Country Pathos , Country Soul

Country parables         David M Regen © 1995

Old-time country music, it stirs my heart and soul
It draws me in its circle, my name is on its roll
Its prophets are compelling, its parables profound
So won't you come and join me, in this church of rustic sound

Luke the drifter talked to us, of things we need to know
Think my friend consider well, before a stone you throw
Watch your tongue lift up your thoughts, and gossip don't repeat
For you may be indebted to, the bad girl down the street

Acuff told a story, of one who had succumbed
Life for her was bitter, and from the bridge she jumped
They pulled her from the river, but no one knew her name
This woman had no loved ones, her body was unclaimed

I won't forget Red Foley, my heart-strings he did tug
He told us of the love that is, between a boy and dog
Shep pulled him from the swimming hole, where he had nearly drowned
When Shep was old it broke his heart, to put his dear friend down

These words of Eddie Arnold, I heard them long ago
Do not neglect your mother, the one who loves you so
She nurtured you and guided you, so do not leave her there
All alone an angel in an, old rocking chair

And give my love to Dolly, the brightest of the lot
Her mother made a coat of rags, when she was just a tot
The children all made fun of her, they did not understand
That love went into every stitch, by her dear mother's hand

Yes country can enlighten, wake up your sleeping soul
Turn you from your selfish ways, make kindness  your goal
This world would be a better place, a kinder place I know
With more old-time country music, on the radio


Click here for a page-ordered list of titles with YouTube links.


Indexed Titles               Page

Bereavement of parent
Dear brother  26
Every bush and tree  34
I miss Mother since she's gone  58
If I could hear my mother pray again      59
Letter edged in black  68
Lightening Express  69
Mother queen of my heart  82
Memories of Mother  83
Mother’s Bible  84
Mother's only sleeping  85
Newmade grave upon the green hillside          90
Summer wind         133
Sweeter than the flower         134
Unfinished rug         148
Vision of Mother 151
White dove 158
Will the circle be unbroken 161
Bereavement of child
At the first fall of snow     5
Don't make me go to bed    28
I hear a sweet voice calling        56
Searching for a soldier’s grave    122
Strand of a yellow curl  132
Teardrops falling in the snow      137
The vacant chair  150
Bereavement of contemporary
Bathe me in lilac       7
Bluebird sings for me      15
The day they laid Mary away          25
Dear Uncle Sam      27
Flower blooming in the wildwood          39
Footprints in the snow      40
I haven’t seen Mary for years      55
In the baggage coach ahead      62
Listen to the mockingbird      70
Lonely mound of clay       71
Maple on the hill       74
Mighty dark to travel       78
Old Shep       97
On the evening train       99
Precious jewel      107
Roses in the snow      116
Silent empty chair      125
Weathered gray stone      154
Will the roses bloom where she lies slpn       162
You’ll find her name written there      166
Calamity
Amelia Earhart’s last flight           2
BJ the DJ   6
The blizzard  12
Daddy don’t go to the mine  23
Drowned in the deep blue sea  30
Engine 143   33
Five miles from home   38
Muddy water    87
Sign on the highway  124
Sinking of the Titanic  127
Train 1262  145
Wreck of old 97 164
Wreck on the highway 165
Cruelty / Neglect
Coat of many colors    19
Give me the roses    44
If Jack were only here    60
No children allowed    92
Nobody’s child    94
Orphan girl 101
Over the hill to the poorhouse 102
Rocking alone 115
Row us over the tide 119
Ruby don’t take your love to town 120
Thirty pieces of silver 141
Tramp on the street 146
Unloved and unclaimed 149
Walking my Lord up Calvary hill  152
Down & Out / Adversity
Hard times come again no more    47
Hard times have been here    48
Lost highway    73
Men with broken hearts    77
More to be pitied    81
Muddy water    87
Pictures from life's other side 105
Ruby don’t take your love to town 120
Dying
Bathe me in lilac      7
Beyond the sunset      9
Cowboy's lament    22
Darling little Joe    24
The dying soldier    31
Farside banks of Jordan    36
Green green grass of home    46
Just before the battle mother    64
Master's bouquet    76
My brother’s will    88
Nobody's darling but mine    95
Plant some flowers by my graveside 106
Put my little shoes away  110
Road trip 113
Rosewood casket 117
Soldier’s last letter 130
When God comes to gather his jewels 155
When I ride that last mile 156
Who will sing for me 159
Will my soul pass through the southland  160
Will you miss me 163
Loneliness
All smiles tonight       1
Blue eyes crying in the rain      13
Calling my children home      18
Golden ring      45
He stopped loving her today      49
Lonesome river      72
Missing in action         79
Rocking alone    115
Ruby don’t take your love to town    120
So lonesome I could cry    129
Tiny broken heart    142
Too late to cry     143
Tragic romance     144
Wandering boy     153
Nobility / Redemption / Innocence
Amen corner          3
Angels rejoiced          4
Be careful of stones you throw  8
Big bad John         10
The blind girl’s prayer         11
Coat of many colors 19
Darling little Joe 24
Eastbound train         32
Fallen leaves         35
The funeral 41
Give me the roses 44
Hickory holler’s tramp 51
His fields are ready for harvest 53
I heard my mother call my name in prayer 57
If Jack were only here 60
In the baggage coach ahead 62
Jimmy Brown  63
Legend of the robin’s red breast  67
Lightening express  69
Missing in action  79
Mother queen of my heart  82

Two tools that ought to be

This week I worked most of three days trying to remove air-conditioner components from my 1996 Mercury Villager minivan -- and wishing for two tools that might be handy in a car repair shop.

  1)  Fixed wrench lever.   To turn a stuck nut or bolt crowded by neighboring structures.  The tool would hold a small eye wrench or C wrench firmly at any desired angle and provide mechanical advantage.

  2)  Shear on a stick.  To cut hoses crowded by neighboring structures.  This would have a hook and blade like a rose clipper at the end of a shaft, the blade forced into the hook by sliding motion rather than scissor motion.  The forcing of blade into hook would come from repeated gripping of a handle at the opposite end.  

Too many cosmic forces

Here's some idle speculation.
* When I was young, the only known cosmic force was gravity.  It attracted matter to matter; and I speculated that it would eventually attract all matter in the universe to a spot in the middle.
* In recent decades, galaxies were found to be distributed quite unevenly in the universe, tending to form a 3-D web or network of galaxy-rich strings with large voids between.  The distribution of galaxies is like the trabeculae of a sponge.  The scaffolding for this galaxy distribution does not emit, absorb or reflect light so it is called dark matter, but it does bend light by gravitational lensing.
* Not long ago, astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter compared supernova brightness (inverse distance) with supernova red shift (departure speed) and concluded that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate (by a logic that I have failed to follow).  Dark energy was postulated as the force accelerating galaxies apart.  It is said to arise from empty space and to become an ever growing fraction of cosmological force as space between galaxies increases.
  *  Dark energy is said to constitute 70% of the mass of the universe, dark matter is said to be 25% of the mass of the universe, and regular old visible matter is said to be only 5% of the mass of the universe.  That’s three kinds of mass and three kinds of mass-dependent force.
* Could it be that the observable universe is surrounded by a dense shell of matter and energy that departed first in the big bang and is attracting distant parts of the observable universe radially by ordinary gravity, thereby accounting for the relation between distance and rate of departure?   If so, dark energy needn’t be postulated.
* On the other hand, could it be that classic gravity is an illusion, that dark energy does it all?  Could dark energy account for all mass-dependent forces by exerting an isotropic repulsion everywhere from beyond and within the observable universe?  Could accelerations attributed to classical gravity result from shading of this repulsion by masses in the paths?
  *  This last speculation may be compatible with others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEIC42qDrqk 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSTH1o03dfU
In fact, it is a very old idea  from about 1700.

Firearms

  *  About 1 in 10 adult Americans have psychiatric disorders involving delusions, obsessions, depressions, fears, anxieties, etc.  Many more harbor irrational beliefs about racial, national, political and religious groups and about cause-effect relations.  Many enjoy cruelty.
  *  The vast majority of Americans can get their hands on firearms within a few days of trying.  Thus, the probability of a massacre in any month is substantial.
  *  In light of these facts, our society would seem justified in outlawing large clips and magazines, which greatly advantage anyone with an appetite for massacre – regardless of the NRA’s interpretation of the second amendment.
  *  What are the contrary arguments?

Ellipsoid Wall Thickness

Here's the front of our 2010-Family-Reunion T-Shirt.

It's the last thing I did before retiring about 1995.
Because of it, my 86-year-old wife gets lots of attention at the grocery store.

Here is the derivation:
 https://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2013/08/blog-post.html

Transmitter Antenna

  *  Over several months, I've searched for a convincing description of transmitter-antenna function, unsuccessfully; so I decided to attempt my own.  A valid description must explain why or predict that the optimal length of a dipole transmitter antenna is half a carrier-wave length, each limb being 1/4 as long as the carrier wave.  An axiom of my theory is that photons are emitted as electrons are accelerated by a passing EMF pulse.  A postulate is that all photons share essential properties, so the radio wave is like Alice's looking glass, where classic deterministic physics might illustrate quantum probabilistic mechanics.
  *  The figure below shows a dipole antenna at ten evenly spaced moments.  The plus (+) and minus (-) show the input polarities at each moment.  The up and down arrows show the directions of electron acceleration in an antenna limb at those moments, black for a primary pulse, red for a reflected pulse (each arrow representing 1/4 of a pulse's duration).  Note that the negative input to a branch repels electons; positive input to a branch attracts electrons -- both branches therefore experiencing EMFs in same direction and analogous locations at any moment hence emitting photons of the same orientation at any moment.  In progressing from one moment to the next in the upper branch, the lower black arrow moves up, the upper black arrow becomes the upper red arrow with reversed direction, the upper red arrow moves down, and a new lower black arrow is  generated from the input voltage.  In the lower branch, the progress of arrows (EMFs) is inverted, the electron accelerations agreeing with those of the upper branch.
  *  This diagram is a crude way to see whether the mixture of primary pulses and reflected pulses would cooperate or cancel at various moments of the carrier-wave cycle in various segments of the antenna.  It turns out that the pulses in an antenna branch oscillate between cancelling (moments 2, 6 & 10) when the second half of a pulse meets the reflected first half of itself) and maximal coopertion (moments 4 & 8 when the first half of a pulse meets the reflected second half of the previous pusle) with weaker combinations in between (transition moments: 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9).
  *  Cooperating pulses crossing in the middle of an antenna branch constitute a standing wave.  Thus, the two antenna branches experience cooperative standing waves simultaneously, thereby maximizing signal output.  The 2 standing waves regenerate as long as the oscillator is active and connected.

  *  Below is an attempt to illustrate the same sequence just in the upper branch.  The black curve is the primary wave generated by an oscillator on the left and progressing rightward (ie upward).  The solid segment is the portion in the 1/4-wave antenna branch, the dashed segment continuing the wave cycle as if the antenna were as long as the carrier wave, so we can see its shape.  The red curve is the reflected wave in the antenna, which is the nearest segment of the dashed line flipped leftward for orientation and inverted for valence.  I believe this picture needs more work.

  *  The best YouTube description of antenna function that I have seen ANT06 Half Wave Dipole by Greg Durgin.  I haven't quite reconciled his and my descriptions, but I hope to.

Photon Model

 * The web is replete with lectures and articles on modern physics.  Most days I expose myself to a few of them in hopes of understanding photons, in hopes of accounting for photon formation, emission, dimensions, propagation or translation, absorption and action or effect, perhaps eventually reflection, refraction, transparence, polarization, filtering, shielding, birefringence, scattering, interference, coherence, etc.
 * An elegant mathematical model (Maxwell’s equations) predicts electromagnetic radiation, but presumed features of the predicted radiation are doubtful.  Specifically, light, heat and radio emissions are depicted as multicycle electromagnetic sine waves; but those emissions are probably half-cycle ie one-phase photons.
    1)  I doubt that multicycle photons exist, contrary to every depiction of radiation dynamics out there.  Multicycle photons are not expected from properties of their sources and do not account for the radiant effects on targets.  I doubt that they are implied in Maxwell's equations.  Misleading conceptualizations confuse, 
eg:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpGBs307qYs ,
and:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe4j144wDJo
I believe that half-cycle ie one-phase photons are expected from properties of radiant sources and half-cycle ie one-phase photons account for radiant effects.
    2)  I doubt that a radio wave is a long unitary/coherent wave of frequency matching the transmitter's.  Instead, each phase of a transmission cycle must be a shower of much shorter photons (possibly infrared) emitted from countless accelerating antenna electrons and spinning in phase-dependent directions on axes paralleling the transmitter’s antenna (transverse to the photon's trajectory).  A well known model envisions multi-photon composition of a radio-wave phase, but seems to confuse photon spin with circular polarization which isn't spin.
    3)  I suspect that photons are emitted from electrons of a radio-transmitter's antenna as they are accelerated by a pulse of electromotive force (EMF) being propagated between ends of the antenna.  This mechanism probably accounts for the fact that transmission is optimal when each branch of a dipole-antenna is 1/4 as long as the transmitted wave.  This length relation results in cooperative unimodal standing waves of EMF centered in each antenna branch).  Radio-wave photons would be much shorter than the radio waves they transmit.  Spin is the only photon characteristic that could faithfully carry radio-phase information so that alternate phases of photon showers would accelerate receiver-antenna electrons oppositely.
    4)    A radio telescope seems designed to pick up and analyze showers of ordinary-size photons rather than gigantic photons.  Conceivably, cosmic microwave background does consist of gigantic photons (postulated to be ordinary photons greatly stretched).
    5)    Considering how photons are made and act, I suspect that a photon is a disc or ring or spheroid of magnetic flux about an axis of EMF, progressing in space like a frisby (axis transverse to trajectory) not like a football or rifle bullet (axis in line with trajectory).  Unpolarized light and heat would have photon axes pointing randomly in all directions transverse to trajectory.  Polarized light and heat would have photon axes pointing mainly in two opposite directions transverse to trajectory.  Radio signals would be polarized paralleling the transmitter antenna, with photons of oppositely pointing axes sorted into phases as depicted below.

* This model can be tested and, if validated, can provide a platform to examine and understand photons in the ways listed in the first paragraph above.  After posting it, I saw that it is something like a reversed electron-spin model.
  *  In a Science Question/Answer site called Quora, under "What is the shape and volume of a photon?", Jay Wacker seems to anticipate my model:  Photons are point particles with no substructure as far as we have been able to determine.  Photons have momentum and spin, no mass or charge.  The spin is manifested in its polarization.  You can think of this as two different photons that can be interchanged by rotating them 90 degrees around the axis that they are going.

Stages of this conjecture have been published:
http://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2016/11/radio-signals.html
http://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2016/10/electromagnetic-radiation_7.html
http://ethicsblackhole.blogspot.com/2016/09/quantum-models.html

In a Quora article Phonse Fagan wrote:  According the writer R.W. Lam, Einstein said: ‘All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to answer the question, “What are light quanta?” Of course today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.’

Gospelaires

  1.  Angel Band
  2.  The Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn
  3.  Drifting Too Far From The Shore
  4.  In the Garden
  5.  Just a closer walk
  6.  Near the Cross
  7.  Never Grow Old Gospelaires
  8.  Old Rugged Cross
 8.  Old Rugged Cross
  9.  One Christmas Eve
10.  Over in the Gloryland Gospelaires
10.  Over in the Gloryland Gospelaires
11.  Peace in the Valley
12.  Silent empty chair
13.  Standing By the River
14.  Sweet by and by
14.  Sweet Bye and Bye
15.  Sweet Hour of Prayer
16.  Take it to the Lord in Prayer.mpg
17.  Victory in Jesus
18.  AreYouWashed
19.  Where could I go
20.  Whispering Hope
21.  Wings of a Dove
21.  Wings of a Dove

Woodmont Summer Singalong

  1.  All Smiles Tonight

  2.  Church in the Wildwood 2016 Slideshow

  3.  Woodmont Summer Singalong: Hard Times

  4.  Passages , Four Chapters of Love

  5.  Preacher and the Bear

  6.  Precious Lord Take My Hand

  7.  Repo Man

  8.  Road Trip

  9.  Travelin' the highway home

10.  Where the roses never fade




C:\Users\David Regen\Dropbox\WedSing\170712\WhatAFriendSlideShow.mpg

Second-Sunday Singalong Video Catalog

Mostly videos made by Alan Nelson in the Bellevue Christian Chruch
  1.  Amazing Grace June 11, 2017
 2.  Beyond the Sunset January 8, 2017
 3.  Church in the Wildwood  –   Slideshow
 4.  Down by the Riverside May 14, 2017 (ceiling mic present)
 5.  Drifting Too Far From the Shore
  5.  Drifting Too Far From the Shore
  6.  I Miss My Darling Mother Since She's Gone May 14, 2017
 7.  A Mansion for Me January 8, 2017 , Slide Show
  8.  Old Country Church May 10, 2015 Bellevue Christian Church
  9.  Precious Lord, Take My Hand January 8, 2017
10.  Precious Memories
11.  Rank Stranger January 8, 2017
12.  Second-Sunday Singalong 2017 Summer Slideshow
13.  Sing and Ring
14.  Will the Circle be Unbroken
15.  Where the Soul Never Dies

Environmental CO2 Effects

  *  I just spent all day reading and hearing global-temperature experts, theories, observations and explanations.  It appears that the temperature history is not explained simply by green-house gases, giving comfort to the climate deniers but not justifying dismissal as hoax.

  *  Sun variations cause significant temperature departures from green-house expectations, possibly starting a new cooling phase despite CO2 rise.  We'll have to wait to see whether mountain snow caps return, glaciers stop receding, acrtic sea ice returns, coral reefs stop bleaching, permafrost stops collapsing and releasing methane, sea levels return.

  *  The deniers seem to misunderstand ocean acidification.

  *  Think I'll stop worrying about warming but continue worrying about diminishing resources and expanding populations.

An example of numerous "hockey-stick temperature histories" can be seen at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

Useful explanations of global-warming dynamics are in the following 4 paragraphs from an article:  What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change, by Peter Kelemen, in Popular Mechancs, Dec 17, 2006.  Found at:  http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a5154/4338343/

  *  For these reasons, and based on carbon isotope data, it is all but certain that the present, unprecedented rise in CO2 is due mainly to human output. But one cannot rule out with complete certainty other factors, for example, global warming itself, that could also be significantly contributing to the atmospheric CO2 increase.

  *  CO2 (and methane) in the atmosphere are nearly transparent to UV and visible radiation, but absorb in the infrared, creating a "greenhouse." If it were not for this, the surface of the Earth would be much colder. This leads to the inference that increasing CO2 will lead to increasing warmth. Also, high CO2concentration in the air leads to ocean acidification, which is probably bad for coral and perhaps also for plankton that make their shells from calcium carbonate (soluble in acid) and form the base of the ocean food chain.

  *  A good-faith effort has been made to determine average global temperature using the instrumental record, with increasing accuracy and precision as the data become more comprehensive. For sure, the average temperature of the atmosphere has been rising for most of the last 50 years. This is consistent with the greenhouse theory, though one cannot rule out with complete certainty that other factors--variation due to sunspot activity, or the last gasp of a long warming trend caused by variation in the Earth's orbit--might also be contributing to temperature change.

  *  The Arctic ice cap is getting smaller, in apparent response to this global temperature increase. Sea level is rising, due to the thermal expansion of the oceans and, increasingly, to melting of the Greenland and/or Antarctic ice caps. It has been shown to most people's satisfaction that the Greenland ice cap is getting smaller.

Growing Up Black

    Eric Brown’s Tennessee Voices column (5/24) describes indignities endured by black people in our society from preschool through job market.  White people of good will regret such discrimination and seek to minimize it.

  Mr Brown apparently navigated the convolutions of adolescence without taking any irreversible wrong turns.  He should get some satisfaction from that.  He gets my admiration.

  Racism (more broadly, tribalism) is one of many primitive drives (eg sex, acquisitiveness, aggressiveness) that were and are necessary for survival, but which are harmful in a society if not bridled by civilizing education and by law.  Patriotism, another version of tribalism, is necessary but often misappropriated.

  In my 83 years, I’ve witnessed huge advances in racial justice which may not be appreciated by young people struggling in today’s market.  We should continue this advance, continue broadening respect for each others rights.  We might even contemplate just sharing of opportunities and resources among races.

  But social relations can't be optimal.  People naturally form cruel cliques (small tribes).  These matters are addressed in Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind.

    For a bit of optimism, consider the dignity of Family Obama in the White House and the wisdom of Elijah Cummings in Congress (one generation removed from sharecropping).

My Highschool English Teacher

  * My brothers and I attended a little 100-student highschool, Duncan College Preparatory School. It was a 50'x50' three-story house.  The top story was for a never-used physics/chemistry lab and special gatherings like public-speaking class or honor clubs.  Next floor down had a library, class room, cafeteria and part of headmaster’s residence.  Main floor had another part of headmaster's residence, a large study hall and four class rooms arranged for the respect-crushing trap system.
  * The basement right contained a trough urinal tilted so one side didn't drain, two toilets with overhead reservoirs, one sink and two showers, all sharing space on a damp concrete floor with a central drain.  The basement left was a dressing room with insufficient facilities for leaving clothes during sports practice plus a dry-mud crawl space where we laid out our shoulder pads etc after practice to “dry”.  These were malodorous areas wreaking of ammonia, mildew and BO.  Occasionally in the basement, karma was balanced with a belt.
  * There was a two-car garage where athletic equipment was stacked in the off season and game uniforms between games, in addition to the headmaster’s car.  Duncan School engendered modesty, even humility; but we were proud of our motto: Vivat Veritas (let truth live).
  * All the teachers were dedicated, fair and fondly remembered by most students, few of which survive since the school closed in 1952.  Perhaps the most impactful was Benjamin Abernathy, our English teacher who made us memorize exemplary poetry.  A large group of his students celebrated his 100th birthday in Trevecca Assisted Living.  To our surprise, Mr Ab gave each of us a collection of his poetic compositions, in a book assembled by one of his distinguished students, Fred Russell.  Prior to that, we were unaware of his creative accomplishments.
  * The poem that I liked most was titled Daffodils – about items in his yard and house reminding him of his beloved wife of 60 years, deceased one year earlier.  I liked it so much that I wrote a melody and a chorus for it under the title Silent Empty Chair.  I sing it annually in late winter or early spring, when the daffodils have wilted. 

Silent Empty Chair
BH Abernathy & DM Regen  2003 

  The daffo1dils with 4love and 1care
  She set in 1clumps a5cross the 1lawn
  In natural 1scattered 4random 1way
  Have bloomed a1gain, a5gain are 1gone
  + The kindest 4heart I’ve ever 1known
-- One year a1go this very 5day
  + She closed her 1eyes at 4setting 1sun
  + Eliza1beth was 5called a1way

  Her picture 1by my 4mirror 1smiles
  No voice is 1heard no 5answered 1call
  Her little 1shoes be4side the 1bed
  No footsteps 1tread the 5darkened 1hall

  Today a 1year has 4crept a1way
  A hopeless 1and a 5lonely 1year
  Across the 1table 4facing 1me
*There sits a 1silent 5empty 1chair

Photons

 *  These musings attempt to wed some quantum dynamics with some classic dynamics -- seeking the limits of determinism.  Please disabuse constructively.
 *  Between Google and YouTube, one can read, hear and see every observation and theory learnable in an undergraduate physics course.  Yet I don’t find convincing descriptions and explanations of photon formation, translation and absorption – likewise with models of magnetism.
 *  For example, a photon is depicted as a train of electromagnetic sine waves, while it seems more likely to be half of a sine wave ie one phase or pulse (from zero to peak and back to zero).  If photons are propagated pulses, then one might imagine each photon produced by a charge translation from a higher-potential location to a lower-potential location.  One might imagine the photon’s spin orientation to be the direction of that charge translation and the photon’s translation to be transverse to that charge translation, the photon traveling like a frisbee not like a rifle bullet.
 *  I guess that spin is the photon’s magnetic curl and that the photon’s energy is in that spin, not in its translational inertia.  I suspect that absorption is the reverse of emission, that the photon hits it’s target particle always with it’s spin axis transverse to the direction of incidence, and it accelerates a target electron in the direction of its spin axis, the same or opposite direction as the charge translation that produced the photon, barring disturbance in transit.
 *  I presume that Compton photon-scattering angle depends on centering of the incident photon on the target electron essentially consistent with conventional interpretation, but I suspect that the predicted angle of electron departure may be wrong.  I was unable to find measured electron-departure angles.  By the way, scattered photons seem not to be quantized.
 *  Much of the above speculation derives from my dissatisfaction with descriptions of radio-antenna action.  Those descriptions are theoretical and practical, never analytical.  They imply that a transmitter emits giant photons.  This seems unlikely considering the distribution of events producing the carrier wave.  I wonder what an analysis of transmitter emissions would show?
 *  Finally, there are questions of photon emission and magnetic field formation in response to EMF in conductors of various geometries.  Emissions and fields about some specially shaped conductors seem paradoxical.  Does emission or field depend on what accelerates the electrons (EMF, magnetic change, thermal collision)?  And really finally, are charge-forces-at-distance mediated by virtual photons behaving unlike the photons we know and love?

Fertility Rate and Food Insecurity

  *  The Birth-Control Gag Rule is back.  Beginning with Reagan, Republican administrations have courted faith communities by withholding support from NGOs and agencies that provided abortion information.  I wonder whether the gag rule would survive widespread knowledge of the geographic relation between fertility rate and food insecurity.

The fertility-rate map can be found at http://globalfertilitymap.com/#4.3,20,3

The food-insecurity map can be found at http://www.edwardrcarr.com/opentheechochamber/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Food-Security-A-2011-map-007.jpg

* The food-insecurity map corresponds exactly to the fertility-rate map. There are 42 countries with fertility rates above 4 children/woman, rates that would double or triple the population every 25 years.  Those same 42 countries experience the worst food insecurity.  No other countries experience severe food insecurity and no other countries have fertility rates above 4 children/woman.

* This relationship cries out for objective, rational, practical, ethical discussion.  I believe that fertility rate is the independent variable, that excessive population relative to agricultural output and/or extraction and manufacturing revenues results in food shortage.  That is, high birth rate causes food insecurity.
* The primary cause of high fertility rate is probably cultural, a social structure where high fertility is celebrated, perhaps formerly needed.

* Nevertheless, one might expect a vicious cycle wherein food insecurity would increase birth rate. Hungry citizens bind to their clans and ignore their society's future.  Fearful leaders of hungry people take refuge in kleptocracy and neglect societal needs.  Demoralized government workers are corruptible.  Thus, societal failure incident to food shortage can hinder rational responses to overpopulation and to food shortage.

* Regardless of the dynamic, NGOs and international agencies should and probably will do more to incentivize reproductive responsibility.  Food-secure countries will eventually despair of feeding exponentially growing food-insecure societies.  That's when the population bomb will explode.  The gag rule will be seen as unkind and dangerous.
  *  The essential problem of exponential population growth with limited resourses has been known for centuries:  Thomas Malthus (1798).
However, modern urbanization might render this concern irrelevant:  Empty Planet 

Civilized vs savage societal leanings

* Every animal has primitive drives to spread its DNA indefinitely.  In the wild, those drives are appropriately unrestrained; savagery is appropriate.  Hoping to avoid gratuitous harm, humans can agree to bridle those drives through family life, religion, education and coercion.   That is, we can try to be civilized rather than savage, though tribal drives still loom.
* I often imagine societies dwelling and shifting on a continuum between savage and civilized, being pushed toward one end or the other by circumstances, activism and leaders.  Liberals typically push toward civilized, and conservatives typically push toward savage.  Too far in either direction may be harmful, impractical or unstable.
* More savage is a wider distribution of population on the contentment spectrum as results from unbridled capitalism, slavery, segregation, conquest, racism.  More civilized is a narrower distribution of population on the contentment spectrum, as results from progressive income tax, inheritance tax, earned-income credit, food stamps, housing subsidies, infrastructure buildout, public education, Social Security, MediCare, MedicAid, ObamaCare.
* Civilized is caring for future generations via environmental defense and resource-sparing regulations, solving social unrest by systematic sharing.  Savage is solving social unrest by faster conversion of nonrenewable resources to already bountiful products.
* Savage is unjustified military threat or action, also unrestrained population growth.  Civilized is mutual respect among individuals and groups different by race, language, myth or geography -- eventually responsible family planning.
  * Civilized is aesthetic leisure activities but condemnation of opulence.   Savage may be more attractive and satisfying than civilized, judging from the popularity of brutal sports, McMansions and shopping.
* Savage is believing that the poor need more suffering to incentivize responsibility.  Civilized is seeking the least suffering consistent with satisfying society’s needs.
  * Civilized is curiosity, insatiable quest for objective truth.  Savage is certainty, satisfaction with myth or conventional wisdom.
  * Civilized are Richard Feynman and the Obama family.  Savage are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and DJ Trump.

Courage needed for dangerous times

 * Thirty years ago I wrote a song, Three-star woman, lamenting my mediocrity.  In retirement, though, I’ve been a successful advocate and facilitator of recreational culture.  On my death bed, I’ll take comfort in that modest contribution to civilization.

 * What signature accomplishments will comfort Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker on their death beds?  Will they be proud of silently allowing their party to be infected by the hateful lies of Rush Limbaugh and his imitators at Fox News and Breitbart?  Will they be proud of repealing Obamacare, forcing their neighbors to watch loved ones suffer and die unnecessarily or be impoverished by medical expense?  How will they view scuttling the Iran nuclear deal or the Cuba opening?

 * Will they be proud of supporting a delusional Republican sociopath in the oval office?  Have they consulted the American Psychiatric Association on the risk of the nuclear button being in reach of a mercurial, sensationalistic, resentful narcissist incapable of empathy, remorse or embarrassment?