Potentially Capable...

Another gem from the religious satire site, Frodology:

Mormons and Utahraptor

There is something fun and care free about this song that brings me out of my funk yet still acknowledges it:

I'm Feelin rough I'm Feelin raw I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music make some money find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?

Forget about our mothers and our friends.
We were fated to pretend.

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms.
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world.
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home.
Yeah I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

But there is really nothing, nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten. Life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce,
we'll find some more models, Everything must run its course.

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end.
We were fated to pretend.

yeah yeah yeah

"Time to Pretend" - MGMT

Courtesy of USA Today

What week it's been. I am now back in Wyandotte after the whole thing with Tim. Two and a half years is a long time to get comfortable in a situation and then to have it collapse in a matter of a few days. Needless to say it has been jarring. I wasn't ready to move, not by a long shot. I feel cut off, not only from the place I called home, but from the people there; Tim certainly, but also Erika, and Nancy, and little Deante.

I liked the domestic role I had, cooking dinner and doing the laundry. Don't get me wrong, I am not a home body and still love going out and having fun as often as possible, but there was certain satisfaction in the little chores and such. There was a kind of peace knowing that I was doing something productive in our home. And as I was moving my boxes down those stairs, tears welling in my eyes, I though about all the times Tim insatiably ate the dinner I had prepared, and all the times he turned his nose up at it when I made something "exotic". They were good times.

Having to quit my job because of the move has been one of the most trying aspects of these event. Tim apologized deeply for this, but the outcome was unemployment nonetheless. 45 miles is a bit too much of a commute for a job that paid little more than minimum wage. Sure, stocking produce at Meijer was a bad job and beneath my level of education, but it paid the bills and was enough to hold me over until graphic design work comes about. I hate job hunting, but as a necessary evil I will carry it out with my chin held high and the hopes that the elusive design job is right around the corner.

I never liked The Game of Life; with its little cars, twisty path and little pink and blue people, it always struck me as too contrived to be fun. Whenever I landed on the square that said i had a kid, I always thought: I should have used protection. But life has a wonderful randomness to it that is not totally unlike the wheel of fortune that comes with the game. Our experiences are based on our expectations on outcomes of mostly random occurrences. Sure, we can nudge things one way or another, but in the end we still end up landing on the space marked "Loose your House". In the Game of Real Life, there is no winning, just finishing. What happens along the way is fun part. And the sad part. And the infuriating part. And the hilarious part. It is everything.

So, while I sit here in Wyandotte in my old bedroom, looking at my old posters, my computer on my old desk, I can't help but wonder if I have landed on a good square or a bad square. Is the wheel spinning in my favor? I don't know, but I am not ready to finish the game just yet; I have more squares to land on.

This video is from a live performance of the score to Battlestar Galactica that was held over the summer. The composer masterfully blended Dylan's riffs with the African/Japanese style percussion and Arabic strings that makes up a portion of the show's signature sound. Having a Bob Dylan song on a Sci-Fi show (albeit one that was named Time Magazine's Best Show of 2005 AND 2006) was odd at first, but taken in context of the story, it made for an exciting moment of viewing.

Frodology: "Man: The last 10,000 Years"

Some Highlights:

5,081 BCE – Man invents wheel.

5,080 BCE – Man invents intellectual property law. Suicide invented by creator of wheel.

Ca. 1,000 BCE – Book of Genesis written, demonstrating man has evolved sufficient intelligence to draw entirely the wrong conclusion as to his origins.

Ca. 400 – St. Augustine of Hippo becomes pre-eminent scholar in Christendom after divining the doctrine of Original Sin out of what looked like thin air to everyone else, but which he guaranteed was actually divine revelation. He goes on to discover the vagina, but is largely unimpressed.

1825 – John Quincy Adams voted United States’ 6th President setting unfortunate precedent of electing former Presidents’ sons to nation’s highest office.

2006 – Publication of The God Delusion causes ripples in the literate world. Man accused of making himself god by theists, and temporarily disappears from existence when atheists profess lack of belief in him.

Dinosaur Fossils Fit Perfectly Into The Evolutionary Tree Of Life

I know that the scientific method relies upon the constant testing and revision of hypotheses, but this kind of story is one that that makes the reader go: "Ah Ha! That is so cool...wait, I think I already knew that." I am not saying that this is a bad or stupid story, indeed, it helps reinforce theory, but the subject matter is one that anyone with basic knowledge of Evolutionary Theory already knows. The benefit I see to this news is to ID'er and YE Creationists, but would they really be reading a science blog? Oh my stars and garters, no. This needs to be published in every science classroom in the US (and Turkey too!) and even mailed to churches and religious groups.

Have we become a nation so disconnected from scientific reality that we must publish obvious things in media? When US science test scores fall behind second and third world countries, I say yes. Publish a story about the Sun being hot if that is what it takes to get Americans more knowledgeable about the world they live in. We are the country that invented the computer and the laser, the television and atomic bomb, we landed on the moon. We have a scientific legacy that is being pissed on every time a preacher tells a child that science is for people who don't trust God.

Stumbled across this song today, and I think it has thematic significance at this moment in my life.  I laughed a hell of a lot.

I have been thinking a lot about atheism and its opposition to religion since last night and I think I may have spoken too hastily when I said I dislike Hitchens' and Dawkins' confrontational positions regarding faith. I should have been more accurate and said that I would not act in that way.  Hitchens' and Dawkins' methods serve a valuable role in the promotion of rationality and foster the idea that a social movement requires the combined efforts of opposing methods to succeed. MLK and Malcolm X, Harvey Milk and the Stonewall Riots.  Hitchens' and Dawkins' blasts on the religious establishment anger so many people, but that anger means they are listening. Getting them to listen is the first step. 

Well, it is Monday and in true New Orleans tradition I have a pot of red beans and rice on the stove.