Here is one of the projects I worked on, the Continuum on South Beach. I made a side trip to take this photo. It is now surrounded by other towers that block a good part of the once incredible view. There is a private driveway so I got no closer, nor have I been inside since it was completed. We used to eat our sandwiches in the penthouse.
A warm spell, I stayed overnight in Coral Gables. Everybody was an early riser so I made coffee and we heated up bagels. I drove north along A1A through Miami to return home, I usually skip church as the incense gives my head a bad time, a dull headache. I took the morning to read more of “The Life-Giving Sea” and the exactness of the material is truly impressive.For example, there is a tale about that the age of the Earth can be calculated by how salty the sea is today, a false result. The sea has always been pretty much as salty since the beginning. Bellamy states the facts. That salt calculation gives the Earth’s age as only 90 million years. What the tests were measuring instead of age is the average amount of time salt stays a given sample of ocean water after it is first dissolved, that is, a little less than 100 million years.
Other than his diatom section, the book is out of my league, but I must now read it due to how much and how precise he knows about the parts I study. Before I forget, I asked Dad about the hypothermia being beneficial to facial reconstruction, and he clarified that cold (but not frozen) flash had a slower metabolism, making it better and fresher to work with. That explains it, as I had a faulty layman’s connotation of hypothermia.
Pardon me, there is another excellent section early in the book. Where most text on the subject go to length to define life, Bellamy describes the remarkable circumstances that life requires to exist. Many are aware of the 1950s experiment where the scientist was able to cook up amino acids from chemicals. Those chemicals of life are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, but those are present almost everywhere, not just where there is life. Bellamy addresses this point most clearly. I can only provide the overview here.
The life must be encased in some kind of container, usually the cell wall. Once inside, the cell is ordered and therefore all ordered systems require energy to remain so. Plants use chlorophyll and animals eat, but they must get that energy. Third, Bellamy notes that the living cell itself must contain “memory” of its own structure to be able to recreate itself. That memory is DNA.
[Author’s note: I would love to hear Bellamy describe ignorance in the same terms, for I quickly noticed ignorance has the same requirements. Ignorance lives in a shell, considers everything around itself as existing for its own use, and can reproduce without requiring any conscious thought or intelligence whatsoever. In another remarkable coincidence, the most successful types of ignorance can be slimy, poisonous and smell bad.
Creationists might point out at this juncture that that experiment with the amino acids has never been successfully duplicated. The non-believers claim the apparatus was contaminated. But, they would say that, wouldn't they?]
In all, the book is an exhaustive study and should probably be read by the chapter to learn what’s there. At several passages it hints at my conviction that sooner or later, somebody is going to isolate genes for intelligence and stupidity. Most people are so gawdawful stupid, it just has to be some innate factor at work. Not hereditary, I didn't say that because I am definitely not as stupid as the rest of my family. Not as ignorant, either.
Another curious conversation took place as Alaine and I discussed “Eden Found”. It turns out the author used real names of his relatives for the fictitious characters, so I sounded [to others] like we were discussing old friends. Not so, I’ve only met her husband. I’m maintain my position the book would do better if re-titled something catchy, or at least confrontational. “Assad versus the Pentagon”, or “The Revenge of Lenny Cronin”.
It is also a good primer for would-be terrorists and cowards in general. You got to read this book just for the amateur tactics it describes. When negotiators insist they can’t possibly negotiate without getting your name, you merely shoot one captive or hostage, you see, it is a psychological game. Suddenly, they can negotiate like hell without the formality of introductions. This game was perfected by those oily used-car salesmen who “like to know who they are talking to” so they can then pretend to be offended when you don’t buy. Beware when they (the authorities) want to run in a second phone “in case the first one goes dead” (that phone is bugged). And remember to situate your accomplices further away from the building so they can see (and call you by cell phone) if the SWAT team really leaves or just backs up a block, because they are going to shoot you. when you lean forward to look. Remember to use a different cell phone for every call. Maybe call the book “Hostage-Taking 101”?
The scooter probably paid for itself in the last week, if all the facts could be known. And only the enormity of gathering those facts prevents me from doing so, but my best guess is it costs 1/7th as much to operate as my Cadillac. I am very satisfied with the machine.
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