, maybe on the PBS News Hour, Brooks and somebody, probably Shields, were discussing Obama. Brooks talked about Obama and Reinhold Niebuhr and Niebuhr’s theory on power and how it corrupts. Brooks quoted Obama as saying something along the line of Power corrupts and the hope was that he would get a lot of good done before he got corrupted. Apparently not.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Lat night, Michele took me to see the Werner Herzog documentary/commentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the Chauvet Cave in France. It was both inspiring and illuminating. It was also typical Herzog. For a taste of Herzoq compared to other directors on the same subject, check this out – courtesy of Slate.
One of the things I walked away from the movie was the realization that we humans were in Europe at the same as the Neanderthals. They are now gone and, although the movie doesn’t touch on it, it is hard to not think we wiped them out. Either by killing them or moving into their econiche. According to National Geographic, we even have some Neanderthal DNA. Not much, about 1% to 4%, maybe a little more. So there was also some interbreeding between modern humans and our extinct cousins as well as lots of killing. It seems that we – modern humans – first found other humans shortly after leaving Africa and, of course, we, eventually, wiped them out.
My favorite line in the movie went something like We shouldn’t be called Homo sapiens, we should be called Homo spiritualien. This because we – modern humans again – were the first to make art. Although I do remember that Neanderthals buried their dead with flowers; that should be a sign of believing in something after death -spirituality.
Joe Bob says check it – Cave of Forgotten Dreams – out.
A trip to the Exploratorium
Located at the Palace of Fine Arts on the site of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Exploratorium is one of San Francisco’s best entertainments. It has the added benifit of being in a building designed by architect Bernard Maybeck. The Exploratorium bills itself as a museum of science, art, and human perception but it is much more. It is a giant, interactive, toy for anybody who is even a little curious about the world we live in.
A couple of weeks ago, I went there with my grandkids.
When I was in the Army, in Korea, I read Herb Caen, a gossip columnists in the San Francisco Chrony that everybody read. Every time I got a letter, it would have several Caen columns. During that year, one of the things that he was promoting was the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts which, by then, was the only building left from the world’s fair built to show San Francisco’s Phoenix-like comeback from the 1906 earthquake. Then, like now, I was interested in architecture, and then, like now, I loved Bernard Maybeck. I loved his take on classical architecture at the Palace of Fine Art and sent a couple of bucks to my mom to contribute to the cause. She thought that my contribution was mis-placed and sent the money somewhere else. I have blocked out where.
So I was very happy to see that the restoration took place without my money and, eventually, became the home of the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium, itself, was the brain child of Frank Oppenheimer. Frank was the brother of Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the Atomic bomb. In my book, Frank has left the better legacy.
I fell in love with the Exploratorium when I went there as a childless adult, then later, with my daughter Samantha, then my “little brother”, Edwin Peña, and, now, with my grandchildren. Charlotte and August.
Any kid, every kid, can find hundreds of fascinating experiments. So can any adult.
