Dr. Forbush Thinks

When I made the transition from the University world to the Industrial world I was introduced to the concept of the “trade show.” The idea with a trade show is to gather the key players in your industry or area and sell each other your products. In academia there is a similar concept called the conference. An academic conference does the same thing as a trade show in that it gathers all the key players into one location. However, the academic conference is based on the premise that everyone is sharing their ideas. The truth of the matter here is that at an academic conference everyone is “selling” their ideas.

Human nature works the same in both the academic and industrial worlds. People like what they are used to using. They would like to continue to do what they are used to doing with the exception that they might like to do it a little faster and a little more efficiently. Most people are not willing to jump on the band wagon of any new technology without proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the new way is worth the trouble of changing.

When I joined EDC we had a monopoly on the equipment that we made. The premise of sticking with what you know worked very well for our company. When the occasional player tried to break into the market we could easily introduce something into our product to compete with any potential advantage that might challenge us. Customers tended to stick with what they already knew - namely our product.

With the success of our company we made several attempts to expand our business. In order to expand we needed to create a new product using a new technology. In doing so we normally ran into the problem of coming up against established products and trying to overcome that inertia from the other side. In one case we came up with several improvements on the existing technology in the semiconductor industry. However, breaking into the semiconductor industry proved to be extremely difficult and we fell back on plan B, sell the technology to someone already established in the semiconductor industry.

The point of all this introduction is meant to establish the need for trade shows and conferences. When you get together with people in the field conversations begin and mature. Walking the trade show educates and informs. Trade shows bring customers to venders, but it also brings people and ideas together.

As we developed our biotech equipment we needed a way to get our product out into the public. To us it seemed liked people would just “need” our equipment once they saw what it could do. How could anyone prefer the “old” technology when we had this “new” technology that was so much better? The answer of course was that the old technology worked adequately for most applications being done at the time and the potential customers weren’t so sure about the new technology. Most people were unprepared to look a couple of years down the road to the new applications, mainly because they hadn’t been thought of yet.

Our job was to show potential customers how wonderful our product is. This had to be done with the standard tests that our customers use to verify that their current equipment works. In other words, in order to break into an existing market we needed to make our equipment do the same job that the current equipment was doing. People weren’t prepared to redesign everything and put our equipment into the new setup. And, the best place to learn what the current customers think about “new” equipment is a trade show.

In the biotech industry trade shows and conferences are merged into one thing. There are talks and presentations as well as booths for people in “the industry.” This means that you need to make your point academically as well as economically. A new technology needs to pass “peer review.” In other words, your product will only be accepted if the majority of the people in the community agree that the technology is worthy. And so, even though scientists don’t like to admit it - social relationships play a role in the industry.

Well, EDC BioSystems first presented our technology at this trade show about five years ago. And, over those five years we have presented our argument to the community every year since. And, slowly the community has warmed to acoustic dispensing and EDC BioSystems as a company. Hence, every year in this decade I have made that trip to the desert, either for learning about the industry or for presenting our equipment. And, always to build those important business relationships.

This year the conference/trade show was held on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I flew in Sunday and left Tuesday afternoon. There are certain rituals that have been established over the years of attending trade shows. One of those rituals is the “business dinner.” Other rituals are “walking the show,” “working the booth,” “scoping the competition,” “meeting and greeting old friends,” “reading the posters,” and “finding the golden nugget.”

These rituals have gradually evolved by trial and error. The rituals need not be performed in any specific order, although they all do need to be done during the show. Some are performed throughout the duration of the show, while others are done once and abandoned. Each of these rituals have social interactions involved and the rituals foster social relationships.

With all of these rituals to follow there is hardly any time to do anything on your own. Well, there is one personal ritual that I have begun in recent years. I get up early and go for a run. I did this for the first time three years ago. Of course whenever one is in a strange city it isn’t that easy to know the best places to run. So, on my first trip I just took off running down the street at 5:30 in the morning. This first run wasn’t an ideal run, mainly because I ran out into the desert before the sun had risen. It was dark and I had no idea where I should go. I had looked at a map before hand, and it seemed that I had a good trail to follow, but there weren’t any sidewalks and it was bloody dark. Well, on subsequent runs I found better and better places to run. And, I gradually began my run a bit later so that I could run as the sun came up over the desert. This is how these rituals evolve.

This year I did the same thing. I woke up and began my run at 7:00 AM. I thought that I might try something a little different. On the last day of the show last year I found out that there were trails on the mountains that surround Palm Springs. These steep rock piles that surround Palm Springs shoot up about 3000 feet into the sky and influence the desert climate that has people returning year after year. These naked rock piles have very little vegetation because of the lack of rainfall and consistent 100+ degrees weather most of the year. In the winter the weather is much more hospitable. At 6:30 AM I took off toward the mountain to the west of the city. The base of the mountain was about a mile from my hotel, but I had no idea where the paths began. I thought that I might just run along the foot of the mountain and discover where the path might begin.

As I ran the mile toward the base of the mountain I saw a fellow runner heading in the same direction. Then I saw a couple of runners running in the opposite direction. I sensed that I might be going the right way. As followed the runner ahead of me I saw him scramble up to a road that ran along the base of the mountain but at about 10 or 15 feet up the side of the mountain. I followed him up to the road, and then up further to a sandy path that seamed to climb further up the side of the mountain. I followed him as he ran up the side of the mountain. Running up hill requires a bit more effort than running on flat ground, but if one slows down one, then one can still find a good pace based on effort. Of course the guy that I began to follow was faster than I was, so he was soon out of sight somewhere ahead of me on the path.

I continued to follow the path up the mountain. I traveled at a good pace, breathing heavy on the steepest sections of the path. As I climbed I saw a beautiful city stretched out before me. As I climbed I saw that the trail was actually marked with little spots of white paint on rocks. After about 25 minutes I emerged at the top of this small mountain. It was the first foothill, with taller ones directly behind it. I estimated that I had climbed about 1500 feet and to my surprise there were six very sturdy picnic tables placed at the top of this climb. Just as I emerged I saw the runner that I had followed up the mountain. For the first time I noticed that he was about ten years older than I am. He complimented me on being in “good” shape. He said that he was Swiss, so of course he was used to doing this. Then he took off running back down the mountain.

Been there, done that! I circled the picnic tables and then I also took off running back down the mountain, and back to my hotel. The total round trip was about 55 minutes - a good workout for the day.

The next day I decided to do the same run, but I thought that I might explore the top of the mountain a bit before a returned down again. I also decided to leave a few minutes earlier in order to catch the sunrise over the city as I climbed the mountain. And, I discovered a loop that ran around the mountaintop. And, on the way down I ran into the same guy I had followed up the mountain the day before. I had realized that he was also in town to go to the same trade show. Finally as I was running down the mountain I passed another runner who asked me if I knew how to find another path that lead to the south end of Palm Springs. That was the first that I had heard of it. But I guess next year I will look for it as this running ritual continues to evolve.

First off, I don’t care to gamble. Actually I do like to gamble in certain ways, take risks and expect returns on those risks. But, Las Vegas style risks are high, and the odds for a payout are low, so it doesn’t make much sense to risk my hard earned money on something that has very little chance of offering a return. In fact, if I really cared about making money I would buy stock in companies like Wynn, Bally’s, Harrah’s and the like, because the return on investment is more likely to be positive on that side of the table.

I’ve been told by a number of people that Las Vegas isn’t only about gambling. It’s about entertainment! There are so many things to do up and down the strip that you can go to Vegas and not gamble at all. It didn’t seem likely to me, but I had been to Vegas a couple of years ago and didn’t gamble. So, I knew that a gambling free Las Vegas vacation was possible.

Last time I was in Las Vegas I brought the kids. My daughter was dancing in a dance competition that occupied a large portion of our time. The extent of our time on the “Strip” consisted of driving up and down the strip, going to see a show, and walking around a casino or two. We didn’t really “do” Vegas.

This time was different. My wife and I left the kids at home and we ventured off on our first childless vacation since our oldest was born. Our vacation wasn’t about destination, it was about re-connection. It didn’t really matter where we went; it mattered that we went together and to share the experience no matter what else happened.

We decided to take an offer from a time-share company who would put us up for a week on the “Strip.” A free hotel no matter where it was located was all that we needed. We had never listened to a time-share spiel, so we even looked at that as an experience to share and talk about. The point of the vacation was not about “location,” it was about “destination.” How bad could listening to a two-hour spiel be? We had the rest of the time to ourselves.

Well, we arrived in Vegas Monday evening and realized that the trip might not be as easy as we had imagined. The first floor of our Hotel was a smoke fill dungeon of a casino. The smell of cigarette smoke filled every nook and cranny of this hotel making life miserable at first. The smell brought back memories of times when smoke filled many more aspects of my life. But, since California had made cigarette smoke illegal in so many locations, it was rare for me to even smell it at all for years at a time. My wife had it even worse than I did. Her sinus cavities had swollen shut and she had a massive headache that drugs couldn’t cure. Monday night was miserable as we tried to sleep with the smoke from seven floors down making its way up into our non-smoking room.

The next morning we couldn’t wait to get out of the room. We thought that we might benefit from a little run down the Las Vegas Strip. We figured that the distance from Circus Circus down to Mandalay Bay was about four miles. So, an early morning run of eight miles seemed to be a good way to get the day started.

At about 6:15 AM the strip was a different place than the night before. Most of the people outside at this time of the morning were fellow joggers and a few people looking for a breakfast buffet. A run up and down the strip is an excellent way to see it for the first time, in person and up close. Running early in the morning also enables you to miss the crowds in the streets that block your way later in the day or even late at night.

As we started our run we quickly saw that jogging the Las Vegas Strip was a quite popular thing to do. We passed quite a few people, as quite a few people passed us. Joggers of all sorts came toward us a well. We easily saw over a hundred, and surely there were many more running on the street that we didn’t see. As I saw all of these joggers running the Las Vegas Strip I started to think about Las Vegas in a different way.

What is Las Vegas all about? It is more than gambling, even though gambling has given Las Vegas its power and influence in American culture. But it is a mirror to American culture. But, that mirror isn’t flat. A curved mirror focuses the light, and Las Vegas is a curved mirror that focuses American culture.

There are two questions that I’d like to try to answer here. The first is how does Las Vegas focus American Culture? And, the second is why does Las Vegas focus American culture? The how and the why questions actually tell us a little about American culture itself, and more.

When you run or even walk down the Las Vegas strip you see every aspect of American culture that you can imagine. Actually, “culture” might be modified by the adjective “popular.” The strip contains every aspect of American popular culture. The appeal is to the masses, exaggeration abounds and truth is hard to find. And, it is impossible to find a bookstore or other form of culture that might be associated with something other than popular American culture. Las Vegas mirrors the world as Americans believe that it is, not as it is in reality.

One example of what I am describing is seen at the Venetian. In St. Marks square in Venice, Venezia Santa Lucia in Italian, there is a famous clock. By American culture the clock is strange, because it is a 24-hour clock instead of a 12 hour clock. The clock is reproduced at the Venetian is numbered with twenty four roman numerals, like it’s cousin in Venice. But, the hands on the clock assume the imaginary 12 hours of traditional American clocks. American culture has forced a false reality on the reproduction of this clock. Why? I can only assume that it is because Las Vegas is about encouraging American fantasy, rather than teaching reality to those who would like to learn about other cultures.

The reality of Las Vegas is that it is created for Americans to see the world the way that they believe that the world is. American’s love the circus, and Circus Circus focuses on the activities and entertainment found at a circus. Americans love New York City, and New York, New York focuses on what America culture assumes what New York City is like. American popular culture views Paris, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and Venice in a distorted way in which the Paris, Luxor, Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian Casinos do.

Las Vegas is what happens when capitalism rules without a check on its power. People want to see it, then Las Vegas offers it for the masses to view the way that the masses expect to see it. This is because the masses are willing to spend their money in places that represent what the masses expect to see. People are attracted to the casinos by what they expect to see. Americans want to see a fake replica of the Eiffel Tower, the Paris offers it to the masses. The people expect the people in Paris to be aloof, speak with French accents and charge a lot of money for French type food, then the Paris once again fits the bill. And, all up and down the Las Vegas Strip it is the same.

How did Las Vegas get trapped into this facade of a world reflection that Americans want to see? I would guess that it must have to do with what attracts people. Obviously sex, food and money attract people. Comfort and familiarity also attract people. And, if you own a casino they are the elements one must use to attract the largest number of people to their casino as opposed to every other casino on the strip. So, the Las Vegas business mantra is “give the people what they want and take their money in return.”

The only thing that Las Vegas doesn’t give people is money. But, instead of keeping money out of the equation, Las Vegas offers the chance, the hope, and the possibility that you might win some free money. The truth is that the casinos exist because the casinos take much more money than they give away. So, the casinos take money off of the free give away table and offer hope instead. That is what gambling is all about.

So, in an effort to offer everything else and in order to take the money of the masses Las Vegas has learned to appeal to the sense of expectation, comfort and familiarity. But not all people know what they should want or desire. And, that doesn’t matter, because Las Vegas tells everyone what he or she should want and expect. It is an enormous feedback loop that tells everyone what American popular culture believes is the most important thing today.

So, by capitalizing on popularity Las Vegas attracts people who are attracted to what the culture has proclaimed to be popular. And, as we know, marketing has jumped in front of this line in order to both proclaim what is popular, then they do everything in their power to convince us that they are right. And, Las Vegas is the center of the universe in the grand scheme of things.

But, as I ran down the Las Vegas strip I began to wonder again. If Las Vegas uses all of this marketing, declamation and appeal to our basic desires, how do all the joggers fit in? No one in Las Vegas is going to claim to insight these people to run up and down the strip. The joggers don’t bring money to the casinos when they probably don’t even have money on them while they are running.

I believe that there is one additional aspect to Las Vegas. That is the addictive nature of gambling. Most people have addictive behaviors. Some people are more compulsive and have more natural tendency toward addictions. Gamble in Las Vegas is the ultimate goal for a person with a gambling addiction. But having one addictive behavior means that one is also likely to have an addictive personality. And, it is clear that all those smokers in the casino of my hotel had another addiction. And, the percentage of smoking gamblers in that casino was much higher than what I perceive to be the national average of smokers among the general population. And, I began to think about other addictions. And, I couldn’t believe how many obese people that there were riding their little scooters up and down the strip, and how obese people moving slowly along the strip.

So, Las Vegas is American pop culture in a nutshell. This is initialized by the casinos use of whatever they can to attract the mainstream popular masses to the city, so that they can take as much of their money as they can. The addicted gamblers come back again and again and bring their addictive behaviors with them. And the people attracted to the pop icons bring some of their own habits and popular culture with them, and the addictive behaviors fill the open space, like smoking, over eating, and even jogging.

All I can say after all that is my Las Vegas Vacation was certainly a learning experience.







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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

When I was in High School I took a trip to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and I loved the city. Then about ten years later I had the opportunity to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and it was my new favorite Canadian city. I thought that it would be tough to top Vancouver, but I recently returned from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and I find it even more intriguing than Vancouver.

Now, it is quite difficult to compare any two places based on trips of less than a week in duration. And, it is especially difficult to compare cities when most of the time spent in the city is for business. Basically my comparison of the cities is based on what could be done for a few non-working hours, including eating and entertainment. And, of course I also base my attitude toward the city on the rudeness of the people that I run into along the way.

I arrived in Montreal on Saturday night and I immediately checked into my hotel got comfortable and fell asleep. The trip was about 10 hours of travel time from door to door and there was a three hour time change between California and Quebec.

I thought that if I were to work out in the morning I could get my blood to flow and perhaps I could get used to the time change a bit quicker. The Hotel had a health club, and so I ran eight miles on the treadmill. I may have overdone the workout a bit, or it might have been dehydration or caffeine withdrawal, but I didn’t feel very good for most of the day. I normally drink coffee everyday, but because of the logistics of the flight I hadn’t had coffee on Saturday, or Sunday. After working out I got together with a couple of guys from my company and we worked until mid afternoon, only pausing for lunch. But because we kept at it we finished with plenty of time to take a hike of the city before the sun went down.

Up until this point there wasn’t really anything different about Montreal and any other big Midwestern city that couldn’t accommodate us. So, the hike outside to check out the city was the first opportunity to see what Montreal was all about. Of course, a hike through a city is mainly filled with looking at typical building that occupy most cities. And, of course the route that one chooses dictates what one sees and what conclusions one may draw on that experience. But, there are special differences that every city uniquely offers. In Montreal we chose to walk to Mount Royal, a small hill by California standards that offers a view of the city from the mount. The route from our hotel was simple, travel straight up University until it ended at the Mount Royal Park. We didn’t quite know what to do once we got to the park, but we figured that there should be paths around the mount that would allow us to walk through the park, and perhaps even to the summit.

The walk up University took us through the heart of McGill University. The architecture of many of the buildings displayed imagination and attention to detail. I’m not an architectural expert, but I know how to appreciate the form as well as the function. And, as it turned out, much of the culture of Montreal appeals to the senses while keeping in mind the practical as well.

When we reached Mount Royal we found it difficult to actually enter the park. There were fences as well as gates. There were steep muddy slopes as well as gradual inclines with wheel chair accessibility. And we finally managed to find a main path that encircles the mount. Unfortunately the temperature had begun to drop while we were hiking and it had begun to sprinkle a light but steady rain. And as the cold intolerant Californians realized that they needed heat soon we aborted our mission and turned back toward the hotel. And, when we arrived back at the hotel we were drenched. But, the hike was a successful first look at this interesting city.

While we were in the city we experienced a wide range of very interesting food. I won’t go into the details of every meal that I ate, but I did have walleye, venison, duck, and salmon. I experienced maple pudding and pancakes with maple syrup. No matter what the mean price of the restaurant meals I found a very close attention paid to detail. Even when we ate at a place that specialized in BBQ ribs and chicken I found that the food was displayed with attention paid to the details. In fact, the food and the architecture have that in common - they both pay attention to both form and function. In the case of the food, it looked as good as it tasted in every case I witnessed.
If you look at the city of Montreal on the surface, or from the 27th floor of the hotel we stayed in, it would be difficult to tell the difference between Montreal and another Midwestern US city - Cleveland for example. There is quite a bit of industry. There is its port on the St. Lawrence seaway. Montreal, however, is further north than many Midwestern American cities, and therefore needed to deal with the practical problem of cold weather for more than half of the year. (At least that was before Global Warming.) And, in order to battle this practical problem a huge network of tunnels have been constructed under the city. These tunnels connect buildings and Metro stations. But, in addition to this practical application there are stores and shopping areas in these recesses below the surface of the city.

Now, if these tunnels had been constructed for the merely practical application of connecting the buildings together, one could imagine cinder block passageways, the smell of urine in a parking garage, rats running around, and waste piled knee deep. But, these passageways are clean and well kept. In certain areas the passages have carpeting, although that idea may contribute to a moldy smell. In other areas there are quite creative and artistic themes. There was an entire hallway that seems to have been lifted from “The Matrix.” Another passageway was lined with marble. And, still another looked like it once resided in a medieval castle. No matter where one walked the tunnels were safe and clean. Specific spots were labeled for use by street musicians, and they were. Like I noted above, Montreal seemed to have a good balance of both form and function. The tunnels connected most of the places anyone would want to go throughout the downtown area of Montreal. And, it connected these places to the Metro lines that could take people out into the suburbs of Montreal as well. It was a keen combination of both form and function working together.

As visitors from a far off land we found these tunnels a curious and interesting exploration. If you have ever played Dungeons and Dragons and enjoyed the exploration aspect of the game these tunnels might offer many hours of entertainment. One night we decided to take the tunnels beneath the city to a special event. We could have taken a bus, but for shear entertainment purposes we explored the tunnels and eventually found our way to the event. And, the experience was well worth the time.

These are the differences that stand out above other cities that I have been to. Every city has more or less unique aspects that come across to a visitor. Not every visitor is going to discover every aspect. But the pervasive extent of a good balance of form and function is a theme that seems to run through all of these.

Before I finish, however, I need to mention another great discovery that we found in Montreal. This was the “Maison de Jazz” Or “House of Jazz.” This place offered a very pleasant experience of Jazz, drinks and food that is difficult to find in many places other than maybe New York, Chicago or New Orleans. This particular establishment does not set Montreal out above these places, but the existence of it says a lot about the underlying culture of music and sensibilities. These places need enough people in the audience to support the musicians and there also needs to be enough musicians of a high enough quality to populate a nightly entertainment calendar. There needs to be a critical mass of both musicians and those who appreciate the art form for a place like this to succeed. And, “Maison de Jazz” is able to offer an interesting menu of BBQ ribs and chicken as well as items for those not so taken by BBQ. If one considers the population of Montreal, this is truly a unique gem that may be hidden from the typical visitor.

After this trip, Montreal has now popped up to the top of my Favorite Canadian City list. However, my list actually means very little in the grand scheme of things. It isn’t scientific. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to study any of the Canadian Cities that I visited. All I can say is that it was very easy to find good food and entertainment in the few number of hours that I had for food and entertainment. And, that alone was all I ever want when I’m on a business trip.

Bonjour!




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Many Americans have never been to Mexico. In fact, many Americans have never even been out of the country. But, I won’t get into that in this piece. Instead I’d like to just talk about my minor experiences in Mexico. I say minor, because I never lived there and of course living in a place helps one to understand the place better than just a few visits. But, the point is that travel always opens your eyes.

More than twenty years ago I had the crazy notion that I would travel from Texas to California to visit a friend whom had moved there. I decided that I’d simply drive the 22 hours from College Station, TX to San Diego, CA over my spring break from graduate school. I loaded up my 1966 Ford Mustang with a cooler, some snacks and a week’s worth of clothes and took off on the highway. I pointed my car west and started to drive.

It took me nearly eight hours before I actually found a freeway, instead of the Texas Farm to Market roads that litter the state. The Farm to Market roads aren’t so bad, as long as you are certain to slow down below the speed limit when they pass through a small town. The city law enforcement likes to bust out-of-towners for a sure source of revenue. Out-of-towners aren’t likely to argue a ticket, they’d just as soon pay the ticket and be out of town as quickly as possible. However, once I was on the Interstate there was no looking back, “California here I come.”

It wasn’t my first trip to California, and my friend wanted to show me a good time. So, after driving 22 hours, without out any time out for sleep I found my self in the back seat of someone’s car with a load of kids heading for Tijuana. We drove to the boarder, parked the car and walked across the boarder. We walked past the little kids selling Chicklets on the street. We walked past the vendors and panhandlers and we found the taxi stand. My host had been here before, and they knew exactly where they wanted to go. We piled into the taxi and I soon found myself, in a groggy state entering a Mexican Bar by the name of “el Tunnel.” Or, the English translation “The Tunnel.” The gimmick was that everyone needed to walk over a suspension bridge through a dark tunnel to get into the bar, hence the name.

One might wonder why these college students wanted to go to a foreign country just to go to a bar. After all, my friend and I were over 21 by that time, although I don’t know the ages of my other hosts. Many college kids from San Diego had flocked to Tijuana to go drinking, because of the lower drinking age. Of course this was twenty years ago, so I don’t know what the laws are today. But, besides the drinking age issue, there were certainly many cultural reasons to go to Tijuana, or Mexico in general. However, Tijuana might not be the best place to witness Mexican culture.

In fact border towns are based on the tourist industry. The people who run the businesses in the border towns will concentrate on what they can “sell” to tourists. And, when the people come across the border to buy the things that they can’t get in the United States, then that is what you are most likely to find in the border town. Currently seniors go across the border to get prescription drugs that happen to be much cheaper than those sold in the United States. Law enforcement is present, but they certainly look the other way if it is in their interest to do so. For example, it might be easier to purchase illicit drugs, or even automatic weapons if that is what you are looking for. And, for this reason it might be a tad bit easier to get yourself into trouble in a border town as well.

But Mexico isn’t just a collection of border towns. Mexico certainly has its tourist spots, but it also has its charm and culture. A few years after this visit to Mexico I had taken a series of trips Leon, Mexico. This huge city of more than a million people, is dead center in the middle of Mexico. Its major industry is not tourism, but leather among other things. My reason for visiting this city in the middle of Mexico was a scientific collaboration with a group of physicists from the Universidad de Guanajuato.

Leon, Mexico has an airport and at the time they had fights from Houston in and out of Leon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you wanted to come or go on another day you would be required to create another itinerary. Sometimes we could fly into Mexico City and drive up to Leon. On other trips we could fly into Guadalajara and drive down to Leon. I certainly preferred to fly into Guadalajara and drive down, because there was much less traffic than driving out of Mexico City, even though the trip was about the same length of time. And, driving around the countryside offered an interesting opportunity to stop at places out in the middle of nowhere and see how the people are trying to earn a living, or just trying to survive.

The flavor of Mexico comes through in its contrast to what you would expect to see in America. For example, on my first flight into Leon I flew from Houston to Monterrey Mexico and then from Monterrey to Leon. Of course when we landed in Monterrey some passengers got off the plane and others bordered. I noticed as they were loading and unloading the cargo that four crates of roosters were being loaded onto the plane. The crates were large barred crates with plenty of room for these roosters to walk around. I saw the guy pick up his roosters when we got to Leon and wheel them out to the taxi stand. I thought this was a bit unexpected, but I promptly forgot about it. We had flown in on a Thursday for the long weekend, and we would return the following Tuesday. The interesting thing was that the same guy was back on Tuesday for the return trip. He had his four crates, but only one rooster. I am guessing that he flew into Leon for a weekend of cock fighting and only one of his four roosters had been successful.

On another trip we flew into Guadalajara, rented a car and drove to Leon. This might have been my second trip to Leon. I remembered approximately where I was trying to go, but I had only been driven around the city on my previous trip. This time I was trying to remember landmarks and navigate a relatively unfamiliar city. At one juncture I recognized a landmark and quickly decided to turn at the last moment in the belief that I should need to turn down the street. Unfortunately I quickly realized that I was going the wrong way down a one way street. (I really hate when that happens. I am sure the other drivers on the street don’t like it either.) As quickly as I could I did a U-turn in order to be heading in the correct direction, but it was too late. The flashing lights were the first clue. Of course the police had to tell me what I already knew, I was heading the wrong direction on a one way street. Of course they did this in Spanish and I did my best to apologize. But, I used the opportunity to attempt to ask directions. I asked, “Donde esta Universidad de Guanajuato?”

I didn’t explain before that the Universidad de Guanajuato is a major university in Guanajuato, a town about 20 miles from Leon. But, being such a large university they also had groups and institutes through out the Mexican state of Guanajuato, the state in which Leon is located. There was an institute of physics and an institute of psychology that shared a building in central Leon, and there was also a major research center that the institute of physics was building at the time just outside of the city of Leon. I was looking for the Physics institute in the center of the city, but the policeman had no idea that this place even existed so he answered with the logical answer, “la Universidad de Guanajuato esta en Guanajuato,” or whatever the proper Spanish equivalent is. I got the point, but my Spanish wasn’t good enough at the time to go into the details. In the end we just got a warning and we decided to find the hotel instead, and then we could use the phone to get directions. This was before the cell phone age.

I told this story, because I remember it whenever I meet someone who doesn’t speak English as well as I would like. I remember when I was on the other side of the language divide trying to communicate. Even the simplest things are difficult to do even if you know a bit of the language. The policeman most likely thought that we knew nothing at all, we weren’t even in the right city. He was probably thinking to himself, “idiot tourists, don’t even speak the language, don’t even know where they are, sheesh,” or whatever the equivalent Spanish is.

The area of central Mexico is so nice. You could believe that you were plucked down in the middle of Europe or even some American city, if you didn’t try to read the Spanish signs. The climate every time that I have been there was virtually perfect, dry room temperature during the daytime, slightly cooler at night. The people are nice as well. Everyone I met was friendly. I met people from the physics and psychology institutes and also people who were not from the institutes. The entire atmosphere differed greatly from the tourist areas of Mexico’s borders, or beaches.

We also went to visit other towns and cities in the area. We went to the city of Guanajuato, which is a very unusual city built in a crater. I assume the volcano is dormant, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were to come to life one day causing all of the inhabitants to evacuate the very beautiful and unusual city. And, this city also has a very unusual “Museum of the dead.” This “museum” has a collection of dead bodies that have been petrified in some nearby cemetery. The bodies are not extremely old, there clothing seems to be from the 1800s, although I could certainly be wrong. When I first visited the “museum” the bodies were propped up against the walls with a velvet rope separating them from the viewers. The last time I visited it the bodies were contained in Plexiglas boxes reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty. The entire experience is so surreal and so contrary to American culture that on every visit I had to take other Americans to experience this weird “museum.”

Many Americans who have never been to Mexico, or maybe have only been to the tourist areas of Mexico have created a vision of Mexico in their minds. This vision of this nation is not always flattering to the country, and they lead to preconceived ideas. Some preconceived ideas are based on some reality, such as the violence or illegal activity in the border towns. But these views are not the reality in all of Mexico. But, so many people are still motivated to cross the border into the United States. Does that mean that these people are attracted to the American lifestyle, or are they just attracted to American jobs?

Even with Mexico being a much better place than what many Americans imagine, there are still many poor jobless Mexicans. Many of these Mexicans come from groups that are considered lower class than the rest of Mexico. These people might be from the large native population, or just the lower class poor, or even the rural areas of the country. The point is that not every Mexican finds themselves wanted to move to America to make money harvesting crops or working as a nanny. Many Mexicans are happy living and working where they work. The problem is that number of poor and unemployed in Mexico seek to make a living and they can’t find work in Mexico. And, if we don’t want these people to do our menial labor, then the obvious solution is to help Mexico create jobs in Mexico. The methodology is irrelevant for this discussion, but since we have this perceived problem, the problem with the poor in Mexico is our problem as well, because it effects us.



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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Politics

“P.S. I Love You” was the tag line the first time I visited this tiny city in the desert more than twenty years ago. I didn’t see that slogan posted anywhere in the city when I visited it over the last few days. This time I went to Palm Springs for business, but the first time I went there to visit a girl. She had moved from Ohio to California following her parent’s dream of living in the desert. She took my heart with her. Now, twenty some years later both of us are happily married to different people and living thousands of miles apart. At least I know that to be true on my side of the equation.

Palm Springs has both changed and stayed the same. The mountains to the west of the city are still a tall and rocky moonscape of grey and brown. The mountains are so tall that the sun sets at about 3:00 PM as it passes behind this pinnacle. Therefore, sunset seems to last for hours with the sun behind the mountain, but the sky not quite so dark.

The downtown area isn’t much longer than 10 blocks of little shops and restaurants on Palm Canyon Drive with a few more scattered on the streets parallel to this road. And, of course there are the resorts and golf courses that lie further to the south and east of the city. If you like golf, or the resort lifestyle, then this is certainly the place for you. Since I don’t really care to much for either I force myself to find other things to do. This time I really didn’t have much free time so I mainly concerned myself with working, eating, running and sleeping.

As it turns out I had the chance to eat at three restaurants, sleep two nights in the Hotel Zoso, go on two hour-long runs and work the remaining time.  If anyone can relate to the Saturday Night Live skit that portrays a naïve couple visiting a portentous couple at their apartment will understand the Hotel Zoso. The Hotel is lined with close-up pictures of flowers enlarged to 28X36-inch portraits or larger. It wasn’t clear to me if they were photographs of flowers or photographs of paintings of flowers. The pictures all seem to be intentionally out-of-focus, however it isn’t clear whether it was truly intentional or just bad photography. However, if you remember to SNL skit the people at the Hotel Zoso believe with all of their hearts that if you don’t understand the importance of these “great works” then you shouldn’t being staying at the Hotel Zoso.

The rooms are very nice, after all I was told several times that they just put $20 million into the renovations of the Hotel Zoso. And a lot of the money must have gone into the 42” flat panel TVs that hang on the wall of every room. The bed is unusual as well, and if you don’t understand why a King size bed needs nine down pillows on it, then maybe you don't really belong in the Hotel Zoso.  The final annoying thing about the Hotel Zoso is the valet parking. And, obviously if you don’t understand why you need a valet to get your car from twenty feet away and bring it to you in less than fifteen minutes then you certainly don’t need to be staying at the Hotel Zoso.

My favorite part about the trip, besides the working part of the trip was the running. I woke up early each morning and went running. I am finally in good enough shape that I can run for an hour at a pretty good pace, and sightsee. Last year at this time I ran a 5K race and almost needed to be carried across the finish line. Yesterday I was able to wake up early, and run down Palm Canyon Drive for almost three miles without going off of sidewalk and without many busy streets to cross. No-one seemed to be awake at 6:00AM. After turning around I was able to find another road with a slight incline. I ran about a mile up the hill, then I turned around and ran back to the Hotel Zoso. Most likely I ran about 6 or 7 miles in about 65 minutes. The temperature was a little brisk, with a little breeze but it was generally quite nice. And at 7:15 I was able to use the Jacuzzi at the Hotel Zoso, which was quite nice because many Hotels don’t open their pools until 10:00AM or so.

We ate at a couple of nice places, one of which I need to mention only because of the difficulty in finding the restaurant. Palm Springs has a history of city leadership that disliked the idea of large signs advertising through out the town. The leadership wanted a more esthetically pleasing atmosphere that kept the quaint feel of Palm Springs by trying to restrain the commercialism. In fact, the first time I visited Palm Springs I stayed in a Hotel 6, because motels were not permitted in Palm Springs. I guess that is what happens when social conservatives go to the extreme and try to control the moral character of the town by restricting the building of motels within the city. But, the point is that a name does not make a moral character. I am sure that people have had extramarital sex in hotels as well as motels even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside. In fact, when I ran past the Hotel 6 that I had once stayed at I noticed that they had re-named it Motel 6. Apparently someone in the city leadership realized that the evil really wasn’t in the name. So, because of the history of these restrictions on the use of signs some places have very little signage in trying to keep with the tradition, even though the signs have gotten much bigger than the way it was twenty years ago. Therefore, in my case, of course lack of signage correlates with not being able to find a place. So, it took a couple of passes and a cell phone call to the restaurant in order to find the place with the 2-inch high 6-inch long sign. Hopefully they get a lot of repeat customers, because it would be difficult to rely on new ones.

Many people know that Pope John Paul II declared the Iraq War an unjust war before he died. Many Anti-War activists have argued that the Iraq War was not a “Just War,” since it was proposed at the end of 2002.But most people don’t even know what a “Just War” is and how the Iraq War matches up to the ideas behind “Just War Theory.”

So, in my search for truth I have found the definition of a "Just War" and I have tried to show how it pertains to the Iraq War.

There are five requirements for a War to be determined to be “Just.” First, it needs to have a “Just Cause.” Second, it must be declared with the “Proper Authority.” Third, it needs to be waged with the “Proper Intention.” Fourth, it needs to have a “High Probability of Success.” And finally its benefits need to outweigh the effects of the war.

So, lets compare these ideas with the current War, the War in Iraq.

First, was there as “Just Cause” for the Iraq War? Well, it depends on the stories that you hear and who you hear the stories from. The administration contended that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. This alone doesn’t give the USA Just Cause for invading Iraq. Many countries around the world possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. The administration also said that Iraq had ties to Terrorists. Again, this is bad, but a “Just Cause” has traditionally meant “Self Defense.” Traditionally a country has “Just Cause” to attack a country if they are already being attacked by the same country. The Bush administration has changed the idea of “Just Cause” to mean that a pre-emptive strike on an emanate threat is also a “Just Cause.” This is not a widely held belief among experts on “Just War Theory.” So, the equation comes to: If Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction and If Iraq had ties to Terrorists and If the USA knew that the Iraqis were going to sell or give these weapons to the Terrorists, then Iraq posed an “emanate threat” and loosely this “emanate threat” could be used to provide “Just Cause” for a Just War. In post analysis, we now know that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. And, We know that there were no ties between the terrorists and the Iraq government. Hence, there was no “Just Cause” for the war in Iraq. However, the Bush administration asserted that Saddam Hussein was a “Bad Man” therefore there was a “Just Cause” for the war. However, this argument fails if you consider that any Terrorist Group can claim that George W Bush is a “Bad Man” and therefore have “Just Cause” to attack the USA.

Second, the Iraq War needs to be declared with the “Proper Authority.” Proper Authority means that the government declares a War that is in accordance to the will of the people. The Iraq War was declared with about 80% of the people agreeing with the action, so it could be claimed that the will of the people was being done, and therefore the government elected by the people was doing the will of the people. However, we currently understand that lies and deception were used to sway the perception of the need to go to war. The question becomes, if the truth was known would the people opt to support the Iraq War invasion? The Bush administration must therefore deny any knowledge of lies or deception and the argument becomes impossible to argue, because only the administration knows the truth, unless Judith Miller comes clean.

Third, Proper Intention is ties closely into the previous point. The administration could market the idea of going to War in Iraq in order to defend America from Terrorists, but the true intentions could be to take revenge on Saddam Hussein, seize the Iraq Oil fields, change the government to be friendlier to US interest in the region. All of these intentions are not the same as the declared intention at the beginning of the War. They are all different than the “Just Cause” hence they are not “Proper Intentions.”

Fourth, the administration wasn’t concerned with the probability of success in Iraq at all. This is because the Bush administration only cared about a quick military victory and they had no concern with the aftermath of the War. Many military leaders commented on the lack of planning for after the War. The end game is the measure of success and if the administration took the time to plan, there could have been a probability of success. However, without planning the definition of success needs to be changed in order to meet it.

Finally Fifth, the benefits need to outweigh the cost in both blood and money. The jury is still out on this as the number of Americans and Iraqis killed continues to climb and the benefit of an Iraq under some other regime still hasn’t happened yet.

Since we can not know the result of the fifth necessary point we can only look at the first four to determine whether the US has conducted a Just War in Iraq based on Just War Theory. Remember that if the administration fails any one of these points it fails the criteria. The administration pays lip service to every point in some way, but I would say that an honest non-biased person looking at this list would need to claim that the USA has failed on at least one of these points. Now that we know that Karl Rove, Bush’s Right hand man was spreading misinformation in order to discredit Joe Wilson we must believe that this was not the only case of deception. So, point number three was most likely intentionally violated. And, if this point was intentionally violated then points one and two were verbally complied with, but they were intentionally violated behind closed doors of the administration. As to point four, the best defense of the administration is to plead ignorance. Surely a thinking American that cares about our country does not want to really on an ignorant administration. But, then again we have been saying this for four years now.





politics and Iraq

As I have said before, I have seen a cross-section of America on our family vacation this year.

For example, I have seen quite a few soldiers and Iraqi vets on my travels. In Colorado we stopped at a rest stop and I went into a little gift shop. In the gift shop the cashier asked the people purchasing things where they came from. When a soldier who was driving to his new base told her this she asked him if he had been “over there.” His response was, “Over where?” She said, “you know, Iraq.” He responded proudly that he had been in on the first wave. But, he didn’t say anything more so the cashier asked if he was going back. And the proud smugness fell away and he responded with a demure, “Yep.” So, the cashier pushed a little harder, “When are you going back?” The soldier just said, “I’ll go back when they tell me I’m going back.”

Obviously this soldier wasn’t anxious to get back to the battle.

But, I saw other vets on my travels. I saw two young guys on separate occasions that had missing legs. These were young strong guys that had certainly been in good shape. It was quite sad thinking about how unnecessary Bush’s war in Iraq was and what these people had paid for his selfishness.

When I drove through Utah one day I thought that I would wear my liberal attire. I put a large earring in my ear and I wore my tie dye “peace sign” T-shirt. Since Utah went nearly 80% for Bush I thought that I might get a response from someone. When I stopped by another rest area on that day I saw a vet on crutches. He hadn’t lost his leg, but was certainly twisted in an unnatural way. I thought that I might get a hostile reaction from him as I passed him going into the restroom. He managed to pause and flash me a peace sign as I went into the restroom. An older gentleman was in the restroom. He stood there and watched me. He gave me a hard stare when I looked up at him. As I went over to wash my hands I thought that he might say something to me or even obstruct my exit from the restroom. I just walked by him and left, but I could tell that he was displeased.

I thought that it was quite interesting that a vet who actually had suffered damage to his leg was willing to flash the peace sign, but the older guy who wasn’t involved in the conflict was upset about what I was wearing.

It’s too bad.

politics

As I mentioned in my Vacation post we attempted to collect license plates from all 50 states on our vacation. This activity was mainly a way to keep the kids occupied as we drove for hours through the desert. However, as we found out, we collected most of the tags in the parking lots where we stopped. We had a small map of the US that we marked whenever we found a plate,  and we had at least one other member of the party verify the plate to eliminate cheating.

Some of you may have expected that Alaska and Hawaii would be the most difficult, but we actually found multiple plates from Hawaii. We also found two plates from Alaska.

During the last few days we were continuously hunting for five plates that were the most difficult to find. They were Rhode Island, South Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut. To our surprise on the second to the last day of our travels we found three of these plates. In fact while we were parked in the Arches National Park we found South Carolina and Connecticut parked next to each other. And, as we were pulling out of the park a car from Maine pulled into the park.

This means that the two remaining plates that we never found were Rhode Island and New Hampshire. I assume the reason for this would be that people from these eastern states would rather fly west and rent a car to drive around.

We also never saw the rare District of Columbia plate. Of course this is my favorite US license plate, especially the version that says: “Taxation without Representation” on it. Of course this is because the District of Columbia has no representation in Congress. This is ironic since we actually based the Revolutionary War on this principle.

In addition we did see plates from both Canada and Mexico. Mexican plates are now more common since the rules allowing Mexican vehicles to cross the border have been eased. I believe we saw Chihuahua and Sonora. From Canada we saw British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta and Quebec.
Rare License Plates As I mentioned in my Vacation post we attempted to collect license plates from all 50 states on our vacation. This activity was mainly a way to keep the kids occupied as we drove for hours through the desert. However, as we found out, we collected most of the tags in the parking lots where we stopped. We had a small map of the US that we marked whenever we found a plate, and we had at least one other member of the party verify the plate to eliminate cheating. Some of you may have expected that Alaska and Hawaii would be the most difficult, but we actually found multiple plates from Hawaii. We also found two plates from Alaska. During the last few days we were continuously hunting for five plates that were the most difficult to find. They were Rhode Island, South Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut. To our surprise on the second to the last day of our travels we found three of these plates. In fact while we were parked in the Arches National Park we found South Carolina and Connecticut parked next to each other. And, as we were pulling out of the park a car from Maine pulled into the park. This means that the two remaining plates that we never found were Rhode Island and New Hampshire. I assume the reason for this would be that people from these eastern states would rather fly west and rent a car to drive around. We also never saw the rare District of Columbia plate. Of course this is my favorite US license plate, especially the version that says: “Taxation without Representation” on it. Of course this is because the District of Columbia has no representation in Congress. This is ironic since we actually based the Revolutionary War on this principle. In addition we did see plates from both Canada and Mexico. Mexican plates are now more common since the rules allowing Mexican vehicles to cross the border have been eased. I believe we saw Chihuahua and Sonora. From Canada we saw British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta and Quebec.

National Parks are generally thought of as the place to go witness the beauty of America. But, if you think about it National Parks are also the place to go to witness the cross section of American people as well. Demonstrated by the diversity of license plates we saw I believe that we probably saw people from every state in the union. We identified license plates from 48 of the 50 states, four Canadian Provinces, and two Mexican states. When you consider that many of these people flew to nearby airports and rented cars I am guessing that even people from the remaining two states were among the crowds we saw.

First of all I can attest to the fact that America is physically out of shape. We hiked from the rim of the Grand Canyon three miles into the Canyon then we turned around and walked three miles back out. Since the hike was nine miles to the bottom it wasn’t considered wise to attempt the 18-mile hike in one day. Instead, it is recommended that you hike to the bottom, camp overnight, then hike out the following day. We were not prepared to do that with the three kids, and without sleeping bags or food. Maybe we’ll do that at another time.

As we walked down the trail people coming up the trail continuously passed us. These people were panting and breathing hard. Some people were sitting on rocks and they looked as if they were dying. Some people stopped on their way down because the trip down was too difficult. We were preparing for the worst, assuming that the trail back was going to take twice as long. We took our time going down the trail and took many pictures along the way. (Many of these pictures are lost, but I write about that later.) It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Cedar Ridge, which is a large horizontal piece of land sticking out of the otherwise vertical canyon walls. We drank some water and talked to some people who were also taking a breather at this point. We watched some people snapping breathtaking photos out on the nearby rocks. We were no where near tired, but we had expected the return trip to take twice as long as the decent, so we opted to walk back up to the top of the Canyon.

As we walked up the trail people now coming down the trail passed us. These people didn’t seem to be any less tired than the ones we had met as we were going down the trail. The only conclusion I can come to is the America is certainly physically out of shape. I should know, because a couple of years ago I was in much worse shape than I am today. When I was out of shape our family opted to visit Lassen National Park which is the home of several volcanoes. One large cinder cone is on a hiking trail at the park. When I climbed this cinder cone I thought that I was going to die. Climbing something that steep is one thing, but having the cinders fall away on every step makes the trip even further. After that long hard climb I pledged to exercise and get myself back into shape. And, that’s how I lost thirty pounds. So, maybe these Americans who find themselves out of breath climbing the walls of the Grand Canyon will have an epiphany and go home and exercise themselves back into shape like I did.

Well, as we climbed out of the Canyon the kids began to get hungry. In an effort to get them to stop complaining we told them that they could eat as soon as we got back to the car. This really did the trick, because they began to climb up the trail at a quite fast pace. It took less than an hour to climb that three miles up out of the Canyon, a hike in which we had budgeted three hours.

Later that week someone told us that it took them two hours to hike into the Canyon and it took them five hours to hike out. I assume they must have run down the trail quite a distance further than we had and then struggled to make the same distance walking back after they were tired. But, then again you never know how far into the Canyon they went.