Childhoods End

Arthur C. Clarke the great SF writer who put the 'science' into science fiction has passed on. He was a humanist who believed in the spirit of man. I got emails from Clarke because he supported the SETI project.

In 1945, a UK periodical magazine “Wireless World” published his landmark technical paper "Extra-terrestrial Relays" in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits - a speculation realised 25 years later. During the evolution of his discovery, he worked with scientists and engineers in the USA in the development of spacecraft and launch systems, and addressed the United Nations during their deliberations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometres above the Equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.

Space expert Robin Scagell told Sky News: "He was very much a scientist and science was at the heart of his work.

"As well as predicting satellites, he saw that rockets would go into space."

Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore paid tribute to his friend.

"He was a great visionary, a brilliant science fiction writer and a great forecaster," he said.

"He foresaw communications satellites, a nationwide network of computers, interplanetary travel - he said there would be a man on the moon by 1970, while I said 1980 - and he was right."

Childhood's End is a science fiction novel by Sir Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in 1953, and a version with a new first chapter was released in 1990 due to the anachronistic nature of the opening chapter (the first attempts to launch rockets into orbit by both the Americans and Russians are in progress but aborted suddenly when aliens arrive, with a sense of the death of a dream). This story was originally a short story dubbed Guardian Angel which Clarke first published in 1950 for the Famous Fantastic Mysteries magazine. It is basically the novel's section after the prologue, Earth and the Overlords but with some different text in certain places.

Clarke struck notes that were poignant and challenging, as with this final, anguished question which ends "The Star":

"There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?"

May he join the stars in his passing unto the duat.

"Term of all that liveth, whose name is Death and inscrutable, be thou favorable unto us in thine hour. And unto him, from whose mortal eyes the veil of physical life hath fallen, grant that there may be the accomplishment of his True Will. Should he will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with his chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another or in any star, or aught else, unto him may there be granted the accomplishment of his true will."

My libertarian science fiction opera loving uncle Phil Smith, a bread truck driver, turned me on to sci-fi as a kid. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Andre Norton, the books he read he passed on to me. And we both shared our love of sci-fi with lots of political debate as well as I became a radical teen ager. He was right wing libertarian and I was a left wing anarchist, yet we agreed more often than disagreed. My favorite memory of my uncle was the two of us seeing 2001 together.I got to help him pass into the duat when he died of cancer.

Unfortunately as I cruise the sci-fi section of bookstores I find that it is stuffed full of fantasy novels, sci-fi has been eclipsed by the money making fantasy genre. Hopefully with Clarke's passing more folks will decide to read his works, as dated as they me be, and to begin to read more sci-fi because science fiction has always been a radical critique of existing society unlike fantasy. Which may be why the publishers like it, safe money making literature, not unlike that other fantasy genre; romance novels.



SEE

Vonnegut, Dresden and Canada

RAW RIP

Octavia Butler RIP

Van Allen Belt

LEM RIP

Andre Norton 1912-2005

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Crash

While President Bush and his fan club over at Fox Business News refuse to admit America is in a recession the economists have moved on from fears of stagflation to absolute terror;

Wall Street fears for next Great Depression Independent

But there's no mistaking the mood within the US Federal Reserve at the moment. Pessimism was replaced by fear months ago. While the economy is moving inexorably towards a slowdown, a high-speed train wreck is taking place on Wall Street.

It is that combination that has scared the living daylights out of the Fed's hierarchy and prompted them into a history-making bail-out of the Wall Street broker Bear Stearns. To put the weekend's action into context, this is the first time since the Great Depression that the US central bank has funded the rescue of a financial institution that wasn't a regulated, deposit-taking bank.

Financial markets turmoil stirs economists' memories of 1929 crash

"The threat of contagion and wholesale breakdown on a scale of 1929 is real," said University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici.

"The real questions are - which of the big banks will be next to fail? How many more banks will fail? Will the whole system turn to panic if Citigroup (another troubled bank) unwinds?"

Harvard economist Martin Feldstein said the U.S. economy could suffer the worst recession since the Second World War.

Many economists now believe the U.S. economy has already slipped into negative territory,

Ben Bernanke has likened the Great Depression to the Holy Grail of macroeconomics – an experiment in unravelling the mysteries of global economic collapse.

As an academic specializing in the Dirty Thirties, the former Princeton University economist ultimately concluded that U.S. banking authorities botched the Depression by letting panicked runs on banks wreck the real economy.

Years from now, a new generation of academics may similarly try to draw lessons from how Mr. Bernanke, now the U.S. Federal Reserve Board chief, handles the great credit collapse of 2007-08.

By running to the rescue of investment banks and opening up the interest rate spigot, Mr. Bernanke is eager to avoid the same problems he dissected in his seminal 1983 paper, “Non-monetary effects of the financial crisis in the propagation of the Great Depression.”

SEE:

Black Gold

The Return Of Hawley—Smoot

Canadian Banks and The Great Depression

Bank Run

U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone

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Spring Has Sprung 2

Well it is official spring has sprung earl. With the Liberals winning three of four by elections yesterday they are now gearing up for a spring election.

How do I know?

Well it could be that big honking Claudette Roy Liberal Candidate for Edmonton Strathcona sign gracing the corner of 99th st. and Whyte Avenue over the launderette.

Or like pussy willows it could just be another sign of spring; the same sign was up last year too, same location.

Dion mum on election plans after byelection wins

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5000 Posts

As of March I have officially passed 5000 blog posts. Whoa. 5023 blog posts since I began blogging back in November 2004. Pop the champagne and read on.

Of course that's just my blogspot count. Originally I had three blogs when I started, the other two defunct blogs, Red Between The Lines and Heresiology, can be found in the side bar. Total blog posts would then be closer to 6000.

And I of course also blog over at the Carnival of Anarchy.

So again even more Plawiuk pontifications.

Which began on the web way back in 1997.




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