Never Enough TV Watching Fun Department

I'm surprised I haven't blogged on this yet: The Science Channel is airing the 25th Anniversary rebroadcast of Carl Sagan's miniseries, Cosmos. This miniseries did more to spark an interest in science than practically any other influence in my life. Now, I get to share it with my stepson--and with new computer animations, I'm sure the eyecandy will be even more wonderful. Hope you'll be watching too, if you can!

Never Enough Gratitude For The Fallen Department

(No, I'm not talking about the dead in Iraq--although I am quite grateful to them as well....)

I'm excited that the Hate Crimes Bill cleared the House. I'm doubly excited that, for the first time, such a bill includes gender identity as a protected category.

From Rep. Nancy Pelosi's comments, it sounds like the murder of Gwen Araujo was a catalyst for this inclusion. If only the hundreds dead before were enough. If only simple outrage at one trans murder was enough. If only such brutality was not necessary to stir souls.

Transgender deaths are not rare--they happen all too frequently--so what was so special about her death? Was it because it happened in tolerant California? Or, as I sometimes suspect, was it that Gwen was a young and beautiful woman? That suspicion sickens me, and yet I cannot rule it out in the light of a media that focused on Natalee Holloway's rape and murder while largely ignoring similar plights among women of color.

That said, I am glad that Araujo's tragedy has motivated change, while still wishing that compassion, not tragedy, was the source of that change.

Never Enough Long Distance Interventions Department

Does America suffer from Battered Wife Syndrome?

Never Enough Words of The Day Department

Untenable. As in: "This situation is untenable and just heartbreaking."

"If three people in four no longer support the government, isn't this an untenable situation?" Indeed--we may see such a situation soon enough--and that would be certainly untenable.

Never Enough Eerily Appropriate Music Department

An ill wind / To bring naught but decay / and the stench of your slaughtered kin....
-- Primordial, "Gods to The Godless"

To say I've been horrified and outraged at the disaster and subsequent catastrophe which has been Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath--that would be a gross understatement. Gross, as in revolting. It's been hard keeping my composure. I feel such burning shame at how we've let poverty seep so deeply into our country, only to watch poverty conspire with calamity to produce thousands of deaths and the ruin of a once-vibrant city. And I feel intense outrage that the Bush Administration knew this might happen, then slashed funding for levee repair and allowed environmental ravaging of the Gulf Coast, and then remained apathetic and impotent for days before finally acting--a week late, and several billion short.

I've tried immersing myself in blog articles about the political fallout. (Incidentally, has anyone informed Bush that the "blame game" is not a game? Or that "blame" is a shabby synonym for "accountability"?) Grim satisfaction at watching this administration implode does nothing to staunch the revulsion. Watching "The Daily Show" for a few desperate laughs is only a temporary reprieve, and as Tuesday night's show proved, there were moments that were so wrong that not even John Stewart could manage a bon mot.

So I've turned to music. Has it helped? No--not one damned bit. If anything, the horror lurks there as well, as the snippet from the Primordial song above illustrates. The whole song sounds like a nightmarish vision of the GOP agenda. The music is gorgeous--melodic in ways not dissimilar to Opeth, but educated by their Irish Celtic roots. The lyrics, on the other hand, are savage. Just like the Great Wurlitzer.

At least I'm not listening to "When The Levee Breaks." I guess.

Never Enough Blog Editors Department

Just trying out Ecto--so far I like it, lots.

Never Enough Creationist Baiting Department

I no longer buy into the notion that the Religious Right has faith. They have no faith in the human mind or its ability to create systems for learning truth without relying on faith. They have no faith in the vastness and antiquity of the cosmos. They have no faith in the miracle of creation and evolution, that natural processes could create over billions of years what they say God did in six days. They do not believe that their own God could've created a universe that could take care of itself, rather than require constant planning to ensure that He had lots of worshippers. They demean eternity, and they demean God. If that makes me a deist, so be it, but don't dare call me the infidel here.

(Actually, I'm a SubGenius, damn it, but I do have a deistic, agnostic/gnostic, scientific mystic bent to my favorite belief system. It makes for interesting writings on religion and science both.)

Never Enough Blog Template Revamping Department

Hope you like the more recent changes to the blog. You'll notice that the long, long list of Archives is gone--replaced with a pull-down menu right under the Recent Posts. I've also tried re-tweaking the webring section near the bottom, but will have to experiment more to get it just right--or else get rid of 'em all. Leave a comment abou the change if you care.

Never Enough Iraq Grousing Department

So Bush still refuses to give a deadline on leaving Iraq, despite the
fact that a solid, increasing, pissed majority of Americans think the
war was a huge blunder committed by a Commander In Chief who couldn't
wipe his own ass without giving himself a shit mustache. And the GOP
still refuses to send their own to fight this war, despite their
jingoistic cries of Supporting Our Troops in the War On Terror.
Meanwhile, general recruitment continues to sag, even as violence
escalates in Iraq, and grieving mothers demanding to know why their
children died in a nonsensical war are defamed by the suddenly
not-so-Great Wurlitzer of right-wing punditry. Even if we do pull out
of Iraq we've already done great damage to the reputation of the US
while providing new rationales for future terrorist activity and
condemning the new Iraq to civil war for years to come.

Will the last American soldier to die in Iraq do me a favor, and
scream "Vive le France" as he perishes? It's about the only thing that
could make this whole clusterfuck of a war even more surreally bad.

Never Enough Intelligent Design Department

OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD:

"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."
link...

tags: [evolution] [intelligent] [design] [humor] [flying] [spaghetti] [monster] [global] [warming] [pirates]

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