Jump to content

richardmurray

Boycott Amazon
  • Posts

    2,425
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    91

Status Updates posted by richardmurray


  1. More schools that forced American Indian children to assimilate revealed
    By Dana Hedgpeth and Emmanuel Martinez

    now03.png
    Ione Quigley, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's historic preservation officer, returns to her seat after speaking during a ceremony at the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks, in Pennsylvania, in 2021. The site is the former home of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. (Matt Rourke/AP)

    A nonprofit group has identified 115 more Indian boarding schools than has been previously reported, offering new insight into the role of religious institutions in the long-standing federal policy to eradicate Native Americans’ culture through their children.

    For more than a century, generations of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children were forced or coerced from their homes and communities and sent to live at schools where they were beaten, starved and made to abandon their Native languages and culture. The U.S. Department of the Interior announced last year that the federal government ran or supported 408 such schools in 37 states, including 21 schools in Alaska and seven in Hawaii, from 1819 to 1969.

    The new list released Wednesday by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition uses a different criteria, bringing the number of known Indian boarding schools in the country to 523 in 38 states. In addition to the federally supported schools tallied by the Interior Department, the coalition identified 115 more institutions that operated beginning in 1801, most of them run by religious groups and churches.


    Reckoning of American Indian boarding schools grows

    The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition identified 115 more schools than the 408 federally funded schools previously recognized, bringing the known number of schools that forced Native American children to assimilate to White culture to 523 across the U.S.

    now04.jpg

    The coalition scoured thousands of records scattered across the National Archives, universities, tribal offices and local historical societies to identify and map the schools as part of an effort to raise awareness about an often forgotten part of U.S. history.

    “Regardless of who was complicit in running these schools, whether it was done by the federal government or a church or religious group, they both thought it was acceptable to create these schools to remove Native children from their land, strip them of their language and reprogram them under a Manifest Destiny model,” said Samuel Torres, deputy chief executive of the coalition.

    Tens of thousands of American Indian children attended these schools, although no one knows the exact number. Thousands are believed to have died, the coalition said.

    There are increasingly few Native elders alive to give firsthand accounts of their time at the schools. Many are now in their 70s and 80s and attended the schools in the late 1940s and ’50s. Some were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Their experiences left them deeply scarred.

    < https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/08/07/indian-boarding-school-survivors-abuse-trauma/?itid=lk_inline_manual_14

    The coalition’s work comes amid a growing effort to expose the harmful legacy of the boarding school era on American Indian families and tribes as part of the federal government’s broader, centuries-long policies to try to eradicate Native Americans and seize their land. The reckoning has been spurred in large part, many Native leaders said, by the discovery in 2021 of roughly 200 unmarked graves of children who died at a residential school in Canada.

    Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians — a D.C.-based lobbying group — said the findings in Canada “ignited a reawakening” of the United States’ painful history of Indian boarding schools, especially among elders who went to the institutions and never spoke about their experiences.

    “We’re getting to a place where they’re starting to pass away, and we want to make sure the truth is known and the truth is told, so there’s some measure of justice because we’re all impacted as Native people,” said Sharp, who is also the vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington state.

    The healing coalition partnered with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada to build a map similar to one the Canadian center did that looked into how Indigenous children in Canada were forced into residential schools.

    Of the additional schools on the coalition’s list, 105 were run by missionary groups and churches. Officials at the coalition said it is difficult to tell exactly how those schools were funded because the records are held in private collections of religious missions or church groups and more research needs to be done.

    Nine were opened after 1969 — beyond the time frame investigated by the Interior Department. Another operated as both a boarding school and a day school at one point, the coalition said.

    The coalition’s small staff has spent the past three years locating and analyzing records on boarding schools, which are often hard to find and incomplete. Its latest work found more schools in Oklahoma — which had the most, with 95 — and Hawaii, where researchers revealed another 22, bringing that state’s total to 29.

    Over the past year, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe whose grandparents were stolen from their homes and sent to boarding schools — has traveled the country in what her agency calls a “Road to Healing Tour.” She has visited nine tribal communities and listened to survivors and their descendants tell of experiences at boarding schools and the often traumatic impact on their lives, culture, language and customs.

    Haaland’s agency published the first of two reports investigating the schools in May 2022 and found that roughly 50 percent of the federal Indian boarding schools likely received “support or involvement from a religious institution or organization, including funding, infrastructure, and personnel.” The federal government at times paid religious institutions on a “per capita basis for Indian children” to attend boarding schools run by religious groups, according to Interior’s report.

    Many children never made it home. The Interior report’s initial analysis found that more than 500 Indigenous children died at 19 of the federal boarding schools but said that investigators expect the eventual number of deaths to “be in the thousands or tens of thousands.” American Indian historians said many of the children likely died of malnutrition, abuse, tuberculosis or typhoid.

    Their parents often received letters long after their deaths. In some instances, families were unable to travel the long distances from their homes to claim the bodies. Many children were buried at cemeteries on or near the boarding schools’ grounds — sometimes in unmarked graves.

    A second report from the Interior Department will focus on children who died at the schools and how the institutions were funded. Congress is also considering legislation that would create a commission to investigate the schools’ operations, examine church and government records and locate children’s graves.

    “Federal Indian boarding school policies have impacted every Indigenous person I know,” Haaland, the nation’s first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said in a statement. “Some are survivors, some are descendants, but we all carry this painful legacy in our hearts and the trauma that these policies and these places have inflicted.”

    The coalition also plans to release a digital archive of boarding school records later this year, allowing easier access to historians and families still searching for information about their loved ones.

    “It’s going to be a paradigm shift so individuals, communities and Native nations will be able to see in a comprehensive, profound way who was responsible for running these schools,” Torres said.

    Many tribes have started to investigate what happened to children lost to these schools. Some are finding answers. Tribes and communities in Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah have used ground-penetrating radar to search land surrounding boarding schools for unmarked graves.

    At the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, one of the first federal boarding schools in the United States, the remains of five Native American students found at a cemetery near the school will be disinterred and returned to their families for burial this fall, according to officials from the U.S. Army, which now has a war college on the site. The students died between 1880 and 1910.

    In Utah, experts and local tribes using ground-penetrating radar found 12 graves of Indian children in July on the property of the former Panguitch Indian Boarding School, which operated in the early 1900s. They are believed to be from the Paiute and other tribes.

    “These children were taken from their families at very young ages, were not permitted to communicate in the only language they had ever known and were forced into manual labor to maintain the facility,” leaders of the Paiute tribes said in a joint statement when the graves were found.

    The tribal leaders said, “Our hearts go out to the families of these children as we are left to consider how best to honor and memorialize their suffering.”

    By Dana Hedgpeth
    Dana Hedgpeth is a Washington Post reporter, working in the early morning to report on traffic, crime and other local issues. She joined The Post in 1999. She's American Indian and an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of N.C. Twitter https://twitter.com/@postmetrogirl

    By Emmanuel Martinez
    Emmanuel Martinez is an investigative data reporter at The Washington Post, where he uses data, statistics and programming to tell stories.  Twitter https://twitter.com/@eh_mah_nwel

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/08/30/indian-boarding-schools/

     

  2. Sailor Medusa Birthday Treat For Princess Tranquility
    characters from Kuroshi-tenshi

     

    Kuroshi's Sailor Medusa loves milkshakes so I figured, a great birthday treat for Princess Tranqulity, whom the sailor protects will be a milkshake: a cup and cream like Sailor MEdusa while a cookie in its embrace is like Princess Tranquility.

     

    3D model
    https://skfb.ly/oKJyp

     


    Colored page version
    https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Adopt-August-2023-Submission-979394363


    Coloring page version
    https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Adopt-August-2023-Bw-979394208

     

    Contest from @arcencieldigitalart
    https://www.deviantart.com/arcencieldigitalart/journal/OPEN-Contest-3D-Art-in-all-it-s-Forms-974532840

     

    I used Figuro to design 
    https://figuro.io/Designer

    3d model slide.png

  3. The Intruder 1962

     

    Directed by Roger Corman

    Written by Charles Beaumont

    Starring William Shatner

     

     

     

    The Beautiful People

    By Charles Beaumont

     

    Cover

    Preface Illustration
    Principal Characters

    Mary was a misfit.
    She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things—like eating and sleeping.


    The Beautiful People

    By Charles Beaumont

    MARY sat quietly and watched the handsome man's legs blown off; watched further as the great ship began to crumple and break into small pieces in the middle of the blazing night. She fidgeted slightly as the men and the parts of the men came floating dreamily through the wreckage out into the awful silence. And when the meteorite shower came upon the men, gouging holes through everything, tearing flesh and ripping bones, Mary closed her eyes.

    "Mother."

    Mrs. Cuberle glanced up from her magazine.

    "Hmm?"

    "Do we have to wait much longer?"

    "I don't think so. Why?"

    Mary said nothing but looked at the moving wall.

    "Oh, that." Mrs. Cuberle laughed[6] and shook her head. "That tired old thing. Read a magazine, Mary, like I'm doing. We've all seen that a million times."

    "Does it have to be on, Mother?"

    "Well, nobody seems to be watching. I don't think the doctor would mind if I switched it off."

    Mrs. Cuberle rose from the couch and walked to the wall. She depressed a little button and the life went from the wall, flickering and glowing.

    Mary opened her eyes.

    "Honestly," Mrs. Cuberle said to a woman sitting beside her, "you'd think they'd try to get something else. We might as well go to the museum and watch the first landing on Mars. The Mayoraka Disaster—really!"

    The woman replied without distracting her eyes from the magazine page. "It's the doctor's idea. Psychological."

    Mrs. Cuberle opened her mouth and moved her head up and down knowingly.

    "Ohhh. I should have known there was some reason. Still, who watches it?"

    "The children do. Makes them think, makes them grateful or something."

    "Ohhh."

    "Psychological."

    Mary picked up a magazine and leafed through the pages. All photographs, of women and men. Women like Mother and like the others in the room; slender, tanned, shapely, beautiful women; and men with large muscles and shiny hair. Women and men, all looking alike, all perfect and beautiful. She folded the magazine and wondered how to answer the questions that would be asked.

    "Mother—"

    "Gracious, what is it now! Can't you sit still for a minute?"

    "But we've been here three hours."

    Mrs. Cuberle sniffed.

    "Do—do I really have to?"

    "Now don't be silly, Mary. After those terrible things you told me, of course you do."

    An olive-skinned woman in a transparent white uniform came into the reception room.

    "Cuberle. Mrs. Zena Cuberle?"

    "Yes."

    "Doctor will see you now."

    Mrs. Cuberle took Mary's hand and they walked behind the nurse down a long corridor.

    A man who seemed in his middle twenties looked up from a desk. He smiled and gestured toward two adjoining chairs.

    "Well—well."

    "Doctor Hortel, I—"


    THE doctor snapped his fingers.

    "Of course, I know. Your daughter. Ha ha, I certainly do know your trouble. Get so many of them nowadays—takes up most of my time."

    "You do?" asked Mrs. Cuberle. "Frankly, it had begun to upset me."

    "Upset? Hmm. Not good. Not good at all. Ah, but then—if people did not get upset, we psychiatrists would be out of a job, eh? Go the way of the early M. D. But, I assure you, I need hear no more." He turned his handsome face to Mary.[7] "Little girl, how old are you?"

    "Eighteen, sir."

    "Oh, a real bit of impatience. It's just about time, of course. What might your name be?"

    "Mary."

    "Charming! And so unusual. Well now, Mary, may I say that I understand your problem—understand it thoroughly?"

    Mrs. Cuberle smiled and smoothed the sequins on her blouse.

    "Madam, you have no idea how many there are these days. Sometimes it preys on their minds so that it affects them physically, even mentally. Makes them act strange, say peculiar, unexpected things. One little girl I recall was so distraught she did nothing but brood all day long. Can you imagine!"

    "That's what Mary does. When she finally told me, doctor, I thought she had gone—you know."

    "That bad, eh? Afraid we'll have to start a re-education program, very soon, or they'll all be like this. I believe I'll suggest it to the senator day after tomorrow."

    "I don't quite understand, doctor."

    "Simply, Mrs. Cuberle, that the children have got to be thoroughly instructed. Thoroughly. Too much is taken for granted and childish minds somehow refuse to accept things without definite reason. Children have become far too intellectual, which, as I trust I needn't remind you, is a dangerous thing."

    "Yes, but what has this to do with—"

    "With Mary? Everything, of course. Mary, like half the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year olds today, has begun to feel acutely self-conscious. She feels that her body has developed sufficiently for the Transformation—which of course it has not, not quite yet—and she cannot understand the complex reasons that compel her to wait until some future date. Mary looks at you, at the women all about her, at the pictures, and then she looks into a mirror. From pure perfection of body, face, limbs, pigmentation, carriage, stance, from simon-pure perfection, if I may be allowed the expression, she sees herself and is horrified. Isn't that so, my dear child? Of course—of course. She asks herself, why must I be hideous, unbalanced, oversize, undersize, full of revolting skin eruptions, badly schemed organically? In short, Mary is tired of being a monster and is overly anxious to achieve what almost everyone else has already achieved."

    "But—" said Mrs. Cuberle.

    "This much you understand, doubtless. Now, Mary, what you object to is that our society offers you, and the others like you, no convincing logic on the side of waiting until age nineteen. It is all taken for granted, and you want to know why! It is that simple. A non-technical explanation will not suffice—mercy no! The modern child wants facts, solid technical data, to satisfy her every question. And that, as you can both see, will take a good deal of reorganizing."

    "But—" said Mary.

    "The child is upset, nervous, tense; she acts strange, peculiar, odd, worries you and makes herself ill because it is beyond our meagre powers to put it across. I tell you, what we need is a whole new basis for learning. And, that will take[8] doing. It will take doing, Mrs. Cuberle. Now, don't you worry about Mary, and don't you worry, child. I'll prescribe some pills and—"

    "No, no, doctor! You're all mixed up," cried Mrs. Cuberle.

    "I beg your pardon, Madam?"

    "What I mean is, you've got it wrong. Tell him, Mary, tell the doctor what you told me."

    Mary shifted uneasily in the chair.

    "It's that—I don't want it."

    The doctor's well-proportioned jaw dropped.

    "Would you please repeat that?"

    "I said, I don't want the Transformation."

    "D—Don't want it?"

    "You see? She told me. That's why I came to you."

    The doctor looked at Mary suspiciously.

    "But that's impossible! I have never heard of such a thing. Little girl, you are playing a joke!"

    Mary nodded negatively.

    "See, doctor. What can it be?" Mrs. Cuberle rose and began to pace.


    THE DOCTOR clucked his tongue and took from a small cupboard a black box covered with buttons and dials and wire.

    "Oh no, you don't think—I mean, could it?"

    "We shall soon see." The doctor revolved a number of dials and studied the single bulb in the center of the box. It did not flicker. He removed handles from Mary's head.

    "Dear me," the doctor said, "dear me. Your daughter is perfectly sane, Mrs. Cuberle."

    "Well, then what is it?"

    "Perhaps she is lying. We haven't completely eliminated that factor as yet; it slips into certain organisms."

    More tests. More machines and more negative results.

    Mary pushed her foot in a circle on the floor. When the doctor put his hands to her shoulders, she looked up pleasantly.

    "Little girl," said the handsome man, "do you actually mean to tell us that you prefer that body?"

    "Yes sir."

    "May I ask why."

    "I like it. It's—hard to explain, but it's me and that's what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the me."

    "You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look at—well, at your mother and be content?"

    "Yes, sir." Mary thought of her reasons; fuzzy, vague, but very definitely there. Maybe she had said the reason. No. Only a part of it.

    "Mrs. Cuberle," the doctor said, "I suggest that your husband have a long talk with Mary."

    "My husband is dead. That affair near Ganymede, I believe. Something like that."

    "Oh, splendid. Rocket man, eh? Very interesting organisms. Something always seems to happen to rocket men, in one way or another. But—I suppose we should do something." The doctor scratched his jaw. "When did she first start talking this way," he asked.

    "Oh, for quite some time. I used to think it was because she was such a baby. But lately, the time getting so close and all, I thought I'd better see you."

    "Of course, yes, very wise. Er—does she also do odd things?"[9]

    "Well, I found her on the second level one night. She was lying on the floor and when I asked her what she was doing, she said she was trying to sleep."

    Mary flinched. She was sorry, in a way, that Mother had found that out.

    "To—did you say 'sleep'?"

    "That's right."

    "Now where could she have picked that up?"

    "No idea."

    "Mary, don't you know that nobody sleeps anymore? That we have an infinitely greater life-span than our poor ancestors now that the wasteful state of unconsciousness has been conquered? Child, have you actually slept? No one knows how anymore."

    "No sir, but I almost did."

    The doctor sighed. "But, it's unheard of! How could you begin to try to do something people have forgotten entirely about?"

    "The way it was described in the book, it sounded nice, that's all." Mary was feeling very uncomfortable now. Home and no talking man in a foolish white gown....

    "Book, book? Are there books at your Unit, Madam?"

    "There could be—I haven't cleaned up in a while."

    "That is certainly peculiar. I haven't seen a book for years. Not since '17."

    Mary began to fidget and stare nervously about.

    "But with the tapes, why should you try and read books—where did you get them?"

    "Daddy did. He got them from his father and so did Grandpa. He said they're better than the tapes and he was right."

    Mrs. Cuberle flushed.

    "My husband was a little strange, Doctor Hortel. He kept those things despite everything I said.

    "Dear me, I—excuse me."

    The muscular, black-haired doctor walked to another cabinet and selected from the shelf a bottle. From the bottle he took two large pills and swallowed them.

    "Sleep—books—doesn't want the Transformation—Mrs. Cuberle, my dear good woman, this is grave. Doesn't want the Transformation. I would appreciate it if you would change psychiatrists: I am very busy and, uh, this is somewhat specialized. I suggest Centraldome. Many fine doctors there. Goodbye."

    The doctor turned and sat down in a large chair and folded his hands. Mary watched him and wondered why the simple statements should have so changed things. But the doctor did not move from the chair.

    "Well!" said Mrs. Cuberle and walked quickly from the room.

    The man's legs were being blown off again as they left the reception room.


    MARY considered the reflection in the mirrored wall. She sat on the floor and looked at different angles of herself: profile, full-face, full length, naked, clothed. Then she took up the magazine and studied it. She sighed.

    "Mirror, mirror on the wall—" The words came haltingly to her mind and from her lips. She hadn't read them, she recalled. Daddy had said them, quoted them as he put it.[10] But they too were lines from a book—"who is the fairest of—"

    A picture of Mother sat upon the dresser and Mary considered this now. Looked for a long time at the slender, feminine neck. The golden skin, smooth and without blemish, without wrinkles and without age. The dark brown eyes and the thin tapers of eyebrows, the long black lashes, set evenly, so that each half of the face corresponded precisely. The half-parted-mouth, a violet tint against the gold, the white, white teeth, even, sparkling.

    Mother. Beautiful, Transformed Mother. And back again to the mirror.

    "—of them all...."

    The image of a rather chubby girl, without lines of rhythm or grace, without perfection. Splotchy skin full of little holes, puffs in the cheeks, red eruptions on the forehead. Perspiration, shapeless hair flowing onto shapeless shoulders down a shapeless body. Like all of them, before the Transformation.

    Did they all look like this, before? Did Mother, even?

    Mary thought hard, trying to remember exactly what Daddy and Grandpa had said, why they said the Transformation was a bad thing, and why she believed and agreed with them so strongly. It made little sense, but they were right. They were right! And one day, she would understand completely.

    Mrs. Cuberle slammed the door angrily and Mary jumped to her feet. She hadn't forgotten about it. "The way you upset Dr. Hortel. He won't even see me anymore, and these traumas are getting horrible. I'll have to get that awful Dr. Wagoner."

    "Sorry—"

    Mrs. Cuberle sat on the couch and crossed her legs carefully.

    "What in the world were you doing on the floor?"

    "Trying to sleep."

    "Now, I won't hear of it! You've got to stop it! You know you're not insane. Why should you want to do such a silly thing?"

    "The books. And Daddy told me about it."

    "And you mustn't read those terrible things."

    "Why—is there a law against them?"

    "Well, no, but people tired of books when the tapes came in. You know that. The house is full of tapes; anything you want."

    Mary stuck out her lower lip.

    "They're no fun. All about the Wars and the colonizations."

    "And I suppose books are fun?"

    "Yes. They are."

    "And that's where you got this idiotic notion that you don't want the Transformation, isn't it? Of course it is. Well, we'll see to that!"


    MRS. CUBERLE rose quickly and took the books from the corner and from the closet and filled her arms with them. She looked everywhere in the room and gathered the old rotten volumes.

    These she carried from the room and threw into the elevator. A button guided the doors shut.

    "I thought you'd do that," Mary said. "That's why I hid most of the good ones. Where you'll never find them."

    Mrs. Cuberle put a satin handkerchief[11] to her eyes and began to weep.

    "Just look at you. Look. I don't know what I ever did to deserve this!"

    "Deserve what, Mother? What am I doing that's so wrong?" Mary's mind rippled in a confused stream.

    "What!" Mrs. Cuberle screamed, "What! Do you think I want people to point to you and say I'm the mother of an idiot? That's what they'll say, you'll see. Or," she looked up hopefully, "have you changed your mind?"

    "No." The vague reasons, longing to be put into words.

    "It doesn't hurt. They just take off a little skin and put some on and give you pills and electronic treatments and things like that. It doesn't take more than a week."

    "No." The reason.

    "Don't you want to be beautiful, like other people—like me? Look at your friend Shala, she's getting her Transformation next month. And she's almost pretty now."

    "Mother, I don't care—"

    "If it's the bones you're worried about, well, that doesn't hurt. They give you a shot and when you wake up, everything's moulded right. Everything, to suit the personality."

    "I don't care, I don't care."

    "But why?"

    "I like me the way I am." Almost—almost exactly. But not quite. Part of it, however. Part of what Daddy and Grandpa meant.

    "But you're so ugly, dear! Like Dr. Hortel said. And Mr. Willmes, at the factory. He told some people he thought you were the ugliest girl he'd ever seen. Says he'll be thankful when you have your Transformation. And what if he hears of all this, what'll happen then?"

    "Daddy said I was beautiful."

    "Well really, dear. You do have eyes."

    "Daddy said that real beauty is only skin deep. He said a lot of things like that and when I read the books I felt the same way. I guess I don't want to look like everybody else, that's all." No, that's not it. Not at all it.

    "That man had too much to do with you. You'll notice that he had his Transformation, though!"

    "But he was sorry. He told me that if he had it to do over again, he'd never do it. He said for me to be stronger than he was."

    "Well, I won't have it. You're not going to get away with this, young lady. After all, I am your mother."

    A bulb flickered in the bathroom and Mrs. Cuberle walked uncertainly to the cabinet. She took out a little cardboard box.

    "Time for lunch."

    Mary nodded. That was another thing the books talked about, which the tapes did not. Lunch seemed to be something special long ago, or at least different. The books talked of strange ways of putting a load of things into the mouth and chewing these things. Enjoying them. Strange and somehow wonderful.

    "And you'd better get ready for work."

    "Yes, Mother."


    THE office was quiet and without shadows. The walls gave off a steady luminescence, distributed the light evenly upon all the desks and[12] tables. And it was neither hot nor cold.

    Mary held the ruler firmly and allowed the pen to travel down the metal edge effortlessly. The new black lines were small and accurate. She tipped her head, compared the notes beside her to the plan she was working on. She noticed the beautiful people looking at her more furtively than before, and she wondered about this as she made her lines.

    A tall man rose from his desk in the rear of the office and walked down the aisle to Mary's table. He surveyed her work, allowing his eyes to travel cautiously from her face to the draft.

    Mary looked around.

    "Nice job," said the man.

    "Thank you, Mr. Willmes."

    "Dralich shouldn't have anything to complain about. That crane should hold the whole damn city."

    "It's very good alloy, sir."

    "Yeah. Say, kid, you got a minute?"

    "Yes sir."

    "Let's go into Mullinson's office."

    The big handsome man led the way into a small cubby-hole of a room. He motioned to a chair and sat on the edge of one desk.

    "Kid, I never was one to beat around the bush. Somebody called in little while ago, gave me some crazy story about you not wanting the Transformation."

    Mary said "Oh." Daddy had said it would have to happen, some day. This must be what he meant.

    "I would've told them they were way off the beam, but I wanted to talk to you first, get it straight."

    "Well, sir, it's true. I don't. I want to stay this way."

    The man looked at Mary and then coughed, embarrassedly.

    "What the hell—excuse me, kid, but—I don't exactly get it. You, uh, you saw the psychiatrist?"

    "Yes sir. I'm not insane. Dr. Hortel can tell you."

    "I didn't mean anything like that. Well—" the man laughed nervously. "I don't know what to say. You're still a cub, but you do swell work. Lot of good results, lots of comments from the stations. But, Mr. Poole won't like it."

    "I know. I know what you mean, Mr. Willmes. But nothing can change my mind. I want to stay this way and that's all there is to it."

    "But—you'll get old before you're half through life."

    Yes, she would. Old, like the Elders, wrinkled and brittle, unable to move right. Old. "It's hard to make you understand. But I don't see why it should make any difference."

    "Don't go getting me wrong, now. It's not me, but, you know, I don't own Interplan. I just work here. Mr. Poole likes things running smooth and it's my job to carry it out. And soon as everybody finds out, things wouldn't run smooth. There'll be a big stink. The dames will start asking questions and talk."

    "Will you accept my resignation, then, Mr. Willmes?"

    "Sure you won't change your mind?"

    "No sir. I decided that a long time ago. And I'm sorry now that I told Mother or anyone else. No sir, I won't change my mind."

    "Well, I'm sorry, Mary. You been doing awful swell work. Couple of[13] years you could be centralled on one of the asteroids, the way you been working. But if you should change your mind, there'll always be a job for you here."

    "Thank you, sir."

    "No hard feelings?"

    "No hard feelings."

    "Okay then. You've got till March. And between you and me, I hope by then you've decided the other way."

    Mary walked back down the aisle, past the rows of desks. Past the men and women. The handsome, model men and the beautiful, perfect women, perfect, all perfect, all looking alike. Looking exactly alike.

    She sat down again and took up her ruler and pen.


    MARY stepped into the elevator and descended several hundred feet. At the Second Level she pressed a button and the elevator stopped. The doors opened with another button and the doors to her Unit with still another.

    Mrs. Cuberle sat on the floor by the T-V, disconsolate and red-eyed. Her blond hair had come slightly askew and a few strands hung over her forehead. "You don't need to tell me. No one will hire you."

    Mary sat beside her mother. "If you only hadn't told Mr. Willmes in the first place—"

    "Well, I thought he could beat a little sense into you."

    The sounds from the T-V grew louder. Mrs. Cuberle changed channels and finally turned it off.

    "What did you do today, Mother?" Mary smiled.

    "Do? What can I do, now? Nobody will even come over! I told you what would happen."

    "Mother!"

    "They say you should be in the Circuses."

    Mary went into another room. Mrs. Cuberle followed. "How are we going to live? Where does the money come from now? Just because you're stubborn on this crazy idea. Crazy crazy crazy! Can I support both of us? They'll be firing me, next!"

    "Why is this happening?"

    "Because of you, that's why. Nobody else on this planet has ever refused the Transformation. But you turn it down. You want to be ugly!"

    Mary put her arms about her mother's shoulders. "I wish I could explain, I've tried so hard to. It isn't that I want to bother anyone, or that Daddy wanted me to. I just don't want the Transformation."

    Mrs. Cuberle reached into the pockets of her blouse and got a purple pill. She swallowed the pill. When the letter dropped from the chute, Mrs. Cuberle ran to snatch it up. She read it once, silently, then smiled.

    "Oh, I was afraid they wouldn't answer. But we'll see about this now!"

    She gave the letter to Mary.

     

    Mrs. Zena Cuberle
    Unit 451 D
    Levels II & III
    City
    Dear Madam:

     

    In re your letter of Dec 3 36. We have carefully examined your complaint and consider that it requires stringent measures. Quite frankly, [14]the possibility of such a complaint has never occurred to this Dept. and we therefore cannot make positive directives at the moment.

    However, due to the unusual qualities of the matter, we have arranged an audience at Centraldome, Eighth Level, Sixteenth Unit, Jan 3 37, 23 sharp. Dr. Elph Hortel has been instructed to attend. You will bring the subject in question.

    Yrs,
    DEPT F

     

    Mary let the paper flutter to the floor. She walked quietly to the elevator and set it for Level III. When the elevator stopped, she ran from it, crying, into her room.

    She thought and remembered and tried to sort out and put together. Daddy had said it, Grandpa had, the books did. Yes, the books did.

    She read until her eyes burned and her eyes burned until she could read no more. Then Mary went to sleep, softly and without realizing it, for the first time.

    But the sleep was not peaceful.


    "LADIES and gentlemen," said the young-looking, well groomed man, "this problem does not resolve easily. Dr. Hortel here, testifies that Mary Cuberle is definitely not insane. Drs. Monagh, Prinn and Fedders all verify this judgment. Dr. Prinn asserts that the human organism is no longer so constructed as to create and sustain such an attitude through deliberate falsehood. Further, there is positively nothing in the structure of Mary Cuberle which might suggest difficulties in Transformation. There is evidence for all these statements. And yet we are faced with this refusal. What, may I ask, is to be done?"

    Mary looked at a metal table.

    "We have been in session far too long, holding up far too many other pressing contingencies. The trouble on Mercury, for example. We'll have to straighten that out, somehow."

    Throughout the rows of beautiful people, the mumbling increased. Mrs. Cuberle sat nervously, tapping her shoe and running a comb through her hair.

    "Mary Cuberle, you have been given innumerable chances to reconsider, you know."

    Mary said, "I know. But I don't want to."

    The beautiful people looked at Mary and laughed. Some shook their heads.

    The man threw up his hands. "Little girl, can you realize what an issue you have caused? The unrest, the wasted time? Do you fully understand what you have done? Intergalactic questions hang fire while you sit there saying the same thing over and over. Doesn't the happiness of your Mother mean anything to you?"

    A slender, supple woman in a back row cried, "We want action. Do something!"

    The man in the high stool raised his hand. "None of that, now. We must conform, even though the question is out of the ordinary." He leafed through a number of papers on his desk, leaned down and whispered into the ear of a strong blond man. Then he turned to Mary[15] again. "Child, for the last time. Do you reconsider? Will you accept the Transformation?"

    "No."

    The man shrugged his shoulders. "Very well, then. I have here a petition, signed by two thousand individuals and representing all the Stations of Earth. They have been made aware of all the facts and have submitted the petition voluntarily. It's all so unusual and I'd hoped we wouldn't have to—but the petition urges drastic measures."

    The mumbling rose.

    "The petition urges that you shall, upon final refusal, be forced by law to accept the Transformation. And that an act of legislature shall make this universal and binding in the future."

    Mary's eyes were open, wide. She stood and paused before speaking.

    "Why?" she asked, loudly.

    The man passed a hand through his hair.

    Another voice from the crowd, "Seems to be a lot of questions unanswered here."

    And another, "Sign the petition, Senator!"

    All the voices, "Sign it, sign it!"

    "But why?" Mary began to cry. The voices stilled for a moment.

    "Because—Because—"

    "If you'd only tell me that. Tell me!"

    "Why, it simply isn't being done, that's all. The greatest gift of all, and what if others should get the same idea? What would happen to us then, little girl? We'd be right back to the ugly, thin, fat, unhealthy-looking race we were ages ago! There can't be any exceptions."

    "Maybe they didn't consider themselves so ugly."

    The mumbling began anew.

    "That isn't the point," cried the man. "You must conform!"

    And the voices cried "Yes" loudly until the man took up a pen and signed the papers on his desk.

    Cheers, applause, shouts.

    Mrs. Cuberle patted Mary on the top of her head.

    "There, now!" she said, happily, "Everything will be all right now. You'll see, Mary."


    THE Transformation Parlor Covered the entire Level, sprawling with its departments. It was always filled and there was nothing to sign and no money to pay and people were always waiting in line.

    But today the people stood aside. And there were still more, looking in through doors, TV cameras placed throughout the tape machines in every corner. It was filled, but not bustling as usual.

    Mary walked past the people, Mother and the men in back of her, following. She looked at the people. The people were beautiful, perfect, without a single flaw.

    All the beautiful people. All the ugly people, staring out from bodies that were not theirs. Walking on legs that had been made for them, laughing with manufactured voices, gesturing with shaped and fashioned arms.

    Mary walked slowly, despite the prodding. In her eyes, in her eyes, was a mounting confusion; a wide, wide wonderment.

    The reason was becoming less vague; the fuzzed edges were falling[16] away now. Through all the horrible months and all the horrible moments, the edges fell away. Now it was almost clear.

    She looked down at her own body, then at the walls which reflected it. Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, all hers, made by no one, built by herself or someone she did not know. Uneven kneecaps, making two grinning cherubs when they bent, and the old familiar rubbing together of fat inner thighs. Fat, unshapely, unsystematic Mary. But Mary.

    Of course. Of course! This was what Daddy meant, what Grandpa and the books meant. What they would know if they would read the books or hear the words, the good, reasonable words, the words that signified more, much more, than any of this.

    The understanding heaped up with each step.

    "Where are these people?" Mary asked half to herself. "What has happened to them and don't they miss themselves, these manufactured things?"

    She stopped, suddenly.

    "Yes! That is the reason. They have all forgotten themselves!"

    A curvacious woman stepped forward and took Mary's hand. The woman's skin was tinted dark. Chipped and sculptured bone into slender rhythmic lines, electrically created carriage, stance, made, turned out.

    "All right, young lady. We will begin."

    They guided Mary to a large, curved leather seat.

    From the top of a long silver pole a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then redirected into the machine. Wheels turning, buttons ticking.

    The picture was completed.

    "Would you like to see it?"

    Mary closed her eyes, tight.

    "It's really very nice." The woman turned to the crowd. "Oh yes, there's a great deal to be salvaged; you'd be surprised. A great deal. We'll keep the nose and I don't believe the elbows will have to be altered at all."

    Mrs. Cuberle looked at Mary and smiled. "Now, it isn't so bad as you thought, is it?" she said.

    The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned, tapes wound.

    "You'll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed."

    Only the machines.

    The people filed out.

    Mary saw the rooms in the mirror. Saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had been left; the woman and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying.

    Then she looked at the picture in the screen.

    And screamed.

    A woman of medium height stared back at her. A woman with a curved body and thin legs; silver hair, pompadoured, cut short; full sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin.

    A strange, strange woman no one had ever seen before.

    The nurse began to take Mary's clothes off.

    "Geoff," the woman said, "come[17] look at this, will you. Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all."

    The handsome man put his hands in his pockets.

    "Pretty bad, all right."

    "Be still, child, stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt."

    "But—what will you do with me?"

    "That was all explained to you."

    "No, no, with me, me!"

    "Oh, you mean the castoffs. The usual. I don't know exactly. Somebody takes care of it."

    "I want me!" Mary cried. "Not that!" She pointed at the screen.


    HER chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the men lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass, black, filmed. A big machine hung above.

    Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the woman, more women now. Dr. Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head.

    Mary began to cry above the hum of the mechanical things.

    "Shhh. My gracious, such a racket! Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you'll have and how nice everything will be. No more trouble now."

    The big machine hurtling downward.

    "Where will I find me?" Mary screamed, "when it's all over?"

    A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table.

    They turned on the big machine.


    THE END

    URL

    https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36258/pg36258-images.html

    1. richardmurray

      richardmurray

      William Shatner side Roger Corman discussing the film

      TRANSCRIPT

       

      0:00

      foreign I remember this film in pieces it's been

      0:06

      so many years since uh we've worked on it that uh I remember the telephone call

      0:14

      I think it must have been from you saying you'd like me to be in the film and I was flushed From Success on

      0:21

      Broadway and and some major motion picture and this was a small picture this was uh not a large budgeted picture

      0:28

      and the thinking is you don't do that sort of thing if the promise of the of

      0:35

      the big films are there and I read the script and I think I may have told you in the

      0:42

      intervening years but you didn't know it then that I would have paid you money I wish you told me right I held it

      0:51

      but it was such a marvelous script from a wonderful book by Charlie Boy Charles Beaumont that you had to do one had to

      1:00

      do this film I believed in the picture very much I had had a string of successes at that

      1:06

      time I did something like 17 or 18 consecutive successes like the director I'd never had a failure and every idea I

      1:15

      gave to any production company was accepted this was the first script I

      1:21

      paid Chuck Beaumont for the book and he wrote the script and it was turned down by every company that had accepted all

      1:30

      of my other pictures for goodness so my brother and I pooled our funds and together with you we made the picture

      1:36

      yes but when you say pool your funds uh now that we're starting to talk about this I I recall that you more than

      1:43

      pooled your funds you you uh took loans on your houses yes we did as a matter of

      1:48

      fact I got a second mortgage on my house and and uh so there was a great deal

      1:55

      personally at stake for you uh not only financially but emotionally

      2:00

      emotionally the picture turned out very well it went to a number of film festivals including the Venice Festival

      2:07

      I won a couple of Awards as best director you won more Awards as best

      2:12

      actor the reviews were incredible I still remember one review in the New York Times

      2:19

      it started off by saying this motion picture is a major credit to the entire

      2:24

      American film industry it was the first film I ever made that lost money and

      2:31

      however luckily it didn't lose much it just lost a little bit so at least we didn't lose our houses yeah right that

      2:38

      second mortgage has been paid off indeed by the 16 or 17 successes that you had

      2:45

      um of course I guess success is defined by if it makes it makes it profit yes an

      2:51

      economic success an economic success uh but this film uh had a meaning and and a

      2:59

      sense to it that so many of of the films that I have made in the past hence uh before that and and and

      3:07

      after that did not have and I presume the same applies to you yes I believed

      3:12

      very deeply in the subject which was about racial integration in the South I

      3:18

      know you did and I think everybody connected with the film and that's one of the reasons why it's gone on to stay

      3:26

      alive so many years people remember it as an honest document for its time you

      3:32

      might say I'm in Social world I've come to do what I can for the time the integration problem Oh that but

      3:40

      that's all over I mean they've got 10 enrolled already in the schools and they're starting Monday yes I know

      3:48

      do you think it's right no well sure don't neither does nobody but it's the

      3:54

      law who's law to me as a Canadian coming down to the

      4:00

      United States uh I I was not aware of uh what was what the

      4:07

      turmoil was in in in in in in in in terms of the conflict black and white it

      4:15

      had no direct meaning to me because in Canada that that didn't exist

      4:22

      so I was I'm I read the newspapers and I would see the people and I would see

      4:28

      what was happening but I didn't insightfully intrinsically understand

      4:34

      what was going on to get into and live in behind somebody

      4:40

      who was being afflicted I did not get

      4:45

      into their heads until this picture until the intruder and it was only in

      4:51

      the Intruder did I did I was I forced to take a look at separate but equal

      4:58

      and integration and feeling of of uh of a partners because you're treated

      5:07

      differently you're an American citizen but you're not and I began to see what was taking place

      5:14

      and the ferment that was also taking place in a desire to change all that

      5:22

      uh this picture was an epiphany for me uh and working on it

      5:30

      it changed my life coming from California I was aware of

      5:35

      the difference between the races the uh problems of segregation but it was never

      5:41

      as strong obviously in the north this is in the South but it was there there was still uh a slight feeling of segregation

      5:50

      either even in a western or Northern State I had traveled a little bit in the

      5:55

      South and was amazed that in my own country this could be going on we read

      6:03

      about it we experienced a little bit of it in California but I remember the first time I was I think taking a bus

      6:10

      somewhere in New Orleans and I realized that all the blacks really were at the

      6:17

      back of the bus if you went to a theater the blacks were I think in the balcony

      6:24

      and the whites could be downstairs in the preferential seats and I realized

      6:30

      that this was institutionalized this was so built into their way of life that at

      6:37

      least for a period of time the whites accepted it as their natural right and

      6:42

      many blacks felt nothing could be done and I think it was although the great Revolution was to come later in the 60s

      6:49

      it was already starting I think coming out of World War II when blacks and whites had fought equally or

      6:56

      semi-equally in World War II and had come back to a society for which uh

      7:03

      blacks and Asian Americans as a matter of fact had fought and died for and had come back to find a society not equal

      7:10

      and they determined to do something about it right and and uh and when

      7:15

      you're not faced with it if you're in your own little white community and you

      7:20

      don't see the the trouble you tend to ignore it because it's

      7:28

      easier not to face it it's when you're looking at it through the eyes

      7:33

      of uh somebody who's been segregated do you understand the forces at work or

      7:41

      begin to understand and it's interesting to me that many people take the advances

      7:46

      of the last 30 40 years for granted my sons are both basketball players and

      7:51

      they play on fully integrated basketball teams and all that we've not yet reached Perfection we've made great strides I

      8:00

      tell them a little bit about what it was like and it's very hard for them to understand just in this short period of

      8:06

      History we've come so far well sir you see I represent the Patrick

      8:12

      Henry Society and what we'd like to know is just this how you stand with your four integration or against it that's a stupid question

      8:18

      young man I'm a southerner Sudan sedan thank you yeah I was born and raised in these parts so were my

      8:25

      folks that is you're against it of course I'm against it what's the matter

      8:30

      with you I don't remember exactly how I found the book The Intruder but as I recall a friend of mine had read it and

      8:39

      it simply recommended it to me as a good book because he knew that I was very

      8:44

      much interested in contemporary novels and I read the book and contacted Chuck

      8:49

      Bowman and luckily he lived in Los Angeles if he lived in Albuquerque he might never have made the film and I

      8:56

      talked to him and uh we worked out an arrangement and he wrote the script and again from inception it was something

      9:03

      that he believed in and I believed in I remember the first time I saw you we had not met you had done Marlo's play

      9:11

      Timberland which I thought was brilliant and I always remembered that performance

      9:16

      and uh so when I came to cast the picture I've been told you to come out to Hollywood and I remember it was the

      9:23

      simple thing at that point I gave the script to your age and who gave it to you we met and there it was yeah that's

      9:29

      interesting how one thing leads to another I think another element that makes the picture live

      9:36

      uh in the way it does it continues to live the way it does is the

      9:42

      emotions that are invested in the film not only prior to as we're talking now

      9:49

      I'm writing the script and getting the locations but in the actual filming we it was not

      9:56

      uh without its danger yes and that I think whether the audience

      10:03

      realizes it or not is reflected in some of the performances I mean there's genuine fear and Terror on some

      10:12

      locations where we were in Jeopardy particularly the Ku Klux Klan

      10:17

      drive-through scene which was the last scene we shot in the picture and at the

      10:23

      end of it because as you remember we were getting phone calls and threatening letters we shot that scene after having

      10:29

      checked out of our motel and at the conclusion of it we just stayed in the

      10:34

      cars and kept driving to St Louis I remember that and did you know do you remember that there was an actual

      10:40

      stabbing in the uh among the people lining the street somebody had been knifed yes I do remember that yeah so

      10:48

      the the danger was not uh was not in our own minds there were

      10:54

      if I remember uh there was a white gang it was a Black Gang both of whom were

      11:00

      dangerous but the most dangerous gang of all was a gang of ex-criminals who were

      11:06

      black and white yes so uh the vicious criminal element did not uh have its

      11:13

      roots in black or white they were just guys who wanted to get some money and uh and to hurt

      11:21

      somebody I could almost make up some sort of a moral there crime nose no racial

      11:27

      boundaries but that's true and in this case it's it's it's evident

      11:33

      um there was a guy that um I met huge man

      11:40

      tough and he was a source of irritant to the crew I

      11:46

      remember he was on the sidelines the whole time and

      11:52

      and he was Railing at us and jeering us and he was a real anime and he was

      11:59

      considered Dangerous by the by the police and by the by the crew

      12:05

      and I re forget now exactly how I met him whether he was brought in as a crew

      12:13

      member because he could take two stands I remember do you have a record of who

      12:18

      I'm talking about you know it does come back to me I think we did have him working because he was so strong because he was so strong and so potentially

      12:24

      dangerous so I talked to him and I found out that he had a great

      12:32

      quarter horse and I was interested in horses that he had his lucky chaps with which

      12:37

      he'd want I I forgotten probably cutting competitions

      12:42

      and he had the fastest car in the tri-state area of

      12:48

      and he had gone to Daytona with this uh Pontiac this jazzed up Pontiac and it

      12:55

      won some stuff and as I befriended him in the true manner of Southern generosity

      13:02

      he said anytime you want to ride my horse anytime you want to drive my car

      13:09

      I want you to do it well we were somewhere and Cairo Illinois was a

      13:15

      little further away and there was somebody there I forgotten now who I wanted to see and what it was I wanted

      13:20

      to see but I one day I asked him can I borrow your car and he said sure he said I want to show

      13:27

      you a couple of things he went to the trunk and inside that he opened the trunk and inside the trunk were his lucky chaps he says these are my lucky

      13:34

      chaps uh they brought me great luck in competition I they're right here don't

      13:40

      don't don't do you know just be sure that you don't open the trunk because these are very important to me

      13:46

      then he went to the truck the hood and Jack put the hood up and he said now

      13:53

      I want you to be careful you can see there are no air cleaners here that's because the raw air is sucked in

      14:00

      through the carburetor and and I've got four carbs here and it's the fastest car

      14:07

      in the tri-state area I won this is my great car this is a car it's one of a kind I love this car I love this car

      14:13

      very much so now I want you to be careful because the open mouth carburetor allows gasoline to be thrown

      14:20

      backwards as well so every so often it catches fire now come over here and behind the seat yeah that extinguisher

      14:29

      and he said here if ever you smell smoke

      14:34

      trip the hood get that off and just all you have to do is extinguish the fire

      14:39

      and it's fine I do that all the time so I said okay great the the fire extinguisher there had the hood

      14:46

      there and I had the trunk there and I drive to Cairo Illinois and I'm parked doing something on the curb I've

      14:51

      forgotten and somebody drives up alongside you say Hey sir your car is on fire

      14:58

      so I rushed to the trunk and I see Flames coming out of the trunk and now I

      15:05

      forget about the fire extinguisher I need something to put this fire on no I tripped the hood I tripped the trunk and

      15:11

      I run to the trunk and I grabbed some rags in the truck and I started beating out the fire and I'm beating out the fire and I'm beating out on it finally I

      15:17

      get the fire out and the engine is melted and I realized that the rags in my hands

      15:24

      are his lucky chips and this is one of the most dangerous

      15:29

      men we've ever met I had a tough time telling him what did he do what did he

      15:35

      do when you you told him I think he killed me yeah yes and we made a movie of that I remember a little different in

      15:42

      the later Seasons we had to resurrect me it was I I think

      15:47

      he was gracious about it actually I think he said oh I know something about it but it was it was

      15:53

      Dire and wonderful at the same time now he told me a very similar story but he said you know I'm getting a little tired

      16:00

      of this car and I've got it heavily insured and I've got this idiot that I'm gonna get to take the car

      16:07

      that's good but I remember some other tough uh

      16:12

      scenes do you remember the end of the picture where you uh and Leo Gordon and

      16:18

      Charlie Barnes the local uh black kid we had playing uh in the in the excuse me

      16:25

      which reminds me of the fact we only had four or five professional actors I think

      16:30

      it was you Leo Gordon uh Gene burnson and one other and all the

      16:38

      rest of them were local people and uh anyway in the final scene where which

      16:44

      takes place outside the school and Charlie is being swung back and forth in

      16:50

      the swing that was one of the roughest things we ever had we shot it in two days and the first day everything was

      16:57

      fine we got all our long shots all our establishing shots and when we went back for the second and concluding day and

      17:04

      this was the climax of the picture the sheriff of East Prairie Missouri

      17:11

      stopped us at the borders of the town and said you can't come into the town we had nothing else to do and I

      17:18

      remembered no place to shoot and I remembered that there were some swings in the public park in Sikeston so we

      17:25

      drove back to the public park and we shot during the morning shooting in

      17:30

      tight so you wouldn't see the uh the school on the public park swings and the

      17:37

      police of Sikeston came by to throw us out and you and I were working on the

      17:43

      set and my brother was doing a greater not a greater an equal job of acting talking to the police because he knew I

      17:50

      needed a little time to finish the scene and saying well I don't understand officers can you explain exactly what

      17:55

      your attitude is just double talking we kept shooting until it was time to break for lunch and I gave the sign to my

      18:02

      brother and my brother said okay we'll understand we understand we'll leave we'll leave town Gene your brother Gene

      18:10

      has not changed at all he double talks no matter what indeed and we still had

      18:17

      half a day of shooting to do and during lunch while everybody was breaking for lunch I had remembered another school

      18:22

      that we had scouted and rejected because it was out in the country and I drove to that school and uh

      18:29

      it was summer vacation and there was nobody there so we went to the school without any permits or anything we

      18:36

      didn't pull from that sort of thing and we shot the concluding part of the scene on the swings there and nobody has ever

      18:44

      noticed the fact that the final scene was shot in three different locations and the swings were of different heights

      18:51

      and it seen plays and I think it's partially the way we shot it and partially your performance was so strong

      18:58

      they were looking at you this town I'm talking about texting yeah

      19:04

      [Applause] people

      19:09

      something happened today 10 Negroes went into the caxton high school and sat

      19:16

      with the white children there nobody stopped them nobody turn them off

      19:24

      and you know what they're saying that means they're safe

      19:29

      as you all don't give a darn whether the whites mixed with the blacks because he didn't fight against it the

      19:35

      um the denuma of that film was uh also uh

      19:40

      Vivid still vividly lives in my mind um you had chosen as a location a a

      19:47

      courthouse an exterior of a courthouse uh and steps that went up and and now

      19:53

      the character I was playing was about to Harang the mob to rise up and and

      20:00

      pillage um so that the integration would not take place and

      20:06

      for several days before that final scene uh which was I believe at the end of the

      20:13

      week we had done a lot of yelling and jumping and screaming and running both from the

      20:19

      police from the gangs and uh and also on camera my voice was was shot and I had

      20:27

      the day before off so if it was a Friday night that we were going to shoot I had Thursday night off and I'd gone to the

      20:34

      doctor in the local Town who said you've got laryngitis which is fatigue and

      20:40

      overuse of the muscle The Voice you need to rest and you may be able to speak I could I

      20:45

      could not speak like that and I had this long several pages of speech to make

      20:52

      so I said can you give me some sleeping pills I don't work tomorrow night can you give me some sleeping pills and put

      20:59

      me to sleep for 24 hours which is what I did I took sleeping

      21:05

      pills and actually I remember waking up and thinking it was 12 hours later but

      21:10

      it was only a couple of hours later so I popped a couple more and finally I drugged myself out to be out of it for

      21:18

      24 hours during which if I had to speak like get something to eat I wrote it out

      21:24

      I never used my voice and I didn't use my voice when we went to location I did

      21:29

      not speak I wrote out the notes and you set up

      21:35

      over my shoulder onto the crowd first and then when you finished all your coverage facing away from me or over my

      21:43

      back onto the crowd and I didn't speak to the crowd even on their reactions you had it read by somebody either yourself

      21:49

      or people already read but what we wrote was not totally innocuous that's exactly

      21:55

      right you wrote innocuous things that's right it was you know buy at the sacks

      22:00

      you know Macy's window or whatever drink uh Perry

      22:06

      no I think I've got enough uh product placement in there yes um and work with Priceline

      22:12

      and buyers tickets uh and all of which was meaningless to the audience and then

      22:18

      you reverse and you went way away from me I still didn't speak and finally you were on me for the medium and close

      22:23

      shots by that time it was after midnight and the crowd realized the truth that

      22:30

      everybody who's not connected with the movie ultimately realizes that is making a movie like watching a horse show is

      22:37

      boring unless you're intimately connected with the details of of what it is you're doing so they had long since

      22:43

      left there were 10 people left in the out of the hundreds that had turned up and I began my speech and spoke the

      22:50

      speech for the first time with great gratitude that my voice was working but nobody was there and the following day I

      22:58

      think it was you and I were walking along the Main Street and the guy from the newspaper

      23:04

      called us over and he said do you realize that where you were last night that tree that was uh in the courtyard

      23:12

      was a tree that was used for lynching that people in the audience that you had last night would have remembered

      23:20

      uh uh the the terrible tragic events that that uh that

      23:27

      took place there and that had I spoken these fiery words that Charles Beaumont

      23:35

      had written they might we might have had a different ending on our hands very fast ended well

      23:44

      as a matter of fact I do remember that and I remember also the fact that people

      23:49

      did not totally know exactly the details of what you were doing the script we

      23:54

      gave handed out was a little bit different than the script we actually shot and I remember you had a group of

      24:01

      followers that I had chosen or there were sort of the guys who sat around the town square whittling and spitting and

      24:06

      talking they had great faces and they were loyal followers and well you were

      24:13

      saying these various inflammatory uh anti-integration as sentiments they were

      24:19

      yelling and applauding they were with you all the way and they thought you were a good guy and they were really

      24:26

      disappointed when they found out at the end of the picture that you were a bad guy they agreed with you all the way and

      24:31

      that the school's integrated yes you mean that's the way it is

      24:36

      and I'm willing to give my life if that'd be necessary to see that my country stays free

      24:44

      White and American [Applause]

      25:03

      everybody

      25:11

      so making the film uh was a a risk to

      25:17

      you as a personally financially and and I'm sure artistically uh and to you and

      25:26

      the rest of us it was a risk uh physically uh to make the film there was a lot at stake there was a lot of stake

      25:33

      and uh although it was not at that time of Commercial Success eventually because it's hung on so long it has finally

      25:40

      broke the black but emotionally I still remember it uh as one of the best

      25:46

      pictures of one of the films I remember most fondly and I'm most proud of and I

      25:52

      think your performance was brilliant the number of awards you won with that performance was amazing it was it was a

      25:58

      wonderful opportunity the Intruder was named several things as it went through its it was it started as

      26:05

      the Intruder and it was not a commercial success so uh a sort of an exploitation

      26:12

      distributed from the south that I knew said he could make this picture uh

      26:18

      commercially successful and I said fine and he put some wild title on it and it

      26:24

      did a little bit better but I don't even remember what the title was I have blocked it out of my mind the garbage man yes whatever and it's gone back to

      26:31

      being the Intruder and it's had a very strange life and keeps going for

      26:37

      instance the British Film Institute asked me if they could release it I was not aware that they did this in England

      26:44

      as part of some sort of a series of socially committed films this was two

      26:50

      years ago and it was a big success in England and of the films in that series

      26:55

      that they put in a series of art theaters it was the highest grossing uh and it got wonderful reviews so the and

      27:04

      I think what it is and I've always believed this if the people making the film the writer

      27:12

      director producer actors even the crew and so forth really believe in a film

      27:18

      and make it honestly and truthfully the film itself is permeated with that I

      27:24

      agree but I think it uh as they say a fish in this case uh the the vehicle uh

      27:32

      the the the the the the Cinematic vehicle is being led by the

      27:38

      head the the fish tanks at the head I think the the uh the uh the film is led

      27:45

      by the director and the passions and the and the uh

      27:50

      first force of creativity is the directors and it was you Roger that took

      27:57

      us uh there and was you your courage and your your commitment to your picture and

      28:04

      um and one doesn't that doesn't come to mind

      28:09

      uh when you think of a Roger Corman film you think of a Roger Corman film you

      28:14

      think of the wonderful talents that were started that you you spotted early on that you made for a price you taught a

      28:21

      lot of people in this industry to make films clean and uh and with no fat on

      28:28

      them at all uh and and put every penny that you spend put it up on the screen and not in a craft service table

      28:36

      uh it's a lesson I learned uh and am applying even as we speak You're

      28:42

      directing a film now I'm directing a film now and I'm searching for it's not

      28:48

      a controversial film but it's difficult to make a film

      28:54

      cheaply anymore uh people have gotten sophisticated

      28:59

      about asking for money for locations and and for performing performing is I'm it's all it's quite different and yet

      29:07

      it's not because the need if you have a limited amount of money and you want to make a film The need to put the money on

      29:14

      the screen is the same yes and you laid down some fine ground work there that

      29:22

      we're all still trying to follow but I've always believed is what ultimately

      29:27

      counts is what is on the screen not how many people as you say the craft service table although you can have pretty good

      29:33

      food on the craft service table not what's behind the camera ultimately what

      29:38

      is there and uh I think on the Intruder the fact that we shot it on the actual

      29:44

      locations with primarily non-actors who possibly their lack of ability showed

      29:50

      but the realism of what they did showed and talking about costs and so forth

      29:55

      that I remember we shot it in three weeks on a budget of around 70 or 80 000

      30:00

      which was would be impossible today but was pretty tough then and I think back

      30:07

      of it uh back on it as uh a kind of a milestone for me and uh a brilliant

      30:15

      performance for you are we both gone on we've had good careers you've had a great career and I think we can look

      30:21

      back at this film with pride and I do

      English (auto-generated)

       

       

  4. KWL Live Q&A – Accessibility Tips for Authors with Wendy Reid started at noon

     

     

    MY THOUGHTS AS  I LISTENED

    12:02 what does accessibility mean?
    The main focus on the needs and requirements for people with disabilities

    12:03 How did you get involved?
    She did work for the world wide web technical standards. She mostly work on epub and digital publishing. She got a lot of insight from people in disability community cause they,epub and similar,  are so important for people with disabilities.

    12:05 The exercise to using the audio on her phone to navigating to her phone by audio was a challenge.
    Most tools are not accessible but the disability community members have figured out workarounds
    if you want to know more about accessiblity in kobo email the following
    < kobo-accessibility@rakuten.com >

    12:08 What is your day to day at Kobo
    A lot of meetings. A lot of time researching trying to find the best way to do things. Accessibility on a tech company with a lot of different interfaces is busy. 
    Another interview side wendy 
    < https://www.kobo.com/blog/learn-how-kobo-makes-reading-more-accessible

    12:12 What will you say to an author who ask with accessibility?
    We all deal with accessibility or disability  issues  in life. You are planning for your future self and being inclusive of your audience.
    Captions are designed for people who are hard to hear but they are a huge accessibility option 

    12:15 do you know about accessibility options that authors need to be aware of, top complaints?
    Image descriptions. If you are using a screen reader, and an image isn't described it is frustrating to the reader. Around NAvigation, have a really good table of contents. Name your chapters, or subsections.  Table your headings. That structure will help those who have a hard time seeing.  

    12:18 How will an author know if their file is as accessible as can be?
    if you are not creating the epub yourself, you can mark themself up in word. they all have accessibility checkers in them. Make sure headings are headings. Describe all images. 
    Question to ask platform you distributing to, are you using that information to make epub. Are you making sure the heading 1 in word is heading 1 in epub. 
    Alot of companies put disabled users to the side but one in five worldwide have a disability.

    12:22 how detailed should alt text should be
    There is no one way to make alt text. <She gives a great example of describing a cat> How to present a science fiction map, may be really long. The author has to decide which is best.

    12:25 Epub files
    It is better to make a bigger book be split into multiple files.

    <one thing you guys can do is allow people to have the choice of retaining old interfaces. Some people feel better accessibility with older interfaces>

    12:28 Accessibility Checker
    Kobo will add it. 

    12:31 How do you handle alt text in covers?
    We don't have that information cause and can't do it at scale but inside your book, describe your cover. 

    12:32 Can they work on fonts on covers?
    Make covers readable. She has seen covers that is barely visible in small image form. Be mindful of how busy an image is. Make text stand out more. She gets complaints, try testing covers in greyscale and it is hard to see. Her father's love sending screen shots in ereader. 

    Book on history of audiobook
    < https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-untold-story-of-the-talking-book-3
    < https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/the-untold-story-of-the-talking-book-2 >

    12:35 what about accessibility in audio books?
    Underexplored area. Audiobooks were developed to be accessibile. Soldiers from world war 1 who lost their vision to be able to read. Two essential things: If you have images in book, describe in audio. Audiobook structure, she likes to know chapters in table of contents, not tracks.
    She uses a book that came out two months ago and it had track 1 track 2 not chapters.

    Audiobook format in Kobo
    < https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360059385511-How-to-Upload-Your-Audiobook-Directly-on-Kobo >  

    12:40 What can authors do now in terms of metadata?
    Can include in description. The summary is the best place to do that. DRM is not really accessible. Kobo is looking at implementing more accessibility formats in DRM. But DRM isn't great for accessibility. 

    12:42 Is anything authors should be aware of for external links?
    Put in link text. Recommend don't using link text that uses vague things. Use the alt text. 

    12:44 How to make websites more accessible?
    Describe all images. Describe all links. Wix or squarespace have accessibility options. You can do yourself. Ask about color palette. No highlighter color on black. Try to avoid putting text on top of book covers. Highly recommend using simple fonts, dyslexia or visually processing issues, and the most readable fonts are times new roman, helvitica, georgia, callibri. Describe book covers. 

    12:48 any newsletter or email practices?
    Same issues for the websites or books. Alot of design fundamentals cross into accessibility fundamentals. 

    12:52 what about accessibility in social media?
     Alt text are needed for every image. Highly recommend. If a platform doesn't have it, use the caption. Alot of tiktokers use captions in videos. Apply captions for video post. Higly recommend reviewing captions for automated captions. Use the most simple captions , it is best for accessibility. They need to detect whether you have your own captions cause you get double captions at times. Youtube provide audio descriptions, consider that. 

    12:57 about emoji's?
    Use emoji's carefully. Every emoji has a name. use simplest, and don't open with emoji's. 

    1:00 What do you think the publishing industry need to be more accessible ? 
    The publshing industry in some countries, canada included, the biggest problem is funding, and going through backlist and making them more accessible.  Alt text is hard for very old books. Publishers try to figure that out. How do we make text that are visually complex , more accessible.

     

    List of her links in comments
    https://kobowritinglife.com/2023/08/03/kwl-live-qa-accessibility-tips-for-authors-with-wendy-reid/ 

    Ace by DAISY – accessibility checker for EPUB < https://daisy.org/activities/software/ace/ >  
    DAISY Knowledge Base, everything you need to know about coding accessible EPUBs < http://kb.daisy.org/publishing/docs/epub/
    Accessible Publishing Learning Network – lots of excellent resources! < https://apln.ca/
    WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool < https://wave.webaim.org/
    Colour Contrast, an easy to use colour contrast checker < https://colourcontrast.cc/
    Accessible Social, a resource for creating accessible social media content < https://www.accessible-social.com/
    Social Visual Alt Text, fun web extension for viewing alternative text on social media < https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-visual-alt-text/bkpbmomfemcjdeekdffmbohifpndodm
    WordToEPUB < https://daisy.org/activities/software/wordtoepub/


    MY CLOSING THOUGHTS

    I thought about accessibility. If accessibility was considered from the beginning of most processes it would undo alot of the schemes/scams/ aspects of entertainment/social media/wesbites or other. 
    For example, I like the mandolorian show from Disney. If someone is blind and they can't see the Mandolorian maybe they have an audio read version available. So they can hear each episode absent commercials. But imagine if you are listening to an on demand film, like Godzilla,  like from TNT of the warner bros group in Discovery. Imagine you hear:"this thing killed my wife!, have you ever had bad bowels, Well try..." The commercial break is by default a terrible element. For someone who can only hear they are bound to hear a commercial where those with sight can mute and move on and come back. 
    Accessibility if engineered optimally will delete many methods of commercialization in entertainment or media through electronic means. 
     

  5.  

    INFORMATION

    Audio Play - Aliens In The Mind - Peter Cushing - Vincent Price - William Eadle - James Thomason Island Genesis Robert Holmes -

    Aliens in the Mind Episode 1 of 6

    The curiosity of the inhabitants of the remote Scottish island of Luig is aroused when two strangers arrive for the funeral of the local doctor. The two men are no strangers to each other, nor were they to the late Dr Hugh Dexter. One is Professor Curtis Lark - a flamboyant American explorer, scientist and Nobel Prize winner whose research has been in the field of telepathy and telekinesis; the other is John Cornelius - the eminent British brain surgeon. What starts as a brief visit by two colleagues to honour an old friend quickly develops into a series of bizarre and frightening events uncovering the presence of forces unknown bent on world domination...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Professor Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Minister Donald Schooler ..... Henry Stamper

    Mrs Kyle ..... Shirley Dixon

    Flora Kiery ..... Sandra Clarke

    Mary ..... Irene Sutcliffe

    Dr Hugh Dexter ..... Frazer Carr

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

     

    Hurried Exodus Robert Holmes -

    Aliens in the Mind Episode 2 of 6

    On the Isle of Luig, Lark and Cornelius are certain the death of Dr Hugh Dexter was no accident. From his research notes, they diagnose a mysterious island sickness. The key to the mystery seems to be an apparently simple-minded 18-year-old, Flora Kiery...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Professor Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Minister Donald Schooler ..... Henry Stamper

    Mrs Kyle ..... Shirley Dixon

    Flora Kiery ..... Sandra Clarke

    Mary ..... Irene Sutcliffe

    Dr Hugh Dexter ..... Frazer Carr

    Police Sergeant ..... Frazer Carr

    Purser ..... Andrew Sear

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

     

     

    Unexpected Visitations

    Robert Holmes - Aliens in the Mind Episode 3 of 6 Believing the apparently simple-minded Flora Kiery may be the key to the strange genetic mutation they've discovered on the Isle of Luig, Professor Curtis Lark and John Cornelius persuade her to leave the island and come with them to London. They believe that only by exhaustive laboratory tests can they ever hope to solve the mystery of her extraordinary telepathic powers...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Flora Kiery ..... Sandra Clarke

    Kalman Baromek ..... Steve Playtus

    Joan ..... Joan Mathieson

    Purser ..... Andrew Sear

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

     

     

    Official Intercessions

    Robert Holmes - Aliens in the Mind Episode 4 of 6 Having brought the apparently simple-minded Flora Keiry to London, Professor Lark and John Cornelius uncover the sinister nature of her true identity and realise the authorities must be alerted...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Flora Kiery ..... Sandra Clarke

    Kalman Baromek ..... Steve Playtus

    Ian Sanderson ..... Frazer Carr

    Gulliver ..... William Eadle

    Brigadier Sherman ..... Clifford Norgates

    Gwynt ..... Michael Harbour

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

     

    Genetic Revelation

    Robert Holmes - Aliens in the Mind Episode 5 of 6 Professor Curtis Lark and John Cornelius have established the existence of another colony of mutants in the heart of London, but the only person who could fight them is dead...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

     

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Flora Kiery ..... Sandra Clarke

    Ian Sanderson ..... Frazer Carr

    Gulliver ..... William Eadle

    Brigadier Sherman ..... Clifford Norgates

    Gwynt ..... Michael Harbour

    Manson ..... Andrew Sear

    Home Office Official ..... James Thomason

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

     

     

    Final Tribulations

    Robert Holmes - Aliens in the Mind Episode 6 of 6 Professor Lark and John Cornelius reveal to Flora's MP father, Ian Sanderson, that he himself is a mutant being - manipulated by some unidentified Controller. Shocked and horrified, Sanderson helps them trace the organisation...

     

    Starring Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.

    John Cornelius ..... Peter Cushing

    Curtis Lark ..... Vincent Price

    Sir Gordon MacLeodan ..... Richard Hurndall

    Lady MacLeodan ..... Joan Benham

    Ian Sanderson ..... Frazer Kerr

    Donald Scholar ..... Henry Stamper

    Manson ..... Andrew Sear

    Written by Rene Basilico from an idea by Robert Holmes.

    Producer: John Dyas First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977.

  6. Gordon Gecko speech

     

    Well, I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me, Mr. Cromwell, as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak.

    Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company!

    All together, these men sitting up here [Teldar management] own less than 3 percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than 1 percent.

    You own the company. That's right -- you, the stockholder.

    And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their steak lunches, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
    ...
    Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents.

    The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated.

    In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you.

    I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!

    The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

    Greed is right.

    Greed works.

    Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

    Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

    And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

    Thank you very much

     

    https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html

  7. Physicists Move One Step Closer to a Theoretical Showdown

    The deviance of a tiny particle called the muon might prove that one of the most well-tested theories in physics is incomplete.

    now04.png

    The Muon g-2 ring at the Fermilab particle accelerator complex in Batavia, Ill.Credit...Reidar Hahn/Fermilab, via US Department of Energy

     

    By Katrina Miller

    Katrina Miller, a science reporter, recently earned a Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago.

    Aug. 10, 2023

    On July 24, a large team of researchers convened in Liverpool to unveil a single number related to the behavior of the muon, a subatomic particle that might open a portal to a new physics of our universe.

    All eyes were on a computer screen as someone typed in a secret code to release the results. The first number that popped out was met with exasperation: a lot of concerning gasps, oh-my-God’s and what-did-we-do-wrong’s. But after a final calculation, “there was a collective exhale across multiple continents,” said Kevin Pitts, a physicist at Virginia Tech who was five hours away, attending the meeting virtually. The new measurement matched exactly what the physicists had computed two years prior — now with twice the precision.

    So comes the latest result from the Muon g-2 Collaboration, which runs an experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, in Batavia, Ill., to study the deviant motion of the muon. The measurement, announced to the public and submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters on Thursday morning, brings physicists one step closer to figuring out if there are more types of matter and energy composing the universe than have been accounted for.

    “It really all comes down to that single number,” said Hannah Binney, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory who worked on the muon measurement as a graduate student.

    Scientists are putting to the test the Standard Model, a grand theory that encompasses all of nature’s known particles and forces. Although the Standard Model has successfully predicted the outcome of countless experiments, physicists have long had a hunch that its framework is incomplete. The theory fails to account for gravity, and it also can’t explain dark matter (the glue holding our universe together), or dark energy (the force pulling it apart).

    One of many ways that researchers are looking for physics beyond the Standard Model is by studying muons. As heavier cousins of the electron, muons are unstable, surviving just two-millionths of a second before decaying into lighter particles. They also act like tiny bar magnets: Place a muon in a magnetic field, and it will wobble around like a top. The speed of that motion depends on a property of the muon called the magnetic moment, which physicists abbreviate as g.

    In theory, g should exactly equal 2. But physicists know that this value gets ruffled by the “quantum foam” of virtual particles that blip in and out of existence and prevent empty space from being truly empty. These transient particles change the rate of the muon’s wobble. By taking stock of all the forces and particles in the Standard Model, physicists can predict how much g will be offset. They call this deviation g-2.

    But if there are unknown particles at play, experimental measurements of g will not match this prediction. “And that’s what makes the muon so exciting to study,” Dr. Binney said. “It’s sensitive to all of the particles that exist, even the ones that we don’t know about yet.” Any difference between theory and experiment, she added, means new physics is on the horizon.

    To measure g-2, researchers at Fermilab generated a beam of muons and steered it into a 50-foot-diameter, doughnut-shaped magnet, the inside brimming with virtual particles that were popping into reality. As the muons raced around the ring, detectors along its edge recorded how fast they were wobbling.

    Using 40 billion muons — five times as much data as the researchers had in 2021 — the team measured g-2 to be 0.00233184110, a one-tenth of 1 percent deviation from 2. The result has a precision of 0.2 parts per million. That’s like measuring the distance between New York City and Chicago with an uncertainty of only 10 inches, Dr. Pitts said.

    “It’s an amazing achievement,” said Alex Keshavarzi, a physicist at the University of Manchester and a member of the Muon g-2 Collaboration. “This is the world’s most precise measurement ever made at a particle accelerator.” The results, when revealed to the public at a scientific seminar on Thursday morning, were met with applause.

    “The kind of precision that these people have managed to attain is just staggering,” said Dan Hooper, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the work. “There was a lot of skepticism they would get here, but here they are.”

    But whether the measured g-2 matches the Standard Model’s prediction has yet to be determined. That’s because theoretical physicists have two methods of computing g-2, based on different ways of accounting for the strong force, which binds together protons and neutrons inside a nucleus.

    The traditional calculation relies on 40 years of strong-force measurements taken by experiments around the world. But with this approach, the g-2 prediction is only as good as the data that are used, said Aida El-Khadra, a theoretical physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a chair of the Muon g-2 Theory Initiative. Experimental limitations in that data, she said, can make this prediction less precise.

    A newer technique called a lattice calculation, which uses supercomputers to model the universe as a four-dimensional grid of space-time points, has also emerged. This method does not make use of data at all, Dr. El-Khadra said. There’s just one problem: It generates a g-2 prediction that differs from the traditional approach.

    “No one knows why these two are different,” Dr. Keshavarzi said. “They should be exactly the same.”

    Compared with the traditional prediction, the latest g-2 measurement has a discrepancy of over 5-sigma, which corresponds to a one in 3.5 million chance that the result is a fluke, Dr. Keshavarzi said, adding that this degree of certainty was beyond the level needed to claim a discovery. (That’s an improvement from their 4.2-sigma result in 2021, and a 3.7-sigma measurement done at Brookhaven National Laboratory near the turn of the century.)

    But when they compared it with the lattice prediction, Dr. Keshavarzi said, there was no discrepancy at all.

    Rarely in physics does an experiment surpass the theory, but this is one of those times, Dr. Pitts said. “The attention is on the theoretical community,” he added. “The limelight is now on them.”

    Dr. Binney said, “We are on the edge of our seats to see how this theory discussion pans out.” Physicists expect to better understand the g-2 prediction by 2025.

    Gordan Krnjaic, a theoretical particle physicist at Fermilab, noted that if the experimental disagreement with theory persisted, it would be “the first smoking-gun laboratory evidence of new physics,” he said. “And it might well be the first time that we’ve broken the Standard Model.”

    While the two camps of theory hash it out, experimentalists will hone their g-2 measurement further. They have more than double the amount of data left to sift through, and once that’s included, their precision will improve by another factor of two. “The future is very bright,” said Graziano Venanzoni, a physicist at the University of Liverpool and one leader of the Muon g-2 experiment, at a public news briefing about the results.

    The latest result moves physicists one step closer to a Standard Model showdown. But even if new physics is confirmed to be out there, more work will be needed to figure out what that actually is. The discovery that the known laws of nature are incomplete would lay the foundation for a new generation of experiments, Dr. Keshavarzi said, because it would tell physicists where to look.

    “Physicists get really excited when theory and experiment do not agree with each other,” said Elena Pinetti, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab who was not involved in the work. “That’s when we really can learn something new.”

    For Dr. Pitts, who has spent nearly 30 years pushing the bounds of the Standard Model, proof of new physics would be both a celebratory milestone and a reminder of all that is left to do. “On one hand it’s going to be, Have a toast and celebrate a success, a real breakthrough,” he said. “But then it’s going to be back to work. What are the next ideas that we can get to work on?”

    Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/science/physics-muons-g2-fermilab.html

     

    NASA Seeks a Nuclear-Powered Rocket to Get to Mars in Half the Time

    By Kenneth Chang

    Published July 26, 2023Updated July 27, 2023

     

    In less than four years, NASA could be testing a nuclear rocket in space.

    The space agency and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced on Wednesday that Lockheed Martin had been selected to design, build and test a propulsion system that could one day speed astronauts on a trip to Mars.

    BWX Technologies, based in Lynchburg, Va., will build the nuclear fission reactor at the heart of the engine.

    The $499 million program is named DRACO, short for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations.

    now05.png

    An illustration of Lockheed Martin’s proposed nuclear-powered spacecraft.Credit...Lockheed Martin

    What if a spacecraft could get to Mars in half the time it currently takes?

    Every 26 months or so, Mars and Earth are close enough for a shorter journey between the worlds. But even then it is a pretty long trip, lasting seven to nine months. For most of the time, the spacecraft is just coasting through space.

    But if the spacecraft could continue accelerating through the first half of the journey and then start slowing down again, the travel time could be slashed. Current rocket engines, which typically rely on the combustion of a fuel like hydrogen or methane with oxygen, are not efficient enough to accomplish that; there is not enough room in the spacecraft to carry that much propellant.

    But nuclear reactions, generating energy from the splitting of uranium atoms, are much more efficient.

    The DRACO engine would consist of a nuclear reactor that would heat hydrogen from a chilly minus 420 degrees Fahrenheit to a toasty 4,400 degrees, with the hot gas shooting from a nozzle to generate thrust. Greater fuel efficiency could speed up journeys to Mars, reducing the amount of time astronauts spend exposed to the treacherous environment of deep space.

    Nuclear propulsion could also have uses closer to home, which is why DARPA is investing in the project. The technology may allow rapid maneuvers of military satellites in orbit around Earth.

    Nuclear propulsion for space is not a new idea. In the 1950s and 1960s, Project Orion — financed by NASA, the Air Force and the Advanced Research Projects Agency — contemplated using the explosions of atomic bombs to accelerate spacecraft.

    At the same time, NASA and other agencies also undertook Project Rover and Project NERVA, efforts that aimed to develop nuclear-thermal engines similar in concept to those now being pursued by the DRACO program. A series of 23 reactors were built and tested, but none were ever launched to space. Until the end of this program in 1973, NASA had contemplated using nuclear reactors to propel space probes to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond, as well as to provide power at a lunar base.

    “The technical capabilities, including early safety protocols, remain viable today,” Tabitha Dodson, the DRACO project manager, said in a news briefing on Wednesday.

    A key difference between NERVA and DRACO is that NERVA used weapons-grade uranium for its reactors, while DRACO will use a less-enriched form of uranium.

    The reactor would not be turned on until it reached space, part of the precautions to minimize the possibility of a radioactive accident on Earth.

    “DRACO has already done all of our preliminary analyses across the entire spectrum of possibilities for accidents and found that we’re all the way down in the low probability and all the way down in the teeny tiny amount of release,” Dr. Dodson said.

    The DRACO development is to culminate with a flight test of the nuclear-thermal engine. The launch is currently scheduled for late 2026 or early 2027.

    The demonstration spacecraft would most likely orbit at an altitude between 435 and 1,240 miles, Dr. Dodson said. That is high enough to ensure that it stays in orbit for more than 300 years, or long enough for radioactive elements in the reactor fuel to decay to safe levels, she said.

    A correction was made on 

    July 28, 2023

    Using information from a news conference, an earlier version of this article misstated when a flight test of a nuclear-thermal engine could occur. The launch is scheduled for late 2026 or early 2027, not late 2025 or early 2026.

     

    Kenneth Chang has been at The Times since 2000, writing about physics, geology, chemistry, and the planets. Before becoming a science writer, he was a graduate student whose research involved the control of chaos. More about Kenneth Chang

     

  8. Official Skettel Poster

    skettel poster from moon ferguson.png

    Screenplay + development from Moon Ferguson

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moonferguson/skettel

×
×
  • Create New...