http://www.tehachapinews.com/home/Blog/samheath/28167 When you have towns with names like my birthplace Weedpatch together with those of Pumpkin Center, Oildale, and Bodfish you expect a certain amount of kidding that is not in the same vein as that of “Beautiful downtown Burbank.” Years ago here in the Kern River Valley Garfield disappeared by some person unknown under cover of darkness simply removing the sign between Isabella and Bodfish; though I continue to find the sign designating “Downtown Bodfish” amusing since trying to find any such thing would be quite frustrating to visitors, it being as nonexistent as Garfield. But it isn’t so simple for Kern County to get rid of names like Weedpatch, Pumpkin Center, Oildale, or Bodfish. And anytime someone mentions Bakersfield… It’s easy to understand why Kern County in general and Bakersfield in particular gets kicked around by people from places like Frisco. The city fathers of Btown should have taken my advice to turn the Padre Hotel into a world-class brothel outshining anything Frisco or Vegas has to offer; thereby putting my hometown on the cultural map and silencing detractors and naysayers. But alas, my sound advice in this regard fell on deaf ears. At the very least The Bakersfield Californian should have given this a hearing and thereby announced a willingness if even grudgingly to entertain some notion of keeping up with the changing times. Not to mention the many benefits to the city such an enterprise offered while diverting attention from the world-class air pollution along with some other minor distractions like graffiti everywhere and people living in fear of their lives from gang violence. And since living in sin is passé… Since this was such a worthy and sensible thing financially and culturally to do I had to conclude that what was really at work in refusing to address the issue of my suggestion for the Padre Hotel was actually an Axis of Evil, shadowy figures in the background that felt threatened by an enterprise that would put Bakersfield on the cultural map and be a financial boon for the entire county. While some would accuse me of being paranoid, there is the matter of The Lords of Bakersfield and a few other things that lend credence to my conspiracy theory. I mean, it isn’t like I was claiming to be an alien abductee or was saying Garfield disappeared because of extraterrestrials. While I know from my own experience the truth of Ben Stein’s accusations in Expelled, suppose I were accusing astronomers of being guilty of a conspiracy about the cosmos? How many would take such an accusation seriously? New Scientist news service, June 10, 2008: Colossal structures larger than the visible universe -- forged during the period of cosmic inflation nearly 14 billion years ago -- may be responsible for a strange pattern seen in the big bang's afterglow, says a team of cosmologists. If confirmed, the structures could provide precious information about the universe's earliest moments. New Scientist 13 April 2007: ‘Axis of Evil’ a cause for cosmic concern: Some believe it is just a figment of overactive imaginations. But evidence is growing that the so-called "axis of evil" - a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang - may be real, posing a threat to standard cosmology. According to the standard model, the universe is isotropic, or much the same everywhere. However, in 2005, Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed a curious pattern in the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created by NASA's WMAP satellite. It seemed to show that some hot and cold spots in the CMB are not distributed randomly, as expected, but are aligned along what Magueijo dubbed the axis of evil… Regardless of the reasons, one thing is clear: the axis of evil won't be written off any time soon. "Interest keeps growing as people find more weirdly connected observations that can't all be put down to coincidence," says Land. "And hey, everybody loves a conspiracy." No, I am not accusing astronomers of any conspiracy of evil. But Kate Land is correct; everybody loves a conspiracy. And just like brightly shining Buffy with its weird orbit lurking out there on the far edge of the Kuiper belt confounding some theories of our solar system astronomers and scientists quite obviously are not without a sense of humor, and when I first read of that designation “Axis of Evil” back in April of 2007 I wondered at the time whether Magueijo wasn’t engaging in some whimsy of the nature of those naming Buffy? It did cause me to pay closer attention to Emerson’s essay Circles. I had written at some length about the strange forces that favor spheres and circles, questioning things like the cosmos favoring these shapes and something Mel Gibson found of great interest, though it is questionable whether people calling attention to crop circles are familiar with Emerson’s essay. But long ago as I wrote about our spherical universe, now “The temperature variation in the CMBR is expressed as a function upon the inner surface of our celestial sphere” is given very serious attention as scientists attempt to get at answers to the origin of our universe. While I don’t expect the Phoenix Lander to find evidence life ever existed on a “pickled Mars,” I am excited about the near miraculous genius of some among our species even being able to accomplish such a thing. But I continue to have my reservations about the Large Hadron Collider, whether the Langoliers will be unleashed upon us rather than leading to the Philosopher’s Stone or Fountain of Youth. As one correspondent pointed out to me at what statistical point would scientists refuse to pull the trigger on the LHC; one percent, ten percent, twenty, even fifty? Oh well, the Manhattan Project was successful, so… Whether I was thwarted by an Axis of Evil concerning my suggestion for the Padre Hotel I do not know. But this I do believe; there are dark forces of evil at work both in the universe and right here on our planet. What but monsters in the guise of humans would torture and murder women and children, foment wars, and what but an Axis of Evil, a Conspiracy of Evil would put our entire planet at risk for the sake of profits? It may be that while Machiavelli didn’t give our better angels much hope of success, he certainly understood what world governments are all about. “Put not your trust in princes” has always been good advice. Many years ago when I first read Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Night Flight I was struck by his telling of how while we consider life to be the thing of greatest value, we will do things like constructing a bridge knowing lives will be lost in the process. Who would give voice to a bridge being of more value than a life? Yet, as he pointed out we live as though there were something of greater value than life; but what thing? The war-lovers will never answer that question but astronomers may yet find an answer, though I continue to believe Saint-Exupery had more than a fair idea of the value of life that motivated him. And while I consider his thoughts, as a pilot myself I can feel the wind in my face in an open cockpit and hear it telling me as it must have to him there is more to life.   When you have towns with names like my birthplace Weedpatch together with those of Pumpkin Center, Oildale, and Bodfish you expect a certain amount of kidding that is not in the same vein as that of “Beautiful downtown Burbank.” Years ago here in the Kern River Valley Garfield disappeared by some person unknown under cover of darkness simply removing the sign between Isabella and Bodfish; though I continue to find the sign designating “Downtown Bodfish” amusing since trying to find any such thing would be quite frustrating to visitors, it being as nonexistent as Garfield. But it isn’t so simple for Kern County to get rid of names like Weedpatch, Pumpkin Center, Oildale, or Bodfish. And anytime someone mentions Bakersfield… It’s easy to understand why Kern County in general and Bakersfield in particular gets kicked around by people from places like Frisco. The city fathers of Btown should have taken my advice to turn the Padre Hotel into a world-class brothel outshining anything Frisco or Vegas has to offer; thereby putting my hometown on the cultural map and silencing detractors and naysayers. But alas, my sound advice in this regard fell on deaf ears. At the very least The Bakersfield Californian should have given this a hearing and thereby announced a willingness if even grudgingly to entertain some notion of keeping up with the changing times. Not to mention the many benefits to the city such an enterprise offered while diverting attention from the world-class air pollution along with some other minor distractions like graffiti everywhere and people living in fear of their lives from gang violence. And since living in sin is passé… Since this was such a worthy and sensible thing financially and culturally to do I had to conclude that what was really at work in refusing to address the issue of my suggestion for the Padre Hotel was actually an Axis of Evil, shadowy figures in the background that felt threatened by an enterprise that would put Bakersfield on the cultural map and be a financial boon for the entire county. While some would accuse me of being paranoid, there is the matter of The Lords of Bakersfield and a few other things that lend credence to my conspiracy theory. I mean, it isn’t like I was claiming to be an alien abductee or was saying Garfield disappeared because of extraterrestrials. While I know from my own experience the truth of Ben Stein’s accusations in Expelled, suppose I were accusing astronomers of being guilty of a conspiracy about the cosmos? How many would take such an accusation seriously? New Scientist news service, June 10, 2008: Colossal structures larger than the visible universe -- forged during the period of cosmic inflation nearly 14 billion years ago -- may be responsible for a strange pattern seen in the big bang's afterglow, says a team of cosmologists. If confirmed, the structures could provide precious information about the universe's earliest moments. New Scientist 13 April 2007: ‘Axis of Evil’ a cause for cosmic concern: Some believe it is just a figment of overactive imaginations. But evidence is growing that the so-called "axis of evil" - a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang - may be real, posing a threat to standard cosmology. According to the standard model, the universe is isotropic, or much the same everywhere. However, in 2005, Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed a curious pattern in the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created by NASA's WMAP satellite. It seemed to show that some hot and cold spots in the CMB are not distributed randomly, as expected, but are aligned along what Magueijo dubbed the axis of evil… Regardless of the reasons, one thing is clear: the axis of evil won't be written off any time soon. "Interest keeps growing as people find more weirdly connected observations that can't all be put down to coincidence," says Land. "And hey, everybody loves a conspiracy." No, I am not accusing astronomers of any conspiracy of evil. But Kate Land is correct; everybody loves a conspiracy. And just like brightly shining Buffy with its weird orbit lurking out there on the far edge of the Kuiper belt confounding some theories of our solar system astronomers and scientists quite obviously are not without a sense of humor, and when I first read of that designation “Axis of Evil” back in April of 2007 I wondered at the time whether Magueijo wasn’t engaging in some whimsy of the nature of those naming Buffy? It did cause me to pay closer attention to Emerson’s essay Circles. I had written at some length about the strange forces that favor spheres and circles, questioning things like the cosmos favoring these shapes and something Mel Gibson found of great interest, though it is questionable whether people calling attention to crop circles are familiar with Emerson’s essay. But long ago as I wrote about our spherical universe, now “The temperature variation in the CMBR is expressed as a function upon the inner surface of our celestial sphere” is given very serious attention as scientists attempt to get at answers to the origin of our universe. While I don’t expect the Phoenix Lander to find evidence life ever existed on a “pickled Mars,” I am excited about the near miraculous genius of some among our species even being able to accomplish such a thing. But I continue to have my reservations about the Large Hadron Collider, whether the Langoliers will be unleashed upon us rather than leading to the Philosopher’s Stone or Fountain of Youth. As one correspondent pointed out to me at what statistical point would scientists refuse to pull the trigger on the LHC; one percent, ten percent, twenty, even fifty? Oh well, the Manhattan Project was successful, so… Whether I was thwarted by an Axis of Evil concerning my suggestion for the Padre Hotel I do not know. But this I do believe; there are dark forces of evil at work both in the universe and right here on our planet. What but monsters in the guise of humans would torture and murder women and children, foment wars, and what but an Axis of Evil, a Conspiracy of Evil would put our entire planet at risk for the sake of profits? It may be that while Machiavelli didn’t give our better angels much hope of success, he certainly understood what world governments are all about. “Put not your trust in princes” has always been good advice. Many years ago when I first read Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Night Flight I was struck by his telling of how while we consider life to be the thing of greatest value, we will do things like constructing a bridge knowing lives will be lost in the process. Who would give voice to a bridge being of more value than a life? Yet, as he pointed out we live as though there were something of greater value than life; but what thing? The war-lovers will never answer that question but astronomers may yet find an answer, though I continue to believe Saint-Exupery had more than a fair idea of the value of life that motivated him. And while I consider his thoughts, as a pilot myself I can feel the wind in my face in an open cockpit and hear it telling me as it must have to him there is more to life.   en-us