RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,215
('Rahway Logic')
I'm a few days late here with
this new chapter - my self
imposed schedule took a
dump - but something's
bugging me and that same
something has kept me
shying away from sitting
here and plodding through
another life experience. It
has thrown me for a basic,
logic-loop, let's call it, and
I've needed time to recover
the thoughts I need. Not
saying I have, but here I
go: Back in the mid 1970's,
while living in Elmira, we
spent a lot of time at nearby
Cornell University as well.
At that time, as well, the
newly-installed Professor of
Something, Davenport Chair
of Asronomy or something,
was carl Sagan - just then
at he start of an illustrious
career which would eventually
give him riches and fame. (We
mostly know him as the presenter
of a TV spectacular called '
Cosmos.' I guess 1980's, can
t really recall. But everyone
knows that 'Billions and billions'
catchphrase that went viral - yes,
before there even was a viral.
-
Actually, he never really uttered
the 'Billions' thing. It was a sort
of mass-misquote. You know,
mania, hysteria, and the madness
of crowds.
-
Anyway, let me get discursive.
Carl Sagan, though born in old
Brooklyn - of the usual 'Jewish,
immigrant, small-shop' parents,
moved as a youngster, and grew
up and attended the local high
school : that would be Rahway,
NJ, and Rahway High School,
specifically. He grew up at 307,
I think it was, Bryant Street. A
nice, white house. Rahway was
then described as the 'typical'
example of a dying, industrial
town - it still had the rails, but
the manufacturing base was
gone. Coat factories, publishers,
chemicals, paints, machine shops,
etc., all of them had died off, or
were dwindling. Route One and
its truck traffic, a nearness to the
airports, and turnpike and access
to NYC were not enough to keep
it prospering. It began floundering,
and its post WWII profile was
not well. Typical, as well, of most
of NJ's old, urban towns, blacks
and newly immigrated sub-classes
had the town, essentially, surrendered
to them. The old housing stock
decayed, the moribund ethos of
standard dependency and government
welfares took over - assistance,
relief, and old-urban decay ruled.
-
When you get to 'textbook' Civics
America, none of this stuff was ever
to have happened. Poor planning on
the part of the founders, that. I actually
don't think they ever planned for the
sorts of greed and rapacious pillage
by which the business enterprises,
once-established in the corridors of
old-America power. They didn't plan
for it because it was way outside of
their horizons, realizings, and their
imaginings back then. In any case,
such as it went Rahway was doomed.
But this Carl Sagan kid became the
stand-out Science-type genius of
the school. I won't go one, you can
look it up yourselves if need be. By
our time of hanging out around
Cornell, he was in place and
starting his roll.
-
The point I'm trying to get to, and
my reason for this diversion, is to
bring this chapter to the thematic of
of illogic of logic. I mean that, and
totally. If, as a person, one decides
to live 'logically' - with all the
deducements and conclusions that
'Science' brings (as often as not cold,
dumb, and stupid enough), Science
also demands that - for proof of
one's postulate - examples must
be provided. So here I go.
-
I've never been a science type, nor
logical. I've always traveled the
artistic, creative, road, intuitive,
even iconoclastic. Devil ahead and
the rest be damned. Programs and
formulas have always bored the
hell of me like tits on a Greek
statue. I shoot, and then check
the aim. Maybe's that's reverse
logic, but it doesn't win you any
prizes. In that vein, I've spent
much of my intellectual life,
what there was of it, filtering
among the dross. Working among
those who labor. None of that
ivory-tower bullshit for me; the
interior and legalistic problems,
and prospects, of academia,
science, medicine, discovery,
practicality, usefulness and
utility have never been my
wont. I'd always have rathered
raping Lucretia than discussing
her finer points. (You can look
that up too, if you're interested.
Type in 'The Rape of Lucretia').
-
Sagan left Rahway High School
as their very own, first, modern
Science superstar. The emphasis
there is on STAR, for that's where
his main bent went - Astronomy.
Conjectural, planetary, cosmic. In
his book 'Broca's Brain' he goes on
and on, for pages, almost tediously,
debunking the cool Astro-concept
writers - Erich von Danikan,
Emmanual Velikovsky, and others.
To boredom - and with a certain
sense of righteousness that I find
unbecoming. He really disappointed
me as I read it (I've always been a
believer in all of that - the transit
of our Gods, the seeding of this
world, the senses of creation and
Humankind, extra-terrestrials, and
on and more. My favorite writer if\
that entire bunch is Zecariah Sitchin,
whom Sagan doesn't even get to;
maybe before his time then).
-
Anyhow, Sagan became a sort of
establishmentarian superstar, and
in his way 'bolstered' the academic
and organizational precepts of the
Authorized versions of everything.
Governmentally approved. Acquiesced
to by the Science and the Academic
industries, for whom he became a
leading spokesman. But, as I read
this now, all these years later, I see
his spunky superiority, nose-in-the-
air pose as terrible, horrid, and
even evil. He was a rational fool.
That's my stance. Here's my proof:
Pages 156 and 157, of 'Broca's
Brain'. The chapter is called 'The
Sun's Family,' and it's fine as it
goes except that just before it
voraciously ripping the heart
out of all those written claims of
ancient astronauts, Biblical and
mythic references, space travel,
the pyramids, the Nazca Lines
on Peru, and other evidences of
ancient, distantly ancient tools,
implements, and mechanical
evidences of advanced civilizations
once here. That's fine, Science
can have its rational and logical
smugness and live with it. BUT
where even carl Sagan mis-steps
here - and which infuriates me -
is when he then postulates, as his
proof, the following statement by
which he finally gets around to
admitting there are pyramids on
Mars, yet then makes the asshole
claim that they were formed by
Martian surface winds! As follows:
"Mariner 9 observations imply that
the winds of Mars at least occasionally
exceed half the local speed of sound.
Are the winds ever much larger?
What is the nature of a transonic
meteorology? There are pyramids
on Mars...they are unlikely to have
been constructed by Martian pharaohs.
The rate of sandblasting by wind
transported grains on Mars is at
least 10,000 times that on Earth
because of the greater speeds
necessary to move particles in the
thinner Martian Atmosphere. Could
the facets of the Martian pyramids
have been eroded over millions of
years of such sandblasting from the
more than one prevailing wind
direction?" -- So, Rahway Science
and Rahway Logic come to the fire
after all. Yes, prevailing winds, over
tens of thousands of (our) years (there's
no 'Time' on Mars, as we know it), can
make pyramidical, right-angle shapes
and points! Wonder of wonders, isn't
it, how the logic of the Scientific mind
can accept conclusions of its own
making to reach its own ends! And
then boast about, and get haughty
over.
-
Back in like 1974, when I was at
Elmira College, I had an ultra-logical,
prosaic Geology teacher. I asked him
once, after a class, as we lingered over
his 'coffee' (he never used coffee, but
only brewed Postum instead), what he
thought of Von Danikan. Worlds in
Collision, Ancient Astronauts, Chariots
of the Gods, and all that. He smugly
scoffed and said Van Danikan is a
perfect example of a person who sets
out first, backwards of course, with
his conclusion in mind and then, in
order to make it work, writes the
entire rest of the book selectively
presenting material to then fit the
conclusion, pre-ordained.' Obviously,
the man disliked Erich von Danikan.
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I call it Rahway Logic.
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