They say that we are progressing at an ever faster rate but I'd like to cast doubt on that assumption. Back in the Civil War they had two competing pattents for the machine gun. They never could decide as the years passed. President Abriham Lincoln wanted the machine gun but the army wasn't sure. I think it's perhaps divine providence that Lincoln didn't get his way or there would have been a bigger holicaust than there was in the Civil War because medical procedures hadn't yet caught up. Less than a year after the War was over the government approved the Gattling gun to use on the Indians. The time interval was very short. In 1879 Edison invented the light bulb. During the Cleaveland adminestration lights were installed in the White House. Cleaveland was elected in 1884, and I believe by that time Edison had already electrified Manhatton. In 1903 the Wright Brothers invented the airplane. It was just over ten years latrer they were using fighter planes in World War I. Did you know the first television was invented in 1929 by Farnsworth or somebody? The first TV stations came on in 1946 or seventeen years later. When I was in first grade they talked about "electronic ovins". Well, it was nearly twenty years before they were in widespread usage as microwaves. In the song "What do you want from life?" microwaves were seen as relitively new. Skipping ahead, the first computer was invented in 1944, the Mark I. The first computer you could buy was assembled from a kit you put together yourself, the Apple I in 1975. Are you starting to see a trend here? Computers really didn't become a household word till the early 1990's. In the early 'sixties they used solar cells for space satalites. Soon people thought these would be household items. We're still waiting and it's been over forty years. Certain inventions take longer and longer to reach the public. The pace is slowing down. Five years ago the fastest speed was about two gigahertz. Now it's perhaps three gigahertz, but even at that the machine "runs hot". We are reaching an upward limit of speed. We're still traveling at the same air speeds we were traveling in the late 1950's when jet air craft were first used commercially. Back when I was a kid it took over six months to go to mars or venus. It still takes that long. Certain things don't change. Darwin came up with the theory of evolution in 1859. Today this theory is running into more resistance than it did a hundred years ago. Instead of getting closser to our goal, we are getting farther from it.
It was the middle of June 1967 that Ronald Reagan signed the abortion bill for California. This bill was pretty much abortion on demand like we have today. I think abortion is less fashionable now than it was then. In those days we were in the "sexual revolution" I remember one time in October of 1967 when Hippies came to our church and they were praised by the congragation for their alternative life views. Also in June of 1967 we sent a craft to Venus. We really don't know a whole hell of a lot more about Venus now than we did after that mission in 1967.
On June 25th. the Beatles recorded "All You Need Is Love". This was done for a live sattalite program on a Sunday night. The only things that were changed were that John re-did the vocals, and Ringo did the drum roll introduction. The song was being played on the radio July 1st. or so. In those days the Beatles or other group could "get out" an album in a couple of months. This was certainly the case with "Rubber Soul", "Beatles for Sale", and even "Magical Mystory Tour". Today the average group seems to work a year and a half on an album, and often longer. So much for progress. I was hoping when Anthology II of the Beatles came out they'd show how they "layered" the recording of "All You Need is Love" but as it turns out they didn't even seem fit to include this song though John Lennon has said that this song would have made a good "last song" before the Beatles should have broken up.
What we really need is Love now. This was kind of a calling card of the Christian fundamentalists in 1970. It was a way we could identify them that they imotated what the hippies were doing. How different things are from today! Today when you think of a fundamentalist Christian you think of George Bush, or worse yet, Larry Elder or Anne Coulter. Today love is seen as a bad thing. Back then we said "make love not war". Today Christians say "Make war not love". If you have love you almost have to apologise for it and call it "tough love". Back then when Newark and Detroit were in flames we thought of it as "just as a natural part of the natural process in the liberation of the Black man". Today if you sit around and fanticize about something like blowing up buildings, the government arrests you and you're the trial of the decade, you're the Miami Seven. The only Al Kaida terrorist in the group was the government FBI agents prodding and pushing the group to admit they'd like to see something blown up. I don't know but I'd guess the minimum wage nation wide is about half of what it was in 1967. And so things have changed
It was a couple months ago that the roomer started that Iran would have the Bom in sixteen days. I guess we can thank God this isn't the case. It gives us more time. I guess we can see if the ABM system we have, aka. "Star Wars" or Stratigic Defence Initiative, works at all. Perhaps we can use it to shoot down a South Korea missile. If it works, perhaps we don't have to worry. In terms of other scientific developments, now they use mercury lights indoors, and yet I think the basic concept was pioneered in the late 1890s. Tessla is said to have done fantastic experimentations over a hundred years ago but I think his work was supressed. When my Dad was in college some teacher told the class that we had twenty-five years left of fossil fuel. 38 years ago when The Population Bomb hit the book shelves we were given dire scenarios of what would happen if the population growth of the planet went on unabaited. The problem isn't any less severe today; we've just decided we don't want to think about it. The same goes for Social Security. We have seen the danger signals for ten years but now it's not "politically wise" to even address the problem so we don't think about it. The first nucliar submarine the Nautelus was comissioned in 1954. Yet we have such a phobia of nucliar power today we can't wean ourselves away from gas and coal to produce electricity. There are times when you wonder whether solutions are being kept off the market. I think it's absurd that we still have these freeway traffic problems. We were talking about congested freeways fourty years ago but are seemingly able to do nothing about it. I think it's obvious we have got to get people to give up their cars in commuting.
Magic Mountain is 35 years old this summer and you've heard about how they are planning to sell it and turn the area into another real estate development. The Park was built to get people to move out to Velencia and Saugus but now that they're there the Park has proved too successful. Can you imagine they're going to bulldoze a theme park with seventeen roller coasters? But they say the land is now worth too much to use for something as frivelous as an amusement park. That's progress for you. Who would guess the song is true "These are the good old days"?
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