Doug's Place

Sun and Earth, in Photo and Poem

Sun and Earth, Photographed 7 May 2013 from the International Space Station by Col. Chris Hadfield of Canada, the mission commander.

Chris Hadfield, commander of the International Space Station and an extraordinary photographer, writes of this photo taken on Tuesday: "Our Sun is immensely, unfathomably powerful."

It is also beautiful as it embraces the Earth, the other planets, and other celestial members of the Solar System. (Think of Pluto, no longer classified a planet!)

The photo came to mind when I read today's meditation offering from The Rev. Galen Guengerich of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City. The reading is "Wednesday," by Walt Whitman.

Wednesday

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at

night with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

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Tonight's Finale: Our Sun is immensely, unfathomably powerful. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 6, 2013

Noting Sorrow of New England, in Newtown and Boston

I was honored to have my letter to the editor of The Boston Globe published in Saturday's issue of the newspaper.

The Globe chose to illustrate the letter with a photo by the European Press Photo Agency of President Obama and Vice President Biden listening to remarks by Mark Barden of Newtown, whose son lost his life on December 14, 2012. The photo was taken at the White House on April 17, after the Senate rejected the sensible gun safety measures favored by nine out of ten Americans.

Here's the letter with the photo selected by The Globe.

Path of pain: a drive through Sandy Hook, a stop at Boylston Street

TWO DAYS after the Boston Marathon bombings, I was in Fairfield County in Connecticut on business. I had plans to drive next to visit friends in the Hudson Valley. I was surprised to find my route would go right through Newtown and the village of Sandy Hook.

It was the afternoon that the Senate rejected sensible screenings of purchasers of guns. I was listening on the radio. I followed a bright yellow school bus in Newtown. Another bus passed going the other way on Connecticut Route 25. They were probably buses taking students home from after-school activities.

I had an urge to reach out and hug every student on those buses and tell them that we in New England will look out for them, more than ever before. But our Congress failed us that very day.

Twenty-four hours later, I was back in Boston heading to a professional meeting in the Back Bay, just outside the crime scene. I stopped at the memorial at the fence on Boylston Street at Hereford Street. At the time, the bombing suspects were still at large.

My heart was heavy with the sorrow New England has endured in a small town and in its largest city.

I want justice for the Boston Marathon victims in the courts. I want action for the Newtown victims in Congress. Without fail.

Douglass Taft Davidoff
Arlington

It Is Winter In Boston, But #YouGottaBeKiddin

We had a dust of snow this morning. Which didn't stop someone claiming dibs on a "pahkin" spot they seemed to have cleared out themselves. By "pahkin theyah cah" on the spot.

From Twitter, via @UniversalHub via @DaveAhern, who wrote, "It's officially winter in Dorchester." He used the hashtag #yougottabekiddin.

I think the American flag guarding the hard-won spot is an especially fine sight. Maybe the flag is -- um -- on the fence (get it?) about the whole pahkin thing.

Why 'Wired' Seems to Have It Wrong About Amazon and Apple

The December 2011 issue of Wired is out, with a photo of the left half of Jeff Bezos' face on the cover.  I was excited about this issue, because I wanted to read about the moves Amazon.com [and my Amazon WishList] is making to be a cloud content provider in addition to seller of books and anything else you can find in a supermarket or shopping mall.

Instead, I was disappointed.

The article by longtime tech writer Stephen Levy repeated some tiresome comparisons between Amazon and Apple. Amazon is content company, right? Because it makes most of its money selling more content things, both real (like books, shoes, and DVDs) and electronic (like ebooks and streaming movies). Yep, it's not a hardware company, though its big news right now is hardware in the form of the Kindle Fire.

And Apple isn't a content company, right?
Because it makes most of its money selling hardware things, like computers and mobile tablets and smartphones. Yes, it's not a content company, even though its current big news is user content management in the form of launching iCloud.

The article also disappointed because all too soon it descends into a Q&A dialog that doesn't grab me. It doesn't talk enough about the Amazon consumer experience and what might be coming down the pike. The most I learn about consumer experiences at Amazon is that Amazon really doesn't like to talk to me on the phone, really is not proud of being a profit-making enterprise, would offer single pricing for movie streaming if, gosh, only the movie content providers would agree, and seems more head-in-the-clouds than futuristic.

There's an ethereal quality to Bezos that bothers me, and I'm trying to put my finger on why.

Meet My Tech Sidekicks: R2-D2, Sancho Panza, Radar O'Reilly, Robin, Sam Stewart, Tonto, and Max Klinger

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Above: Images of the sidekicks after which I have named my computers and smartphones: R2-D2, Sancho Panza, Radar O'Reilly, Robin the Boy Wonder, Samantha Stewart, Tonto, and Max Klinger. (Click on the thumbnail photos in the row on top to switch images.)

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When I was a kid, it was common for families to name their automobiles. This was just as, I suppose, families named their horses up until the 19th and 20th centuries. Which made sense, since horses were animals and they were alive.

But now I feel that my computers are somehow alive, too. At least they're pretty smart, they do my bidding, they look out for me (if I teach them how), and they do seem possessed of certain personalities.

So I name my computers. Many years ago, when I obtained my first laptop, a used Dell Inspiron, I named it "R2-D2," after the character in Star Wars. I thought of R2-D2 as my wing, just as he flew in a round hole on the wing of Luke Skywalker's X-Fighter.

Thus began my personal tradition of naming computers after sidekicks from stage and screen.

Both of my Dell Inspirons were named "R2-D2." My first MacBook laptop was named "Sancho Panza," the sidekick to Don Quixote, the Man of LaMancha. My first iPhone was named "Radar O'Reilly," after the sidekick corporal and company clerk to the commander of the MASH 4077th mobile Army surgical hospital in the movie and TV series "M*A*S*H." (Radar's real name was "Walter.") The second iPhone was named "Robin," after the Boy Wonder sidekick to Batman.

My next MacBook received a name from a British detective series, "Foyle's War." In a first, my computer was named for a female sidekick, Samantha Stewart, who drives and breaks cases for the show's namesake character, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of Hastings, England. So the laptop is graced with Ms. Stewart's more familiar name, "Sam Stewart."

My Mac Mini at the office is named "Tonto," after the sidekick to the Lone Ranger.

Fun with Steve Jobs and Robert Reich (and Conan O'Brien)

In the past twelve hours, I've had way too many laughs watching these two videos.

• Steve Jobs introducing the iPad in — ahem — "superlative" style, cut down from 90 minutes to 3 minutes. (Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog, a.k.a TUAW.)
• Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, in tandem with Conan O'Brien. (Via Reich's blog.)

Have fun!

Must See: AFL-CIO President Trumka, on Economic Aspirations for America

After such a disastrous year in 2009 and a heart-stopping month politically in January 2010, it looks like the last few days of this month are closing out on an upbeat for President Obama and the country.

Economic activity is up, even if job growth is lagging. Then again, jobs almost always lag, much as that hurts in the real world of working families.

The State of the Union and, perhaps even more surprisingly, the President's appearance at the Republican House retreat in Baltimore, were spectacular performances in politics and rhetoric by Barack Obama.

But even the President and the people need a reminder from outside of what we're fighting for. In the YouTube clip below, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka — speaking earlier in the month — provides a great aspirational message. In my opinion, he earns a year's salary in the final two minutes.

Danny Ernstes, a UAW leader and Democratic Party activist in Indianapolis, pointed out this clip. Thanks, Danny!

Ringing In Marta's Installation

Last Sunday, I was honored to ring the parish bell at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington for Marta's installation as the 18th senior settled minister of the church. 

The bell of the church survived the disastrous fire of 1975 that destroyed the century-old elegant fourth meeting house of the church. Now the bell sits protected in the back of the sanctuary of the fifth meeting house, the modern structure where the church worships today. Still, for the bell, it's a comedown. It used to sit in the Arlington spire at the center of the town in what was thought to be the second-highest church spire in the Commonwealth.

I rang the bell 20 times, one for each of the 18 settled senior ministers and twice for the two settled associate ministers who have served the church. That was fun, but it was also a reminder to me of the living tradition of Unitarian Universalist ministry spanning all or part of five centuries in America.

Lida Junghans, a member of the church, took pictures. I'm in my Dad's old wheelchair for the ceremony because I was recovering from foot surgery. Wheeling me around: David Whitford. (Thanks, David!) This was only my second trip outside the house since returning from my surgery on January 14.

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