Medium Low

I was once married to a woman from a military family. Just as we were parting, her father was retiring as a lieutenant general (that's three stars) in the US Army.

The US military prides itself on being "professional", which in the military context means largely immune to the immediate external politics of their country. Examples of non-professional military organizations would be one loyal to a dictator or one in which promotions were largely governed by nepotism. However, that's not to say the US military is not political. To be promoted to 1-star general or above, one must be nominated by the President (on recommendation of a military promotion board) and then confirmed by the Senate. While this is apparently often a smooth process and the President and Senate follow the recommendations of the promotion board, that's not always the case.

In addition, the higher up one rises the fewer positions there are available into which one could be promoted. It's not a matter purely of rank. By tradition, the very uppermost positions are always filled by officers from particular specialties. For example, the head of battle strategy will always be an officer who rose through the ranks of the infantry, not an officer who spent his career in logistics.

Finally, the military has an "up or out" policy. There is a period of time after one's previous promotion when one is eligible for one's next promotion, the specific period depends on the rank. If you are promoted before that time, you are "below the zone", during that time, "in the zone" and beyond that period "above the zone". You only get one shot at "above the zone". If you are not promoted that year (only 3% of officers not promoted in the zone are promoted above the zone), you must retire.

In the case of my former father-in-law, there were only two jobs left for him to take and the then-occupants of those jobs showed no signs of leaving. So he retired because there was nowhere for him to advance in the army (a funny aside - he was quite worried about what kind of civilian job he could get since he only knew the military life, but he immediately got a job as a VP at a large telecommunications company and retired from that job not too many years later as a very wealthy man).

All of this brings me to a subject in the news today: the replacement of Gen. Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ever since knowing my former father-in-law and watching the end stages of his army career, I always have sympathy for people in Gen. Pace's position. Such a person has spent his whole life playing the game well to rise to that position. It is purely by chance that one would happen to rise to the top position during any particular war, and it seems to me especially bad luck to reach that point in the middle of an especially unsuccessful and wrong-headed war. I can't help but feel sad for the guy.

In addition to our *ahem* intellectual pursuits, several Medium Low contributors devote much of their leisure time to unreasonably difficult endurance events such as trans-Europe bike tours, RAMROD and Ironman Canada. Personally, I enjoy the process of planning and training for an event and observing how my body adapts and changes over time. However, the culture of recreational athletics, in particular the gym, never ceases to embarrass me. A regular topic of conversation at the Medium Low headquarters is the general ridiculousness of American culture, and I believe that the Range of Motion (ROM) exercise machine is about as excellent an example of ridiculousness that you’re likely to find. First of all, look at the thing. It’s, I don’t know how to describe it, a weird hybrid of some sort of bondage device and a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption. Even better is the workout plan—4 minutes per day! Evidently 4 minutes on the ROM provides the same benefit as up to 45 minutes of running, 45 minutes of weight training and 20 minutes of stretching. All for $14615. And to think of all that time I’ve wasted on long bike rides and runs.

This post is about a year out of date, but hey, I’ve been a busy graduate student! I can only claim to understand the underlying mathematics at the shallowest level but I am fascinated by modern physics. I recall reading articles about the observations of the Bullet Cluster in the popular media a year or so ago but at the time the implications and importance of the discovery were not obvious (at least to me). I’ve taken advantage of my summer vacation by spending a lot of time reading and today I discovered this blog entry that describes the observations of the Bullet Cluster and the cosmological implications. This particular entry is one of the most accessible descriptions of the connection between astronomical observations and theoretical cosmology that I’ve encountered (be sure to check out the cool animation!). Observations of this sort are largely possible because of orbiting platforms, of which the Hubble Space Telescope is the most well known. These satellites can be developed and launched for a fraction of the cost of manned space missions. They indisputably provide insight into some of the most profound questions of science. And yet, many of these missions will be sacrificed in order to repeat a visit to the moon. Under the unlikely assumption that a new moon mission is not simply election-year rhetoric, what’s the point? Read here about some of the basic science that won’t happen as a result.

This year has seen a trend for large, cool cultural events to label themselves as green. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the Sasquatch Music Festival, the Live Earth concerts, and Burning Man are a few examples of recent or upcoming events that are calling themselves green and/or carbon neutral. One might argue that any event that causes large numbers of people to drive long distances is by definition an unsustainable extravagance, but what do I know? Of course let's not forget some of the other forms of environmental damage caused by large gatherings of humans. Like a carbon-neutral event that generates enough drug-laced urine to damage aquatic ecosystems. It's fairly obvious that the term "green," like "organic" before it, has become a marketing tool that assuages liberal guilt while it encourages still more consumption, however the green labeling of massive music festivals strikes me as being especially hypocritical. Any change in society first requires awareness that a problem exists, so an increase in green consciousness is a positive thing. However, the motivation for so much of the green movement is to sell things. A conservative would argue that this proves the superiority of the free market. I, on the contrary, think that all we've done is substitute one form of consumption for another.