I used to love fireworks. As a kid, that was the best part of Independence Day. Fireworks shows, shooting off bottle rockets and Roman candles…. ah.
Then a year in NE Afghanistan went by. Came home and went to a Class A baseball game near my town, that featured a fireworks show afterward. First shot started a bit of a panicked reaction from me. (No, really Chipwooder, it did!) It was the sound, not the flash or such. I excused myself, and figured I would wait it out in the restroom. WRONG. Being a Single A park, it was cinderblock and sheetmetal…it actually amplified everything. Before I could really freak out, I got back to tell my wife, that I kind of needed to leave. As we walked back to the car, the show ended. Haven’t been a big fan since. Going to Iraq for the second half of TEH SURGE didn’t help any adjusting, I am guessing.
Later, being a bit discomfited by my fireworks enthusiast neighbors, I wondered….why of all days, is this the one people blow stuff up to celebrate? [NOTE: by the time this started happening, I had started to transmogrify into a libertarian. No police were called, no complaints to the City, no going out and yelling at them….especially since their kids seemed to love it.]. I mean, there is some history of noisemaking on New Year’s Eve…firing off guns seems to be a tradition in many places. [When I was a prosecutor, I spent 8 months running a branch court location in a city with…a sizable Messican, um, transient population. New Year’s Eve 1998, we had 286 calls of shots fired. The next year, the cops got smart – they had a Spanish speaking officer in each car, and they would simply go the area and have the cop tell everyone…”Happy New Year. By the way. No shooting here, please. People think it is a gang war. Thank you and good night.”] But nothing on the scale of July 4.
As with most problems in the entire world IT STARTED WITH A DEAD WHITE MALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Missing by only two days, due to the difference in the vote of Congress and the Declaration being dated)….John Adams explained to his wife
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”
OK, so I see where this started.
And as any libertarian could tell you – what started as a sort of spontaneous celebration was slowly co-opted and somewhat smothered by the gubermint. Eventually fixed as a holiday, then an unpaid Federal Holiday…then, of course, a paid Federal Holiday. The guns, bonfires and bells got shushed or extinguished. But the fireworks remained. Until the nanny-statists started getting them banned, or taken over by the G. Some cooperation with sponsors and such has kept many a civic fireworks show going (“Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks, as seen on NBC! Chicago Navy Pier Fireworks show, brought to you by Miller Lite”). In many liberty oriented states, fireworks are legal (Hi, Indiana!) and often brought by the carload into more nanny-scold states (Illinois) and blasted away with a complete disregard for rules, laws and finger-wagging. While I may not care for it, I say “good!” At least one little bit of defiance of the Panopticon State.
Go shoot off a Roman Candle and pack of bottle rockets for me, will you? I’ll be in the basement with the dog and some imperial stout or whisky (or both).
When I was younger, I used to be a robotic hacker. There’s like four ways to parse that, but I was the most boring kind. I hacked at it until it worked. And I wasn’t a robot, I made robots. It was a great hobby back when you had to dumpster dive for a Pentium II board, take measurements, and then beg time on a Bridgeport to make a Lexan case to whatever size the board was.
I learned a lot. I learned that science is more like art. I learned about technical debt before it was even a term. I learned that if you treat your support staff well, they are your best friends and will let you have time on the Bridgeport after hours.
I learned that the best part of programming a robot is that they do exactly what you tell them. Also, I learned that the worst part of programming a robot is that they do exactly what you tell them to.
Two decades later, and I’m not making fighting robots anymore. Or any kind of robots, really. Unless I’m doing it with my first kid. On easy mode. With Legos or Arduino. The kid is funny. He also does exactly what I tell him to, which is really pretty weird for a kid, right?
Everyone thinks their kids are great. And smart. And special. And cute. So how is a Dad supposed to know when their kid really is great. And smart. And special. And cute. Well, my son is cute. He’s gorgeous. He has the warmest, most soulful eyes God’s ever put into man. We’ve had pro, working photographers give us free sessions in exchange for a release to photograph him for their portfolio. And he’s smart. He’s not even in middle school, and he’s reading at a college level. He’s been playing piano for a couple months, and he’s working on books for adults in their third or fourth year. He breaks every paper-based standardized test he takes because he doesn’t get any of the questions wrong. And he’s great. He has more empathy in his heart than even his eyes would lead you to believe. If I come home from work and have a bad day, he doesn’t say anything to me. He just comes over, puts his arms out, and lumbers in the last few steps for an awkward hug.
Why is it awkward? Because he has to think about every step, and every motion of his hands, and where to place his chin. Why does he do that? Same reason he’s always awkward. He needs me to show him how to take all kinds of physical actions and he repeats them. Exactly. Robotically. Because he’s special.
Special. I’ve never said that before, or typed it out. My son is Special. He is “On the Spectrum” is how it’s usually put now. And it only took me half a decade to figure it out and another half a decade to admit it.
I always knew this was a statistical possibility. I have all the risk factors. My ancestry is in the high risk ethnicity. My IQ is… high. On my paternal side of the family it’s… scary high. Theoretical physicist high. World-level ELO in chess high. I’m educated. Suburban. Upper middle class. And I’m… how do I put this.. A systematic thinker that has trouble interpreting social cues and making eye contact and finds comfort in converting normal social situations into mathematical models. The Spectrum is just that. It’s a spectrum of behavior. If it’s not a problem for you, it’s not a problem. You just have these behaviors and modes of thought. If its a problem for you, it’s not a problem just because you have these behaviors and these modes of thought. Its a problem because you have these behaviors and modes of thought too much and it makes you feel bad. I have them a lot, but not so much it causes problems. I’m generally happy and well adjusted.
The first time my infant son made eye contact with me and giggled, my stomach dropped out. Babies who can’t do this sometimes never do. It’s an early sign of Autism if they can’t. I felt like I was out of the woods As my kid grew up, it became very clear that he was very social. He never made a lot of eye contact, but he would play mirror games with adults, and he would make prosocial hand-to-hand contact. He would echo back baby noises. He would laugh and giggle and cuddle up with anyone within arm-range. Normal baby stuff. Normal toddler stuff.
But as he grew older, the behaviors and modes of thought common to people on the spectrum started showing up more and more. The aversion to eye contact got worse. He always needs something to chew on. He likes heavy blankets and one-piece pajamas. He freezes when confronted with confrontation. He keeps a pair of earmuffs in his book bag because he can’t process the noise and chaos of a school bus some days.
Most days, it’s not a problem. But sometimes it is. This year, his mother and I agreed that he was responsible enough to own a firearm. Honestly, I think he could have handled it years ago, but we don’t own land and public ranges have age restrictions. But now we have Secret Outdoor Range we can go to, so now he owns a bolt action .22.
And if you sat down in a lab to design up a hobby that’s perfect for my kid, you couldn’t do better than target shooting with his Dad. For a systematic thinking, the hobby provides SO. MANY. SYSTEMS. There are four rules. Would you like to hear them? Because he can spout them off at the drop of a hat. You want a series of repeatable physical motions? Ask him what the steps are to load, shoulder, fire, and cycle his rifle. When he goes to execute these motions he is smooth and fast. I’ve seen more variation out of a FANUC. Safety checklist? This is a kid that makes checklists for fun. Social contact with someone like him, but where there’s no pressure to make eye contact? Target shooting with Dad requires close social contact and has a big rule that says you have to keep your eyes down range and on your gun.
It is perfect. Except for one small problem.
Boom.
Or more accurately, one big problem. A big BOOM!
You see, .22LR out of a rifle is pretty damn quiet. The first time we went to Secret Outdoor Range, it was all we shot. And it was the best day of his life. His big soulful eyes were wide above the most confident grin you have ever seen. A year ago he looked like a cross between a baby colt and a baby giraffe. Dedicated exercise has solved most of that, but this activity merged his mind and his body in a way he’s never felt before, and his pride at his mastery of self rolled off him in waves.
So we went to Secret Outdoor Range again recently with a couple friends. It was our second time there. I brought my 12 gauge that I always try to put a few rounds of buckshot through, just to stay in muscle memory. The friends’ Dads both brought a few of their own firearms, including a few AR-15. After “.22 Time” it was “Daddy Gun Time” and we started with the buckshot and 5.56. 12 gauges are loud. 5.56 is loud. Daddy Gun Time is loud.
Daddy… is an idiot.
Stress is a funny thing for a body. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from, it impacts the body the same way. I know of one doctor who teaches his patients how to meditate so that they can meditate before he cuts them open. Exposing internal organs to atmosphere is incredibly stressful, and leads to Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting (PONV). Anything you can do to reduce stress before surgery reduces the incidence of PONV. He swears by this meditation trick.
Some stress responses include white face, the shakes, and anxiety. About 15 seconds into Daddy Gun Time, and my son’s face is white as a ghost, his whole body is quivering like a leaf, and he’s wobbling his way into the cabin by Secret Outdoor Range to get away from the noise. A few hours later, and he’s puking up the contents of his stomach.
You see, my son, who is On the Spectrum but generally doesn’t have a problem, now has a problem. This hobby, the one that has helped him grow more in one day than anything we’ve ever seen, produces Very Loud Noises. Noises his body interprets as stress.
In a civilized society, the answer is simple. Go to the hardware store and pick up a few mufflers back by the auto parts. Stick em on the end of your guns and you are good to go.
But we do not live in a civilized society. In order to purchase this safety device, we need to play mother may I with the ATF, wait for the better part of a year for approval, and pay $200 for the pleasure. And this needs to be done for each and every purchase. Then, once you’ve done that, you need to try to navigate a Byzantine web of state and federal laws where, if you accidently fuck up, you are instantly and accidentally a felon.
So I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the past couple of days. Some of it has been about the ballistics properties of a little misfit round that has come to be called the .300 Blackout. Some of it has been about the properties of various mufflers. But mostly, I’ve been trying to learn about the Byzantine web of state and federal laws surrounding the purchasing and ownership of these safety devices.
And it feels like I’m walking on a balance beam. At the end is quality time spent with my special son in the most supportive environment he’s ever been in. But there’s no net. If I slip, I’m a felon.
Happy 4th of July. We’ll probably skip the fireworks again. They go Boom.
“Can you give me a minute, sweetheart?” he asked from behind the tree.
“We need to get going,” she said. Their dogs ran around her excitedly barking as she cleaned the last dishes of breakfast in the stream they had camped near.
“I know that,” he said. “Goddamn redneck chili. It’s like I’m shitting barbed wire.”
“I told you not to eat that,” she said smugly.
“And fire ants. Like barbed wire coated in fire ants,” he gasped. The small white dog, Rufus, ran to the sound of his voice. His short legs and tiny feet skidded to a halt when he got around the tree, and then he ran off with a startled yelp.
“What did you do to Rufus?” she asked.
“Will you just give me a minute?!?” he yelled. “Lava is literally coming out of my asshole right now!”
“Come here, baby,” she said to the small dog cowering beside her. “Did Daddy scare you? Did he? He’s a very bad Daddy.” She picked Rufus up and he shivered in her arms as she cooed and clucked. Their new dog, large and black-furred and seemingly quite slow continued to chase his own tail until he hit the side of the car, sat down suddenly, and looked around confused.
“Is there more toilet paper?” he asked.
“No,” she said, not checking.
“Paper towels? Napkin?”
“I’ll look.”
“An old T-shirt? One of the floor mats? Anything?”
She slung Rufus under one arm and looked through the car. “Hold on,” she called.
“Hurry!”
As she walked toward the shitting tree with the paper towels, Rufus began to growl.
“Dear God!” she said.
“I know!”
“The human body shouldn’t be capable of making a smell like that!” She tossed the paper towels toward him and fled to the safety of the car.
“What are we going to name this dog?” she finally asked, when his tortured groans had subsided.
He walked back to the car, not answering her, staggering and carrying empty paper towel tube.
“Honey, what are we going to name this dog?” The nameless dog was laying his head in her lap and his tongue lolled out as she rubbed his ears. Her husband opened the back hatch and began to rummage around.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“I’ll find it,” he said.
“Just tell me, maybe I know where it is.”
“The camping shovel. The folding one that we just bought.”
“I don’t know where that is,” she said. “What do you need the shovel for? Oh, wait. You are going to bury your waste? Very environmentally responsible.”
“Ah-ha!’ he said. She angled the rearview mirror to see him holding the shovel up in triumph.
“First, I’m going back there and beat it to death,” he said. “And then I will bury it!”
When he returned, she saw him fling the folding shovel into the rushing stream. “We’ll buy a new one,” he said grimly as he settled into the driver’s seat.
“I’m having a great time,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
“I hate camping,” he replied. The Subaru quietly came to life when he turned the key.
“What do you want to do next?” she asked.
“I want to take a shower. A very long shower.”
“I mean with the car. We can do anything!”
“Let’s ask it,” he said, as his wife attached the dogs’ harnesses to the back seat.
“Ask it?”
He touched the navigation icon a bland female voice said, “Destination?”
“Random,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the car replied.
“Take us somewhere fun!” his wife said.
“Take us on an adventure!” her husband said.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the car replied.
“Destination,” it repeated as they thought.
“Take us somewhere we haven’t been before,” his wife said.
The car paused. They looked at the touchscreen display. One of the dogs growled and farted.
“Please fasten your seatbelts and proceed east 2.3 kilometers.”
“Alright,” he said.
After a right and a left and a dirt road that was barely a road, the car finally had them take a state road in reasonably good repair.
“I wonder where we are going,” his wife asked, finally awake. He had long marveled at her ability to sleep anywhere, under any condition.
“Proceed north 23 kilometers,” the car said.
“North 23 kilometers,” he replied and she gently punched his arm.
“Are you two OK back there?” she asked, turning round to look at the dogs. They both whined agreeably and thumped their tails on the seat.
“Do you want me to drive for a while?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine for a couple of hours at least. I wouldn’t mind finding somewhere to get an energy drink.”
“You shouldn’t use those,” his wife said.
“I don’t use them; they aren’t a drug. You talk like I’m looking to freebase some meth.”
“We are in meth country, though. I bet the whole rusty water tower that old man tried to lure us to was one big meth lab,” she said, using both hands to sketch out a mushroom cloud and then made explosion noises with her mouth.
“Increase speed to 100kph,” the car said primly.
“What did she say?” his wife asked.
“Increase speed to 100kph,” the car said again.
“I guess we are on a schedule,” her husband said. He pressed the accelerator until they reached 90kph.
“Increase speed to 100kph,” the car said again.
“Picky bitch,” his wife said and they laughed.
The Subaru began to ping like a door was ajar.
“OK, OK… nagged by a damn car,” he said.
“‘Nagging’ is a sexist term,” his wife said and then burst into giggles. “You better do what she says.”
He took the car up to 100kph.”I hope the car knows what it is doing. This is racist-as-fuck country around here. I’m not interested in getting ass-fucked by a baton.”
“I’ll sic the dogs on them,” his wife said brightly.
She whipped her head around as they passed a speed limit sign. “You better slow down, baby. That said it is 45mph through here.”
“What is that in kilometers?” he asked.
“How should I know?”
“You were the one that wanted us to set the car to only read out in metric. The car says the outside temp is 22. Do I need a coat? Sunscreen? I don’t fucking know.”
She was caught in another fit of giggles.
“Car, what is 45 miles per hour in kilometers per hour?” he asked loudly and with careful pronunciation.
“Car?” she asked. “Don’t call her car. Her name is Subi.”
“What?”
“Subi, how fast are we going in miles per hour?” she asked.
“Wait, is it even voice-activated?” he asked. “I was acting like it was Alexa.”
“We are currently traveling at 62 miles per hour,” the car said.
“OK, you really should slow down,” his wife said.
He took his foot off the gas and the car began to slow. “The cracker sheriff is going to be so disappointed in us.” But he only heard a gurgle in return.
“Please increased speed to 100kph,” the car said and began to ping.
He was looking at the touch screen when his wife began to claw at his arm.
“What is it?” he asked, not looking.
“Gurk,” she managed. The seatbelt had tightened across her throat and lap. With her right had she tried to pull it away from her neck, with her left she had gone back to trying to work the belt release.
“Oh, my god, what is happening, ohmygod,” he said, pressing the brakes and trying to pull onto the soft shoulder of the state highway.
“Please increase speed to 100kph,” the car said again. The dogs in the back began to bark and howl.
As he slowed on the shoulder a huge truck rumbled past them. The car rocked back and forth. He had slowed enough to grab the higher portion of the seat belt and pull it away from her neck. He could not move it. He looked into her frightened, darting eyes and the whites were turning red.
“Please increase speed to 100kph,” the car said again, this time at a deafening volume.
She began to desperately slap at his right knee. The dogs were in a frenzy, making pained yelps as they pulled at their restraints.
“Drive,” she mouthed and slapped his knee again. Her teeth were very white and large as she screamed without any sound.
“Please increase speed to 100kph,” the car said again. It was now an almost seductive lilt.
He closed his eyes tightly for a second, his whole face crunching down onto itself and jammed the gas pedal down. The car shot forward and he heard his wife take a gulp of air and cough and then gulp more. The speedometer crept upward. Her breathing became steady and regular.
“Are you OK? Are you? Are you OK?” he said, among a dozen other inanities until she finally croaked and swallowed and said in a hoarse whisper, “What was that?”
“Take it off, take off the seatbelt,” he told her. The dogs were huddled in the back seat, twined around each other, fast-friends now in their worry and confusion.
“Proceed north 7.2 kilometers,” the car said.
“FUCK YOU!” he screamed at the placid voice. He tried the seat belt release himself but his thumb just sank into the button of the mechanism without it releasing.
“Maintain current speed,” the car ordered.
The road ahead was flat and straight and empty of cars before and behind, so he held the wheel with his knee and tried to pull on his wife’s seat belt. His own seat belt tightened and pulled him back in place.
“Please drive responsibly,” the car said.
“Get your arms under it,” he told his wife. “Under it while it is slack.” She stopped rubbed the raw flesh on the side of her neck and slipped her right arm under the belt and held it against her neck. The belt tightened immediately, painfully. She cried out, her voice broken and dry.
“It’s breaking my wrist,” she gasped. “The belt.” The voice was cut off as her wrist began to crush her throat.
He looked down and saw how the strap of nylon across her lap had tightened as well. Her jeans darkened as she voided her bladder, the stain spreading down her thighs.
“Please drive responsibly,” the car said again.
He looked back to the road. They were coming up on a town. A little flyspeck town, country town, the whole thing was a tumor clustered on both sides of the little state highway. He saw out of the corner of his eye that the strap had loosened enough for his wife to drop her arms. The hot smell of her urine filled the car. When he tried to roll down the window, the button didn’t work. He listened as his wife cried and watched the tiny town grow larger.
“Proceed north 1.2 kilometers,” the car said. His wife’s left hand found his arm and clung to it.
A “Welcome to” sign flashed by too fast for him to register the name. A sick feeling crept into his stomach, like a light hit to the testicles. He felt like he was falling and falling and falling.
“Stay in lane,” the car said as soon as he saw her crossing the road. He tensed his hands and forearms to swerve at the last second until he heard his wife already choking and gurgling.
He closed his eye right before he hit the woman that was crossing the road. A dull thud and a cracking noise. The dogs in the back yelped. He opened his eyes to eye the smear of blood on the hood. His flicked to the rearview mirror to see the crumpled form in the crosswalk.
“Lower speed and take the next right,” the car said. He was crying, fat tears running down his face. His wife’s eyes were red again when he chanced a glance.
“Take next right.”
He did and then tried to steer them into a light pole but the wheel wouldn’t move.
“Take next right.”
The wheel turned easily when he did as he was told. They were two blocks from the dead woman in the road. People were clustered around her, some talking to her, he imagined, the others he could see were on the phone or gesticulating wildly.
Hey guys, I hope all the Americans here are ready for the holiday tomorrow. I’ve had a brisket in a sous vide since Monday, and I’ll smoke it on the grill tomorrow. Mmm. Brisket.
This is defintely my wife’s worst one of her worst fears. She hates all of the Ship Channel bridges. And flying.
“The biggest, classiest Fourth of July of any time ever! Yuge dark sky boom light night!”
“We are all so excited,” the hair said, rubbing Donald’s head soothingly.
“I want a military parade. I want huge posters of my face all over town. I want people calling me Great Exalted Leader Man!”
“Uh-huh,” the hair said.
“Most Rationful and Compassionate Leader Trump Don-ald,” the elderly President mused. “I will prove to France we can hold a bigger Fourth of July parade than they have ever done.”
“Donald,” the hat said from under the desk, “Do you know if you look on Youtube, there’s barely any evidence that France has ever held a Fourth of July parade at all.”
“Really?” Donald gasped. “Why, those dirty… If it wasn’t for us all those bastards in France would be speaking French right now! I’m madder than I’ve ever been!”
The hair gathered itself on top of Donald’s head, wagged its cowlick a few times and jumped down on the desk.
“We should bomb them!” Donald raged, his bald head turning a furious red. “Where’s that goddamn mustache! Activate the contingency plans!”
The hat chuckled darkly as Donald waddled from the room.
“Are you coming over from under the desk today?” the hair asked.
“No,” the hat said.
“You’ve been sulking under there since we got back from North Korea.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Shut up.”
“So, uh,” the hair began, “How about those Democratic debates?”
The hat’s silence boiled out from underneath the desk like a bilious fog.
“So, North Korea,” the hat said. “That was some crazy shit over there, right?”
“Just leave me alone.”
The hair let himself fall to the floor and slithered under the desk. He grabbed the hat by the band and began to haul him out from under the desk.
“No!” the hat wailed. “Leave me alone!”
“You are coming out of there, dammit!’ the hair growled, grunted with the strain.
“RAPE!” the hat screamed. “He’s raping me!”
“Do you really think anyone is going to come? Do you realize just how often that has been yelled in here over forty-five administrations?”
“Immigrants are drinking out of the President’s toilet!” the hat screamed.
“I’m coming!” they heard Donald saying as he awkwardly ran back to the Oval Office. “I’m coming to save you, my darling!”
MLW’s Note: I had just gotten clearance from our mighty overlords to start doing these on a more relaxed schedule rather than weekly because of time constraints and also because watching so much Woke Charmed in such a short duration was beginning to show signs of giving me brain damage. But then PanZagloba swooped in and decreed that the world shouldn’t be expected to wait for Woke Charmed, and volunteered to enact my labor for me. Who says voluntarism wouldn’t work as a model for society? So without further ado, here’s PanZagloba’s recap of episode 10!
First, a fair warning – unlike Mythical Libertarian Woman, I am no writer. I wrangle databases for living. Second, I never watched original Charmed, or any WB/CW shows except Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars, both of which rank very, very highly on my list.
Third, this episode is called “Keep Calm and Harry On”. Once again, the Woke Charmed writing team heads off any snarky titles by providing the optimal one (what am I supposed to use, “Keep Woke and Harridan On”?).
Previously on Woke Charmed: Maggie found out her crush is a demon; Mel was invited into Secret Society for the Overthrowing of Middle-Aged Women and Their Replacement by Other, Slightly Younger Women (Sarcana, not the Green Party); Connerparkerdude sent his brother to Tartarus and Harry went along for the ride; Friendzone found out that magic is real.
We fade from black on sounds of gunfire and screaming. A masked man holding a woman hostage says (in a British accent), “Stay back! I’m gonna kill her!” As people scatter, he drags her outside and we see a sign saying “Middleham Trust”, so it looks like we’re dealing with merely an armed robbery. He lets the hostage go, dumps his gun in a nearby rubbish bin, and runs off. In the background are a couple old-looking cars (50s? 60s?), and he’s soon nabbed by a bobby in an old-fashioned uniform. The mask comes off and it’s Harry. Yeah, I figured he was something bad in his prior life when he bragged how only the best become Whitelighters. I actually had him pegged as a demon, or Jack the Ripper, so this honestly seems a bit weak tea.
We cut back to present-day Harry, who is sitting in a red-lit room, getting stung by a scorpion. A ridiculously 80s-cartoon-villain-voice starts expositing that this is how Tartarus torture works, assailing the target with memories they would most like to forget. CC endearingly identifies the voice as Dragon Eye, by the way. Harry of course thinks these memories are fake, and we cut to his interrogator for the moment:
You win this time, CC.
After some requisite taunting, the camera pans up and onto the title card and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT FONT?! Between the eye and this title, I’m getting some serious mid-90s PC RPG flashbacks:
Yes, it’s only SD screencap, but I don’t think resolution is the problem here
(MLW’s Note: Yeah, I don’t think I ever mentioned it before, but this show doesn’t have opening credits, it just has a title card with this font and it changes to fit the theme of each episode. So for the Christmas episode, it was covered in snow. There have been some darn cheesy ones but this is probably the cheesiest.)
After the title, we cut to Mel angrily closing the Book of Shadows, then angrily recapping what happened before mid-season break, prompting Macy to refer to Tartarus, the “Alcatraz of the Underworld”, as “Hell-catraz”. Charity is also here, and she tells us that the Elders can’t help, since the only way to get someone out is the Scythe, and they destroyed it.
(MLW’s Note[No, I can’t resist continually butting in]: When Patchouli Hobo/Jada gave Mel her piece of the Scythe back a couple episodes ago and Mel went running to Charity to tell her all about it, Charity asked what she did with the Scythe piece and Mel was like, “I destroyed it.” But I figured she was lying, right? She just didn’t want the Elders to get it? But NO, she apparently actually did destroy it! I have no clue HOW, and I don’t understand WHY because that seems COMPLETELY RETARDED, but here we are!)
When pressed, Charity admits that the Elders aren’t interested in pursuing the matter, “not for a Whitelighter”. The reasoning is that he knew the risks, so screw him. Charity, however, says she’ll keep thinking, and reminds us Mel is supposed to be infiltrating the Sarcana and that Macy needs to figure out what’s up in her lab. Macy shows her a picture of Connerparkerdude’s divorced parents, and Charity says his dad reminds her of someone. Mel tries to make a “Hell-imony” joke, because she’s the worst. Charity leaves as the sisters assure her there’s nothing else going on, and as soon as she’s gone, Macy says that Friendzone is back and ready to talk. They didn’t wipe his memory (because Harry was unavailable, not because they decided to be decent) so they need to keep this secret from Charity. Mel likes not telling her things, and wants to contact Sarcana, since they got someone out of Tartarus.
Maggie is in her bed, with a box of tissues and…magazines? I thought ice cream was more traditional. She is worried because she hadn’t been able to recognize that her boyfriend was a demon, which does seem a big strike against mind-reading powers. Mel is, as always, unhelpful, and Maggie tells us she doesn’t want to feel like this anymore, or to feel anything. Mel is now on firmer ground, because she can again make it about herself. She reminds Maggie how she could get over her girlfriend. Mel leaves and we see Maggie making something with a mortar and pestle. She’s reading a spell of Protection against Hurt (the Hurtblocker – this is real title in the Book of Shadows) that looks like it was written by a ten-year-old. In crayon.
Documentary evidence that I am not making this up
She smears the green goo on her forearm, says the incantation and waves her hand over the goo, which…covers it with a bandage? At any rate, aren’t we a bit early for horrible allegories about drug addiction? It should take a longer decline before your show goes there.
Meanwhile, Macy and Friendzone are walking and recapping the premise of the show. Friendzone calls Harry “the white person”, and I can’t even mock him for it. If Harry were any whiter, he’d be Casper the Friendly Ghost. He reminds us about his voodoo grandma, and we go over the protection spell the sisters removed from him. Macy says it was the demon who removed it which is…revisionist history at best. He asks Macy to demonstrate her powers, and, when she telekinesises a coffee cup into a trash can, he laughs with joy. As a Xander fan, I must say I’m enjoying Friendzone taking on the role of a normal dude who learns about weird magic stuff. May he never acquire any powers or abilities. Things get a bit less fun when Macy informs him their boss is a demon.
Speaking of their boss, over at the lab Connerparkerdude is coughing out some gross green slime as his mother gives him a shot. He says he’d rather die as half-human than live as a demon, his mom is worried that this is actually the most likely outcome, and Demon Dad ruins the moment by walking in and being a dick. He wants to know where his other son is, and isn’t buying the story that Demon Brother stole the amulet and took off. I mean, not to stereotype but that kind of betrayal seems to me in line with demon behavior. Maybe he thinks he has his sons in hand? Mom is angry that he’s intruding on her domain and he (reasonably) points out it’s his company and she’s there because he gave her the job. He shows off his hypnotic powers by forcing her to thank him, but she stabs her hand with a letter opener and breaks the spell. If you have enough willpower to do that, wouldn’t closing your eyes be easier? Dad says he’ll find his other son and strides away, leaving mom and Connerparkerdude looking worried.
At the Sarcana HQ, we have chanting and a woman in a glass box who sways as if she were in a trance. Hobo Lady explains to Mel that in Tartarus they torture you and destroy hope, so you end up like this. This is shocking news to Mel, for some reason. I guess she made it to grad school without encountering Dante’s Inferno? The lady in the box (MLW’s Note: Charity’s sister/Harry’s former ward, Fiona) was an important witch, known as “the Keeper of the Sacred Flame”, and I suspect this will be relevant later in the season. She is handed a vial of glowing green liquid, and we’re told this is Hellflame, which powers the incubator (the glass box) but they don’t have enough to make her better.
Hobo Lady then catches us up on what Sarcana is about (down with the Elders), and did they really think there would be a huge surge of new viewers after the break to weigh us down with all this recapping? She’s finally helpful and gives Mel a tip that a gatekeeper to Tartarus is a demon called Dante*, who conveniently lives nearby. Seriously, what is up with this place? Sunnydale had a Hellmouth – is Hilltowne something similar, or does every tiny town in America have a thriving supernatural community?
* (MLW’s Note: Come on, man, you’re not going to make the obvious Dante joke here?)
Back in Tartarus, Harry gets another scorpion sting-induced memory. He’s in a prison laundry, folding the clothes when a guy bumps into him. Some posturing leads to Harry being called a pretty boy, and you bet that in prison, there’s only one response to that. Well, two, but this isn’t Oz. Harry does pretty well in the fight, until he gets shanked by one of the other prisoners. Back in his cell, he shows us a scar in that exact spot. Dragon Eye returns to taunt him.
The Oz option may still be on the table
I’m confused, we’re at a commercial break and there hasn’t been a moment of wokeness yet.
Mel is on the phone and has figured out that they have something they can trade for Harry – the Harbinger. She’s enthusiastic about how clever her idea is, but Maggie, who is on the other end, seems unimpressed. This, of course, makes Mel think something is up, because there could be no other reason for someone to have issues with her ideas. Maggie hangs up because Connerparkerdude is coming straight for her. He tries to explain, but she has no time for his bullshit. She does, however, have time for another dose of the green goo.
Back in The Lab, Macy and Friendzone pretend to be doing The Science until the janitor leaves. Now alone, they grin mischievously at each other and…proceed to burgle their boss’s office. Dammit, Friendzone, that’s how you got your nickname in the first place. Computer is password locked (but clearly logged in – people, log out at the end of the day, so you won’t complain to your IT department about overnight updates wrecking your stuff), but Macy is prepared. She casts a spell that types in the password for her.
Some time later, while Friendzone is looking through (physical) files, Macy figures out that one of the DNA strands on the screen is non-human and jumps to a (reasonable) conclusion that Boss Mom is trying to turn human DNA into demon DNA. Speaking of, they hear the lab door slam and we see Boss Mom is back! As she enters her office, she sees Macy and Friendzone making out. She angrily shoos them away, and, as they apologetically retreat, it seems their ruse was effective. Dammit, Woke Charmed, stop making me enjoy these two!
(MLW’s Sister’s Note: NOOOOOOO)
They giggle (thank you, CC, for backing me up on this) their way out into the lobby, pleased with their success, and, caught in the moment, Mel kisses Friendzone in a very non-friendly way. Friendzone attempts to shed his nickname by inviting her to his place. Macy seems receptive to the idea, but then she drops the V-bomb on him. He is as surprised by this as London was by those other V-bombs.
Back at Charmed Mansion, Macy tells Mel about this, which apparently means no stay over at his place. Mel tries to be supportive but again, she makes it all about herself. Maggie, meanwhile, is too busy holding her hand to a lit candle’s flame to pay attention to her sisters’ conversation. Mel is mildly concerned about Maggie’s behavior and, for the first time, makes me laugh when she asks, “Seriously, did you take one of Mom’s old benzos again?”
Charity ruins the moment by apparating in and wondering what the sisters are smoking if they think the Elders will hand over the Harbinger. She tries to up the woke quotient by stressing “We do not negotiate with demons”, and I appreciate the effort, but come on, writers. The girls stand up for Harry. Charity leaves without a word. Moments later, the paint can containing the Harbinger (supposedly) apparates in.
Meanwhile, Dragon Eye is taunting Harry again with some attempts at arty cuts show him being bored in his cell. We then go to commercial break and I wonder why this bit was left in.
What, you don’t find this highly scintillating quality entertainment?
Dante is working at a lathe when the girls come into his shop. Dante responds to “Hello” with “Dropping off or picking up?” and I laugh again with this show, not at it. What the hell have they fed the writers over the break?! He knows who the sisters are and tells them a previous “gaggle of ladies” (a.k.a. Sarcana) tried to get someone out with measly ankh and lodestone, and he laughed them out the door. Harbinger, though is a different story. He tunes his TV to the Harry Channel (currently showing: open shirt, rubbing chest). Reasonably, Dante wants to verify the goods before he trades and…oops, the can is empty. He’s angry, but Mel time-freezes him so the sisters can work out what to do, and I’m beginning to think writers messed up when they decided this should be her power. She either drains the drama from any action scene she’s in, or they have to come up with ways to neutralize her every time.
Macy says she has a plan: unfreeze Dante, use telekinesis on a safe to pin him down (wouldn’t reversing the steps be easier?), then have Maggie read his thoughts. However, Maggie is so zonked out as Macy speaks that even Mel notices. Sure enough, Maggie fails to read Dante’s mind and concludes that her powers aren’t working due to being zonked out on green goo. There’s some weirdness here, as she paws at the bandage with increased anxiety, so it doesn’t look like she’s feeling nothing anymore.
Dante uses this distraction to push the safe away, grab Maggie and toss her into Tartarus. He changes the TV to Channel Maggie and tells the other two to go get him the Harbinger.
Back at the mansion, Charity is on the hot seat over the whole “empty can” incident. She, at least, recognizes “the Hurtblocker” as an addictive spell with possible side effects, and Macy is surprisingly blasé about Maggie “not reading the fine print.” Leave being a cold, insufferable bitch to Mel, it’s her schtick!
Charity is convinced the paint can can’t be fake because she never let go of it…until she remembers a tall dark stranger whose photo the sisters showed her earlier. Realizing he managed to hypnotize her and take away the can, she is worried about how powerful a demon he actually is. Luckily, they know a dude.
In Connerparkerdude’s room he tells Macy and Mel that his father is the demon Alistair, also known as The Dark Master (to quote Xander, “…bator”). Mel is being Mel, and Macy has to rein her in, because they don’t have a) time, b) Harbinger, or c) Maggie.
(Incoming Real Dialogue Alert)
Mel: “Which is the only reason I’d ever set foot in a frat house that smells of stale beer and white privilege.”
Twenty-one minutes and fifteen goddamn seconds before the first real Woke Line. Thank you, nameless shitlord staff writer, for remembering me.
Rather than point out he’s bi-racial (bi-special?), Connerparkerdude offers to help them break into his father’s study. Mel still doesn’t trust him, but Macy is much more pragmatic and points out that they have no other option. As soon as the green goo wears off, Maggie will be in real trouble.
Speaking of Maggie, down in Tartarus she currently has scorpions crawling all over her. One stings her and we see some memories of Connerparkerdude wooing her. Come on, his technique is not that bad! (MLW’s Note: Yes it is.) Dragon Eye milks what little screen time he has by promising he’s going to give her “a Hell of a hard time”.
After the break, we return to Maggie freaking out and pleading for help, so I think at this point the green goo has pretty much worn off. A memory of her mother telling Mel and Maggie “how lucky she is to be the mother of two special young women” cuts to them seeing her dead body. Maggie calls out for Harry and, despite looking like…ahem…Hell, Harry (who appears to be in the next cell and thus able to hear her through the wall) responds. He tells her to be strong and that “love is your strength” but is unable to rally her, so he offers to take on her scorpions.
As Dragon Eye says, “Be careful what you ask for,” a swarm of scorpions enter Harry’s cell and begin stinging him. The next memory is of Harry in a hospital room, a doctor’s voice telling him that they are unable to save his son. Harry says it’s his fault.
Meanwhile, Connerparkerdude shadowwalks Macy and Mel through a wall into his father’s office. An aside: the sisters not having any way to skip obstacles or cut distances is a good call. It puts them at a disadvantage compared to demons, and makes them more likely to ask for help from others. (MLW’s Note: Pan is enjoying this show way too much.)
Connerparkerdude shuts down the security and opens the secret vault, and, admit it, Mel, there’s no way you’d have known to do any of this without him. But rather than say “thank you”, Mel notices a fairly large bottle of Hellflame and pockets it when the other two aren’t looking. They grab the Harbinger-in-a-Can and bolt.
Boss Mom has just finished her work when Demon Dad turns up again. He hypnotizes her, and, as she gropes for it, tauntingly shows the letter opener she used to stab herself earlier. Now Boss Mom can’t resist, and she tells him Connerparkerdude banished Demon Brother to Tartarus because he’s in love with Maggie.
MLW just wants to take the opportunity to point out that an actual line of dialogue in this episode states that their divorce settlement included a stipulation that he not be allowed to use his powers of compulsion on her, which had me envisioning DEMON DIVORCE COURT
We cut to very happy Dante confirming that the new paint can does contain one (1) Harbinger. Mel somehow manages to stop a man literally twice her height from taking the can and demands he hand Harry and Maggie over. Dante releases them, rather than dick over the terms or tell them to choose one, and he really comes across as a fairly reasonable, non-evil dude. (MLW’s Note: Yeah, I was confused by the fact that they said he was a demon rather than being some kind of guardian like the satyr or the Tawaret lady. But maybe they already forgot that. After all, it was three whole episodes and a mid-season break ago.) A touching reunion is interrupted when Demon Dad turns up, all black coat and leather pants.
Coming back from commercial, Mel jumps to the conclusion that Connerparkerdude sold them out, and Alistair puts some real menace in by freezing Dante with no effort. It would be more impressive had we not seen Mel do the same thing fifteen minutes ago, but you can’t have everything. Then the actor goes into this weird wacky-menacing routine, and ruins the tension. The lines read like they are made to be delivered in a calm, maybe near-friendly manner, but he instead chooses to go into “Angelus fucks with Buffy” mode, but hammier.
He, Mel and Macy have a bit of boring back-and-forth, although I do chuckle when he gives Maggie a little wave with “Hey, Mags. I’m so sorry about the breakup.” He follows through by pointing out that, if there’s any fighting to be done, an empath is pretty useless, and damn, I now want to see a villain really go on a tear hitting each sister where she’s weakest. Demon Dad hypno-commands Dante to release Demon Brother, but Mel freezes the poor lug and I now feel really bad for him. He wasn’t even supposed to be here today!
Demon Dad now launches into villainous monologue, calling them “dumb witches”, which I’ll put into the Woke column, even though it’s both tenuous and a 100% true statement. He also refers to himself in third person as “the Dark Master” (“…bator”), so I’m glad when mid-tirade Macy telekinesises a knife right into his forehead. She ruins the effect, though, by saying, “Put a pin in it, Daenerys.” I’ll do the pop culture references around here, all right?
This merely makes Demon Dad angry, of course, and he removes the knife and most of his face (!), revealing bad makeup underneath. I’m not sure why they did it, but I guess someone over there think bad special effects are better than no special effects:
He sprays fire from his hand, which makes the ladies cower behind random pieces of furniture but otherwise has no effect. Mel is upset about her “fricking useless powers,” and somewhere out there, Deanna Troi nods in sympathy. Harry grabs her shoulder and she telepaths? Remembers? him saying “love is your strength”. She runs over to her sisters and grabs their hands. Between them they create a blue glowing ball and I suppose this is the famous Power of Three? The ball counters Demon Dad’s flame and he teleports away.
Mel (why Mel? What did she do to earn it?) (MLW’s Answer: It’s in her contract, she’s the most important one) chucks Harbinger into Tartarus, Dante grabs the broom because now he has to clean his workshop to boot, and the rest are trying to figure out what it was that Maggie did. Harry tells them that Maggie created a new spell using the Power of Love™. They take Harry home and we see all the sisters preparing a nice tea tray for him.
Maggie and the others still think Connerparkerdude sold them out, and for once I can’t call them stupid. Macy drops the nugget that her father was “moody”, and Charity apparates in. Mel is, surprisingly, bitchy to her but then surprises me by thinking of someone else, and tells Charity that, if she cares about Harry, she should take the tea to him and comfort him. Charity does so, and tells Harry she reviewed his memories, which is apparently Not Done. She says everything Harry did was to save his son, and that Harry’s son not only did not die, he is in fact still alive. On top of everything, she tells Harry she loves him. Damn, adults having something approximating real emotions in a CW teen show?
(MLW’s Sister’s Note: NOOOOOOO) (MLW’s Note: Actually, I’m with her on this one, Harrity is a hard pass for me)
Later, Connerparkerdude finds Maggie on her porch. He tries to explain, but she isn’t ready to listen and sends him packing. Before he leaves, he tells her his dad got scared enough to be leaving town. He saw his dad and didn’t get a horrible punishment for his betrayal? Alistair must be terrified.
Mel meets Hobo Lady in a bar and hands over the bottle of Hellflame she stole from Alistair’s office. She tells Hobo Lady she trusts her because she lets her actions do the talking, so Hobo Lady leans over and kisses her. There’s a momentary flash of lightning between them which may be significant later.
Mel considers this for a moment, then returns the kiss and they leave. As they do, a woman* takes their picture while Alistair’s voice echoes, “Don’t stop what you’re doing.”
* (MLW’s Note: IT’S NOT JUST “A WOMAN”! IT’S NIKO! IT’S NIKO, GODDAMMIT! NIKO’S BACK! NIKO’S BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKKKKKK)
(MLW’s Sister: “Why do you want to saddle poor Niko with Mel? What did she do to deserve it?” MLW: “Because Niko is pretty and a good actress and if I have to suffer through this show I at least want to be looking at someone who doesn’t look like she smells of cannabis and B.O.” MLW’s Sister: “………..racist.”)
Gratuitous Niko screenshot, because Niko
Friendzone knocks on the door of Charmed Mansion. Macy answers all flustered and there’s some dialogue about her being a virgin and him being “okay with what you do or don’t do with your body.” A thin gruel, writers. Where are your woke lines? Then we get to real reason why he’s here. He was going over the files he stole and found some DNA sequencing results. The Charmed Ones’ DNA. Macy immediately notices that results say Mel and Maggie don’t share a father – Macy and Maggie do.
And on that monster of a cliffhanger the episode ends.
Overall thoughts: That was far, far better than I expected. Characters mostly acted in character, Harry got to do some decent acting, Dante is a bro deserving of his own spin-off and the story was interesting enough even before the big revelation hit (MLW’s Note:TWO BIG REVELATIONS). And only one Woke Line – what the hell?
Thank you to PanZagloba for not only going to the trouble of writing this, but also for actually purchasing episode 10 on iTunes and thus giving money to this series. A noble sacrifice, one that will likely keep this monstrosity of a series on the air for years to come.
Anyway! I will be getting back to this as soon as I can. The series is not canceled, but I found doing it weekly was too much of a time suck and cutting into my ability to write things that actually, you know, earn me money. So the plan is that I’ll get the recaps written as I’m able and our mighty editorial overlords will find a place for it on the schedule. The series now also has its own category, so if you want to catch up on previous episodes, you can do so here!
Happy Tuesday, all. I’d like to report an episode of spousal bullying. My wife has been after me for weeks to go to the dermatologist and get “checked out”. I keep trying to tell her that the mole on my back is my friend and he likes it where he is, but she says she’s not into being watched while she sleeps. I broke down and did what I was told. Its a sad world we live in where a man can be bullied by his wife.
Trump signs IRS reform bill that, among other things, prevents IRS employees who were “involuntarily separated” from the IRS from being rehired as employees or contractors.
Mr. Lizard, if you are out there, stay safe. I look forward to the interesting ways Florida Man will kill and maim himself attempting to kill iguanas.
Vice President Pence cancels NH appearance to “return to the White House”. The series Veep assured me that the Veep is NEVER called to the White House. T/W: Autoplay. H/T Heroic Mulatto, who is glad that a man who won’t lunch with a strange woman alone is no longer despoiling his fine state. (No, seriously, the link is SFW and will not alter your state of consciousness)
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Max Planck
I’m going to begin with two claims about the state of #science in the United States. I use the hashtag advisedly because one of my assertions is that the majority of what passes for science in the current zeitgeist is generally non-science, or, most charitably, bad conjecture, if we’re properly classifying some of the current crop of pop-culture fads attempting to pass themselves off as real Science (yes, I’m looking at you AGW). To begin with, here are my two claims:
The current state of science in the United States is…unwell. This is not to say that there isn’t some good science being done to which one can point, but the measure of the health of science in any age isn’t simply what things are invented, or what new technologies may be invented or arise that lead to the ease of living of the species. I will take this up in detail below, but for now I make the claim that science in the U.S. is in a deplorable state, due to a confluence of factors that began from within science itself, but spread to other areas, such as the Law, for example, and reinforced the rot that has led us to our current state, which an esteemed scientist and friend of mine calls “the Post-Rational Epoch.” More on him below, as well.
While a direct consequence of #1, it is also a piece of evidence while being its own separate problem, but the odds are that anything you’ve read recently in a mainstream media science piece, no matter how ‘peer reviewed’ it was, is garbage. My estimate is that it’s about 70/30 – in favor of garbage. I’ll back up that claim, as well.
Before I can properly begin my argument, however, I must first define what I mean by science, as well as a number of related concepts in order that a metric is established by which I can show where things are currently awry, as well as the how and why that happened. So, I’ll leave these here and return to their proof below. Without trying to be pedantic, and in respect to the science knowledge of the Glibertariat, I ask some forbearance on this reiteration of the basics. Blame public education – I do. (See my prior writing on that topic if you’re curious.)
What is Science?
It is a methodology for modeling the universe; nothing more, and certainly nothing less. To be more precise, science is the process by which we develop models of the real world with predictive power better than random chance. Science proceeds on an underlying assumption: that there are underlying truths of our material world, of the universe itself, that can be discovered, and modeled, by mankind. In some cases, like Newton’s Law of Gravity, the model can be so powerful, with such mathematical precision, that predictions can be made about the future time, position, and even energy state of bodies on Earth or in space.
Science is also how you have been understanding the world from the moment your senses turned on and became capable of taking in and processing stimuli. You have been producing models, using heuristics and other cognitive mechanisms, to come to grips with the stunning array of information presented to you, then updating these as more data comes in, confirming some hypotheses, discarding others, modifying yet others, limiting the domain and range of some theories… What we traditionally learned as the scientific method is an articulation of that mental machinery that churns out models of how the world works.
Observe
Ask a question
Develop a testable hypothesis
Experiment – TEST your hypothesis
Analyze the data/results
Conclusion
This is also an iterative process and can be entered from different points along the path. You may have a simple question that nags at you, or you may have a particularly well-developed theory – as in the case of Einstein’s gravitational waves – but in either case, if you don’t have a testable hypothesis, one that has measurements and criteria for validation, the problem remains. (P.S. it turns out Einstein was correct – it just took 100 years for the equipment to be invented to confirm it). As this example above (hopefully) illustrates, Science does not necessarily yield absolute, universal truth… at least not NOW, or maybe not on the first go-around, which is why we have categories for models. The generally agreed upon definitions are:
Conjecture – An incomplete model, or an analogy to another domain;
Hypothesis – A model based upon all data in its specified domain, with no counterexample, and incorporating a novel prediction that has yet to be validated by facts;
Theory – a hypothesis with at least one non-trivial validating datum;
Law – a theory that has received validation in all possible ramifications, and to known levels of accuracy;
One scientist, an author on the subject of science, science education, and former two-time chief scientist at Hughes Aircraft Company, has offered the following addenda to the hierarchy above.
Rational argument must be the zeroth axiom.
Observable evidence must be reduced to measurements—that is, to comparison against a standard.
Scientific facts, the foundation of all model building and testing, are measurements with an established accuracy.
Science is a branch of knowledge, the objective branch, and ultimately public.
The application of science to public policy with unvalidated models is unethical. FN1
What Science Isn’t
With this as the foundation upon which we build, it’s evident that the IFL #Science! Crew traffics in something more akin to a religion – scientism, but certainly not science. For example, nowhere in our schema above for science does the word ‘consensus’ appear. For some of us of a certain age, the word ‘consensus’ was never taught in conjunction with science; the word was never spoken in a science classroom. This is because consensus is not a part of the scientific method and its adoption into #science has a direct correlation to the cheapening of real science. Science cares nothing for votes or popularity; either a model delivers predictions that can be tested and measured, that is validated or not, or it is either (1) an incorrect model, or (2) isn’t science at all. This is where the popularity of certain ideas, mingled with the need for funding for continued research, can lead to bad outcomes. This is at its worst when popularity includes the government concretization of ideas. FN2
In truth, the new #science is the politicization of science, and it is, unfortunately, nothing new. The Lysenkoism of the 1930’s charts its rise quite nicely with the fall to our current state of scientific illiteracy and innumeracy. Science in service to the state is another of the defining characteristics of statist systems of government, such as socialism, communism, fascism, and even corporatism, of which we have more than our share. AGW is simply the newest version of Trofim Lysenko’s politicized science that seeks its answers not in universal truths, but in power and control, in popularity, populism, and the censorship of competing ideas, all of which undermines the very foundations upon which science is built. Science proceeds on the refinement of models, as Einstein slightly narrowed the domain of Newton’s Laws of Motion to more accurately model what happens when the v = velocity in Newton’s equations approaches c, the speed of light. It is easy to forget that was a refinement that was four-hundred years in the making. Or to cast it in a slightly different light, five years before the Puritans started the Salem Witch trials of alleged witches, Isaac Newton published the Principia. Newton’s models withstood four-hundred years of human progress in science and even then, Einstein only narrowed them for a few special classes of objects traveling at light speed.
Einstein left us with numerous other models, some of which bear his name, on the basis of the profundity of his contributions. The same is true for Otto Warburg: the Warburg effect is what occurs when you drink a radioactive sugar and then have a PET Scan that “lights up” the cancerous tumor cells, as those cells preferentially uptake the glucose over surrounding healthy, non-cancerous cells. FN 3. It’s why Glenn T. Seaborg had an element of the periodic table named after him, (Seaborgium, Sg – 106), while he was still alive. Seaborg and Edwin McMillan discovered Plutonium and both won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951. That line of transuranium elements on the bottom of the periodic table – the actinide series? Seaborg, as well.
Industrial Science
In the late 1960’s, a gentleman named Jeff finished his PhD in Engineering from UCLA. Like many of his fellow graduates, given their interests and multiple degrees in electronics, applied mathematics, applied physics, and communication and information theory, employment was plentiful in the corridor north of Los Angeles that contained the heart of the United States’ burgeoning aerospace/defense industry, chief among them Hughes Aircraft Company. Jeff’s family had a legacy at Hughes and it was no accident that he would spend half of his three decades at Hughes as the Division Chief Scientist for both the Missile Development and Microelectronics Systems Divisions.
Among the projects to which Jeff contributed significantly was the AWG (pronounced in military slang like it rhymes with dog) Nine (AN/AWG-9) radar. That caught my attention when I learned about it from his son. I was an attack helicopter pilot in the 1990’s, but I grew up keenly interested in American military aviation of the 1980’s. The AWG-9 radar, and the plane that ultimately carried the famous missile guided by it, would be featured in “Top Gun.” The F-14 Tomcat ultimately was what arrived at the end of a long acquisition process to find a fighter-intercepter capable of taking advantage of the standoff distance of both the radar and the vaunted Phoenix missile. While the Iranians claimed to have splashed over 60 Iraqi MiGs with the Phoenix and the AWG-9, the only three ever (admitted to being) fired by U.S. fighters missed their targets.
Regardless of its record, the chief deterrent effect of it lay in its effect on pilots on the other side of the Cold War. Almost all fixed-wing aircraft, and even some rotary-wing, have devices much like the ones you use in your car to detect police radar. The detectors work in specified frequency bands and detect the radiated electromagnetic energy that is being sent at your car by the cop’s radar gym. In return you get a tone, or a spike, on your detector. The ones in planes are using fundamentally the same principles, but the receivers will give returns for slightly more sophisticated radars, including a strobe for direction and strength of signal, up and including targeting radars, like the kind on missile seeker heads and their radars. These produce the “tone” that is now ubiquitous in modern aviation movies.
The old adage in dog-fighting is that ‘first in sight wins the fight.’ This is because in dog-fighting, the person in the higher energy state – typically the person at higher altitude – all other things being equal, can translate that extra potential energy into kinetic energy at some decisive point in the fight, usually as airspeed, sufficient to shoot down the opponent. For Soviet-bloc fighters going up against the Tomcat, its radar, and the accompanying Phoenix (AIM-54) missile, it meant getting a tone in our headset and a “lock” signal while you were still flying blind, unable to “see” anything, because that’s what happens when someone else’s radar can “outreach” yours. Hence, regardless of the U.S. record with the Phoenix missile, the AWG-9 likely helped keep the Cold War cold and gave the U.S. air superiority because it could see farther than anything the Russians had.
The AWG-9 and the accompanying technology for the missile seeker head, the ability for the missile to track multiple targets, to travel at supersonic speeds, and to be able to shunt fuel in turns at 5-6 times the force of gravity, is all Science at an extraordinary level, where getting it wrong means lives lost. Notice also that all of that work was classified top secret or better and therefore not subject to “peer review” or “publication” in a science-y journal; yet the mathematics behind radar is at a level that very few people can understand. Radar is, fundamentally, the ability to distinguish signal from noise among a radar return from, say, 75 nautical miles away… that is a math problem of a very, very high order. And none of that even begins to address the ability of the radar to acquire, track, and target multiple aircraft traveling at high velocities in different directions all intent on doing harm to the person sitting in front of that radar.
I want to finish this first chapter on Science with a reminder of Science’s truth-seeking function. I also note here that Science is in this aspiration no different than the Law, or Literature, or, more broadly, all of good Art. Good comedy is funny because of how well it presents the Truth – or apparent Truths – typically in an odd or unusual light. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was written in the context of 17th century Elizabethan drama, yet it has been remade time and time again, into the Sharks v. the Jets and many other variants. This isn’t because it’s false. Indeed, even Religion would be well included in this list of truth-seeking human endeavors and it serves (perhaps) as a reminder why the IFL #Science crew is so much closer to being a religion than they are to being scientists.
In the next installment, I will make good on proving the two propositions I began with and trace the history of the degradation of science, from Karl Popper and his colleagues to David Stove to Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. Yes, we finally get after the lawyers next time.
FN 1: Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Law: The Basis of Rational Argument, by Dr. Jeff Glassman, Ph.D., CrossFit Journal#64, Dec. 1, 2007.
FN 2: I’ll explore a number of those specific instances in future articles, in order to show how wrong science can go in model-building, but how much worse it is when government becomes involved in choosing which is the “correct” model. This is true from nutrition guidelines to cancer research, from fitness to hydration, and many more. It’s almost as if the government is completely ignorant of the ‘procedural’ nature of genuine science. For the more cynical, it may be assumed that this is no accident at all, and instead a feature of politicians intentionally picking whatever theory works best for their political purposes, the truth-seeking function of science be damned.
FN 3: Warburg’s contributions to what might be called biochemistry now, but had no such name during his life, rival Einstein’s in physics. Warburg received the Nobel prize in 1928 for his articulation of the aerobic and anaerobic processes of cellular respiration.
FN 4: I am aware that various publications list the AWG-9 anywhere from 50-100nm depending upon what one reads and at what classification and when it was published. Suffice it to say that the AWG-9 outdistanced (and thus out-scienced) anything the Russians had during that timeframe.
