Fwd: Gravity again

[Rev'd Seventy-Six]

(apologies in advance if anyone gets this twice)

If Alice had said "moneylenders in the temple" instead of declaring science
the bogey I'd have agreed.

I'm operating from a bias, as admitted earlier in the thread.  My dad was a
scientist, my girlfriend's one too.  I admire & respect anyone who can
dedicate themselves to that particular discipline, and it's clear Pynchon
does.  What I hear from GR is Pynchon's ear for The Art, him hearing the
pure note of science, the harmony of signs, values & principles.  I'm a
hobbyist in the comix ghetto so the math frequently escapes me but the
engineering I appreciate, having been more of a mechanic than a technician
back when I repaired electronics, and what I saw (and continue to see) is
greed perverting perfectly sensible principles for the sake of More Night's
Blood:  the lowering of solder in vats to save one *n*th of a cent, of
making wonky parts from inferior (& not coincidentally more pollutive)
materials.  Byron the bulb lived as long as he did because he was made *to
live as long as he might be able*.  If he had an inherent vice it hadn't
shown by the time of our reading in GR.

Similarly, I have been witness to the almost miraculous, nigh-on-holy
efficacy of well-made work that didn't roll off a slave labor assembly
line; my great-grandfather's tractor works as well as the day it was
assembled, Victrolas & MacIntosh tube amps I've owned, cotton thread dating
back to the Vietnam war, stained glass church windows...  Today's economic
demands have perverted the modern manufacture of all these perfectly good,
frequently important things--  manufacture whose origins would not be
possible without attention to sound, beneficial scientific principles, it
should be noted  --to the extent that planned obsolescence is The Thing.
Everything is made with its eventual expiration in mind.  To me, that's
perversion.  You make a life not knowing when it may end, so make a life *
judiciously,* don't overpopulate our nameless assholes into the seas.  One
crafts a tool with the best intentions in mind, hopefully as a fulcrum for
applied force, not an implement for murder.  Science is not the problem,
nor necessarily religion (*qua* faith rather than dogma): our ethics as
human beings is the issue.  This constant clamoring for More, not Better.
We give in to the devil and fear death (read also: the unknown) rather than
accepting it mindfully & trying to understand.  Be cool, but care?

Not a bad mantra, considering to fear the devil is to give it power, and,
uh, he seems to be ruling riding high in the saddle o'er those who blame
science when the true culprit is aVar*ice*.

Pardon my rant; I hear a lot of anti-science, pro-fear nonsense where I
work now--  bars would be so much better without televisions, I swear
--and here I am with GR in my hands for the last month.  No offense
intended, Alice.  I fear I may have been venting...
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