Weird Song of the Week Sample - Cars and Education

Cars and Education

Friday 28 February 2019

In Australia, our last car manufacturer, Holden, is shutting its doors.  Holden is a subsidiary of American car manufacturer General Motors.  It was GM who decided the bleeding needed to stop and they made the decision to close Holden here in Australia.  This decision comes with job losses and a lot of nostalgia over Holden cars and in particular, the Holden Commodore which I believe is the closest thing Holden had to the American Cadillac.    For a while, one can still get a Holden through what’s left of current stock and from used car dealers.  Whether one wants to or not remains to be seen.  As time passes, however, Holden cars will be harder and harder to fine.  That got me thinking that eventually, the only way to possess a Holden is to do what Johnny Cash did when obtaining his Cadillac.  Well, I mean of course, what the character in his song One Piece At A Time did.  Johnny himself could afford to buy whatever model of Cadillac he wanted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18cW_yHo3PY

Cars are such an integral part of our society that there have been many songs written about cars. There are too many of these songs to list in detail.  One of my favorites is Highway Star by Deep Purple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr9ie2J2690

This song, like a number of others, draws similarities between a car and a girlfriend.  For many guys, a car is a really big deal whereas for most women, a car is a means to get from A to B.

I would have talked more about cars, and songs about cars, but something else happened in the news I thought was worth mentioning.  This has to do with the passing of Katherine Johnson who died at age 101.  If you have seen the movie Hidden Figures starring Kevin Costner, you know about her.  IF you haven’t, I highly recommend you do watch it.  Katherine Johnson is an American hero most Americans know nothing about. 

Johnson was a genius at math.  She could calculate faster than many computers of her era.  We’re talking 1950’s and 1960’s.  She could do more complex calculations faster than the computers of the day.  When the USA decided to land on the moon, they hired a number of what NASA called human calculators to deal with the complex calculations required.  It is a mark of how desperate the United States was to beat the Soviet Union to the moon, that they hired a black woman for this task.  Johnson was not the only black woman hired, but she was one of the best at what she did.  At that time in the USA, African-Americans were not considered equal to white people.  It is amazing to think that one of the most advanced developed countries used to have black toilets and white toilets, black restaurants, and white restaurants, black schools, and white schools. 

Our declaration of Independence, written in 1776 contains the lofty words:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”   Thomas Jefferson, the slave owner who wrote these words, believed that all white men were created equal but black men were inferior, and all women were inferior.  It took a few constitutional amendments, a civil war, and a few more laws to change the country so that these words now mean all human beings are created equal. 

Orbital mechanics are very complex because not only do you have to deal with constantly moving bodies interacting with one another, you also have to deal with stress on the spacecraft caused by the rotation brought about by orbital mechanics.  In the 60’s, no one really knew anything about orbital mechanics at this level, so human calculators like Johnson did more than crunch numbers.  They were instrumental in deciding whether proposed flight scenarios actually worked.  She was instrumental in inventing a new branch of mathematics called Analytical Geometry to deal with the complexity involved.

In fairness to the Russians I should point out that the Soviet Union was working on the same thing and since the laws of physics apply equally to Russians and Americans (though Donald Trump might dispute this), I can only assume that Russians also invented the same geometry to deal with the same issues.  The Russians were well ahead of the Americans for much of the space race so this branch of mathematics was probably invented by Russians.  But at the time, we did not have access to their mathematics, so analytical geometry had to be invented twice as it were. 

Thus, a poor unknown black woman, educated at a poor black college, was pivotal to the space race.  After the moon landing, Johnson went on to pioneer computer algorithms and programming languages.  She was a true American hero.

All of this diverted me away from cars and got me to thinking about songs dealing with education and mathematics in particular.  The classic song about education is, of course Another Brick in the Wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U

When it was our turn to graduate from high school (and for my Hawaii readers I went grad Radford, 1981), our class was given the privilege of choosing our graduation song.  I was part of a committee of students to do this.  We chose Another Brick in the Wall.  For some reason, the school rejected our choice.  We did not know the school could or would do this.  But this is what we want, we said.  Choose another song, they said.  So we chose Freebird by the Charlie Daniels Band. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5pKyYh25nA

The school rejected that as well and took away our privilege.  Desiring students who were in line with their antidisestablishmentarianism leanings, the school authorities sacked the committee and created another committee of students.  These students, made up of all girls, chose The Greatest Love of All which the school accepted and that became our graduation song.

The Greatest Love of All has many covers.  One of the best is by George Benson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw26pG7u5ak

Although I like this song, and is, in fact, one of the great shower songs of all time, I felt we ended up with a wimpy graduation song.  Pink Floyd should have represented us.

This video called Modern Educayshun, while not a song, is very funny and kind of apt for our times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM

But when it comes to comedy sketches about education, nothing beats The Five Minute University by Father Guido Sarducci in my humble opinion.  Guido Sarducci is a fictional character invented by comedian Don Novello.  The good Father is the gossip columnist for The Vatican Enquirer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4

This university, which costs $20 at the time, teaches you in five minutes, everything you will actually remember five years after graduating from a normal university.  And you even get 30 seconds of Easter Vacation.

And just for fun, here is another Father Guido Sarducci classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWBhsiBMOIo

As far as songs go, we once again turn to the great Tom Lerher who was a mathematics professor at Harvard, so he knows something about math.  He wrote a song called New Math which is the Weird Song of the Week for this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

Remember, in the new math, the right answer is not important.  What is important is your journey.  And yes, I feel this kind of sums up a lot of modern thinking.

I always used to get nervous in school when after writing numbers and symbols all over the paper, and moving expressions from one side of the equation to another, and performing really funky algebraic tricks (I was very good at this), the answer was 3.  After all that, and it’s 3.  Really?  That can’t be right.  Surely after all that, I should get a more complex answer like the square root of a negative transcendental number.

As someone who was and still is very good at complex algebra, I really, and I mean really, struggled with Analytical Geometry.  The people who invented this from scratch cannot be praised enough.  It was hard enough to deal with after it had been invented, so to actually invent it is brilliance personified.  Katherine Johnson was one of those people.  May she rest in peace.

The Roger Stone Case

The Roger Stone case is yet another example in which many people misunderstand the real issues.  A number of my right-wing friends have expressed agreement with Trump’s assertion that the proposed seven to nine-year sentence by the Justice Department was too harsh.  These friends point to other cases in which those who lied to congress have received lesser sentences.  And now we have people saying the jury itself was an unfair jury because one of its members participated in anti-Trump events.

Even if all of the above is correct and my right leaning friends are absolutely right, they are guilty of letting the specific case blind them to the real issue.  And what is that issue?  The issue is that the President, and by extension, the Executive Branch of government is interfering with the Judicial Branch of government and thereby violating the principle of separation of powers.

You and I can say whatever we like about a judicial ruling.  We can even go so far as to question whether the judges are any good.  But the President cannot do this because his commentary interferes with and influences judicial operations.  Nobody with half a brain can think the Justice Department woke up one morning and collectively decided to reverse their sentencing recommendation.  We know this did not happen because several prosecutors resigned as a result.  The Executive Branch applied political pressure to influence the Judicial Branch and this is wrong.

Then President Trump commented that one of the jurors was unqualified to sit on that particular trial.  If you or I made that comment, that would be a harmless comment.  But the President leads the Executive Branch.  The woman in question got on to the jury because both the prosecution and defence allowed her to be there.  If Stone’s lawyers were so concerned about her supposedly anti-Trump leaning, why did they allow her on the jury in the first place?  Each side is able to challenge potential jury candidates.  The judge did not force the jury on either side.  Thus, even if Stone appeals for this reason, I would be surprised if the verdict was overturned.  Appeals are based on whether procedure was followed, and procedure was followed.

Let’s assume, as I think Stone will argue in his appeal, that at the time of jury selection, they were unaware of her leanings.  Let us also assume she does have anti-Trump leanings.  Given 11 other people also found him guilty, we must question whether those leanings had any influence.  It is true that sometimes, during a trial, we find out something about a juror which causes a mistrial and in fairness to Stone, he is asking for a new trial.  At the time of writing, the Judge is considering his application.  But I think it is fair to say that mistrials have been granted in the past when the juror has either done something inappropriately, violated their duty (e.g. watched news broadcasts and reports about the trial they are sitting on), or been tampered with.  We have no reason to believe this woman has done any of these?  She expressed her views as is her right as an American. Now imagine the precedent a mistrial would set in this case. 

Imagine, if you will, a black man on trial for murder.  He is convicted and we find out later that one of the jurors used to be a member of the KKK.  Would that be grounds for a mistrial?  Probably.  But now let’s suppose that man left the KKK and expressed deep remorse and completely changed his life and his attitude.  Would we still declare a mistrial if the black man were acquitted?  Probably not.  Membership in the KKK is more than just a political opinion.  Membership in such an organization means actively trying to harm African-Americans. 

In this case, however, the woman in question expressed a political opinion.  And now we are being asked to believe that people who do this for a particular opinion should not be allowed on a jury?  You might argue the Stone case is a political one.  It is not.  There is one question and one question only the jury needs to consider.  Did Stone lie to congress?  That’s it.  He either did, or he did not.  If we are saying that Americans who hold a political opinion should not decide such questions, we must then turn into a surveillance state to ensure people have no political opinions whatsoever.  Good luck with that.  The Constitution calls for a person’s piers to sit in judgment of a case.  We then allow each side to vet the jury pool.  That is about as fair as you can get it.  If we allow a mistrial because we find out afterward someone has a different political opinion to the President, who should not in any way interfere with a case, then it means no politician can be held too account for their actions.  It means friends of politicians can do whatever they want.  It means we move one step closer to dictatorship.

The constitution allows the US President only two ways to influence the Judicial Branch.  The first is that the President appoints federal judges.  The second is that the President may pardon someone convicted by the Judicial Branch.  That’s it.  He cannot do anything else.  Trump has gone way beyond what the Constitution allows him to do.

The Judicial Branch needs to rise up against this, just as some within it have.  If they do not, they will become irrelevant.  And what is congress doing?  Republican lawmakers should be ashamed of themselves because their inaction threatens the very Constitution they are sworn to uphold.  Trump has already violated that duty; it’s time for the other branches to fulfil theirs.