Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The Earth as Pocket Change

Most people think the solar system looks like this, All the planets visible and neatly lined up in a row.

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Well, that picture is good at showing the relative size of the planets, but it hardly describe the solar system very well. Distances are vast compared to the size of the objects in the solar system. Most people do not perceive just how big those heavenly bodies are relative to one another and how far apart they are. But we can create a ‘virtual’ scale model of the solar system to help us understand the scale of things.

Lets start by pretending the Earth is sphere with a diameter the same as a nickel.

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The moon’s relative size is represented by the dot. With an Earth the size of a nickel, the Sun would be a sphere 8 feet in diameter. Imagine the size difference between a circle that is as big as a nickel and a circle as tall as the average room in your house. That is how much bigger the Sun is than the Earth.

So how far apart would the nickel sized earth and room sized sun be? 859 Feet! Imagine looking down on a vast blacktop parking lot. In the center is a bright, 8 foot circle. Somewhere, 859 ft from the 8 foot circle lies a shiny nickel. Would you even notice it?

Keeping that scale lets look at the rest of the Solar system:


Mercury 0.3 inches – The size of a push-pin, 333 ft from the Sun.
Venus 0.83 Inches – A nickel, Earth and Venus are about the same size, 621 ft from the Sun.
Earth 0.87 Inches – Your average 5 cent piece, 859 Ft
Moon 0.21 Inches – Roughly a quarter the diameter of the Earth, 2 Ft away from the Earth.
Mars 0.47 Inches – Just under one half inch, 1,309 Ft from the Sun.
Jupiter 9.6 Inches – A Basketball, 4,422 Ft (0.83 miles) from the Sun.
Saturn 8 Inches – A bowling Ball, 8,201 Ft (1.55 Miles) from the Sun.
Uranus 3.2 Inches – A little bigger than a baseball, 16,497 Ft (3.12 miles) from the Sun.
Neptune 3.1 Inches - A little bigger than a baseball, 25,863 (4.9 Miles) from the Sun.
Pluto 0.15 inches – the ‘zero’ on your keyboard, 33,985 (6.4 Miles) from the Sun.


So to make a scale model of the solar system with the Earth the diameter of a nickel, you would need a circle 13 miles across. The biggest thing in it is the 8ft Sun at the center. The next biggest thing in it is a 9 inch basketball and is more than three quarters of a mile from the center.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

I aint' afraid of no stinkin' diversity program

I’m a middle aged white man working in a large corporation with a diversity program. Does that make me an endangered species? Should I be resentful? After all isn’t my future limited by that set of circumstances? Many of my white, middle aged, male coworkers think so.

But I am not resentful because whatever “limits” may be placed on my future because of some diversity initiative, I still figure I’ve got it pretty good. The easiest path to take in this life is the one of the American white male, and it’s only yours by birth (not counting Michael Jackson.) So it seems like sour grapes to complain about attempts to improve the paths that others are on.

The kind of preeminence enjoyed by white men for the first 200 years of this nation has certainly eroded. After all, when Thomas Jefferson wrote the self evident truth that “All men are created equal”, most people of the day understood that to mean white, able-bodied, Christian men of means, not their lessers; women, people of non-European descent, people of color, slaves and the indentured, the disabled, Native Americans, and the ordinary guy with no education or property. By some accounts this preeminence has not merely eroded but is in full retreat, leaving white men at an actual disadvantage. Bullshit Lets put this another way. About 37% of adults in the U.S. are white men. A typical diversity program may target 50% of new hires or leadership positions to be women or minorities. Looks like a pretty good deal to me. 37% of the population get 50% of the jobs. Oh for the good old days when we got 90% of the jobs.

Everyone who loses a job or promotion to someone else thinks they were the better choice. Except that now white men can join ethnic minorities, women, gays, and the disabled and blame discrimination (at least the ‘reverse’ kind) for their plight. Yes, discrimination still exists, and reverse discrimination is an occasional reality. But if any white man feels that the deck has been stacked against them they need to re-examine the deck. We’re still holding most of the cards. And just in case I ever feel really threatened by reverse discrimination, I can always try playing the gay card.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

My 30th High School Reunion

I went to my high school reunion. It was the first one I had been to and it was the 30th. I was just a face in the crowd at the large suburban high school I attended, Kecoughtan H.S. (pronounced “KICK-uh-tan”, really!) in Hampton, VA. We moved to Hampton the summer before 10th grade and moved away soon after I graduated in 1975. I had never been back. So, my connections were temporal and fell away as the years passed.

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So why did I attend this reunion? Because of reality shows. High School reunions are the ultimate personal reality show (so much so an actual reality show was based on the premise). Where else can you throw 300 middle-aged people into a situation where the last effective dynamic was as 18 year olds, and be a participant?

At any such event the topics of discussion are biographical: College, careers, migrations, marriage, family, kids. And nostalgic: misdeeds, pranks, angst, and glories of our adolescence. But what everybody is thinking about is hair, weight, success, and how they look compared to others. Of course I was focused on another issue, not entertained by the vast majority: Who might be gay?. I had a mental list of those I thought might be or those that I hoped would be, but none seemed to be. (It’s a military town in Virginia, the very model of conservative). When the subject came up, I explained my life-long unmarried status honestly. In high school I knew I was gay, but certainly was not out. I think a few had suspected back then and none seem too surprised about it now. A few went so far as to ask if I had a partner. (the answer is no)

But I do have a few observations:

The “A” list is till the “A” list. While subject to the indignities of middle age like everyone else, there was still a measure of confidence and ease in those that were on top and had stayed there.
Geeks rule. The math and science geeks, not the jocks and prom queens run the world.
It’s impossible to picture exactly how someone might look at 48 when you last saw them at 18, but once you do see them, their 30-years-older look makes perfect sense.
A few men and women look stunningly better at 48 than at 18.
1975 was a really, really bad hair year for men, and one or two had yet to get over it by 2005.
Somewhere in the intervening 30 years, stoners, clowns, nerds, jocks, and cheerleaders, became spouses, parents, grandparents, lawyers, business people, engineers, writers, airline pilots, shopkeepers, and college professors. Boys into men, Girls into women. But I am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Maybe I’ll have that figured out by the 50th reunion in 2025.

Pictures from the Reunion

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Erring on the Side of Life

We have a moral obligation to let go of the ones hopelessly lost to this world. To keep their bodies alive through heroic or artificial measures does nothing for them in this life and most certainly delays their entry into the next life.

The problem comes in defining who is hopeless and what measures meet the definition of heroic and artificial. This problem played out on the public stage in the Terry Schaivo case.

I am satisfied that Mrs. Schaivo’s brain injury rendered her hopelessly lost to this world, and that a feeding tube surgically implanted in her abdomen meets the definition of artificial life support. But I understand that others might see it differently and there is certainly room to be on the fence in this case.

So, why not err on the side of life? Should her tube have been removed? That question is worthy of debate. Now that Terry has passed it is of course academic. But even while she was still alive the question was academic because we have no say in this matter. We have laws that value life, and recognize that personal, private and limited end of life decisions must be made from time to time. In this case, these carefully crafted laws were followed with scrupulous adherence to their intent of establishing the prognosis of the patient, honoring the wishes of the patient, and honoring the wishes of the family. 27 court decisions at the state and federal level have said so.

Erring on the side of life is prudent when there is uncertainty as to the integrity of the process or the merits of the situation. But neither case existed here. All those legislators, governors and the president knew that or should have known that before they acted so improperly and trampled the constitution they are sworn to protect. A law can be wrong, or have unintended consequences that need to be addressed. That’s handled by passing new legitimate laws that apply to everyone, not private bills that take court established rights away from specific individuals after the fact.

But was G.W. Bush erring on the side of life? He had 152 chances to do so while governor of Texas. That is the number put to death during his 6 years as governor. In all that time he commuted only one death sentence, that of serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas. He allowed to die several people who had troubling due process issues or where there was evidence of innocence. He let die a woman who committed a murder in drug-induced state as a young woman but had dedicated her life to Christ throughout her years in prison writing books, counseling others. His excuse for not considering any of these issues was he was bound to follow the law. But the law in Texas permitted him to intervene. He could have intervened, but chose not to intervene except in the case of Henry Lee Lucas.

The law was right then, but not now? Is he bound by the laws of Texas (which allows for the state to withdraw life support against the wishes of the family making Texas law even more anti-life than Florida law) but not the Laws of Florida? Or just bound by the laws he agrees with?

There is a saying that we are a nation of laws not men. That means that those in authority are bound by the law and checks and balances of our system. They are not free to ignore the law to have their way. They are not free to usurp the separation of powers to have their way. To do so turns elected constitutional officers into dictators.

There is plenty of room to argue this unfortunate case on the merits and from a position of belief. Perhaps the law will even be changed. But the events as they have unfolded, unconstitutional legislative interference in a private matter properly adjudicated within the law is beyond outrageous.

So G.W. Bush and his brother Jeb are disengenuous when they claim they were erring on the side of life. They were trying to score points by erring on the side of their political base. I think it backfired.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

My Horrible, Miraculous Year

It’s a New Year. All things are possible once again. I will lose weight, find a lover, clean the garage, make out my will, get the 300 sq ft of holes in my roof from Hurricane Charley fixed, travel, win the lottery, blah, blah, blah...

Heavy Sigh...

The stuff you plan happens or it doesn’t. It’s the stuff you don’t plan that is more interesting. This time last year I did not imagine being slammed by 3 out of 4 hurricanes and having 3 rooms of my house destroyed. I did not envision winning a signed Picasso print in a charity raffle or winning a cruise in a church raffle. I did not imagine that 10 years after leaving a job, I would find my self back in that company, in the same department, working for the same person. I did not expect to see my brother-in-law’s cousin on the cover of The Advocate, or to see a good friend profiled in another issue. I did not expect to have 4 letters to the editor published in the Orlando Sentinel. I did not expect to see good friends cope with cancer or good folks to pass away. I did not expect the president to be re-elected, or 150,000 to die in the boxing day tsunamis. And lastly, I did not expect the break-up of Jenn & Brad or me having anything to do with it. Yes, 2004 was my Annus Horribilis and my Annus Mirabilis. What will 2005 have in store?