I've also mentioned recently that for the first time in my life I agree with the president of Russia more often than the president of the United States. Of course, there is no doubt in my mind that this is all mostly empty posturing on the part of Putin, but the fact that he is even able to do this and come across as the more reasonable person of the two is quite damning. Yes, he is a skillful political operative, but I don't think he is any different than most Russian autocrat over the centuries. He uses force at home and opportunism abroad to further his own goals. The fact that he's seems to be getting increasingly successful with this approach internationally is, in my opinion, an indictment of the failing moral, political, economic and military leadership in the West. I fear that this is a harbinger of even bigger disasters to come.
]]>One phrase in that speech in particular stood out for me, and probably for almost everyone else who has heard it. It's the phrase that expresses the hope that one day we'll live in the world where we'll judge each other by the content of our character, and not by the color of one's skin. This phrase in particular, and the promise that it embodied, is one of the main reasons that I was attracted to America in the first place. When I arrived to this country in the early 1990s I had just escaped the most brutal war in Europe since the end of World War II. It was a war where the minute ethnic differences were played up by the cynics, resulting in brutal deaths and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. In America I was hoping, among other things, to move past such consideration and build a future for myself where the content of my character will override all other concerns.
And, by and large, that is indeed what I found here. Despite being a foreigner with a funny accent I was able to integrate myself in the American mainstream. In college towns across America I befriended people from all over the world. I fell in love and married a woman from a different race, who was born and raised on yet another continent. Neither she nor I have ever come across any instances of direct racial or nationalistic discrimination.
Unfortunately, over the years I've also come to know that the basic underlying premise of Dr. King's speech has only become more and more elusive in the American social and political life at large. The civil rights movement has morphed into a grotesque and shrill racial entitlement political machine. The de-facto racial quotas exist in college admissions and many other professional fields and organizations. The ugly reality of racial (and other) patronage politics has only gotten worse in recent years, and the 2012 presidential election was an unabashed flaunting of that mindset. Considerations of race reign supreme, while "character" has become a quaint word that only the unhip people stuck in the past like to bring up.
Another way in which we have moved far from the spirit of the "I Have a Dream" speech concerns its context. Dr. Martin Luther King was Protestant minister, and his views, rhetoric and message were deeply, profoundly, steeped and grounded on the message of the Gospel. The speech invokes God on multiple occasions, and can only be fully understood if one is versed in the language of the Zion. And this is why it resonated with the American public so much. A nation that professed to be following the example and the teachings of Jesus Christ could not in good faith continue to act and sanction laws that were profoundly un-Christian. This speech could not have been delivered in an atheistic totalitarian regime, and it would have been mostly ignored in the cynical post-Christian cultures in many parts of the West today. Which is why it's so tragic that there are very strong and increasingly powerful and shrill voices in the US today that are trying to strip all mentions of religion in the public square today. Many of those voices will in fact be giving the keynote addresses at the commemoration of the speech. The irony, were it not so tragic, would be laughable.
Finally, perhaps one of the most pernicious ways in which Dr. King's dream has unraveled over the years, is that we have now become a society where we are not supposed to "judge" anyone. The content of one's character, if it's even given any consideration, is given the same innate sacrosanct standing as the color of one's skin, if not actually more so. All characters are, in principle at least, equally valid and we are not supposed to favor one over another. All sorts of inherently immoral and degrading behaviors are excused and even glorified under the guise of being "nonjudgmental." This is a perversion of Dr. King's dream if there ever was one.
Despite all the ways that the aspirations of the "I Have a Dream" failed to materialize, I am still hopeful that its message will eventually prevail. But for that to happen we need to stop fetishizing that speech, stop emphasizing its superficial features, and focus more on its content and its context. Only then we can have live up to the ideals that Dr. King lived for.
]]>Economically, however, things are looking rather bleak, both for the EU and Croatia. Most people are rather worried that joining the Union will bring the living standards considerably down, which even under the best of circumstances would be a hard pill to swallow. The circumstances are far from great right now, and joining of the EU is unlikely to improve them.
For me personally all of this has very little consequence, either in the short or the long run. Now that I have firmly planted both of my feet on the American soil, started a family here, and have been removed form Europe and the European way of life for too long, there is very little that being a citizen of the EU can do for me or to me. I just hope that some of their "human rights" watch-groups don't go after me for the politically incorrect stuff I've been posting online.
Finally, this morning as I was reading "War and Peace" I come across the following sentence:
"l'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere." - "Europe will never be our sincere ally."
A bit too ominous for the day when Croatia officially joins the EU.
]]>Another silver lining to these rulings is that they seem to strengthen the rights of states to define laws and govern themselves independently of the federal government. Over thirty US States have already passed laws and constitutional amendments defining marriage as that between one man and one woman. None of these laws will be changed any time soon. In this sense these two "marriage" SCOTUS rulings are very much in line with most of the recent rulings. The Roberts SCOTUS is clearly moving in the direction of strengthening the States' rights. Even the abominably bad ruling on Obamacare last year has had the effect of essentially allowing the states to completely recuse themselves from any aspect of it that they find unpalatable.
What is becoming clear is that America is slowly but surely moving in the direction of a profoundly divided nation. In addition to "Blue" and "Red" states we'll now have "Gay" and "Straight" states. We'll have states that increasingly curtail the abortion, and those that seemingly expand it beyond any bounds. States that are getting out of the way of allowing their residents to defend themselves, and those that are increasingly restricting those rights. States that paddle narcotics and those that curtail them. States that are shrinking the government and those that are expanding it. States that celebrate the role of religion in their people's lives, and those that are trying to extinguish it by any means possible States that treat their residents as subjects, and those that treat them as citizens. The list goes on and on.
This state of affairs has prompted many observers - both on the right and the left - to increasingly loudly contemplate the "s" word: secession. Indeed, it would be hard not to. When it's obvious that American people are increasingly and bitterly divided over even the most basic understanding of the terms such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, a life in common is becoming more and more of an illusion.
Personally, however, I am very much against such a drastic step. Aside from being potentially devastating and harmful to everyone involved, highly unfeasible under the best of circumstances, it would also be incredibly hard to implement properly. Because we are not only divided on a state level - our divisions reach down all the way to the level of families and individuals. We are increasingly segregated on all levels of our life, even from people that are very close to us. However, I believe that our ability to connect and communicate with people who share our beliefs and values will play an increasingly important role in the days and years to come. We'll build new associations, friendships, and communities that don't depend on the tyranny of geography. In the beginning this will be awkward, halting and frustrating, but in the long run I see a lot of potential and hope in all of this. And these are things to look forward to.
]]>I was personally very shocked and saddened by the news. This Pope was really close to my heart, perhaps more so than any other Pope will ever be. In the days shortly after the death of John Paul II I checked out almost all of Cardinal Ratzinger’s books out of the University of Illinois library and started reading them. I quickly discovered a very thoughtful and serious theologian, someone who humbly pursues the truth, someone who always proposes and never imposes his views, and yet manages to get insights that are as profound as anything written in all of Catholic theological history. His theological sensibilities were grounded in the Augustinian tradition, and were therefore very close to my own. I’ve also known Cardinal Ratzinger throughout the years as a staunch, eloquent and effective advocate and defender of the Church’s orthodox teachings.
I was personally very shocked and saddened by the news. This Pope was really close to my heart, perhaps more so than any other Pope will ever be. In the days shortly after the death of John Paul II I checked out almost all of Cardinal Ratzinger’s books out of the University of Illinois library and started reading them. I quickly discovered a very thoughtful and serious theologian, someone who humbly pursues the truth, someone who always proposes and never imposes his views, and yet manages to get insights that are as profound as anything written in all of Catholic theological history. His theological sensibilities were grounded in the Augustinian tradition, and were therefore very close to my own. I’ve also known Cardinal Ratzinger throughout the years as a staunch, eloquent and effective advocate and defender of the Church’s orthodox teachings.
So by the time the Conclave to elect the new Pope in 2005 concluded, I was very much primed to view Cardinal Ratzinger as my favorite. I remember very clearly when the news broke about it. I was in my hotel room in Tampa, Florida, during a Physics conference. I was on my knees, clutching my rosary, tears of joy streaming down my face. It was a beautiful moment and I felt the workings of the Holy Spirit in a very visceral and immediate manner. The rest of my trip to Tampa was rather forgettable.
The years since have fully justified my hopes and expectations of this man of God. He’s been God’s faithful servant, laboring incessantly and tirelessly in the vineyard of the Lord. He’s, of course, encountered a fair share of controversies, but it would have been surprising and troubling if he hadn’t. Today anyone who speaks with eloquence and conviction about timeless truths will face a very hostile blowback from the increasingly secular and immoral elites and their followers. At no point did he waver from his words and convictions, a steadfast rock of faith and a worthy successor of St. Peter.
So I am incredibly sad to see him go from this prominent role as a Pope. The tears of joy have been replaced with those of sorrow. Yet I am happy for him and believe that this is a right decision. I really wish him all the best in the years, hopefully many, that he has left on this Earth. The quiet life of prayer and meditation that he has chosen is very fitting of this contemplative and gracious man. I will continue to pray for him and for all of his intentions. And I hope he manages to write a few more books, however brief they may be.
Finally, I want to reflect upon several issues that have cropped up since Pope Benedict’s announcement yesterday.
1. Unsurprisingly when it comes to anything that has to do with Catholic Church and Vatican, there are a lot of insinuations about a possibility of some kind of intrigue or other nefarious actions that have been the reason behind this resignation. We Catholics in particular have to refrain from all sorts of speculations about intrigue in public. The secular press, and many others who don't have the interests of the Church at heart, will have a field day with this and I expect to see a lot of crazy articles in the upcoming days and months. However, we should not by our words or actions encourage any of that talk. I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is still very much in charge, and intend to think and speak accordingly.
2. We Catholics should also not feel the apprehension and the sense of uncertainty about Benedict’s successor. Again, the Holy Spirit will continue to guide the Church, and Jesus’ promise that the gates of Hell will not overwhelm it still stands. I am again encouraged by the fact that in its two thousand years there have been Popes who had fallen well short in their personal lives, but we’ve never had a single one who had strayed from the orthodox teachings. There have never been heretical Popes, and I don’t think we’ll get one either now or ever.
3. A lot has been made out of the fact that the Church ought to elect its first non-European Pope. In this view the Church is waning in Europe and its growing in the Third World in particular. First of all I think that the claims of the decline of European Christianity are greatly exaggerated. This may be the case in certain urban circles in the Western Europe, and even then it has more to do with the weekly church attendance than the decrease in personal beliefs. Every Mass that I ever attended in Croatia was always a standing-room only. My reviews of Christian and Catholic books on Amazon’s UK site are as popular as my reviews on Amazon’s US site – with a fraction of the audience. Pope’s visit to the UK a few years back was a resounding success. For the first time since the Reformation there are now more Catholics than Anglicans at the Sunday mass, and Anglicans are overwhelmingly expected to rejoin the Catholic Church in the upcoming years and decades.
Now one of the things that I like the most about my Church is that we don't practice identity politics. And yet, or in my opinion because of that, we manage to be the most diverse organization on Earth. I am reminded of that every week when I attend Mass. It's the most diverse gathering in this incredibly diversity-obsessed culture. My son was baptized along with the kids from parents from five different continents. If the Holy Spirit leads the Church to elect a non-European Pope so be it. But I will know that the decision had more to do with his personal qualities than with the place of his origin.
4. Finally, many Catholics are upset that Pope Benedict has not decided to stay at his position until his death. Popes die “with their boots on” as someone put it. Their declining health and struggles as they approach death are a visible and inspiring witness to the redemptive value of suffering, and in this regard Popes are supposed to lead by an example. That at least is how many perceive that Pope John Paul II has acted. However, I believe that there are many ways to sanctity and holiness, and a public suffering might be just one of them. The tradition of viewing the quiet contemplative life as an ideal path to holiness has a long and venerable tradition, was particularly emphasized by St. Thomas Aquinas, and can in some way be traced all the way to the story of Mary and Martha. Martyrdom as an end in itself, devoid of a true call from God, might be as self-serving and futile as anything else that takes us up along a wrong path in life. To quote T. S. Eliot’s Thomas Becket in “Murder in the Cathedral.”
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
I trust that Pope Benedict has in his immense wisdom and guided by the Holy Spirit has done the right deed for all the right reasons. He has fought a good fight, he has finished his own race. In his humility and kindness he has served Christ’s Church the best he knew how until he felt it was the time for him to step aside. It is now upon us to water and cultivate the seeds he has sawn, and help the new Vicar of Christ guide the Church through the new sets of challenges and tasks. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and I trust God that he’ll provide us with all the laborers that are needed for it to be accomplished.
Summa is not an easy read by any stretch of imagination. It is a densely argued treatise on almost all topics of Christian theology. It is also written in terms of concepts and categories derived form Aristotelian and Medieval philosophy, which are largely unfamiliar to the modern readers. Reading it can oftentimes feel like going through a large advanced mathematics textbook, with all the proofs and carefully precise reasoning that this entails. I knew all of this fully well before taking this plunge, but it did not deter me. I can’t say that I carefully thought out all the arguments that were laid out, and probably not much of it stuck with me in the end. However, at the end of it all I believe it was a more than worthwhile endeavor.
First of all, it made me renew and deepen my appreciation for the Catholic Theology. It reminded me of the old saw that the Catholic Church is much bigger from within than form without. Catholic Theology is a vast repository of knowledge and insight that is well worth exploring throughout your whole lifetime.
Furthermore, anyone who ever reads even a fraction of Summa could not in good faith ever resort to using the term “medieval” in a derogatory and pejorative sense. The erudition, the intellectual firepower, and the appreciation of human knowledge in all of its forms and all of its extent is clearly at display in this monumental work. St. Thomas spent most of his professional life at the University of Paris, and the university system that we have to this day has been formed throughout the Catholic Europe around this time. This system fostered and sustained scholarship and research in all branches of human knowledge. All of us, whatever our field of expertise, owe a huge debt of gratitude to these efforts. Modern world without this strong foundation would never have gotten into the existence. At the heart of this system, and at the etymological root of the very term University, is the ideal of universality of all knowledge. This idea shines brightly in Summa. Unfortunately in recent times we have diverged from this ideal. Perhaps going back to Summa would be exactly the medicine for what ails the modern University.
Finally, for me reading any type of good theological work is never just an intellectual exercise. It is, foremost in fact, a form of devotion. I’ve read Summa oftentimes early in the morning at the start of a new day. I’ve read it in conjunction with, or sometimes instead of, my scripture readings. Theology for me is the place where I can fully and completely love my God with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind. I am grateful to St. Thomas for leaving us this great book that can help us in our Christian vocation. More than that could not be asked from anyone.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
One of the main news headlines this morning was of the EU winning the Nobel Peace Prize. That prize has, of course, become a total joke over the years and the award to Barack Obama in 2009 has only cemented its reputation. I would say that it has as much credibility as some singing TV contest, but that would be utterly unfair to all the singing TV contests: after all, you do have to sing in those. So as a rule of thumb I pay as much of attention to the announcements of the Nobel Peace Prize as I do to the latest harvest reports from Burundi. Nonetheless, this morning’s announcement has made me pay attention, not because it was again a total joke, but because as far as I am concerned it adds an insult to an injury.
This year marks the twentieth year that my family and I had been forced to flee our home in Sarajevo. We were caught up in one of the most vicious episodes of the wars of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Even though we managed to escape largely unscathed, that war and its brutality have permanently left a huge scar on all of us who had been affected by it. It has also left a huge scar on the conscience of Europe, of which the EU is the unofficial current representation. As we had seen our country torn apart by the blood-drunk Serbian nationalism and all of its consequences, we were certain, almost dead certain, that “Europe” will not allow something like that to be happening. We knew that sooner or later, that Europe will send in their troops and stand by those of us who had been longing for all that it stood for, and were eagerly hoping to rejoin it.
That help never came. After years and years of anemic responses, insincere promises, and just plain old political dishonesty, all culminating with the inept inaction of the EU “peace keeping” forces in Srebrenica, it finally took a muscular and decisive action by the United States to bring the war to an end.
To anyone who is even remotely familiar with history this will not come as a surprise. Every war in Europe over the course of the last century has been brought to an end because of the decisive US intervention. Had it not been for the US, Nazism and Communism would still be strong political forces on the old continent, or perhaps everyone would still be stuck in the trenches somewhere between France and Germany. The unprecedented 65+ years of peace that the Western Europe has enjoyed since the end of WWII has very little to do with the EU or its predecessor the European Community, and everything to do with the existence of NATO and the strong leadership of the United States within that military organization.
So yes, Europeans may be congratulating themselves on their brilliant achievement in creating a peaceful continent all they want, but to those of us who have been scarred by the complete inability of the EU to either prevent war or achieve peace right in their back yard, this year’s announcement by the Nobel Committee will mark a new low in the annals of the human delusional thinking.
The reason that Higgs Boson is so significant is that it underlies our understanding about one of the most fundamental aspects of elementary particles: why they have mass. In classical physics particles could in principle have any mass. The Standard Model, on the other hand, deals with an exactly enumerated number of different particles, each of which has a very specific mass. In most cases those masses can be thought of as a simple parameter, something that you put in by hand into the equations to make them work for that particular particle. However, when the issue of the masses of weak interaction particles came up (for the so called W and Z bosons), the simple put-in-masses-by hand way of dealing with them could not be applied. This has to do with some arcane mathematical properties of the interaction particles, which makes it impossible for them to have the "normal" kind of mass. The way out of this difficulty was discovered by postulating a new way of acquiring mass, the now eponymous "Higgs Mechanism." This mechanism postulates the existence of a new kind of field (Higgs Field) which by interacting with all other particles gives them mass. This was a brilliant solution to a very difficult theoretical problem, but it required the introduction of a whole new field, hence the Higgs field and Higgs boson. Higgs field made the whole edifice of Standard Model work, but until now its existence has not been much more than a neat trick.
The today's announcement comes with many qualifications. The discovered particle is definitely a boson (a particle with an integer value of spin), but what kind of boson it's not clear. It is also not clear that it really is Higgs boson, and much further research is needed to confirm this. Furthermore, from what we've seen so far the kind of Higgs that this particle would correspond to does not give us any hints about the physics beyond the Standard Model. This may be very disappointing to many, since the Standard Model, effective as it is, is still just a very loosely connected set of rules and theoretical constructs that holds it all together. It's sort of like the periodic table before the discovery of quantum mechanics. Finding the fundamental theory behind the Standard Model remains one of the longest standing and most elusive goals in Physics. And unfortunately, we are no closer to the fulfillment of that goal today than we were half a century ago when the Higgs mechanism was first proposed.
]]>The war in Sarajevo had started a little over a week earlier, on April 6th 1992. A few days prior to that, we had all been dismissed from school, as certain people "in the know" already knew what was coming our way and wanted to prepare themselves and their families for the inevitable. Ever since the start of the war in neighboring Croatia in 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been immersed in an uneasy and surreal game of denial. In general there was not much sympathy for the Croatian people and their suffering. There was even a sense, particularly among Bosnian Serbs, that Croatia had brought the war on itself by embracing the hard-line nationalism of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Those of us who knew that the war in Croatia could not be that easily contained, and that the Serbian war machine was only warming up to unleash the full force of its brutality on everyone it perceived as its enemy, could only anxiously wait and see what would come our way. On that pivotal day in April of 1992, our wait ended.
Ever since the passing of that car with the loudspeakers by our house, my mom had been anxiously working on trying to figure out what to do. We knew that we had to leave, but the questions were how and to where. By the spring of 1992 the war in Croatia had reached a stage of an uneasy truce of sorts, with all of the major fighting more or less over. Croatia seemed the most logical place to escape to, but with our car not functioning, we had to rely on public transportation to get us there. The most direct route to Zagreb, where we had some relatives, would have taken us north, but that route was becoming increasingly unsafe. The only other option was to try to get to Mostar in Herzegovina first, where my grandparents lived, and then get to Croatia somehow from there. The problem with that option was that we would need to take a train, and the main train station was cut off from us at that point. All the public transportation in Sarajevo had by then ceased to operate, so we had no easy way of making it to the train station. My mom started making some phone calls, to see if someone would be able to give us a ride. Most people were understandably reluctant: by then we were hearing of the Serbian paramilitary units setting up bogus "checkpoints" where they would stop any car that they deemed "suspicious," and oftentimes seize the car and rough-handle the driver and the passengers. The risks were real and vivid.
On April 16th 1992, sometime in the early afternoon, we got a phone call from one of my mom's work colleagues. Her husband was a cab driver, and he was willing to come pick us up and drive us to the train station. In one hour. In that time, we had to make a life-changing decision, gather whatever we could, and leave our home, probably forever. My mom was understandably apprehensive. She looked at me and asked: "What do you think?"
For me the decision to leave Sarajevo was one of the easiest ones in my life. That place had been directly or indirectly hostile to my family and me ever since I could remember, and the hostility had on quite a few occasions turned violent. As I was growing older I had increasingly started to perceive the vast differences between the culture and values of my surroundings and those that I espoused and gravitated towards. It was not a place where either individual opinion or individual responsibility were promoted or even accepted. For most of my adolescence I had felt like an alien there. In a few instances when I would get particularly despondent and discouraged my mother would try to encourage me with words: "I am not raising you for this place." She knew, and increasingly so did I, that the only way to overcome that place was to leave it. So when she looked at me that Holy Thursday in 1992 while engaged in the most important phone conversation of our lives, I just said "Mom, let's go."
We started packing immediately, if trying to assemble the most fundamental necessities of our lives can be called packing, and tried to get all that we could possibly need to help us as refugees. Thanks to her legal background, my mother was particularly attentive to ensuring we take as many of our official documents and paperwork that we could. For me the most important decision concerned which of my precious books to take with me. I have always been a bibliophile, and had treasured my small home library. Under the mounting pressure, I had to decide which few books I absolutely had to take with me. This decision, too, was surprisingly simple: I took my Bible, the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe (in English), and the two volumes of the Croatian translation of the Berkeley course in theoretical Physics. Anyone who knows me well will probably not be surprised by these choices. We also decided to take our cat with us. The poor thing had to be carried in a sack, and on the subsequent train ride she almost got dehydrated out of fear and anxiety.
My mom's friend came on time, loaded our luggage, and left with the three of us on board: my mom, my brother, and myself. As we were leaving, I threw one last glance at my old house, and made a promise to myself: I was never coming back. Sarajevo had brought a lot of pain and misery to my family and me, we had no family ties to that place, and we were forced to leave in the most painful and humiliating way. For me, there was absolutely no reason to ever want to go back. Over the past two decades I've kept that promise.
In the ensuing years I have reconnected with some school and family friends from Sarajevo, and every once in a while we get in touch. Many of them ask me if I have been to Sarajevo lately, or if I have any plans of visiting. I tell them that I haven't been there since I left in '92 nor do I ever intend to go back. Most of them think that this as an unduly harsh attitude. I understand where they are coming from: many of them love the city in which they had grown up or where they had gone to school, and perceive the war and its aftermath as a tragic aberration from an otherwise almost idyllic life they remember. My memories, for the better or worse, are different from theirs. In fact, for the most part I have left those memories behind in Sarajevo, together with most of my other possessions. Leaving Sarajevo gave me an opportunity to start from scratch and build up my life with the values and attitudes that I can freely choose for myself. It has forced me to create an identity that is based more on the things that I believe in and treasure, and less on the circumstances that are beyond my control. I feel blessed that over the last twenty years I have been able to pursue that path, and look forward to all the new places that it may take me to.
]]>For the most part old Ph.D. theses languish in some dusty old university library, or more likely in an off-site storage facility. That, pretty much, is the case with my own UIUC Ph.D. thesis, and it's the fate that for the longest time I had thought to be inevitable. However, we do live in the 21st century; desktop, internet, and electronic publishing have been making great strides over the past few decades, and there is no reason to let your magnum opus just roll over and die the death of permanent obscurity. So at the end of the last year I took the plunge and published my Ph.D. thesis. The whole process was surprisingly simple and straightforward, and requires just the minimum amount of publishing formatting experience. I've used the online service provided by the CreateSpace, and have by and large been very satisfied with them. For the basic service there is virtually no cost (aside from having a proof shipped to you for the approval), and your published work will be sold through Amazon and a few other online outlets. You can set your own price, but you don't have any control over how much you take back in royalties – that stuff is fixed.
To my surprise, I've already been able to sell a few copies. I don't think my thesis will ever become a bestseller, nor do I expect it to be the basis for a Hollywood blockbuster, but it does give me some satisfaction to see my own work find a small niche in the publishing world.
So if you are looking for a perfect Christmas or Valentine's gift, or are wondering what to give a discerning intellectual friend for his birthday or Bar Mitzvah, head over to Amazon and purchase Non-local Gauge Field Theory. It's only $9.99. While supplies last.
]]>