An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery

A COSMIC TORNADO. The cause of this spiraling space tornado, light years in length, is still a mystery.

What, Me Worry?

Just an interesting note: Andromeda, one of the galaxies in our own group of galaxies, and the largest of them, and the closest, is tearing toward the Milky Way at the speed of 300,000 MPH. At this velocity, it will collide with us in only 2-2 1/2 billion years!

"...convulsed with laughter."

Today is the birthday of S.J. (Sidney Joseph) Perelman, born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1904. He worked first as a cartoonist, but switched to writing humorous essays for various magazines, including the New Yorker. When his first collection, Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge came out in 1929, Groucho Marx wrote him a letter saying, "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."

Laughter must be good for you. Today he is 102. Happy Birthday, Mr. P.!

Sucking Chest Wound?

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE

THINKING UNTHINKABLE THOUGHTS

BYU professor's group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11 (Deseret Morning News, Saturday, January 28, 2006)

Last fall, Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of "prepositioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 truth," he's upping the ante.

"We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11," the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation. "We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad."

Headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Deluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, the group is made up of 50 academicians and others. They include Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush's first term.

(These people cannot all be paranoid nuts running loose spouting unreasonable and unsupported ideas!)

The group's Website (www.ST911.org) includes an updated version of Jones paper about the collapse of the Twin Towers and a paper by Fetzer that looks at conspiracy theories. The government's version of the events of 9/11 -- that the plane's hijackers were tied to Osama bin Laden -- is its own conspiracy theory, says Fetzer. "Did the Bush administration know in advance about the impending attacks that occurred on 9/11, and allow these to happen, to provoke pre-planned wars against Afghanistan and Iraq?

(Okay. But what if it's true? Check out the Website, and tell me what you think! Also, while you're at it, check out this: in your search box type in Unthinkable thoughts Griffin, and read this. )

Say What??? 3

Pancho Villa's last words: "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

WHY?

Why is Rumsfeld doing the monster mash?

What do you know about psyops? There is a declassified document called the "Information Operations Roadmap" obtained by the National Security Archives at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act that seems to see the internet as the "equivalent to an enemy weapons system," noting the slogan "fight the net" appears several times in the context. The document, signed by "Master of Puppets" Rumsfeld, recommends that the U.S. "should seek the ability to provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum." U.S. forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependant on the electromagnetic spectrum."

So. It seems the U.S. military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet, or so says Adam Brookes, a BBC Pentagon news correspondant in an article titled "Bloggers Beware."

And, how does this relate to the whole Google lawsuit thing? Or doesn't it?

Jane's Addiction

Pepek's, actually. I can't stop! I am addicted to Orion! And look here: Up in the top right corner there's a greenish bird, a sparrow, I think. Across from him, sits Orion, himself, or--my first thought--Poseidon. Or maybe, Moses, as Michaelangelo saw him in marble, seated and bearded. Maybe God Himself.

Cosmic clouds and stellar winds. The young and still-forming variable star LL Orionis produces a solar wind more powerful than our own sun's. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas, a shock front is formed, like the bow-waves of a boat moving through water.

(I think it's Poseidon. He carries a 3-pronged spear....)

Good Measure

One more, just because. The Orion Nebula. This detailed image is the sharpest ever from the Hubble--containing a billion pixels at resolution and it reveals about 3,000 stars. In apparent size, the picture is as large as the Full Moon.


Can you see the face at the right side center, a very sad crescent moon face, mourning the loss of his hat down at the bottom left? Also, there is a witch flying on her broom in the upper left-hand corner!

WOW!

THE CARTWHEEL GALAXY: The ring-like shape is caused by a smaller galaxy passing through the larger one-- The Chandra X-ray Observatory data is in purple. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer ultraviolet view is in blue. The Hubble is in visible light, and the Spitzer Space Telescope image infrared is in red. Put them all together, and you have--WOW!

Little Things Mean A Lot

Years ago, Kitty Kallen sang a very popular song called "Little Things Mean A Lot."

Remember that spacecraft that crashed into the Utah desert several months ago? And they carefully salvaged what they could from the impacted pieces? Well, they just let us know what went wrong with that gazillion-dollar project--somebody installed the parachute backwards!

UPDATE: The space capsule bringing back comet dust samples just landed safely in Dugway, Utah, with a million samples of comet and interstellar dust aboard! "The first parachute opened at 100,000 feet, followed by a larger chute, which guided it to a 10 mph landing on the salt flats"--

Who says we don't learn from our mistakes????

Eeeuuuwwwww....

Gareth Whyte, of White Plains NY, bit off part of his girlfriends face, through skin, nerves, fat and muscle, exposing a gaping hole below her eye.

"I'll agree the defendant is not guilty when he can put this back," said prosecutor Heide Mason, holding up a jar containing the girl's flesh.

Might that have been a Mason Jar?

Whyte had bitten the girlfriend once before, complaining that her clothes were too sexy. This time he could get 25 years in prison!

Right Islam Vs Wrong Islam

From the pages of the WSJ Editorials, by Abdurrahman Wahid, former President of Indonesia: "News organizations report that Osama bin Laden has obtained a religious edict from a misguided Saudi cleric, justifying the use of nuclear weapons against America, and the infliction of mass casualties. It requires great emotional strength to confront the potential ramifications of this fact. Yet can anyone doubt that those who joyfully incinerate the occupants of office buildings, commuter trains, hotels, and nightclubs would leap at the chance to magnify their damage a thousandfold?"

"Imagine the impact of a single nuclear bomb detonated in New York... what about 2 or 3? The entire edifice of modern civilization is built on economic and technological foundations that terrorists hope to collapse with nuclear attacks like so many fishing huts in the wake of a tsunami."

"...we must set aside our international and partisan bickering, and join to confront the danger that lies before us."

If the "essence of Islam" is encapsulated in the words of the Quran, "For you, your religion; for me, my religion" then that is the essence of tolerance. But what of those who justify the brutality of terrorism with slogans like "Islam Above Everything Else!" And what of suicide bombers now appearing on public posters like star athletes on Corn Flake boxes: "You should be very proud of me, it's an honor, and you will see the results, and everybody will be happy."

Do these people not know which of these views they believe? And if not, why not? A literal and highly selective reading of the Quran apparently suggests (I have not read it) that most of the rest of us are infidels to be slaughtered.

According to Wahid they have 1. An agressive program with clear ideological and political goals. 2. Immense funding from oil-rich sponsors. 3. The ability to distribute these funds to impoverished areas to buy loyalty and power. 4. A claim of religious authority. 5. An appeal to Islamic pride, and identity, and history. 5. The ability to blend into the much larger moderate masses. 6. Full-time commitment by its leadership. 7. An absence of organized opposition in the Islamic world. 8. Networks of schools that propagate terrorism, and scholarships for future leaders. 9. A global network of imams to distribute its ideology throughout the world. 10. Internet communication. And, finally, the reluctance of many governments to control this entire process. And we're worried about some wiretapping of phones and computers!

What's going on here?

MY DOGS

ARE YOU READY

...for the Year of the Dog? According to the Chinese, 2006 is the Year of the Dog! Bring on the dumplings and the firecrackers! Get ready for the liondances and the parades!

According to Karalee Miller, who writes for Knight-Ridder Newspapers, folks born in this year (which occurs every 12 years) make ideal secret agents and business people. Not only that, but there are Metal dogs, Water dogs, Wood dogs, this year's dog, which are Fire dogs, and Earth dogs. Fire dog people are supposed to be popular and charismatic, with a sexual attractiveness that makes them irresistable, yet they are honest, openhearted, adventurous, and vivacious. They are generally not the settle-down types. (These people correspond with Libras, and you know who you are!) Spouses, beware!

Here's a 30-year-old dog (that's THIRTY, mind you. Geez, that's 216 or something in people years!), a dog at a Japanese fashion show, and another at a beauticians in Beijing having her hair styled and clipped.

Psychedelic Bull's Eye

Actually, the Sombrero Galaxy, so called because someone thought it looks like a Mexican hat. The Hubble photo is combined visible and infrared light.

Are You A Duppy, Fauxhemian, or Meanderthal?

According to Cynthia Pasquale, writing for the Denver Post: "Humans like to be creative, mashing words together... sometimes the word is old but the meaning reconstituted. Such terms often describe a change in lifestyle, a fad, or in some cases, a manufactured substitute for reality." The New Oxford American Dictionary introduced more than 2,000 new words onto its pages in 2005, and the Web site wordspy.com offers daily entries for those who want to keep up.

Santagnostic: (for those who will never know if Santa is real).

Blirting: Using a Blackberry to send flirtatious messages. People who can't put their Blackberry away call it "crackberry" because of its addictive nature.

Duppies: Young, formerly high fliers who have to subsist on unemployment insurance or low-paying jobs. Short for depressed urban professionals.

Fauxhemian: Those people who adopt aspects of the appearance and trappings of the Bohemian lifestyle without actually straying too far from social conventions.

Fresh to Death: Clothing termed thusly in the hip- hop fashion world is so hot that it will stay cool until the wearer is long dead.

Hiyunka: A word describing hefty handbags, clunky shoes, and jawbreaker-sized beads.

ICE: Emergency phone numbers programmed into a mobile phone's address book (in case of emergengy).

Indie-yuppie: Young urban professionals who shop in the trendiest stores, and devour the hottest, cutting-edge music and film. Indie refers to independently made movies or music not backed by big-money companies.

(And this one is really good) Kippers: Adult children reluctant to fly from the nest, or Kids In Parents Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings.

Lifehack: A more efficient way of completing an everyday task.

Meanderthal: A person who walks slowly and aimlessly, often toting cell phones and delaying pedestrian or motor traffic.

Spamalanche: An avlanche of junk e-mails.

Vlogs: Video logs on the internet that broadcast events or a person's views on subjects.


Can you come up with any of your own? Must be useful. We don't want miniscule, left-handed monkey wrenches in the dictionary tool-box. Words have to be good descriptors of the world.

2006!

New Year's Resolutions? Well, we know these usually last about as long as it takes to make them. However, here are mine: 1. Take nothing and no one for granted. 2. Work like hell to get it right this time. 3. Remember that happiness is not a destination but a manner of travelling. And finally, 4. (in the words of Miss Piggy) I will never eat more than I can lift.

Here are some "daily affirmations" from Steven Sultanoff, a Mirthologist and Clinical Psychologist: 1. As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath. 2. I have the power to channel my imagination into ever soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia. 3. I assume full responsibility for my actions, except for ones that are someone else'e fault. 4. In some cultures, what I do would be considered normal. 5. My intuition makes up for my lack of wisdom and good judgement. 6. I need not suffer in silence while I can still moan. whimper, and complain. 7. When someone hurts me, I know that forgiveness is cheaper than a lawsuit, but not nearly as rewarding. 8. I am at one with my duality. 9. I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so." 10. I will no longer waste my time reliving the past, but I will spend it worrying about the future.


A New Book: IN SEARCH OF MEMORY: A New Science of Mind, by Eric Kandel. The narrative follows Dr. Kandel through the last five decades, focusing on Vienna, where he became fascinated with memory--his own, history's, and with the neuro-biological processes of memory. Sounds interesting.


ARE NOVELS MORE INTERESTING THAN MOVIES? Everybody says, "The movie was good, but the book was better!" Are the pictures in your mind as you read better than those projected onto the wide screen?



ON THIS FIRST DAY OF 2006: There is a study reported in the Jan.1st issue of The Economist that says going to church is more than its own reward. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT claims that regular church attendance leads to better education, higher income (raising it 10 %), and a lower chance of divorce, because you are less stressed out and better equipped for success. But, is this really a good motivation for going to church?



On this final note, I 'm off to church! You have a good day!

Playing Tag!

Knownunknowns sent me this 7x7 meme (and I don't even know what a meme is!):

1. Seven things to do before I die: Discover the secret to Eternal Life. Write the Great American Novel. Find the Fountain of Youth. Learn to play Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in G-Minor all the way thru. I've got the beginning and the end, all I need to learn is the middle. See an angel. Understand quantum physics. Visit another planet. Is that seven?


2. Seven things I cannot do: Find time to write. Find time to practice. Fly. Eat balut. Run fast. Speak a second language fluently. Mathematics.


3. Seven things that attract me to -- Okay, my husband: He has the soul of a poet. He loves opera. He's funny (in more ways than one!). He likes to watch PBS. He's the kindest person I know. He fixes me breakfast. He loves me.


4. Seven things I say most often: Stop that! No! Don't do that! I love you! What time is it? Have I ever told you that I can't see to drive at night? I need a hug.


5. Seven books (or series) that I love: Dandelion Wine. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Leaves of Grass. The Unexpected Universe. Small Wonder. For the Time Being. The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life.


6. Seven movies I watch over and over again, (or would if I had time): The Color Purple. Amadeus. Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Empire of the Sun. The Mission. 2001: Space Odyssey. Schindler's List.


7. Seven people I want to join in, too: Kiekay1, alycehoward, lincrafter, kstatler, jojo, Ms Bunyan, and bobkjohnston.

Oh, oh, oh

How about the dyslexic devil-worshipper who sold his soul to Santa?
What's THAT all about???

And for you all you lawyers in the audience, what do you call Santa's helpers? Subordinate Clauses!

An honest politician, a kind lawyer, and Santa were walking down the street and saw a $20 bill. Which one picked it up? Santa, of course. The other two don't exist!


Then what d'you call someone who doesn't believe in Santa? A rebel without a Clause!

And finally: What goes oh, oh, oh? Santa walking backward....


...oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.... *disappears*

A MULTITUDE OF ANGELS:

"...On earth, Peace, Good Will to men."

Anyone?

Linus: "Is there anyone who knows the true meaning of Christmas?"

Hey oh, Galileo

The small red dot in the center is Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our sun, and is visible only through a telescope--but, Omygosh, look at the whole picture!

"Every star is a shining luminescence, yet one star on its own would barely be noticed here on earth. It is only through the combination of the light from millions of stars that a beautiful canopy of points of light appears to us."
--Lazer Gurkow
The Counting Paradox

Hey oh, Galileo, with that telescope up to your eye,
What'd you see up there in the sky?

THE EERIE SOUND OF SILENCE

Died: Alfred Anderson, 109, last surviving participant in the famous Christmas Truce of 1914, during which British and German soldiers emerged from opposing trenches along the Western Front near Ypres, Belgium, to exchange gifts, sing carols, and smoke; in Newtyle, Scotland. The unofficial World War I truce spread to much of the Western Front, lasting for days in some areas. Last year he said of the reprieve, "I remember the eerie sound of silence."

Rest Ye Merry.

R.I.P. Sam

The World's Ugliest Dog died last week, just short of his 15th birthday.

Goodbye, Sam. It's been fun living on the same earth as you. Go Well!

Light Echo

Hello-o-o-o

Sometime back in January of 2002 this star's outer surface suddenly exploded with the result that it became the brightest star in the Milky Way galaxy. A stellar flash like this has never been seen before. What looks like matter being expelled is actually a light echo, a reflection of the flash upon stellar dust around the star.

Hello-o-o-o

Rest and be thankful

Rest and be thankful.

Inscription on the stone seat in the
Scottish Highlands, and title of one
of Wordsworth's poems

CLOSED WINGS

R.I.P Nadia Anjuman

A 25-year-old Afghhan poet, a woman named Nadia Anjuman was murdered last week by her husband. When she should have been celebrating the success of her first book Gule Dudi (Dark Flower), he apparently beat her to death for "bringing shame" to the family by writing poetry about love and beauty.

"I am caged in this corner, full of melancholy and sorrow," she wrote in one ghazal, or lyrical poem. "My wings are closed and I cannot fly."

Nadia was one of a group of courageous women, known as "The Sewing Circles of Herat," who risked their lives to keep the city's literary scene active (sewing was one of the few things women under the Taliban were allowed to do). Had the authorities investigated, they'd have found the sewing students at the Golden Needle Sewing School had never really sewed--they wrote, they studied Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky , and other banned writers from a brave professor from the University of Herat. Under a regime where even teaching a girl to read was a crime, he might have been hanged if he'd been caught.

After the Taliban fell, Nadia went to study literature at the University of Herat--but the old mindset remains, presumably because the continuing powers of the American-backed warlords have repressive views similar to those of the old Taliban.

But the ladies of the Golden Needle Sewing School (and many others) are outraged. Me, too.

R.I.P. Nadia. May "flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

The Strangeness of Light and Matter

The reality of our universe is that truth has two opposite forms. Light and subatomic parts are both wave and particle. Matter is also energy, so matter is just light in another form...both forms of reality (are) scientifically provable. Truth is two things and not one...There is even more strangeness to the story of light and matter, a strangeness still not understood by scientists...From a scientific point, matter seems to have life, not only because there is a wave/particle duality to nature, but also because subatomic particles have an amazing ability to be interconnected, to communicate with each other, and to act as a unified whole. Because of the way electrons are interconnected they appear to be communicating faster than the speed of light, as if there were no time or space separating them. It is possible for one electron to communicate with a second electron instantly even when they are miles apart. Under certain conditions, a high density of electrons act like one whole, similar to a flock of birds changing directions in flight all at the same time.

One physicist, David Bohm, was so impressed with how electrons act that he remarked that they actually seemed to be alive. Bohm said that "dividing the universe up into living and nonliving things...has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matter are inseparably woven, and life, too,...is spread throughout the totality of the universe. Even a rock is in some way alive...

The modern physics of light and matter reveal that we are connected in someway with the entire universe. In summarizing the new physics, Gary Zukav wrote, "The philosophical implication of quantum mechanics is that all of the things in our universe (including us) that appear to exist independently are actually parts of one all-encompassing organic pattern, and that no parts of the pattern are ever really separate from it or from each other."

--Grant Bishop

I say, "Waaa-Hoooo! Remember this next time you feel far from home!"

More Like This?

You like this? And this?

MY NEW AVATAR

HEART AND SOUL

I couldn't resist posting these. This fantastic skyscape from the Spitzer Telescope is called The Mountains of Creation. They are about 10 times the size of the analogous Pillars of Creation made famous by the Hubble in 1995. Together they are part of a complex region of space dubbed The Heart and Soul Nebulae.

TASTING SPACE

Lee Smolin, "something of an upstart" who nevertheless received a doctorate in Physics from Harvard, published a book entitled The Life of the Cosmos, proposes a theory of what he calls cosmological natural selection. He asks, "What if all the things we think of as absolute--the speed of light, the tug of gravity, the motions of elementary particles--have also been shaped through the years by the subtle forces of evolution? ...Why shouldn't such phenomena be subject to change, just as forms of life are?...What I am suggesting is that a similar shift must take place in our understanding of physics and cosmology." Smolin notes that the random chances of a universe springing into existence with the grace and intricacy of ours are absurdly small--one in 10 to the 29th power, or 10 followed by 29 zeroes. This leads him to suspect that conditions oin the infant universe were not left to chance, but were finely tuned by the trial and error of evolution, in a process that reaches further back in time than can be measured by cosmic clocks. But how could the universe have evolved from anything else, unless it was not the first? Unless it was at the end of an evolutionary chain that spans many thousands of cosmic generations? Smolin's theory is highly speculative. Still, it's intriguing, and proposes that beyond the horizon of every black hole is the beginning of another universe, and time itself then stops being a linear flow, but "branches like a tree, so that each black hole is a bud that leads to a new universe of moments." In her new book Year of the Comets, Jan Deblieu tells of speaking with a stargazing friend who tells her, "When you look at stars through a telescope, you can taste space." Toward the end of her book, she writes: "Will we ever manage to find the truth about our Universe? Will we recognize it if we happen to glimpse it?

We are like snails in a salt marsh, crawling up and down stems of grass with only the merest inkling of the size of the world in which we live. We are a small cosmos, born of a black hole in a previous universe ... We are a leaf in a current, or a bubble boiling in a huge pot, bouncing around with others that we can neither hear nor see but whose presence we hold in our minds.

"Oh!" I echo her silently. I imagine the whole of our tiny, perfect world--people, animals, plants--watching the sky together, saying as one, "Oh!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY ! ! !

Say What??? 2

Postcard From the Edge

So I began to write on a thin scrap of paper that said: Love's #220 Cheyenne, WY Date 07/25-05 Time 05:23 PM, wishing I had a real piece of paper to write on, but glad for this scrap. I sat at the window of the tenth floor looking down at a city like a jewel in the middle of a desert so ordinary it might be anywhere in the world. Palm trees, birds running on the edge of rooftops of buildings below, not afraid of falling because they are birds, men walking, and taxis in the streets. I have a fear of falling from high places. Even if I had wings I would be afraid. I know the sound the wind makes, rushing past my ears as I fall, falling faster every second. But not today. They say when you fall in a dream you never reach the bottom, because if you do reach the bottom you will die in your sleep. Some night, maybe soon, I will fall in a dream and not wake up. Sometimes I fly in dreams. Maybe on that night I will just fly away, like a bird. I am out of paper. Having a great time! Wish you were here!

Super Size Me--Not

It's not my fault! Blame McDonald's. Fat used to be beautiful, just look at those old renaissance paintings of the Masters! Now, as Tv feeds us a spectacle of pictures of Americans starving on rooftops after Hurricane Katrina, a couple of books have come out with a new take on hunger. Sharman Apt Russell, who comes from New Mexico, has a new book called "HUNGER." Some of her sources include studies of doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto, others mention a notorious 1944 Minnesota Experimant which used Quakers and other conscientious objectors as "volunteers."

Did you know about this? These "cheerful" subjects grew "morose, flat, then bellicose, angry, and just plain miserable." Who wouldn't?

More recently, Magician David Blaine sealed himself in a Lucite box and went without food for 44 days. (Jesus only fasted for 40!) We make "obeisance to the cult of thinness," writes Wiliam Leith in THE HUNGRY YEARS. He writes from his own struggles, saying "Mostly, fat people are fat because they are troubled, and if they lose weight, they become troubled slim people, and then they start overeating again, and become fat people who are even more troubled than they were before." He writes, "Inside the binge you are pure hunger...you have created a time zone more present than the present. You know you shouldn't do it, ...you know you'll regret it... but none of these things matter." Audiences flocked to see Morgan Spurlock gain 30 pounds in a month for his film, SUPERSIZE ME. Yet he managed to keep himself "aloof from the sin of getting fat because it wasn't really his fault. It was McDonald's."

Or maybe the fault is not in ourselves, but in our stars. Or maybe not in McDonalds, but in ourselves. I'm turning over a new leaf.

Again.

CAPTAIN TRIPPS?

Lab tests showed today that the same deadly H5N1 avain flu virus found in Turkey and Asia has now infected ducks in Romania, confirming that the virus has reached mainland Europe. Also today, Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said preventing the start of a global flu outbreak is just about impossible, what with the migration of birds and all. It starts with one quarantine in a remote Romanian village, not that people are sick, just ducks, 3 ducks....

Remember Stephen King's pandemic influenza outbreak in THE STAND? sCAREy....

A GOOD START

"What do you call six lawyers at the bottom of the sea?"

"Not all anti-lawyer jokes are fairly earned -- many of them are recyclings of jests told at the expense of politicians, traveling salesmen, Jews ... Lawyers are in no way a protected species and cannot shelter behind the rules of political correctness. Seen as 'agressive' and 'domineering' they attract the insults once lavished on doctors and priests. Being sought out as a joke target is a tribute to high status and has the ultimate effect of boosting rather than lowering reputation. 'We have so much status,' says Wisconsin-Madison Law School emeritus professor Marc Galanter, author of Lowering the Bar, Lawyer jokes and legal culture, we can enjoy a firestorm of jokes."

Dead and Gone???

Is Osama Bin Laden dead? Rumors are being circulated that Osama was in earthquake stricken Pakistan Kashmir when the quake hit. The India Daily newspaper reported Tuesday that International Intelligence Agencies estimated that he is a goner. What are the chances? I say a fat chance is better than none! (I think "estimated" is the telling word here.)

Wish List

"Theodore Roosevelt Heller

Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller, dear brother of the late Sonja (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the US Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 am at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Zidilshover Section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans."

--Chicago Tribune, 10/10/2005

UP AND RUNNING

Calvin and Hobbes has been gone for ten years now! It has been that long since a boy and his tiger pushed their sled for the last time on a downhill race into history. I loved them. I've missed them. But now, a 1,456 page, three-volume set, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, an epic of every panel ever published can be had for a mere $150. In his intro to the book, Bill Watterson says: "Hobbes got all my better qualities (with a few quirks from our cats), and Calvin got all my ranting, escapist side. Together they're pretty much a transcript of my mental diary ... I meant to disguise them better."

THE HOTEL-KEEPERS

... A pleasant soul
Herself, they agreed: her plump features
Vacant of malice ...

They were soon fetching out their soft hearts
To compare, calling to mind
... the mountain winter,
Her solitude, her sore feet,
Haling her down with all but music,
Finally, to the valley,
To stand with bared gums, to be embraced,
To be fussed over, dressed up
In their presents, and with kind people
Be settled in a good house,
To turn chatty, to be astonished
At nothing, to sit for hours
At her window facing the mountain,
Troubled by recollections
No more than its own loosening stream
Cracking like church pews, in spring,
Or the hawks, in fall, sailing over
To their own rewards.

--W.S. Merwin
(National Poetry Day, UK) also National Poetry Week in Utah Oct 9-Oct 15

The Ritual Cat

When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them, so the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery to be tied up. Centuries lster, learned descendants of the spiritual leader wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.

--Insights of the pixelbuddha

YEAR OF THE COMETS

"If you were suddenly plucked from Earth and carried quickly into space, our planet would appear briefly as a gorgeous blue globe before being lost in a melee of stars. As you sped outward, you'd be able to see the whole of the Milky Way, a starry disk with curling arms, and then the Local Group, the clump of galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs, and then the Virgo supercluster. Stars and distant smudges of galaxies would be everywhere you looked. Passing through a nebula, you might be immersed in clouds of glowing copper gases, where tear-shaped cocoons swaddle embryos of stars. Pulled farther out, you'd see the Universe on a grander and grander scale, until the galaxies arranged themselves in trailing lines.
...
The stars are where God lives, I thought, on them, between them. Space is not an empty void; it's a vessel filled with dark, divine water, silky to the skin. How wonderful it would be to swim through it, darting among the stars, seeing colored gases and the explosions of supernovas.
...
If you think life is a circuitous journey, if you're ever tempted to place too much importance on a single day's events, try envisioning your existence on a cosmological scale.
...
Everywhere (Margaret Geller and James Huchra) looked they found starry bubbles, each one a lighted circle, or a partial circle, surrounding a pool of blackness. They also detected a region where untold unmbers of galaxies were gathered, lighting space in a band that stretched beyond the edges of their maps. This Great Wall, as Geller and Huchra named it, is now known to be a billion light-years long and tens of millions of light years thick.
So once again, we step back from our studies and shake our heads in disbelief. Space is not simply smeared with light, but honeycombed with it, and in places, steeped in it."

From a book I am currently reading, "Year of the Comets" by Jan Deblieu, who also wrote one called "Wind," which the Los Angeles Times called "A stunning view of the Earth."