Lost book by Jules Verne..."Paris in the Twentieth Century"

Steven Silvers...

Before he wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth or Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne wrote a short novel about Michel Dufrenoy living in Paris in the Twentieth Century. This novel was written in 1863, the same year that saw his first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon published. Long believed lost, the manuscript for Paris in the Twentieth Century was discovered when Verne's great grandson opened a safe which had belonged to the French author. When Verne had first submitted the manuscript to his publisher, he was told that his vision of Paris in 1960 was too dismal and no one would believe the incredible suggestions he was making.

In point of fact, several of Verne's "predictions" wound up coming true. He extrapolated fax machines, elevated trains and automobiles among other technological marvels. Perhaps even more interesting are his predictions that reading would decline and authors in the 1960s would eschew form for style, creating books which no one read, perhaps not even the author.

His world of the future is, in point of fact, the raison d'etre of the novel. Paris in the Twentieth Century is sadly lacking in plot as it follows our hapless hero around a Paris which recalls to the modern reader the Londons of Orwell's 1984 or Gilliam's Brazil. Awarded a Poetry Prize from the factory-like Academic Credit Union, Dufrenoy, an artistic dreamer, must go to work at his cousin's bank, where he is ineptly set to use a computer-like device. His inability to master the keystrokes causes him to be moved to another position where he meets another dreamer, the musician Quinsonnas, who introduces Dufrenoy to a small enclave of other Bohemian dreamers who have little place in the industrial/capitalist society which rules Paris.

Dufrenoy also finally has a chance meeting with his Uncle Huegenin, another dreamer, like Dufrenoy or Dufrenoy's father, the last great composer. Despite the wishes of his Uncle Stanislas Boutardin, who is looking after Dufrenoy's best interests, Dufrenoy strikes up a friendship with the uncle who is more closely akin to his own soul.

Written in Verne's style, the book is interesting, although, as he often did, Verne halts his (almost non-existent) plot to unload information on his reader. Each time a character is introduced, Verne explains the character's background and relationship to Dufrenoy, whether it is Stanislas Boutardin (1 1/2 pages of description) or Dufrenoy's professor's daughter Lucy (1/2 page). Yet for all that Verne describes these characters, the most interesting and realistic is Michel Dufrenoy, himself.

Dufrenoy is a stranger in his own land. Merely sixteen when he receives his Prize in Poetry from the Academic Credit Union, Dufrenoy is given a job for which is is totally unprepared. His desire to rebel against the strict regimen of the Casmodage and Co. Banking House is stifled by Paris's lack of any artistic outlet. His only way out is to allow his own inability to perform his job show itself, leaving himself without a position. Dufrenoy's understanding of Paris is nurtured by Boutardin, who desires Dufrenoy to become a part of Paris-as-it-is, and Huegenin & Quinsonnas, who try to help liberate Dufrenoy's artistic soul.

Recently, Evelyn Leeper commented that the idea of Jules Verne being eligible for a Hugo was an interesting thought. Paris in the Twentieth Century is certainly as good as several of the recent books which have won that honor. In light of last year's Hugo Winner, the Cyberpunk/Steampunk The Diamond Age, Jules Verne is the epitome of Steampunk. Looking over a list of 1996 books I own, Jules Verne's novel can definitely hold its own with some of the best.

James Schullenburg...

If anyone has a doubt about Jules Verne's writing power, they should be advised to read Paris in the Twentieth Century immediately. The narrative flows smoothly, this strange Paris is evoked effortlessly, and the ending left me gasping in awe and envy. The book's package is simply gorgeous (artwork by Marc Burkhardt, design by Andy Carpenter), and the margins and print size nearly disguise how short the book is in reality. The blurbs on the dustjacket try and sell the book on its predictive powers, and while, yes, Verne does predict many of our technological advances, that is not the heart of the book. What is? A stinging critique of capitalism, and of the mechanistic worldview underlying progress, all delivered in the form of a strong story.

Paris in the Twentieth Century tells the story of Michel Dufrénoy, a young man who simply does not fit in. He wins a prize for Latin Composition and is roundly booed. He wants to be a writer in a world where writing (as Verne knows it) is dead. He gets a job in a bank, which doesn't last long. When moved on to another job in the bank, he meets Quinsonnas, a pianist who has given up on the old ways and wants to amaze the age. They become friends. Michel also meets his uncle, Huguenin, an eccentric old man with many old style books. At Huguenin's place, he meets Lucy, the daughter of Professor Richelot. Michel falls in love with Lucy, which, indirectly, causes him to lose him job at the bank. He takes up work at le Grand Entrepôt Dramatique (Great Dramatic Warehouse -- think of a nationalized Hollywood), but he is soon disillusioned and decides to venture out on his own as a writer. The ending follows inevitably from there.

We do not really sympathize with Michel Dufrénoy -- more often we condescend to him. He's a dreamy youth, timid at the wrong times (in love and in life), and quite naïve. So in some ways, he's the pawn that Verne sends out to get crushed by a heartless society. But we can understand his dreams, and his fate is still heartwrenching. The other characters are sketched quickly, and Lucy especially is a cipher, put in for plot reasons.

Is Paris in the Twentieth Century as prescient as the blurbs would have us believe? Yes, Verne predicts automobiles, the subway, convenience stores, fax machines, the electric chair, and so on. I can make a far larger list of things that he gets dead wrong -- Quinsonnas' job in the bank struck me as silly -- but the percentage of correct predictions is indeed higher than most science fiction novels. However, I would submit that this is irrelevant, and mostly just a way to fill up the dustjacket description with nice copy. Like this quotation from the inner front: "This astonishing book is comparable to Brave New World and 1984 in its chilling, dystopian view of a future world, and although it predates both novels by at least seventy years, its predictions are much closer to the truth." Big deal. The only reason any of these three books can be discussed together is the force of moral outrage shared by each, the desire to get people motivated to fight the system.

In fact, Verne's predictions, perhaps inevitably, are stuck firmly in his cultural biases. He makes quite a number of excellent projections as to where art (music, literature, painting) will go, and have indeed gone, but he writes them in order to horrify his audience. The irony is intensified when you consider that Verne's editor rejected the book as too unrealistic and pessimistic. For example, Verne mentions several times how dreadful a composer Wagner is, and then extrapolates into the twentieth century. Quinsonnas' piece, "After Thilorier -- A Grand Fantasy on the Liquefaction of Carbonic Acid," actually sounds far more interesting than anything Verne holds up as the idealized time before "sounds gradually gave way to noises whose musical value was no longer appreciable" (96). I also thought that the list of poem titles that Verne wants us to laugh at, and to think along with Michel that "[not] even this tiny amount of art had escaped the pernicious influence of the age" (42) were fascinating and filled with potential. Electric Harmonies could be a book of poetry by Ray Bradbury, Meditations on Oxygen could be about leaving Earth, Decarbonated Odes maybe a schlocky attack on advertising (these three titles are from page 41). Instead, Verne wants to slot music and literature into his general critique of the twentieth century -- it almost works too, except that what he considers a travesty is in fact a kind of flourishing. He needs the repressive society to get his tragic ending, but a more accurate prediction, if that is how we are going to start rating books, would be to have art thriving, subverting/celebrating its context.

Despite a few internal contradictions, and the misleading hype of the publisher, Paris in the Twentieth Century is indeed an important and excellent book. This book stretches Jules Verne's repertory and reputation, and most science fiction authors today could only dream of their books aging 130 years this well. What will Paris look like in the twenty-first century? Maybe there's another Verne manuscript lost somewhere. 

SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES, XXII:1 #65 (March 1995): 35-46 by  Arthur B. Evans

Paris in the Twentieth Century [Wikipedia]

Paris in the Twentieth Century: Jules Verne, The Lost Novel Paperback

by Jules Verne (Author) and Richard Howard

ISBN-10: 034542039X
ISBN-13: 978-0345420398

From Publishers Weekly...

In 1863, Jules Verne was a young writer with one published novel under his belt and a new multibook contract with a prominent French publisher in hand. The publisher, however, rejected Verne's second manuscript, opting to bring out his Journey to the Center of the Earth instead. That manuscript apparently disappeared into a drawer, not to see the light of day again until it was rediscovered and published in 1994. Now it has been rendered into English by the eminent poet and translator Richard Howard. Verne's early books tend to feature adventure plots and a positive attitude towards technology. This novel, however, shows Verne in a darker, frankly dystopian mood. His mid-20th century Paris is an enormously wealthy society, a place of technological wonders, but, like Huxley's Brave New World, it is also a society without meaningful art. Engineering and banking are the prime industries of this civilization and, as the book's protagonist discovers, not even the most talented poet can find a place for himself unless he's willing to produce odes to blast furnaces or locomotives. While the narrative contains many startling predictions among them fax machines, electronic calculators, automobiles and elaborate subway systems there is little here in the way of either plot or character development. It's clear, in fact, that in opting for Journey to the Center of the Earth, Verne's publisher chose the better book.

From Library Journal...

Verne is well known as an early science fiction writer; this novel, which was lost for 125 years, is remarkably prescient in its predictions about the technology that is omnipresent now. Set in the 1960s, though written a century earlier, the novel depicts Michel Dufrenoy as a poet and humanities scholar at sea in a crass commercial world that has strong overtones of Soviet realism. He befriends a young musician with whom he works; reconnects with his long-lost uncle, a literature professor; and even falls in love with the professor's granddaughter. But despite the kindnesses of his friends, Michel fails to succeed with the technological culture around him. Notable are the predictions about the subway, electric lights, and electronic music. A curiosity; recommended for public and academic libraries.

Official...Alan Turing pardoned

"Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing"

December 24th, 2013

BBC NEWS

Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon.

It addresses his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated.

The conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop the code-cracking work that had proved vital to the Allies in World War Two.

The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.
'Appalling' treatment

"Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind," said Mr Grayling.

He said the research Turing carried out during the war at Bletchley Park undoubtedly shortened the conflict and saved thousands of lives.

Turing's work helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. He also contributed some more fundamental work on codebreaking that was only released to public scrutiny in April 2012.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed," said Mr Grayling.

"Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."

The pardon comes into effect on 24 December.

Turing died in June 1954 from cyanide poisoning and an inquest decided that he had committed suicide. However, biographers, friends and other students of his life dispute the finding and suggest his death was an accident.

Many people have campaigned for years to win a pardon for Turing.

Dr Sue Black, a computer scientist, was one of the key figures in the campaign.

She told the BBC that she hoped all the men convicted under the anti-homosexuality law would now be pardoned.

"This is one small step on the way to making some real positive change happen to all the people that were convicted," she said.

"It's a disgrace that so many people were treated so disrespectfully."

Some have criticised the action for not going far enough and, 59 years after Turing's death, little more than a token gesture.

"I just think it's ridiculous, frankly," British home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair told the BBC.

"He's been dead these many years so what's the point? It's a silly nonsense.

"He was such a fine, great man, and what was done was appalling of course. It makes no sense to me, because what's done is done."

'It's very wrong'
 
Lord Sharkey, a Liberal Democrat peer who wrote a private member's bill calling for a royal pardon in July 2012, said the decision was "wonderful news".

"This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion," he said. "It has recognised a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and injustice with which Turing was treated."

Vint Cerf, the computer scientist known as one of the founding fathers of the internet, also welcomed the development.

"The royal pardon for Alan Turing rights a long-standing wrong and properly honours a man whose imagination and intellect made him legendary in our field," he told the BBC.

Technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch added: "Society didn't understand Alan Turing or his ideas on many levels but that was a reflection on us, not on him - and it has taken us 60 years to catch up."

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: "I pay tribute to the government for ensuring Alan Turing has a royal pardon at last but I do think it's very wrong that other men convicted of exactly the same offence are not even being given an apology, let alone a royal pardon.

"We're talking about at least 50,000 other men who were convicted of the same offence, of so-called gross indecency, which is simply a sexual act between men with consent."
Mr Tatchell said he would like to see Turing's death fully investigated.

"While I have no evidence that he was murdered, I do think we need to explore the possibility that he may have been killed by the security services. He was regarded as a high security risk," he said.

'Not entirely comfortable'
 
Glyn Hughes, the sculptor of the Alan Turing Memorial in Manchester, said it was "very gratifying" that he had finally been pardoned.

"When we set out to try and make him famous - get him recognised - it was really difficult to collect money," he said.

"None of the big computer companies would stump up a penny for a memorial. They perhaps would now - we've come a very long way."

But he said he was "not entirely comfortable" that Turing had been pardoned while thousands of other gay men had not.

"The problem is, of course, if there was a general pardon for men who had been prosecuted for homosexuality, many of them are still alive and they could get compensation."

In December 2011, an e-petition was created on the Direct Gov site that asked for Turing to be pardoned. It received more than 34,000 signatures but its request was denied by the then justice secretary, Lord McNally, who said Turing was "properly convicted" for what was at the time a criminal offence.

Prior to that in August 2009, a petition was started to request a pardon. It won an official apology from the prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown, who said the way Turing was persecuted over his homosexuality was "appalling".

"Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing receives royal pardon"

Mathematician lost his job and was given experimental 'chemical castration' after being convicted for homosexual activity in 1952

by

Caroline Davies   

December 23rd, 2013

The Guardian   

Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death.

The brilliant mathematician, who played a major role in breaking the Enigma code – which arguably shortened the war by at least two years – has been granted a pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by the Queen, following a request from the justice secretary, Chris Grayling.

Turing was considered to be the father of modern computer science and was most famous for his work in helping to create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man.

He was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment". His criminal record resulted in the loss of his security clearance and meant he was no longer able to work for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), where he had been employed following service at Bletchley Park during the war. He died of cyanide poisoning in 1954, aged 41.

Announcing the pardon, Grayling said: "Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind. His brilliance was put into practice at Bletchley Park during the second world war, where he was pivotal to breaking the Enigma code, helping to end the war and save thousands of lives.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed.

"Dr Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."
David Cameron described Turing as a "remarkable man". The prime minister added: "His actions saved countless lives. He also left a remarkable national legacy through his substantial scientific achievements, often being referred to as the father of modern computing."
 
There had been a long campaign to clear Turing's name, including a private member's bill. In 2009, an "unequivocal apology" was issued by then prime minister Gordon Brown. An e-petition calling for a pardon received 37,404 signatures when it was closed in November last year. The request was declined by the then justice minister Lord McNally on the grounds that Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence.

A pardon is normally granted only when the person is innocent of the offence and where a request has been made by someone with a vested interest, such as a family member. On this occasion, a pardon has been issued without either requirement being met.

There was mixed reaction to the announcement. Iain Standen, chief executive of the Bletchley Park Trust, said Turing was "a visionary mathematician and genius whose work contributed enormously both to the outcome of the war and the computer age".

He added: "The pardon gives further recognition for his outstanding contribution not only to second world war codebreaking but also the development of computing."

Dr Andrew Hodges, tutorial fellow in mathematics at Wadham College, Oxford, and author of the acclaimed biography Alan Turing: The Enigma, said: "Alan Turing suffered appalling treatment 60 years ago and there has been a very well intended and deeply felt campaign to remedy it in some way. Unfortunately, I cannot feel that such a 'pardon' embodies any good legal principle. If anything, it suggests that a sufficiently valuable individual should be above the law which applies to everyone else.

"It's far more important that in the 30 years since I brought the story to public attention, LGBT rights movements have succeeded with a complete change in the law – for all. So, for me, this symbolic action adds nothing.

"A more substantial action would be the release of files on Turing's secret work for GCHQ in the cold war. Loss of security clearance, state distrust and surveillance may have been crucial factors in the two years leading up to his death in 1954."
Writer David Leavitt, professor of English at Florida University and author of The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (2006), said it was "great news". The conviction had had "a profound and devastating" effect on Turing, Leavitt said, as the mathematician felt he was being "followed and hounded" by the police "because he was considered a security risk".

"There was this paranoid idea in 1950s England of the homosexual traitor, that he would be seduced by a Russian agent and go over to the other side," Leavitt said. "It was such a misjudgment of Alan Turing because he was so honest, and was so patriotic."

With the situation in Russia regarding LGBT rights, and the recent decision by the supreme court in India to reinstate the criminalisation of homosexuality, "for this to come from the Queen, is going to send a really important message, especially to the Commonwealth", Leavitt added.Prof S Barry Cooper, professor of mathematical logic at the University of Leeds and chair of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee, said: "There was a slight worry that the private member's bill had got slightly bogged down. So this is fantastic. And a sign of the growing reputation of Alan Turing, a growing sense of what he did for this country and what so many other people at Bletchley Park did."
 
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Sharkey, who introduced the private member's bill in the House of Lords, said: "This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion. It has recognised a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and injustice with which Turing was treated.

"It's a wonderful thing, but we are not quite finished yet. I will continue to campaign for all those convicted as Turing was, simply for being gay, to have their convictions disregarded. That will be a proper and fitting and final end to the Turing story."
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the royal pardon was long overdue, but also due to "another 50,000-plus men who were also convicted of consenting, victimless homosexual relationships during the 20th century".

Though an inquest recorded a verdict of suicide, Turing's mother and others maintained his death was accidental.

Turing made highly significant contributions to the emerging field of artificial intelligence and computing. After the war, he worked at many institutions, including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.
 

"Alan Turing's Body"

There's no command-Z for this great man's suffering.

by

Robinson Meyer

December 26th, 2013

The Atlantic

On Christmas Eve, Queen Elizabeth II pardoned the computer scientist Alan Mathison Turing.

Nearly all of the modern world is constructed on Turing’s accomplishments. He helped crack Germany’s “Enigma” code in World War II, contributed two important proofs to mathematics, and established foundational concepts in computer science and artificial intelligence. Without him, the Allies might not have won the war, and you might not have a machine which can display this article.

Turing also had consensual sexual relations with other men, and, for them, was convicted for “gross indecency” under an 1885 criminal law. The queen pardoned him for these on Tuesday.

The pardon is written in a high royal celebratory register, which doesn’t match the somber tone which the events seem to deserve.  I was surprised when, in the text of the pardon, I found something that almost constituted recursion, a building block of programming.

First, the formal document declares it intentions: “to pardon and remit unto [Turing] the sentence imposed upon him.”

Then, it turns the document into the pardon itself, and makes the pardon a reality: “And for so doing[,] this shall be a sufficient Warrant.”

The pardon executes, as a program would, and Alan Turing is forgiven.

***

Renaissance English royal law insists, mystically and metaphysically, that the king has two bodies.

Its theorists did so explicitly: “For the King has in him two Bodies, [namely] a Body natural, and a Body politic,” writes the jurist Edmund Plowden in 1571.

The king’s first body, the natural one, remains a “Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident.” The body politic, meanwhile, is everlasting, “consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People.” It is immutable, “utterly void of Infancy, and old Age.”

The body politic, most importantly, “cannot be seen or handled”; it’s invisible, passed down from reign to reign. The logic of the two bodies illuminates the cheer—“The King is dead; long live the King!”—and it led Elizabeth I to proclaim in her ascension speech, “I am but one body naturally considered, though by [God’s] permission a body politic to govern.”

Now the queen, the second named Elizabeth, has granted a rare royal pardon, the fourth during her reign. Usually only granted to those found innocent by investigation, Turing’s was extended at the request of the justice minister, Chris Grayling. Her “natural body” did not even lend its signature to the declaration: It is signed by Grayling.

When Turing was convicted for gross indecency, the British government forced him to choose between chemical castration and imprisonment; he chose castration, which meant taking estrogen pills. The pills made him impotent and grow breasts. They also depressed him.

Turing was used to eating an apple before bed. On June 7, 1954, he ate one that had purportedly been injected with cyanide, and he died. The local coroner’s office ruled his death a suicide; now, at least one expert doubts that ruling. Turing was 41.

The queen’s pardon follows a years-long attempts to excuse Turing through other legal means. In 2009, Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, apologized to him.

“I am very proud to say: we’re sorry,” Brown wrote in the Telegraph. “You deserved so much better.”

Last year, on Turing’s centenary, members of parliament introduced legislation to formally pardon him. It did not pass: Parliamentarians decided they could not pardon someone for a crime that person had knowingly committed, even if the government no longer considered the offending act criminal. As Brown wrote in 2009, Turing “was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back.” (After the pardon’s failure, 10,000 people promptly petitioned for Turing to be added to the £10 note.)

Now, Queen Elizabeth II has done what elected officials did not.

The “royal prerogative of mercy,” the formal title for a King or Queen’s pardon, is one of the central affordances of English royalty. Its language is old and pleonastic, comfortable in its somber power.

That makes it all the more stomach-turning to read. “Now Know Ye,” it reads, “that We, in consideration of circumstances humbly represented unto Us, are Graciously pleased to extend Our Grace and Mercy unto the said Alan Mathison Turing and to grant him Our Free Pardon posthumously in respect of the said convictions.”

Perhaps this is standard language, but being “pleased to extend Our Grace and Mercy” feels inadequate in any register. Turing should be forgiven for nothing; he did nothing we’d consider criminal. If any entity requires pardoning, it’s the government. And yet the same government, in the body of its messenger, is pleased to excuse itself.

The pardon continues, becoming more and more magically legal. There is that recursion again: “And to pardon and remit unto him the sentence imposed upon him as aforesaid; And for so doing this shall be a sufficient Warrant.” The document only has to say the pardon exists, and it becomes real.

***

Addressing the question “Can machines think?”, Turing proposed a game. He called it “the Imitation Game,” and it goes like this: A human judge corresponds in writing with two unseen parties. One of the parties is human; the other is a machine. If the hidden human successfully convinces the judge of her humanity, the human wins. If the judge can’t tell which of the two is human, the machine wins.

If a machine can convince a human that it, too, is human, it has passed the famous “Turing test.”

The game turns on deception: The ability to act like a human, to perform humanity, supplants functioning like one. As Ian Bogost wrote last year on this website, the same concept drives Turing’s other great contribution to computer science—the universal computing machine. (Which is sometimes called the “Turing machine.”) Bogost writes:

    In the form Turing proposed, this machine is a device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape. Through simple instructions like move forward, erase, write, and read, such a machine can enact any algorithm—and indeed, the design of modern CPUs is based directly on this principle.

 
    Unlike other sorts of machines, the purpose of a Turing machine is not to carry out any specific task like grinding grain or stamping iron, but to simulate any other machine by carrying out its logic through programmed instructions. A computer, it turns out, is just a particular kind of machine that works by pretending to be another machine.

Code—whether the ciphers of an enemy or the programmatic commands of software—pretends. It pretends to generate random noise, perhaps, or it pretends to be a calculator. And since code pretends, it is pretend, and it can bring fantastic ideas to life, ideas like an accounting ledger that can also do math, ideas like a book that includes its own card catalog or an instantaneous way of sending mail.

Ideas like the queen’s second body.

“Code is law,” Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig observed before the turn of the century. Code is law and code is pretend and since it’s pretend we can take code back, we can command-Z or delete the instruction and write something better.

We can’t do the same for Turing’s pain. The instructions by which Turing suffered, executed by a body politic which he served, inflicted themselves on his human body and altered it. We can append to history but never emend it; we can’t take back Turing’s misery.

But there’s an upside to these pretending machines. In the strict domains of law and code, there is nothing but emulation. Pretend and pretend to something, and very soon you might ask what, exactly, you are pretending to be.

We can’t change Turing’s experience with a pardon. But his legacy mandates that we emulate, create, and codify humane and humble bodies politic, whether with law or with software, to steward and respect bodies natural.

According to Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson, 75,000 men were convicted under the same law as Turing, some 26,000 of whom are still alive. (The law was repealed in 1967.) We might start by pardoning, or apologizing to, all those other men.

In his poem for the nativity, For the Time Being, W.H. Auden describes “the natural world where / The occupation of space is the real and final act.” Turing’s suffering belongs to that world. But in these two domains where to say something makes it so, where, for so doing, language can be a sufficient warrant, we can still dream of new things to emulate—dreams that might be more expansive and yet more humble.


Forgiveness for Alan Turing by Stephen Hawking and others

Alan Turing pardoned

Get 'em while you can...those 60 and 40 watt incandescent bulbs

Frankly, I think they should stay. The generated heat and energy consumption may be a red herring. And consider the disposal of spent CFLs. Most will not recycle but just add them to the trash. They do contain mercury. Furthermore, there are many lamps that require the lampshade be attached to the bulb.

"Let the hoarding of 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs begin"

by

Wendy Koch

December 18th, 2013

USA TODAY

A plethora of more efficient lighting alternatives have hit store shelves in recent years. The bulbs cost more but eventually save money via lower energy bills.

The Thomas Edison era largely comes to an end Jan. 1 with the phaseout of America's most popular light bulb. Surprised? A survey out Thursday finds that most consumers are, and a third plan to stock up on the old incandescents before they fade away.

Three of five, or 59%, of Americans say they didn't know that the top-selling 60-watt bulb — plus the 40-watt version — will start disappearing from store shelves next year, according to the sixth annual "socket survey" by lighting company Osram Sylvania.

About twice as many respondents as last year — now 30% — say they plan to buy a lot of Edison's century-old incandescents wherever they're still available and continue using them rather than switching to more efficient alternatives, says the survey of 300 U.S. adults conducted last month.

"Some Americans are digging in. It takes people awhile to adjust," says Anne Guertin, Osram Sylvania spokeswoman. She notes, though, that two-thirds of those surveyed plan to switch, and 59% welcome the efficiency shift.

Sales are up for the old 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs, partly because of store promotions, says Mark Voykovic, national light bulb merchant for The Home Depot. He says his company's stores have put up more signs to educate shoppers about the phaseout.

The two bulbs, which account for about half of all standard-size bulb sales, are part of the U.S. government's multiyear phaseout of traditional incandescents, which began nationwide in January 2012 with the 100-watt. Last year, the phaseout extended to the 75-watt bulb.

The bulbs won't disappear overnight. A 2007 energy-efficiency law, signed by President George W. Bush, requires that as of Jan. 1 they no longer be made in or imported into the United States. Stores can finish selling their stock. Voykovic expects The Home Depot to have enough of the old bulbs to last through mid-2014.

Some stores are now stocking up so they have enough for shoppers who want to hoard them, says Terry McGowan, director of engineering at the American Lighting Association. He says hoarders, though, are a minority of shoppers.

The 2007 law requires light bulbs meet stricter efficiency standards. Old incandescents don't make the cut, because they waste 90% of their energy as heat rather than light — that's why they're so hot when in use. So companies have improved halogens — also incandescents — to meet the standards. The law exempts appliance, colored, three-way and other less commonly used incandescents.

Opposed to a government mandate, some members of Congress have tried to repeal the law or stop funding for its enforcement. Yet lighting companies have moved on, releasing a plethora of more efficient bulbs in recent years that offer warmer, incandescent-like light at steadily falling prices.

"We have witnessed more lighting innovation in the last five years than we have over the past 100," says Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, acknowledging that the law served as catalyst. He points to incandescents that use 28% less energy as well as CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) and LEDs (light emitting diodes) that use at least 75% less.

These alternatives still have much higher upfront costs, but the Department of Energy says customers quickly recoup the price difference in energy savings. Unlike the old incandescent, which last a year on average, CFLs can last 10, and LEDs up to 25.

"We're seeing a smooth transition," says Voykovic of the phaseout, adding that most shoppers will shift next year to halogen incandescents but eventually move to LEDs as their costs fall. Major lighting companies have debuted LED replacements for each of the incandescents being phased out, some retailing for about $10 a bulb.

"We're just at the beginning of where LEDs can go," says Nadav Malin, president of BuildingGreen, a company that researches energy-efficient products. He notes that LEDs aren't just replacing old incandescents but also are being placed inside furniture and wall panels. Last year, Philips Lighting debuted an LED system, known as "hue," that can be controlled by a smartphone or tablet.

Bozo's racist LP

"Probably the Most Racist Rocket Trip Ever"

by

Ron Miller

December 23rd, 2013

io9

Back in the late 40s, Bozo the Clown was hot stuff. He was the star of a lot of kids' books, including one about an amazing rocket. Unfortunately, this futuristic story was also amazingly racist.

The Bozo character was originally created by Alan Livingston for a series of children's books that combined words and pictures with a recorded story and music. The voice of Bozo was played by Pinto Colvig. Bozo eventually became so popular he became the official mascot for Capital Records. He became a TV star in 1949, with Colvig again playing Bozo. Larry Harmon bought the rights to the character in 1956 and immediately franchised the clown to TV stations coast-to-coast. Harmon's genius lay in his realization that anyone could play Bozo and the kids wouldn't know the difference.

Among titles like "Bozo's Jungle Jingles," "Bozo at the Circus," and "Bozo and the Birds," we have "Bozo and his Rocket Ship."

The story starts off with Bozo proudly showing off his brand-new rocket.

"Hello! Hello! I'm Bozo, the circus clown!

I'm going to take you on a trip around the world

In my new sky-rocket ship!"

And sure enough, he does. Things start off pretty well, with visits to Scotland, where everyone wears kilts, Switzerland, where everyone makes cuckoo clocks, and France, where a cute little French girl shows Bozo the Eiffel Tower and sings "Frere Jacques" for him.

He even makes a stop in Brazil, where a little barefoot kid has his parrot ask for crackers in Portuguese.

So far so good, but...

Bozo's visit to Greenland is just a forewarning, when the Eskimo he meets there explains in broken English, "Me Eskimo. My house is called an Igloo. It is made of ice. Dog pull me over snow in sled." The Eskimo urges Bozo to see some of the other wonders of Greenland. "You go in rocket ship to see big Walrus. He live in Greenland too. Dog say, 'Walrus big funny face!'"

On his next stop, Bozo tells his little readers,

"Here we are in China!

I think I'll take a ride in this carriage.

It is called a 'jinrickishaw'—-

Well, what are we waiting for, China Boy?"

The rickshaw driver will have none of Bozo's fat ass and yells, "You too heavy! You too heavy! Me velly tired! Velly tired!"

Just wait.

Bozo finally stops in Africa. This is the text as it appears in the book:

Bozo: This is Africa! Hear the jungle drums?

And look at this funny fellow!

What happened to your lips, mister?

Savage: Me Ubangi warrior!

All men and women in tribe

Fix mouth like this.

I pull it bigger for you—-

I put plate inside lips now—-

Mmmm [sound of shattering china]-—very cheap plate!"

Winter Solstice 2013

A short day of freezing rain, then snow...argh!

A long distance friend wrote...

Happy Solstice!    

by

Laurel Kornfeld

December 21st, 2013

Today is one of those days when I will deviate from the usual Pluto-centered entries to honor an occasion that has profound meaning for me and for many on this planet—the Winter Solstice, the original reason for the December holidays, though reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.

We hear a lot about miracles at this time of year. One powerful reason for this is that those of us in the Northern Hemisphere experience and take part in the greatest miracle of all—the return of the light after a long period of increasing darkness.

Long before anyone knew that the Earth orbits the Sun and that its axial tilt is the cause of our seasons, people dreaded the end of summer and the onset of darkness and cold. When there is no central heating and no possibility of growing one’s own food, survival is in question. As the Sun’s strength appeared to wane following the Autumn Equinox, people’s fears and anxieties increased as they faced the looming lean winter season.

Today, so much of the holiday season has become disconnected from the Winter Solstice, and much of the atmosphere of December focuses on what divides us instead of on what unites us. At a time when our actions are plunging us toward mass extinctions and environmental catastrophe, when we desperately need to reconnect with our planet and its web of life, we instead worship money and material things, which ironically are responsible for this disastrous course.

As an actress, I had a lot of outdoor performing gigs this year, and one of the benefits of this was the chance to reconnect with our planet and its seasonal rhythms. From rehearsing in winter coats in early spring, waiting impatiently for the warmth and the budding of new leaves, to all-day Renaissance fairs at the height of the Sun’s power, to an outdoor film set for three days in bright sunlight and 95-degree temperatures, to five weeks at a Halloween theme park along a trail, watching nature slowly go into dormancy, I experienced the year and each season of it vividly, profoundly, and powerfully.

The death part of the cycle, from late September to early November, was more serene than scary. Even though I was dressed as a ghost with white face paint along a haunted trail full of animatronics and fake monsters, what was most real was the sense of Earth going to sleep, which I could actually feel as I sat on the ground waiting to jump out and scare the next person.

When one has the opportunity to be one with nature, to feel the seasonal changes on a deep, intuitive level, it becomes a lot harder to take part in activities that harm the precious Earth with which we bonded.

That is why our society and so many people could benefit from celebrating the seasons as a way to understand, not just on a rational level, but on an experiential one, that we are not separate from the Earth, that, as one song states, “We live as she lives; we die as she dies.”

Myths and symbolism are another path toward attaining that understanding. Even though we know the Sun doesn’t change on our shortest day, the ancient story in which the Sun dies only to be reborn and begin a new cycle at the Winter Solstice, speaks powerfully to us with hope, affirming that there is no end to life, only an end to one cycle and the beginning of another.

An old Jewish legend says that Adam and Eve were created at the Autumnal Equinox, when the lengths of day and night were equal. However, they soon noticed that the daylight was diminishing more and more, and they began to seriously fear that the Sun would die, and the world would once again be plunged into formlessness and void.

When it appeared things couldn’t get any worse, Adam desperately prayed to God, who responded by telling him, wait and watch for three days, and after that, celebrate for seven days. He didn’t know what that meant but followed God’s instructions anyway. And on those three days, the Sun appeared to stand still, its southward movement stopped.

On the fourth day, the miracle happened. The Sun began to move again, but this time, it reversed course, moving northward. The days began getting longer. And Adam and Eve understood that the path of the Sun is a cycle, and such is the way of the world. And they celebrated for seven days, as people have done for thousands of years to this very day.

I am not a creationist or literal believer in the Bible or in any myth, but at the same time, I recognize symbolic truth hidden in these stories. From the beginning, human beings experienced the increasing darkness in fall, and felt the anticipatory terror followed by intense joy when the Sun appeared to return, bringing new light and warmth, the promise of spring.

Twenty-first century humans can be scientifically literate and still retain spirituality, the sense of the transcendent. Celebrating the Winter Solstice offers us this gift. To truly receive it, we need to get out of the malls and step into nature.

As our ecosystems face unprecedented collapse, as our planet faces the increasing perils of global warming and toxic pollution, we would do well to remember this, to understand beyond words that we are a part of the web of life and that whatever we do to that web, we do to ourselves.

“We’ll count all our blessings while the Mother lays down
With snow as her blanket, covering the ground.
Thanks to the Mother for the joy that she brings;
She’ll waken to warm us again in the Spring.” 

from 

“A Fire Is Burning,” a Winter Solstice song

"Star of Bethlehem"...literary device

"Star of Bethlehem a literary creation, says Ohio State physics scholar"

by

JoAnne Viviano

 December 20th, 2013

The Columbus Dispatch

Aaron Adair received his first taste of the Star of Bethlehem mystery when he worked as a planetarium-show presenter while an undergraduate student at Michigan State University.

A decade later, after exploring dozens of star theories dating back centuries, he’s a skeptic.

In the newly published The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View, the Ohio State University scholar says the star was most likely the literary creation of the author of the Gospel of Matthew, meant to convey a message of salvation.

None of the other hypotheses he has encountered can explain it, Adair said, and at least one — that the star was a “fantastic” conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in either 3 or 2 B.C. — would have to change history to fit the story.

“I found out that pretty much all the hypotheses failed to really conform to what the Gospel actually said,” noted Adair, who has a master’s degree in physics and a doctorate in physics education at Ohio State.

The story, told only in Matthew, says the star appeared upon Jesus’ birth and guided wise men, or magi, from the East to worship him.

“A lot of the literature of the time is ultimately not to say what happened but is ultimately some sort of symbolic tale,” Adair said. “It’s supposed to be an important legend or myth that ... tries to explain points of theology in the way of storytelling.”

The so-called star, from early on, was thought to have been something other than a star as we now define it, said the Rev. Scott Carl, an assistant professor of Scripture at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Various theories have been presented, from a super nova to a comet to some sort of planetary motion, said Carl, a Catholic priest who said he has not read Adair’s book.

“There are also some who will say, given its nature, perhaps it wasn’t a star as such or even something with a naturalistic explanation,” he said. “Perhaps it was an angel or perhaps a coordination that started as a natural formation, then an angel assisted.”

Some scholars, he said, are reconsidering the date of death for Herod the Great, who ruled over the Jews at the time of Jesus’ birth. He is widely believed to have died in 4 B.C., but there is some research into whether he died three years earlier, a change that also would change the year of Jesus’ birth and give more credence to planetary explanations for the star.

Carl said he’s inclined to believe that something unusual attracted the magi, and he believes theologians and other researchers should “at least keep the question open.”

“To say it’s something that’s solved, that would be too neat,” he said. “We should be careful not to make absolute opinions in matters that we don’t have as much data as we’d like to make such judgments.”
Brett Ellman, an associate professor of physics and planetarium director at Kent State University, said the fact that the star in Matthew is not referenced in any of the other Gospels leaves researchers ill-equipped.

“Since there is very little ‘evidence’ to go by ... there seems to me to be no reliable way to ever really account for either its cause or, indeed, its reality,” he said.

“Of course, matters of religion are often outside the purview of science — if one chooses to believe in something based on faith, they generally do not require a real-world explanation.”

Ellman said he is not familiar with Adair’s work but that the so-called star certainly could have been an allegory used as a teaching or mnemonic tool for early adherents to Christianity.

“Just as it might have been many other things,” he added. “There is nothing like a lack of evidence to generate a plethora of theories.”

Although Adair said his theory might upset some believers, others came to the same conclusion years ago, and he’s simply trying to encourage the scientific community to catch up. He’s not a believer himself, but it is not his goal to undercut religion with his book, he said. “Saying one particular story is false hardly proves the non-existence of any God.

“It’s a way of reimagining the faith and getting back to something a little more original, re-understanding the intent of the author rather than imposing what many moderns want — that they want every i dotted and t crossed about what really happened, and if anything is false to throw the thing away,” he said.

Regardless of the explanation, Carl said, the Gospel story of the magi following a star to find the newborn Christ gives the sense that Jesus, being adored by non-Israelites, is a universal king “ for all people,” not just the Jews.

“I hope our ongoing pondering of the star helps people to receive the invitation to see this newborn king and his importance in their lives,” he said.

 The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View

by

Aaron Adair

ISBN-10: 0956694861
ISBN-13: 978-0956694867

Interview...

"Star of Bethlehem"...astronomical data

Chinese "wise men"?

Japanese comfort women and a statue representing same

Does this involve political correctness or finger pointing for an admitted practice that the Japanese would rather forget? An assuagement of male combatants' horrors of war is morally unacceptable--but it did happen and probably still happens.

"Japanese politicians want Glendale's 'comfort women' statue removed"

by

Brittany Levine

December 19th, 2013

latimes.com

Three members of Japan's House of Representatives called on Glendale to remove an 1,100-pound statue honoring an estimated 80,000 to 200,000 "comfort women" from Korea, China and other countries who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during World War II.

The trio, Mio Sugita of the Hyogo Prefecture, Yuzuru Nishida of Chiba, and Hiromu Nakamaru of Hiroshima, are members of the Japan Restoration Party, a 1-year-old conservative political party that prefers a smaller central government, tax cuts and a hard-line approach to national security.

The group was on a two-day study mission in the Los Angeles area regarding the controversial memorial in Glendale's Central Park, the Glendale News-Press reported.

The group shared their perspectives on Tuesday through a translator, Koichi Mera, the president of the Study Group for Japan's Rebirth, an organization based in Los Angeles, at a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

"The news that the statue was installed made a big noise in Japan," Nishida said, as it describes the women as sex slaves. "That hurts Japan's honor."

Glendale erected the roughly $30,000 statue, which was paid for by Korean groups, in July, and a wave of controversy followed. City officials received thousands of letters from Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans opposing the statue.

Many former comfort women have publicly shared disturbing stories of their servitude and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs says on its website that some women based in war-area brothels were "deprived of their freedom and had to endure misery."

But statue opponents, including the three Japanese politicians, say the women acted willingly and claim the estimated number of comfort women is greatly inflated.

In addition to calling for the Glendale statue's removal, the Japanese politicians also said they wanted the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to revise its account of the comfort women system and for their colleagues in Parliament to retract an apology to comfort women made by Japanese officials in the 1990s.

The politicians' party holds a handful of seats in Japan's upper and lower houses of the National Diet and it's unclear how much traction their requests would actually receive. Their ideas have yet to be debated in open session, the representatives said.

As the politicians aim to change Japanese policy regarding comfort women, Korean American lobbyists are working on installing more statues in the U.S. to increase awareness about the history of the women as well as encourage the Japanese government to pen an official resolution of apology.

The politicians visited the statue in Glendale, which features a young woman in Korean dress sitting next to an empty chair, and met with Japanese Americans to discuss the "comfort women" issue during their trip.

They met with a Japanese veteran who opposed a similar statue proposed in Buena Park—which failed to gain support from the City Council there—as well as two Japanese American groups that supported the statue, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress and the San Fernando Valley Japanese American Citizens League.

"They wanted to say this is an issue for Japan, that it's not an international issue, but that's not the way the rest of the world is looking at it," Kathy Masaoka, co-chair of Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, said during a phone interview after their meeting. "It's too late for that."
Masaoka said she was concerned that the controversy will not be resolved if Japanese politicians continue to oppose increasing awareness of "comfort women."

Although Glendale Mayor Dave Weaver has said he regretted that the city installed the statue, four other members of the City Council said they continue to support it and don't plan to remove it.