Here’s a conversation between Patrick and me on far-ranging subjects and beginning with his message to the grand kids, as a YouTube video using a bunch of still photos from 2011. Warning: it’s about 40 minutes long. The transcription follows. It’s not a perfect transcription, so listen to it when you have time.
(I couldn’t add it directly to this web page because of the file size.)
Here’s the transcription:
JP: Well, it’s about 1:15 in the morning on the 16th of November 2011
JP: Here at my dad Patrick. So, we’re just going to do kind of a interview thing here.
Patrick: Ok, here we are.
JP: Yeah. I was going to ask, maybe start off by asking, you know, what, what, what messages would you like to leave to the grand kids? What do you want to say to Nick, and Zach, and those guys?
Patrick: Well, that’s a good question.
JP: We could start we an easier one if you’d like.
J/P Hahaha
Patrick: Well, its up, comes down, everything comes down to the same thing anyway. So, number one, don’t stay stuck in the, let see. Today society, for some reason, is whirling around celebrity-ism, the worship of famous people. So, I would avoid that at all costs and don’t believe anything that comes on the waves, on the airwaves.
JP: That makes sense.
Patrick: And so you’re going to have to make up your own decisions about what life’s about and it is not about what they’re selling.
JP: Mm, ja.
Patrick: And what you are buying.
JP: Yeah. It’s not about what other people are doing.
Patrick: It’s not about making money.
JP: Ja
Patrick: I don’t know what it is about but those are things that it is not about.
J/P Hahaha
JP: Ja, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve often, and it’s taken a long time for me to figure it out, but, one of the things I’ve realized is, you know, I can’t control other people’s actions, but, I can more or less, control my reaction. So, if someone else’s pissing me off or doing something that’s getting me upset …
Patrick: Ja
JP: I have to somehow just back up and say “ok, I can’t change their behavior but I can control mine or change mine” . Maybe it means, you know, just walking away.
Patrick: Or maybe it means an ulcer.
JP: Ja, ja. Well, we have a sign, we used to have signs in a lot of our offices … I don’t know if it’s engineering humor or what, but, there was a sign that said “everyone brings joy to this room, some by entering, some by leaving”. Hahaha
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: Identify which is which and you can go forward hahaha. Yeah!
Patrick: And it’s a hard one, I don’t even know those kids well enough to ….. .. biblical sons.
JP: Ja and Abigail was so young.
Patrick: Ja, Abby is another mystery. It all goes so fast though that’s the thing. I mean when you’re young, you think it’s such a long thing ahead of you.
Patrick: And it is but it gets faster and faster and faster. When you’re young you want it to go faster maybe.
Patrick: You know, I wanted to get older quicker.
Patrick: And then I’d like to get … never mind, I don’t mind getting older quicker. But while it’s happening …
JP: Ja ___________? on top of that, you know, when you’re really young, how old are you’re 3 1/2 and then you get to be 13.
Patrick: And almost 16
JP: Ja, ja
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: And then it becomes “well, I’m in my, you know, I’m in my thirties”, you know.
Patrick: You know, right
JP: I’m on the other side of 50. Hahaha
JP: Ja. That goes back to that conversation we had earlier about how people tend to think of ratios. Time is of ratiometric experience for us.
Patrick: Yes, absolutely! So if you’re 20 years old, that’s about one fourth, I would say. One day when you’re 20 years old …
JP: Mm Hmm
Patrick: is what proportion of your life. One day when you’re 80 years old is one proportion of your life about. So that’s 4000 …
JP: One fourth of one twentieth
Patrick: Ja right
JP: Ja ja
Patrick: And that makes it seem faster in a way, I mean, days are certainly much quicker.
JP: Ja. Ja
Patrick: Of course it could be because the universe is speeding up and we’re on it.
JP: Ja, that’s also receding because the universe is expanding
Patrick: Ja, but it’s going faster all the time.
JP: Ja ja hahaha
Patrick: And 98% of the universe is invisible. That’s an interesting thing, recently discovered.
JP: Ja, I just, you know, we do a lot of very, deep space research. We build the semiconductors, the sensors that are used on the great telescopes like those incredible pictures of Saturn that came back.
Patrick: Ja, ja
JP: Those are our sensors that took those pictures. And Jim Beletic is the director of imaging in our company that recently gave ……
Patrick: I didn’t know they sensored mooning!
JP: Yeah. So Jim gave one of his lunchtime talks which he does occasionally and he talked about the age of the universe and and showing sensors and showing different things that are being discovered and the oldest piece that’s being discovered and where it is in the sky and so on. And he was talking a lot about infrared detectors. So I asked “what about on the other side of the spectrum, what about ultra-violet, which is also invisible to us but on the other side?” And he thought about it a moment and said “well, yeah, we just tend to be focused more on the IR but then as we progressed in the talk, it dawned on me that it is because the further out something is in space the lower the wavelength. Einstein’s red shift.
Patrick: Yeah
JP: And so the oldest stuff is in the deepest infrared and so the light that’s coming back from, you know, these incredibly different distant spots, that light has all red-shifted. So naturally the infrared sensors make more sense because we need to capture those. And he gave us all – there were probably thirty or forty people in the room – in this business talk. He gave us all a little bag of peanut M&MS and he said “ok” we got to a certain point and he said “ok everyone open your bag, take out one peanut M&M, hold it about six inches above your hand and let it drop”. The energy with which that peanut M&M hit your hand is the amount of energy that has been detected in all of our experiments in astronomy and everything from when we first started building these twenty or thirty years ago. That’s how little energy we are trying to detect. That is the sum total of it all. So, go to Congress saying “here I want to spend another gazillion dollars so I can measure this much energy”.
Patrick: Ja. And what is this of I’ve been reading about several times now in the first split second of the Big Bang, practically everything appeared …
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: and everything is moving faster than the speed of light and then …. and so how can they talk about the speed of light as this …
JP: as a constant?
Patrick: Yeah
JP: I haven’t, I haven’t read the research. It’s, you know, I mean, just the sheer magnitude of, of, of the whole idea is so hard to …
Patrick: … singularity
JP: Ja, ja
Patrick: Ja
JP: You know in electronics and even in routine things really, even in politics, economics, everything, is that the problems are always at the edges. It’s always in the transition it’s never the steady state. You know, if you’ve got a kingdom and a serfdom and whatever, you know, it’s a steady state environment until along comes something to upset the apple cart. And during that transition going from communist to democratic or going from a logic zero to a logic on or wave form, that transition is where all the crap happens.
Patrick: In California the wave form makes the king of the surf-dom!
JP: Hahaha and the waves from …
Patrick: Ja
JP: Hahaha I surf too. Ja, something like that. So …
Patrick: Funny people surf the web now.
JP: Ja, ja. Christine Comaford wrote a story back around 1997 in one of the issues of Electronic Engineering Times and the Internet had just recently been renamed from Darpanet and it was starting to take off. And she talked about how the idea of the Internet Superhighway is really a little bit of a misnomer. It’s more like an Internet beer party. You know you go to a big party and yeah you’re going to run into people you like and there’s going to be some jerks and there’s going to be the loud guy and there’s going to be the quiet guy in the corner that knows a lot and someone’s going to puke on your shoes.
Patrick: Ja
JP: But, that’s what the internet is like. You can find anything you want to support any argument you want.
Patrick: Ja
JP: But you need to have it… you need to use it with a discerning eye and understand exactly what they ask.
Patrick: Right, right. Yep, yep, there was an interview last night with this guy that set up …. what is this big thing that everybody is on, actually, we talked about it earlier.
JP: You mean Facebook kind of thing?
Patrick: Facebook
JP: Oh the diaspora?
Patrick: Ja, but the Facebook guy who was on the interview last night and he was saying “well, all of these 800 thousand people, no, 800 million people are using my system and we’re just trying to make all these people who really like each other and these people who know each other” …. what… half a million people know each other?!
Patrick: I know!! Haha. Ja
Patrick: Hahaha. They know too much about maybe each other…
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: but not enough …. nobody knows anybody in that
JP: Ja
Patrick: It’s useful for what? I can’t figure it out. Never mind, it’s not my game. I know, all I know is Remedios uses it all the time so that she can exchange pictures of her kids and grandkids with friends and so on.
JP: That’s exactly how a lot of people …
Patrick: Makes contact with people she knew in high school …
JP: Mm hmm ja
Patrick: and people she knew in Chile, ok, so, it’s, it’s a way of making contacts.
JP: Mm hmm. Well, quite literally a social network.
Patrick: Social network, but, I don’t really want to socialize with most of the people.
JP: Mm hmm, mm hmm. Ja, ja.
Patrick: And most people just … Ok
JP: Hahaha
Patrick: Even in the way people are … I don’t know how to say this, let’s see … What do you call … everybody of a certain age, it’s a peer group, right?
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: And they all have ways of acting and they’re imitating each other.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: Right. And I don’t like the imitation and I don’t like what they’re imitating and basically what they’re imitating is what they’ve seen the bad actors …
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: …. the rock people, the concert people, the rap people, all of the people in the popular world have made people start acting like them.
JP: Ja, ja.
Patrick: And most of it is bad behavior.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: And so the idea is to imitate bad behavior.
JP: Ja
Patrick: And then you’re being good.
JP: Ja
Patrick: And that’s what I don’t like about most of what’s going on around me. And, of course, everybody says “well, you’re getting old, and you are foggy and, of course, but it’s not, that’s not the point, the point is we used to imitate people who were being good.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: And then suddenly … people started imitating people who are being bad.
JP: Ja, the James Deans, the, the ….
Patrick: Ja, well even James Dean was a sweet guy compared to …
JP: Ja, the Snoop Doggy Dogg
Patrick: the guy with the big mouth in a, in a … Sympathy for the Devil.
JP: Oh, Mick Jagger
Patrick: That whole line, that whole development of that line of music …
JP: Ja
Patrick: of evil …
JP: Ja
Patrick: has had a huge effect on the world.
JP: Ja
Patrick: The Beatles and Sunshine Superman – who was that, Donovan? – and all those people, they were on the angelic line
JP: Ja
Patrick: but that’s a very small line compared to the other line which is diabolic
JP: Ja
Patrick: those are the two major developments since 1950
JP: Ja
Patrick: in the world.
JP: I think you know we, we … I mean there’s always been a perception I think that you know the bad boy image always seems to have an appeal for …
Patrick: Like Jesse James and Billy the Kid, Al Capone
JP: Ja you know, the heroes, ja, even though we know they’re, they’re murderers and so on but …
Patrick: Robin Hoods
JP: Ja, ja, we like to think that culturally we, you know, we tend to think that they’re the underdog who are, you know, for better or worse serving us. The reality is of course that they’re just as greedy as the guys on Wall Street. Just they use a gun instead of a computer.
Patrick: Ja
JP: But, I think the bad boy look tends to push all the right buttons for a lot of people. I don’t know why we do that.
Patrick: Ja, maybe that’s why there’s so many neo-nazis, I mean Hitler is about the worst guy
JP: Ja
Patrick: of the twentieth century and look at all the people who really love the idea.
JP: Ja
Patrick: And the Swastika
JP: Ja, ja
Patrick: So that’s the extreme, most extreme.
JP: Hm mm
Patrick: And that’s on a, a ….. there’s a whole line between that and liking the Rolling Stones
JP: Ja
Patrick: and then you flip over and then the’re the people who want to sweet stuff.
JP: The flower children and the …
Patrick: Ja
JP: and the sensitive, new age guy.
Patrick: Ja right which is another, so, this is the whole spectrum.
JP: Ja
Patrick: And one side is all ultra and the other one is infra ….? Ultra-violet and infrared
JP: Oh that’s it, ja hahahah
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: Ja. You know I remember when we used to show Clockwork Orange, years ago, it was …
Patrick: He disowned that thing.
JP: Kubrick or McDowell?
Patrick: No the guy who wrote it.
JP: Oh Burgess?
Patrick: Ja
JP: Ja I mean that was … I did not want to see it when it first, you know, when, well when it came out I was fresh out of High School, but we were showing it just a few years later at the Sombrero and I refused to see it because to me it glamorized violence. I have since seen it a few times and it is a very powerful telling story, a frightening prediction of …
Patrick: Ja
JP: but …
Patrick: Most people think it’s a diatribe against Beethoven.
JP: Jaaa hahahah
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: Say what? Craaazy!
Patrick: Ja!
JP: But people are you know they read into it what they want.
Patrick: Ja
JP: And it suddenly dawned on me …. we were talking a little while ago about this Alabama connection and when this big group of people came out from Alabama to our facility recently Christine asked “well, were any of them black”?
Patrick: Mmm hmm
JP: And the answer was no. They were all vey stereotypical southern.
Patrick: Maybe their great-grandfather was.
JP: Yeah, but they’d never own up to it.
Patrick: Nope
JP: So, now that’s an ongoing…. going away from where we were.
Patrick: Ja right. Hahaha. Ja
JP: Hahaha
Patrick: Well, …. when I was in college what your mother and I both we worked on that thing – trying to integrate .. right? That doesn’t keep me from disliking the rap singers who are talking about killing each other and wiping out the immigrant people who have stores in New York …
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: and the way they act. I just don’t like it …
JP: Ja
Patrick: it just really annoys me.
JP: Ja
Patrick: But that’s not because of prejudice it’s I don’t like people who act like that.
JP: Ja
Patrick: And they happen to be the best ones who are doing it, are the people who invented it. The Black people.
JP: Yep
Patrick: The White people who do it are ridiculous.
JP: Ja
Patrick: Maybe a couple of good ones.
JP: Yeah, I guess Eminem is supposed to be really hot.
Patrick: Jaa
JP: but
Patrick: and then ja but I don’t … Why would anybody … I don’t know .. I just don’t like the idea of being so … acting out ugly things.
JP: Ja, ja, ja. And you know in the, you know the late seventies there was the Punk movement and it was .. and the attitude and that was sort of I mean I was on the fringes of that just because of the women that I was seeing back then. But the attitude then was that everybody’s getting… the world is about to blow up and this is all coming, it’s all coming to an end, especially once Reagan was elected.
Patrick: Mmm hm
JP: And screw it all we’re going to die anyway. Let’s just go out with one hell of a bang.
Patrick: Ja
JP: Well, maybe that’s still the case but I think now it’s just more a matter of “hey look at me I’m getting noticed, the more outrageous my behavior the more successful I am in being recognized.”
Patrick: Ja, well yeah, that’s one way of looking … Sometimes I think that. One, it’s true … probably there is a feeling of the world is going to, as we know it, is going to come to an end.
JP: Ja
Patrick: Ok but you know it’s the general feeling I think. And, yeah, maybe people just …. I think what it is if you look at an ad for a car or for a washing machine or for a bar of soap, it’s a party.
JP: Mmm hmm
Patrick: What do we want to do? Have a party. So, when I was a kid and a young man, Friday night and Saturday night those were the party nights.
JP: Mmm hmm
Patrick: And now every night is a party night.
JP: Ja
Patrick: Especially in Europe and especially at a certain age. That’s the idea what you want to do is be on a rave.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: So the world is raving mad.
JP: Ja, ja. Hahaha
Patrick: Haha so
JP: Ja. Well I even remember when Willie, it was after John had passed away, and I’d gone home to visit and we were watching a Red Lobster ad, a seafood restaurant, a chain, and they’re selling shrimp and the woman is eating a shrimp very suggestively. And Willie, bless her soul, 70 years old at that point I think, or 75, and she said “Everything on television is about sex, using sex to sell” which isn’t any different from, you know, fifty or a hundred years ago, it was just different moeurs back then. And she is saying “look at that, that woman is eating shrimp as if she’s sucking a cock”.
Patrick: Ja
JP: And I’m like “this is my 70-year-old mom/grandmom. Mm, yeah, she’s right you know. But we see that everywhere and the other thing is we’ve seen now, everything gets resolved in a half hour or one hour or in rare cases maybe it’s a two and a half hour long movie.
Patrick: Or 24 sessions.
JP: Yes, yeah 24 one hour sessions.
Patrick: You have to wait for something to get resolved.
JP: That’s right. Minus 8 to 12 minutes of commercials. So, we think that all the problems of the world can be solved in one episode of life and, you know, the world isn’t like that. Things are much more complicated. A History professor once told me (I’m spacing out?) Oh that in politics they don’t have easy questions, they don’t have easy things to solve because if it’s an easy problem to solve, it would already be solved. So, we end up with battles about economics, and abortion rights, and those kinds of things because those are contentious, difficult issues.
Patrick: Ja. Most people don’t want to know.
JP: And they don’t want to know.
Patrick: Just give me the simple thing “are you on my side or are you on his side”?
JP: Ja, ja. My friend Bob Bower is a flame technologist. He builds these big flame effects, the liquidy. You’re talking about solid fuels and he just snubs his nose but big liquid fuel dragons and things for like hotels and such special effects. But he is also, you know, he grew up in Berkeley, went to school at UCB, but he points out that in American politics with the Republicans and the Democrats, the problem with being a Democrat is that because you’re a fairly liberal thinker you tend to allow for other points of view. Whereas Republicans being so conservative and moving extremely to the right, they cannot allow for any other prospective than their own. And so what that means is that Democrats give, Republicans refuse to budge and so instead of things moving to the center, they move to the right.
Patrick: Ja, anyway, elephants weigh more than donkeys.
JP: Ja. Hahaha. And they’re much more expensive to maintain.
Patrick: Ja and all I can say when I look at those other ones I say “tusk, tusk, tusk, tusk”.
JP: Mmm Hahaha
Patrick: Heehaw, heehaw! Yep, well, the thing is, politicians, mostly, are brilliant.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: The Congress is made of people called legislators which means the lawmakers and the law makers quite naturally are lawyers.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: But, that’s not the way it should be. Lawyers are the least likely to do what’s good for me and for you. They’re going to do what’s good for them and they know how to do it. We don’t have a chance. We don’t know the legal language for all of that. They can say exactly what they want to say so they can convince us that they’re right and that this law is good.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: But they’re not going to do what is necessarily good for everybody, only what’s good for the class of person that he wants to be part of.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: So legislators should be ordinary folk and maybe that’s where this … What’s that social network called again?
JP: Facebook or Diaspora.
Patrick: Maybe this is where politics is going to go.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: Everybody will vote.
JP: Ja
Patrick: Right now in Congress, I suppose it’s the same in the States, here they have like printed voting in the Congress and you can see it on TV.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: All the people that vote yes and no, red light or green light, red lights or green lights so you can see where they’re sitting and what they’re voting for and all the time.
JP: Ja
Patrick: So, supposedly we have that for everybody.
JP: Ja, ja.
Patrick: You had a code that said he is of voting age.
JP: Yep
Patrick: Who cares if he’s of voting age. Maybe a kid can vote just as intelligently as I can, maybe better.
JP: Maybe, maybe not.
Patrick: Maybe, maybe not. But suppose everybody … They say “okay here is the question, vote”.
JP: Well, you know I …to play devil’s advocate, I agree that in general because Congress is full of lawyers, because they’re dealing with law …
Patrick: Ja
JP: that .. you know I don’t think that they necessarily …. you know, certainly everyone, practically everyone wants to do good. Their perspective on how to do good is dramatically different. And they serve their own interests, of course. But, what we, perhaps what we need is the lawyers should be the ones that are hired. Once the citizenry says “here is what we want now you write it so that that’s legal”.
Patrick: Mm hmm
JP: See the issue is … It’s like in Arizona, it’s a really hot topic, a battle, you know, you got to get government out of government.
Patrick: Ja
JP: We want to run government like a business. One of my big rants is the two serve fundamentally different purposes. Business exists to aid the bottom line for those owners. Whereas government is to serve the people. You need good government skills in business in order to negotiate and to compromise and to work out …
Patrick: Mm hmm you need managers there.
JP: Yeah, absolutely and vice versa, you need good business skills in government in order to avoid bankrupting your state, or city, or whatever. But they serve very different … their, the core purpose of each is fundamentally different. So, to run a government like a business is to basically say “give the wealthy absolute powerand remove what little remains for the small people and make them pay for it all.
Patrick: Mm hmm
JP: So, to go back to …
Patrick: On the other hand I wouldn’t want most of the people I know …
JP: Mm hmm ha
Patrick: to be in charge of my life.
JP: Exactly, and that’s kind of a libertarian view as we don’t want anybody to be in charge of our lives.
Patrick: Ja
JP: And that’s one thing that gripes me about the current republican world is they say “we got to get government out of our lives” but then you mention abortion or you mention gay marriage – well it’s not gay marriage it’s just marriage – but, boy they want to be right there in the thick of it and …
Patrick: Controlling it.
JP: Absolutely! And that’s completely … and I’ll give you know I mean I’m not a Herman Cain fan, but there was a point recently where he … someone asked him about abortion. And he said “well, you know we need to keep the government… you know everything he’s saying is “get the government out of our lives”. Well, he included abortion in that directly contradictory to republican __________?
Patrick: Right to life but then why not right to death?
JP: Yeah!! J Yeah!! Well, there’s that too. Hahaha
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: So, you know, there all, again, there are no easy problems in politics, but, it shaves me to think they want to keep government out of … you know, the problem is 90% of business men are honest, 90% are trying to do the right thing. The other 10% are the reason we have laws. We have, you know, they say we need to deregulate more, deregulate more. Yeah, I’m thinking about Enron, I’m thinking about Arthur Anderson, I’m thinking about Exxon Mobil …
Patrick: Yeah
JP: and BP, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Patrick: Ja
JP: You know, we … and the only agencies that are strong enough to stand up to those guys, imperfectly as they can, are national agencies.
Patrick: Ja, but they’re owned by the guys …
JP: But, they are owned by … George Carlin says “our owners are the guys on Wall Street, the guys in the oil companies.
Patrick: Ja
JP: And that will get us all spun up around in the axles.
Patrick: Yep
JP: Hahaha
Patrick: There’s a … can we hear of the Venus Project? The guy whose name is Jacques ….. , I can’t think of his name. He gives really good lectures. He’s just died recently and he is the chief spokesman for the Venus Project which is an alternative way … we call that “Resource Economy” and relying on … what do you call it? … technology…
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: to reduce the amount of work, actual physical work that people have to do and to bring the level of consciousness up …
JP: Oh!! Okay
Patrick: and so on. And it’s a wonderful thing to get. Some of his lectures on, on YouTube.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: Somebody sent me a two-hour lecture “All in One” and I’ve sa …. Oh, Katie, Katie Rawland?? Really great stuff.
JP: Wow!!
Patrick: It’s maybe the future of the human race.
JP: Wow!!
Patrick: Ja. If you can get into that they told, if you’re interested in that. It’s an alternative way to look at how things work.
JP: Mm and how we interact?
Patrick: Ja, and how to use what we have and not more than we have.
JP: Mm hmm ja
Patrick: What we’re doing now in the western world we’ve been using more than we have, using a lot of other people’s things.
JP: Mm hmm Ja, ja. Well, what is it the U.S. got 10% of the world population and uses 40 or 50% of the natural resources.
Patrick: Ja something like that.
JP: Ja, ja
Patrick: That’s going to change, of course, I mean … America is sort of …
JP: Wrong
Patrick: like one of the shortest empires in the history of the world.
JP: Ja
Patrick: It started when probably late 1800’s.
JP: Mm hm
Patrick: When Cuba, Hawaii, Panama Canal …
JP: Yep, yep
Patrick: taking and expanding.
JP: Mm hmm
Patrick: Philippines
JP: Yep
Patrick: Right? Okay, this is what the Romans did, this is what the Greeks did, this is what everybody did, the Italians …
JP: The English
Patrick: The Spanish did it, right? And the Spanish, they’re still doing it.
JP: Ja
Patrick: They started in 1492.
JP: Ja hahaha
Patrick: Now they’re rioting in Chicago, you know.
JP: Ja hahaha
Patrick: It took a while.
JP: Aha
Patrick: But, the popula … 30% of the American population speaks Spanish as a first language.
JP: Mm hmm Yep
JP: Okay! So, the American Empire started about 1880.
JP: One could even argue and go back to 1815 with the Louisiana Purchase.
Patrick: Ja but that was, that was more, ja that was a real and __________? purchase.
JP: Ja, ja
Patrick: But, it was a pretty good deal the Louisiana Purchase.
JP: Ja
Patrick: Napoleon … how did that work?
JP: He needed the money to fight the British.
Patrick: Ja, but ….
JP: And the Russians.
Patrick: He got it in the first place from Spain …
JP: Ja
Patrick: I think.
JP: Maybe from …
Patrick: But immediately sold it. He just got in his hands and he sold it immediately.
JP: Ja, ja hahaha
Patrick: Hahaha
JP: And then he put up his brother in charge of Spain as a region or something for a while?
Patrick: Ja, well, ja there is a whole family of people and Maximilian in Mexico.
JP: Who didn’t make it. Hahaha
Patrick: Ja
JP: Ja …….. ja
Patrick: Mexico has seen the end of a lot people. That’s where Trotsky got in the accident, his skull also.
JP: Ja, ja. It was the American Empire we were talking about.
Patrick: Jaaaa ….. You haven’t ….. I don’t think I have it right here. I do have it right here. No that’s not it.
JP: Now you know the first time I was here back in 1986 we were having a somewhat similar conversation in the context of plastic shoes.
Patrick: Plastic tubes!?
JP: Shoes! We are arguing about, you know, the decline of quality and the mass consumption of mass marketed, and mass produced stuff instead of having something comfortable we are now dealing with plastic shoes. For the proletariat make them all happy and think that they’re living a … you know.
Patrick: Ja
JP: Hahaha
Patrick: There is a book by William Zinn, Z I N N. It’s the people’s history of the Empire of America from 1492 to the present.
JP: Hahaha
Patrick: It’s a great book. And it’s also an abbreviated version in an “Adult Comings”??? ….
JP: Oooh!!! Hahaha
Patrick: which I gave to ________?? I’ll never see again for sure.
JP: Ja hahaha
Patrick: Hahaha But everybody should read that book. It’s the history of America told from a left point of view.
JP: Mm hmm Ja
Patrick: And taking a lot of facts that we … you know …. these are ignored mostly.
JP: Mm hmm ja
Patrick: Of course, it’s changing now. There is a little bit of history being taught differently in America, I’m sure.
JP: Ja
Patrick: But …
JP: Well, we have to remember history is written by the winners.
Patrick: Ja, ja
JP: Here is a really easy, simple example. I worked for Rockwell for many, many years. Rockwell sold off all of its aerospace to Boeing.
Patrick: Mm hmm
JP: Within two weeks of the sale going final, suddenly Boeing was talking about the Boeing space shuttle which was built, designed and built by Rockwell, but, they bought all the rights, they bought all the responsibilities, and they bought the effectively the market to go with it. So, it became the Boeing space shuttle. Hahaha
Patrick: Got it. I don’t know why that reminds me of … “The mouse that was raping elephants”. No?
JP: No (mumbling something)
Patrick: Why does the mouse wear spring shoes? So that it can rape elephants. And what is the sound an elephant is supposed to most dread to hear “Boeing, Boeing”
J/P Hahaha (loud laughter)
JP: Okay!!! That could easily lead to gerbil jokes, but, we won’t go there. Hahaha
Patrick: Hahaha. I got to take a leak.
JP: Okay
Patrick: Have you ever seen that cookbook “Take a leek”?
JP: No
Patrick: It’s a good title for a cookbook.
JP: It is. I’ll stop this and then we’ll do another one.
Patrick: Ja
I’m the son of Patrick of Meadows.
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