Maestro C-3PO

I, Robot starring Will Smith is generally a terrible movie and an insult to Isaac Asimov. Even so, it does contain one nice bit of dialouge:

Smith: [explaining why robots can't have feelings] Could a robot write a Shakespeare, or compose a Beethoven?

Robot: Can you?

Not a bad come-back for a robot. And, indeed, I found myself thinking about it a couple of months ago while composing this string quartet for a music class.

Up until I actual took a fairly in-depth course on musical composition, it had always been a kind of sacred mystery to me. Notes followed one another in patterns which instantly let me know what sort of mood was implied, but without giving a clue as to how the composer knew how to arrange them in such a way.

As I found out, composition is not nearly as creative a process as I thought. There are many, many rules governing voice leading, harmony, chords, progressions, and transitions.

Why, then, couldn't we come up with an auto-composition computer program? It would much simpler than the old thousand-monkeys-at-a-thousand typewriters bit, as there are far fewer possible note combinations than words.

The implications about human creativity are not, I think, earth-shattering. After all, doesn't the great artist know when to break the rules?

There is, I believe, a short story on this same topic, in which an old-fashioned lover of classical music teaches his robot servant to play the piano better than any human musician could. However, ultimately the robot refuses to do so, even though being a piano virtuoso is easy for him, saying "But it was not meant to be easy..."

Gore's Still Got It

My access to the internet is limited, so I'll be brief.

A few days ago I saw An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's deocumentary about global warming. It's detailed, concise, and terrifying. Gore is direct, thoughtful, and funny. Anybody who still has any lingering doubts about global warming needs to go see this movie (and stop watching Fox).

Does this mean a Gore run in '08? While I don't think his life-long ambition to be president has softened any, his tolerance for campaigning probably has. And while it's not impossible to come back eight years after a close presidential election and win (Nixon did it), it seems like a risk the timid Democrats won't take.

Iran Offer

From the American Prospect:

Iran’s “mad mullahs” want nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and can only be stopped by the threat or use of military force. That’s what the Bush administration would have the public believe, as it pushes toward a confrontation with Iran over that country’s nuclear program. A key link in the argument is that Tehran has shown no interest in negotiating over the nuclear issue. As State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters last January, the administration didn’t then see “anything that indicates the Iranians are willing to engage in a serious diplomatic process” on the nuclear issue.

In the woeful history of falsehoods about the targets of potential U.S. force, however, this one is particularly egregious. In the spring of 2003, the Islamic Republic of Iran not only proposed to negotiate with the Bush administration on its nuclear program and its support for terrorists but also offered concrete concessions that went very far toward meeting U.S. concerns.

The story of that Iranian negotiating proposal and the U.S. failure to respond, which has never been covered by major U.S. media, reveals the underlying pragmatism driving Iranian policy toward an agreement with the United States. It also reveals a fierce struggle between realists who wanted to engage Iran diplomatically and the inner circle of advisers who were determined to avoid it. The stubborn rejection by President Bush and his neoconservative advisers of normal diplomatic practice in their dealings with Iran, detailed for the first time here, raises grave questions about the Bush administration’s real motives as it maneuvers through the present crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.

...

The proposal, a copy of which is in the author’s possession, offered a dramatic set of specific policy concessions Tehran was prepared to make in the framework of an overall bargain on its nuclear program, its policy toward Israel, and al-Qaeda. It also proposed the establishment of three parallel working groups to negotiate “road maps” on the three main areas of contention -- weapons of mass destruction, “terrorism and regional security,” and “economic cooperation.”

The document was sent to Washington just in time for a meeting between Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif and Khalilzad in Geneva on May 2, 2003. One copy arrived at the State Department by fax, and a second copy was taken to State in person by an American intermediary, according to a source who has discussed the letter with the intermediary.

The proposal offered “decisive action against any terrorists (above all, al-Qaeda) in Iranian territory” and “full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.” It also indicated, however, that Iran wanted from the United States the “pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO” -- the Iranian acronym for the Mujihedeen e Khalq (MEK), which had fought alongside Iraqi troops in the war against Iran and was on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations -- “and support for repatriation of their members in Iraq” as well as actions against the organization in the United States.

...

The document also offered a “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad, etc.) from Iranian territory” and “pressure on these organizations to stop violent actions against civilians within borders of 1967.” Finally it proposed “action on Hizbollah to become a mere political organization within Lebanon.” That package of proposals was a clear bid for removal of Iran from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

So far as I can tell, there are three distinct possibilities here:

1. The offer is a hoax by some third party. Who would engineer such a thing and for what purpose, I have no idea.

2. The offer is a ploy by the Iranian government. Now, when Tehran is facing increasing international pressure about their nuclear program and terrorist connections, they can use this previously unknown olive branch as a prpganda tool, saying 'You see, we tried to give the West what it wants, but they wouldn't listen.' Of course, this offer is still technically a secret, and I haven't seen any Iranian officials acknowledge this proposal as true.

3. The offer is genuine and the Bush administration rejected it. It is true that peace with Israel and abandonment of the nuclear program sounds more Khatami than Achmedinejad, but people forget: Achmedinejad has no power. So it would have to be Khamenei who's behind this! Sounds impossible, but who knows.

What motivation does Bush have for dismissing this offer out of hand? It's pretty easy to enforce - the worst that could happen (from the US point of view) is that Iran would violate the agreements and we'd be just where we are now. It makes me think that somebody - or many somebodies - in the American administration is angling to go to war.

Why I Don't Watch Cable News

A couple nights ago I was killing time in a coffee bar. This being Washington DC, the TV was set to CNN. Since I don't have cable at home, this brief interlude gave me a pretty good idea why public discourse in this country sucks: the people feeding us information and commentary are a bunch of idiots. Or, at least Lou Dobbs is:

LOU DOBBS (in the middle of a story about immigration): But on the 'Rush Limbaugh Show' this afternoon, Vice President Cheney said he was aware how serious this issue is viewed not simply by his Republican base but by the country at large:

[plays recording]

LIMBAUGH: But, Mr. Vice President, are you aware of the concern about this issue, not only among the Republican base, but in the whole country?

CHENEY: Yes, Rush, I am.

Gee, thanks Lou Dobbs. As long as we're being fresh and original, do you have any newspapers you'd like to read us? Maybe you can bring in a TV and just put that in front of the camera. We'd be watching TV... on TV! How fucking surreal.

The Gondoliers on Equality

Sorry for the long hiatus; a somewhat hectic life combined with spotty internet service have conspired to keep this blog un-updated.

Honestly, what's happening in the news right now doesn't move me to write anything interesting or original. Instead, there's an old Gilbert & Sullivan tune which has always stuck with me. Before it is sung, two brothers have discovered that one of them is the king of Barataria. Although confirmed Italian republicans, a kingship is too good to pass up. So, they declare a 'republican monarchy' in which everybody is equal - even the king! The Grand Inquisitor informs them through song that this will never work:

DON ALHAMBRA.

There lived a King, as I've been told,
In the wonder-working days of old,
When hearts were twice as good as gold,
And twenty times as mellow.
Good-temper triumphed in his face,
And in his heart he found a place
For all the erring human race
And every wretched fellow.
When he had Rhenish wine to drink
It made him very sad to think
That some, at junket or at jink,
Must be content with toddy.

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

With toddy, must be content with toddy.

DON ALHAMBRA.

He wished all men as rich as he
(And he was rich as rich could be),
So to the top of every tree
Promoted everybody.

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

Now, that's the kind of King for me.
He wished all men as rich as he,
So to the top of every tree
Promoted everybody!

DON ALHAMBRA.

Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats,
And Bishops in their shovel hats
Were plentiful as tabby cats--
In point of fact, too many.
Ambassadors cropped up like hay,
Prime Ministers and such as they
Grew like asparagus in May,
And Dukes were three a penny.
On every side Field-Marshals gleamed,
Small beer were Lords-Lieutenant deemed,
With Admirals the ocean teemed
All round his wide dominions.

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

All round his wide dominions.

DON ALHAMBRA.

And Party Leaders you might meet
In twos and threes in every street
Maintaining, with no little heat,
Their various opinions.

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

Now that's a sight you couldn't beat--
Two Party Leaders in each street
Maintaining, with no little heat,
Their various opinions.

DON ALHAMBRA.

That King, although no one denies
His heart was of abnormal size,
Yet he'd have acted otherwise
If he had been acuter.
The end is easily foretold,
When every blessed thing you hold
Is made of silver, or of gold,
You long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear
But cloth of gold and satins rare,
For cloth of gold you cease to care--
Up goes the price of shoddy.

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

Up goes the price of shoddy.

DON ALHAMBRA.

In short, whoever you may be,
To this conclusion you'll agree,
When every one is somebody,
Then no one's anybody!

MARCOS. and GIUSEPPE.

Now that's as plain as plain can be,
To this conclusion we agree--

ALL

When every one is somebody,
Then no one's anybody!

Philosophically, it's curious how Gilbert (getting more conservative as he aged; viz. the surprisingly radical treatment of the House of Lords in the earlier [i]Iolanthe[/i]) had a view of democracy in which nobody ruled over anyone and wealth was meaningless. It sounds almost like a utopian view of socialism, and if it could work it doesn't sound bad at all. Gilbert's problem was not that democracy wouldn't 'work' in the sense that [i]somebody[/i] has to rule over other people if society is going to keep running; his argument was entirely romantic. But, in the end Barataria gets a proper autocratic king, and all is well.