Quotable Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (1917-2008)

Clarke’s Three Laws

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.


I don’t believe in God but I’m very interested in her.


The rash assertion that “God made man in His own image” is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods.


Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor—but they have few followers now.


I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.


I would like to assure my many Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim friends that I am sincerely happy that the religion which Chance has given you has contributed to your peace of mind (and often, as Western medical science now reluctantly admits, to your physical well-being). Perhaps it is better to be un-sane and happy, than sane and un-happy. But it is the best of all to be sane and happy. Whether our descendants can achieve that goal will be the greatest challenge of the future. Indeed, it may well decide whether we have any future.


There is the possibility that humankind can outgrown its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood’s End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions—each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others—how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that’s insane. Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I’m afraid.


Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.


Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn’t come here. Well, it can’t hide forever—one day we will overhear it.


The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life—much less intelligence—beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.


The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars.


We are just tenants on this world. We have just been given a new lease, and a warning from the landlord.


Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.


This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.


As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.


Our age is in many ways unique, full of events and phenomena that never occurred before and can never happen again. They distort our thinking, making us believe that what is true now will be true forever, though perhaps on a larger scale.


It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.


New ideas pass through three periods:

  1. It can’t be done.
  2. It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing.
  3. I knew it was a good idea all along!

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.


There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.


The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But it is vital to remember that information—in the sense of raw data—is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these.


Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations. I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we’ve learnt something from the most barbaric century in history—the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation. [December 2007]

Blinding Headlights

I’ve lived in Tucson, Arizona for ten months now, and I have to tell you, it is no fun driving here at night. While it is a joy living in a city that for a change isn’t horribly overlit and that takes light pollution seriously (though that is starting to erode), it is often hard to see at night because of the many vehicles on the road with blinding headlights. In recent years, this has become a huge problem throughout the U.S., and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) needs to act quickly and decisively to deal with this dangerous nuisance.

Not only have headlights gotten brighter and bluer (which makes glare much worse), many vehicles have multiple sets of headlights, including “fog lights” that are anything but. High-profile vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs are especially bad when it comes to causing blinding glare for smaller, less extravagant vehicles. Jacked-up pickup trucks are the worst, and there are a lot of them here.

When one of these headlight-offensive vehicles is heading towards you, it makes it difficult to see the road ahead. It is especially hard to see pedestrians and bicyclists. Pavement markings are also harder to see because of the glare from the oncoming vehicle, especially when those lines are badly faded and in need of re-painting (as they often are here).

Tucson has far too many busy intersections without a protected left turn, and if you find yourself in a left-turn lane being stared down by a headlight-offensive vehicle in the opposite left-turn lane, the glare blinds you so much that it is difficult to see oncoming vehicles in the through-traffic lanes.

When a headlight-offensive vehicle comes up behind you and, as they often do, practically rides your bumper because driving at or near the speed limit isn’t fast enough for them, you’re hit with their intense glare in all three rear-view mirrors. This makes it harder to see the road ahead, and you have to slow down—which tends to aggravate them more than they already are. If you’re lucky, they can pass you—though sometimes they will illegally cross a double yellow line to do it.

Because of all these intense and unregulated vehicle headlights, I now avoid driving at night whenever possible.

Sure, headlights like these helps the perpetrator see better so they can drive down the road at night exceeding the speed limit (which is seldom enforced here, by the way), but everyone else—drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians—is blinded.

What are the specific problems with modern vehicle headlights that need to be addressed, and what are the solutions?

  • Problem: The average vehicle’s total headlight lumen output (and individual headlight luminance) has dramatically increased in recent years, causing a corresponding increase in discomfort and disability glare for everyone else.
  • Solution: Headlights would not have to be so bright if speed limits were lower at night on many city streets and thoroughfares, and if the posted speed limits were actually enforced.
  • Solution: Implement adaptive driving beam (ADB) technology that uses sensors to detect oncoming traffic and adjusts the projected beam pattern to allow plenty of light for the driver without blinding other motorists. (ADB is widely used in Europe, but is not yet legal in the United States.)
  • Problem: Light-emitting diode (LED) and High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlights emit more light at the blue end of the visible spectrum than traditional warm-white or yellowish halogen headlights do, and these bluer lights result in significantly greater visual discomfort and impairment for other drivers.
  • Solution: Limit the amount of blue light that headlights can produce.
  • Problem: Poor headlight aim leads to dangerous glare for others.
  • Solution: Require regular headlight aim inspections and adjustments. Anytime a vehicle’s suspension is lifted, require headlight aim to be adjusted downward accordingly.

Here’s a petition you might want to sign:

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-dot-ban-blinding-headlights-and-save-lives

I’d like to close this article by quoting one of the many insightful comments in the Comments section of the New York Times article listed under References below.

Like everything else, it is no longer about the collective good and the laws that protect it. Individualism now rules—individual freedom. Headlights have become a First Amendment issue—an element of free speech.

And they have become part of the conservative anti-government backlash. Laws regulating headlights are seen as government intrusion into personal freedoms. It is seen by many to be like the COVID mask issue. Too many people think personal freedom trumps everything else–even collective health and safety.

And there is a free-market aspect to this. Manufacturers are looking for ways to add features to cars that will make them more attractive to buyers. They know the lights are unsafe, yet they put them on their vehicles.

America has lost all common sense.

Michael
Evanston, IL | June 9, 2021

Mark my words, if we keep heading down this path of excessive individual freedom (read: selfishness) without significant responsibility for the common good (that means everybody, not just your tribe), it will be our undoing. The United States will become a miserable place to live for the majority of us for at least a generation. I’m not hopeful that we can turn this around in time. Too many of us are “asleep at the wheel” and too easily swayed by misinformation and propaganda.

References

Mele, Christopher. “Blinded by Brighter Headlights? It’s Not Your Imagination.” New York Times, June 5, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/business/led-hid-headlights-blinding.html.

Children One or Zero

I have written about the overpopulation crisis before, but a Population Connection webinar on July 13 by Nandita Bajaj, Executive Director of Population Balance, motivated me to write more. Her presentation, Pronatalism and Rapid Population Growth: Challenging the Social Pressures to Have Children, was excellent and informative. I will post a link to her presentation in a comment as soon as it is available. Even though this article draws upon some of the material Nandita presented, what follows reflects my point of view alone.

The United Nations issued a report this week that announces that the world’s human population will surpass 8 billion people in mid-November 2022. Think about it. Later this year, 8 billion people will be living on this planet. The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years, so we have nearly two people currently living and consuming resources for every year this planet has existed. That’s a sobering thought.

Powerful forces of ignorance and misinformation are at work today that prevent us from adequately addressing a number of critical issues that—if we don’t act quickly—will result in a serious decline in the quality of life for most of the human race within the next few years. Chief among these is overpopulation, which is the primary driver of most of the other problems we are facing (climate change, environmental degradation, the decline in biological diversity, conflict over resources, and so on). Rather than feel powerless, or resign ourselves to a dystopian future, or take false solace in an afterlife that doesn’t exist, we must act. That is the only moral choice, and it gives our life meaning. What kind of a world do we want for ourselves and future generations? We must work towards building that world, no matter how difficult or protracted the effort.

As it is, we have commodified every possible part of the natural world to meet our insatiable needs. What could possibly go wrong?

The rapid increase in human population during the past couple of centuries is not normal. The Earth’s resources can sustain a world population of around 3 billion indefinitely, but we exceeded that limit in 1960. Since then, we have been living on borrowed time, all of us. And the debt is coming due. Techno-optimism isn’t going to save us.

The only humane way to get us back to 3 billion people is to reduce the birth rate. Having one child or none at all has to become the new normal. But the many facets of pronatalism are getting in the way of that.

Pronatalism is the idea that having children is both expected and a purely personal act.

Having children should never be incentivized . Many of us are ill-suited to be parents, and certainly living a deeply fulfilling life of great value to society does not depend upon bringing children into the world or child-rearing. And for those of us who do want children and are likely to be good parents, why not have one child, and no more?

Every child should be wanted, and born into a nurturing environment. Did you know we spend more money on imprisonment than we do on education in the U.S.? The right to contraception (including permanent contraception) and, yes, abortion are deeply personal human rights that must not be taken away by anyone. The idea that an embryo or fetus is somehow equivalent to a fully-formed human being is the opposite of rational: it is irrational. Many who oppose abortion do so for religious reasons. And such irrational considerations have no place in law or governance. Unfortunately, for many, religion is a “gateway drug” that predisposes one to holding other beliefs and opinions that are not supported by a shred of evidence. This is dangerous in the extreme.

The idea that having children is a purely personal act is also wrong. If you have more than two children, then you are directly contributing to unsustainable population growth and a certain increase in human suffering due to that growth. We talk the big talk about “personal freedoms” in this country, but almost never about “societal responsibilities” that must put limits on those freedoms. Freedom without responsibility is selfishness, plain and simple.

There are a number of pronatalism pressures that must be effectively countered. These include cultural pressures (e.g. “when are you going to get married and have children?”), religious pressures (e.g. more followers, “believers” vs. “non-believers”), economy-driven pressures (e.g. more consumers and workers), and political pressures (e.g. more taxpayers, more soldiers to fight in our endless wars).

“Baby-bust alarmism” is often in the news, and must be countered wherever it occurs.

And then there’s “great replacement theory”, which is the idea that “our” people are soon going to be outnumbered by other, less desirable, people. There’s an inherent racism in this idea. Often, people who sound the “underpopulation alarm” are really talking about underpopulation of white people.

We certainly have our work cut out for us, but we don’t have to change the minds and hearts of everyone to save humanity and our natural world. We only need to reach a critical mass of enlightened individuals to effect real and lasting change. And that may be a lot fewer than you think.

The greatest legacy we can leave our children is fewer children.

Ending Spring Forward, Fall Back

On March 15, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to end the twice annual switch between Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time. So far so good. That leaves us now with two choices: standard time year round or daylight saving time year round. Unfortunately, they have chosen the latter. The fact that there was no debate on this point suggests the esteemed senators collectively have little understanding of science—or, at least, biology and astronomy.

Most astronomers (those that actually observe) and astronomy educators don’t like daylight saving time because it delays the onset of darkness by an hour: most of us observe in the evening and not right before dawn. Cruelly, daylight saving time prevents many young people from experiencing the wonders of the night sky because it gets dark around or after their bedtime during the warmer months of the year.

Non-astronomers (which, let’s face it, includes most of us) that rise early in the morning will spend even more of their year getting up while it is still dark out. In the northern U.S. at least that means that during the winter months, many school children will be going to school in the dark when it is still bitterly cold.

I have written previously on this topic.

As for biology, unless all of us also start our work days and school days an hour later, year-round daylight saving time will further mess with our already-damaged circadian rhythms—and most of us don’t get enough sleep as it is. As many studies have shown, this leads to a number of negative consequences affecting our health and well being.

The answer is, of course, to adopt standard time year-round as Arizona currently does. Even that is now in jeopardy as Arizona is likely to join the bandwagon and go to permanent daylight saving time, if this legislation is enacted.

This legislation now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives and, if it passes there, on to President Biden’s desk to sign into law. If that happens, most/all? of the U.S. will be going to permanent daylight saving time beginning officially November 5, 2023 (actually, March 12, 2023).

Is anyone pushing for year-round standard time instead? You bet.

I encourage you to support this organization, Save Standard Time, a registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization.

Reinventing the Global Economy

I watched a new thought-provoking documentary last night, Going Circular, about the need to reinvent our local and global economic systems to eliminate waste and save our planet’s resources.

Mother Nature has had a 4-billion-year head start in figuring out how to build a sustainable ecosystem where nothing is wasted and we have much to learn from her.

Little or nothing should be going into the landfill. As much as possible should be recycled, reused, and repurposed. Everything possible should be manufactured so that it can be repaired and upgraded, rather than thrown away and replaced with something completely new.

This is especially important considering that world population is nearing 8 billion and much of the world is rapidly adopting the wasteful lifestyle of the United States and other developed nations. We need to rapidly pivot to a more sustainable economic system or risk catastrophic damage to the global ecosystem and unimaginable human suffering. With so many people, we face the very real possibility of trashing the world’s environment in a single generation.

I don’t know how you accomplish the needed changes fast enough without strong and competent involvement and regulation by the world’s governments. Sure, we can have reasoned debates about the exact roles that governments will play, but all parties should be onboard with the common goal that tax money should be spent wisely and that government should run efficiently. This is no time for “small government” but it is time for better government.

Excessive military spending across the world is tying up valuable resources that could be used to help transform our economies and save the planet. The United States is one of the worst offenders. “With an annual defense budget of $733 billion, the U.S. spends more than three times what China does and 12 times as much as Russia.”1

To end this short article on a hopeful note, think how satisfying it would be both personally and collectively if much of our labor force had jobs directly involved with reducing waste, reusing materials, producing products that last as long as possible, and repairing and upgrading products rather than seeing them thrown away.

Watch the film, please. Though Going Circular is currently only available through Curiosity Stream, which is a subscription service, hopefully it will be more generally available soon. I’d like to see this documentary aired on PBS.

1The Week, November 19, 2021, p. 13

Clear and Present Danger

I’m far from a conservative and if you want to put a label on me it would be “progressive humanist” but I highly recommend you watch this 17-minute interview with conservative Max Boot by Walter Isaacson on Amanpour & Company from yesterday:

Donald Trump, his enablers, sycophants, and truculent supporters, are a clear and present danger to the United States. In their support of demagogue Trump, almost half of the people in this country (the almost-half that counts) have clearly demonstrated that they would unwittingly vote to elect someone far more dangerous as long as he or she pushes all the right emotional buttons.

As Mark Twain once said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

Almost as disturbing is the insouciant multitude who do not vote. About 33% of eligible voters did not participate in the 2020 presidential election.

Progressives like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are recent examples in a long line of politicians and scholars who offer bold new solutions to seemingly intractable problems—certainly worthy of reasoned consideration and discussion—but at least since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the right-wing attack machine has vilified progressives as “communists” or worse. A large segment of our population has been lied to for so long that they now accept these untruths as fact.


In light of the many serious problems that beset us and a political landscape utterly incapable of addressing any of them, I am seriously reconsidering my encore career during these semi-retirement years. I had always assumed that I would spend most of my time and energy continuing what I did in my spare time during my full-time-employment years: providing observational astronomy programs for the public, teaching astronomy classes, and writing about astronomy. As much as I love astronomy, I am beginning to realize that focusing almost exclusively on astronomy is not the best use of my time and energy, given the various existential crises we all face at this moment in human history. I need to be an active participant in the solutions to these problems rather than yet another distracted bystander.

How many of you have reached your retirement years and found—unexpectedly—that the hobbies and avocations that sustained you throughout your working years are not what you want to focus on now?


Most of my adult life, I’ve wanted to live somewhere where the night sky is not compromised by light pollution—especially in retirement. But the election of Trump in 2016, his almost-reelection in 2020, and the continuing “Stop the Steal” movement has been a game-changer for me. Despite my desires, the reality is that almost all of the rural areas in this country are dominated by Trump-supporters. I currently live in a semi-rural community in Wisconsin where 24% more voted for Biden than voted for Trump in the 2020 election. And, even here, we are still being besieged by Trump flags, Trump-Pence signs, and hand-written yard signs with angry missives. During the worst of the pandemic, some businesses here (including at least one restaurant) defied the statewide mask mandate with no consequences, the Republican-controlled state legislature has gerrymandered their way to an unassailable majority in a state with an electorate that is close to 50-50 between the two parties, and the 2020 election results continue to be litigated and investigated. I’m done with this place. From here on out, I’m not going to live anywhere where Biden had less than a 24% lead over Trump in the 2020 election. In searching for that place, I have found the following tool from the New York Times to be quite helpful.

Now, I want to live somewhere with lots of progressives and real opportunities to collaborate and help facilitate meaningful change that will benefit all people. That will no longer be a rural area. Elections have consequences.

The Day After

Last night I watched a movie that somehow I missed when it was broadcast on ABC on November 20, 1983. It is the most compelling dramatization I have seen of why we need to rid the world of all nuclear weapons. Frankly, this movie is terrifying, but as stated at the end, a real nuclear war would be far, far worse. This movie ought to be required viewing for every American over the age of 12. Though the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more, and the two Germanys reunited, the threat of nuclear warfare is just as relevant today. In fact, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is closer to midnight now than it ever has been—even during the height of the Cold War.

There are a number of organizations dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, among them the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and 1985, respectively. I encourage you to donate regularly to both of these organizations as I do.

What else can we do? Here in the United States, we must reject and oppose tribalism at every opportunity. Our political system is dysfunctional, both in practice as well as structurally, and it needs to be dramatically reformed. Our politicians are completely unable to address the many existential crises currently facing our nation and the world, and most citizens feel powerless—or worse yet—dispirited, apathetic, or willfully ignorant. At the same time, we must root out lies and misinformation, and rely upon facts and hard-earned expertise.

Globally, we must work toward establishing a global “supergovernment” that enacts and enforces binding international laws that are in the best interest of all the world’s peoples. Individual nations will have to give up some sovereignty in order to effectively address global threats such as nuclear weapons, warfare, human rights violations, pandemics, climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and loss of biodiversity. Whether the United Nations can be strengthened to serve in this role or a new organization created will need to be explored.

The Day After is available through Netflix and Amazon.

Iowa Intercity Bus Service

Another pandemic casualty: intercity bus service. The Dubuque – Waterloo – Cedar Rapids – Marshalltown – Ames bus route shown on the 2015 map below is no more. When I called Burlington Trailways yesterday, they told me that this bus route will not be coming back after the pandemic. What a shame.

Not everyone who would like to ride a regional bus has no other transportation option, though that demographic is sizable and certainly needs to be served. Some of us like to ride a bus because we simply don’t want to drive long distances, especially alone. I lived in Ames, Iowa for nearly 30 years, and go back periodically to visit friends and family. I currently live in southwest Wisconsin, and prior to the pandemic, I was able to board a bus in Dubuque at 10:55 a.m. on any day, and would arrive in Ames on the same bus at 5:00 p.m., in time to pick up a rental car at Enterprise before they closed for the day. On the return trip, I could return the car in the morning, after Enterprise opened, board the bus in Ames at 9:45 a.m., and would arrive in Dubuque at 3:30 p.m. It was all very convenient.

Now, your only choice for using public transportation from Dubuque to Ames is the following:

  • Board the bus at Dubuque at 3:50 p.m.
  • Arrive at Davenport at 5:05 p.m.
  • Layover at the Davenport bus station until 6:55 p.m. (1h50m)
  • Transfer to a new bus and leave Davenport at 6:55 p.m.
  • Arrive in Des Moines at 11:10 p.m., with a 20 minutes layover
  • Transfer to a new bus and leave Des Moines at 11:30 p.m.
  • Arrive in Ames at 12:10 a.m. (no rental car companies open at that hour of the night)

The return trip is even worse.

  • Board the bus at Ames at 10:20 p.m.
  • Arrive in Des Moines at 11:05 p.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus at Des Moines
  • Arrive in Chicago at 5:35 a.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus in Chicago
  • Leave Chicago at 6:30 a.m.
  • Arrive in Davenport at 9:55 a.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus at Davenport
  • Leave Davenport at 10:10 a.m.
  • Arrive in Dubuque at 11:25 a.m.

A parenthetical note about this trip. The eastbound bus arrives at the Davenport Flying J’s Travel Shop, 8200 Northwest Boulevard at 1:55 a.m. Instead of going on to Chicago, you could take a 16-minute cab ride the 7 miles to the Burlington Trailways bus station in Davenport at 304 W River Dr. and then wait at the bus station for the 9:55 a.m. bus to arrive that will take you on to Dubuque. Or rent a motel room to sleep for a few hours first.

This is crazy! Who would put up with this unless they were desperate and had no other travel option? Certainly not a good way to build demand for public transportation across a broader demographic, is it?

Public transportation has been underfunded for decades in the United States and it shows. We ought to be ashamed. We really do need a much better bus and passenger rail network, with good intermodal connections.

Sadly, there was not a single news article on the internet that announced or lamented the cancellation of the Burlington Trailways bus route from Dubuque to Ames (and beyond). I guess intercity bus service isn’t deemed newsworthy, as many bus passengers are considered to be second-class citizens at best.

Another sign of the times: neither the bus companies nor anyone else posts bus route timetables on the internet, and even the Amtrak ones are hard to find these days. They all want you to enter your origin and destination on their website, but what if you want a “big picture” timetable for the entire route? You’re usually out of luck.

Amtrak’s Sunset Limited and Las Cruces

Amtrak’s Sunset Limited currently runs just three days a week between New Orleans, LA and Los Angeles, CA. There continues to be a lot of interest in making this a daily train, and I hope that happens soon.

The Sunset Limited stops at 22 cities and towns. These are listed below, with stops having a station building and waiting room shown in bold.

New Orleans, LA
Schriever, LA
New Iberia, LA
Lafayette, LA
Lake Charles, LA

Beaumont, TX
Houston, TX
San Antonio, TX
Del Rio, TX
Sanderson, TX
Alpine, TX
El Paso, TX

Deming, NM
Lordsburg, NM

Benson, AZ
Tucson, AZ
Maricopa, AZ
Yuma, AZ

Palm Springs, CA
Ontario, CA
Pomona, CA
Los Angeles, CA

As you can see, the Sunset Limited makes only two stops in the great state of New Mexico, and both of them are small towns (Deming 14K, Lordsburg 2.4K) without a station building.

Las Cruces, home of New Mexico State University, is by far the largest city in southern New Mexico, with a population of 103K and a metro area of 218K. It is not served by passenger rail.

Currently, if you want to utilize the Sunset Limited from Las Cruces, you need to board a Greyhound bus in Las Cruces at 1:20 a.m., and after you arrive at the Greyhound station in El Paso at 2:30 a.m., you need to take a cab or walk 0.4 miles in the middle of the night to the Amtrak station where you’ll have to wait until 1:22 p.m. to catch the westbound train or 3:10 p.m. to catch the eastbound train. Or later, if the train is not on time.

Returning to Las Cruces from El Paso involves arriving by train westbound at 1:22 p.m. or eastbound at 3:10 p.m., taking a cab or walking the 0.4 miles to the Greyhound station, and then waiting for the 3:25 a.m. bus to Las Cruces, where you will arrive at 4:30 a.m.

How’s that for convenience?

Would it be possible for the Sunset Limited to make a stop at Las Cruces between El Paso and Deming? Yes, but…

In order for the Sunset Limited to make a stop in Las Cruces without building a new rail line, it would have have to leave Union Pacific track and take BNSF track to Las Cruces, then on to Rincon, where it would take Southwestern Railroad track through Hatch and down to Deming where it would rejoin the Union Pacific track, adding 41 miles and some additional time to the trip both eastbound and westbound.

Other option would be to connect Amtrak’s Southwest Chief to the Sunset Limited by adding a new passenger route between Albuquerque and El Paso, with stops in Socorro and Las Cruces along the way. The rail between Albuquerque and Belen is owned by NMRX, and between Belen and El Paso by BNSF. Alternatively, the new passenger route could run entirely on BNSP track if you took the Rail Runner Express from Albuquerque to Belen with the new passenger route running between Belen and El Paso.

Yet another option would be to add a short passenger route like Rail Runner between Las Cruces and El Paso along 42 miles of BNSF track.

The best non-rail option would be to have a dedicated Amtrak thruway bus between Las Cruces and El Paso that would be in sync with the Sunset Limited train schedule and take you directly to and from the Amtrak station in El Paso. (The wonderful Van Galder bus service that runs multiple times per day between Madison, Janesville, South Beloit, Rockford, and Chicago serves as an excellent model as to what can be done by a well-run bus company.)

Finally, a shuttle between Las Cruces and El Paso in sync with the Sunset Limited train schedule could be offered, similar to the RoadRunneR shuttle that runs between Lamy and Santa Fe for the Southwest Chief stop at Lamy.

Retirement Challenges

I retired from my full-time position on May 21, and am now working three hours a day, Monday through Friday, for the same company, 100% remote. It is intense work, but at least it is only 15 hours per week now, and the pay is good.

There are a lot of potential projects that present themselves for an encore career, but I’m finding that I live in the wrong place to do any of them. Some are going to be impossible to do without substantial help from others.

One thing I’ve learned, especially during the pandemic, is that I need to be with people in the work that I do. A 100% remote interaction with others is unsatisfying, and I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that.

The project I am most excited about is Mirador Astronomy Village. Nothing like it has ever been done in the United States before.

Mirador would be a residential community that is astronomy-friendly, and the majority of that residential community would be permanent residents (in other words, not vacation homes for the wealthier among us). Mirador would have no dusk-to-dawn lighting, and no one living there will ever have to worry about a neighbor putting up a light that trashes their view of the night sky or shines into their home. Mirador would have a public observatory and provide regular astronomy programs. Mirador would also have private observatories for research, astrophotography, and visual observing.

Ideally, Mirador would be located where it is clear most nights and winters are mild. New Mexico, Arizona, and West Texas immediately come to mind.

The challenges? Mirador is going to need a land donation and a group of people who can take some financial risk to build it without jeopardizing their personal economic stability. Astronomy is such an important part of my life that I am willing to move, even to a remote location, for the opportunity to live in an intentional community of astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts. What I don’t know is whether there are even 20 others in the entire United States who would make the move for such an opportunity. Running a classified ad in Sky & Telescope for a year accomplished nothing other than “great idea, let me know when you get it built.” Well, even though I have passion, knowledge, and leadership skills to make this project a success, I do not have financial resources beyond providing for myself and my family. I can’t personally fund a development.

Many other projects and activities interest me. None of them can I do in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

  • Provide astronomy programs at a public observatory
  • Volunteer at a classical music radio station, perhaps even hosting my own classical music program, or at least providing recordings and commentary
  • Volunteer for a symphony orchestra
  • Bring the best music of new and neglected classical composers to a wider audience
  • Passenger rail
  • Paved off-road bicycle path
  • Develop a comprehensive outdoor lighting code/ordinance that has support, will get enacted, and will be enforced

One current activity related to classical music is necessarily 100% virtual. Back in April, I created a groups.io discussion group called Classical Music Little-Known Favorites. I posted a note about it to the hundreds of people I am connected to on LinkedIn and Facebook, and that garnered only a single subscriber. Since then, I’ve been working diligently to find interesting and accessible classical music to feature. I am pleased with the results so far, only no one else is posting anything. Still only one subscriber besides myself. There must be at least 20 people in the entire world who have a passion to seek out and champion the best classical music that is not yet commercially available. How do I reach them?

Currently, my astronomical work is focused on stellar occultations by minor planets for IOTA. I spend about 20 hours per week running predictions, recording the events from my backyard observatory, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. My backyard observatory is wholly dedicated to this work. Wherever I end up living, I would like to continue these observations. This adds the complication that I will need access to a dedicated observatory for occultation work—either my own or one that I share with other occultation enthusiasts. That observatory should be within walking distance of where I live.

I would like to live closer to my daughter and her family in Alpine, TX. Even though I would prefer to live somewhere not too far from civilization (thinking quality health care, mostly) with a unpolluted night sky, I am beginning to consider moving to a larger city like Tucson or Las Cruces where I can better pursue my classical music interests in addition to astronomy. Tucson has direct Amtrak access to Alpine (a huge plus), but Las Cruces has no connection to Amtrak. The Sunset Limited needs to come to Las Cruces (between the El Paso and Deming stops), or at least there needs to be a bus that takes you directly to and from the train station in El Paso.

I am concerned about the direction this country is heading, and that is entering into my future plans, too. I am a non-religious progressive who believes that local, state, and federal government should be strong, competent, and efficient. There can be no higher calling than a life dedicated towards public service. I am pro-government, pro-tax, pro-education, pro-science, and anti-gun. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere where Trump got the majority of the vote in 2020. If the current Republican insanity continues (and they have most of the guns), we progressives may be forced to consider forming our own country. Or moving out of this one. Before things get any uglier. Living in an enlightened and compassionate society requires giving up some of your liberty and freedoms for the health and well being of everyone. That’s a given.