Frozen Elephant Tree

The Elephant Tree froze to the ground last winter, but last summer it sprouted up from the roots.  It is a small bush now.  It smells wonderful.

Reality

One way to look at things is to lay out a concept of a perfect system, then compare existing systems to it and point out their flaws.  Another way is to look at existing systems, figure out where they are good, where they work well, where they are bad, how they work poorly, then look for ways to improve these.

And perhaps we can adopt the perfect system.  Or perhaps we can test variations on existing systems, discarding what is bad or poor, keeping what is good and extending it.

There is apparently no need to test the perfect system, adopt it straight away.  Create something new and untried.  Trial and error is slow, but this is how civilization has grown and progressed.  It is how evolution of plants and animals works.

Imagined utopias like Communism and Fascism have a bad track record.  Plodding American free democracy has a pretty good record.  Its flaws are worth putting up with compared to the perfect destruction that comes with the dream systems.

Elephant Tree

The Elephant Tree (Copal) of Southern Arizona down into Mexico is related to the Frankincense and Myrrh Trees of the Middle East. The Arizona trees smell wonderful.

Prehistoric peoples of Arizona and points south used these trees for their odor. I have seen them growing wild in South Mountain Park of Phoenix, Arizona. I recently planted one bought at a nursery in my back yard.

The Best Medical Care Available

Here is a favorite historical anecdote …

King Louis XIV of France was not succeeded by his son nor by his grandson nor by his eldest great-grandson, but by a younger great-grandson, who became Louis XV.

Here is the story… Louis XIV lived a long life and became king as a young boy. When his son Louis, the Grand Dauphin, was about 50 an infection spread through the royal court (probably smallpox). The Grand Dauphin caught it. As heir to the throne, he received the best medical care available. He died.

Some years later another infection spread through the royal court (probably measles, apparently more virulent in times past than today). The new Dauphin, Louis, the Duc de Bourgogne (Burgandy), grandson of Louis XIV, son of Louis the Grand Dauphin, got it. Again as the heir to the throne he received the best medical care available. He died.

His young son, Louis, duc de Britagne (Brittany), only a boy, great-grandson of Louis XIV also contracted the infection. With the death of his father, he was now heir to the French throne. So the best medical practitioners available all turned their attentions to saving his life. He died.

Now Louis Duke of Brittany had a younger brother, the Duc d’Anjou, also named Louis (probably one of many names). Since he was not in the direct line to be king, no one had paid a lot of attention to him. Besides, he was just a toddler. Since court activities consumed much of his parent’s time, he was farmed out to a noble lady of the court, Charlotte, Duchess of Ventadour, one more interested in children than in court festivities, and she was his governess. When the infection came up, she locked him and herself in her palace apartment. She refused to allow anyone to enter or even be at the open door. Food and other needed items had to be left at the door and she would retrieve them when everyone was gone. She said through the door that she did not want the boy to catch the infection, so she was keeping him secluded. No one cared that much since more important people were sick and getting all of the attention. So she was left alone.

The fact was, the boy had caught the sickness right off. She kept him in her rooms and lied about keeping the infection out. She kept him resting in bed, with warm blankets, nutritious food, lots of liquids, and no prescribed medicines or treatments. He recovered and lived to become Louis XV a few years later.

So three generations got the best medical health care available and they all died. The one kept from such care lived and reordered history. Of course today we know that their medical care was not all that good in 18th Century France. But at the time, they thought it was very good, especially with the best doctors at the service of the royal court of France. And at this time, France was the richest, most technologically advanced nation in the world, and the cultural leader of the western world. But they were wrong to place so much faith in their medical health care professionals.

Today, the US is the richest, most technologically advanced nation in the world, and the cultural leader of the western world. We know our medical professionals and facilities are very good, with the best doctors, facilities, and equipment in the world.

Tour of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City Jail

Maricopa County, Arizona


In November 2009 I had an opportunity for a “tour” of the Maricopa County Tent City Jail set up by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. As a tour, we did not see much of the actual Tent City, only going along part of the perimeter and also viewing some of the visitation area and intake offices. Nevertheless, it was very interesting.


Here are some surprising things I learned ...


Everyone in the Tent City Jail volunteered to be there. When convicted by a court of a crime and sentenced to less than one year in jail, if the judge thinks the person is suitable, he is offered the choice to do his time in the regular indoor county jail or in Tent City. Convicts with sentences longer than one year go to the state prison system.


If a Tent City prisoner breaks rules like fighting or possessing contraband or such, he can be expelled and sent to the regular indoor jail.


After a set time an expelled prisoner can ask to return to the Tent City Jail. To do so he must first volunteer for and be accepted into the Chain Gang program. This is a rigorous military style disciplined “Yes Sir, No Sir” program. If he passes the 30 day Chain Gang program, then he can be readmitted into the Tent City Jail.


Most prisoners choose the Tent City Jail. There are good reasons.


Instead of being cooped up indoors in a cell or a day room with other prisoners, he can live outdoors in the Tent City yard. There is an indoor air conditioned day room he can use at Tent City if he wants.


Tent City residents have the opportunity to work, generally off site. They go into communities and clear trash, do laundry, pick fruit (for the prisoners to eat), and do assorted other tasks. Time goes faster than sitting indoors.


Every day a Tent City prisoner works counts as two days on his sentence. So they get out faster.


When they are not working, they can do anything they want within reason: sleep, exercise, wander around, read, watch television.


Prisoners deemed dangerous or violent or otherwise a behavioral problem are not admitted to Tent City.


Medical facilities are available week days. Emergency medical care is always available. If a prisoner asks to see a doctor he can usually get in in 2 or 3 days, always within a week. This is faster than normal people can usually get in to see a doctor. They accommodate diabetics (have a lot of them), and numerous other chronic maladies at Tent City, providing necessary health requirements.


The tents can be hot in the summer and a bit cool in the winter. However, they are identical to facilities for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.


During the day Tent City Prisoners can go to the day room, which is air conditioned. Television is available, but there are only 3 channels: ESPN, Food Channel, and Weather Channel. An exception is the Super Bowl, which is usually shown.


Prisoners are not allowed to have any of the following: alcohol, tobacco, drugs, coffee, any fire making device or materials, anything that can be classified as a weapon (includes ropes or cords that could be used for strangulation), or in general anything modified from its original purpose.


There is a Tent City store where prisoners can buy items charged to their accounts, which must be filled from external sources (prisoners are not allowed to have money). Indigent prisoners can get a special package including pencils, paper, envelopes, postage.


The prisoners wear zebra-striped uniforms. Underwear, sheets, towels, blankets, and other items are all dyed pink. Essentially clothes are exchanged daily for clean clothes. If a prisoner goes off on a work project, upon returning, they strip off all clothing and are showered and issued new clothing. This way they can get two showers and two sets of clothing in one day.


We saw the area where the stripping takes place. It is outdoors housed in a big tent. There are successive bins for each type of clothing article. The prisoners enter, and successively deposit shirt, pants, underwear, socks, and so on into the appropriate bins, then go to be showered.

During our tour a group of prisoners about 100 yards off were arriving coming to the strip-off facility from Laundry Duty. They were in the zebra prisoner outfits, marching two-by-two, handcuffed in pairs, coming to the facility. They saw us tourists and a few called out something or the other. The loudest was a shout “Criminals!” Our tour guide removed us from the area before they arrived as he said “we don’t want to see 40 guys undressing.”


The Tent City prisoners get two meals a day. There are federal requirements on daily calories and they are exceeded. At about 8-9 am they get the morning meal. It consists of two huge buns fresh baked at the prison bakery, a good bit of meat of some kind to make a sandwich, two pieces of fruit, a snack, and other items. The snacks are something they can save to eat later if they want, like a small bag of chips, peanut butter and crackers, and so on. Most of these items come from donations or surplus. Farmers can donate excess fruit and get a tax write-off. If they have unpicked fruit, a Tent City work group will come out and pick it. Evening meal is usually a hot stew of some sort, plus other items. It costs about $1.30 per day to feed a prisoner.


If a prisoner can show that he needed a special diet before coming to Tent City, that diet will be accommodated. This includes such things as diabetic and renal patients. However, it also includes vegetarians, vegans, and “no-porks.” There are numerous special diet classes that are accommodated.


Prisoners work 3 or 4 days a week, depending on what needs to be done or is available and availability of supervising guards.


Off-site work project guards are armed. Guards at the Tent City are not armed, except perhaps with pepper spray if they want it.


Many work projects are clean up. For example, the highland lakes around Phoenix sometimes have areas trashed by users. Prisoners clean these up. They also clean up roadsides. Some low income areas of Maricopa County are trashy because residents cannot afford to have trash removed. Periodically Tent City crews come in and clean them up.


The visitor facility was interesting. For each visitor there is a telephone receiver and a video screen. There is an identical set-up inside the prison area. The prisoner and visitor are hundreds of feet from each other in separate buildings. It is planned to have a visitor center more centrally located in another part of the city. A prisoner gets 90 minutes of visitation a month, with no rollover of unused minutes. A prisoner’s visitor minutes can be broken up into however many parcels with however many visitors he wants.


A regular prison to replace Tent City was scoped at $79 million about ten years ago. Tent City has cost only about a million to construct.

Deepest Emotion

I once heard a quotation or proverb that explains a lot of politics. I have not been able to identify the source of the quote. It is “The deepest emotion ever felt by a person in a position of power is the desire to stay there.”

It is sometime puzzling why a Presidential candidate will criticize the incumbent for his policies and then, when he himself holds the office adopts many of the policies of his predecessor that he criticized. This proverb explains some of that behavior.

Similarly, it is sometimes puzzling to some how people with very liberal attitudes about free speech, free press, protection from surveillance, and so on, once they are in a position of power then clamp down on these things.

Neural Nets

When there is a network of "entities" (subsystems) that make "decisions" based on inputs and produce outputs, where these outputs are inputs to other entities, then the overall system is a sort of "Neural Network." A Neural Net can accept complex inputs and make complex outputs. In a sense, it can "think." It can make decisions that are not necessarily the decsions of any of the individual component entities.

Examples of Neural Nets are brains, ecosystems, crowds, cultures, and civilizations. The US Economy is a Neural Net. People try to control it, but it has a mind of its own. Political Parties are Neural Nets and they too can have a mind of its own, defying political "leaders" and making thier own decisions. Political leaders are just a component puting in their outputs as inputs to all the other components.

Natural Selection in an Ecosystem is itself a sort of a Neural Net. That is why Evolution seems to have a purpose or sense of direction sometimes. The Neural Net of organisms and environment (all kinds of entities) are receiving inputs and making outputs which become inputs to the others. No wonder "it" thinks.

The same is true of a Culture or Civilization. It can think and evolve and seem to have a direction and mind of its own. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The "mind" of a culture is not the same as the mind of any individual. The mind of a human is not the "mind" of any single neuron or cell in the body. Each cell goes its way, doing what it does, but the whole body is a different entity, with its own purpose and direction, and it goes its way. And that body and mind, is itself a component in the Culture and Economy of the human community. And the Community is itself a bigger Neural Net, with its own mind.