To obey the Scout law ...

A Scout is Trustworthy. A Scout tells the truth. He is honest, and he keeps his promises. People can depend on him. --Boy Scout Law (Rule No. 1)

Over the last two days, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has devoted five full pages to an exposé of the manner in which the Boy Scouts of America has managed forest lands that it owns. The articles are based in part on exhaustive research done by the Hearst Newspapers, the P-I's parent organization.
For decades, membership in the Scouts has introduced boys in the Pacific Northwest to the outdoors -- hiking, camping, mountaineering, survival techniques. No one would deny the many benefits that so many kids have obtained from this training, or from the lessons in citizenship, resourcefulness, cooperation with others, and self-confidence that they have learned while working their way up through the various ranks of Scouting. It seems, however, based on the articles in the P-I, that the Scouting organization itself has cut corners in maintaining its solvency, doing so at the expense of the very environment that Boy Scouts are taught to reverence; has paid unusually high salaries to its adult leaders; and could profitably go back and study the implications of its own lessons in trustworthiness. The P-I articles document case after case where property has been clear-cut for its timber, often at the expense of existing scout campsites. Some of the cutting has damaged adjacent streams, lakes, and habitats for salmon, timber wolves, bald eagles and spotted owls. Some timber sales were "sweetheart deals," signed with present or past Boy Scout leaders. A 15-year-old New York scout, after returning last summer year to a 5,000 acre Boy Scout camping area in the Adirondacks, and seeing what had been done to the land since his last visit, lamented: "I just didn't really want to go anymore. It was ruined." A forester who surveyed logging on BSA property near Crater Lake said, "They savagely logged it." Boy Scout leaders defend most of the logging, claiming it was done selectively and was at times necessary to remove dying trees that posed a danger of falling. Even more disturbing than evidence of poor stewardship for the land and disregard for the environment, however, is the fact that much of the land had been donated to the Scouts in the belief that it would thus be preserved from logging or development, that the Scouts would naturally maintain these woodsy areas so that they could be used and enjoyed by scout campers throughout the years to come.

"It's ironic. People work hard to save a piece of property for the Scouts and then (the Scouts) turn around 10 or 15 years later and go sell it to developers."

--Seattle Post-Intelligencer, quoting a former Washington Public Lands Commissioner

Land that is not logged is often sold to developers. Attempts by conservation organizations to purchase the property have often been turned down when the BSA finds it can get more money by selling it to developers. Forest land overnight becomes tract housing.

Boy Scout officials often claim they are simply selling unneeded land to obtain vitally critical money to support their programs. And yet, the CEO's for local scout councils make significantly more than the average CEO for other non-profit organizations in their area. In Houston, the Scouting CEO makes $300,000, compared with an average locally of $150,000. In Fort Worth, the BSA executive makes $275,000, compared with an average $110,000. In Seattle, the CEO of the local council makes about $180,000. As the article points out, boys never see these highly paid executives. What they get out of scouting comes from the training received from, and examples set by, scoutmasters and other volunteer workers -- all of whom freely work without pay.

Scouting provides valuable training to young people. But somehow its leadership has gotten off track. People donate money to scouting and similar organizations in order to help the kids. They don't realize that they are supporting executive salaries high in the area of six-figures.

Even more disturbing is the fate of the land donated for scouting purposes. How many donors have spent lives loving pieces of wilderness, or at least wild property, and have eventually donated the property to protect it from development and to permit young people in the future to share their happy experiences? How many donors would have given the property if they knew what was to become of it? The article quotes one case where the Scouts seemed to wait only until the donor had died before clear-cutting the property.

Being "trustworthy," as the Boy Scout handbook observes, means keeping your promises. It means people can depend on you. In many cases, the present leadership of Scouting has seemed questionably trustworthy in its stewardship of donated forest lands.

Looking forward

Janus was the Roman god of doors -- both sides of doors, front and back -- endings and beginnings. His two faces looked simultaneously into the future and into the past. He gave his name to January, the beginning of the new year, when we ponder both the past and the future.

As this January comes to an end, the Northwest Corner observes its own landmark: this is my 201st post, the beginning of the blog's third "century." Like Janus, I look backward and forward simultaneously.

Looking backward, I'm happy with the diversity of subjects covered this past year. I'm less happy with the overall quality of my writing. One original goal was to practice and improve stylistically. I doubt that I've made much progress in that area. Although I face no deadlines and have all the time I need to write each post, I tend to write quickly and journalistically. I do a significant amount of self-editing after writing my first draft, but the editing tends to be cosmetic. It generally does not attack basic problems of organization. As a result, I suspect that readers often ask, "What was the point of this post? What was the author trying to accomplish?"

This suspicion assumes the existence of a body of readers. This blog does not have a counter, so I have no idea how many hits per week I get, but other evidence suggests not a lot.

When I sample other blogs, I notice much more focus in topic. There are travel blogs, cooking blogs, exercise blogs, model railroad blogs. There are also blogs that commemorate the daily activities of families, or the neurotic obsessions of lonely writers. The writing may often be mediocre at best, but each of these blogs has a natural constituency, and each attracts significantly more readers than mine.

I suspect that my choice of subject matter is too varied, and too idiosycratic, to attract a regular readership. However, I made the original decision that I would discuss topics that were of interest to myself, of sufficient interest to spend some time writing and occasionally researching. Although my vanity -- always present -- longs to attract an enormous readership, that's not why I started my blog. Nor am I a Charles Dickens, feverishly writing stories with mass appeal in order to feed myself and pay the mortgage. Thanks to Google's Blogger, my overhead is nil, and my only investment is my time -- and I find writing these posts an entertaining -- even therapeutic! -- way to spend a few hours weekly.

Therefore, I anticipate writing on a similar diversity of topics in the coming year. I do hope to avoid my native tendency to "rush into print," taking more time in the future to think through the organization of each post. I'd like to be able to skim back through them all next January, experiencing no cringe of embarrassment

Doubt

Every attorney, every judge, every jury deals with "doubt." In criminal cases, defendants must be proved guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." The standard is much lower in civil cases, but even in civil lawsuits, juries often agonize as to which party is telling the truth. Criminal defense attorneys are bound to defend their client, whether they believe him guilty or not guilty, but themselves often wonder -- both before and after trial -- whether the client lied even to them, his own attorneys.

The movie Doubt shows us how elusive the "truth" can be, and how hard it can be to pick the right path when the truth is in doubt.

Father Flynn is a new and progressive pastor at St. Nicholas parish in the Bronx, not long after the Kennedy assassination, at a time when the Catholic Church was opening up to the modern world under Pope John XXIII. St. Nicholas's parochial school is run by Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep, in an amazingly nuanced and beautifully acted performance). Sister Aloysius isn't much interested in change. Kids are kids, not people. Kids need to be taught -- both schoolwork and behavior -- the same way a horse is broken to the saddle, a method that doesn't allow for a lot of hugs, kind words, and empathy. Father Flynn -- who, while not neglecting discipline, seems to actually like the students -- is just one more irritant in Sister Aloysius's life.

Sister Aloysius is a disciplinarian of the old school who doesn't suffer fools lightly, and, in her opinon, that includes Father Flynn and, to a lesser degree, most of the nuns who teach in her school. She's apparently disliked Father Flynn from the day she met him. One of the younger nuns bravely accuses her of wanting him out of the parish.

This is the 1960's, and St. Nicholas has enrolled its first "Negro" student ever, an eighth grade boy named Donald Miller. The boy is shy and scared and isolated. We learn that his mother transferred him to a parochial school because he'd been taunted as homosexual at his public school, and that his father hates him and beats him regularly. Donald isn't really bullied at St. Nicholas, but he makes no friends with the other students, who come from a rather rough, working-class neighborhood. Father Flynn sees the problem, appoints him an altar boy, and makes an effort to befriend and encourage him.

On slight evidence, Sister Aloysius concludes that an improper relationship has developed between the priest and the boy. She admits to a younger nun, one of her teachers, that she has no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing -- just a gut feeling that she's developed over a lifetime of experience. The evidence is so sketchy that a judge would never permit the case to go to a jury. Her accusations would seem totally unconvincing to us, the audience, as well -- except that we are sensitized by the knowledge that sexual abuse by priests actually did occur during that period, and was often overlooked by the Church.

Sister Aloysius has no way to substantiate her concerns. Father Flynn denies her accusations. The boy hero-worships the priest. His mother is uncooperative, and is just relieved that Father Flynn is helping her son. Father Flynn has good rapport with the bishop.

As the movie progresses, our sympathies and judgment lean first one way, and then the other -- one moment we feel that Sister Aloysius is a paranoid nut case, the next moment that she may have correctly intuited something that she has the duty to expose.

By the end, we simply don't know.

By force of her assertive personality, Sister Aloysius succeeds in intimidating Father Flynn into resigning and leaving the parish. The boy is devastated -- "heartbroken," according to his teacher -- by the loss of the one person who had shown him any attention and had given him encouragement. After the boy's traumatic experiences in public school, the mother is desperate that her son finish eighth grade successfully at St. Nicholas, giving him the opportunity to attend a decent high school and eventually escape the poverty of his family. Now there is reason to fear that he will not do well at all.

The movie ends with Sister Aloysius -- resolute and supremely self-confident up until that moment -- confessing in tears to one of the other nuns: "I have such doubts, I have such doubts!"

Doubt gives us no tidy answers, but it asks all the right questions. What is our duty when we feel that something terrible is happening, but we have no way of learning the truth and we face the risk of destroying lives if our guess is wrong? In making such a decision, can any person recognize the subconcious influences in his or her own life -- such as, in this case, fear or dislike of change, threats to one's own authority -- that may affect one's judgment? Sister Aloysius -- who Meryl Streep portrays as a fascinating tyrant, but a tyrant who is human and not without likeable human qualities -- did what she at least consciously believed necessary, and then crumpled at the recognition that she may have been gravely mistaken or worse, and that she may have caused great harm.

What would we have done in her place? Or failed to do? Could we have been wiser? Could anyone?

Quantum transport

Zachary has many grievances against me. (Actually, many people have grievances against me; they just don't reduce them to blog comments.) For example, this week, in his own blog, he hurls my way the familiar accusation that, like Obama himself, I'm a wishy-washy liberal, ready to compromise away my values until nothing is left worth fighting for.

Hogwash, of course. But he does have a right to complain about an exchange of comments recently, on this blog, in which I scorned his concept of instantaneous teleportation, archly reminding him of a basic tenet of relativity theory -- no information can be transmitted faster than the speed of light. I scorned him, knowing as I did so that I wasn't being totally candid.

The "problem" is quantum mechanics. A number of thought experiments can be devised -- none of which, unfortunately, I can remember well enough to describe for your amusement -- that involve the interacting quantum states of elementary particles. These "experiments" illustrate the logical and necessary consequences of certain well-accepted concepts of quantum theory. They lead to bizarre results, results that make no sense whatsoever in terms of every day life. Specifically, they show that two elementary particles -- totally insulated from each other and at any distance of separation -- appear to "know" and react to each other's quantum state. In some of these illustrations, when we change the state of one particle, the other particle seems to change instantaneously in response.

Information has apparently been communicated instantaneously between the two particles, regardless of their distance from each other.

Einstein, whose theory of relativity I threw in Zachary's face, appreciated that quantum theory would lead to this conclusion. He didn't like it. He criticized the theory of quantum mechanics, and its implication that reality (at the subatomic level) bears less resemblance to Newtonian physics than to statistics, by writing in 1942:

It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice and uses 'telepathic' methods... is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.

Physicists now say we have to choose between believing that the change in one particle "causes" the change in another particle, on the one hand, or -- on the other hand -- rejecting such causation but also rejecting the objective reality of the universe, at least at the subatomic level where quantum effects can be seen. If we choose the latter option, we are forced to accept the conclusion that "reality" constantly changes depending on what we are observing.

My reading today of a report of an experiment in "teleportation" leads me to write the above apology. The report describes an actual physical experiment involving two ytterbium ions that were totally separated and contained in isolated vacuum chambers. Although the mechanics of the experiment, as described in the report, sound somewhat confusing -- at least to me -- essentially the experimenters aimed a laser burst at one ion, giving it a known quantum state. They were then able to read the quantum state of the other ion, determining that it had also changed its state in a complementary manner, apparently in response. Thus "information" had somehow been transmitted instantaneously from one ion to the other, despite the fact that they were totally isolated from each other.

The article concludes with a "Beam me up, Scotty" section, discussing whether these quantum effects could someday make human teleportation feasible. I leave that subject to the perusal of Zachary's mad scientists in his Benign Colorado Dictatorship.

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Author's note (1-24-09):

Euclid's geometry is a theoretical geometry about a theoretical space that does not in fact exist. And Newton's physics is a theoretical physics about a theoretical world that does not in fact exist. So we have had to change all that with relativity and quantum mechanics.

--John Dobson

The thought experiment that I could not "remember well enough to describe" is the "double slit experiment," said to be described in the last chapter of Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces, although I haven't read that book. I believe I encountered discussion of the experiment in Feynman's Lectures on Physics, which is an outstanding collection of lectures prepared originally for Caltech's first-year physics students and later published.

Amen

David Horsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Getting wired

Only connect!
--E. M. Forster

One dirty little secret about computers -- a secret that the manufacturers don't bother mentioning to us -- is that they get slower and slower as time goes by. Eventually, no amount of virus and spyware eradication, weekly defragging, and registry clean-ups seems to help. Just as another tune-up finally won't keep your 1980 Chevy running like new, and sooner or later you have to buy a new car.

Now, you would never guess it from gazing at the highly polished, stylish -- dare I say dazzling? -- appearance of this blog, but I have ground it out week by week on the computer equivalent of a dirty, never-oiled 1915 typewriter. And I persisted in sending it to you over my dial-up access to the internet. But, I was finally forced to admit, the time had come. I bought a new computer. And I also induced a sigh of relief across techno-savvy Seattle as I became the final citizen in town to switch to cable.

My new computer was delivered amazingly quickly. But the fun had only begun. Behind the gray bulk of my stately old computer was concealed a mass of wires and equipment similar in complexity to that of the New York subway system. The sight was so scary that, for years, facing the need to wire in a new peripheral had demanded more courage from me than parachuting from a plane -- or even cleaning my refrigerator.

Gingerly, I disconnected one wire after another. What, I marveled at times, had ever possessed me when I connected these circuits the way I had? There were long-forgotten unplugged electrical plugs and transformers serving peripherals that I hadn't used for years. There were 20-foot extension cords coiled around in tangles and used only to provide additional electrical outlets. There was a lengthy telephone wire running from my computer to a telephone jack in another room. There was a cable connection from the cable company to my television that ran through a little-used VCR player, and a complex of wiring and a modem (unplugged) hooking my TV to a DVD player. These latter connections were independent of my computer, but also had to be disassembled, not only to connect the computer to cable but simply to help untangle the whole ungodly mass (mess) of wiring.

By the time I'd finished deconstructing my old wiring schema, I had wires and peripherals and modems completely covering the floor of the room -- and my head was pounding with confusion and frustration and the effects of forgotten cups of coffee. But piece by piece, I re-wired my new computer into what seemed to be a simpler system. I conclude "simpler," if for no other reason than that I had several wires and cables left over at the end whose original purpose was never clear to me and -- in fact -- seemed totally unnecessary.

And then I proceeded with the "easy" self-installation of my cable modem and the hook-up to my TV cable. After several hours of following the instructions over and over, and a call to the cable company's service department, with no cable signal in the modem, we -- the nice female technician and I -- decided over the phone that the problem wasn't with me but with the external cable. There was a "filter" on it, she suspected, and please don't ask me what a filter is or what it was doing there. Yesterday, someone from the company came, climbed a precarious ladder to the top of a power pole, and removed the purported filter.

I'm pleased to announce that it was all worth it. I type this post on a new, shiny-black, Dell computer and send it to you over a high speed cable connection. I have joined the 21st century.

At least for a year or so.

Pogo, Dick Tracy, Peanuts, et al.

"Robert, you are so wrong, philosophers weep at the sound of your voice. I don't have to stand for such disrespect."

Every real city deserves at least two newspapers. One in the morning, one in the afternoon. You don't have to read them both, but they should be there, appearing on the news stands, or on your front porch, at their appointed times.

But what a city deserves isn't always what it gets. The Hearst chain has announced plans to rid itself of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- a newspaper that has shared Seattle's history for the last 145 years. If no one offers to buy the P-I within the next sixty days -- and such an offer, in today's economic climate, seems extremely unlikely -- then Hearst will shut it down. The Seattle Times will remain Seattle's sole remaining daily.

I'll miss the competition. I'll miss the lawsuits. I'll miss the differing political philosophies. But most of all, I'll miss the comics.

I subscribe to the P-I, but I usually read the Times as well -- largely because I love the comics in both newspapers. Not all the comics, you understand. Maybe not even most of them. But both papers have a number of strips whose existence I find necessary to sustain my quality of life. And even those comic strips that royally suck -- and there are indeed a number -- well, they are also a pleasure to read, just because of their extreme suckiness, and the joy I experience in sneering at them.

And yet, "the funnies" are a dying institution. Todd Leopold, the writer of a CNN blog, laments that his hometown newspaper in Atlanta is halving the number of comics that it carries. Readers' comments to his blog show overwhelmingly support for the comic pages, with many of the writers specifying their favorites. The thirteen-year absence of Calvin & Hobbs from our daily papers, for example, is still much lamented. (I fortunately have the entire Bill Watterson oeuvre sitting safely on my book shelf in hard bound edition.) Many writers also took the time to mention disfavored strips. (Does anyone in the United States really enjoy "Cathy"? I doubt it.)

Maybe comics are a habit you learn, or don't learn, as a kid. Fewer families subscribe to newspapers now, fewer kids are exposed to the funnies while they eat breakfast with their folks, and, as a result, fewer young people march into adulthood with an itch to read the comics inseparably linked to their craving for morning coffee. Also, the increasingly dire economics of the newspaper industry forces publishers to pare back even the most popular of features -- such as the comic pages.

This is all very well, but don't try to argue logically with an addict. I jump to the comic pages as soon as I've finished scanning the front page. I'm not giving them up. If the P-I must die, I pray, may it die as an organ donor, bequeathing the best of its comic strips to the soon-to-be monopolistic pages of the Seattle Times.

Windows to the soul

If it chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.

--A. E. Housman

Andre Thomas, 25, on death row in Texas, plucked out his left eye last month. He then ate it. His literal obedience to scripture (Matthew 18:9) -- with that added epicurean flourish -- should not have surprised Texas prison officials. He had plucked the other eye out before trial in 2004.

Thomas was awaiting execution for murder. He had ripped out the hearts of his wife, his son and his step-daughter, placed the three hearts in his pocket, walked home, and transferred the organs to a plastic bag which he then dropped into the garbage.

He has now been transferred to a psychiatric facility. His insanity defense apparently did not impress a Texas jury back in 2004. No execution date had yet been scheduled before his latest exploit.

This is not some freak story thought up by the National Enquirer. Sometimes, the events of real life are so bizarre that writers of sleazy fiction can only look on and gasp with wonder and admiration.

What I know of the Texas penal system leads me to suspect that Mr. Thomas may wait in vain for Housman's promised "salves" and "balsam."

U.S.C. (Seattle Campus)

Seattle boasts that it's the site of one of the nation's great public research universities. The University of Washington supplies engineers and scientists for Boeing, and computing engineers and mathematicians for Microsoft. Its schools of law and medicine are among the best in the country. The UW educates many of the best and brightest of Washington's young people.

Too bad everyone thinks it just costs too damn much in taxes.

But forget about education. It's boring. UW football is what's creating excitement and big headlines in Seattle. Last month, the Huskies hired Steve Sarkisian away from USC to be their new head coach. And now they have hired Nick Holt, USC's defensive coordinator, to perform the same role at the UW. Recently they hired Jim Michelczik away from Cal to serve as offensive coordinator.

Thus the reign of Tyrone Willingham and his assistants -- and a 0-12 season -- come to an end.

What possessed Sarkisian to come to Seattle, after coaching the Trojan offense to a Rose Bowl victory? Well, perhaps the $1.85 million annual salary he was offered? Nick Holt was lured north with an offer of $2.1 million for a three-year contract. Jim Michelczik will get $350,000 per year. And Sarkisian still has five more major staff positions to fill, and a substantial budget with which to do it.

Meanwhile, back in academia, the UW is becoming increasingly unable to compete with its peer universities in hiring and keeping highly qualified faculty. The university historically has relied on Seattle's amenities and the Northwest's outdoorsy recreational opportunities to serve as part of its professors' compensation. That approach goes only so far. And it's not going much further.

In 2002 -- the last year for which I could find numbers -- a full professor of physics at the UW received an average salary of $84,181. A tenured associate professor averaged $71,257. An aeronautical engineering full professor -- $96,480. Electrical engineering full professor -- $104,065. Law school full professor -- $107,863. Full professors are professors who have reached the top of the academic mountain, and are generally at least in their 50's. These figures are for 2002, but faculty salaries have not even kept pace with the cost of living since then. And Seattle has one of the highest costs of living in the country.

That vast silence you hear throughout the State of Washington is the noise being made by people who give a damn that their premier university is paying its football coach 19 times the salary of a full professor of aeronautical engineering -- here in the city that is Boeing's home town.

As the UW basketball coach commented, when asked by the Seattle P-I about this disparity in salaries:

"I don't get into all that," he said. "I'm a Husky fan. I want to see us win. If that's what it took to get him -- suh-weet.

"Let's go get 'em."

In other words, if Seattle kids want top level educations in the future, let 'em go to Harvard. We got more important stuff to worry about around these parts. Like winning BCS championships.

Makes me glad that I attended a school with different priorities -- one that sought to compete athletically, but not at any cost.

Kuruma banare*

Detroit is in shambles. In past months, Americans have watched in awe as auto company CEO's have flown humbly to Washington on commercial airlines (yuk, gag!), hats in hand, begging for bail-out money. Is Detroit finally conceding that it needs to manufacture small, fuel-efficient cars in order to survive?

Maybe that's the least of their problems. A more troublesome question comes out of Japan. In a financial blog today, Anthony Mirhaydari writes of a cultural shift in attitude among the Japanese people, causing a decreased interest in buying cars, and a preference for spending on services and travel. He quotes one young Japanese man:

"I don't believe that having more things enriches you; if you stay happy in your soul then you can be happy without money."

These are seditious words that cut to the very quick of American economic philosophy. Mirhaydari continues:

Even more damaging is the belief harbored by Makino and his friends that cars aren't reflections of identity, taste, or income but are nothing more than a tool for transportation.

An automobile as a mere "tool for transportation"? This is the concept that Detroit has spent billions in advertising over the decades to eradicate. God forbid that these alien thoughts should ever cross the Pacific and infect our own society.

Mirhaydari does note dissimilarities between Japanese and American societies, however, and advises us to remain cautiously optimistic. As one comment to his blog observes, there have been times in past years when Detroit has shown admirable foresight, foresight that will now pay off for the auto companies:

My mom was alive when she saw GM and Ford buy and tear down the trolley system that most towns had. Part of the problem of the Great Depression was the destruction of mass transit by the car makers. We do not have a mass transit system in place because the car companies knew if we had one fewer people would buy cars.

Mirhaydari suggests that in 2009 the American infrastructure of highways, mass transit, and railroads is so inferior to that of Japan (and of Europe, I might add) that we'll probably remain heavily dependent on Detroit's products for the foreseeable future.

Why don't I feel happier and more relieved?
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*Japanese for "demotorization"