Money and Massage at the Mall

“You can get anything at the mall,” I said to Oren from Deep Sea Cosmetics, as he hugged my wife and me both good-bye. 

Oren was personable, knowledgeable, and gracious.

Like women everywhere, Laurel is religiously dedicated to her skin. Like merchants everywhere, Oren insisted that she buy more. "You must keep a secret," he said. "You cannot tell anyone that this is my special price for you."  Like the market scene in Casablanca he held up a calculator to show the price.  It displayed four digits and no decimals. "All of this is yours;  and I will add one of these..."  

Long ago, while lost in the stacks at the Michigan State University Library, I found a 19th century book from the great days of race science.  It showed a migration: from Brythinia in Turkey, to Beirut in the Levant, to Bruttium in Italy, to Britannia in the north.  I showed it to Laurel.  "That explains a lot about the Scots and the Jews," she said back then.  She and Oren haggled like Presbyterians for an hour and half while he applied his cosmetics to remove her wrinkles, nourish her skin, and invigorate her collagen.  

I had my own experience earlier.  I found a booth that sells money from around the world: euros, yen, UK pounds, renminbi, and more.  They even exchange £1 and £2 coins as well well as €1 and €2 coins. The best deal from Travelex: Worldwide Money is a $1250  "Cash Passport" Mastercard. You get the best exchange rate of the day on "leftover currency" with no exchange fees. I just wanted some renminbi; and she sold me the absolute minimum: 10 rnb for $1.87.  I took it as two 5s.  The clerk said that she does transactions in both directions: people from abroad shopping at the mall come to her for dollars, as often as Americans on their way out get currency.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Money as a Crusoe Concept
That Goddam Ayn Rand Book
Chopmarks
The Shroff

BrainJuice for Austin and the World

We met this nice young man at our neighborhood Whole Foods last Sunday.  I would rather have a dill pickle than a donut; and this is sweetened with stevia.  Still, we were impressed with the ingredients and the price. Here in town, you can get it at the usual places. You can buy it mail order by the case and get a discount on top of the discount. (Their website is NaturalBrainJuice.com here. ) The primary active ingredient is Alpha-GPC.  

"L-Alpha glycerylphosphorylcholine (alpha-GPC, choline alfoscerate) is a natural choline compound found in the brain. It is also a parasympathomimetic acetylcholine precursor which may have potential for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.  Alpha-GPC is also used as a nootropic dietary supplement to enhance memory and cognition.  Alpha-GPC rapidly delivers choline to the brain across the blood–brain barrier and is a biosynthetic precursor of the acetylcholine neurotransmitter. It is a non-prescription drug in most countries due to its Generally Recognised As Safe (GRAS) status." --  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-GPC

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Austin BioBash
Central Texas Bee Rescue 
Jaime's Salsa of Austin
High Brew Cold Coffee
Pi in the Sky Over Austin

Furloughs for Freedom: Downsizing the Government

On Milton Friedman's theory of the negative income tax - direct payments with no questions asked would be cheaper than the welfare system - it would be better to furlough all (almost all) of the government employees and keep paying them not to work because what they do is destructive.  If they stop doing it, we all would be better off.

Of course we would have a huge debate about what is the absolute minimum necessary government. Conservatives and  libertarians know Ayn Rand's specification that a government holds a monopoly on the use of (retaliatory) force. Thus, the government must have police forces.  Rand actually was echoing Max Weber who said the same thing in his address, Politik als Beruf (Politics as a Profession), to the Free Students Union of Munich in 1920.  In that address, he acknowledged that he was quoting Trotsky at the Brest-Litovsk Conference.  So, it seems that everyone left, center, and right agrees that the government should keep the police.  What about the post office or the patent office?  Both of those are in the Constitution of 1789.

Reducing government looks a lot like this.

It might be that we should pare down the government in reverse chronological order.  But perhaps in the days of FedEx, UPS, and big pharma and GMOs we do not need the US Postal Service but do need need the Food and Drug Administration.  The FBI was founded in 1908, the Federal Marshals in 1789.  Which do we need more?  Let the debates go on.   The principle remains.

 The principle is that political power is economically inefficient, and causes market misallocations, and therefore poverty.

The government decides what to do based on power - votes won or control extended - not on market, i.e., profit.  Therefore, all government decisions are misallocations of resources.  Therefore, all government decisions result in poverty.  The less government you have, the more prosperity you have.  That is a general principle.

The specific losses caused by taxes, regulations, prosecutions, and enforcement of laws are easy to see and hard to compute because of their volume and magnitude.  

In the case of truly essential services, we might be willing to accept a dislocation of resources for clear social gain.  It is better to have economically inefficient police than to have chaos, or so we say. Of course, government is much more than mere policing.

Federal Executive Departments

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Department of Commerce (DOC)

Department of Defense (DOD)

Department of Education (ED)

Department of Energy (DOE)

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Department of Justice (DOJ)

Department of Labor (DOL)

Department of State (DOS)

Department of the Interior (DOI)

Department of the Treasury

Department of Transportation (DOT)

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Federal Independent Agencies and Corporations

Administrative Conference of the United States

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

African Development Foundation

AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corporation)

Broadcasting Board of Governors

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Commission on Civil Rights

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

Corporation for National and Community Service

Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

Director of National Intelligence

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Export-Import Bank of the United States

Farm Credit Administration

Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Housing Finance Agency

Federal Labor Relations Authority

Federal Maritime Commission

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission

Federal Reserve System

Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

General Services Administration (GSA)

Institute of Museum and Library Services

Inter-American Foundation

Merit Systems Protection Board

Millennium Challenge Corporation

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

National Capital Planning Commission

National Council on Disability

National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)

National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Humanities

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

National Mediation Board

National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)

National Science Foundation (NSF)

National Transportation Safety Board

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

Office of Compliance

Office of Government Ethics

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Special Counsel

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive

Overseas Private Investment Corporation

Panama Canal Commission

Peace Corps

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

Postal Regulatory Commission

Railroad Retirement Board

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Selective Service System

Small Business Administration (SBA)

Social Security Administration (SSA)

Tennessee Valley Authority

U.S. Trade and Development Agency

United States Agency for International Development

United States International Trade Commission

United States Postal Service (USPS)

67 Federal Boards, Commissions, and Advisory Committees

(Mostly volunteers from the communities: Citizens Stamp Committee, for instance. They do entail some operational costs, even if the work of management is freely given.)

Additional Advisory Committees cost about $350 Million per year

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/249013

Quasi-Official Agencies

Legal Services Corporation

Smithsonian Institution

State Justice Institute

United States Institute of Peace

SEE 

http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Cure for a Failing Empire

Active Defense and Passive Aggression, Part 2

Stand Up and Be Counted

Etruscans and Americans

The American Political Tradition and Profiles in Courage

Wolf DeVoon

"Inside each book is a man," said Montag.  That line from Fahrenheit 451 sums all literature, fiction and non-fiction, poetry no less than articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.  Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy must be reflections of Jane Austen, even if she had only recorded them as passengers on a stagecoach she shared: they were in and of her. These books are self-consciously Wolf DeVoon.

He is not special; but he is representative because we live in a renaissance. Never before have so many people given so much of themselves to the collective wisdom.  Independent movie producers eclipse Hollywood.  Downloads leave Random House (Bertelsmann) in the dust for sheer volume.  MySpace was intended as a Facebook but was taken over by music creators, artists, and producers.  In that context, Wolf DeVoon stands out as a creator of legal theory.

The Good Walk Alone is a novella, set in a post-apocalyptic Costa Rica.  The cops are women.  Wolf DeVoon's personal experiences working in prisons and working for prisoners showed him reasons to assert that women should not be subject to criminal law and that law enforcement should be entrusted to them exclusively.  It is a radical theory.  But I found it empirically supported.  As I was earning a baccalaureate (Summa cum Laude) in criminology administration in 2008, I was shown statistics proving that women write more citations than men, and with fewer complaints from the public.  Tangentially, college-educated police (2-year or 4-year degrees) also conduct more stops and write more citations with fewer complaints from citizens than do police officers with only a high school education.  If you want the best police force, get college educated women.  The story has all the usual elements: love, jealousy, some suspense, and gunfire, with a conclusion that is not quite resolved.

The Constitution of Government in Galt's Gulch is not really any kind of a specific proposal until the very end. First, you spend a lot of time with Wolf DeVoon, drinking coffee and drinking Dewars, listening to him explain how he came to these ideas. That is important and necessary and consequential because inside each book is a man. Jefferson is within the Declaration of Independence.  Washington is within his Farewell Address.  Lincoln is within the Gettysburg Address.  Wilson is within his Fourteen Points; Roosevelt his Four Freedoms.  Denounce or endorse them each as you choose.   DeVoon is deep or shallow to the extent that you find him.  In the famous words of the Higley Tokens: "I am Good Copper: Value Me as You Choose." 
DeVoon on LuLu here
DeVoon on Tripod here
DeVoon on Book Country here

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Laissez Faire Criminology
Inspecting the Objectivist Theory of Government
A Culture of Reality, Reason and Freedom
Stand Up and Be Counted

Jaime's Salsa of Austin

About a thousand years ago, when we were living in Las Cruces, I learned that it is easy to make salsa that no one can eat.  The co-worker who gave me the instructions told me that her husband and his friends just burn out their mouths and wash it away with cold beer.  "You can do better than that," she said.  

I got pretty good at it, but opening a screw top jar is easier.    

While New Mexico's jalapeños are always the best first ingredient, I hesitate to start a range war over the claim. When you make it one-up each time, it comes out different; and that can be all right.  But if you want consistent, predictable salsa, you need a reliable commercial provider.  

Jaime's is local to Austin.  Their Spanish Village Restaurant was a favorite for 80 years. Their current products are at Whole Foods in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.  Locally, they are on the shelf at our member-owned Wheatsville Co-op.

Also on Necessary Facts
Awesome Austin Foods
High Brew Cold Brew Coffee
Around Austin 
Longhorn Fire and Safety

The Charm of Circulated Silver

It never costs too much over spot.  I like to think about the things they bought in their day.

The Canadian 50 cent (not half dollar)
is medallic (not coin) orientation..

E Pluribus Unum: "One out of very very many"
About 14.8 million were struck.
No telling how many remain.

Two shaves and two haircuts.
Barber dimes, quarters, and halves
saw a lot of commerce,
so they weigh less per count
than later types.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Art of Finance

Industrial Medals: A Currency of Fame

Art & Copy

A Man's Home is His Market

A Culture of Reality, Reason, and Freedom

Since Karl Marx, government was always taken as a consequence of an oppressive economy.  The arguments of the Age of Reason – Locke derived from Aristotle – that government evolved in a “state of nature” to protect rights was ignored.  However, a recent JSTOR search on “anarcho-capitalism” returned 31 useful citations.  Anarcho-capitalism challenged social conservatives to find individualist, market-based justifications for government – not just in the past but for the present future as the global economy has corporations many times larger than most of the world’s 180+ nation-states.

The “state of nature” hangs over us as a constant threat. Even before nuclear weapons, H. G. Wells’ Things to Come showed a world reduced by war to a primitive struggle for survival.  To what extent is government a protection against barbarism or the entry gate to it? 

Minarchists claim that a constitutionally-limited government is the best protection for our rights, and therefore our best option for a peaceful world.  Free market anarchists disagree with that.  Minarchists reply that eventually, the largest private defense agency inevitably will become the new government.  Without a historical record, the theoretical arguments could not be resolved.

In fact, empirical evidence abounds.  The essential problem – as Ayn Rand cogently asserted – is that academic philosophers are mired in Kantian epistemology: they distrust their senses and insist on “consistent” arguments which are not even that because they are detached from reality.  Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a perfect example. 

Nozick tried to show that in a “state of nature” the largest private defense agency will become first an ultra-minimal government and then a minimal (rights-protecting) government.  Ultimately, he failed because he did not explain the evidence.  In his time, Pinkerton, Burns, and a hundred other private guard companies in America did not fire on each other. However, in most of the world warring groups did and still do vie to be the monopoly provider of force in a given geography – and the outcome was and is not a general protection unalienable natural rights.  And in America, then as now, gang warfare existed with no sign of extinction by the legal monopoly of physical force in retaliation.

The deeper problem avoided by both Nozick and his foil, Murray N. Rothbard, is that utopians attempt to prescribe for everyone else how we should, could, or would live in a perfect world, which these freedom-loving social planners devise for the rest of us.

Individualism is not just an abstract political notion.  People vary; and many of them are comfortable within a collective.  Of course, many of us are happier hearing that different drummer. 

If you decided that it would be more efficient for your employer to have the shipping dock on the other side of the building, what would you do?  You could convince the top management with a cost-benefit presentation and they could just order it done. You could bribe everyone to do it your way, offering tangible selfish rewards.  You could take their children hostage.  More likely, the managers would form a committee of stakeholders because people tend to go along with decisions that they helped to make.  The others would adapt, grouse and complain, or leave.

The structure of a society does matter.  An open society is more prosperous than a controlled society.  But an open society includes people who are controlled and controlling.  (Sometimes, they claim to be individualists.)  The fundamental determinants of a culture are complex and deeply rooted.  An old story from a previous generation of university fellows tells of the graduate school dining room where three sociologists sat down with a couple of biologists.  After introductions and amiable chatter, the biologists excused themselves. “We have to start some cultures,” one said.  The sociologists were surprised, and laughed at the pun.  Then they considered: How do you start a culture?

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Sociology of Freedom

The Science of Liberty

Freedom in an Unfree World

Open Secrets

Longhorn Fire and Safety

We needed a new fire extinguisher, so I searched for "Austin fire extinguishers."  Reading the web pages showed that Longhorn Fire and Safety was probably the best bet.  They promised not to be undersold or out-serviced.  

On the way there, I stopped at Home Depot and took pictures of their array.  Longhorn met the Home Depot price on a Kidde and recharged our old First Alert.  

http://www.longhornfireandsafety.com/

Matt was fun to deal with. He is a honest horse trader.  The First Alert was the landlord's equipment. Like the others with which we have been provided by different owners and agents in different states over the years, it was charged when they gave it to us, but not tagged and sealed.  Now it is. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Volunteering in an Emergency: What to Expect
Around Austin
Locksporting
Shifting the Paradigm of Private Security
Employee Theft

Alongside Night to run in Austin; Author to Appear

J. Neil Schulman will be in Austin for the screening of his film, Alongside Night on June 18.  We will meet him for dinner at the Dog & Duck (17th & Guadalupe) the next evening, Thursday, June 19, from 5:00 PM to 7:00.  After dinner we will go to Brave New Books (1904 Guadalupe, just north of MLK) for autographs.

 With a cameo by Ron Paul, Alongside Night is the story of the final economic collapse of the United States. We see it through the eyes of 16-year-old Elliot Vreeland.  Elliott searches for his father, a Nobel laureate economist who was targeted for arrest because he consulted with the Europeans to create a gold-based currency that effectively destroyed all confidence in the U.S. dollar.  Inflation is rampant.  The federal government has issued emergency scrip; and vending machine tokens circulate as a convenience.  As shortages and rationing spread, thousands of activists and protestors are rounded up.  Hundreds are held in a secret prison called “Utopia” – Nowhere.

Alongside Night

Wednesday, June 18 7:30PM - 9:25PM

in Austin, TX at

AMC-14 Barton Creek Square Mall

Tickets $11.00 at

http://www.tugg.com/events/9089

Starring Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys), Mara Marini (Recreation), Susan Smythe (Lady Magdalene), Jake Busey (Contact and Starship Troopers), Star Trek: Voyager's Tim Russ and Garrett Wang as well as up-and-coming actors Christian Kramme, Reid Cox, Kyle Leatherberry, Rebekah Kennedy, Charlie Morgan Patton, and Eric Colton. Cameo appearances by Dr. Ron Paul, David D. Friedman, and Adam Kokesh.

Kevin Sorbo as Dr. Martin Vreeland,
Nobel Laureate economist

Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HQsVgxMTnc

Fan Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kBbGHq6Bk

Internet Movie Database

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667061/

Longer Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTZ8vn45Cds

Find us on Facebook: 
Alongside Night in Austin here

Author's websites:

http://www.alongsidenight.net/

http://www.alongsidenightmovie.com/

Graphic novel from Pulpless.com still available via Amazon.

Kindle edition of graphic novel available via Amazon

Jake Busey plays the President of the United States

The Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alongside_Night

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Alongside Night Released
Murray Rothbard: Fraud or Faker?

Numismatics Informs Economics

Another Example of Unlimited Constitutional Government

Republican Rebels

Liberty's Kids

I was happy to have found this in a remainder bin in a supermarket.  Originally produced in 2002, Liberty’s Kids: Established 1776 features great acting in support of strong historical writing.  Nominally intended for 6 to 12 year-olds, the stories include people (Phillis Wheatley) and events (Dunsmore’s Proclamation) that I had to look up.  After watching this, I sent them on to my sister’s kids. 

The viewpoint characters are two young teenagers: James Hiller and Sarah Phillips.  He is American and an apprentice to Benjamin Franklin.  She is English and staying with Franklin who is a friend of her family.  Also, she is seeking her father, an army officer stationed at Fort Pitt on the Ohio frontier. The third youngster is a French boy, Henri Lefevre, who was indentured to pay off his parents' passage when they died en route.  Franklin’s adult worker is Moses, a former slave who worked at skilled trades and market jobs to buy his freedom.   His brother, Cato, is still a slave. Cato joins the British Army to earn his freedom, and eventually leaves for Canada with the Tories.  This is all very complicated.

We also meet Benedict Arnold, the hero of Fort Ticonderoga (voice by Dustin Hoffman).  Arnold Schwartzenegger speaks for Baron von Steuben. Maria Shriver is Benedict Arnold’s wife, Peggy Shippen. Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Michael Douglas, Michael York, Aaron Carter, Liam Neeson, Sylvester Stallone, Norman Schwarzkopf, Russell Means, and Warren Buffett also give voice to the characters.  Heading the line-up is Walter Cronkite, as Benjamin Franklin, in his last working role. 

Liberty is for everyone and the writers take a little of it with the facts, though not egregiously.  It is true that John Adams insulted John Dickinson. It is not true that Benjamin Franklin was standing right there when Adams’s attempt at apology was rebuffed. 

The worst problems are within the guide for teachers and parents provided on the website, http://libertyskids.com/.  There it is claimed that we only have the freedoms that the government gives us.  That contradicts the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it… “

The Liberty’s Kids website does provide an interesting array of games and activities.

The series garnered several media awards.  Walter Cronkite was recognized with two Daytime Emmys for acting.  The Television Critics gave the entire series its award for 2003.  The Humanitas Prize (Wikipedia here; and homepage here) recognized the writers for two episodes: Marc Scott Zicree and Elaine Zicree for “Common Sense”; and Doug McIntyre for “Liberty or Death.”

The creators, Michael Maliani and Kevin O’Donnell brought their experience from Sailor Moon, Inspector Gadget, Strawberry Shortcake and other popular series.  Their ideas were then developed for production by Andy Heyward who grew up in the TV business and bought the production company DIC Entertainment from Radio-Television Luxembourg in 1986.  In addition to the many writers who worked on individual episodes, most of the series was the work of Jim Staahl. His credits begin with Sid Caesar and Steve Allen, continue through Mork & Mindy, Charles in Charge, and Young Hercules, and include Second City Theater and SCTV.  Jim Staahl was a writer for the Emmy Award series “Teacher’s Pet” from Disney.

The forty chapters run 24 minutes each.  The show has aired on PBS, CW, and MyNetwork TV. It still runs on independent stations that want to meet FCC requirements for educational programming.  CBS placed it under their labels “Slumber Party” (2006) and “Cookie Jar”  (2008).  Also in 2008, it ran on The History Channel.  In 2012, the series went digital on qubo.  

The entire set of DVDs can be found for sale new and used on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other sites online.  Or watch the bargain bins at the supermarket.

Also on Necessary Facts

All Volitional Beings Deserve Rights 

Contradictions in the Constitution 

Unlimited Constitutional Government 

The Market for Voting 

Republicans for Voldemort

The bumpersticker is amusing, certainly. It does beg investigation into the epistemology of the message.  I accept that on the surface it is meant to imply that Republicans are for Voldemort, i.e., that Republicans inherently and implicitly support the dark lord.  However, in point of fact, such a claim would be unnecessary, as for instance, "Republicans for Bush" or "Republicans for Palin."  Logic demands that we accept Voldemort as a Democrat and allow that some Republicans favor his reign. I first met this entendre in 1968, in Charleston, South Carolina.  Enrolled at the College of Charleston, and a member of College Democrats, I met adults who told me that they were not racists; and eschewing the Democratic party, they had previously formed "Democrats for Eisenhower."  Thus, "Republicans for Voldemort" must mean that the prince of evil is a Democrat.  I can accept that. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS:
Republican Rebels
Austin Tech Republicans
Ayn Rand versus Conservatives
Etruscans and Americans

High Brew Cold Brew Coffee

Austin is a great town for food.  One of the benefits of being members of the Wheatsville Co-op is meeting the local vendors who bring new products.  High Brew Coffee opened this year.  Their website is still very plain. Their canned coffees are very exciting.  Three flavors - Mexican Vanilla, Double Espresso, and Mocha Chocolate - are sweetened with condensed milk, sugar, and stevia.



Also on Necessary Facts
Awesome Austin Foods
Central Texas Bee Rescue
Around Austin (2014)
Jaime's Salsa of Austin

Watson’s Double Helix: Doing Science and Writing About It

The Double Helix (1968) is James D. Watson’s very personal account of how he and Francis Crick worked out the structure of DNA through 1951 and 1952.  The reading is an easy 141 pages.  But depth is here, also.  The story is about scientists, their social spheres, and their conflicts, and (ultimately) their collaborations.  This is also a chronological tour through some of the mind of James D. Watson.  Proof demands evidence explained by consistent reasoning. Getting there is intuitive, insightful, and contrary.

Watson does not explain the technical terms.  Mostly, it does not matter if you do not know the formulas for adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine.  (I do not. The book has pictures.) However, neither does he do more than drop the terms “keto” and “enol.”  (You can look them up. I have not.)  The narrative moves forward nonetheless. 

More than the frustrating work of discovery, this story reveals much about how the culture of academic science perceived itself in the middle of the 20^th century.  Watson’s telling is personally unkind to Sir Lawrence Bragg.  Bragg ordered his doctoral candidate, Crick, to abandon the pursuit for DNA. Says Watson: “ … we refrained from publicly questioning Bragg’s decision. An open outcry would reveal that our professor was completely in the dark about what the initials DNA stood for. There was no reason to believe that he gave it one hundredth the importance of the structure of metals, for which he took great delight in making soap-bubble models. Nothing then gave Sir Lawrence more pleasure than showing his ingenious motion-picture film of how soap bubbles bump each other.” (page 69)  Yet, Bragg wrote the Foreword. That speaks to the culture of science.

Their conflict with Rosalind Franklin is now a legend.  In closing the history, Watson allows that her barbed shell was a necessary defense in a society that held her sex against her.  Yet, Watson also admits that she stood on good science.  She refused to accept the helix until her own x-ray crystallography validated it, even though a single snapshot from that library inspired Crick and Watson to seek the spiral structure.  When the cards were on the table, Franklin agreed, plainly, flatly, honestly.  Ironically perhaps, at that moment, the structure of DNA had nothing to do with sex.

“Much of the talk about the three-dimensional structure of proteins and nucleic acids was hot air. … It made no sense to learn complicated mathematical methods in order to follow baloney.” (page 27).

Just as Sir Lawrence Bragg denied the value in Francis Crick’s independent path, Watson was fired by the supporters of his post-doctoral work.  His position at Cambridge (where he was not supposed to be in the first place) was cancelled and he was offered nine months (not a year) in the States.  Often attributed to Buddha, the fact that a prophet is not appreciated in his homeland is correctly cited to Jesus.  To the betterment of all, the culture of science is different than that of religion.  The worst they can do to you is to withhold your stipend.  In fact, Watson’s colleagues and friends at King’s College in London, Max Perutz and John Kendrew, assured him that they could find some money if he chose to remain in England.  That help turned out not to be necessary, though Watson continued his work at Cambridge.

He fit in well, there.  The sense of fair play that defined science then was important to him.  Crick and Watson worried about invading the research spaces of others who also sought the structure of DNA.  Topmost of them was Linus Pauling, already holding a Nobel Prize, and clearly capable of more achievements at that level.  When a published paper showed that Pauling was not just wrong, but had blundered, Crick and Watson knew that they had about six weeks to finish their work because Pauling could not be bested twice. 

(Jeff Goldblum played John Watson in a television production of the story, “The Race for the Double Helix” Horizon season 23 episode 16, September 14, 1987.) 

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Bob Swanson and Genentech

Biohackers

Epigenetics and Evolution

The Map that Changed the World