What? Did I just read what I read? Apparently, as the news item runs, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods are twenty-first century phenomena. At least that is what the Governor of New York thinks. I guess the 265 Spanish sailors who lost their lives when their ship the Atocha went down to Davy Jones’s locker in 1622 were killed by the Bermuda Triangle’s UFOs. Storms in the 15th and 16th centuries? Nah! Just listen to the Governor.
 
So, here’s what the Governor said. “Anyone who questions extreme weather and climate change is just delusional at this point. We have seen in the state of New York what everyone has seen. We see these weather patterns that we never had before. We didn’t have hurricanes. We didn’t have superstorms. We didn’t have tornadoes. This is a storm that came up just overnight, dropped about five inches of rain, and it was literally a matter of life or death for people.” * I guess the rich, famous, and politically connected get to say whatever they want to say without a reporter’s questioning the veracity of what they say.

I wonder whether or not the 1938 hurricane that hit Long Island was mythical. Let’s see. What are we to do with those other weather events? In September, 1821, a storm now called the Great Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane (aka the Long Island Hurricane and The Great September Gale of 1821) hit New York and New England. The storm surge of 13 feet inundated not only the wharves, but also lower Manhattan.
 
Manhattan also had severe storms in 1667, 1693 (The Great Storm of 1693), 1785, and 1788. This last storm pretty much destroyed the Battery with its severe flooding. Then there was the October 9, 1804 “snow hurricane,” an extratropical Nor’easter that dumped close to three feet of snow on eastern New York. Want more? September 24, 1815 and September 24 the same year. The next year another, and the year after that heavy rainfall from a tropical storm. And on and on through that century: 1825, 1827, 1830, 1941, 1846, 1849, 1850: This last one a doozy, and that Great Havana Hurricane of 1846 mentioned above caused damage to NYC.
 
Not a single question from a reporter on the scene. And why? Fear of contradicting? Ignorance of history? Worry over ramifications of calling into question the statement by the powerful governor?
 
Go ahead. You have my permission. Change history as you wish. Revise, rewrite, and remake history as you see fit. Make up whatever you want. No one will probably question you, at least, no reporters will question you—unless you happen to be opposed to the dogma of the day.
 
W?
 
*Davis, William. Andrew Cuomo: ‘We Didn’t Have Hurricanes’ Before Climate Change. The Daily Caller. Politics. https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/01/andrew-cuomo-hurricanes-climate-change/   Accessed November 3, 2019.

“I’m not sure whether or not you’ve been paying attention to the news nowadays, but there seems to be great political turmoil, mostly carried out on social media and broadcast media, but also carried out sometimes by violence against others.”
 
“Yeah, I noticed.”
 
“Have you also noticed that there seems to be no end to the turmoil?”
 
“Yeah, I noticed.”
 
“Would you like to know why?”
 
“Yeah, I would.”
 
“It’s a matter of infinite regress. Take any side of a politically hot debate and try to trace the arguments of that side to their roots. And what do you find?”

“What?”
 
“There are no definitive roots. Say you want to argue, for example, that the economic sluggishness of the Obama presidency was simply a continuation of the downturn at the end of the Bush II presidency. The counter would be that the roots of that downturn started during the final years of the Clinton administration. But that would then lead to the argument that Bush I was involved somehow, and before him, the Reagan group. But Reagan was straddled with whatever economic condition he inherited from Carter who had inherited from Ford who was locked into Nixon who had dealt with Johnson and the war economy that derived from decisions that Kennedy had made after Eisenhower let things get out of hand when he inherited a world in shambles from the end of the Truman-Roosevelt era, and they, in turn, had to deal with a Hoover-age depression. See what I mean?”

“Maybe, keep talkin’.”
 
“Look, we have this need to find a cause that supports our position. And the cause of that need? I can’t name an ultimate cause, but I can postulate that it’s a leftover cultural thing, a way of thinking that we might have acquired through centuries of inculcation. It could derive from the historical influence of Aquinas and Leibniz who argued for contingencies, namely, one specific  Cause-of-It-All. For both of those philosophers, the ultimate cause of the universe was God, the First Cause. In tracing the existence of the universe to God, both guys laid the groundwork for arguing that the current world depends on something that existed before, something that is not part of what now exists, something that was itself not contingent on anything else, that is, God. We seem to apply that mode of argument to our debates. We certainly don’t want to stop on some political figure whom we might favor. If I’m a Democrat, I’d argue that the root of any political problem harks back to the last Republican president; if I’m a Republican, I’d argue that the root of any political problem harks back to the last Democrat president. Yes, I realize that this can’t be an infinite regress because Americans have had fewer that fifty presidents. But, truthfully, if you try to use the arguments as they become regressions, you will go back to Andrew Jackson, to J.Q. Adams, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and, Washington. For argument’s sake, every administration’s failures seem to be contingent on all previous administrations’ failures.
 
“The result is that no one is ever going to win one of these political arguments because everyone can point to a contingency. Everyone can use, if not an infinite regress, an indefinite regress. The turmoil will continue because no opponent will want to stop at ‘his guy.’ No one will claim First Cause, but everyone will claim an earlier Cause.”
 
“Makes some sense.”
 
“Pay attention to the politics—without getting emotional—and look at every debate. The debaters will reach into history for contingencies. ‘Well, we wouldn’t be in this circumstance if your guy hadn’t done such-n-such.’ That’s the argument you hear pundits make. It won’t change during your lifetime, I’m sorry to say. Two decades from now the arguments will point to today; forty years from now the arguments will point to two decades from this moment, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum, an ad infinitum of regressions.
 
“But it makes sense to the debaters and pundits to do so. How can anyone lose such an argument? Since every era is complex and has multiple contingencies of its own, debaters will always find it easy to pick and choose the contingency that favors an argument, always easy to find blame in some set of past details. It will always be easy to build a tree of connections whose roots go back to George Washington, and before him, to the Continental Congress or King George III. We’re apparently doomed to an endless regression in political debates.”
 
“So, you’re sayin’ that if I trace all these arguments about who caused today’s problems, I’ll ultimately blame God?”
 
“Something like that.”

As NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Moon plan habitats for life outside the confines of Earth, the agency and companies toy with alternatives. One of those is an inflatable living space labeled B330 that is designed to provide some comfort and protection for the astronauts. That means a kitchen, beds in sleep stations and toilets to accommodate a half dozen travelers to—or future residents of—the moon or Mars. And included in the design of the B330 habitat, according to Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, will be “entertainment in the form of virtual-reality Earth simulations for astronauts to feel at home when they are orbiting Mars."*
 
All right. We’re going to a distant world to experience a simulation of Earth. Go figure. And here I was thinking I’ll just go outside my house and look around.
 
*Roulette, Joey. NASA eyeing inflatable space lodges for moon, Mars and beyond. Reuters. 17 Oct 2019.    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-habitat/nasa-eyeing-inflatable-space-lodges-for-moon-mars-and-beyond-idUSKBN1WW1H2   Accessed November 1, 2019.