A Cliched Thanksgiving

Here we go again: turkey, football, and...oh yeah...I guess we should be giving thanks for something, too. However, many times people (myself included), when asked what they are thankful for, just give a bunch of cliches that really mean nothing at all. So...what are you thankful for? Food? Family? Shelter? Friends? Are you really?

It is difficult to be thankful for something you have never had to do without. Here in America we really have everything that we need and much more. Most of us do not have the problem of going hungry and not knowing where our next meal will come from. Most of us have never had to worry about not having a shelter over our heads to protect us from the elements. Most of us do not know what it would be like to be all alone without any family or friends to be there for us. We are very spoiled, and because of that it is hard for us to be thankful for what we have. It is even harder to be content with what we have.

As I believe that honesty is the best policy, be honest, starting with yourself, this holiday season. Are you really thankful? If not, why not? What would make you more thankful? Just a thought.

Love Songs

Scientists have made the discovery that mice are much more musically inclined than previously thought. When in the presence of their mate, male mice sing! I actually have known that mice can sing ever since I was about 4 years old and watched Cinderella for the first time. I suppose the scientific elite just never got off of their pedestals long enough to watch an animated movie in which mice break into song before being changed into horses. (They will next have to investigate whether or not horses can sing. Hmmm...)

King Tut Drank Red Wine, You Should, Too!

Wow, what a discovery. You know, it would make perfect sense for the wine he drank to be red, especially if the grapes that were used to make the wine were red. To me, red wine seems much more natural than white. I mean, how often do you see clear, white grapes? I suppose it must come from the green grapes, but still. (Can you imagine drinking green wine? Yuck!) As you can tell I am in no way a wine connoisseur and can hardly stand the stuff. By the way, King Tut died unnaturally young, which means that drinking red wine may not be that great of an idea after all.

Update 10/15/09:  I feel as though I should amend this post since most of what it claims is no longer true for me.  I have actually developed quite a penchant for wine and enjoy both the red and white varieties.  It was just an acquired taste, I suppose.  I'm glad I can feel a connection with King Tut now in our common enjoyment of wine.  Who knew that I would have so much in common with an Ancient Egyptian Pharoh?

A Lady With a Right

Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. To tell the truth I did not even know that she was still alive, but she is a very important figure in the history of America and deserves to be remembered. What was her big accomplishment? Saying a simple "no." It was December 1, 1955, almost 50 years ago, and Ms. Parks had been working all day at her job as a seamstress and had heavy bags of groceries to take home. Being black she couldn't sit near the front of the bus, so she took a seat towards the back. As the bus continued on its route it picked up more passengers including the rush hour crowd and the Christmas shoppers. The bus quickly filled and it wasn't long until she, along with the other black passengers, were told to give up there seats to some white gentlemen who had just boarded the bus. It may have been because she was so tired from her long day or because she saw the injustice in it all, but Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. She realized her right as a human being to be an equal who should be treated with just as much respect as those men, perhaps even more since she was a woman. Whenever I hear of Rosa Parks and her story I think of the times that I rode in the buses down in Disney World and my dad and uncles would give up their seats to the women who would otherwise have to stand up for the ride. It always makes me proud when I think of it. Rosa Parks was an inspiration for the civil rights movement as she stood up for herself and her rights amid the persecution and inequality with which she was treated. Even though there is still bigotry and racism in our country today, we have come a long way in the past 50 years in recognizing the equality and dignity of all human beings. We owe a lot to a little lady with a right.

Attack of the Robo-woman

Oh, yeah! That is so me! Just kidding. I am generally a mild-mannered person and I am not really inclined to yell. I just thought that this was rather funny.

Hey, It Makes Sense!

Dr. Stat has an awesome post on Education vs. Instant Gratification. I would recommend checking it out. I have never heard the theory that he puts forth before, but it definitely makes sense and is worth a read.

Roman Explosion

I love ancient history, in particular that of the Roman Empire, and that is why I am so excited to see that there is going to be a Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. This is definitely an exhibit I do not want to miss. The explosion of Mount Vesuvius may have been horrific for the residents in 79 AD of the city of Pompeii and its neighbor Herculaneum, but the objects that have been preserved in the volcanic have given historians a great glimpse into Romans and their way of life. One thing in particular that is an unprecedented find were the people who were the actual victims of the explosion. In Pompeii, they were covered in ash that hardened while the bodies decomposed, leaving cavities that have since been filled with plaster. The resulting statues show the agonies of the last minutes of the citizens' lives. Herculaneum, however, was not buried in the rain of ash and bodies of its people were covered instead in the mountain's pyroclastic flow with only their skeletons left behind, but there is still much to be learned from their bones and how the Romans lived. The volcano also preserved other parts of the daily life such as ointment bottles, jewelry, and food still on someone's dinner table, although I wouldn't recommend trying to eat it since it is thousands of years old and hard as a rock. I am definitely looking forward to this exhibit.

Speechless

Our two closest neighbors in our solar system are going to be quite visible during the next couple months and should be pretty easy to see, even using just the naked eye (like the ancients used to!).

The planets in our solar system are pretty easy to see at times, yet often go unnoticed. To find a planet in the sky, the first thing you need to know is what a planet looks like. The book A Field Guide to Stars and Planets by Donald Menzell and Jay Pasachoff says that there are three things to take into consideration when trying to find planets: brightness, twinkling, and location. One of the first things that you will notice when you start looking at the sky is that the stars and other objects are different brightnesses. You can take advantage of this fact to figure out what you’re looking at. The brightest things in the sky, other than the moon, are usually the planets. Unlike stars, planets don’t usually appear to twinkle but instead seem to shine steadily. Twinkling is caused by the light being bent as it comes through the atmosphere. A star appears to be just a single point of light since it is so far away so it blinks. However, a planet is closer and bigger and thus its light rays all average out with their blinking, and so it appears to be shining steadily. So all that this means is that if something twinkles it’s most likely not a planet. There’s an imaginary line across the sky called an ecliptic which most of the planets, and also the moon and the sun during the day, stay near as they journey across the sky. The zodiac also can be found along this line. From where we are, the ecliptic crosses the southern part of the sky, which means that any bright objects at the zenith—the point directly over your head—or in the northern sky can’t be planets.

So, to find and recognize a planet you just have to look for a dot of light in the sky that’s really bright, doesn’t seem to twinkle, and isn’t towards the north. If it meets all of those criteria, it’s probably a planet.

One of the easier planets to see is our neighbor Venus. Being the brightest planet because of the sun reflecting off its cloud covering, Venus ususally just appears too bright to be a star. It can never be very far away from the sun in the sky, so whenever an extremely bright dot of light appears in the sky towards the west after sunset, or towards the east before sunrise it’s probably Venus. It’s often the first bright object visible at night, before any of the stars appear in the sky. GoAstronomy.com says that Venus will be at its brightest on December 9, so that would be a particularly good time to take a look at it.

The most impressive planet this month and into early November is going to be our other close neighbor, the planet Mars. According to Martin Ratcliffe and Alister Ling in their article “The Planets” in the October 2005 issue of Astronomy Magazine, Mars is going to be closer in the next couple weeks than any time since the summer of 2003. Even though it was closer in 2003, it will be higher in the sky this time and therefore easier to see. This is going to be its best appearance until 2018, so if you don’t want to have to wait another 13 years, now’s the time to see it. Even though it is quite easy to see at night right now, Mars is going to at its brightest between Halloween night and November 7, so the first week of November will be the best time to see it. It will be highest in the sky during the couple hours after midnight, but it rises mid-evening just after 8:30, so you don’t have to stay up late or get up that early to see it. To see it all you have to do is look to the east and it is just about the brightest thing up there. You can also tell that it is Mars because it has a slight, but noticeable red tinge to it.

I hope you get a chance to take a few minutes to see some of the wonders in the night sky. I’ll end with this fact: according to Dr. Tony Phillips at Science@NASA’s website, Earth is racing toward Mars at a speed of 23,500 mph, which means that the red planet is getting bigger and brighter by the minute. That also means that by the time you’re done reading this post Mars will be more than 1,000 miles closer and that much better to see. All it takes is just a couple moments to look towards the east to catch a glimpse of its beauty and leave you speechless.

A Game of Mismatched Sox

Whoohooo! The Chicago White Sox have made it into the playoffs and have begun the post season with a bang. Just a few hours ago, they whopped the Boston Red Sox with a score of 14-2! I guess that means that the Red Sox stink and the White Sox knocked their socks off! (sorry, couldn't resist : ))

Adding a Dimension to the Definition

The possible new tenth planet has been accessorized. It has now been given a name and a moon has now been discovered orbiting around it. Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology has temporarily nicknamed the "planet" "Xena", after the warrior princess of that name, and he dubbed its moon "Gabrielle", after the warrior princess' sidekick. The speed at which the satellite circles Xena will aid astronomers in their calculations of Xena's mass. The discovery of a moon may give more credibility to its possible status as a planet, but having a moon is still no qualifier for being a planet, and so the planetary definition debate continues.

Environmental Stewardship

We have a responsibility to take care of the world around us, but this is a responsibility that we often ignore. Environmentalism is thought of as being something that only wacko, green-lovin', tree-huggin' extremists care about. People seem to be unwilling to give up a few of their consumerist conveniences to face the fact that we are to take care of this world we live in, not use and abuse it. True, we should not worship it and make it our all consuming passion, there are much more important things in life, but as we live our lives we should not forget about the impact that we are having on our world. The resources that we have been given are not just for us to consume and use up but also for us to be good stewards of and to take care of. How much effort would it take to just turn off a light in an unused room or to power down the computer overnight or when you leave the house? What about opening up the windows when the air conditioner is unnecessary? Putting on a sweater in the winter can help with cutting down on the required heat and natural gas consumption (especially considering how much prices are supposed to go up this winter). Just little things like those few examples can aid in taking care of the world God gave us. No, I am not an environmental activist, but I do care about how we treat our world.

New Feature Coming to a Blog Near You!

I have updated my blog and it now has the new feature of "word verification" for the comments. This should cut down on a lot of that spam that seems to be penetrating my site. Sorry for the inconvenience to any actual humans out there who may want to comment, but it is a drastic measure I felt I needed to take. It's really not that hard. You merely type the "word" that you are shown in a box and, wa-la, you are verified as being a living, breathing non-cyborg. Congrats! and thanks for your understanding. ~ Becky : )

Disaster and Discontinuity

Hurricane Katrina tore through the southeastern United States just a few days ago, pouring out most of her fury on southern Mississippi and Louisiana. The destruction she left in her wake was unbelievable, but most of the nation's focus has been on the city of New Orleans which has been flooded and left practically unliveable. The city was built below sea level and when Katrina came through, the water overflowed the levies into the city where it is now trapped until power can be brought back to operate the pumps. According to the news filth, looting, raping, and just general rampage, lawlessness, and chaos have taken hold of the city. This article reads like something one would read in a book or see in a movie with the anarchy and riotousness, not like something that happens in modern America.

The politicians in New Orleans have a lot of difficult decisions to make. A big one is the issue of rebuilding the city. Everything is so complicated. There are millions of people who will be affected in big ways by their decisions, not just the more than half a million who lived in the city. There is a large economic impact. One thing I heard mentioned multiple times today was, "But what about Mardi Gras!!!!" One of the biggest parties in the United States may have to be put on hold. Big bummer. There are a lot more important things to consider than Fat Tuesday.

It is scary how devastating the whole situation is. In the article I mentioned earlier it said that

On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 126 in Mississippi.

If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Wow. I thought it was bad when Katrina went through Florida as a Category 1 hurricane on her way to the Gulf of Mexico and killed 7 to 11 people, depending on which news source you read. To see the pictures of the hurricane's aftermath is amazing. The before and after satellite pictures of New Orleans are incredible.

Even with all of the coverage by the media, it still all seems unreal somehow. Sitting here typing with the windows open, a gentle breeze blowing, and just prevailing calm, the problems of New Orleans seem like something far away in some other country, not here so close to home. The most it impacts my life right now is the severe increase in the price of gas, the coverage on the news, the fact that I am going to donate extra money, and New Orleans being one of the only topics of conversation all day. It seems so unreal, disconnected, and hard to imagine. I felt a similar way after the 9/11 attacks, although perhaps a little more scared. I have seen so many action movies that the images on TV just don't seem quite real--like they could all be done with special effects on a movie set. Even though I know it is all real, it is so horrific I do not want it to be real and I keep on expecting the credits to start rolling or for myself to wake up out of a bad dream. Just a little discontinuity between myself and our national disaster.

Testing, Testing

Hello, this is just a test of the Blogger for Word operating system.  Do not be alarmed that this post seems to be devoid of any rational thought or meaning.  Simply accept that it is here and there is nothing that can be done about it…at least not without my user name and password, which I store safe in the vault I installed underneath the dungeon where I keep all those who attempt to tamper with my posts without permission.  Consider yourself forewarned.

Meaning from Despair

Finishing up the book Anna Karenina today, I read the final pages in which Levin, one of the main characters of the story, comes to grips with his belief in God. Later on, I was watching an episode of the television show Family Ties in which Alex Keaton has to grapple with the same subject. Both characters' defining moments come as a result of the death of a loved one and the resulting meaninglessness of life. Alex Keaton and Levin are both men who are very analytical and down to earth, believing only in the things they can see, feel, and analyze. They bury themselves in their work. For Levin it is in managing a farm and caring for his family that he spends his time and energy, while Alex's work is his economics, business, and all around financial studies. It isn't until they see through the deaths of their brother and best friend, respectively, that the tangible things that are the center of their lives are devoid of ultimate meaning. The resulting despair and depression causes them both to admit that there is a miraculous aspect to the world and a being higher than themselves looking out for things. A god who is good. It is through this realization that their lives take on new meaning and hope.

Working for the sake of work itself and survival in life is utterly meaningless as it all ends the same: in death. In Ecclesiastes it says, "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." What has been done once will be done again. The technology may change, but it is all basically the same and nothing is accomplished that will remove the fact that, one of these days, each and every person, no matter what their status or accomplishments in life, will meet there end in some way. To merely go through the motions of life can be very depressing if one stops to think about what it all means.

God is the one thing that can give life complete purpose. He is the hope that there is more than just working day in and day out, with that work ultimately resulting in nothing. If death is indeed the end and the natural world is all there is, what is the purpose of life?

Coke, Pepsi, or Homer?

Parisian bibliophiles now have another outlet to help satisfy their book cravings: vending machines. Each machine contains 25 titles to choose from, each of which costs a mere $2.45. The books range from long time classics like The Odyssey to more practical selections such as cookbooks and a French-English dictionary (one of the best sellers). With the installation of the machines, the French can now easily access their books 24 hours a day. What more could a person ask for?

Sky Watch

Laying on one's back at the top of the hill gazing up at the myriads of specks of light sprinkled all over the sky can be so peaceful, yet at the same time a little disconcerting. The sky is beautiful on a crisp, clear night. Stars, meteors, satellites, and even the blinking airplanes fill the vast space with interest. Each constellation tells story of its own that has been passed down from generation to generation since antiquity. There is such beauty and history etched all over the sky that it enchants the on-looker over and over again. Yet, it is an eye-opener in more ways than just that. Staring up into the atmosphere gives one a sense of just how small that person is. One begins to imagine being just a small member of a town, which is just a small part of a country, which in turn is just a small piece of the world, which is just one small planet among those orbiting a relatively small and insignificant star in a single galaxy in a neverending universe. When a person is put into a perspective like that, they can't help but be awed.

Tomorrow morning, Friday, August 12, there will be a great opportunity for doing a little sky watching as the heavens put on a show. The 2005 showing of the Perseid meteor shower will be visible around 2 o'clock tomorrow morning and run until just around sunrise. Unfortunately, we may be scheduled for a little rain shower so the view here may be obscured by clouds. For those who are able to see the show, it comes with the bonus feature of a preview of the upcoming Mars blockbuster, which should be at its height on October 30 when it comes close to Earth. Happy sky watching!

Fast Track to an English Degree

I just thought that I would share this awesome web site link with anyone who may be out there. Just in case you don't have the time to soak up a few classics in their entirety, Book-a-Minute Classics is the place for you. It isn't quite the same as reading the books themselves, but you do get the gist of them in much less time. Of course, if you have absorbed a few, the experience of re-reading them in their condenced ( and they are extremely so) version is quite entertaining. Well, just thought that I would share the joy.

Defining the Heavens

It seems that scientists may have now found a tenth planet to our solar system beyond Pluto. However, before the object, known affectionately as UB313, can be called a planet they have to figure out what exactly makes a celestial body worthy of that classification. Is it size? If so, then the object would definitely meet the criterion since it is in fact bigger in size than our little Pluto. There are some scientists, though, who say that this new discovery should confirm that Pluto should be stripped of its planetary status and be reduced to being merely another small numbered body among many others in the solar system. That would leave us with only the eight that we had back in the 1800's. Is a planet any object that orbits the sun? That would make all of the astroids planets, which is a rather ridiculous proposition considering how small and numerous they are. Is it based upon composition? Jupiter is a ball of gas while the earth is made up of firmer materials. Is it an object that is not on fire with it's light coming from the sun's reflection? Is it the ofject's shape? All of the planets that we have right now are, for the most part, round. Would this new discovery fit into that category? The article from National Geographic mentions that if UB313 is worthy of planetary distinction then there are several other objects out there that must be considered for the same honor. Should there be a limit as to how many planets we have in our solar system? I am glad that there are astromony experts out there to make those decisions for us.

However, as I see it, there is one other thing that the scientists should take into consideration as they make their decision. Can you imagine how just adding this one planet would upset teachers and students the world over as the study astronomy? Instead of the traditional mnemonic of "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles (or Pizzas)" for remembering the planets names, they would have to come up with something new. Imagine the chaos that would result!

Heads Up ; )

Guess what!!!!!!!!! Lost, the best drama on television, begins its second season Wednesday, September 21. Everyone mark your calendars. I already have!