Ground Control to Major Tom
I really didn’t expect to like it at all, but I have to say that the CBS show Supergirl has really won me over. To be honest, they engaged me with the first episode, and they’ve engaged and charmed me ever since. They’ve found the necessary secret ingredient for telling stories about an invulnerable flying alien who wears red, yellow, and blue underwear: plenty of whimsy, sheer joy, and don’t forget the love.
Full disclosure, when I was in grade school, Supergirl in the comics was my first long-time crush. The kid in me is still head-over-heels. Some of my earliest sexy images involved Supergirl’s landings (which would cause her skirt to flip up). Yeah, I had it bad!
So maybe I’m just smitten but thumbs up on the show!
I have a great deal of respect for President Obama’s intelligence, character, and commitment, yet I’m not thrilled by his leadership or public speaking abilities (and I consider the latter an important part of the former). That said, he thoroughly impressed me at last night’s Guns in America town hall event on CNN!
Now already, in Philadelphia, we have news-worthy gun fire. In this case, despite numerous rounds fired, everyone (that is to say, both guys) lived. (Which, ironically, makes it kind of like TV.) To raise the public fervor ante, the shooter did it in the name of the Islamic State.
What was that curse about interesting times?
The thing about climbing up sand dunes is that you keep sliding downwards. If you slide downward one step for every step you take upwards, you stay in place and get nowhere. Worse, if you slide two steps down for every step up, you go backwards!
To climb a sand dune successfully, you have to take more steps upwards than you slide downwards. I’ve climbed sand dunes; it’s hard; it takes effort (or a dune buggy).
The thing about social progress is that, without real effort towards moving upwards, society tends to slide backwards. Or just stay in place.
Well, here we are in 2016, a Presidential election year, and — man, oh man — it’s going to be a weird one! High waters from several rivers seems to be converging to form a flood unlike any we’ve seen in modern politics. And while that’s kind of fascinating from a sociology perspective, as a citizen some of it seems kind of scary.
As I write this, actual rivers are flooding Midwestern cities in the USA, but the rivers I have in mind are reality shows, the interweb, and our social environment (where global unrest and terrorism is a primary topic). The flood here is a lack of sense, nuance, and thoughtfulness.
My question today: When did we so fully embrace lies and illusion?
Whether it’s Christmas, a related holiday, the Winter Solstice, or just the calendar year, many are celebrating a time of year that is meant to be filled with happiness, family, good wishes, peace on Earth, and goodwill to all. If this season ’tis meaningful for you, I hope it is filled with joy and laughter! May you be content and fulfilled. And safe.
But take a moment to think of those who are not safe. Or whose bellies are empty, or whose homes are lost. We have much to do before all are safe, content, and fulfilled. Miles to go before we sleep.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
I’ve been watching the cable news a lot lately, and it fills me with dismay. I’m seeing coming to fruition a crop that I’ve been warning about for over 40 years. I’ve referred to it as the Death of a Liberal Arts Education.
As this crop of useless weeds chokes the life out of the nutritious and necessary political and social fauna and flora, I find that we’ve arrived at an even greater loss: Utter Dialectic Failure!
That’s a topic for future posts. Right now I want to ask:
So now we have 12/2 to go along with 9/11. And while the death and injury this time isn’t of the magnitude it was 14 years ago. The hysteria seems to be greater. Only five days after the tragedy, the leading Republican candidate engages in a form of hate speech not seen in mainstream American politics since Joe McCarthy.
To say that I’m appalled doesn’t begin to describe it. That people cheer on and support this blustering carnival barker speaks directly to the decline of real American values and principles. Trump is a childish clown seeing how much he can get away with.
It’s the people who follow him that scare the crap out of me. The ignorance and lack of critical thought is — as I have long said — very dangerous.
So what are the odds of reading two posts in short succession, both of which just demand to be reblogged? As I commented on the original post, speaking as a life-long deep reader, I agree with every word.
I seem to be doing a lot of reblogging lately (a lot for me, anyway). But I’m on kind of a math kick right now, and this ties in nicely with all that.
You’ve probably seen it somewhere on your facebook feed, likely shared by a particularly wide-eyed friend: pi found hidden in the hydrogen atom!
From the headlines, this sounds like some sort of kabbalistic nonsense, like finding the golden ratio in random pictures.
Read the actual articles, and the story is a bit more reasonable. The last two I linked above seem to be decent takes on it, they’re just saddled with ridiculous headlines. As usual, I blame the editors. This time, they’ve obscured an interesting point about the link between physics and mathematics.
So what does “pi found hidden in the hydrogen atom” actually mean?
It doesn’t mean that there’s some deep importance to the number pi in nature, beyond its relevance in mathematics in general. The reason that pi is showing up here isn’t especially deep.
It isn’t trivial either, though. I’ve seen a few people…
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