Palin Sideshow Dominates The Election

Palin bashing from the media and from the democrats shows no signs of diminishing. Just the opposite, it's growing to a furious din that's drowning out everything else.

Maybe she deserves it. Maybe she doesn't. This late in the election, it just doesn't matter.

I'm worried that the national discussion these first two weeks of September has been almost exclusively about Palin and almost nothing about McCain or Obama. Poor Joe Biden has just about completely fallen off the radar.

I don't think the republicans are smart enough to have done this on purpose, but I'm really worried that it's going to work in their favor if we make this election a question of "Do you think Palin is crazy?"

For the record: I think Palin probably is too crazy for my taste. Have you ever seen a moose? They're like a brontosaurus with horns and she hunts them for fun, food and profit.

As for the rest of it, who cares? She's Dan Qualye in a miniskirt and she's seriously distracting us from the real issues of this election.

Until August, this election cycle was so grand and so good and so made me proud to be an American in the way both parties confronted the real issues that face us, and now, we're seriously ruining it with all this Palin bullshit.

Very Short Fiction

I'm adding a new section to my blog. The first entry "Melanie eats an Orange" is below.

I'm calling it "Very Short Fiction" and the entries will be short written sketches from observations or fantasy or some combination of the two.

The idea is that it will be like textual Jazz.

Each piece is impromptu and completed in one sitting of thirty minutes or less. Each piece's structure is self-contained and my hope is that you'll be able to tell much more about the person I'm writing about than just the actual words of the piece.

Melanie eats an orange

Melanie eats an orange in three distinct steps.

Having chosen her orange based on its color, size and symmetry, she pierces the outer rind with her thumbnail near the spot where the stem previously connected the orange to the tree. She peels it in a clockwise manner, careful not to pierce the inner skin of the sections letting the juice escape. She monitors how much rind is removed in each movement so that the entire orange is peeled in only one complete revolution.

Then she separates the sections, one at a time, carefully removing any remaining pith or strings left from the peeling process. She lays each cleaned section in a row, in the order they were separated from the others and moves on to the next section.

With the cleaned and separated sections in a line, she eats them from left to right, beginning with the first section, dabbing away any excess juice from her lips with a napkin before moving on to the next section and again, and again, until she has eaten them all. She positions her teeth so that each bite makes a clean cut and can finish nearly any sized piece in only two bites.

It's important, once she begins the process, that she eats all the sections in one sitting because she doesn't like them once they've had a chance to sit out and become dry. She allows some conversation while she prepares and eats the orange, but not so much that it interferes with the process.

It's possible she enjoys her well-designed method for eating an orange more than its taste or smell. Any deviation from the closely regulated steps might diminish her enjoyment of the fruit considerably.

Expired Prophesy

There really should be an expiration date on prophesy. Something like 200 years. If it hasn't happened in eight generations, then it's time to consider whether you're interpreting the prophesy correctly or if it was even a true prophesy to begin with.

Holding on to old prophesies that you've either interpreted wrong or weren't true prophesies in the first place can lead to real problems. This is how Jesus died.

When the Jews were in exile in Babylon, a guy made a prophesy that God would send something called "The Messiah" who would defeat the Babylonians, lead the Jews back to their homeland, rebuild the temple and, oh yeah, put them in charge of the world for an incredibly long period of time, like a thousand years.


Illustration: 'The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem' mosaic
by the Master of the Cappella Palatina
(Click to see full size)

This was an very important prophesy to the Jews in that it gave them hope at a time when things weren't looking too good for them. The last big prophesy they had about being lead out of Egypt turned out ok so they figured this one was just a matter of time.

The thing is, a lot of it actually did happen. They did return to their homeland, but it wasn't a "Messiah" that made it possible, it was the king of Persia, and they did rebuild the temple, but then again, no messiah, just a guy named Herod.

The part about the Jews being in control of the world didn't happen though. Pretty soon after their return, the Romans came and messed that up.

It didn't take long for the people to take the old prophesy about the messiah and transfer it to the situation with the Romans.

The Messiah was gonna show up, chase out the Romans, make the temple even better than before and put the Jews in charge of the world. Or so they thought.

So, along comes Jesus and people are saying he's this messiah guy. The rumor gets around so much that when Jesus comes to Jerusalem for Passover, people sing hymns and lay palm branches at the feet of his donkey. In their minds, Jesus is God's own Superman and the kicking of the Romans' asses is about to commence.

The thing is, the Romans also get word that Superman has come to town and so has the Sanhedrin, an organization that has a lot invested in maintaining the status quo. It doesn't take Jesus long to run afoul of both when he chased the money changers out of the temple.

So, Jesus gets arrested and the people are thinking "All-Right! The Great Roman Butt Kick is about to begin!"

Only, it didn't happen that way. Pilate brings Jesus before the people and he's been beaten, terribly beaten, and humiliated, and the people see that Jesus isn't the fulfillment of what they saw as the prophesy and he isn't going to free them of the Romans or the Sanhedrin and they turn on him. Crucify Him! Crucify Him! They shout.


Illustraton: Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man")
by Antonio Ciseri
(Click to see full size)

So the Romans do crucify him to show the people not to hold out hope for their prophesy.

They do hold out hope though, and there are several serious Jewish uprisings before the Romans move in, destroy the temple and exile the Jews from their own land--forever.

Even today, there are many Jews who won't set foot in Israel because they are waiting for the Messiah to come and put them in charge of the world first. Fortunately, there were a lot more Jews who at the beginning of the last century, said "forget this, I'm not waiting anymore" and moved themselves back into their own homeland.

The Christians and the Muslims too have prophesies, nearly two thousand years old now, that says God himself will kill everybody else and put them in charge of the world--and many, well-meaning, god-fearing people are waiting for exactly that to happen.

Can you imagine that? Decent, earnest, kind people, seriously waiting for God himself to massacre billions of people and put them in charge. I don't mind telling you it boggles my mind. I know these people, they're not murderers, and yet, that's what they believe.

The thing is, we obviously either read the prophesy wrong or it wasn't a true prophesy in the first place. God isn't going to step in and straighten everything out--WE have to. God isn't going to pick amongst us his favorite and put them in control of the world, WE have do our best to share control of the world.

There's no shame in admitting we were wrong about a prophesy. It doesn't weaken the position of the religion as a whole. Everybody is wrong sometimes, and when you're talking about something as vastly complex as prophesy, being wrong sometimes has to be expected.

The belief in these Eschatological prophesies keep us from doing what we must, for ourselves, for our world and for God. It's much easier to believe God will step in and do it for us, but, at this point, it's very unlikely that he will, if he ever intended to in the first place. God has been leading us into taking more and more responsibility for ourselves since the beginning. Why would he suddenly decide to give up on that and fix it all himself?

I'm not just picking on Christians here. There are a lot of Jews and Muslims waiting for the same thing. Jesus, an innocent man, died because people held on to these prophesies. Two thousand people died on 9/11 because somebody thought it would bring about the end of the world and God would step in and straighten everything out.

Isn't that enough? Do you really think this is what God wants?

It's just not gonna happen that way folks. Isn't two-thousand years long enough to realize that? There's not going to be an "end of the world" or a "new paradise" or "rapture" and it's time for earnest people of faith to cast off this nonsense and begin doing what we must to repair the damage it's caused.

True faith makes us strong, but false hope and false prophesy makes us blind and weak and petty.


Illustration: The Revelation of St John: The Four Riders of the Apocalypse
By Albrecht Dürer
(click to see full size)

Obama and Reagan

In a strange way, the 2008 presidential election is a mirror image of the 1980 presidential election. By mirror image, I mean everything is the same but in reverse.

In 1980, the democrats (Carter) held the presidency, but were blamed for economic troubles including rampant inflation beginning with an uncontrolled rise in the price of oil and disturbing turmoil in the financial sector arising from troubles with the interest rate. Ditto 2008, except the republicans (Bush) held the presidency.

In 1980, the Republican Nominee (Reagan) was known as a populist and known for his ability to draw from the uncommitted. Ditto Obama.

Reagan was known for his remarkable speeches, Obama is known for his remarkable speeches.

In 1980, the democrats were blamed for an ongoing situation in the middle east (the Iranian hostage crisis). In 2008, the republicans are blamed for an on-going situation in the middle east (Iraq).

Reagan drew strong support from young republicans, the unions and baby boomers. Obama draws strong support from young democrats, the unions and baby boomers.

Reagan made it cool to be white again. Obama makes it cool to be black again.

In 1980, the republicans were one president away from one of their own who faced impeachment for something stupid (Nixon). In 2008, the democrats are one president away from one of their own who faced impeachment for something stupid (Clinton).

In 1980, Carter was known as a bellicose political outsider. In 2008, McCain is known as a bellicose political outsider.

Reagan was popular for his foreign policy ideas even though he had zero foreign policy experience. Obama is popular for his foreign policy ideas even though he has zero foreign policy experience.

In 1980, Reagan won by a landslide. Will the same hold true for Obama? Only time will tell.

For the record, although loved by millions, Reagan was not my favorite president of the 20th century. He wasn't even my favorite republican, Nixon was--but that's a story for another day.

Pick your Targets

A lot of times, it just doesn't pay to go after your political opponents on anything other than policy.

Remember, back in the day, when the Republicans used to go after Bill Clinton on everything they could think of? Remember how, no matter what, they never really could "get him" on anything?

There even came a time when the republicans had enough evidence to impeach Clinton, but then they couldn't get the votes to convict him, even though he had gone on national television and basically said "yeah, I did it".

Boy those were the days, huh? The Republicans looked like belligerent jerks, Clinton looked like a victim and MTV called Monica Lewenski the most powerful young person in America.

Even today, Ken Starr wanders around his garden in a dirty bathrobe saying: "I had him! He was soooo close! I had him!"

The Democrats are already getting dangerously close to this with Sarah Palin and they've only been aware of her existence for two weeks.

Although they hate her, Palin's popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. But what about all the crazy stuff she's done?

Let's look a the craziest thing she's accused of and follow it through logically. I mean this business of her supposedly saying she's the mother of her daughter's baby.

Let's suppose for a minute that it really is true, and the Democrats have absolute proof. What's she really guilty of? Was somebody hurt? somebody cheated?

The very last thing Democrats want is to force Palin to have to go on television and say "yeah, I did it---and I did it to help my daughter and my grandchild".

If she does that, then the Democrats will look like the biggest heels in the world. They successfully outed a mother protecting her child. It could even create a wave that pushes Mccain-Palin into office.

Nevermind that it's kind of creepy because Bree on Desperate Housewives tried to do the same thing. Stick to discussions of policy and everything will be fine, but if democrats keep pushing it on all this bullshit stuff with Palin, it could really backfire.

Who is The Great Advisory

They call him "the great advisory", but if you read the bible, there's no character more powerless than Satan.

Even the animals are capable of direct action once in a while, but not the devil, all he can do is try and talk people into things. That's it. He can't change the weather, he can't make or take life, he can't do anything but whisper in people's ears when nobody is looking.

He can't even use the one power he has to get people to do things for him, all he can do is try and talk them into things they themselves benefit from.

It's that quality that makes me wonder. Is the devil really just a metaphor for our own selfish action? Are we, or some part of us, Satan?

I've never liked the idea of some guy sitting down in hell rubbing his hands together, just waiting for the day that he might take over. Most of those ideas come from Milton and Dante rather than the bible anyway.

There is no evil in nature. Hurricanes hit the coast because that's how they're made, not because of evil. Evil comes from us. It comes from our own greed and lust and fear and selfishness.

When the bible talks about Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it means that, unlike all the rest of God's creation, we are responsible for our own acts--because we do know the difference between good and evil.

Even atheists believe this. But, I have to wonder if they would believe it, if religion hadn't thrashed out these ideas for thousands of years beforehand.

Illustration: Gustav Dore

The Muppets Without Their Puppets

When Jim Henson died in 1990, he had worked with the same band of puppeteers for over thirty years. In tribute to Henson, many of these performers participated in a funeral performance, but in a very special way, without their puppets.


Part One


Part Two


Part Three Big Bird


Frank Oz

Is this how mothers should act?

I should probably shut-up about this, but those gentle-folk over at MADD piss me off so I'm writing about it, again.

Back in elementary school, we all learned there were two ways to pass a law. The first was by representation: we elect a guy by democratic means and he goes to a thing called a "congress" where they vote by democratic means and make laws. Pretty straight forward, there's no problem there.

The second way to pass a law is by direct action: we put an issue on a ballot and we each vote "yay" or "nay" and the law passes or it doesn't. Again, very straight forward, no problem.

We actually have two chances to do this. First at the state level, then again at the federal level. That's how it's supposed to work. That's called Democracy and that's how it actually does work for everybody, except Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

There actually is no national drinking age, because it's a state issue. MADD couldn't get the job done that way though. They couldn't get even conservative, anti-drinking states like Mississippi to raise their drinking age by accepted, democratic means...so MADD came up with another plan.

Hold on there big fella, are you saying that MADD consciously circumvented our beloved democratic process to get their law passed? You win or lose! Fair is Fair, Right? NOBODY gets around the process, not even the communists! ...And yet, that's exactly what MADD did.

Unable to get their law passed at the state level, and unwilling to accept defeat, MADD made a deal in congress where lawmakers made it mandatory that any state who wished to receive federal highway funds, MUST raise their state drinking age to twenty-one. Otherwise, they would be federally mandated to maintain their interstate highways without the benefit of federal funding.

See--that way, federal lawmakers aren't directly responsible for the law. They pass the buck on down to the state level. At the state level, lawmakers were obliged to change the law, but could avoid taking responsibility for it by blaming the federal highway fund mandate.

In other words, nobody faced this issue directly and voted yes or no in a way we the people could hold them responsible for it. MADD crapped all over our beloved constitution and democratic ideal so they could have their way--is this how mothers should act? Only if you use the word "mother" immediately followed by the word "fucker".

Recently, The Amethyst Initiative lost two of its original signers due to pressure from MADD. When I say pressure, I mean real pressure. Signers of the initiative report getting hundreds of MADD sponsored emails, demanding they change their position. Laura Dean-Mooney, the president of MADD sent out untold thousands of printed letters and email asking parents to withdraw their children from colleges where the dean or chancelor signed the Amethyst Initiative.

The good news is, our side lost two members, but gained fifteen. The count now stands at one hundred twenty-three signers of the Amethyst Initiative and about a zillion people cheering them on. Including me. Go TEAM!

Jesus and Reality

I'm willing to concede that what we call religion is probably little more than a combination of folklore, wishful thinking and outright fraud. But, it doesn't matter, I'm still a christian.

How can that be? Am I stupid? Deluded?

Thought creates reality. Jesus becomes real because I believe in Jesus.

Let's look at some other ideas that are completely imaginary, yet even atheists believe in them so they become real.

Ideas like: Justice, Equality and Freedom.

Equality? You can't show me two human beings that are equal, let alone a whole nation or a whole species. Equality is just something we made up...and yet, how many of us have died fighting for it?

The same goes for Justice. Are you kidding me? There is no justice! In the "real world", justice just isn't possible, and yet we fight for it every day and we make it a reality.

Freedom? Freedom is bullshit. We are bound every second of every day by gravity, economics, age, physics, prejudice, ignorance, lack of energy, lack of knowledge, lack of motivation, greed, lust, envy, bureaucracy, hypocrisy, genetics and stupidity, and yet there is nothing more important to us Americans than Freedom.

You simply cannot posit these things as a reality using logic and science. These things only exist if we believe they exist and work to make them exist.

Space travel wasn't a reality in 1950. Reasonable people just didn't believe in such things: yet by believing in the impossible, man walked on the moon before 1970.

If we accepted only what we could prove was real and solid and tangible then the world would never grow and improve. It's by reaching beyond reality that we create reality, otherwise we might as well just go back to making tools from stone, living in caves and killing each other over a bite of antelope flesh.

I don't know if there was actually a guy walking around first century Palestine named Jesus doing all sorts of magic and stuff. It doesn't matter, because I am not in first century Palestine.

It doesn't matter because in the here and now, I have these really astounding writings attributed to Jesus and the even more amazing concept of Jesus that I can hold and use and build a better world.

Believing in Jesus helps me make really imaginary things like love, compassion, forgiveness and grace real and tangible in a way not possible if I didn't have a Jesus to guide me--and that's why I'm a christian.

What Is Art Aardman?

I've thought about art, written about art, talked about art and struggled with trying to make art all my life and I've never come up with anything half as good as this from Aardman studios:

Mad at MADD

Don't let the name fool you. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is just another faceless, self-perpetuating lobbying agency, determined to separate you from your civil liberties.

In the beginning MADD, really was women who had suffered loss from drunk driving, but that was a long time ago. In the beginning, they did fairly obvious sane stuff, like educating people about the dangers of drunk driving and lobbying the states to increase and enforce drunk driving laws.

They crossed the line pretty quickly though, and started pushing to prohibit the sale of alcohol by pushing back the legal drinking age and empowering vulture and pirate personal injury lawyers by making everybody but the person actually doing the drinking financially responsible for whatever damages the drunk causes.

Because people are not young very long, there was no substantial counter-lobby to MADD's efforts to raise the drinking age. Besides, who would dare go against them when they had positioned themselves as the wrathful, bereaved mothers of bloody, dismembered children--when in fact they were just another lobby, ran by professional lobbyists and professional fund-raisers with the bulk of their support coming from, you guessed it, the reactionary far right.

Recently, over one hundred American college and university presidents (including Francis Lucas from our own Millsaps College) sent a letter to congress asking that the legal drinking age be, again, lowered to eighteen. Called "The Amethyst Initiative", the letter suggests that problem drinking and the problems associated with drinking are easier to deal with if drinking is legal.

Lets be clear here: the statutory prohibition of intoxicating substances does not work, never has worked, and never will work.

In the first part of the twentieth century we tried to prohibit alcohol sales by constitutional amendment and it was a horrible failure, not only failing to deal with the issues of alcoholism, but also giving rise to national and international organized crime that still exists today, long after the original amendment was repealed. In other words, it was a colossal screw-up.

When the drinking age was raised to 21 back in the 1980's, MADD couldn't get the states to go along with it, so their lobbyists conspired with congress to extort state support for MADD's initiative by making the twenty-one drinking age a requirement to receive federal highway funding. How crappy is that? MADD extorted their will on a nation of free people, and we let it happen.

MADD's tactics haven't changed much over the years. In response to the Amethyst Initiative letter, MADD sent out a letter of their own, listing those who signed the letter and suggesting to parents that their children might be better off going somewhere else to school if the signers didn't withdraw their name--again, MADD uses tactics of extortion to enforce their will.

Even now, MADD lists all the signers on their website with easy to use forms so you can harass them by email into withdrawing their name from the list. Their claim is that the signers are using the initiative to rid themselves of the responsibility to police campuses to enforce drinking laws.

That's just bullshit. It's not the legal drinking age that forces college and university presidents to patrol the campuses to prevent drinking, it's the threat of civil litigation empowered by MADD and their vulture and pirate personal injury lawyers who look for the deepest pockets they can find when a student causes problems by their own decision to drink.

No college or university in this nation facilitates an atmosphere conducive to irresponsible drinking. That's an invention of the personal injury lawyers looking to make a buck off the situation and empowered by MADD.

The kids do this themselves--and the only way to deal with it is by dealing with the kids with honesty and integrity which you cannot do when you take away their legal right to drink.

People over the age of twenty-one are still just as likely to have problems with drinking and cause problems by drinking, but the deep pockets are no longer there since they are out of college and on their own, usually not making very much money. So, with nobody left to sue, MADD has most graciously allowed us to start drinking at the age of twenty-one.

Yet again, MADD does not seek to change public policy by intellectual discourse or education, but by bald-faced aggression and extortion.

Don't get me wrong. I HATE alcoholism and alcoholics. It has caused real problems in my life and in the lives of people I care about--but, right is right and what these people are doing is just wrong. There are better ways of dealing with alcohol than the MADD Gestapo.

The Amethyst Initiative is correct. The problems of alcohol are much easier dealt with when the consumption of alcohol is legal.

So, what can you do? How do we fight these people?

You can start by supporting the Amethyst Initiative here.

I know most of my readers are graduates and students at Millsaps College, so contact Dr. Lucas and let her know you support the Amethyst Initiative.

Limited Vocabulary

Recently, I wrote a piece entitled "Astronaut Punches Asshole". A reader emailed back, that they liked the article, but did I have to use that word?

Short answer: yes I had to use that word. For a number of reasons.

For one thing: it sounds cool. It has rhythm. Both words begin with A and S, you get the idea.

Secondly: the person being punched was indeed an asshole. Read the article and you'll know why.

Thirdly: I swear like a sailor. It's my style. When I was a kid, people said if you used the kind of words I used, it indicated a limited vocabulary. That's not actually true. I have an unusually broad vocabulary; I just happen to enjoy using dirty words.

I don't use the F-Bomb much, as I think it's overused, but "Ass" and related words are pretty high on my list though, including: Ass-hole, Ass-hat, Ass-munch, Ass-face, Ass-wipe and many more.

Does this mean my blog isn't fit for children? Are you kidding? By the age of eight, most children use language far worse than anything you'll see here. Being honest with them about the use of these words is just one way of showing them a little respect. Besides, there are far worse things than teaching a child to call an asshole an asshole.

Bitten by an Iguana

I've had lots of pets over the years, but none of them ever got as excited at feeding time as my iguana, Gwangi.

At the mere sight of her food dish, Gwangi leaps from her basking shelf to the cage door. When I say "leap" you'd swear iguanas could fly, because she does.

Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, Gwangi hasn't yet figured out that I can't open the door and give her the food as long as she's attached to it, so I have to lure her to the other side of the cage with a shred of collard greens fed through the bars.

With any luck, she takes long enough to eat the lure for me to get the door open and get her food dish inside. Supper is usually torn up collard greens, broccoli slaw, celery and sometimes grapes or watermelon thrown in.

It doesn't take her long to realize she's been duped though, and soon she leaps over to where I've placed her food dish.

I try to get my hand out of the way pretty quickly, because, like most herbivores, iguanas have eyes on the side of their head. It gives them a broad field of vision so they can watch out for predators, but it also gives them a blind spot right in front of their face.

Since they can't see what's directly in front of them, iguanas depend on the sense of taste and smell to know when to bite into their dinner, and if I still have some collard green smell on my fingers she will sometimes nip at them.

She's not being mean though, and immediately releases as soon as she realizes her mistake. Iguanas have dozens of pointed teeth and can inflict a painful bite when they want to, almost always breaking the skin. When I first got her and she was still afraid of me, I had to really watch out for that.

Because they start out small, a lot of people get iguanas as pets for children. This is a really bad idea. An adult iguana can grow to five feet long for a female and six feet for a male.

Being reptiles, iguanas don't think like we do which can lead to painful misunderstandings, both for the owner and the iguana.

For an adult though, iguanas can be a pretty cool pet, so long as you're willing to do the research and provide the proper kind of habitat for them to live in.

Ignore the Polls: Obama Wins

Normally political polls are valuable and accurate because Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to actually get out and vote when the polls open.

In that way, whatever opinions they give to pollsters before the election are just about equally likely to turn into real votes when the time comes.

That's normally, but the 2008 presidential election is far from normal because Barak Obama is half black.

Polls today show Obama, the democrat, and McCain, the republican, more or less neck-and-neck in votes. That's not unusual, Americans have a sort of yin and yang thing going on as far as considering themselves conservative or liberal and the two forces are just about equally divided.

Although I consider myself a liberal, I also think it's good we're equally divided on these issues because both sides are just about equally likely to be right and just about equally likely to be wrong and with both sides just about equally popular, we have a fair chance that both sides will correct the other's mistakes, while preserving the things they do right.

I suspect Obama will win the November election by a landslide because I can't imagine any black American who is able not getting out to vote for him, and their sheer numbers will overwhelm the republicans who will probably vote at about the same rate as they always do.

Black people have had a pretty tough time in these United States over the last three hundred years, and Barak Obama's candidacy represents a watershed change in all that. So much so, that even if they're not liberal like Obama, I just don't know what to think about a black person who doesn't physically get out and pull the lever to elect him.

That being said, I like John McCain a lot. I supported McCain long before I'd ever heard of Barak Obama, but, lets face it, McCain isn't the most popular guy among the rank-and-file republicans and I just can't see them being all that motivated to stand in line and vote for him.

No matter what the polls say, it's who actually stands in line to pull the lever that decides elections, and in November that will be Obama.

Astronaut Punches Asshole

LaReeca Rucker's really cool article about UFO's in Mississippi, the recent death of Eric Beckjord, and former astronaut Edgar Mitchell's claims about UFO's, made me think about the whole genre of fringe science today and one of my favorite stories ever.

In 1969, Edwin Eugene (Buzz) Aldrin was the second human being to ever walk on the moon. His responsibility was to actually pilot the Eagle Lunar Module from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. Buzz Aldrin is not only an American hero, but a world hero as well.

Ever since that day, fringe people have put forth the theory that the whole thing was a hoax. There's a million reasons why they're wrong that I don't have time to go into here. Suffice to say, we really did go to the moon no matter what people say.

The reason Bart Sibrel is an asshole instead of just being a guy who thinks we faked the moon landings, is that he has a habit of stalking ex-astronauts. Besides the yelling and screaming and accusations of lying, Sibrel is known to ask moon-walkers to to swear on the bible that they actually went to the moon, carrying his own bible to aid the task.

In 2002, Sibrel laid in wait to ambush Aldrin at a California hotel. When the astronaut showed, Sibrel accused him of being "a coward, a liar, and a thief" to which, the seventy-five year old Aldrin decked Sibrel in the teeth, nearly knocking him off his feet.

Sibrel made noises about charging Aldrin with assault, but the police and court would have nothing to do with it. Watch the punch on the video below.

Uncle Forry on Facebook

"You were turned into a zombie by Forest Ackerman"

When Facebook first introduced the Zombie Application, it really got to be kind of annoying as person after person was "biting" me online, so I turned the application off.

That was before I was bitten by the most famous Zombie of them all, Forrest J Ackerman.

When I was a kid, Ackerman was the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. "FM", as we called it, was a newsprint magazine dedicated to all the monster movies from the golden age of Frankenstein and King Kong to the latest drive-in schlock. (Even a movie called Schlock! that had Ackerman in it.)

Of all the classical elements of Western Culture over the past four thousand years, and American Culture over the last three hundred years: none had as much of an effect on my life as those movies and Famous Monsters magazine.

When I grew to become a man, I actually got to meet Uncle Forry on several occasions and visited his famous Ackermansion in Horrorwood, Karlofornia.

He always acted like he remembered me, but I think he was just being polite because there have to be at least a million kids like me that he runs into every day.

Always on the edge of science and technology, Ackerman, now in his 80's joined Facebook a few weeks ago. Immediately I clicked "add to friends" on the hopes that he might confirm me. How cool would that be!

So now, like millions of new facebook users before him, Uncle Forry has taken up the Zombie application and started biting his friends. This time it's different though. All those millions of other Zombie users probably would have no idea what a "zombie" was if it wasn't for Ackerman, so, when Uncle Forry Bites me, I'm gonna damn well stay Bit!

Homos

When I was a kid, in the third grade, I heard somebody call somebody else a "homo".

I had no idea what that was. My best friend, Timmy, was also the smartest guy I knew so I asked him. Timmy said, "a homo is kind of like a retard, except they put their finger up their butt."

That didn't make a lot of sense to me, but it didn't sound like anything any reasonable person would do or want to be so I decided it was best to avoid homos.

It would be another three years before I learned that a "homo" was actually a "homosexual", and they weren't like retards with their finger up their butt, but rather they were people with a sexual interest in people of their own gender.

They may not put their finger up their butt, but I heard they did put gerbils up their butt so it still made sense to me that it would be best to avoid these people.

It would be another ten years before I learned that homosexuals were actually fairly nice people and there wasn't any good reason to avoid them--in fact, several people I already knew and liked were homosexuals.

I tell this story because it's so easy for people, especially children, to form wrong perceptions of other people based on really bad data.

I have no idea when is the right age for adults to talk to children about these things, but rest assured that they are talking about it amongst themselves long before you might think is appropriate--and they're getting it all wrong.

I also can't help but think about the kids, who, sometime in adolescence, begin to realize that they themselves might be attracted to people of the same gender, but decide to keep it hidden or even deny it to themselves because of the crazy things they hear the other kids say.

It was hard enough going through adolescence and the teen-age years as a straight person, I can only imagine how hard it is for kids who are gay.

Adults get it wrong too. I have a friend, who years ago was fired from his job as an incredibly popular high-school teacher for being gay.

This sent a pretty clear message to his straight students that, no matter how much you like this guy, he still has to go because he's gay.

It sent an even clearer message to his students who were gay themselves that no matter how successful you are, and no matter how popular you are, there's no room for you here if you're gay.

Now, you may not like homosexuals or the so-called "gay agenda", but keep in mind that it's just not that simple and what you do or say can really hurt kids who are already having a hard time adjusting to the world.

When I was young, I said a lot of pretty hurtful things about homosexuals, absolutely oblivious as to whether or not my words hurt anybody. If any of my readers were one of those people I hurt, forgive me. I was working from really bad data.

Taking the Lord's Name In Vain

You're not taking the Lord's name in vain when you use the phrase "god damn".

When you say god damn something, you're wishing that terrible things would happen to it. In biblical terms, "terrible things" can be, well...terrible, including: molten lava, infestations of frogs or locusts, death of the first born and really uncomfortable skin conditions.

For Jews and Christians, the Lord's name isn't "God" it's "Yahweh", meaning: I Am. I Am is a really cool name for a number of reasons that I might write about later. For Muslims, God's name is "Allah".

Knowing God's name is a big deal. When God gave Moses his name, it gave Moses authority when he returned to deal with his people and Pharo. For regular people, knowing God's name gives them authenticity in their worship and indicates their special relationship with God as the chosen people.

Many of the older parts of the bible try to define this idea of one god and what God is. It recognizes that people worship gods other than Yahweh. In some places, it seems to say these other gods are real but inferior to Yahweh, in others it seems to say these other gods are just imaginary.

Several of the commandments God gives Moses try to deal with these issues directly. The very first one is "I am God, (the one god) and you won't worship any other gods before me." That's pretty plain speaking.

When God commands Moses not to "take the Lord's name in vain", he means that we shouldn't try to get away with worshiping other gods by giving them the name, Yahweh. It's similar to the commandment where God tells us not to make and worship idols. An idol is not God. God is Yahweh.

You see, the most human thing in the world is to try and make God be whatever you want him to be. Since God is intangible, it's pretty easy to do. By commanding us not to take his name in vain, God is saying he is what he is. He is real and not subject to our wishes and imagination.

So, don't feel bad the next time you say "goddamn it". It may be a bit extreem to wish a plague of frogs on something, but, you're not taking the Lord's name in vain.

Image credit: one of my favorite engravings by the brilliant Gustave Doré

Jesse Jackson's Gaff

The key to Barak Obama's campaign is making people believe he represents all Americans, not just black Americans.

As evidenced by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, the greatest threat to Obama's support among white people may be any perceived association with sixties and seventies era "blame white people" civil rights activists.

The most famous example of that kind of public figure has to be Jesse Jackson. Even though his son is Obama's campaign co-chair, you rarely see Obama and Jackson linked in any way.

Recently, Jackson was caught on video criticizing Obama when he thought his microphone was off. Jackson immediately apologized and the Obama camp, including Jackson's son, immediately distanced themselves from Jackson.

My question is: was this real or was it staged?

Certainly, people are sometimes caught saying things they wish they hadn't when they thought the microphone was off, but the timing of Jackson's gaff makes me suspicious.

By now, Jesse Jackson has been attached to a microphone in a television news studio a few hundred times. He knows how it works and it's unlikely that he, all of a sudden, forgot that his lapel microphone picks up everything he says, even whispers.

I have to think that Barak Obama's campaign represents something really significant in Jessie Jackson's life's work. Does that mean he would make himself look bad to benefit Obama? We will probably never know for sure, but if I were Jesse Jackson I'd do it, and do it again if need be.

Plain Speaking and Metaphor

The preacher on television said that some one's heart was "full of the holy spirit". It was beautiful how he said it. You could tell why he's on television and I'm not.

The thing is: what does it mean?

Since religious people deal in the greater mysteries of our existence, they rely pretty heavily on metaphor to try and make sense of things that don't make much sense. The bible itself is full of metaphor in a thousand different varieties.

Metaphor can be a crutch though, and over-used it can get in the way of people understanding what it is we're trying to say instead of illuminating it.

I don't know what "full of the holy spirit" means. Hearts aren't full of the holy spirit, they're full of blood. As far as I know, the holy spirit doesn't actually infest our bodies, and even if it did, since we don't have a really specific idea of what the holy spirit is, how would you know?

In the example from television above, "full of the holy spirit" was a metaphor for someone taking action in the real world based on their religious faith and teaching. If the preacher wants to teach us listeners that this is good to do, then he should have spoken plainly rather than rely on a metaphor like "full of the holy spirit".

Jesus used metaphor, like when he asked peter to be a "fisher of men", but he also spoke very plainly too.

Some men came to Jesus. They said, "Teacher, what should we do if someone hits us on the side of the face?" Jesus said, "Turn your face and offer them the other side to hit as well."

That's pretty plain speaking. Jesus leaves us no question about what he means and "turn the other cheek" became one of Christ's most remarkable and memorable lessons.

It's important for religious people to remember that when we teach about our faith, it's more important to be understood than it is to use flowery code words or phrases and a lot of times, plain speaking is a much better choice than metaphor.

Penn Jillette Doesn't Know About The Weather

The earth is dying and we're killing it. Any reasonable person knows this.

Never mind that scientists can't make an accurate 24-hour weather forecast.

Never mind that anyone who saw the 2000 presidential debates knows that Al Gore is bat-shit crazy.

The logical path is laid out for us, and if we don't follow that path, then we're all gonna die!

At the most recent skeptics convention hosted by The Amazing Randi, Penn Jillette was asked about global warming--to which he replied: "I don't know". It took him about a thousand words to say "I don't know". If you've ever seen his act then you know a thousand words is conservative for Jillette. His normally silent partner's response was maybe five hundred words.

Penn & Teller are among America's greatest thinkers. I say this because I agree with them about half the time. They have a great program on television called "Bullshit" where they expand on just how insane and illogical most of us are.

After the skeptics conference, Newsweek's Sharon Begley wrote an article dismissing Jillette's comments on climate change (in her best Post hoc ergo propter hoc manner) because he dislikes Al Gore. You can read her article here.

In his reply to Begley, Jillette was again terse (only about a thousand words).

The deal is: we don't know as much as we think we know about climate change. We suspect many things, and a lot of them may be accurate, but a lot of it we just can't posit as a scientific fact yet.

Jillette's response was reasonable. He doesn't know. I don't know either. Begley is pretty sure she knows but she doesn't. As a race, we will do our best to rectify the climate change problem, but that doesn't mean we should be sanctimonious about it all, because quite frankly, we don't know.

Watermelon Viagra

Scientists in England or somewhere have made the astonishing discovery that eating watermelon has basically the same effect as Viagra. You can read more about it here.

I gotta call bull-crap on this one. I've eaten more than my fair share of watermelon since early childhood and if it had an effect like Viagra, I would have noticed by now. Maybe you have to eat the whole melon, seeds and all for it to take effect.

Of course, this does give a whole new meaning to the phrase "melon balls". . .

How Big is Big: The Blue Whale

The The Blue Whale (balaenoptera musculus) is generally considered the largest animal that ever lived. It can reach lengths of over 110 feet long and weights of over 200 tons.

It's hard to imagine what that is in real terms. 110 feet is over 1/3 the length of a football field. To give an even better conception of how big that is, I've included a photograph of the life-size blue whale model from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.


The Blue Whale is a carnivore. He hunts large shoals of tiny shrimp called krill. The whale will swim through the krill with his cavernous mouth open taking in as much water and krill as he can, then he closes his mouth and uses his tongue to push the water back out letting his feather-like teeth called baleen strain out the shrimp which he then swallows.

The throat of the Blue whale is pleated so it can expand like an accordion when he takes in water. The image above shows his throat about half expanded. For a long time, scientists thought the whales throat was always partially expanded because they only time anyone go to see the underside of the whale was when one beached itself or was harvested by whalers.

Compare the images below of a free swimming blue whale with his throat deflated and another image of the whale with his throat full of water and krill.

The Michael Jackson Rule

When it comes to Frank Melton and his summer jobs program for teens, I'm afraid it's time to invoke the Michael Jackson Rule.

The Michael Jackson Rule is this: Michael might be innocent of all the terrible things people say about him, but a prudent person won't let their children anywhere near him, just in case.

I don't know what's the deal with Frank Melton and teenage boys. Some people say he's running his own private, Boys Town. Some people say he's more like Oliver Twist's Fagin or worse.

It's disturbing when the police go looking for someone in connection with violent crime and we find out they are or were living at the Mayor's house and it's even more disturbing when he takes them out for a night of vigilante crack house demolition.

Melton might be on the Up and Up, I hope he is, but this summer jobs program is completely under planned and under funded and pushing it through by raising a mob of kids and parents looking for a summer paycheck is just irresponsible enough to make a reasonable parent think twice about wanting to have anything to do with it.

Disgusting Orangutan Story

People have written wanting to know about the Disgusting Orangutan story so here it is:

Ethel and Etta are two spinster ladies, living out in the country who decide to come to Jackson and visit the Zoo one afternoon.

They see the lions and the tigers and the elephants and the zebras and finally they come to a cage with a giant male wild orangutan from Borneo.

Ethel wants a snapshot with Etta and the brute, so she pulls the pocket Instamatic out of her purse and takes a few steps back while Etta stands in front of the cage.

All of a sudden, the orangutan snatches Etta by the hair, drags her inside the cage, rips her clothes off and proceeds to rape the crap out of her.

Ethel runs around frantically trying to get help. Finally, after forty-five minutes, zoo keepers are able to tranquilize the ape and rescue Etta.

They take Etta to the University Medical Center where she spends the next three weeks in and out of a coma with wires and tubes coming out everywhere.

Finally, the doctor calls Ethel and tells her Etta is coming out of her coma and she should come visit.

Ethel quietly steps into Etta's hospital room:

"Etta, honey, are you OK?" asks Ethel.

"...okay..." says Etta.

"Okay? You have the nerve to ask to if I'm Okay?

"Hell, NO I'm not okay. I've been here for three weeks and he don't call, he don't write, he don't send flowers and he ain't been to visit me even once!"

Turning 45

Here is how I responded to a recent birthday well wisher:

Hiya Tess!

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Have you seen my glasses?

I really don't feel a day older. Ugh! My knees are killing me.

Age really is a state of mind. Can you turn the TV up? I can't hear a thing.

I try to stay young by keeping up with what young people are thinking. Hey! You Kids, Get Off My Damn Lawn Would Ya?

Besides, I can't really be that old. When I was twenty-five, John McCain ran for president. Now he's running again. See, it hasn't been all that long.

ABC

Father's Day

Although he's gone now, it's hard for me not to think of my dad this time of year. I was born on father's day.

My dad accomplished a lot in life so it was always true that most people were a lot more interested in him than they were in me. It never bothered me though, I was a fan too.

For a long time after my dad died, it was like living for years at the base of a mountain and then waking up one day to discover it gone.



My dad could always make me laugh and I could always make him laugh. Sometimes, he would get me to try and make his friends laugh.

I remember one Saturday, a man came to visit my dad at his office. He was something like my dad's mentor and a good friend.

Life had been really unfair to this man recently. His wife was kidnapped and murdered just two months earlier. Although her killer went to prison, her body was never found. This was a big cigar chomping, love of life, baron of business, kind of guy.

My dad asked me to tell a really dirty joke about two country spinster ladies and an orangutan. It was a funny joke. I still remember it and it made his friend laugh.

That's probably a strange thing to remember, but it's how my dad taught me what was really important in life. If I could make a guy laugh, who had just lost his wife in that horrible way, then that's a pretty worth while thing to do.

Is Locke Really Dead?

Since all my Lost friends have commented on the season finale, I thought I'd throw in my two cents plus inflation.

Last year's season finale opened several questions and we had to wait until this year's season finale to get any answers. The biggest of these was "who the hell is in the coffin?"

"I've looked into the heart of this island
and what I saw was beautiful"

If you watched this years season finale, then you know it was John Locke in the coffin. John, knife-wielding, pig hunting, button pushing, Obi-Wan, faithful believer in the island's mysteries, man of faith not science, Locke.

If you can't tell I'm a big fan of Locke.

Like a lot of people, I was pretty sure it was Ben in the coffin. Now that we know it's Locke, fans all want to know if it means he's off the show.

The thing you have to remember is that on Lost, death doesn't mean what it normally means. Dead people come back all the time. Hurley was playing chess with the beaten to death by the smoke monster Mr. Eko in the nut house and Jack's dead dad appears to people who never met him in life.

In the real world, as in the show, the difference between life and death is just a matter of time, literally.

"I hope you're happy now, Jacob."

Marcus Aurelius spoke of great gulf of time before we're born and after we're dead and the brief moment of time in-between when we're alive. Jesus spoke of an eternal life, unbound by time, constituted only of faith. The Lost island operates independently of time. By turning the frozen donkey wheel, the island hops from spot to spot on the (what is to the rest of us) unbreakable sequential progression of time.

"When I said you had to go back to the island,
I meant all of you... Him too."

Clearly, Benjamin Linus intends for drunken, bearded, Jack to steal Locke's dead body and take it back to the island. Why? Because, in a place like the island, where time doesn't matter, then life and death is really only a matter of perspective and dead-in-Los-Angeles Locke will be alive again.

Locke to Jack: Why is so hard for you to believe?

Jack to Locke: Why is it so easy for you?

Wait. Have we seen this scenario before? An innocent man gives his life for his friends, only to have his dead body seemingly stolen from its grave but appears to his friends again, very much alive.

Imagine this: Jin (who also is not dead) is fishing off the now re-located in time island, when a stranger appears on the beach. "Have any luck?" the stranger asks. "No" says Jin, in improving English. "Cast your net on the other side." says the stranger.

Sympathy for the Jews and Arabs

I've always had some sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs.

After World War I, Europeans had good news and bad news for the Palestinians. The good news was that we freed them from the oppressive Ottoman Empire. The Bad news was that the Jews were returning by the million.

How would we in the U.S. have responded if one day, millions of Native Americans showed up on our doorstep, with both the intention of taking their land back, but also the means to do it?

Displaced European Americans, crowded into concentration camps in Canada and Mexico would surely plot their revenge, including a fair amount of terrorism against the returned natives. Governments in Mexico, Canada and European countries would be tempted to support the terrorists as local sympathies go to refugees.

That would never happen, of course. Unlike the Jews, displaced Native Americans didn't flourish in foreign countries to return centuries later, much stronger than when they left.

If I were a Palestinian Arab, I would probably be a big time terrorist.

I have sympathies for the Jews too.

After nearly two thousand years in exile from their homeland, they survive as a unified culture. That's never happened in the recorded history of man. It gives some credence to the idea that they just might be God's chosen people.

It happened, in part, because they passed down the hope of returning to their homeland from generation to generation. The Jews were prepared to survive in exile by their much shorter exile in Babylon before the first century C.E.

You can't blame the Jews for wanting to return to Judea. Always an outsider and often persecuted, life in permanent exile is no walk in the park.

If I were a Jew I would probably be a big time Zionist.

It doesn't help that Jews, Christians and Muslims all hold as a key element of their religious culture that one day, God himself will put one of them in charge of Jerusalem and condemn the other two to hell.

It's amazing to me that this small spot of land, smaller than the state of Mississippi, would spawn three huge cultures. I have to believe that there is some superior force guiding the destiny of men. Perhaps that force intends that Jews, Christians and Muslims learn to live in peace and use that peace as a structure to build a true, world-wide peace.

Spam Magnet

I get a lot of spam. My Google Mail account has a folder just for spam and it stays at around twenty thousand pieces all the time.

Gmail automatically deletes items in the spam folder older than thirty days, so that means I get around twenty thousand individual pieces of spam every month.

Can you imagine? If all this junk mail were physical rather than virtual, my postman would have to deliver the mail with a fork lift.

Granted, my email address is plastered all over my website, but that's still a huge number.

Sad Giraffe News

Thursday I posted about a baby girl giraffe born at the Jackson Zoo. Sadly, yesterday the zoo announced that the baby died overnight.

They don't have a cause of death yet, but will perform an autopsy. The baby seemed healthy and was gaining weight.

Life is such a mystery. It seems impossible that such a beautiful creature could just expire like that. Beauty can be fleeting so be grateful when you experience it.

Baby Giraffe at Jackson Zoo

Monday, Giraffes at Jackson Zoo had a new baby female.

The Jackson Zoo has been very successful breeding Giraffes over the years. Diamond, the baby's mother has had six successful births. Because the zoo only has room for two adult Giraffes, babies are sold to other zoos when they are old enough to be separated from their mother, usually six months to a year after birth.

Despite a nearly six foot drop, Giraffes give birth standing up. As is common among grazing animals, Baby giraffes can walk almost immediately after birth.

Zoo veterinarians diagnosed this new baby with weak tendons in her back legs. As a precaution, they wrapped her legs in tape and she is expected to make a quick recovery.

The Giraffe exhibit was originally built in the 1950's. It is the last exhibit in the carnivore moat structure between the original zoo entrance and its current entrance. These exhibits are constructed of concrete formed over steel frames. The giraffe exhibit is somewhat unique, in that visitors have an interior section resembling a cave where they can view the bedtime stalls for the giraffes.

As was common at the time, the exhibit originally featured concrete floors to facilitate cleaning with a pressure hose. It was later determined that the concrete was bad for the animals' hooves and joints, so nearly twenty years ago, the zoo merged the giraffe exhibit with the newer camel exhibit which had a dirt floor. The move also gave the animals more room to stretch their considerably long legs.

Links:
Clarion Ledger Article
Jackson Zoo Website

Paranoid Theory 415: Sex Sells

Embarrassment Can Help Your Career.
Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton were both pretty, but remarkably talentless blonds headed for obscurity. If The Love Boat were still on the air they would have been guests long ago. But then, "leaked", "private" sex tapes rocketed them to super-star status with both their names in the top ten-percent of all-time Internet search terms.

People have long suspected that one or both starlets were secretly in on the release of the tapes in hopes of just this effect. Even if these two weren't involved, it's not hard to suspect this might not be a bad idea for those willing to do anything to promote themselves.

Disney Dollars
Nobody spends more time and effort developing their intellectual properties than the corporate sharks at Walt Disney Inc.

Currently, Disney's current hottest properties are High School Musical and Hanna Montana. Teeny Bopper stardom is short-lived though, so it's not hard to suspect that Disney might be very interested in discovering the next step to protect these cash cows.

Recently, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, one of the stars of High School Musical, had nude photos of herself leaked to the internet, making her name one of Google's hottest new search terms. Soon afterwards, photographs of Hanna Montana star Miley Cyrus' naked back were huge news, even making it as a "hot topic" on ABC's (a Disney Company) The View.

One Plus One Equals....
Cyrus is fifteen, Hudgens is eighteen. Now, I'm not saying that Walt Disney Inc. intentionally leaked scandalous photographs of these young stars to promote their careers, but there are millions of dollars at stake here and corporate slime-balls being what they are, you have to admit it's a possibility, no matter how sleazy.

If you're still not convinced, consider this: Britney Spears was once a Disney product before her hit song, Baby Hit Me One More Time went through the roof on the heels of its sexy MTV video.

All this might just be unfortunate coincidence, but you have to admit; as conspiracy theories go, this is a heck of a lot more likely than Newt Gingrich blowing up the Twin Towers
.

Shakespearean Trivia

I love Shakespeare.

Not the man from Stratford, he's pretty dull, but Shakespeare as a genre has it all. Mystery, Drama, politics, humor, love, beauty, melodrama, you get the idea.

Mental Floss blog published an article on little known facts about the bard's remarkable Scottish Play, Macbeth. Elizabeth Lunday even explains why it's called The Scottish Play.

Read the entire article here.

(image information: Victorian Actor, Sir Henry Irving as Macbeth)

Make your own Soapbox

If you're like me and enjoy sharing your opinions with a world that never asked for them, then you'll love this do-it-yourself soapbox paper model.

All you need is a printer, scissors and white glue to assemble this working model. You actually can stand on it and orate, but you have to be a very small person.

Available at Mike Hungerford's site.

Soapbox models also make great gifts for a know-it-all loved one.

What is Random?

The concept of Random chance is one of the cornerstones of atheism. It presumes that our existence comes as the result of random events impacting other random events rather than some sort of conceptual direction. The only problem is, random doesn't exist.

When we say "random" what we mean is that the outcome of an event is unknowable because it results from processes either unknown or so complex that they are virtually unknowable. That's a far cry from saying "stuff just happens". Stuff doesn't just happen, stuff happens as the result of other stuff.

Computers are really good at complex calculations, and among computers there is no such thing as random. For programs where we wish to introduce a random element, computers use a random number simulator because they cannot calculate random numbers on their own. It is just a simulation though, if you know how the random number generator works, then the outcome is completely predictable.

Now, saying there is no such thing as random is a long way from proving an anthropomorphic, paternalistic "God" who punishes sins and runs our lives like some sort of giant puppeteer, but knowing that nothing is truly random and that all things have a rational cause makes the existence of a higher power of some sort logical.

Mr & Mrs Caveman For Dinner

Having fallen hopelessly, passionately, in love in middle age, what do Boyd and Mrs. Boyd talk about during dinner?

Last night it was cavemen with Mexican food. Carla picked my feeble mind about the links from our chimpanzee-like ancestors to modern man.

LiveScience gives a great run-down of the top ten hominids to work with.

From Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) to my personal favorite, the Neanderthals and why some people have big noses, we covered the fabled path from monkey to man.

For the record, we're both deeply christian, but also happen to believe in evolution.

Monkey Island Model Progress

Below are two images from my Monkey Island project.

Before starting on the model in the real world, I'm building it in my computer using Google Sketchup. It's a great (and free) 3D modeling program from Google.

Thirty years ago, I would have begun the model building process by drawing up a blueprint on paper, but computer generated 3D modeling is a much stronger tool.

Although very rough, you can see I'm starting to develop the basic shape. The idea here is that I'll be able to use this computer model to create a card paper rough model of the castle that I can then add clay details to, finishing the model.

Perils of Stick People

For years we've depended on stick people to keep us safe. This flickr photo pool gathers stick people warning signs from all over the world. See if you can figure out what the danger each picture tries to prevent.

Social Networking For Grown ups

Social networking sights like Facebook or Myspace are far more popular with kids, but they're actually more useful for grownups.

When you're a kid, you see you have a lot more opportunities to see your friends than when you're a grownup. You go to school five days a week and most of them are there. You go to football games on Friday night and they're there too and Sunday school on Sundays and parties and dances and sports and all sorts of opportunities for social interaction. When you're a grownup all that slows down considerably.

When you're an adult things are different. You go to work five days a week, but most of those people aren't really your good friends. Some you don't even like at all. When you get home you have kids or housework to deal with and going out just isn't as much fun as it used to be so it can be weeks between times when you see your friends face-to-face.

That's where social networking sights come in handy. You can check sights like Facebook or Myspace once a day and get short snippets of life from and about your loved ones. Folks who just love to talk (like me) might even keep blogs that you can read and share.

There's a stigma attached to older users of social networking sights because predators have used them to solicit children. The stigma is going away though and, thanks to some very diligent people, the predators are being caught and dealt with.

It may be easier for me to adapt to this type of technology since I've been on the Internet so long, but the Internet is changing all of our lives and I'm going to predict that this type of social interaction is only going to grow among all age groups as time goes on.

So, What was that?

It's an elephant.

When I was a kid, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town. Somehow my mom got wind of when they would be unloading the circus so she took us kids to watch.

A whole army of trailer trucks were waiting at the fairgrounds with strange looking people speaking strange languages milling around them. I was eight years old and had my Kodak Instamatic ready to capture the spectacle.

I was thrilled beyond measure when they started unloading some fifteen or twenty Asian Elephants from the trucks. Circus ladies in circus outfits rode the elephants the two-hundred yards from the trucks to the livestock buildings at the fairgrounds where the elephants were held for the circus.

The elephants were too big for the regular livestock stalls so they kept them in the judging area which was about a quarter acre of covered open space. The circus people set up ropes so we couldn't get too close to the elephants and they couldn't get too close to us.

Excitedly, I began snapping Instamatic photos of the giants. One big female took and interest in the process and started reaching out to me with her trunk.

Whoever set up the ropes must not have calculated correctly because this big baby was able to snap the camera out of my hands with the tip of her trunk. Immediately a long-haired, German-speaking fellow retrieved my camera for me.

My Instamatic was covered in elephant snot, but I got the picture! What you see above was taken the moment before a circus elephant stole my camera!

Where have you gone, Atticus Finch

Mississippi turns it's lonely eyes to you.

This business with Dickie Scruggs breaks my heart and who knows where all the tentacles of this debacle will end.

The story emerging from this case is one of a pin-striped gang of street thugs, running Mississippi like their own private turf, extorting millions, both legally and illegally from anyone stupid enough to do business in Mississippi.

It would make a great plot for a John Grisham novel. Don't expect one though, John's pretty friendly with the principals.

One thing that particularly bothers me is that I really admired Ed Peters and Bobby DeLaughter before learning that Scruggs and his cohorts lured them into their web.

The thing these guys don't seem to get is that we mere mortals depend, desperately depend on the law to be true and honest and most of all, just. For us, for "we the people", the law is much more than just an opportunity to make millions like a football star. It is the whisper thin barrier between our simple lives and abject chaos.

What they did, what we have to suspect they have been doing for thirty years, is very close to treason. Robin Hood and Atticus Finch never made a billion dollars.