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Immodest Proposal

In the future “work” as is now known will exist for only a few technicians. Most citizens will be supported by a welfare state which is fully automated. This will be achieved in each home by a device that looks much like an electric chair.

Teilhard

Book Review

In this lucid if somewhat topical treatment of the life of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), Mary and Ellen Lukas have revealed an old truth: human consciousness is not easily changed but must be challenged by advanced thinkers whose lives are filled with trial, test, and controversy.

Loose Change

Book Review

What perhaps saves the book, makes the bulk of it interesting and entertaining, if not profound, is Davidson’s remarkable honesty. She does not flinch from the most embarrassing and painful details, even in her own life.

Journal

Sitting on the backsteps, the wind whipping against my bare skin. I am surprised, again, by the night and the way it makes me feel a part of the silver silence cleaning up the day’s details of heat and activity.

Yanceyville

Yanceyville is a quiet town of 1,300. The tobacco barns give out just before the new high school and junior high; from the schools you can see the courthouse at the center of town.

Nuclear Energy: Our Faustian Bargain?

Governor Meldrin Thomson flew in in his helicopter. He’d originally teamed up with the Public Service Company of New Hampshire to push the twin 1150 megawatt set of nuclear power plants, among the biggest ever built, on New Hampshire’s coast, all 18 miles of it. Seabrook got selected without knowing it.

Will An Apple Turnover A Day Keep The Doctor Away?

Initial decisions about what we will eat are made by the supermarket chains when they divvy up their shelf space. And these decisions are based on different values than we would apply. More often than not, the result is one row of fresh fruits and vegetables and ten or twelve rows of boxes and cans.

Bringing Black Holes To Light

Hawking takes on Einstein directly: “It therefore seems that Einstein was doubly wrong when he said ‘God does not play dice.’ Consideration of particle emission from black holes would seem to suggest that God not only plays dice but sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” Where they can’t be seen is black holes, where singularities dwell.

The Man Between

Hunched over the typewriter, one eye on the clock, I’m eternal, and I’m sweating it out. Then space opens its fist, I’m neither in nor out, not who I imagine, yet imagined by my Self. The hum of things continues. I’m the kiss of life — if only for this moment, to this moment I’ll cling.

Zen Plums

The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection
The water has no mind to receive their image.

                                                                                  — Zenrin Kushu