Helpless

I never thought I would be in sunny Hawaii and wish I were home in Virginia in February. I timed this trip as poorly as any I have ever been on. It is a helpless feeling to be here and not be able to do anything or even help make decisions.
You have all been hearing about the big storm that has dumped nearly 30 inches of snow on Northern Virginia. I left on Thursday morning and we were already starting to worry a little, but not too much. After all, we had been snowed-in a couple of times this winter already, and it just meant that we would be about to stay home and enjoy the day. Who knew that it would knock out the power, and that now, two days later, the power would still be off with no estimated for when it would be back on. By Friday when I called Mom from Hilo the snow had started to pile up and the power went off, and we were starting to wonder if she should get out while she still could and stay with friends. The estimate from Dominion Power was that the power would be back on by 11 pm. The house was not any colder that it would have been on a normal night with the heat turned down, so Joyce decided to stay and to decide in the morning. It snowed all day on Saturday, and by then it was too late. The snow was too deep to drive through it. Joyce went out and shoveled a path for the car down the driveway, but the snow on the road was too deep, and it was still snowing. Sunday morning it had stopped snowing, but the temperature in the house was down to 45 degrees and there was still no estimate from the power company when it would be back on. Joyce finally got a neighbor with a four-wheel-drive to take her over to our friends, the Latimers, to stay until the power came back on.
I may have gotten some of the details wrong in what was going on at home – and there is the topic of this essay. What do you do when you want to help but are completely powerless to do anything except cheer from the sidelines? My feelings here ranged from real anxiety on Friday as we were trying to decide whether Mom should go or stay and not knowing exactly what the conditions were or, more importantly, what they were going to be, to envy and regret on Saturday that I couldn’t be there to enjoy being snowed in together, to worry again on Sunday when there still wasn’t heat or any way to drive anywhere and the temperature was dropping in the house. How often we have watched teenage or young adult children with the same emotions – anxiety not being able to help with a decision and not knowing the future, regret that we can’t be there to share an experience, and worry when things aren’t going as we expected and maybe even appearing to be getting worse. How often we have watched new converts, home teaching and visiting teaching families, and others we are working with in the Church in the same way.
It is good to know that if things get really bad there are good people around who can help. In this case we had neighbors who shared hot meals and helped when Joyce decided to leave. We had ward members who were concerned. Whenever I called we would be interrupted by other phone calls, usually from concerned ward members. It was good to have Jon’s home for a backup if Joyce could have gotten there. Jared and Daniel called to offer encouragement (thanks!). When you get teenagers you realize how valuable that support is. The genius of the Young Men/Young Women program is that you have someone there you can trust to teach correct principles to your children when you can’t be there yourself. The genius of the Church organization is that when all are doing their duty, the support is there for each one of us. The catch, of course, is that not all “concerned” helpers are faithful Church members teaching correct principles. Sometimes these voices are the hardest to counter and it at times becomes counterproductive to even suggest that they might be off the mark.
So this comes down to the final resort. Sometimes you are completely helpless and all that is left is prayer and faith. Can a person change the elements, get power restored, influence thoughts and actions of another, by praying and having faith? Will Dominion Power get our power back on sooner if I pray really hard about it tonight? Can I influence people I don’t even know who in turn influence the lives of a loved one? I know that it is not me doing the influencing, but will the Lord change things just because I ask him, no matter how sincere I am? The answer has to be “yes” or the scriptures would not tell us to do it.
This must be where faith comes in. Maybe it is not so much that we ask in faith as that we have faith, after we have asked, that the right thing will happen. Not necessarily that the thing that we want will happen, but that whatever happens the Lord will make it right. That is perhaps the hardest aspect of faith. How hard is it to see a situation develop that we don’t like or don’t agree with, and let it happen. When is it right to have faith that God is in charge, and when is it right to step in and try to change it? Should we always try to change things, right up to the last minute that we think we can? Do we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to make things right?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. It is perhaps the hardest tightrope there is to walk in our relationships. One difference between the Law of Christ and the Law of Moses is that Christ tells us that it is always our duty to do good without worrying about reward or consequences. On the other hand, I don’t recall any instance of Christ doing good for someone who didn’t want it.
Anyway, here I am forced to cheer from the sidelines as Joyce does battle with the elements. They have already issued another winter storm warning for Tuesday. At least she is warm and has good company for now.

Seating Assignments

Have you found yourself identifying people by where they sat during Sacrament Meeting? If someone asks, “Who is so-and-so.” The answer is “She is the one who sits on the left side, near the front,” or “He is the one who sits in the back corner.” In other churches, parishioners have the chance to buy a pew, and then it is theirs. They can count on it being empty when they come to church. In our church, squatter’s rights usually prevail. Members choose their pew, but then make it a habit to sit there. It makes me wonder, “Can one tell something about a person by where he or she sits during Sacrament Meeting?

There are the usual reasons, like Family A who gets to church early and blocks out an entire row right in the middle to accommodate all of their kids, or Brother B who sits up front so he can hear. Less obvious but just as common is Sister C who sits next to the door so she can leave quickly and not talk to anyone, but wishes that someone would stop her. Family D sits right in the middle in the front so that their kids will be quiet, and Family E sits right in the back for the same reason. Missionaries sit in the back so they can see if investigators come in, and then end up sitting by no one.

When I was Ward Mission Leader, one of my soapbox speeches was to try to get each member to sit by someone – anyone – and not by themselves. I got the impression that the members would mentally roll their eyes and think, “Not that again!” I had a little more success with the missionaries, but not much.

This essay is wandering off in a direction that I didn’t expect. I intended to examine what could be told about personality types by where the person sits – eager learners in front, shy people on the side, non-participators in the back, Republicans on the right, Democrats on the left, the “in group” in the middle, the “outsiders” by the doors, and rabble rousers like Joyce and me sitting in a different place each Sunday and displacing the occupants. Instead, it seems to be headed toward the reasons why it is more natural to keep to ourselves.

In my parents’ day, people would spend evenings visiting. They would sit on the porch and wait for neighbors or go and visit themselves. We don’t have porches, but found out as missionaries that people still like to visit. Young people now are being conditioned against it. Everything encourages avoiding contact. Earphones isolate them from sound; video games, from interacting; and even so-called “social networking” is an excuse for not having to meet face to face. In church, we don’t want to encroach on someone’s space, don’t want to put someone out, don’t want to crowd them, don’t want our children to bother them. But is it that we don’t want to bother them, or that we don’t want them to bother us?

Visit to Ashgabad, Turkmenistan and Almaty (Alma Ata), Kazakhstan

Monday, November 10, 1997

Left London, arrived in Istanbul near midnight.

Tuesday, November 11

Arrived in Istanbul. When we go to board flight to Ashgabad, we are bussed to airplane. By the plane there is a stack of luggage for passengers to identify before they are loaded on the plane. Mine was not there. I was told at the door of the plane that it would come and that I would have to identify it. When I could see that they were getting ready to leave, I asked about my bag. I was told that since I was a continuing passenger it was loaded and not stacked outside. But when I got to Ashgabad, the bag was not there.

The flight was three hours, change planes, then another three hours, and arrive at 6 am local time. No, no time to sleep. There were three agents checking passports, but each person took at least three minutes. (I began to time them after I got bored with waiting.) Then there was an equally slow process of filling out custom forms and going through another line. It took about 2 ½ hours to get through the airport reception – and only our flight had landed. Kurban Allaberdiev and his wife Elena were there to meet me. They are 40-ish (I think). Lena speaks English quite well, although this was the first time she had ever had to speak it. We waited around for another hour to meet with a Turkish Air representative about my bag. They took my information and told me to call back the next day. The next flight to Ashgabad is Friday, after I leave, so my first hope for a change of clothes will be in Almaty.

We drove to the hotel and got checked in. it says that it has four stars on the front, but the room is very small and the bed is short and hard. There is a shower but the water is barely warm. Kurban met me at one o’clock and we walked the two blocks to the Climate Institute building for and initial meeting.

Back to the morning; I wanted to take a nap so I would be ready for the afternoon, but had to get settled. I found a bank that would exchange money (the second bank I tried). I changed $150, and found that their largest bill is the 5000 Manat, which is worth about 90 cents. The woman at the bank gave me a huge stack of bills. I zipped them into my coat pocket and went to an open-air market to get a tooth brush, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream. There are no stores here – only open stands. I went back to the hotel and got showered and cleaned up, but didn’t have time to sleep. My stomach was starting to feel queasy, so I didn’t try to find lunch.

We met until about 3 pm. I got an overview of the institute and we decided on my schedule for the week. Then Kurban and Lena took me on a drive to see Ashgabad. The driver was a Turkmen. I found that Kurban is also a Turkmen, but he is light like a Russian. We stopped first at the Carpet Museum. One of the displays was a full-size yurt with traditional carpets inside. Kurban said it was like the one he grew up in.

We drove past a row of new, very elaborate hotels. This place reminds me of Las Vegas. It is desert with bare rock mountains on the South. The President of Turkmenistan has appointed himself President for Life. His picture is everywhere. There are statues of him and even one of his mother. One of the carpets in the museum was a family portrait of him and his family. There are policemen at many corners who seem to pull cars over at random. We were pulled over – I never learned why. The policeman let us go only after the driver gave him some money. The driver took us through the poor section of town and stopped at his home. His mother is an old woman, bent over at the waist when she walks. His father is an old guy that looks like a Cossack – with a bald head and native clothes.

They seemed determined to show me every big building in Ashgabad. My stomach was really acting up when they dropped me off – about 6:30 pm. I got my key, ran upstairs, and threw up as soon as I got into my room. Even though I hadn’t slept the night before, I laid awake with chills and fever until probably 5 or 6 am until I finally went to sleep.

Wednesday, November 12

Kurban and Lena met me at 8:30 am on Wednesday for a tour of their two observatories. The first is near town, the second in the mountains near the Iranian border. They have another observatory at the top of a mountain, but it is too close to the border with Iran and I am not allowed to go there.

A woman and young man at the site close to town study sporadic-E (the topic of my doctoral dissertation). They are familiar with my work. It was fun to talk with them. I have an interpreter for the day – a woman whose field is chemistry, but who works part time as an interpreter for an Iranian railroad crew. We then drove south for about an hour. The mountains are bare. There are trees like cottonwoods along the streams by the road, but there is no grass. The observatory is by a little valley full of apple orchards. The staff tend their own little orchard – apples, cherries and apricots – and maintain the equipment. There is no money for doing science. They served a meal on an outdoor table in the late afternoon. It felt a lot like Southern Utah. A woman who works at the institute fixed a rice and chicken dish over an open fire. Everything tastes really good. My stomach was feeling better, and I hadn’t eaten since the airplane.

We got a flat tire on the way home. The spare was low, so the driver got a hand pump and pumped it up. I watched two little boys leading some camels – a great picture, but it was too dark.

Thursday, November 13

The big events on Thursday were meetings with Academician __________, former president of the Academy of Science and founder of ionospheric research here during the Soviet era, and with ____________, who is currently the President of the Academy. (I forgot their names before I had a chance to write them down.) Our paid interpreter couldn’t be there and Lena had to translate. I could tell she was scared to death, but she did a good job. The President said that I was the second Western scientist to visit the Academy.

These diplomatic meetings are interesting. I have to act like the “great man” and say good and intelligent things that make them feel like I am impressed, but without committing the U.S. to anything, while on the inside I am saying, “What in the world is a farm kid like you doing in a spot like this?” I think I said the right things – the local scientists were too nervous about being there to know if I did or not.

I nearly forgot the best part of Thursday – the bazaar. There are a Russian and a Turkmen bazaar in the city – they are the official ones. We went out of town to the real one. it was out in a dusty field surrounded by livestock pens. Women were dressed in bright blues, greens, yellows – all colors, and all bright. Men wore big black woolly hats that look like “afro” hair-dos. We walked around once, and then through the carpets. After word got out that I was buying, I really got a lot of attention. One little guy followed me around with a carpet on his shoulder everywhere I went. Kurban helped negotiate the price of the carpet I decided on down from $220 to $150. Everything is in dollars. We went to the museum to get a certificate so I could take it out of the country. They said that I had a very good carpet.

The institute director invited me to his home for dinner. His wife is an out-of-work physician who speaks good English. He has a nine-year-old daughter - dark and pretty, dainty like the Turkmen women you see on the street. Everyone is small here.

Friday, November 14

I had to be at the airport at 4 am for a 6 am flight. The director and a driver met me at 3:40 am. I had to un-wrap my rug and satisfy the agents at the airport that it was legitimate. I was glad I came early – the check-in counter closed at 5 am. At 5:30 I heard something in Russian on the PA system about Alma Ata, but there was no one at the gate. I got worried and looked around, and found that they had changed gates without announcing the change. We flew in an old Russian jet that looked like a bus – a shelf overhead piled high with people’s things, loose carpet on a metal floor, no assigned seats, seats like old school bus seats, and no knee room.

There is snow at Alma Ata and it is below freezing. (Ashgabad was warm.) Two tall Russians met me – a big change after Turkmenistan. My baggage is not here, but Alex Pogareltsev has learned from the Turkish Air office that it will be here tomorrow. There was a big group from the Institute of the Ionosphere at the hotel to discuss schedules and have lunch. I have corresponded for a year about my research with Galena Khachakjan. I changed some money, and she showed me the bazaar where I bought a pair of socks (very necessary) and where I had my pocket picked for $50. I went to the U.S. embassy to meet the Air Force attaché (an old buddy of Dan McGillen’s) and start working on the problem that my visa expires on the 19^th and my flight home is on the 20^th. (There is no flight on the 19^th.) They said that since the Academy of Science invited me, they are the only ones who can extend the visa. I have to register with them as a foreign national on Monday. I hope I can get it straightened out then. I got back to my hotel and found that my key is missing. I am sure I turned it in at the desk, and they are just as sure that I didn’t. I had them change me to another room – who knows who has the key to the other one – but now my TV doesn’t work again. I hope I can sleep tonight. I am tired enough. I couldn’t go to sleep again last night. I finally gave up and got up and read until I left for the airport. I was dead tired and went to sleep at 7 pm, but then work back up at 9:30 thinking I had slept through the night.

Saturday, November 15

Saturday morning Alex Pogoreltsev tried to get my luggage but was told I had to be with him, so they came and took me to the airport. If you come into the country with your bags, you have to fill out a detailed customs declaration and they search your bags. This time, however, a lady showed us where the lost luggage was stored, we picked mine out and left without even showing any kind of identification. What a system! Afterwards, Igor and Zlata from the seismic institute took me to the historical museum. It was the first time they had been there since the end of the Soviet Union, and they were most interested in the new way that the history was presented.

Sunday, November 16

Galena met me on Sunday for a bus ride to a sports complex and skating stadium in the mountains, and then to a “high school” to meet with a group of students she is teaching to make scientific presentations in English. Each of her students presented a research project to me. We then went to her home to talk about her science. Her daughter left while I was there to go to Tomsk and defend her PhD thesis – a three-day journey by train. It was also her grandson’s birthday. Four little boys were in the apartment having a party.

While I was at the Khachikjan’s the topic of tea and coffee and then religion came up. Galena’s husband and daughter were especially curious. Galena said that it was all nonsense and definitely not scientific. Her daughter, Svetlana, belongs to an “English Speakers” study group that often talks about religion. I told her I would leave a Book of Mormon for her. It turns out that the head of the study group is Arthur Yakovets, the scientist from the Institute who met me at the airport. To make a long story short, I now have an invitation to their study group Tuesday evening, and I am sure that the Church will be the hot topic of the evening.

At the end of the evening, Mr. Khachikjan said he would bet a taxi for me to go back to the hotel. We walked out to the street, flagged down the first car to come along, and gave him 100 Dengi (about $1) to drive me home.

Monday, November 17

Monday I spent the day at the Institute of the Ionosphere. Days like this are hard. I spent a half-hour or so with each person at the Institute hearing about their research and getting their sales pitch for funding – and all the time acting like I knew what they were talking about and trying to ask intelligent questions. They are much more experienced in international “grantsmanship” than the group at Ashgabad. Most of the scientists are Russians, while most in Ashgabad were Turkmen. I can also feel that they are not as close to one another socially as they were in Ashgabad.

Everyone who visits here must register with the government. When Igor went to register me today he also asked to extend my visa. They told me that everything, including my passport, will be back to me on Wednesday at 5 pm. My flight is Thursday morning at 5:30 am, so if something goes wrong and I don’t get my passport back, I am in big trouble.

Tuesday, November 18

Tuesday I spent at the Seismic Institute at the National Nuclear Center. I am sure that I was shown things that during Soviet Union times would have been top secret. The scientists I visited with are working with seismic arrays to monitor the nuclear test ban. Their research is to learn how to distinguish an earthquake from a nuclear explosion. We are funding a study at a site on the Chinese border that is near to the Chinese nuclear test site. We spent much of the time talking about studies of the old Soviet nuclear test site in northeastern Kazakhstan.

I guess I got stood up by the English Club tonight. Arthur said he would meet me at 6 pm. It started snowing quite heavily at about 5 pm – maybe they cancelled it and tried to telephone me. I have been getting a few wrong number phone calls every evening. Maybe his call was sent to the wrong phone also. (As I was writing this the phone rand. It was Arthur. The club cancelled because of bad weather.) Tomorrow we were to go to a cosmic ray station at the top of the mountains (3500m altitude). I am afraid there will be too much snow on the road, and we won’t go.

Wednesday, November 19

It snowed Tuesday evening, so there was no chance to go to the cosmic ray station. Arthur and Olga met me with the jeep and driver, and we drove as far as we could up the canyon. The road became too steep and slick at a power station, so we left the jeep and walked up the road to the top of the ridge where we could see out. It was a narrow gravel road that switched back and forth up the mountain. There was a monument at one particularly steep place where a scientist from the Institute was killed when his car went off the road. In the bottom of the canyon there was a long concrete wall that protected the power station from the flood channel. At the bottom of the wall were two small cement buildings where Japanese prisoners of war lived while they built the wall and a big dm farther up the mountain.

Wednesday evening there was a dinner for me with the Institute scientists at the Academy of Science building. It tasted good – lots of local food: salads, stir-fry, and horse meat appetizers, and steak for the main course – followed by toasts and good conversation. Alex brought my passport and extended visa, so I knew I could leave in the morning.

Thursday, November 20

My flight on Thursday morning was at 5:30, so Alex said we needed to leave the hotel at 2:00! I have learned that you can’t hurry through a Russian airport. We got to the airport at 2:30. The “international terminal” was dark, and people were waiting outside in the snow. The lights came on a little before three, and everyone packed into a small room that lead to customs control. We stood there jammed together with our luggage until nearly 4:30. Occasionally there would be an announcement, but in Kazakh so that not even the Russians understood it. After I got to customs, things went smoothly – then another wait in a big drafty room. We stood in a bud for the ride to the airplane. It was snowing, but they de-iced the plane and we were on our way. It feels good to be in a modern airplane (Lufthansa) with western-style comforts.

In Favor of Moore’s Law for Cars

Most of us are familiar with Moore’s Law. It is manifested in many ways in the computer world. The speed of computers doubles every three years. The amount of storage doubles in about the same time. It governs the number of transistors on a chip. I heard a talk last year by an executive from Intel, the company that makes most of the computer chips. He said that they could actually exceed Moore’s Law in developing new computer chips, but were restricted by company policy not to exceed it so that they could sell their inventory before they were made obsolete by the new advanced chips.
This last week there has been a lot of talk about President Obama’s new automobile standards. Now that the government is in the automobile business, maybe it will actually make a difference. Remember the mid-eighties when we had a Pontiac 6000 and a Nissan Stanza? Both of them got thirty miles per gallon on the highway. The reason they got thirty miles per gallon, incidentally, was because of government standards imposed after the oil embargo years of the early eighties.
What if Moore’s Law, instead of government standards, applied to cars? Since 1985 we have had eight cycles of Moore’s Law. Computer capacities have increased by 28, or 256 times. If cars had kept up with Moore’s Law, they would get 7680 miles per gallon on the highway. The catch, however, is that our cars would be crashing all the time through no fault of the driver. If a car ever had problems the way to fix it would be to pull off the road, close all the windows, and re-start it.
An interesting footnote to this essay is that the price of computers hasn’t changed. Each year or so since the eighties the big computer companies have come out with a new model home computer for about $2000. It is actually a little less than that now. What has happened in the same time to car prices? In the mid-eighties a new car cost about $10,000. Computers have gotten 256 times better without getting more expensive. Cars have gotten 2.56 times more expensive without getting any better.

Now

I am on the airplane on the way home from a really good weekend. Last
night as we enjoyed everyone I couldn't help but wish that the moment
would last longer. Two weeks ago we were in Europe and Joyce was doing
all she could to keep the experience from being over. Often when I come
home from a particularly eventful trip or a cold camping trip I think
about one of the strangest words in English: "Now."

We use "now" to describe the present time, but as soon as we say it, it
is no longer true. What is "now" now is "then" now. When we are
experiencing something we are usually not aware of the part time plays
in the event until it is over and just a memory. Sometimes we would
like to just stop time and savor the "moment," but even that is
impossible without time. Try to imagine music if time were taken away.

Time is an interesting concept. In the mathematics of physics, time is
just another dimension like up, down, north or east. There is one
important exception. Even though all of the equations are symmetric and
can run either way in each of the four dimensions, time always goes in
one direction called the arrow of time. Yes, Jared, time really does
fly like an arrow. But it doesn't always go the same speed. If I am
standing still and watching someone approaching (very fast) my time is
running faster than his. By the same principle of relativity, the guy
approaching me sees me approaching him and, to him, my time is running
slower than his. If I were to travel near the speed of light to the
nearest star and return, I would find that I had aged only a little,
while those of you who stayed behind would all be old. This can
actually be measured - clocks in orbit run slower than clocks on the
ground because of their relative motion.

Strong gravity also makes time run slower. This can also be measured.
Light from stars slows down and bends if it passes near the sun on its
way to us. If you fell into a black hole you would never reach the
bottom. The closer you got the slower time would run, and you would
fall forever.

If physics sounds too weird, try biology. Remember when you were a
little kid. Days seemed to last forever. Summer vacation seemed to
stretch on and on. The school year was even longer. There is actually
a biological reason for that. We each have "clocks" built into us that
slow down as we age. To us, the time between "ticks" is the same
whether the clock is running fast or slow. So if a little kid has a
clock running twice as fast as mine, he will feel like the same amount
of time has passed by noon as I get in the entire day. I have heard
that if you count "ticks" of your bio-clock, life is half over in your
late twenties.

Back to the concept of "now." Again in physics, "now" is an "event" in
"space-time." That means that it has a location in each of the three
spatial dimensions and in time. It is a "place" in four-dimensional
space. It is what we call "invariant." It will always be there - the
same point in space-time. The catch is that, because of the arrow of
time, we can never go back to it. Or can we?

Even a superficial reading of the scriptures shows us that God and His
messengers have a different relationship with time than we do.
Otherwise it would be impossible for them to visit - or even be aware of
- other worlds in the universe. How does God know "the end from the
beginning?" It may be that celestial beings can control this fourth
dimension and move around in it like we move around in three. It may be
that we all could.

What if we all left our pre-earth life at the same "time" and came to
earth together, only we entered this existence at different points along
the time dimension. That might actually make more sense than to picture
us all sitting around wondering, and then suddenly hearing someone yell,
"There goes Jared! He's going down!" That gives "now" a whole
different meaning. My current "now" won't happen for Joyce for another
two years. It won't happen for Sage for another 62 years, and it
happened for Grandma Miller 34 years ago. Maybe we all left excitedly
at the same time and will return at approximately the same time and have
a big reunion and swap stories.

Well, my "now" has advanced another hour and it is time to ponder the
meaning of my advancement along the fourth dimension, and to wrap up
this essay. What are the myths of time? We are told that we are all
given the same amount of time. This is not true - none of us knows how
much time we really do have. They say that we each have the same amount
of time each day - also not true. This is subject to our bio-clocks as
well as to things that distract us (both good and bad) and keep us from
being aware of time. What is true? Moments are precious. Gems are
precious because they are rare - but you can always go back and get
another one. "Now" is unique - there is only one and will never be
another.

On my first grandson receiving the Aaronic Priesthood

D&C 13: Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission on sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.
These are the words recorded by Joseph Smith of the ordination of himself and Oliver Cowdery. Now you have this same priesthood. What does it mean? Membership in a quorum of friends? Recognition that you are now a young adult? Escape from Primary? Overnight camping trips and hikes? All of these – but so much more. What was John telling Joseph and Oliver and all of us who have received this priesthood?
Fellow servants: You now serve with John. Together. Neither better nor worse, neither more nor less important in the Kingdom. The two of you are “fellow servants.” In the Aaronic Priesthood there is a progression of responsibility, but that is just because of the need for training. In the Brotherhood of the Priesthood, all can contribute and every contribution builds the Kingdom.
In the name of Messiah: When you were baptized you took upon yourself the “name of Christ” or the “name of Messiah.” Now you are a part of the sacred ordinance in which the rest of us can renew our covenants to take upon us the name of Christ. All you do in your priesthood assignments and responsibilities, whether done well or not, will be done in the name of Messiah.
I confer the Priesthood of Aaron: Aaron was Moses’ advance man, event scheduler and facilitator, spokesman, facilities coordinator, backup, and most active supporter. His job was to make sure that Moses succeeded. What a model for the modern Aaronic Priestood. They run the most important part of the Sunday service. Their activities in many ways set the tone for the rest of the ward. The responsibility is “conferred.” In other words, you don’t join; you are called and ordained by someone with priesthood authority.
The Keys of the Ministering of Angels: Does this mean that without the Aaronic Priestood, angels don’t minister? This can’t be so because an angel named Moroni visited Joseph Smith before this time. I think that John gave us a clue in addressing Joseph and Oliver as “fellow servants.” Ministering of angels to me is the care of God’s children by other of God’s children on both sides of the veil – or fellow servants as John called them. Restoration of these keys is like the restoration of keys by other angels after the Kirtland Temple dedication. It caused a paradigm change to begin to grow among mankind, while at the same time gave the priesthood the responsibility to make sure that it happened. You now have share this responsibility.
The Keys of the Gospel of Repentance: What can you do about this when you are twelve? Lots! You now have seven years until you will be leaving for you mission. Will you be ready?
The Keys of Baptism by Immersion for the Remission of Sins: You don’t have this authority yet – it is like in Aaron’s time the difference between the authority held by the Levites and the authority held by descendents of Aaron. When you are 16 you will receive this authority. You may be called on to use it. I performed my first baptism when I was 16. When Russell Cowley, now a man in his mid-50’s, came to Grandpa Miller’s funeral he reminded me of the day when I baptized him and thanked me for it.
This shall never again be taken from the earth: This is a unique time in history. You will be taught by the World that history will go on like it is for years and years. It won’t. There will be an end. But you can be sure that the Fellowship of the Priesthood that you are now a part of will be here through it all.
I don’t think that any of us has any inkling of the importance of the step that you have just taken. We get used to things. We don’t see the “end from the beginning.” This may seem to be a small step now, but it will define your life. It has defined mine. I want you to know, Noah, that I know from experience and from the Holy Ghost that the Priesthood that was conferred upon me by my father is real and is the power and authority of the one true God.
With love, from Grandpa Miller

One-hour Essay #1

March 1, 2009

We ate the inaugural lunch last night.
We were going to have some friends over for dinner. Usually the host provides the meat and the rest is brought by the others. I could tell that this was going to be one of those terribly hard decisions that are so hard because it doesn’t matter. We were brainstorming about what to have and Joyce said, “Let’s see what they had for dinner for the inauguration.” I could see that we were going to waste a lot of time on this, so I made a command decision: Let’s do it.
We were hit by opposition right from the start. There is no tradition among this group of friends for the host to actually dictate which recipe to use. One friend called to say how she didn’t have time and, besides, the recipes looked too hard and too expensive – and then chose the hardest one. No one wanted to do the “winter vegetables” even though they were only good old carrots, asparagus, and Brussels sprouts. In the end, everyone came through and we had a delicious dinner.
So, now that I know how to make cherry chutney, how to roast duck, and how to stuff pheasant (we substituted chicken), I ask myself why the Inaugural Committee chose what they did. Maybe this is why:
According to the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, “The menu … draws on historic ties to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.” They claim that “Lincoln’s youth in the frontier regions of Kentucky and Indiana gave him a taste for root vegetables and wild game that matured into a love of stewed sea foods as he got older.” That sounds way too un-political for today’s Washington. After all, the menu was decided by a committee. I think this is the more likely reasoning:
First Course: Seafood Stew that includes Maine lobster, sea scallops, large shrimp, black cod and veggies. The stew is to symbolize what the country is in. “The worst since the Great Depression.” Seafood because more than half of the citizens of the US – and the financial centers that got us into this mess – are on the two coasts. Maine lobster in honor of the solidly liberal Democrat New England states. Large shrimp (an oxymoron?) in honor of political double-speak in which one expression can have diametrically opposite meanings, depending on who is listening. Black cod is a reference to the historic inauguration of the first Black president. And veggies to signify how the government is going to tell us all how to be healthy.
Next, duck breast with cherry chutney and molasses whipped sweet potato: I am not sure if the duck is to symbolize the former president (lame duck) or the new president in the eyes of Republicans (sitting duck), or Congress in the eyes of the Democrats (rubber ducky). Cherry chutney comes from India where most of our jobs are. Molasses whipped sweet potato is one of those expressions common to politicians that includes everyone: molasses (Southern roots of the civil rights movement), whipped (again a reference to civil rights), sweet (government exists to make everything good) and potato (a reference to illegal immigrants from Latin America)
Then herb roasted pheasant with wild rice stuffing: This course is meant to promote the sometimes opposing interests of the NRA (pheasant) and the Native Americans (wild rice).
Accompanied by winter vegetables, including asparagus, carrots, baby brussles sprouts and wax beans. This is obviously pandering to the big-electoral-collage states of California and Florida. Where else can you raise “winter vegetables?” All also have double meanings: asparagus for the wealthy – sautéed in honor of the tax hike; carrots in honor of the poor – soaked in orange “zest” in honor of the tax credits; Brussels sprouts in honor of our new unity with (and similarity to) “Old Europe;” and wax beans (as opposed to un-waxed rough beans?) to remind us what most politicians are full of.
Finally, a third course of cinnamon apple sponge cake with a sweet cream glace. This was really good, by the way. I suppose the sponge cake was in honor of the way politicians sponge off the rest of us, and the sweet cream is what is skimmed off the top before it sent out of Washington.
There you have it – my one-hour essay. Holly said write it fast – under an hour – and don’t think too hard about it. I didn’t. In fact, I don’t believe half of what I wrote. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which half.

Political Help (Dad)

Hi All, Robin asked me to tell her my philosophy to help her on Election Day. I thought it would be a good posting for the BLOG.

I thought you might be interested in an editorial from the Deseret News. It is at http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705259288,00.html. It seems like all anyone says is to tear down the opponent. It is not very often that you read or hear anything that has only positive points in it. This is an editorial by a Republican and a Democrat. It may not help, but at least it should make you think before you “head for the hills” as the second guy puts it.

There has been so much negative campaigning by both sides that it is hard to know what to expect after the election. In the past the moral choice in the campaign has been more clear. Abortion, gay lifestyles, and opposition to family values has been promoted by one side and opposed by the other. The candidates and even the party platforms have either ignored them this year or have actually coalesced to the same positions. We have a Democrat leading the Senate who is “pro-life” and is a family man who sent his sons on missions and his children to BYU. We have a Republican President who opposes stem cell research on moral grounds and a Mormon Senator from Utah who is leading the campaign to allow stem cell research – also on moral grounds.

The choice this year reminds me a lot of the 1976 election. We were in graduate school at the University of Illinois then and idealistic as all students were at that time. The election was between an older man who had spent his life in congress and knew government inside and out and a young outsider who was charismatic and full of enthusiasm to “change Washington.” (Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter) Jimmy Carter came to Illinois and I went to hear him speak. He was really convincing – a good speaker and seemed to be a welcome change from the politics of Watergate. In the end I voted for Ford, but I have to admit that I was impressed by Carter and saw a lot of reasons to vote for him to bring in some new ideas. You can read in history books how it turned out. Carter was probably one of the worst presidents. Before he left office we had double-digit inflation, high taxes, mortgage rates around 15%, foreign relations in disarray, and American hostages in the embassy in Iran.

I don’t like socialized medicine. I don’t like the government redistributing wealth based on social status. The system should encourage merit and alleviate real need. I don’t like the attitude that if anything goes wrong the Government should take care of us. (This seems to be the crux of the current choice.) I don’t like having both houses of Congress and the Presidency in the same party. This has not been good in the past no matter which party it was.

I think you can see from that which way I am intending to vote. However, I actually like the choice in this election better than in the last two, and maybe even the last four. The Lord’s advice to us about elections is in D&C 98:4-10. There are things I don’t like in their campaign rhetoric, but the impression I have gotten is that both John McCain and Barak Obama are basically “honest, wise and good.” This seems to be the test we should apply to our elected officials, and I don’t think we have been able to say that about both candidates in the last few elections. In my opinion, the worst thing that can happen is not having the wrong party win; rather it is having half of the country not accept the winner as the President, giving him the respect that the office deserves, and working to help him succeed instead of hoping that he fails.

I hope this helps. It is good you are thinking hard about it. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Vote Democrat – it is easier than thinking.” I am afraid that is true in too many cases on both sides.

Love
Dad

Global Warming

Global Warming

Introduction

We are hearing a lot in the popular press these days about global warming. Last month Holly asked me about it, and I realized that there are some conflicting ideas within our family, not on global warming itself, but on what my opinion of it is. Then the next week Joyce was at dinner with friends where John Doolittle, a congressman from California who lives in our ward, let it be known that he believed global warming to be a left-wing plot and that there was no science behind it. I am sitting in an airport now after chancing onto Rush Limbaugh in my rental car and listening to him expound on why it was a left-wing religion and utter nonsense.

This essay is not meant to be a scientific treatise on global warming. I am not going to scientific (or popular) literature for my ideas and claims. It is more along the lines of what I have learned and what I believe. These ideas may not all be correct, and if anyone has any evidence to the contrary I will listen to it.

What is global warming?

What is a greenhouse?

Down the hill from our house in Logan and across from Aggie Station there were several long buildings made of panes of glass – greenhouses. John Bugbee (appropriately named) was a biologist who grew exotic varieties of wheat in those greenhouses in an attempt to develop a strain of wheat that grew big ears but small stems for a source of food in space. The plants would have frozen in the Cache Valley winter, but instead of insulation he surrounded his plants with panes of glass.

Glass is an interesting substance. It is actually a super-cooled liquid and not a solid. Like the chip in your computer and like the material in fiber optics cables, it is made of sand (silicone). In this liquid state it is transparent to “visible” light.

Let me step backward and say something about light. What we call “light” is electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between about 0.4 and 0.9 micrometers (1 micrometer or μm is equal to 1/1000000, or 10^-6, meters). Electromagnetic waves can, of course, have all possible wavelengths. The shortest wavelength waves are called “gamma rays.” Getting progressively longer, waves are called “x-rays,” then “ultraviolet rays,” and then “visible light.” Waves longer than visible are called, in order of wavelength, “infrared waves,” “terahertz waves,” “radio waves,” “extremely low frequency waves,” and so on. The names are different, and we experience them differently, but they are all basically the same thing. They are small electric and magnetic fields that vibrate back and forth at right angles to each other and move through space at the speed of light.

We sometimes call infrared waves “radiant heat.” This is because the waves are at the right frequency to move the atoms and molecules around in our skin. When molecules move faster it feels to us like it is getting warmer. In fact, temperature can be thought of as a measure of the speed of the random motions of the atoms or molecules in a material.

I need to explain one other concept. Physicists call it “black-body radiation.” It is simply that everything is warm. As I said, temperature is a measure of the motion of the particles that make up a material. Unless the material is at absolute zero, all of the molecules that make up the material are in motion. Because they are in motion, they radiate electromagnetic energy, much the same as the antenna on your cell phone radiates its signal. The hotter they are, the faster they vibrate, and the higher the frequency (shorter the wavelength) of the radiation. At room temperature this radiation is in the infrared. If the material gets hot (think about a filament in a light bulb or an element on an electric stove top) the radiation moves to the visible wavelengths. Because of its temperature, the sun radiates mostly at visible wavelengths.

Now back to glass and greenhouses: Glass is transparent to visible light, but opaque to infrared. Light from the sun passes through the glass almost unimpeded. When it strikes a molecule, either at a surface or in the air, the molecule absorbs the light and gets warm. It re-radiates its own black-body radiation, but since it is much cooler than the sun it radiates in the infrared. But the infrared light can’t go back through the glass, and is trapped in the greenhouse. Since more energy is coming in than can go out, the building heats up.

What is a greenhouse gas?

Our atmosphere acts like the glass panes on a greenhouse. If it weren’t so, all of the sun’s radiation would escape back into space and the Earth would be frozen. Like glass, our atmosphere is transparent at visible wavelengths and not as transparent in the infrared. Sunlight heats the ground and the air, but the infrared radiation from the warm Earth does not all escape back into space. Evidence of this is how clouds will keep the temperature warm at night, while if it is clear it gets cold.

The air we breathe is made up of a complex mixture of atoms, molecules, aerosols, and dust. Most (about four fifths) is nitrogen molecules (N₂). Most of the rest is made up of oxygen molecules (O₂). Each molecule in the air is “tuned” to certain frequencies. That is, because of the strength of the bonds between the atoms and between protons and electrons, they can only vibrate at certain frequencies. Like a guitar string, if you pluck it you only get one note. If you tighten the string and pluck it, you get a higher note. Because of this tuning, molecules can absorb light at certain wavelengths and not at others.

Because of strength or “tightness” of their molecular bonds, some molecules are better at absorbing infrared waves than others. The more of these molecules that there are in the air, the more opaque the air is to infrared radiation. Gases like nitrogen and oxygen are weak absorbers of infrared waves. The so-called greenhouse gases absorb infrared more efficiently and prevent its escape into space. Among the best absorbers of infrared in our air are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, aerosols, and dust.

What are natural sources (and sinks) of greenhouse gases?

All of the above greenhouse gases occur naturally in our atmosphere. There is a natural cycle that governs each gas and determines how much there is in the air. Water vapor is a good example. We all learned about the water cycle in school, how it evaporates, condenses, rains, soaks into the earth, seeps out in springs, flows to the sea, and then evaporates again.

There can be several cycles governing one particular species. Carbon dioxide, for example, is absorbed from the air by plants; the plants die; and decay releases the carbon dioxide back into the air. Another carbon dioxide cycle, bigger than that of plants, involves the emission of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in volcanic eruptions. The carbon dioxide is absorbed into the water of the oceans and then precipitates out or is absorbed by plankton, coral, etc. The resulting lime sinks to the bottom of the ocean, is carried below the surface at subduction zones where continental plates collide, and is blown back into the atmosphere by volcanoes.

What are the anthropogenic sources?

Now we are getting closer to global warming. For most of history, fuels were almost entirely made from things that grew, i.e. wood. This maintained a balance in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide that was released by burning wood was re-absorbed by the growing trees that became the next fire. It was not until we started using fossil fuels that the carbon dioxide began to increase in the atmosphere. Actually, if one takes a longer view, the fossil fuels were once plants and animals on the surface and contributed their carbon to the atmosphere. The Earth was a much warmer place then.

In the 1930’s (I think) a station was set up on Mauna Loa to measure atmospheric composition – as far as one could get from a major source of carbon dioxide. Since then, this station has measured a constantly increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The rate of this increase has been accelerating, and actually shows fluctuations that correspond with events like recessions and the industrialization of China.

Methane is another greenhouse gas that has been increasing. It is more efficient as a greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide. The main methane sources are the “belching cows and polluting trees” that President Reagan liked to make fun of. There have always been trees and cows, but there is getting to be more and more of the agricultural output that is fed to cattle. Beef has become the most popular food on the planet, with the result that there are more cattle than there have ever been.

What sources really matter?

So why isn’t this just a big chemistry problem? Why don’t the scientists just figure it out? The answer is that they are trying. It is a very complex and complicated problem with too many unknowns. Do we increase global warming by cutting down the rain forests, or do the weeds and grasses that take their place absorb more carbon dioxide than the trees did? Is the absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans so great that the amount we are putting into the atmosphere doesn’t matter? Is warming bad? Will it bring rain to dry areas, or will it dry out wet areas? Some climate models predict that global warming will turn Europe into an ice box. Does it matter that most of the greenhouse gases are coming from a few very concentrated urban areas? Are the big urban centers affecting, and possibly invalidating, our measurements? Perhaps the hardest question of all is how the things we would have to do to reduce greenhouse gases would affect human prosperity – and which countries would have to make the most sacrifices?

What is, and what is not, global warming?

A hot summer or a mild winter is not the result of global warming. Since the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a gradual process, the increase in temperature is also a gradual process. Climate models show an increase of only a fraction of a degree per year as a result of global warming. If warming were all that happened, you probably wouldn’t even notice it.

The problem is that the global environment is a coupled system. That means that a change here may cause a bigger change there – or a smaller change. Everything is affected by everything else. An example is the climate of the southwest US. The Mojave Desert gets about the same annual rainfall as central Utah. The difference is that the Mojave gets it in the summer in the form of monsoon rains, while Utah gets it in the winter in the form of snow. Water in the Mojave either dries up or runs off, making a desert. Water in Utah is stored as snow in the mountains and is released gradually through the year. One result of global warming might be to move the weather patterns northward, making Utah like the Mojave.

Another example is the Gulf Stream. Heating of the water in the Gulf of Mexico and cooling near Greenland set up a circulation that brings warmed water to the north coast of Europe and keeps it warm. Some models indicate that the change in cooling if Greenland melts, or a change in the flow of the Nile River that hits the Gulf Stream outside the Straits of Gibraltar could change where the Gulf Stream flows and leave Europe with the same climate as Labrador (at the same latitude). The scary thing about the Gulf Stream models is that they predict that it will be a catastrophic event – there is a threshold at which the circulation pattern snaps to the new pattern.

A third example is the melting of the ice caps. Over the years the polar ice caps have reached equilibrium where the amount of ice that melts is balanced by the amount of new ice that formed. Part of this balance is maintained by the reflection of sunlight back out into space by the bright snow and ice at the polar caps. There is indication now that the polar caps are melting and the area covered by ice is shrinking. As the ice shrinks, less of the sunlight is reflected and more is absorbed by the blue water. The more that is absorbed the warmer it gets, the more ice melts, the less sunlight is reflected, and so on.

So do I believe in global warming? Of course I do! If there were no global warming we wouldn’t be able to live here. Venus, Earth and Mars receive roughly the same amount of energy from the sun. Venus’ atmosphere is thick carbon dioxide – and the temperature at the surface is about 800 degrees. Mars has an atmosphere that is too thin to act as a greenhouse – and the temperature at the surface is as cold as dry ice.

Do I believe that global warming is increasing? I don’t think that can be denied either. If the concentration of greenhouse gases is greater than it used to be, the greenhouse heating has to be greater than it used to be.

Do I believe that global warming is dooming civilization? No. I think that in the long run mankind will adapt to new conditions. We always have. The problem is that there may be places or times where the adapting will not be pleasant. We don’t understand the global ecosystem well enough to predict who the winners and losers will be. If by “civilization” you mean the current standard of living and political stability in the United States, global warming may stress it, but there are a lot of other things going on in the world that worry me more.

What is the state of the politics?

Most of what I see in the popular press about global warming seems to me to be more politics than science. People who call themselves “liberals” say we are dooming the planet by continuing to produce greenhouse gases. People who call themselves “conservatives” say that global warming is a myth perpetuated by people committed to the overthrow of capitalism. To me, both are disingenuous. Evidences are Al Gore’s house and Rush Limbaugh’s refusal to listen to any scientific evidence. They remind me of the Book of Mormon’s definition of priestcraft.

Other countries, and many Americans, chastise the US for not signing the Kyoto treaty on global warming. It was not only rejected by President Bush. It was also rejected by congress. The main reason was that it would have required the US to make major reductions in carbon dioxide emissions (possible with our current technology only by shutting down industries), while not requiring the third-world countries like China and India to slow their industrialization. Industries in those countries and in Russia are extremely inefficient and are major polluters, but it was considered to be unfair to curtail their growth while they were still trying to catch up with the West.

What should be done – what matters, what doesn’t?

First, you can’t legislate your way out of global warming. This seems to be Al Gore’s solution. Requiring conservation without the technology is possible only by reducing capacity and lowering the standard of living. This does not affect the rich – like Al Gore – who can still afford to keep his standard of living when prices rise. It would have a profound effect on the poor who pay a high percentage of their income for necessities (gas, food, heat) that produce greenhouse gases. Legislating the way to science reminds me of the time when we had NSF money to build the “Polar Cap Observatory” on a Canadian island in the polar cap. Senator Stevens, who controlled the appropriations committee in the Senate, included in a bill that it had to be built in his state, Alaska – outside the polar cap.

Second, you can’t hide your head in the sand (Rush Limbaugh’s solution). If the catastrophic changes happen that some models predict, it would not be good to be surprised by them. Even if they don’t, we should be proactive about adjusting to global-scale changes in a way that will benefit all of us. If anthropomorphic global warming proves to be insignificant, we will be better off than if we didn’t understand global climate changes. If it proves to be significant, we don’t want to find out when it is too late for a good reaction.

Both approaches are having the result of isolating the scientific community from the mainstream. Both sides portray scientists who don’t agree with them as having a political agenda or of being paid or forced to falsify their results. The only “competent” scientists are the ones who agree with their viewpoint. My impression of scientists on both sides who populate the talk shows to advocate the “truth” about global warming have lost their objectivity – and hence their credibility as scientists. In the end, people in general lose their trust of science, and then even when something is learned it is rejected. The good scientists that I know are honest enough to change their minds if evidence doesn’t support their hypotheses. They are also honest enough to give anyone a hard time for shoddy science when they referee their publications, no matter which side of the argument is supported.

In the long run, the solution has to be a combination of common sense, good science, and sound proactive policies that encourage sustainable growth in living standards everywhere. An example of such an approach can be seen in the success of the effort to stop the depletion of the ozone layer. (In spite of what you hear on talk shows, this has nothing to do with global warming.) The scientists who documented the problem did so in peer-reviewed scientific journals. They made their case strongly enough that other scientists became involved. The scientific community debated for several years. A lot of money was put on the problem by governments around the world. Satellites were flown (including UARS, one that I worked on) to make critical measurements. Eventually the effect was understood and international treaties were signed to end the production of chlorofluorocarbons for refrigeration. Science responded with new substances that are as good for refrigerators and aerosol cans, but that don’t harm the environment.

Key in all of this is to restore science to a position of trust and to a popular career in society. Scientists in the global warming debate are portrayed as either government goons or left-wing radicals. The scientist in movies and on TV is either a naïve fool or an evil monster. Many of the brightest students who used to study science are going into the “glamour” fields like business, law and medicine (sorry Jared, Cory and Mike). Students smart enough to study science are smart enough to see that it is a long, hard program without a big payoff in either money or prestige. I know from experience that most people are uncomfortable talking about science with a scientist. Somehow we all took a load of guilt for not doing well away from our high school science classes instead of a load of excitement and curiosity.

The most important things we can do are to let our children have curiosity about the world around them and teach them that they can solve problems. We should speak up for real solutions, and recognize political solutions for what they are – sometimes necessary, but delaying the solution and not solving the problem. We should encourage the politics of common sense. Above all, we should believe that the earth was created with enough natural resources to last if we are good stewards and take care of the little patch that is ours.

Kent Miller

2006