The Politics of Science

Science is a wonderful pursuit, or so it would seem. In theory, science is the discipline of observation and measurement, of inquiry and hypothesis, of experimentation and interpretation. It is the vehicle that propels human understanding and awareness beyond the confines of everyday experience. Our eyes let us see things as they appear. We gain an exoteric knowledge of the things of the world. For instance, we all know that birds fly. We did not need to be told that they fly. We observed it from a very early age. As children we would pretend that we were birds and that we could escape the backyard with outstretched arms that flapped wildly as we ran. We also saw and understood that the sun goes round and around the earth each day. We saw the phases of the moon every 28 days and we know that if we miss seeing a full moon this month there will be another next month, and the month after that, and so on and so on. Our brains are filled with all sorts of exoteric knowledge – that is, knowledge that defines the ‘what’ of the world. The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ are different matters altogether. To learn how a bird flies or why the moon has phases requires inquiry and study. We are tasked with seeking understanding of the things we see. We see a rainbow. We must study light and refraction and geometry to understand how the rainbow appears so effortlessly after a rain storm. Luckily, we have people who do the inquiring for us. They are called scientists. They study such things most diligently and write books about the things they study. Our only task is to pick up the books and read what they have written and then we are as smart as they.

How nice of scientists to do this for us. As long as scientists keep being curious about things we are interested in, or as long as scientists can interest us in the things they are interested in we will get smarter and smarter until we all know everything there is to know about the world we live in and the universe that it floats in.

We put a lot of faith in scientists. We trust their instinct and their pronouncements as fact primarily because we, ourselves, were never motivated enough in school to study what they had to study to become scientists. We did not do the work, learn the math, or memorize the laws and theorems that they did. We played basketball and football instead. So, in the end we put ourselves in the only slightly uncomfortable position of having to trust the scientific community to tell us the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of the ‘whats’ we already knew. This is OK as long as the scientists are right and smart enough to have figured it all out correctly. But, what’s to worry? Right? I mean, after all, they’re scientists, and science is a pure art; not like philosophy or any other social science where anyone with an opinion and a loud enough voice can make himself or herself heard. No, science is pure – see it, weigh it, measure it, explain it. What could go wrong?

Well, the answer is plenty. The history of science is full of missteps and erroneous assumptions. Take the Flu for instance; the word flu comes from the Italian word ‘influenza’. In the 15^th and 16^th centuries scientists were certain that the pandemics caused by the flu were really caused by the particular alignment of the stars. Stars and their alignment were blamed or credited with controlling almost everything in those days and expressions of that idea still linger with us today in the form of expressions like “you can’t change your stars’ or ‘it is written in the stars’. We commonly use the word ‘lunacy to describe the crazy behavior of certain individuals. The word ’lunacy comes from ‘luna’ or ‘the moon’. It was believed for many many years that a full moon caused aberrant behavior in certain people. Back to the flu – the word ‘influenza’ is Italian and means ‘influence’ and refers to being under the ‘influence of the stars.

When a young and very timid Isaac Newton went before the Royal Academy in London with his theories on motion and gravity – theories which were correct, mind you, – his was run off and threatened with severe personal and professional harm for daring to take on the venerated and revered Aristotelian Physics that had prevailed for over 2,000 years. Robert Hook, a respected and accomplished scientist in his own right swore that he would destroy Newton for daring to be so bold. But Hook was wrong. So were all of his colleagues. Newton was right. His mistake was in not recognizing the entrenchment of any established concept, idea or cabal of ideas upon which other men and women base their own credibility. His clear and lucid exposition of the basic laws of physics, right  though they were, were viewed as threats and destabilizing forces against the accepted and well acclimated rule of the day. In other words, he was upsetting the apple cart.

Newton was not the only one to be so bold. In fact, almost every ground breaking scientist had to refute the existing theory to gain exposure for his own. Einstein had to modify Newton, although he did it most gently. Neils Bohr had to take on Einstein, much to Einstein’s chagrin, to put forth Quantum Mechanics, a theory just as provable and verifiable as Relativity but completely at odds with it. Irony let us observe that although Einstein had significant issues with many of the provisions of Quantum theory, it was his own work that helped prove its validity.

And so it goes that almost all progress has to first tear down the walls of convention and accepted theory to gain its own foothold in the public mind. You see, science isn’t so pure after all. It is as much a political animal as is almost any other philosophy. Oh, at the root of it is the sincere desire to find the truth, but the acceptance of that truth comes at the expense of reputations and positions of prestige and esteem. Almost invariably, each time a career is made, another is diminished. Egos are hurt and livelihoods are damaged.

Science has another strange quirk to it. It needs to be funded. You and I aren’t usually willing to go to the store and pay for science. Oh, we love the inventions and devices that come from great science. We all have computers and IPods and Xboxes and such. Many of us use GPS technology to help us find uncle Bill’s new house or the nearest Wendy’s, but to go out and buy the latest research into Quantum Transfer or spin preservation, we’re just not interested. So, how do scientists make money? Well, in the old days they received patronage from wealthy families like the Medici’s of Florence, or they were members of aristocracy in their own right. De Broglie was a French prince (sadly he lost his head in the French Revolution). Many of the great English scientists were lords of titled peerage. Today however, there aren’t so many Lords or patronized researchers as in days past so a new structure had to be created. Enter the National Science Foundation or NSF and its equivalent in other parts of the world. Private institutions like the National Geographic Society or the Royal Geographic Society in London also fund major research projects.

So now days the major task of a scientist is to first get funding. This is no easy task  but it is doable. It requires getting noticed and that requires getting published. Today, the mantra is “Publish or Perish”. It’s just that simple! Scientists look for issues of general or public interest and they write papers on them. If a scientists can raise a question or propose a path of research that might answer that question he has a chance at getting funding to study it. If they are creative enough or good enough writers, they get published and the issues get noticed. Notice also means funding and publishing is the fastest path to public funding. It is no wonder then that very public awareness of scientific arguments means great amounts of funding for research. One very good example of this is the hole in the Ozone Layer.

The Ozone Layer is vitally crucial to our very survival. It is also remarkably self-preserving and self-regulating. One of the unique characteristics of the Ozone Layer is that, for a variety of factors, a hole forms over the South Pole (not the North Pole) each Antarctic winter. The existence of this hole was known for over a hundred years before it became an issue of serious scientific concern. But, it wasn’t until we developed the ability to accurately and precisely measure its characteristics each year that alarmists were able to raise public fears over its eminent demise. Yearly fluctuations in its size were seen as trends and portended eventual disappearance.We were told and convinced that man induced excesses of chlorine gas in the upper atmosphere were the cause of the hole and , if left unchecked, would lead inexorably to the total destruction of the Ozone Layer and our death by terminal sunburn. Such foolishness and bad scientific reasoning found purchase in the public mind because reporters and opinion makers smelled a good story. Anything to scare the public was good for ratings and what better scary threat than death by sunburn. Never mind that the physics of the argument didn’t hold up or that knowledgeable scientists in that field already knew the truth, the fact was that if the public wanted research into this matter the scientific community was all too happy to provide that research. After all, it would certainly be good for 5 – 10 years of funding. In fact, the funding machine was able to run a little bit longer and many scientists found good steady work for a good number of years studying something that secretly they already knew wasn’t an issue.

Today, in 2009, we seldom hear anything about the Ozone layer except for the well meaning but radical activists who need a good cause more than they need the truth. The Ozone layer is still here and it isn’t going anywhere any time soon.  (if you strongly disagree with my position please comment and I will be happy to provide a more technical exposition of the facts –for now though, I’m just trying to make the bigger point). None of this is as cynical or conspiratorial as it may sound. We are a people who expect due diligence and if enough people express a concern about any subject then due diligence requires that the matter be looked into. The people wanted answers so the scientific community gave them answers.

Today, the new religion is “Global Warming”. We know it is a serious matter because Al Gore, an ex-Vice President for heaven’s sake, scared us all with his silly and inaccurate “An Inconvenient Truth”. We know his warning is real because movie stars said it was important and he won an Academy award for the movie. He even won a Nobel Prize for his work (not a physics prize or any other scientifically rooted Nobel Prize – no he won a Peace Prize). There were many inconvenient truths associated with the whole global warming alarm but the media and the movie stars didn’t want to address them so they got little airtime – truths about the increased solar flux and the fact that the Martian ice caps were also melting. No, we needed to know that once again evil human beings were destroying the earth by driving cars and flying jets – of course if you buy carbon credits like Al Gore you can fly around in a private Boeing 757 to talk about the deleterious effects of our carbon footprint on the earth’s atmosphere. It’s OK. You have carbon credits – no hypocracy there!

Well, things are already settling down atmospherically so now the proper term is ‘climate change’ rather than the less supportable ‘global warming’. But it is still a funding machine and millions and millions of dollars are still being doled out to scientists to show us the error of our ways. We even have a new president who is going to make us all buy hybrid cars and impose other environmental restraints in order to save the earth for future generations. And we’re buying it! Serious discussion is even being given to the idea of covering glaciers with aluminum blankets to slow their melting. And why are we doing this? Because there is lots and lots of money out there for doing it! And, it’s politically expedient. We as a people love causes. We all need to feel like we belong to something larger than ourselves and what better endeavor than to save the world? And the scientific community? Well, many of them will gladly continue to accept our research dollars as long as they can milk this non issue. More and more scientists, however, just cannot keep up the ruse. In droves they are leaving the global warming religion behind, including 11 of the 13 scientists featured in “An Inconvenient Truth”. This year’s U.N convention of global warming was met with much louder dissent from an ever growing number of scientists. The tide is turning and like the Ozone Layer, this too will pass as we finally admit that the earth will be just fine.

Too bad we don’t have time to discuss the regrowth of new rain forests that is far outpacing the cutting down of older rain forest. That would be a fun discussion. Maybe next week. In the mean time please consider for a moment that science is just as vulnerable to politics and opinion as is any other religion or philosophy.

 

The Sun’ll come out, Tomorrow

I had decided to let this Blog fade away while I concentrated on my other blog, ‘ReligionIsScience’, and spend my time writing on issues implied by the title. However, as I sit each day and watch the melt down of the world economies – and believe me, it is worldwide – I feel compelled to chime in and make a few observations.
The population of the U.S. is currently about 300 million people, give or take a few million. The population of the world is about 6 billion, give or take a few 100 million. These are numbers that don’t change greatly. They do increase, generally, but in no way do they move up or down as explosively as the world economies would indicate.
Now, I realize that economies are complex creatures and simple answers only serve simple minds. However, there are a few basics that we should consider as we wonder how all the smart people got us into this mess.
Everybody on Earth shares a few basics – we all need to eat, drink, sleep, poop and pee every day. This is unavoidable – basic biology. We each have basic need that must be satisfied or we die, no ifs ands or buts. Oh, we can go a day or two without eating or pooping. We can miss a night’s sleep once in a while, but, on average, these are pretty regular activities.
Meeting these needs is the foundation of any economic system. We need somewhere to sleep, out of the wind and out of the rain, so clever people figure out how to build structures where we can go about our daily duties and, abracadabra, the housing industry is born. We need to eat so refrigerators and ovens and microwaves are invented, and there you have the appliance industry. Pooping and peeing can work in the woods but in gentle society it should stay out of sight and sound so we design bathrooms into our houses and install toilets, which require plumbing which requires a water and sewer system – bingo, now we have municipalities and utilities companies to provide those services.
Pretty soon everybody gets into the act and figures out that we can all stay occupied by providing goods and services to each other and economies are born. As we all collectively prosper from working for each other we try to send our goods and services overseas to other countries. In some cases we buy stuff from other countries. This establishes trade and our people can increase in wealth if we can sell more to people overseas than we buy from them.
Here’s the conundrum that constantly puzzles me. If we all have these same basic daily needs, and if we all find ways to serve others and profit in the process, then why do we have such mercurial swings in boom and recession? Think about it for a minute. Why did you decide not to buy that big screen plasma TV this fall? Or, that car? Was it because you didn’t have any money? Or was it because someone TOLD you things were going to get bad and you shouldn’t buy one? If you did not watch TV, read the internet or newspaper, and just went about your way living each day with your family and friends – if no one had told you you should not buy a TV would you have gone out and bought one? How about that new car (I bought a new one)? Even though Mark Haines and Erin Burnett were telling me on CNBC that things were bad way back before things got bad! But how many cars were not sold because people who wanted them were told they should not buy right now. How many Plasma screens were not sold because people were told they should not spend their money.
Then the question becomes – how many not sold Cars and not sold TVs does it take to cause watchers to say, “hey, we’re not selling as many cars and TVs! Things are getting bad!” I guess my puzzlement is whether or not recession and boom are normal cycles (yes, of course they are on smaller levels) or are they creations of manipulations and the ‘spinning’ of news and commentary that cause us to rethink or actions. For example, have you ever stated boldly to a friend that you were going to do something only to have them say, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you!’ and suddenly you rethink your planned action? Like it or not we are creatures who are highly susceptible to the power of suggestion and influence. Our basic needs and wants do not change and our daily requirements stay fixed. However, the mere suggestion of coming doom can cause us to not do something we were going to do thereby adding to the self-fulfilling nature of the forecast that caused us not to do that thing in the first place. We have the amazing ability to tell ourselves that a recession is coming and just by that act actually create the very thing we just forecast. How weird is that?
This works especially well in political years where the party out of power would like to be the party in power so they or their confederates begin convincing us how bad things are. We didn’t know things were bad before they told us they were. We thought the sun was coming up each day just as it had every day. What made this day different? Someone told us we shouldn’t do something so we didn’t and then those same people said, “See we told you people weren’t doing those things we told you not to do. Bingo, we vote for change and the other party gets in power. The crazy thing is it happens over and over. Yes, I know that there are real economic principles that drive recession and boom economies but any economist will tell you that economies really run on the collective sentiment of the populace. Control that and you can accurately predict coming economic activity.
I shouldn’t waste your time telling you the obvious without providing some solutions but the fact is, I don’t have any solution. We are the victims of Group Dynamics and Group Think. We are part of a greater whole and though we live our lives individually, as part of a society, we are subject to the collective mentality of that group.
So, how do we dig ourselves out of this current mess? Well, at some point someone is going to say, screw it! I need a new TV and I still get a paycheck so I’m going to buy myself a new TV. Ultimately, pent up demand and the realization that the world did not stop will overcome the doom and gloom and we will start living again. Slowly at first, we will poke our heads out of the bunkers to which we have all retreated, take a look and see that the sun is still shining. We will take our first few tentative steps outside and realize that the air is fresh and the warmth of the sun comforting. We will start to live again, a little wiser and a little smarter. Here’s the amazing thing! As we begin to think that life will get better it magically will! Suddenly people will go out and buy a new car. Then Mark Haines will tell us that car sales actually went up (actually he will say “Even though things are still awful, stupid people went out and started buying cars”).
This recession is not the first nor will it be the last. But it will not last forever. The sun will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.

Science and Religion

I am intrigued by the element of human nature that makes us prone to the idea that most issues are ” either – or” propositions. We seem all too willing to accept the notion that there are only two sides to everything. Often, two sides are just the extremes of any position and a third “middle ground” may exist. I guess you could say there could be three (or more) sides to everything.

I take for example the argument, nay, the battle, between Science and Religion. The basic assumption is that one either accepts science and the scientific method, ORreligion, and the almost mythological accounts it posits, ut not both, for the existence and purpose of everything. In this I think we err.

First, those most arrogantly supportive of the cleverness of men over anything thing else greater than ourselves, make very erroneous assumptions about the claims of ‘religion’ on the subjects of creation and existence. I put the word religion in brackets because to categorize religion as one single entity is wrong. There are myriad viewpoints that support a religious world view, just as there are myriad viewpoints about different aspects of science.

“But wait!” you say. Science is pure, refined and perfectly unified in its theory. Not so my good friends, not so. I point you to the tale of Sir Issac Newton, argueably one of the most brilliant men in history. When he presented his ideas about motion and introduced the concepts of ‘Newtonian Physics’ to the Royal Academy he was nearly run out of England. He incurred such wrath that the august scientist Robert Hook – himself a brilliant researcher ‘ swore in his indignation that he would destroy Isaac Newton. All this because Isaac dared to contradict the 2000 year old assumptions of Aristotle. Newton was so distressed by his rebuff that he retreated to his country home and hid out for several years. Today we have researchers at great odds with one another over the truth or error of String Theory. And in case you have missed it in the mainstream media, the whole “Global warming is human caused” thing is very far from being universally accepted by scientists. If you think I am stretching the truth hear just Google “Solar Flux” and learn how Mars has been warming concurrently with Earth. (I wonder how we did that?)

The point is, “Religion” and Religious theory” cannot be categorized into one single viewpoint. The fact that certain vocal fundamentalists decide to interpret one element of creation in the most literal sense i.e. that God create the world in 6 days , does not mean that every good Christian, Muslim or Jew must believe the same thing or lose the faith.

I point to the creation story as found in Genesis as an example. Scientists (rightly, I think) laugh at the notion that the Earth was created in just 6 Solar periods or just 144 hours. But I ask, is this really what the Bible says? Oh yes, the word ‘day’ is used but does that mean 24 hours. The term ‘day’ is used throughout the Bible in various ways. In fact, in the story of Adam and Eve the Lord says ‘In the day that ye eat thereof you shall surely die!” Yet we read that Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and, rather than die that very day, as the literalist would insist, they were expelled from the garden and thrust into the dark and dreary world. In this case the word day was used to mean ‘event that’ or ‘once this is done’. Actually, it is consistent that once they ate of the forbidden fruit, their lives changed and they were expelled from the Garden. According to the account, they changed from immortal to mortal and they did eventually die. So it could correctly be said that on the day they ate of the fruit circumstances were changed and it became sure that they would eventually die.

When we say that the earth was made in 6 days we can all think back to the countless times when our parents and grandparents  related to us accounts of their youth and said “in my day” or as Archie and Edith Bunker said in the opening song of the T.V. series ‘All in the Family’ “Those were the days.” Using the word Day to refer to a creative period in the Bible is the same as the use of the term Age to refer to an anthropological period such as the Bronze Age, the Stone Age, the Neolithic Age. We must remember that Moses, the writer of Genesis was not a scientist, He was a goat herder. He claims to have seem a vision of the creation of the world and he was then left with the task of describing what he saw in words he had at his command.

I believe Science and Religion can peacefully co-exist. They may disagree on the fine points but the idea that you must choose between science or religion to live your life is just silly. Let me show you how easy this can really be. PLATE TECHTONICS is the accepted theory of land mass formation and the creation of Seas and Continents. It states (simply) that chunks of the Earth’s Crust float on the mantle and move about. As one chunk crashes into another one is driven downward and the other is lifted up and over, this creates high places and low places. Any GEOLOGY 101 class will teach you that at the beginning the surface of the Earth was smooth and featureless. They go on by saying that as the plates began to move, the water, which covered the Earth completely and evenly, began to gather to the deep spots leaving dry earth to appear, slowly at first, and then as islands and continents.

Now let’s look at Genesis and the words of a simple goat herder trying to describe what he saw in a vision.

Genesis 1:2 And the Earth was  without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep (Water?) And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

So far there is no disagreement with Techtonic theory.

Genesis 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

Again, no disagreement! If we allow that Moses did not know the term Plate Techtonics (A Greek term) and simply used words at his disposal to describe a process that he did not understand we can then say that the BIble and Geological Science have common ground. It should be pointed out here that Techtonic theory did not come abobut until 1965, thus it can be rightly argued that the Bible had it right well before Science figured it out. What the scientists did was give process and explanation to an account that was just a simple observation.

My point is, where there are two diametrically opposed positions at work there can be, and usually is, a third position that might include both.

It is my firm belief that I and many other scientifically minded people can  hold to a religious belief while using science to explain the things  that are observed and recorded in books of scripture.

Super Colliders, Black Holes and You

It is with admiration and a bit of jealousy that I salute the thousands of engineers and scientists who have put together the largest particle collider ever built. The 17 mile device in Switzerland is a technological marvel built by people that understand that many of our greatest advances have come from peering into the unknown and looking for what we know not. So much of our technology today is based on things we looked at without any particular expectation. We just knew that something would fall out the bottom and whatever it was it would be put to use by some clever person to change our lives.

Perhaps two of the most dramatic examples of this are Nylon which was discovered accidentally, and Lasers which, when first produced in the lab, were considered an oddity with no particular application. Now Lasers are everywhere. our lives are touched by lasers probably 20 times a day on average.

We should not overlook the significance of this collider. The U.S. could have been up and running years ago with the 54 mile (yes, that’s right – 54 mile) Superconducting Super Collider that was being built in Waxahatchie Texas until Bill Clinton took over and canceled the project. He spent over a billion dollars to fill in the hole.

The potential for discovery from devices like these is huge – and not just for scientists! Do you like those 300 channels you get on your T.V? How about all the capabilities on your cell phones? those and many other technological advances we enjoy are the end result of science derived from advances we make in understanding the basic nature of particle physics.

What about the research the collider at CERN (this one we are talking about) will be engaged in? The search for dark matter, if successful, will uncover the secrets and the potentials from a constituent of the universe that, up to now, is completely undetectable but which makes up 90% of EVERYTHING. I am sure there is something good to come out of understanding that. Imagine a world where we understand and can manipulate Gravity – for instance.

The beauty of this kind of research is that Serendipity – the unanticipated outcome – is the leading actor in this drama. We don’t know what we will find but I know that whatever we find, it will change the world. Or, at least it will give us something cool like a better IPOD or Wii.

Unpublished authors, talk to me!

Are there any  authors out there? I always here about the great American novel that is sitting in someone’s desk drawer. Does it really exist. Did you write it? I would really like to know!

It is said that J.K.Rowling could not get Harry Potter published at first. It took a grass roots effort by friends and acquaintance’s who read her work to generate enough interest to get a publishing house to publish it.  I’ve also heard that John Grisham’s first book was rejected numerous times before going on to sell several million copies.

How do we get past the acquisitions editors to get works looked at with an unbiased eye? Is it really a matter of who you know, not what you write? I would love to hear from some of you that have either had manuscripts rejected  or have never submitted because it seemed so hopeless or difficult. I am going on the belief that there are a great many good works out there that just need an unbiased eye.

I am sure that there are a great many manuscripts that are very good. And not just novels either. There must be thousands of childrens books, probably almost as many self help books, and then there are histories, biographies, philosophy books and poetry. Let me know what you have. I am just curious and I would love to hear your stories. I think it would be fun to find something really great, get a grass roots effort going to promote it, and see if we couldn’t break through the good ole boy network and get it published. This is for fun. No money for me. Maybe some for a really really lucky aspiring author!

Give it some thought!

Don’t be Afraid!

I just can’t stand it! I have to speak up about the media and news coverage of current events. Specifically, I want to poke a finger in the eye of the network producers who thought we, the fawning public, would be held captive to their contrived drama as they covered the non-event that was Hurricane Gustav. Now, don’t get me wrong. Hurricanes are never fun – I have been through a few myself – but neither are they quite so mysterious as we are led to believe.

Gustov came ashore with approximately 110 MPH winds. This was not a killer! Meteorologists and hurricane trackers new this, which is why we never saw reports from the National Hurricane Center or other official entities. Instead, we saw Geraldo Rivera talking incessantly, creating drama where there was none and we saw endless footage of a wall doing what walls do, namely, holding back water.

We were led to believe that the wall might break only because the networks were hoping the wall would break. The engineers who built the wall knew that it would not break. Why? Because they useed ENGINEERING to design and build it.

People, I;’m going to let you in on a little secret! Structures are built to design specifications. Your house, depending on where you live, is built to varying design criteria that include things like snow load, wind load, thermal insulation values, bug resistence, etc.etc. That’s why we have building inspectors – to assuure that that builders follow the standards for the area. Homes in Hailey Idaho must be built to withstand huge snow loads on their roofs without collapsing. I once saw 44″ of snow fall on my roof in one night. Homes in St. Petersburg Florida have to witrhstand very high winds. Why? Because they get very high winds, AKA HURRICANES.

Just because Geraldo shows us a picture of a wall does not mean it is about to break. I couldn’t believe how much ‘face time’ that wall got. And in the end, what happened? Nothing! The wall just just sat there, being a wall, doing what it was designed to do, and we all were able to sleep better because, ‘whew,’ we narrowly escaped catastrophy because we didn’t let happen what could have happened. How do we know it could have happened? Because a news guy told us it could happen and told us that we should be afraid, We should be very afraid. IN fact, we should be so afraid that we dare not watch anything else on T.V. until our collective will and attention helped this poor llittle wall do its job.

I’m tired of having news guys and poilticians and movie stars trelling me what I need to be afraid of all the time. I’m a big boy and I think I know as much as Geraldo doees.

I don’t know, I could be wrong.