Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Paavo Tarvas, A Man of Peace

Welcome free readers. Thanks for being here.

This week we’re discussing some people on the fringe of history.

Today we mention Paavo Tarvas. Calling him a fringe character may be a bit harsh. He is certainly remembered for his instructions to Max Gavaskar just before her speech to the Galaxy during the Galactic War. He is also remembered for brokering a peace deal between two waring factions on planet Earth that had been conflict for generations.  His name is on the Gavaskar - Tarvas Center For Peace.

So, he is well remembered but his post War life is not very well known at all. He stayed in Estonia. I don’t know that he ever left Earth. He recently passed away at the monastery that gave him his name. He hosted some to the early events at the Center for Peace but eventually he retired to a life of contemplation and study. He published several books not of which tell of his time with Max Gavaskar. Their conversations, conversations that strongly influenced history, are lost to us. Max has said very little about what he told her that gave her the courage to speak our against the SID and the Fordians.

What she has said about him has been quite positive. She does mention their conversation in her memoir but she doesn’t go into a lot of detail saying only that he pointed her in the right direction and that his message was one of a positive belief in the nature of intelligent species to do the right thing.

Max has often stated that the needs of the individual almost always lead to mutual respect of members of the community, and that defining our community as all beings is the way to peace. Many suspect that is something she got from Paavo Tarvas.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Meet Natalie Collins, formerly of the SID

Welcome festive readers. Thanks for being here.

Today lets discuss Natalie Collins. She is little recognized in the histories but she played an important part in the history of Max Gavaskar and First Contact.

She was the station manager of the SID Science Center on planet Kusha. She sided with Dorian Thain on several key points and it was her who allowed Dorian to take the lead in the the initial negotiations with the Fordians. Once Max’s insight on FTL came out it was her who became the Fordians focus.

Natalie was also involved in Kiki Sanderson’s investigation of the Bhor Blast which led to exposing the SID and the Fordians for the frauds they were. If it hadn’t been for Natalie, Kiki may not have been able to find the clues that led to the truth.

After the dust of the Galactic War settled Natalie moved to Kusha and worked with Max Gavaskar in Max’s science lab. Natalie eventually began to be the director of the Gavaskar Science Center, as Max spent more and more time away from Kusha on diplomatic missions.

Natalie is now retired and has a place here in Harappa City. She does volunteer work at the school system and has a fine garden. She never married and lives alone but she is known to have a wide circle of friends from her associations with Max and Dorian Thain. I know that Dorian has taken an interest in seeing that Natalie is secure and happy for her aid to him. Dorian doesn’t forget those who helped him.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba the Science Fan's Friday Blog: Life in Space

Welcome superior readers. Thanks for being here.

Life. Life in outer space. Will we find it?

Russian astronauts recently took a space walk from the ISS. The windows were getting dirty and they went to clean them and find out what was fogging them up. Turns out it’s life! What they found was plankton growing on the windows of the space station.

Immediately I thought of my theory that the Universe is filled with a cosmic bacteria and that when ever an environment suitable for life, any kind of life, arrises the primal bacteria will settle there and begin evolving.

In this case it is more likely that the plankton comes from Earthly sources. Scientists believe the plankton comes from supply missions from Earth and from the suits of the space walkers on and around the ISS.

But, what does this say? If life can survive in the vacuum of space on the shell of our space station it most likely can survive most anywhere.

Scientists are intrigued by recent discoveries of liquid water and methane found on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There was the hope that life would be found in these bodies of water and methane. Now it certainly looks like that is a possibility.

For fun (I know it sounds crazy) I occasionally debate Creationists on you tube. Abiogenesis is one point we scientists have to concede we don’t yet understand. I believe we will soon discover the origins of life but we’re not quite there. Finding life on other worlds will go a long way to understand where life came from.

With life living in almost every extreme environment on Earth why would we suppose it isn’t living in extreme environment elsewhere. There is the possibility that Earth and life here is some sort of cosmic joke. That life started here as a fluke and is happening nowhere else, but as Carl Sagan said, “That would be a huge waste of space.”

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: The Town of Salmo on Planet Lava

Welcome special readers. Thanks for being here.

This week we’ve been hanging out at Max’s Saloon. Yes, the place still stands. Old time friends of Max who knew her when she lived on planet Lava would recognize the town of Salmo. Even after almost eighty years have passed since Max owned a saloon on the dusty streets of a dirt bag back road town.  

Not much has changed in Salmo. Walker Street is still not paved. The SID science center at the Eastern edge of town is abandoned, it’s hydro-cyclon cooler now silent.

The Tarsan mission on the west side of town is still there and still operates as an ashram serving the Maausk peace movement. I doubt they get the visitors that the Gavaskar / Tarvas Center For Peace gets but it is a sanctuary.

The Salmo Hotel still operates but is not quite as busy as it was during Max’s time. There is still some mining in the area but not like it was. When the SID collapsed it was found that there were better resources available on other worlds. However, there are still some private mines operating in the Salmo vicinity. I understand that they are still pulling silver and some gold from the hills and rocky draws around Salmo.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Max's Saloon

Welcome quick readers. Thanks for being here.

Max’s Saloon. . .  I think it can be argued that Max’s Saloon launched the career of, perhaps, the greatest person in the Milky Way Galaxy.

I suppose that might be an over statement and a simplification, but it can certainly be said that there were moments in that bar that affected the history of the galaxy.

Max met Miles Sanderson there. Their friendship accomplished great things. Max learned some about her inner strength there and met Sierra her long term friend.

Max took the saloon over from David Green when he was killed by a stray bullet from a gunfight in the street in front of the place. At the time it was called “Mike’s”. Max changed the name to cut ties with the horrible incident that put her in charge of the saloon. Mike has been forgotten to history. It is not even known for sure if there was ever even a real “Mike”.

When Max left for Kusha with my friend Dorian Thain she left the place with Sierra. Sierra ran the place till very recently although she quit tending bar there many years ago. Sierra kept the name “Max’s” and it became something of a tourist destination. Individuals from all over the galaxy from all the different intelligent species can to see Max’s humble beginnings.

History is a funny thing. Historians certainly know and understand that Max came from planet Harappa, that she studied astrophysics at the University of Sandon but most people’s understanding of Max’s life only goes back to Max’s Saloon. The myth of Max Gavaskar begins at the saloon. Her dealings with the lowlifes and barflies there are the foundation that her myth is built upon.

When story tellers tell tall tales of Max’s early life they are invariably about Max’s Saloon and the patrons there.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Sierra Waters

Welcome real readers. Thanks for being here.

What every happened to Sierra Waters? A young Sierra met Max Gavaskar in Salmo on planet Lava. Sierra was a down on her luck Lavan native. Max offered her a job in Max’s Saloon and that act began a long term friendship.

Sierra worked the Saloon until Max left the planet tipped on it’s side with my friend Dorian Thain. Then Sierra took over the ownership of that saloon. Shortly after Max left Sierra met Dusty Water’s son and they established a relationship. Within a few months they were marries and shortly thereafter there were three kids. Melanie, Marvin and Jake.

Sierra sold the place just recently and she and her husband moved to a place near Colonial. She has never left her planet of birth. She has remained on planet Lava her entire life. 

These days it is fairly rare to fined someone who has never been to a second world or more. Sierra has never demonstrated any desire to travel beyond her personal homeworld. Curiosity has never been a marking trait for Sierra.

Tomorrow we will discuss how Max’s Saloon changed over the years.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba the Science fan's Friday Rant: Civilization isn't free.

Welcome open readers. Thanks for being here.

I have over the past several weeks been pontificating about my belief that we are now more peaceful and civilized than we ever have been. 

Not many people agree with me. I find it distressing that so may people refuse to believe in peace. I understand that there are way too many examples of the opposite of peace in the news today. We certainly have not yet achieved world peace. There is still hatred.

I was just reading a comments thread on Youtube. Comments threads are most definitely not the place to look when seeking peace. But the hatred there sometimes surprises me. Why is it that our conservative friends hate us liberals so much?

What I see liberals offering up to conservatives is condescension and pity. Coming back from the conservatives . . . hate, definitely hate.

I assume it is because their media sources preach fear of liberals on a constant basis. Liberals are trying to take America (where I don’t know but supposedly we are taking it away from conservatives).

When I read conservative rants I keep reading over and over screeds that claim liberals are something that I an not. I consider myself very liberal. I don’t want to take guns away from law abiding citizens. I don’t want to destroy the economy. I love freedom. I love America.

I do believe it is an absurd notion that the richest nation in the world can’t educate and care for our own people. I further believe that most people are honest and hard working and given the opportunity will contribute to society.

If you are a conservative, understand this . . . liberals are not your enemy. We want the same things you do, peace and security. We want the opportunity to succeed. We want clean air and water. We don’t want to pay any more taxes than necessary, but we do understand the civilization isn’t free and paying taxes is every American’s patriotic duty.

If you are a liberal, have some compassion for our conservative friends. They have run society for a very long time and are being asked to share control of our world with people they once considered marginal. We have to understand that when our conservative friends see that people of color, gay people and people fighting to protect the environment want many of the same things they want, that we want prosperity for all, that we want peace and stability, they will come around, eventually.

All sides have to give up hate and distrust of the “other”.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Max Gavaskar's Close Calls

Welcome precious readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we told the tale of history without Max Gavaskar. I’m sure there were several times that we actually came close to that really happening. She had several close calls. 

Escaping Planet Harappa was the first one. If she had gone to her professor’s house minutes earlier she would have been arrested by the SID. They could have easily scooped her up while she travelled in their starship to Planet Lava.

Agent Drew almost caught Max several times. The SID agent was closing in on Max when she was re-assigned to security in the ice mines. She came close to nabbing Max when Max went to the ice mines to hide and meet up with her then boy friend Connor Holt. Annika Drew almost caught Max when she was on the run with my friend Dorian Thain just before they got off Lava and headed to Planet Kusha,

She experienced a few close calls there too. Twice she was charged by a Kushan Kabear. She could have been captured or injured several times when she went after the Tarsan rogues.

Then when Gary Meyer went after her in earnest she had several close shaves with him, culminating in their conflict in Estonia.

Some how Max Gavaskar survived all those close calls to become the ambassador to all peoples in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Galactic History Without Max Gavaskar

Welcome open readers. Thanks for being here.

Today, my speculation about a Galaxy where Max Gavaskar did not save us all. . .

Brilliant young physics student, Max Gavaskar discovers a problem with the SID’s faster than light spaceships. She goes to them with her data and she is never heard from again.

Dorian Thain is abducted while on Earth for a peace conference. The conference fails but Dorian escapes and makes his way to Lava by stowing away on an SID starship. While there he makes contact with several resistance groups but is captured and arrested by SID agent Gary Meyer.

In Dorian’s absence his Sister-in-law, Lanice Thain continues to manage the government and makes strong ties with the Tarsan missionaries. They steal an SID starship and head off to proselytize to the developing worlds around the Milky Way. Mary Carmini drives this expansion and builds a great army of primitive cultures armed with modern weapons.

When the Fordians come to stop the SID space program and remove the humans from Kusha the Tarsan Army intervenes and destroy the Fordian starship. This ignites the Galactic War which brings in all the advanced species to aid the Fordians. Humans on Earth, Lava and Kusha are wiped out. Harappa is assaulted by a force led by the Tax and Fordians. When the SID is destroyed the Tarsan army is the only human group left and the rest of the galactic nations hunt them, eventually killing them off after several long years of conflict.

No one solves the problem with FTL for another few centuries.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: What drives Max Gavaskar?

Welcome nice readers. Thanks for being here.

What drives Max Gavaskar?

I’ve met her. I knew her before she became known as “The Mother of the Galaxy”. I don’t know her well enough to understand her inner desires and motivations. She is the only one who can truly know this information and even then who among us really understands our true nature.

I’ve had enough conversations with her, over the years, that I can better than only a few offer up a reasoning about what motivates her.

She is a logic driven individual. Her passion is a quest for knowledge. Anything that hinders this quest is an issue that needs to be dealt with in a dispassionate and logical way. Define the problem and design a solution based on all the information available.

When she first came to understand the underlying problem with FTL travel her first reaction was to go directly to the SID with the facts. Had she done so, history would have turned out very differently. If she had turned to them she would have surely been arrested and who knows if she would have ever come to her insight? The Fordians were already on their way by then. How would have First Contact turned out if Dorian Thain had not had Max’s insight in his back pocket? I’m guessing not well for the humans. How would the Galactic War have ended had Max not been in Estonia at just right time to confront Gary Meyer?

There was an ancient Earth movie called “A Wonderful Life” it was about how things would turn out different if one person were not there. I can imagine a very different scenario had Max Gavaskar not followed the path she chose.

So tomorrow, I’ll write my version of what would have happened if Max had not escaped the SID and how the Galactic War would have been a very different thing.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Inside Max Gavaskar

Welcome mighty readers. Thanks for being here.

We’ve been discussing some of the people in Max Gavaskar’s life. People who had an influence on her journey. I’ve also spent a great deal of time over the past year discussing Max her self. What it was that drove this woman who became the most important individual in the Milky Way Galaxy.

There isn’t one thing you can point to that set Max on her path beyond her discovery with the problem of the Illumadrive.

What was it about her that drove her to stick her neck out, to put her life and heart on the line? How did she find the strength to oppose the powers of the Galaxy? She was being pursued by one of the most vile assassins of all time yet she gave one of the most impassioned speeches, certainly one of the most important speeches of all time.

Max herself would tell you she just showed up and did what was needed at the moment. Yeah, sure. Not everyone would have been able to pull off what she accomplished in Estonia and beyond.

So this week we’ll delve in the mental processed that Max went through that brought her to the point of being able to speak to all of the Galaxy and do so with power and influence.

In the mean time . . .

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba the Science Fan's Friday Science Blog: Honoring what we don't know.

Welcome joyous readers. Thanks for being here.

OK to get with the practical first. The Santana concert was awesome. His son did a fine warm up set and Carlos played most of my favorite classics, the right amount of new stuff and did several unexpected bits that I loved (a Jimi Hendrix tribute and many licks interspersed that were references to old songs and TV jingles).

Now to my science blog for this Friday.

What we don’t know.

I have on many occasions recently remarked about what a great time to be alive. We are more peaceful and more free than we have ever been as a species on this little blue gem of a world. We have in the past few decades discovered an amazing amount of information about our Universe, and our understanding is growing at an ever increasing rate.

Further, I occasionally debate creationists and I regularly run into the argument that science doesn’t know everything leading to the “God of the Gaps” argument.

So, what don’t we know? A lot, it turns out. I was recently reading an article in Scientific American which detailed a current controversy in particle physics. Apparently physicists have been looking for something called “supersymetry”. It is a crucial component of the “standard model” which is the assumed explanation for the nature of matter at the very small level. The Large Hadron Collider was built in part to find “supersymetry”.

Well . . . we’re still waiting. The LHC has found some wonderful and amazing things (the Higgs Bosun) but it hasn’t (yet) found “supersymetry”. There will be a higher power run next year and scientists are hopeful that then they will find what they seek. 

If they don’t find supersymetry they will have to scrap many of their cherished theories. This begs the question “Do we really know anything?” If new discoveries can completely trash assumed reality than how stable is reality? Do we really know anything?

The comforting answer is “Yes, we know quite a lot.” Our understanding is expanding. It is not yet complete and there is much left to learn. But the fact that our scientific world is still open to ignorance is a great sign that we are in good hands. At times in the past the scientific community has become intrenched in it’s own dogma and rigid in it’s beliefs. 

Today’s scientific community is being accused of just that but politicians and others with a political ax to grind. However, looking at how much is changing in the science world, how many formerly cherished theories are being dumped into the trash indicates that currently science is on the right track. Our current crop of scientists are eagerly throwing out ideas that no longer have validity. That is how science should be done. New information brings new theories.

. . . and no, there is nothing to suggest that evolution and natural selection are not the way we all got here.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: The Salmo Hotel

Welcome joyous readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we told a little about Dusty Waters, a friend of Max’s from her time in exile on planet Lava. Dusty now lives on planed Kusha.

She moved here about thirty years ago, when the grand kids had moved out and she wasn’t babysitting anymore.

Dorian Thain set Dusty up with a nice apartment near Harappaholm. It’s not part of the complex proper but very near, and close to the town square.

Dusty has her regular visits and card games with Sanderson and up until very recently she went for regular visits with Max. With Max’s health being such an issue she has had to curtail some of her visits.

I recently talked with Dusty. She said she doesn’t miss Lava at all. She doesn’t regret her time there. She met the Mother of the Galaxy there after all. Said she actually enjoyed running the brother and promised that she treated her boys and girls very well. One of her former employees there is still running the place, and it is still called the Salmo Hotel.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Dusty Waters' Business

Welcome lovely readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we mentioned that Miles Sanderson still has regular card games with Mary Waters. Mary is more commonly known as Dusty. That is what she went by when she lived on planet Lava in the town of Salmo which is where Max hid from the SID.

Dusty ran the Salmo Hotel which was not really a hotel but rather a brothel. Some historians question wether Max knew this fact or if she was unaware that there was a brothel right across the street from Max’s Saloon. Well that is just silly. Of course Max knew what was going on. I mean, after all, isn’t Max Gavaskar the smartest person in the Milky Way? Don’t you think she would have figured that out?

If you read the novelization The Gavaskar Field which tells the tale of Max’s exile you’ll learn that Max knew about the brother and in fact she spent time there visiting with Dusty and she even got to know some of the young people that worked there. It’s rumored that they came to Max’s aid when the SID tried to close the noose on her.

The story was that one of the girls working for Dusty who looked a little like our Max dressed in some of Max’s clothes and served as a decoy while Max escaped town with Kiki. That would indicate that Max knew these people and that their relationship was a good one.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Sanderson Today

Welcome kind readers. Thanks for being here.

Some months ago I spent some time discussing some of MIles Sanderson’s mis-spent youth. I recounted how he got in trouble in school hacking and crashing. What history knows of him is simple. He was a troubled youth who rose to prominence in the SID (Science and Industry Division) physics department. He worked on the first illumadrive engine and he discovered the Gavaskar Field problem with faster than light travel. That exiled him to Lava where he crossed paths with our little Max.

Then he disappeared into the prairies of Kusha.

Not completely disappeared. He doesn’t have a big public life but he has occasionally gotten involved in local politics. Some of his friends insist he’s become political as a result of his partner Kiki. She has always had a bent for taking up arms agains injustice. Sanderson was once a part of the Kushan Council. He ran for office to represent the prairie villages when the Harappa City delegates tried to enact some laws that would have hindered the developments to our north.

He negotiated a settlement that divided resources so that the prairie villages could continue their growth without taking from the development in Harappa City. Then he left office.

Now he mostly stays on his ranch. I see him in town occasionally. He visits with Max on a regular basis. I know he spends some time at her bedside every week. He also comes to town for a regular card game with his friend Mary “Dusty” Waters.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Sanderson, just Sanderson.

Welcome honorable readers. Thanks for being here.

When we look over the story of Max Gavaskar, The Mother of the Galaxy one name keeps popping up. Sanderson, just Sanderson.

Though he preferred to drop the first name and he eschewed publicity with great vigor Miles Sanderson certainly was one of the most influential persons in Max’s life.

He was there in Salmo during her exile. I guess he was even on the bus that took her from the spaceport in Colonial to the dirt dry town that was Max’s home for most of a year.

He was there on Earth with her when she was being chased by Agent Gary Meyer and of course Sanderson was instrumental in Max’s famous call for peace in Estonia.

Not many people know who Sanderson is. He disappeared from public life after the Estonian incident. He moved to Kusha with his partner Kiki. The still live here. They have a ranch about twenty clicks from Harappa City. I’ve been to the place with my friend dorian Thain several times. It is quite lovely. It is on the Junction Prairie a place of wide open space and big sky.

Tomorrow: More on Miles Sanderson.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba's Friday Music Blog: Seeing Santana Tonight

Welcome happy readers. Thanks for being here.

Normally I spend my Friday Blog espousing some science theme or discussing humanities connection with peace . . . but today I’m all about music. You see, tonight I’m going to a concert to see my favorite musician, Carlos Santana.

I heard him when I was seventeen and he and his band totally blew my mind. This was even before they appeared on the stage at Woodstock. I grew up in Lake Tahoe California in the sixties.  The music scene in Tahoe then was totally Rat Pack. I saw a lot of those guys live in the show room of Harrah’s Casino. The local radio stations played Rat Pack music and quit playing the Beatles after John Lennon’s “More popular than Jesus” comment, despite a protest by local high school students. I just wasn’t exposed to very much new music. I played sax in the HS Jazz band. I listened to Dizzy Gillespie, Don Ellis, Miles Davis, Buddy Rich and other jazz greats. I heard some of the pop groups on the Ed Sullivan show and was not very impressed.

Then Santana played at a place called the Fun House. It was the old Safeway store that had been converted to a concert hall. It was closed every couple of weeks due to pot smoking. Then they raised the age limit to eighteen. I couldn’t go in but I could hear the music from the outside.

There was rock. There was jazz. There was blues. There was latin. There was an awesome lead guitarist, a great keyboard player and excellent percussion. I was blown away.

Then several years later Santana blew me away again with the Caravansari album. It was jazzier with some of the jazz I grew up with only brought into the rock arena. I loved it. For a long time I went to sleep listening to this album.

Carlos blew my mind again when he released his “White Album” which is what I call the first album he did with John McLaughlin. It’s not an easy listen. It is very complicated and technical but it totally blew my mind. I never knew you could do that with a guitar.

Carlos Santana hasn’t blown my mind since but I am a huge fan. I play Santana songs almost every night on my guitar. AND most of the songs I play every night are on the set list for this concert I’m going to tonight.

This is certainly a “bucket list” concert. I’ve seen Santana a couple of times but in large out door arenas where I was so far away it was hard to tell which person on stage was Carlos Santana. Tonight I have box seats near the stage. It is a smallish venue and I expect a good sound. 

Of course I’ll have a review here this weekend.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014