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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 03:05pm Jan 19, 2003 EST (# 7812 of 7819)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Whether we have war or peace, there's been great progress. I'm having to worry about forms - sometimes, especially when content is important, and tough, form is important, too. I'd like to comment on some standard forms characteristic of NYT science writers, it seems to me.

Gina Kolata and Natalie Angier are both superb, characteristically feminine NYT science reporters. Kolata, as I remember her stories, almost always starts with a poetic point that has a zing to it - something tart and jangling - and ends her (often very beautiful) pieces the same way. Angier is also poetic at the start and at the finish - but always literary, and stunningly graceful. Both are orderly, both have pieces that are symmetrical - both are intellectually first rate. Kolata's pieces start and end with a clang - a sort of early 20th century musical dissonance, if I can make an analogy to music. Angier's pieces start and end with lines that are both literary and scientific, and harmonious in every way I can think of them - including - usually, some unexpected ways that cause me to smile.

A George Johnson piece starts and ends with a zinger - about how strange the situation is - how the guys involved are, in some sense or other, screwed up, maybe so screwed up that they are beautiful -- so screwed up that they are straight. Johnson and I don't like each other - but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have many of the characteristics of a superb science writer. The only thing I know that he lacks is a core of science or engineering content that he knows well enough to refer to - so that he can tell right from wrong. I never could "get it together" with Johnson, after I wasn't able to convince him that he needed some core competence - on things that were true enough, any way you chose to look at them - I suggested that a weeks work learning the material in the "Engineer-In-Training/Fundamentals of Engineering Review" was the level where he needed to know things cold. And he got mad. Without any core competence like that, and without checking, I can't see how Johnson can possibly tell right from wrong. And I don't think he can.

rshow55 - 03:05pm Jan 19, 2003 EST (# 7813 of 7819)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Anyway, I've been trying to get a graceful presentation - at the level of How a Story is Shaped http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/ducksoup/555/storyshape.html that is right, and as graceful as I can honestly make it, so that people can remember it, and feel as comfortable as possible with it.

I know this. Saddam Hussein has been a very bad boy - and he knew what he was doing, too. I've done enough myself to be sure that he is very responsible for a lot of what has happened.

Repression is a dark subject - and I'm working to tell a dark story. But I've been very encouraged about developments - and think a lot of people - including Saddam, and the UN, and some people in the Bush administration are trying hard - and maybe not doing so badly, at that.

The html cites of past postings have been wiped, so I'll go back and re-enter some things - to show how encouraging progress has been - from all sorts of points of view.

Then I'll try to explain some things about repression - and some related topics - and try to end with a talk my maternal grandfather had with me about infinite series - and how they could be magical, though sometimes they blew up, and you had to throw one approach out and try a related one. Granddaddy Herring was a Baptist preacher -and when I told him I was sure I was going to Hell - he wasn't quite sure I was right - though he had to admit it was likely. I never forgot what he taught me about infinite series, and successive approximations. Grandadday Herring loved me. Granddaddy Showalter, who didn't love me much - responded to some nagging questions of mine, and finally gave me the answer I asked for, good and hard. As I remember, he explained all the fundamentals of algebraic manipulation, using sketches based on a see-saw - and some things about analytic geometry - and also said enough that I was sure he didn't understand calculus very well. I was six. And very grateful to them both.

Anyway, let me repost some stuff - and get back to a bad dream, that probably didn't happen at all the way I remember it - that is the earliest dream I remember - it is very dark. I wasn't such a bad boy as Saddam Hussein, but I was bad enough. Though I did the best I could, sometimes.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense