Editorials by Bob

Yes, it is -- already!

I've only been around for a month, and already I'm seeing a good reason to step things up.

For one thing, there have been some complaints about the weekly schedule -- not to me persoanally, but just regarding weekly blogs in general. For another, it's turning out that I'm having enough material for more than one post a week.

So, starting with today's post, I'll be posting three times a week... and soon four.

Mondays I'll be posting about future technology and other cool stuff I come across for what the world will be like in the next century (such as the space shuttle and androids stories I've already discussed). Wednesdays I'll be focusing on observations about social and interpersonal relationships, and how we treat each other as fellow citizens and fellow human beings. And Fridays I'll be taking on political issues, both current and overarching.

Partially as evidence for the need for this change, I already have materials set out for the next two weeks.

Soon the number will rise to four. Thursdays will be my day to rant about things related to arts, entertainment, and similar matters. This is the one thing I've felt held back from thus far, but starting soon I'll have something to share. I do have a book out with my name on the cover (see the Amazon link at left), after all. I'm also trying to get some plays produced and published, I'm frequently involved in community theatre, and I'll have other things to point out that are pretty cool too. I'm not quite ready to start it yet, but watch for it -- I'll be starting it with little or no warning. It may be as early as next week, or a month or two off, but it'll be here.

In the meantime, if you're at all inclined to lend support to this site, please click on some of my "affiliate links" to the left. Just a click or two would be helpful, especially if you find something that looks interesting. You don't have to buy anything necessarily (though that would always be nice); I can tell you that the Linkshare banners all go to sites where either I personally or someone I know and trust has done business, either at the site or through their corresponding "brick and mortar" stores, and had a good experience.

Buying my own book, The Ultimate Vehicle, through the Amazon store would be extra cool, if you or someone you know is into face-to-face role-playing games (mainly, but not necessarily, the Hero System; see the page for more on that).

This is something that I'd originally expected to talk about during a "filler" week, when all of my long-standing issues had cleared out and nothing exciting was happening during that particular week.

Then, thanks to another blogger, I came across this article.

The caption on one of the photos (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see it) reads, "Scientists think that, one day, robots could fool us into believing they were human." This, really, is the main thing I'm seeing in the future of robots: I predict that, by the middle of the century, robots will be realistic enough that they can truly be called androids.

It's not just the development of realistic appearances. Other robots are able to walk, and a human-like walk is just past the current horizon. Speech recognition and speech generation are growing ever closer to reality. Visual recognition is advancing slowly but surely. Electronic artificial intelligence is already demonstrated in Repliee Q1Expo (the robot under discussion in the above-linked article), and its ability to interact with others based on touch (or to follow a person's movements, if the person is wearing a motion-capture device), as well as in a related article from the same website.

According to the article, Repliee's creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for human for five to ten seconds. That's a decent near-future estimate, but looking to the year 2050 I think we may be looking at longer-term interactions than that.

Mind you, I don't think "full-range" androids (as I like to call them) will be as affordable to the common citizen as, say, automobiles or computers are today; for that, I think we'll have to wait until the last part of the century. But I do believe that the day is coming.

So one could wonder what the point is of building an android. What could an android do that neither is human nor a conventional robot do?

So here's where I step into the role of speculator. The first thing that comes to mind is routine health care -- the tasks that were once the primary field of nurses, before nursing became a much more advanced profession than we see in the older generation of television programs. This is the area where I'd be likely to use one in my own life; an android is better than a robot in this sense because it gives at least some semblance of putting a human face on the matter.

Around the end of the century, androids will probably be most prevalent as office receptionists, store clerks, ticket agents, flight and rail attendants, and other similar jobs. These are jobs where some judgement and interpersonal skill is needed, and a human form is definitely beneficial, but there may not be a human available to do it or it's just more practical for some other reason to buy a robot than hire a human.

Then there's the old sci-fi chestnut of a cop with an android partner. Two TV series from the past century featured this idea, with one playing it for laughs (Holmes and Yoyo, 1976) and the other straight though with a quirky sense of humor (Mann and Machine, 1992). How practical this would be, I really can't say for sure, but with the human partner providing a basic sense of judgement and the android partner providing electronic and mechanical support (such as instant crime photos, mobile Intranet access, and so forth) it could help our police tremendously.

And speaking of television, androids may have a future in that industry as well as its sister, motion pictures. I've stated in the past (long ago, actually) that computers will never entirely replace human creativity, and I stand by that. But computers, and androids along with them, can be a very valuable tool. There are simply some parts, especially in science-fiction settings, that a human simply cannot play. During most the twentieth century we used prosthetic makeup; in more recent years computer graphics have expanded the possibilities. Both have had their weaknesses. Androids will have them too... but imagine what might have been different with a robotic Gollum, or Jar-Jar Binks. Even more or less conventional animals, like Toto, could be roboticized, not only on film and video but also on the live stage.

And how about bodyguards? I'm sure they could handle the job Arnold did in Terminator 2, but I'm talking about android duplicates. If all of the President's Secret Service men look exactly like the President, them whom does the assassin shoot?

Finally, with realistic-looking androids one can always see the possibilities for the "world's oldest profession." I've seen what can be done with latex skin, and how it's become more and more realistic looking and feeling over just the past fifteen years. Without getting any more indelicate than necessary, if these advances continue and certain other areas are researched adequately we may have an entirely new breed of brothel on our landscape -- and certain wealthy individuals may have their own robotic harems.

Obviously all of this is going to require some examination as to how much of it is actually good, and what we're going to do about the parts that aren't. For example, populating brothels with androids could make transmission of sexually transmitted diseases via the sex trade a thing of the past, or nearly so -- but what sort of psychological and economic effects could it have on our society? If an android duplicate can protect the president, what about an android duplicate replacing him to carry out policies the real one would never consider? (Yes, that old sci-fi chestnut could indeed become a reality by century's end!) What sort of economic and sociological effect would we see from most receptionists and store clerks being androids -- and what happens if we start treating the human ones as though they were mechanical?

(Okay, that last one is rather less fair than it appears at first. There are a distressingly large number of people who are doing that already! I can personally think of at leat one local would-be theatrical director who should be very glad to not have to deal with actual human beings, and their pesky tendency to be creative, have experience, and think for themselves.)

These, I think, are issues to start working out now, before they start to become problems. The future in this area is certainly bright, but not without its challenges.

Okay, here's where I put on the flame-retardant suit... you know, the one with the series concentric circles on the back (with a matching pattern on the front of the hat).

But frankly, I'm a little mystified by the people who want to pull American forces out of Iraq.

It's not that I disagree with that point in particular. I would very much like to see nearly every American military person in Iraq come home, with only a few Marines left behind to guard the American Embassy (as they do in every country).

What I wonder about is the how and the when. Those clamoring for an exit are demanding an "exit strategy" and a deadline for leaving.

There's a problem with the idea of making our exit from Iraq based on the calendar and not on the country's own stability. If that date comes, and we pull out before Iraq is stable enough to sustain itself against the al-Qaeda invaders (what the press is calling "insurgents" -- I'll discuss the difference at a later time), then within a few months it will be a country controlled by al-Qaida.

Okay, maybe that will seem a bit overly strong, overblown, or even inflammatory to some of you. But follow this line of thought for a moment.

The main leader of the invading force is Abu Musab al-Karachi. There are other leaders in the movement, of course, but al-Karachi is the most vocal, and the best known to Western audiences. It's entirely possible that the latter is because the press has focused on his rather sensational public announcements of alliance with al-Qaida, and admiration of Osama bin Laden.

The press' fascination (for lack of a lighter word) with Mr. al-Karachi may also be because he is a fairly charismatic man, and makes for good television. That same charisma has brought other anti-coalition groups to his side. In short, I find it hard to not believe that, should these groups overthrow the Iraqi government, the new leader of Iraq would soon be Abu Musab al-Karachi.

Now imagine an Iraq with him in charge. As I've already mentioned, he's publicly allied himself with al-Qaida. Can there be any doubt that with him in charge of the country, there would very soon be dozens of training camps in place for al-Qaida to use at its will?

Now, I suppose some of those on the more extreme left think that, left to themselves, al-Qaida will leave us alone. Such people have forgotten all about those two really tall buildings that used to dominate the skyline of New York City... and the two thousand people who died when those buildings came down.

In other words, al-Qaida leaving us alone is just not going to happen. They hate anything that is not both Islamic (at least in name) and Middle Eastern. The rest of us have to die, by whatever means they can muster. It doesn't matter what we do, short of repealing our First Amendment right to freedom of religion and turning the United States into an Islamic dictatorship -- and even that might not do the trick.

The leadership of al-Qaida is already convinced that Americans are weak and cowardly, and if they put enough pressure on us we'll put our collective tails between our legs and run away from the conflict. To pull out now, or at any time before Iraq is ready to keep its own people secure, is to send the al-Qaida membership the message that, yes indeed, their leaders are correct and the United States of America is ready for the exterminators.

Most amazing of all are those who insist that we should pull our troops out of both Iraq and Afghanistan... now. At least two of the candidates for last year's Democratic Presidential nomination publicly stated as much. Given what I've already spelled out here, had one of these men been elected I would've been moving to New Zealand or some other country (English-speaking, since that's the only one I've learned so far) where I could live without fear of being attacked or murdered in the street just for having been born an American.

This is not to say that everything in Iraq has been handled correctly. The reasons for the original invasion were very poorly spelled out, so that the "weapons of mass destruction" seemed to be the only reason when in fact there were at least three more compelling ones (war crimes from 1991, repeated violations of UN resolutions, and saddens publicly-announced financial support for suicide bombers). The whole Abu Ghraib prison scandal should never have happened, and has been very poorly handled (by both the government and the press). And there have been other problems along the way.

But there is, and must remain, an absolute commitment to making Iraq safe, if for no other reason that however that country's fate goes, ours is likely to follow.

Disclaimer: The above remarks have nothing to do with the Cindy Sheehan controversy. I'd actually started this editorial before it began, and I'd finished it before I knew much about it. Though the two questions obviously overlap, none of the above is in response to anything anyone has said in relation to Mrs. Sheehan, her son Casey, or anything else in that specific controversy. I'll probably have something to say about that matter at some later date, but for now I have too little to put into an editorial.

As just about anyone following the news will know by now, the space shuttle Discovery (OV-103) touched down safely at Edwards Air Force Base last Tuesday, after experiencing and repairing problems experienced after some insulating foam fell off one of its External Tanks.

Sure, I could rail about how the actions taken are what should have been done for Columbia when it was damaged two years ago. But at this point that's the kind of second-guessing that can only hurt. Yes, absolutely, NASA should have had the foresight to fix the problem in space, or find some other way to bring our astronauts home safely. But -- and I say this with no intended insensitivity to the families of the Columbia crew -- that's in the past, and it now appears that the lessons of that day have been learned, so it's time to move on.

Warmest congratulations to all concerned. You earned it.

Actually, it can hardly be considered surprising that the shuttle had a problem, and it has little or nothing to do with any fault of NASA's. The craft is nearly twenty-one years old! It was the third shuttle to join the fleet, following Enterprise (OV-101; it never flew an actual mission) and the aforementioned Columbia (OV-102). It's also flown more missions than any other shuttle in the fleet, including the Return To Flight mission following the Challenger explosion (this, for those not aware, was the Return To Flight after the Columbia breakup).

In short, it's old. And the other two surviving shuttles, Atlantis (OV-104) and Endeavor (OV-105), aren't much better off.

So, from a logical and practical viewpoint, it's about time for NASA to start bringing out some new shuttles. And from what I've been seeing this week, they're getting ready to do just exactly that, mothballing the current fleet by 2010 and bringing out new vehicles shortly thereafter.

Don't take my word for it. Check out the sfgate.com article for yourself.

Mind you, these are still in the planning stages, and won't be going up for another three to nine years. I'm still absorbing all the information about what these things will be capable of, but with a focus on safety and practicality rather than resuability it should allow NASA to operate much more manageably for quite some time.

And who knows? With this nice turn of events, the technology might even be available within my lifetime to allow someone like me -- health problems and all -- to go into space, or possibly even as far as the moon.

Hey... it could happen.

For years I've been wishing I could be a newspaper columnist. I have a lot to say, but hardly a forum in which to say it.

Today, that changes.

Starting next week I'll be trying to post something every weekend. It may come on Friday if something significant happens, or on Monday if I have to work on it, but somewhere over the weekend I'll post my thoughts here.

Look for my first editorial by the end of Monday, August 15, 2005.

So what will it be about? Whatever comes to my mind during the week. It might be a local, national, or world event. It usually will be something from the news, but it might come out of something in my own life. It might be a specific event, or an ongoing situation or debate.

Before all is done, you probably will see me expound my views on abortion, affirmative action, Amtrak, gay rights, the Middle East, the space program, and dozens of other issues affecting and holding the interest all of us. Depending on how widely-read this column (that is, this blog) becomes, I probably will also use it to bring certain individuals into focus -- noteworthy missing persons, dangerous fugitives, talented artists, heroes, and many others. I might even discover some other very useful and/or informative website, and direct people there.

Of course, as I write this, nobody knows I'm even doing it. But that's not important. Before long I'll be telling a few people about the column, and asking them to do likewise for others. If you're just now discovering the column, then see if you find it interesting, and if you do (or maybe even if you don't) tell someone who you think would find it enlightening.

I'm expecting this to be a wild, interesting ride.