Bomb Scare

"No one seemed very much concerned about this world or the future, unless it might be the anarchists, and they only because they disliked the present." (education of Henry Adams, Chapter 23)

As you might expect, I would quote Henry Adams in a moment of trial. We had a bomb scare this morning. A suspicious package at 20th & F. The DC police cordoned a 9 block area and prevented us from entering 1957 E. Traffic in Foggy Bottom stopped. I spent much of the morning sitting in the quad exhausting the battery on my phone and answering email in that order. They ultimately blew up the package but they have yet to confirm that it was a bomb.

It is far to easy to say that the police over reacted, that they restricted activity when they needn't have done so. However, that is a first reaction and first reactions are more often too quick to achieve a full assessment. At best, I can judge that the weather was quite decent, that it was rather fun to answer email in the quad while all the students in the last CI paraded through the campus, that it was a good way to end the month of June.

The news has reported that the package was a suitcase that resembled a pipebomb. As today was the last CI, it might have been a suit case from some hapless freshman. It might also have been a suit case that was supposed to appear to be a pipebomb. In either case, it was pleasant day, one that was difficult to dislike. Even if you were an anarchist.

DAG

New on The Known World

Why do I teach if I can't use my students in my blog. I have two new postings on The Known World that may be of interest to you. One is about the long standing collision of the two David Alan Griers. The other is about a game that Mr. Chaeng taught me. You can find both at www.computer.org/theknownworld

Request for Assistance

Could I ask your assistance with a small project?

As many of you know, I am currently running for the office of First Vice President of the Computer Society. (I am currently Vice President of Publications which is an appointed position.)

I have created a webpage for my campaign. (SInce you have gone through many examples of politic rhetoric with me, you will see some familiar examples in it.)

Could I ask you all to look at it and tell me if there are any of the usual problems: broken links, missing words, podcasts that won't download and sentences that don't make sense. I would appreciate your assistance.

The site is: http://sites.google.com/site/dagrierieee/.

Thanks for your help.

DAG

Stapleton

As I you know, I am am intrigued with the invisible, with thoughts and concepts that shape our lives but are so fundamental that they are completely invisible.

This page week, I have been attending board meetings for the Computer Society in an "Executive Conference Center" outside of Denver. The center was a decent but not great hotel located in a land of strip malls and low industrial buildings. Many of the attendees complained that they were far from downtown and had none of the amenities that accompany such trips: a quaint shopping area, intriguing stores, good restaurants a famous golf course. Across the street was a massive strip mall, but a WalMart is not yet an intriguing store nor is a Long John SIlver's a decent seafood place.

No one stopped to ask the obvious question. "Why is this hotel in the middle of a strip mall?" It was too tempting to complain. The strange pattern of the roadway. The large patch of flat ground behind the mall. The collection of fuel tanks a block or two away. The tall tower easily seen from the rooms with southern exposure. We were at Stapleton Airport. Denver's old airport which was closed 15 years ago.

The terminal had been torn down. The runways converted to strip malls and subdivisions. The airport hotels, which are rarely institutions of the highest quality, had been converted into Executive Conference Centers. The price was good because the the original investment had been recouped when the building was an airport hotel. The place was not that nice for the same reason. It had once been an airport hotel. It took a careful eye to see the pattern. Apparently most eyes did not.

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I will be posting links to your blogs. If you have one that you would like posted, please let me know.
DAG

Marni Karlin's Blog

Marni is a well established member of our community. As a freshman, in a land now far away, she helped me organize a special course on artistic censorship with the Bush I Director of the National Endowment for the Arts. (A controversial figure, he was eventually fired by the Bush Chief of Staff.)

Marni has since gone to law school (University of Chicago but not with Obama) and now works for a Senate Committee. Along the way she attended Ecole Cordon Bleu and started a blog on food. I think you will find it intriguing and we hope that she starts making making new contributions again.

Thoughts About Oil

The failure of the recent attempt to cap the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and the resultant accusations of blame has led me to think about how presidents deal with disasters. I wanted to find something in the distant near past to compare and went searching for Lyndon Johnson's response to the 1967 fire in Apollo 1. The result was surprising. Johson's entire remarks, released by his office and never spoken, were:

"THREE valiant young men have given their lives in the Nation’s service. We mourn this great loss. Our hearts go out to their families." 27 January 1967.

It was never mentioned at a Presidential press conference, never appeared in a bigger presidential speech. A quick framework analysis suggests that we considered this aspect of the space program in context that was quite different from the one that we use for the shuttles. It is also a framework from the one that we use for oil production and protecting the environment. (Remember both the start of Earth Day and the 1973/79 oil shocks are still in the future.) If you want a fuller sense of how Johnson character you can read his speech to the wonders at one of the NASA facilities, which was given at the end of 1967. Again, a simple framework analysis will show that we have a very different view of the connection between the government and technology.

Anyone have pre-1967 example of a president taking responsibility for a natural disaster or technological failure?

I hope that you had a good weekend. I saw a couple of the Memorial Day events and got a bit too much sun, though not enough to do any real damage.

DAG