Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Advice from Davy Crockett
Not Yours To Give
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee
Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett,"
by Edward Sylvester Ellis.
One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:
"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.
"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."
He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.
Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.
"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.
"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called
candidates, and---‘
"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."
"This was a sockdolager...I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
" ’Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.
…But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'
" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’
“ ‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’
" ‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'
" ‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.' "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'
" 'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'
"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:
" ‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'
"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'
" ‘If I don't’, said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'
" ‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’
" 'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.’
" 'My name is Bunce.'
" 'Not Horatio Bunce?'
" 'Yes.’
" 'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'
"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.
"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.
"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.
"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the word - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.
"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me.
"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:
" ‘Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’"
"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:
" ‘And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.
" ‘It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the
credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'
"He came upon the stand and said:
" ‘Fellow-citizens - It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'
"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'
"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.'
"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday.
"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee
Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett,"
by Edward Sylvester Ellis.
One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:
"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.
"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."
He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.
Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.
"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.
"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called
candidates, and---‘
"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."
"This was a sockdolager...I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
" ’Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.
…But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'
" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’
“ ‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’
" ‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'
" ‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.' "The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'
" 'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'
"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:
" ‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'
"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'
" ‘If I don't’, said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'
" ‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’
" 'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.’
" 'My name is Bunce.'
" 'Not Horatio Bunce?'
" 'Yes.’
" 'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'
"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.
"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.
"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.
"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the word - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.
"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me.
"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:
" ‘Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’"
"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:
" ‘And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.
" ‘It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the
credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'
"He came upon the stand and said:
" ‘Fellow-citizens - It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'
"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'
"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.'
"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday.
"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
bye, Fred
Yesterday sucked. I work for a medium-sized family-owned company in a small community. The owner, Gabby, works there as does his brother Sam. Another brother, Fred, used to work for the company and his house is across the back alley. Yesterday morning Gabby came running in yelling "call 9-1-1!" while making a beeline for the phone himself. I said "Fred?" and he said "yeah" and I ran over to Fred's house. Fred had already had several heart attacks and was in poor health; a few months ago he said that the doctors told him his heart was down to about 18% functionality.
I went inside and saw him laying on the floor on his side, turned him over on his back and tried to find a pulse... nothing. Still warm, no heartbeat, no breathing. I started doing CPR, what I could remember from a St. John's Ambulance course years ago and from a dinner table conversation over Thanksgiving - fifteen pumps on the chest and one breath, repeat.
All the while three of Fred's brothers (Gabby, Sam, and Bill) are standing there praying and crying, with Bill so desperate to help Fred that he was holding Fred's ankle and pumping the leg in an effort to get the blood flowing, or taking over Fred's breathing with such effort that I had to remind him that Fred needed to breathe out, too. I told Gabby that someone needed to stand outside and make sure the ambulance found the place right away, and just kept pumping.
I kept giving him CPR until the paramedics came and then just pumped his chest while they got to work and kept doing that until a second set of paramedics with shock paddles came and took over for me.
Then I went back to work. What else could I do?
A while later the ambulances left with their lights off.
If someone has a heart attack, they need help within about four minutes before other systems start shutting down for good. Maybe we didn't reach him in time. Maybe his heart was so far gone that nothing short of a new heart would save him. Bottom line is, he was a good guy and I tried to save him and I couldn't and he's gone.
On Sunday, he was showing me a picture taken of him in 1981, laughing and joking. Today's they're making plans for his funeral.
You never know when your time is up, people. If you knew that today was your last day, would you hold a grudge? Would you hug someone?
I went inside and saw him laying on the floor on his side, turned him over on his back and tried to find a pulse... nothing. Still warm, no heartbeat, no breathing. I started doing CPR, what I could remember from a St. John's Ambulance course years ago and from a dinner table conversation over Thanksgiving - fifteen pumps on the chest and one breath, repeat.
All the while three of Fred's brothers (Gabby, Sam, and Bill) are standing there praying and crying, with Bill so desperate to help Fred that he was holding Fred's ankle and pumping the leg in an effort to get the blood flowing, or taking over Fred's breathing with such effort that I had to remind him that Fred needed to breathe out, too. I told Gabby that someone needed to stand outside and make sure the ambulance found the place right away, and just kept pumping.
I kept giving him CPR until the paramedics came and then just pumped his chest while they got to work and kept doing that until a second set of paramedics with shock paddles came and took over for me.
Then I went back to work. What else could I do?
A while later the ambulances left with their lights off.
If someone has a heart attack, they need help within about four minutes before other systems start shutting down for good. Maybe we didn't reach him in time. Maybe his heart was so far gone that nothing short of a new heart would save him. Bottom line is, he was a good guy and I tried to save him and I couldn't and he's gone.
On Sunday, he was showing me a picture taken of him in 1981, laughing and joking. Today's they're making plans for his funeral.
You never know when your time is up, people. If you knew that today was your last day, would you hold a grudge? Would you hug someone?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
What's the Big Deal?
From a comment on the previous post:
"The problem with Climate change is; It is real and people discount it to prolong profits unimpeded by research costs, etc. If we are wrong and it is not real, whats the worst thing that can happen? Everyone gets solar panels and doesn't have to pay for electricity? On the other hand if we are right and do nothing because people distract us or mislead us what will all the deniers do to fix their mistake? After society collapses into rich vs poor and disease and hunger spread with the changing climate. I don't think "I told you so" would cut it..."This comment encompasses so many ideas that are (1) well within the mainstream of center-left ideology and (2) quite mistaken that I simply must respond point by point.
The problem with Climate change is;So far, we are in agreement. There is indeed a problem here.
It is realYes indeed. The climate does indeed change. There are many reasons for the climate to change. First of all, there is a very big bright ball in the sky which is the source of all our energy, which might have something to do with things. Every time there is a big coronal mass ejection we get aurorae and blackouts in the electrical grids - do you think those are the only effects of millions of tons of solar plasma hitting the earth's magnetic field at a million miles an hour?
The Earth's orbit around the sun isn't a perfect, continuously-repeating-exactly-the-same-forever ellipse, either: there are other objects besides the Earth and Sun which tug gravitationally on both objects, such as Jupiter and Saturn, which cause minor orbital variations. And a relativistic effect causes the Earth's orbital precession over a period of roughly 21 thousand years:
In this diagram, the area of each quadrant is proportional to the time, and right now the northern hemisphere's spring and summer are longer than the fall and winter, whereas 2500 years ago the northern hemisphere's summer and winter were about equal length, but spring was much longer than autumn. That has a little something to do with the climate changing, too. There is not a darn thing that humankind can do to affect the Earth's orbit one iota.
Volcanic eruptions can change the climate as well: the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 caused the "Year Without A Summer" in 1816.
I suppose that mankind might be able to cause some sort of nuclear winter if we were so foolish as to have an all-out nuclear war. However, consider this Google Maps image of part of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, with the biggest craters I could find there:
Note the scale at the bottom left of that image. The Nevada test site was one of the most active nuclear test sites in history. Compare that image to this Google Maps satellite image, of an area just a few humdred miles away, at the same scale:
This is Meteor Crater in Arizona. It was formed when a meteor about 50 meters wide moving somewhere around 12-20 km/s collided with the Earth about 50 thousand years ago; about half of the meteor vaporized in the atmosphere and most of the rest vaporized on impact. Or how about this image, again at the same scale:
This is Mount St. Helens, which as you may recall caused some climate havoc. I include these three pictures to show how man's influence is absolutely dwarfed by nature.
And that brings us to the central questions of the whole climate change debate. Does man have an impact on the environment? Unquestionably, yes. But by how much does mankind affect the environment? Is it enough to actually change the climate? And what would the effects of that climate change be? Would such effects be, on the whole, positive or negative? And the answers to all these questions, if we are being honest, is that we don't know.
Getting back to the comment:
and people discount it to prolong profitsThere is so much that is staggeringly wrong with this statement that the mind boggles. Is climate change real? Yes. Does mankind have a statistically-significant effect on climate change? We don't know. Is the net effect detrimental or beneficial? We don't know.
That is not discounting anthropoegenic global warming, but it is a million miles away from "the science is settled". And being honest that we don't know is held as some sort of dastardly trick in order to allow something even more heinous: "prolonging profit". Without profit, no business can survive; if the income exactly balances expenditures then the business is on the knife edge of failure, and if the income drops below that level for even a short time the business can go under. What is bad about profit?
unimpeded by research costs, etcAre you freakin' kidding me. Who do you think pays for the vast majority of research worldwide? How ironic that someone could write that comment on a computer and transmit it over a network of fiber optic cables and satellite links and coaxial cables, completely oblivious to the contributions of Bell Labs or General Electric or a million other businesses' research departments to his ability to make that comment. Is it possible that this person thinks that without the global warming scare there would be no research done by business?
If we are wrong and it is not real, whats the worst thing that can happen?The person asking this obviously did not ask this of themselves. The short answer is if the world economy is destroyed then billions of people will die of starvation. That's what happens one one third of agricultural land is no longer producing food, but is instead making biofuel - worldwide the price of food has doubled. For people in the first world that might not seem like a big deal, but for the majority of the people on the planet that is a huge problem: there were food riots in over a dozen regions of the world in the last two years.
Everyone gets solar panels and doesn't have to pay for electricity?Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Oh, that's right, I have a job and bills, and I know that I can't get something for nothing. I have to work to get the things I own. So where are these solar panels for everyone supposed to come from? Should the government buy them for us? And where does the government get the money? Should it be taken out of Social Security, or Medicare, or should the government just print up more money as it needs it, like Zimbabwe?
On the other hand if we are right and do nothing because people distract us or mislead us what will all the deniers do to fix their mistake?This past Saturday, the official temperature recorded at the airport ten minutes from where I live was minus 47 degrees Celcius, with a wind chill making it seem like minus 56 degrees C (minus 69 Fahrenheit) - for a short time it was the coldest place on the entire planet. I am damn glad of the modern technological conveniences that kept me from freezing to death in the dark. My great-great-grandparents didn't have those conveniences 119 years ago when they pioneered this area, and life was a lot harder for them.
If Al Gore is right (and he isn't and he knows it or he wouldn't have purchased a $4 million condo within walking distance of San Fransisco Bay, but let's just follow the hypothetical anyhow) then in the next century the sea levels will rise by some small value and the global temperature will rise by some other small value. Coincidentally over the next century our level of technology will continue to advance, so long as the economy is not held back by onerous taxation. The same technology that makes my life easier than that of my great-great-grandparents will be even more advanced as and if we encounter problems in the future - as long as we don't cripple our ability to make technological advances.
Let's turn the accusation around. In the 1960's Malaria was nearly wiped out through the widespread use of DDT, with around 50 thousand deaths a year. Then DDT was banned and the deaths skyrocketed to a million a year, for 40 years, until the UNWHO lifted its ban on the use of DDT. Rachel Carson has the blood of 40 million people - mostly children - on her hands, 40 million who died needlessly because of the ban on DDT, and where is she to answer for the carnage she caused? How does she fix her "Silent Spring" mistake?
After society collapses into rich vs poor and disease and hunger spread with the changing climate. I don't think "I told you so" would cut it..."I will answer this and end with a quote by Robert A. Heinlein:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Climaquiddick
Tiger Woods has been famous for a decade. Today I did a Google search on his name and got 27.9 million hits. I did another Google Search on Climategate - a word that didn't even exist a month ago - and got 16.1 million hits (interestingly, half as many as a week ago).
I don't see how Tiger Woods's personal life merits as much attention as the Climategate story. It is convenient for the "professional" "news" organizations to misdirect the hoi polloi while the biggest news story so far this century goes on under the radar, as the very reason for the COP15 conference - the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming - is shown to be built on a collapsing house of cards. Jon Stewart scooped CNN:
Disclose.tv Jon Stewart on Climate-Gate Video
And Rex Murphy is apparently the lone voice of reason on the CBC:
Other than that, crickets chirping. Quite literally trillions of dollars at stake over the next... well, forever, in an unbreakable treaty that forces Canadians to freeze to death in the dark. Rand Simberg was right: it isn't Climategate, it's Climaquiddick. The former gatekeepers of information are trying to keep the information secret. Before the internet existed, they would have gotten away with it.
It ain't how science is supposed to work, and it ain't how journalism is supposed to work.
I don't see how Tiger Woods's personal life merits as much attention as the Climategate story. It is convenient for the "professional" "news" organizations to misdirect the hoi polloi while the biggest news story so far this century goes on under the radar, as the very reason for the COP15 conference - the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming - is shown to be built on a collapsing house of cards. Jon Stewart scooped CNN:
Disclose.tv Jon Stewart on Climate-Gate Video
And Rex Murphy is apparently the lone voice of reason on the CBC:
Other than that, crickets chirping. Quite literally trillions of dollars at stake over the next... well, forever, in an unbreakable treaty that forces Canadians to freeze to death in the dark. Rand Simberg was right: it isn't Climategate, it's Climaquiddick. The former gatekeepers of information are trying to keep the information secret. Before the internet existed, they would have gotten away with it.
It ain't how science is supposed to work, and it ain't how journalism is supposed to work.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Scientific Prostitution
If you haven't heard by now, you should. The entire Anthropogenic Global Warming scam has been blown wide open by a probable whistleblower in the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. The CRU is one of the most influential climate research centers in the world, and its results are used by other institutions (like NASA) to calibrate their own measurements. Here is the .zip file containing the "hacked" emails and most importantly the computer code. The HARRY_READ_ME.txt file is particularly interesting.
Right now in Copenhagen there are twety thousand delegates from some 194 countries around the world crafting a "Climate Treaty". They are using the fraudulent data used in the IPCC reports to show a man-made climate change problem that does not exist in the real world, but only exists in the fraud perpetrated upon you and me. How inconvenient is that truth?
The FOI2009.zip file was made available to the BBC a few weeks before it was posted on a Russian server and went überviral. It is the biggest scientific fraud of all time, with delegates in Copenhagen right now divvying up a quarter of the world's total economy in a treaty that would actually override the US Constitution and the Canadian Constitution.
We have to put a stop to this. This was science as prostitute, with a thesis so full of possibility for increased government involvement in your life and increase in the scope of government - in fact, the beginning of a World Government. It's like watching Atlas Shrugged unfold before me at a slightly quicker pace than actually reading the book itself.
Lord Monckton gave a speech in St. Louis in mid-October, a month before these files became public. Here it is. (>90 minutes)
Take that, Al Gore.
Right now in Copenhagen there are twety thousand delegates from some 194 countries around the world crafting a "Climate Treaty". They are using the fraudulent data used in the IPCC reports to show a man-made climate change problem that does not exist in the real world, but only exists in the fraud perpetrated upon you and me. How inconvenient is that truth?
The FOI2009.zip file was made available to the BBC a few weeks before it was posted on a Russian server and went überviral. It is the biggest scientific fraud of all time, with delegates in Copenhagen right now divvying up a quarter of the world's total economy in a treaty that would actually override the US Constitution and the Canadian Constitution.
We have to put a stop to this. This was science as prostitute, with a thesis so full of possibility for increased government involvement in your life and increase in the scope of government - in fact, the beginning of a World Government. It's like watching Atlas Shrugged unfold before me at a slightly quicker pace than actually reading the book itself.
Lord Monckton gave a speech in St. Louis in mid-October, a month before these files became public. Here it is. (>90 minutes)
Take that, Al Gore.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
still alive and kicking
I'm still here, really. I've been working 100 hour weeks for the last couple of months, and have hardly spent any time at all on the internet (my email inbox is a nightmare). I'm still writing the AI 101 series - part 3 has been in about 6 rough draft forms, and parts 4,5,and 6 are in various stages of completion. I anticipate that regular posting should resume at the end of August or the beginning of September.
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