Logic, Cthia, Reality-Truth

The Commander loves science based fiction, whether print, audio or visual. In addition to old masters Heinlein, Asimov, Vonnegut (we miss you Kurt, RIP), Turtledove, etc.; one of my favorite authors is Diane Duane.

Spocks World was a novel she wrote in 1988, which among other things gave rise to the Vulcan word Cthia, poorly translated as logic, but more correctly meaning reality-truth.

Amanda: It's the modern Vulcan word that we translate as 'logic'. But what it more correctly means is 'reality-truth.' The truth about the universe, the way things really are, rather then the way we would like them to be...The concept says that if we do not tell the universe the truth about itself, if we do not treat it and the people in it as what they are-real and precious-it will turn against us, and none of our affairs will prosper.

After reading this particular gem, I realized that it codified what has always been my life's philosophy, the Universe is what it is, not what we wish it to be.

It is something we Libs only half jokingly refer to as being a 'proud member of the reality based community.' Ron Suskind wrote in the Oct 2004 issue of New York Times Magazine what would become the Gold Standard for how decisions are made in Bush 43 administration. The story is a little strange and extremely frightening:

...I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. ..and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.''...''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Not exactly Cthia. And after all that has happened 2 1/2 years latter; e.g. Katrina, Iraq, Walter Reed, etc., you would think that those on the other side have finally gotten it? Well you would be wrong. The latest insight from Charles Krauthammer:

The Surge: First Fruits

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 13, 2007; Page A17

By the day, the debate at home about Iraq becomes increasingly disconnected from the realities of the war on the ground. The Democrats in Congress are so consumed with negotiating among their factions the most clever linguistic device to legislatively ensure the failure of the administration's current military strategy -- while not appearing to do so -- that they speak almost not at all about the first visible results of that strategy.

The news from Anbar is the most promising. Only last fall, the Marines' leading intelligence officer there concluded that the United States had essentially lost the fight to al-Qaeda. Yet just this week, the Marine commandant, Gen. James Conway, returned from a four-day visit to the province and reported that we "have turned the corner."

Evidently somebody forgot to tell the International Herald Tribune that the El Anbar Provence was secured:

(15 April 2007)The U.S. military also announced three U.S. troop deaths, The Associated Press reported. A soldier was killed Sunday while trying to reach an Iraqi police unit under attack in southern Baghdad. Another soldier died Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded while the unit was on a foot patrol south of Baghdad. And marine died the same day in combat in Anbar province.

Why are there no Vulcan's around when you need them. If someone wanted to give me an early Hanukkah present, they would send the President, the Pundits an the Press back to school and give them a crammed course in reality-truth.