Voltaire lived here - Colmar

Actually, Voltaire only stopped by for a drink at the Maison des Tetes (House of Heads), and lived in an apartment nearby along with Émilie du Châtelet and Françoise de Graffigny.

What, you ask, does this mean to the cranky old man. My mother's family came from the tiny village of Graffigny in nearby Lorraine, France.

Maison des Tetes, Colmar, France

French or German, like a game of tag, Alsace has changed hands many times. Once part of the Holy Roman Empire, it became part of France in the 17th century. Germany took it back after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Back it bounced to France after World War I.  Then Hitler incorporated it into the Third Reich during World War II. Today it is French again, but at home almost half the adults speak Alsatian, a German dialect, and in the restaurants, one hears quite a bit of German from tourists.

Descartes Thinks
I blink
I think
I am
No more

Voltaire Replies
Now dead
I think
I stink
But who’s
To know
For sure 

 “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

25 Years of Hubble Space Telescope

This year marks 25 years of the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Here is an update on the “Pillars of Creation”. The image shows an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases, which cosmologists call a nebula. This one, called the Eagle Nebula is within the Andromeda Galaxy seven thousand light years away. The massive clumps of matter will attract and eventually become massive enough to form a star, planets, and other objects like our own solar system.

How big is big - almost 10 light years in length. How big is our solar system in light years - a mere 3.7 light years in diameter. And from the sun to the earth, eight minutes.

Eagle Nebula, original image NASA

Time enough for a little poetry by William Wordsworth. Ode 536 from Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

 There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,    
 The earth, and every common sight,    
 To me did seem    
 Apparell'd in celestial light,    
The glory and the freshness of a dream.           
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—    
        Turn wheresoe'er I may,    
            By night or day,    
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

...

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:   
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,     
        Hath had elsewhere its setting,   
          And cometh from afar:   
        Not in entire forgetfulness,   
        And not in utter nakedness,   
But trailing clouds of glory do we come     
        From God, who is our home:   
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!   
Shades of the prison-house begin to close   
        Upon the growing Boy,   
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,     
        He sees it in his joy; 

Think Happy

“You are what I think.” B.F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) was a Harvard psychologist who advocated behavioral engineering and thought that people could be controlled through rewards and punishments. Human free will is an illusion, human action the result of genetics and nature. Farewell to free will. 

“Poppycock”, says Popeye, "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam." 

Distant memories of Psychology 101 at KU come back to me. Taught by a Turkish professor who regaled us with stories of his own revolutionary days as a student in Turkey; quite appropriate, I thought, for the times. Listen to everyone, I also thought, for they have something to say, but make up your own mind. 

Skinner’s debate still rages on in my head. I like to think, like Popeye, that I am what I think, that I can influence the future with positive thoughts. It is my own form of behavioral reinforcement. 


Make up your own mind. This is what I tell the next generation. It's empowering. 

So I say to you, in 2015 think happy thoughts in the coming year.

There comes a time

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. W. C. Fields

Not right now and not with this bull, thank you.

No bull

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca the Younger)

Seneca writes a letter to Lucillus, procurator of Sicily during Nero’s reign, concerning the topic, On the Supreme Good.

The archer must know what he is seeking to hit; then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Chance must necessarily influence over our lives, for we live by chance.But it is the case with certain men, that they do not know that they know certain things. Just as we often search for that which is beside us, so too we are apt to forget that the Supreme Good lies near us. 

Seneca begins his letter to his friend Lucillus with a caution:

[A] vast stretch of sea separates us. Since, the value of advice may depend on the time when it is given, it must necessarily result that by the time my opinion reaches you, the opposite opinion is the better.

Seneca continues:

The nature of the Supreme Good is not described by many words or long-winded discussions. It is pointed out by the forefinger and not parsed with endless dissection… The Supreme Good is that which is honorable.

The task ahead, Seneca proposes is to conquer our emotions.

I fully understand what this task is. It is a thing …I desire it with all my heart. I see that you also have been aroused and are hastening with great zeal towards infinite beauty.

Let us hasten; and only on these terms will life be a boon to us; otherwise, there is a delay … while we busy ourselves with revolting things.

Let us see to it that all time belongs to us. This, however, cannot be unless, first of all, we ourselves belong to us. … When will it be our privilege, after our passions have been subdued and brought under control, to utter the words "I have conquered!"?

Do you ask me who have I conquered? The answer is neither the Persians, nor far-off Medes, nor any warlike race beyond the Dahab (Sinai); not these. Rather greed, ambition, and fear of death have I conquered, that conquered the conquerors of the world.

Farewell.

Be thankful

Though you seek it 
You’ll never find it. 
What is it? 

Gratitude for what you’ve got

Kansas landscape

 Image taken driving home from Kansas City to Wichita just after sunset.

Alice doesn't live here anymore.

Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) said it best more than 30 years ago:

Oh very young 
What will you leave us this time? 
You're only dancing on this earth for a short while 
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now 
They will vanish away like your daddy's best jeans 
Denim blue fading up to the sky.

Image taken on Old Highway 50 north of Emporia.This house is typical of many Depression era homes, two stories, bedrooms on the second floor, a corrugated metal roof because shingles were too expensive, and a kitchen attached at the rear of the home.