R

Back in 2007, middle of April, I was in my last semester of college. Our class council had organized a week of events that would start out on a Saturday and go on till the next Saturday. That first day had scheduled an outing to Six Flags in New Jersey. I’m a big fan of roller coasters and all sorts of rides that push your body, so I was very much looking forward to this.

That Saturday morning I woke up with maybe 45 minutes to spare. We were being bussed over to Six Flags. My dorm was a few blocks away from where the bus would leave, so I was in no hurry. I got ready, got some coffee, and went at my own pace, slow by New York City standards but pretty speedily for the rest of the world. I had already gotten frantic calls by a friend asking me where I was. I made her think I was just getting out of bed when in reality I was already on my way to the bus. I have to start the morning with a good laugh.

The bus was nearly empty when I boarded. I located my friend, who was dumbfounded at how quick I had “gotten out of bed”. Her and another friend of mine were sitting beside each other, so I plopped down in the seats in front of them. Beside me was R. I knew her from our class council meetings. We didn’t really know each other too well, but I knew enough that I didn’t mind sitting beside her. Maybe she secretely hated me. I don’t know. She didn’t seem the type, so no worries there.

I don’t remember much of the bus ride to Six Flags. I drank my coffee and ate my bagel. My friends, R, and I chatted to pass the time. We even took pictures. My hair was the butt of the jokes that day. I’ve never been a fan of what I consider unnecessary haircuts. It had been around five months since my last one, so it was substantially long.

Most details about that day escape me, but there are three that have stayed with me. R wanted to go on this rotating teapot type ride. My friends thought the ride was ridiculous. I’d been to theme parks before that had a similar type of ride, minus the teapot shape, so I didn’t mind getting on. R tells me she was glad I did.

Later that day we were in line for one of the most violent roller coasters at the park. I should’ve been excited looking forward to get on it, but I was mostly subdued. I remember feeling very at ease with R. While in line, facing each other, I put my foot right by hers. I’m not sure if I had a purpose in mind. Maybe comparing sizes, shoe styles, maybe unintentional footsie, or maybe just trying to get her attention.

On our ride back to the city we sat next to each other again. I realized I knew practically nothing of R, so I asked questions. Simple questions. I wanted to know who she was, what her life was like. I wanted to know everything about R. The afternoon sun shined on us, bringing light to my curiosity. Every bit of information she gave me made me want to know more.

It’s been a few years since. I knew something was up.

Guillermo revisited

When I started college at [University of Puerto Rico] it surprised me that a lot of the people in my department had such a strong spirituality to merely be called Christians. I thought most of the students and scientists would have my line of thought as to what God is. When I learned about intelligent design, not knowing much about it, I thought it was a “subtheory” of evolution.  Of course the creationists tried to convince me, but I wasn’t swayed. This is their chance to say that a supreme being (god) exists in order to counter the effects of the feared topic of evolution. The thing going on here is that the creationists look for an excuse to be able to bring God back to this world so full of sin and to be able to control society once again. This is an excellent idea for them because that’s the goal of everyone that has power (“government”). It’s also difficult on experiments alone to determine how the first amino acid was formed before life emerged. This kind of biology is speculative, that being its weak point against creationism. Still, it is concluded, according to evolutionists, that intelligent design is not based on the scientific method, unlike evolution. In science an observation is needed in order to conduct an experiment. When the experiment has been run several times and you always get a conclusive answer, then it passes on to being a theory. Therefore, ID doesn’t even come close to what ideal research would be. It’s a religio-philosophical analysis to explain why we’re here. It bothers me that they use science as a means to justify their cause. Maybe in this paragraph we’ll find ourselves in a sort of midpoint in which creation by a higher being is incomprehensible to me, or on the other hand, it would be absurd to them to think that such a “perfect” universe had not been created by that higher being. Maybe ID would be more tenable as a science fiction story. That intelligent being would be part of the race of the sdioesieh (that’s what it would sound like to us in order to understand) with technology advanced enough to control and recreate space-time, create matter/energy, specially hydrogen, my favorite element, and then control our stars’ nuclear reactions to form the atoms necessary to generate carbon based life. I should pitch this idea to the scientologists to see what they say… overall I agree with the religious world in the sense of promoting a society with fraternity as its purpose. Yeah, it sounds like a Miss Universe speech, and I like it like that. I like being able to read that professor’s opinion. I’m going to see if a discussion of these topics is possible at UPR.

Changing the subject, it’s good that we’re still alive. I hope this semester has started well for you and that you’re ok, even if “ok” is relative. Take care.

-guillermo

This is the translated version. The original is here.

Guillermo, miralo por encima y me dices si lo traduje bien.

No free lunch in college

A few months ago I was reading a review of William Dembski’s book No Free Lunch. I thougt it was a fairly good debunking of Dembski’s nonsense, so I sent it to Guillermo, a friend of mine back home. His reply is one of the most insightful commentaries I’ve seen in my life, not specifically of the book, but of the whole concept of intelligent design. His reply was also significant because out of all my friends he’s the one whose ideas mirror mine the most. With his permission, I’m posting the email in its entirety, in Spanish (the original language), and with a few alterations to aid in intelligibility:

Cuando entré a la upi [Universidad de Puerto Rico] me sorprendió que muchas de las personas que estaban en mi facultad tenían y tienen la espiritualidad ferviente para no decir que son sólo cristianos. Pensaba que la mayoría de los estudiantes y científicos iban a tener mi línea de pensamiento con respecto a lo que es dios. Cuando me topé con lo del diseño inteligente y no conocer mucho al respecto creía que era una subteoria de la evolución. Claro los creacionistas me lo vendieron bien, pero no me lo creí. Para ellos esta es su oportunidad de decir que hay un ser superior (dios) y asi contrarrestar los efectos del gran temido tema de la evolución. Lo que pasa es que los creacionistas buscan su excusa para poder traer a dios nuevamente a este mundo taaaaaan pecaminoooooso y volver a estar en control de la sociedad, que es una excelente idea para ellos como grupo porque eso es la meta de toda persona con poder (gobierno). También es difícil determinar a base de experimentos cómo surgio el primer amino ácido antes de que se generase vida. Por eso es que esta biología es especulativa y es su parte débil ante el creacionismo, pero sí se concluye, según los evolucionistas, que “ID” no esta basada en el procedimiento científico como lo es la evolución. En las ciencias se necesita una observación para llevar a cabo un experimento y cuando ese experimento lo han corrido más de una vez y siempre se llega a una contestación pura, entonces es que pasa a ser una teoría. Por lo tanto “ID” ni se acerca a lo que se llama una investigación, eso un análisis filósofo-religioso para explicar por que estamos aquí. Me molesta que utilicen la ciencia como medio de justificación para su causa. Tal vez en este párrafo nos econtramos en un punto medio en el cual para mí es incomprensible la creación por un ser superior o si se vira la tortilla, para ellos es absurdo no pensar que alguien creó el universo tan “perfecto”. Como punto a favor de “ID” convertido en una historia de ciencia ficción es… que ese ser inteligente perteneciera a la raza de sdioesieh (asi sonaría para nosotros para poderlo entender) con tecnología para poder controlar y recrear tiempo-espacio, crear materia-energía, en especial a mi elemento favorito hidrógeno y luego regular las reacciones nucleares de nuestras estrellas para formar los átomos necesarios que fomenten la vida a base de carbono. Se lo debería de presentar a los de cienciología a ver que opinan… en fin estoy de acuerdo con el mundo religioso en el sentido de hacer promoción a una sociedad con el proposito de fraternidad. Sí suena miss universe y me gusta. Me agrada poder leer la opinión de ese profesor. Voy a ver si se puede tener una discusión de estos temas en la upi.

Ahora cambiando el tema y finalizando que bueno que seguimos vivos. Espero que este semestre te esté comenzando con poca ansiedad y que la estés pasando bien aunque bien sea relativo, cuidate mucho

-guillermo

I’m going to attempt to translate this in another post and comment on it a little bit.

Diálogos Transatlánticos, part II

“Tarde, pero seguro” is something I like to tell myself whenever I put off doing something for a long amount of time. No particular reason for waiting so long, just laziness. Anyways, in my first Diálogos Transatlánticos post I talked about the exchange between Felipe González and Álvaro Uribe. One thing I had forgotten to mention was that Uribe was accompanied by his own cheerleading squad: former Colombian presidents Andrés Pastrana and Ernesto Samper. But enough of the tangent…

Ernesto Zedillo didn’t really say much during the panel, but he did make a point about 2005 being remembered as the year that multilateralism failed miserably. He mentioned specifically the WTO Conference in Hong Kong and how the U.S., Japan, and Europe still refuse to lower their massive farm subsidies.

Henry Kissinger was at a clear linguistic disadvantage against his fellow panelists. At one point he acknowledged this by saying that they were speaking with such strength and eloquence that they were overriding the translators. That and the fact that he was interrupted three times by random protesters in the hall calling him a war criminal and a murderer stacked the odds against him, but he still came up with some good insights. When asked by the moderator,Baltasar Garzón, what his thoughts were on U.S. foreign policy, he started by saying that until World War II there had been no international strategy implemented by the U.S. Every strategy after that has been a temporary measure. It is only recently that the government has had to come up with a continuous foreign policy.

He also made the point that foreign policy has been formed around the idea of the nation-state. The U.S. still conducts foreign policy as a nation-state, but a “historical” evolution in foreign policy from nation-state interests to multilateralism has happened in Europe. Europe is trying to conduct its foreign policy in a multilateral way, thinking of everyone’s interests instead of just a single country.

Kissinger also made some comparisons on the foreign policy styles of China and the Middle East. He equated China’s style to Europe in the 19th century, as balances in power between nation-states. He then proceeded to equate foreign policy in the Middle East to Europe in the 17th century, characterized by religious warfare. This got a sort of matter-of-fact reaction from the crowd.

When asked about how the status of Latin America, Kissinger basically defended the U.S. in saying that there are some mismanagements in Latin America that must be dealt by its people. He said it was senseless to blame everything on the U.S. That produced mixed reactions in the audience. At that point it was clear a lot of people in the audience were thinking “Well, not all, but a substantial amount can definitely be blamed on the American government.”

The panel ended in a mildly humurous tone. Kissinger joked about how it must have been gutwrenching for Garzón to invite him to the panel (they’re not exactly on good terms. Click here for more details). Zedillo praised Garzón’s “poder de convocatoria”, summoning power, in being able to get so many important people to speak at NYU during his time here. It all ended quite nicely.

Diálogos Transatlánticos

Last night I went to the closing panel of the Transatlantic Dialogues seminar series organized by the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University. The event had so many big names in international politics that security was really tight. I had to bring a copy of my R.S.V.P. confirmation along with my university ID. People had to pass through a metal detector while their bags were searched.

The panel’s moderator was Baltasar Garzón, judge magistrate in the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s highest criminal court. The panel consisted of the following people:

Felipe González, former Spanish president
Álvaro Uribe, president of Colombia
Ernesto Zedillo, former Mexican president
Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state and national security advisor

Overall it was a great panel. Each one of the panelists expressed some great insights, but what made the debate really interesting was the exchange between Uribe and González. Uribe seemed like the more tactical of the two, using carefully measured words to show how well Colombia is doing because of his policies. Having had the first turn to speak, he more or less framed the debate by listing five elements he believes a modern democracy should have:

• democratic security
• respect for individual liberties
• social cohesion
• independence of governmental institutions
• transparency

These are all things, according to Uribe, that are being worked for in Colombia. He also made a comment about how it isn’t practical to divide Latin America in political rights and lefts. González responded to that saying that most of the time when he heard someone say such a thing, they most likely were from the political right. That sort of woke up the crowd and González received a round of applause for it.

González’s style was a nice contrast to Uribe’s. He seemed more spontaneous and better at sparking people’s emotions. He was definitely the more quotable of the two, saying things like (I’m paraphrasing, or course):

The people on the left know how to distribute wealth, but they don’t know how to create it. People on the right know how to create wealth, but don’t know how to distribute it.

and:

… A government should be just like those spectacular bodies we see in Ipanema (Brazil): not an ounce of excess fat, but no skeleton either.

In that last comment he was specifying what he meant by the need of big governments; not a huge bureaucratic government, but an agile government capable of swiftly meeting the needs of the country and the people.

I’m going to close this post with another one of González’s quotable moments, one that got a nice reaction from the crowd:

A leftist demagogue is a disaster, but a rightist demagogue is truly something to be feared.

I’ll post tomorrow about Zedillo and Kissinger.

Fear and loathing in New York

Except for that random post yesterday (eventually it will be explained), I haven’t written anything in the last two weeks, and with good reason.

No, not really.

The only reason I have is that three of my friends from home, Luis, Adrian, and Eric, came for Thanksgiving. Last week was a very interesting and ridiculous week. I haven’t eaten so much pizza in such a short period of time. I haven’t smoked so much pot in such a short period of time. I haven’t drunk so much coffee in such a short period of time (yeah, we didn’t do anything worse than that).

Some memorable things from last week were our outings to Times Square and the Museum of Natural History. Going out is just going out, but going out drunk and stoned is a whole new experience. Both places have their charm for the altered mind.

Times Square is so lit up that it’s almost a sure thing you’ll go on a trip just looking around. We went there smoked up and drunk on cheap wine we bought near my dorm. We started walking around, the lights being too damn bright for us to handle. For some odd reason I had “Set yourself on fire” by Stars playing in my mind. It’s safe to say lots of lights and drugs and alcohol don’t mix well. Still, they make for interesting experiences. The worst off of us was Luis. He got lost twice, wandered into Virgin Records, came out and then passed out in front of a Duane Reade. And before all that he stole a pretzel from some random cart and then proceeded to go into a hotel/apartment building. Apparently he was trying to convince the concierge that his dad was staying there in order to be let in. That obviously failed.

After walking around some more we hit the “munchies” phase. We went into a McDonald’s to eat and rest for a bit. Luis and Adrian bought way too much food while Eric was in the bathroom puking his insides. Even though he’s a huge pothead, Eric is very lightweight when it comes to alcohol. The only thing he handles well is beer.

So a few days later we went to the Museum of Natural History. Going drunk and stoned there is a sort of intellectual trip. The thing we were most interested in seeing was the Rose Center for Earth and Space. They have this thing called the Cosmic Pathway that shows how the universe formed since the Big Bang. An interesting thing we found was a little box describing the red shift phenomenon, which is important to know in order to understand why the assertion is made that the universe is expanding. It seems the people that made the exhibit thought that was extremely important because we found the same box describing the red shift at least four times. We thought that the fact that it appeared so many times was prove of how bad people’s attention spans really are. It’s ridiculous that it should appear so much, but then again, the regular attention span is horrible.

Thanksgiving weekend set me back greatly on my school work. I have to get ready for a group presentation for my neural bases of language class. I also have a ton of homework for German. I’ve neglected my workbook for quite some time. It’s biting me in the ass now that we have to have it done by Friday. ugh…