Bad China Moon Rising?

I sit up and take notice when I run across a piece on foreign policy by Robert Kagan. I read his short book

OF PARADISE AND POWER

in the run-up to the Iraq War and found it very insightful regarding the current America/Europe divide and why it exists, not just in terms of Iraq but more generally (even ecclesiastically).

Yesterday I ran across a piece on the problem of "managing" the rise of China as a major power in the present century.

EXCERPTS:

There has been much disc ussion recently about how to "manage

the rise of China." The phrase itself is soothing, implying gradualism,

predictability and time. Time enough to think and prepare, to take

measurements of China’s trajectory and adjust as necessary. If China

eventually emerges as a clear threat, there will be time to react. But

meanwhile there is time enough not to overreact, to be watchful but

patient and not to create self-fulfilling prophecies. If we prematurely

treat China as an enemy, it is said, it will become an enemy.

The

idea that we can manage China’s rise is comforting because it gives us

a sense of control and mastery, and of paternalistic superiority. With

proper piloting and steady nerves on our part, the massive Chinese ship

can be brought safely into harbor and put at anchor.

The history of rising powers, however, and their attempted "management"

by established powers provides little reason for confidence or comfort.

Rarely have rising powers risen without sparking a major war that

reshaped the international system to reflect new realities of power.

[I]sn’t it possible that China does not want to be integrated into a

political and security system that it had no part in shaping and that

conforms neither to its ambitions nor to its own autocratic and

hierarchical principles of rule? Might not China, like all rising

powers of the past, including the United States, want to reshape the

international system to suit its own purposes, commensurate with its

new power, and to make the world safe for its autocracy?

CHINA: MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR AUTOCRACY.

GET THE STORY.

Bad China Moon Rising?

I sit up and take notice when I run across a piece on foreign policy by Robert Kagan. I read his short book

OF PARADISE AND POWER

in the run-up to the Iraq War and found it very insightful regarding the current America/Europe divide and why it exists, not just in terms of Iraq but more generally (even ecclesiastically).

Yesterday I ran across a piece on the problem of "managing" the rise of China as a major power in the present century.

EXCERPTS:

There has been much disc ussion recently about how to "manage
the rise of China." The phrase itself is soothing, implying gradualism,
predictability and time. Time enough to think and prepare, to take
measurements of China’s trajectory and adjust as necessary. If China
eventually emerges as a clear threat, there will be time to react. But
meanwhile there is time enough not to overreact, to be watchful but
patient and not to create self-fulfilling prophecies. If we prematurely
treat China as an enemy, it is said, it will become an enemy.

The
idea that we can manage China’s rise is comforting because it gives us
a sense of control and mastery, and of paternalistic superiority. With
proper piloting and steady nerves on our part, the massive Chinese ship
can be brought safely into harbor and put at anchor.

The history of rising powers, however, and their attempted "management"
by established powers provides little reason for confidence or comfort.
Rarely have rising powers risen without sparking a major war that
reshaped the international system to reflect new realities of power.

[I]sn’t it possible that China does not want to be integrated into a
political and security system that it had no part in shaping and that
conforms neither to its ambitions nor to its own autocratic and
hierarchical principles of rule? Might not China, like all rising
powers of the past, including the United States, want to reshape the
international system to suit its own purposes, commensurate with its
new power, and to make the world safe for its autocracy?

CHINA: MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR AUTOCRACY.

GET THE STORY.

GO, MAMMALS!

Mammaleatsdino

Here’s the paleo version of a "Man Bits Dog" story . . .

DATELINE: 130 million years ago.

HEADLINE: MAMMAL EATS DINO!

And we’ve dug up the proof!

EXCERPTS: 


In China, scientists have identified the fossilized remains of a tiny dinosaur in the stomach of a mammal. Scientists say the animal’s last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs some 130 million years ago.


It contradicts conventional evolutionary theory that early mammals couldn’t possibly attack and eat a dinosaur because they were timid, chipmunk-sized creatures that scurried in the looming shadow of the giant reptiles.


In this case, the mammal was about the size of a large cat, and the victim was a very young "parrot dinosaur" that measured about 5 inches long.


A second mammal fossil found at the same site claims the distinction of being the largest early mammal ever found. It’s about the size of a modern dog, a breathtaking 20 times larger than most mammals living in the early Cretaceous Period.


The dinosaur-eater belongs to a species called Repenomamus robustus, known previously from skull fragments. It has no modern relatives.


The squat, toothy specimen measures a little less than 2 feet long, and probably weighed about 15 pounds. On R. robustus’ left side and under the ribs in the area of its stomach are the fragmented remains of a very young Psittacosaurus.


This common, fast-moving plant-eater is known as the "parrot dinosaur" because it had a small head with a curved, horny beak. Its arms were much shorter than its legs. Adults grew to be 6 feet long, but the one that was devoured was just 5 inches.


The remains still are recognizable, indicating that R. robustus ripped its prey like a crocodile, but probably had not developed the ability to chew food like more advanced mammals.


"It must have swallowed food in large hunks," Meng said.


Originally, scientists believed that mammals remained small because larger dinosaurs were hunting them. Only after dinosaurs went extinct by 65 million years ago did surviving mammals begin to grow larger, they reasoned.


"Maybe small dinosaurs got larger — or got off the ground — to avoid rapacious mammals,” wonders Duke University paleontologist Anne Weil.

YEE-HAW! GO, MAMMALS! GIT THEM DINOS!

GIT THE STORY.

BRIT PAPER: Abortion Puts Next Baby At Risk!

Startling honesty from the Telegraph.

EXCERPTS:

Having an abortion almost doubles a woman’s risk of
giving birth dangerously early in a later pregnancy, according to
research that will provoke fresh debate over the most controversial of
all medical procedures.

A
French study of 2,837 births – the first to investigate the link
between terminations and extremely premature births – found that
mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely
to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks’ gestation. Many babies
born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive
suffer serious disability.

GET THE STORY.

Gathering A Search Party

In my ever-increasing search for interesting things to blog about, I’ve decided to occasionally discuss how to use the web in your search for answers to apologetics questions.  This particular post will deal with search engines.

Many times people will call the office saying "Where do I find information on [insert obscure subject of your choice]?"  Usually, within five minutes, I have found something online that I can send them.  The trick to doing so is to know how to use search engines effectively.

Most search engines require that you enter key words for it to use in the search.  The more specific the key words, the better.  For example, if the inquirer says "Sister Joan Chittister is speaking at my parish this Sunday.  Do you have any information on whether she is orthodox?" I can go to a search engine, type in "Joan Chittister dissent" and pull up articles that will tell me whether or not the sister in question is orthodox.  (Of course, in this particular case, I already know the answer.  My purpose in running a search in this case would be for links I could send the inquirer documenting Sr. Chittister’s positions on various issues.)

Remember, specific key words are critical.  If you want to information about the Polish Christmas tradition of oplatek and you type "Christmas" into the search engine, you’re going to have to search through a lot of pages to find a recipe for oplatek.  A more fruitful search would use the key words "oplatek recipes."

Where do you find search engines?  The most helpful I’ve found is Google, which has in fact become nearly synonymous with web searching.  Indeed, some unhelpful people will simply tell a novice Internet surfer looking for an obscure bit of trivia to "google it," without explaining what is meant by the term.  If I want to search through a particular site and that site’s own search engine is poor, I use the Google Advanced Search. 

Google will suffice ninety- to ninety-five percent of the time.  For those looking for alternatives, a couple of old reliables are Ask Jeeves and Yahoo! An interesting development in search engines are those that search multiple search engines simultaneously.  A few of them are YaGoohoo!gle (a meld of Yahoo! and Google, natch), DonkeyDo.com, and Dogpile.  (I’m guessing those last two titles might be an intriguing commentary on what must be expected to be found alongside the gems during random Internet searches.)

Once a search engine has spit out a list of results, then one must pan the gold from the silt.  I do this primarily by looking for web URLs with which I am already familiar and know to be from web sites that are orthodox.  Failing that, I must then scan through a prospective article looking for biases and agendas.  Does the writer clearly state only what the Church teaches and use supporting documentation to allow the Church to speak for itself?  Or is the writer stumping for a cause and conscripting the Church’s documents to serve that agenda?

If a new site proves to be especially helpful in providing reasoned, meticulous explanations of the Church’s teachings, I then bookmark it for future reference and send the link off to my inquirer.  If the site has one helpful article but nothing else to recommend it, I may include a caution to the inquirer that the article is helpful but the host site is problematic.

Happy hunting!

WWII Revisionism

You’ve probably heard of historical revisionism pertaining to the World War II-era, but the kind you’ve probably heard of is the anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying revisionism.

That’s not the only kind, though.

Military historian Victor Hansen explains another kind.

EXCERPTS:

As the world commemorated the 60th anniversary of the end of the European Theater of World War II, revisionism was the norm. In the last few years, new books and articles have argued for a complete rethinking of the war. The only consistent theme in this various second-guessing was a diminution of the American contribution and suspicion of our very motives.

GET THE STORY.

(NOTE: I can’t tell from what he wrote how Hansen regards the immorality of the nuking of Hiroshima or the firebombing of Dresden. The deliberate targeting of civilians, of course, is inconsistent with Catholic moral theology, but whatever Hansen’s views on this point may be, his survey of how WWII is being handled in modern politically correct treatments is informative.)

The Only Way to Fly

Caps_02From our "Why Didn’t I Think of That?" Department comes an idea so obvious (in retrospect) that it makes the wheel look like wild speculation.

Those clever lads (and/or lasses!) at Cirrus Aircraft have gone and made an airplane that is practically stupid proof.

Did you forget to top out your fuel tank? Did you fly into a snowstorm? Stall out? Got a busted hydraulic line? Don’t matter! Just pull a lever and the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) floats you down to the ground like that feather on Forrest Gump. Well, the impact is more like jumping off a ten-foot ladder (according to the literature), but – hey – let’s not get picky.

The plane also has a composite body which makes it lighter, yet stronger, than traditional airframes. This plane is giving the long dominant Cessna some Cirrus competition (heh).

To be honest, though, no aircraft can be made absolutely stupid proof. Ditch over water and you might still be toast.

Just, you know… really soggy toast.

Safely find out more HERE.

Pet Peeves

Do you have a pet peeve that flares up in the most annoying places?  I usually encounter my pet peeves when I’m reading novels.  It’s probably because I do freelance editing in my spare time and wish I could whip out my editing pencil and mark the changes.  (Probably could, thinking about it, but then I’d have a book with editing scribbles.)

Since those editing scribbles would otherwise remain unread, I’ll share a few of my pet peeves here.  Any literary editors out there are free to take notes and incorporate the changes accordingly.

  • Your grandmother’s sister is not your "great-aunt."  Just like your mother’s mother is your grandmother, so your mother’s aunt is your grandaunt.  Just as you are your grandmother’s grandchild, so you are your grandaunt’s grandniece or grandnephew.  Climbing up the family tree, your great-grandmother’s sister would not be your "great-great aunt" but your great-grandaunt; sliding down, you would be her great-grandniece/nephew.  And so on.  The male family titles take the same form.
  • Although the usage is common enough today, a woman in a historical novel should not be dubbed "Mrs. Catherine Lennox."  The title Mrs., according to historical protocol, was always used by a married woman or a widow with her husband’s full name.  That means she was  "Mrs. Nicholas Lennox."  If she was divorced, she combined her maiden and married names and became "Mrs. Granger Lennox."
  • I eagerly await the historical novel that takes note that the title "Ms." is not the invention of twentieth-century secular feminists, but has been dated by protocol historian Judith Martin (aka "Miss Manners") back to the Elizabethan period.  It fell into disuse when the title from which it derived, "Mistress," took on implications inappropriate for chaste women, married and single.  Once secular feminists pointed out that there should be a courtesy title for a woman to use with her own full name and that was not dependent on her marital status (as men have such a title in "Mr."), "Ms." was reborn.  (Secular feminists did get a few things right.)

There.  With that transcribed from my paperbacks to a blog, I feel much better now. 😉  Feel free to share your own pet peeves in the comments box.

Bouncy Concrete

Mission_valley Lemme tell you a story: Here in San Diego there is a place called Mission Valley, which is where Mission San Diego ("California’s First Church") is located. (It–the church, not Mission Valley–was built over 200 years ago, before the founding in the U.S.)

I used to live right next to Mission San Diego and thus in Mission Valley.

Down the midst of Mission Vallue is the I-8 interstate.

Bisecting Mission Valley along its north-south axis is the 805 freeway.

The 805 doesn’t cross the bottom of Mission Valley, though. Instead, flung across the valley is a huge bridge, (what seems like) hundreds of feet in the air.

I get a little nervous whenever I have to cross the Mission Valley Bridge. (I once saw a too-quickly-lane-changing pickup there flip over right in front of me, killing the man and pregnant woman inside it.)

But it’s a major traffic exchange point in San Diego (photographed above by satellite), and when I lived in Mission Valley, I regularly used it.

Particularly because had friends who lived on the north side of Mission Valley, right near where the 805 bridge rejoins solid ground.

It was really convenient to go over to their house! I’d just get on the I-8, head towards the Mission Valley Bridge, and then zoom up ramp to the 805 and the point where their house was.

On the way home afterwards, I’d head down the Mission Valley Bridge, take the exit ramp curving down to the I-8, and in a few minutes I’d be home.

Now: One Friday night I was heading down the 805/Mission Valley Bridge ramp and my car (didn’t have a pickup at the time) suffered a DOUBLE BLOW-OUT. Both of my rear tires popped.

Quickly, I worked my way into the emergency lane and stopped the car. I got out to see if I could change the tires and discovered this was impossible. Not only did I not have two spares, the car consumed the entire width of the emergency lane on the bridge, meaning that my body would have to hang out into Friday night traffic if I even attempted to change the tires.

Not a good solution.

I therefore started trudging back up the incline until I reached an emergency callbox, where I could call for help. (This was in the ’90s, before I had a cell phone.)

After trudging up half a mile or so (that’s how big the bridge is), I finally reached the callbox and summoned a tow-truck. I then returned to my car to wait.

At this point in my life, I was (foolishly) suppressing the Southern elements in my speech, except that they would come out when I was either very relaxed or under stress. Needless to say, I was twangin’ up a storm by the time the tow-truck guy arrived.

Once he got there, I waited in the cab of the truck and he used it’s mechanism to slide a big metal plate under my car, which the truck then lifted up and redeposited it onto the back of the truck.

As it picked my car up off the roadway and redeposited it, the truck vibrated MIGHTILY, ROCKING BACK AND FORTH IN THE EMERGENCY LANE PRECIPITOUSLY, WITH ME IN THE CAB LOOKING DOWN INTO (WHAT SEEMED LIKE) HUNDREDS OF FEET OF DARKNESS OVER THE CONCRETE RAILING AND SAYING PRAYERS TO WHOEVER THE PATRON SAINT OF BRIDGE-BUILDING MIGHT BE (St. Patrick, among others, as I later determined).

The tow-truck guy towed me home in mere minutes, and all was well that ended well. (I bought new tires the next day.)

Now: What brings this story to mind?

When I was walking up the incline to get to the emergency phone, I noticed something very disturbing: The Mission Valley Bridge . . . BOUNCED.

As cars would zoom past me toward whatever Friday night merriments they had planned, the roadway under my feet . . . BOUNCED. It wasn’t rigid. It was made out of concrete, of course, but still it . . . BOUNCED.

In earthquake-prone California, bouncy bridges are important.

The reason is that structures that have a little "give" in them have less of a tendency to break. That’s why the wings of an airplane are designed to bounce when they encounter turbulence. If they were rigid, they’d snap off. I therefore know I’m safer if I’m sitting over the wings and see them bouncing–thought I still don’t like it. It annoys my pre-reflective sensibility that rigid structures are stronger than flexible structures.

Flexible_concrete Tonight I was thinking about this because I ran across

A STORY ABOUT EXTRA-FLEXIBLE CONCRETE.

It may not have the zing of transluent concrete, but it’s zingy (and bouncy) enough.

EXCERPTS:

By mixing fiber in concrete scientists have created a bendable material that is lightweight, resists cracking, and lasts longer.

Fiber-reinforced concrete is not new. But this variety, developed at the University of Michigan, is said to be 500 times more resistant to cracking than what your sidewalk is made of. It’s also 40 percent lighter.

The stuff is called Engineered Cement Composites (ECC).

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will use the ECC to replace part of a bridge that crosses Interstate 94. The slab will eliminate the need for expansion joints, which are moveable steel teeth that separate sections of regular concrete. With the ECC, a longer continuous slab will be possible.

The Mihara Bridge, a new structure in Hokkaido, Japan, has a deck of ECC that is a mere 2 inches (5 centimeters) thick. It is expected to open this month.

God bless the folks who have blow-outs on the Mihara Bridge!