Reach For The Stars...and Lasso The Moon

Say what you will about North Korea (China's smelly armpit) and about their leader Kim Jong Il (short, megalomaniacal, dead) you've got to give them credit; even with all their terrestrial problems they're still aiming high and reaching big, if this report from The ONN International is to be believed.

Kim Jong Il Announces Plan To Bring Moon To North Korea

Remarkable...remember when Kennedy pledged that we would reach the moon in a decade, and then GWeeB announced that we would use the moon as a base from which we would more easily be able to invade Mars?(that happened right? the eight years have been a terrible blur of...) [Wow; it really did. what a frackin' fever dream that administration was] Well Kim just put them all to shame; talk about inspiration and hope and blah blah barack.

I suppose the only thing that should be surprising about this is that Kim Jong is such a romantic- after all it's well known he's a movie buff, but who knew he'd be inspired by one of the better scenes (evah) to craft a space policy for the glory of his country...tear


I guess Kim isn't a Bette Davis fan, after all he had the stars and still asked for the moon... (my affection for totalitarianism is beginning to frighten even me)

p.s. barack is totally a lizard and a sham- if the russians say it, it must be true!

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America Will Blow Up The Moon

No it’s not a new initiative to be proposed tonight. It’s a sketch from Mr.Show with Bob (Odenkirk) & David (Cross)

Ok this is only peripherally related to politics and SOTU but I figured out a way I could tie it in. Back in 2004 Bush said something about wanting to build a base on the moon (and everyone joked that we would invade there as well) and secondly because there was a chimp in that clip and it reminded me of one of my favorite websites from like 2000 or thereabouts BushorChimp, which is, as it’s name may indicate about demonstrating how much its web creator thought GweeB looked like a Chimp.
Some examples (and I hadn’t thought about that comparison in sooo long- maybe because chimps are cute and smart)

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Top 10 Astronomy Pics of 2007

according to Bad Astronomy Blog
Because I like pretty pictures and pictures of the cosmos certainly qualify.
Pictures are listed from #1-#10

Spiral Galaxy IC 342

STEREO Eclipse


Vela Supernova

Dark Matter (each white spot is a galaxy)

Io and Europa

A lightning storm near the Weikerscheim Observatory

ARP 87

Mira "The Wonderful": a red giant

Black Spot on the Red Planet

Comet Holmes' Outburst


and this one of the rings of Saturn is pretty cool too

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Blowin' My Mind

White Holes.
I don't know how I came upon the subject, I think it was mentioned in some article I can no longer find, but as I tend to do on subjects that I don't understand I used the wonderfulness of google. I came upon this video on youtube, because I think I'm a visual learner sometimes (when I'm lazy), of asteroids being drawn to a smaller high gravity white hole

but that really didn't answer any of my questions so I went to good ol' wikipedia

In astrophysics, a white hole is the time reversal of a black hole. While a black hole acts as an absorber for any matter that crosses the event horizon, a white hole acts as a source that ejects matter from its event horizon. The sign of the acceleration is invariant under time reversal, so both black and white holes attract matter.

I then checked out this site on Wormholes and White Holes that was a little more technical but more substantive. It read, in part

White Holes are the theoretical exact opposite of black holes, and their existence is implied by a negative square root solution to the Schwarzchild metric. The Schwarzchild metric is based on General Relativity, which is time symmetric. This means that the most technical definition of white hole is simply a black hole running backwards in time. It is a location in space time that, instead of being impossible to escape, is impossible to reach.

Under the definition given by the solution to this equation they repel everything, including massive particles as well as photons, nothing can enter them. We have never discovered a white hole, and given these properties we believe that they would be rather difficult to miss. Furthermore, an object that acts in this manner directly violates the second law of thermodynamics which states that heat naturally flows from a region of high temperature to a region of low temperature.

This, however, only applies to our universe. The same equations that suggest the existence of white holes also seem to imply that they exist in a universe parallel to our own, and would exist connected to a black hole by way of a worm hole in order to complete the Schwarzchild geometry suggested by the equation which predicted the existence of black holes. This worm hole joining 2 separate universes is known as the Einstein-Rosen bridge and is one of the most fascinating concepts in theoretical physics.

Sister, you ain’t lying.

And this just totally made my mind go empty with fullness

A more recently proposed view of black holes might be interpreted as shedding some light on the nature of classical white holes. Some researchers proposed that when a black hole forms, a big bang occurs at the core which creates a new universe that expands into extra dimensions outside of the parent universe

Damn I really wish I was smarter. I can't wrap my mind around it.
The Universe is just so.................................................................................
...........................................................

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Falling From Space

Based on the theory of General Relativity, Albert Einstein knew that a man in the emptiness of space wouldn't be able to detect whether or not he was falling ; he called this "a happy idea. (quote lifted from here)




More than a 100,000 foot fall. The only guy to break the speed of sound without a craft, and live. Joseph Kittinger Jr. Such a badass. Here is an interview done with him:

Take us back to New Mexico and August 16, 1960?
Joe Kittinger: We got up at 2 a.m. to start filling the helium balloon.
At sea level, it was 35 to 40 feet wide and 200 feet high; at altitude,
due to the low air pressure, it expanded to twenty-five stories in
width, and still was twenty stories high!At 4 a.m., I began breathing
pure oxygen for two hours.That's how long it takes to remove all the
nitrogen from your blood so you don't get the bends going so high so
fast.Then it was a lengthy dress procedure layering warm clothing
under my pressure suit.They kept me in air-conditioning until it was
time to launch because we were in the desert and I wasn't supposed to
sweat.If I did, my clothes would freeze on the way up.

How was your ascent?

It took an hour and a half to get to altitude.It was cold.At 40,000
feet, the glove on my right hand hadn't inflated.I knew that if I
radioed my doctor, he would abort the flight.If that happened, I knew
I might never get another chance because there were lots of people who
didn't want this test to happen.I took a calculated risk that I might
lose use of my right hand.It quickly swelled up, and I did lose use
for the duration of the flight.But the rest of the pressure suit
worked.When I reached 102,800 feet, maximum altitude, I wasn't quite
over the target.So I drifted for eleven minutes.The winds were out
of the east.

What's it look like from so high up?

You can see about 400 miles in every direction.The most fascinating
thing is that it's just black overhead-the transition from normal blue
to black is very stark.You can't see stars because there's a lot of
glare from the sun, so your pupils are too small.I was struck with the
beauty of it.But I was also struck by how hostile it is: more than 100
degrees below zero, no air.If my protection suit failed, I would be
dead in a few seconds.Blood actually boils above 62,000 feet.I went
through my 46-step checklist, disconnected from the balloon's power
supply, and lost all communication with the ground.

I was totally under power from the kit on my back. When everything was
done, I stood up, turned around to the door, took one final look out and
said a silent prayer: "Lord, take care of me now." Then I just jumped
over the side.

What were you thinking as you took that step?

It's the beginning of a test.I had gone through simulations many
times-more than a 100.I rolled over and looked up, and there was the
balloon just roaring into space.I realized that the balloon wasn't
roaring into space; I was going down at a fantastic rate!At about
90,000 feet, I reached 714 mph.The altimeter on my wrist was unwinding
very rapidly.But there was no sense of speed.Where you determine
speed is visual -- if you see something go flashing by.But nothing
flashes by 20 miles up -- there are no signposts there, and you are way
above any clouds.When the chute opened, the rest of the jump was
anticlimactic because everything had worked perfectly.I landed 12 or
13 minutes later, and there was my crew waiting. We were elated.





I mean seriously how had I never heard of this guy before a random moment of slacking off today? Such an incredible badass. I can't even imagine staring down at the clouds from that far above and deciding:" ok let's fall." And then falling and falling through darkness and cold. All by yourself for four minutes before even opening your parachute. But not knowing you're falling until you see your balloon drifting away above you. And doing this after the fact that "In the first test the stabilizer chute was deployed too soon, catching Kittinger around the neck and causing him to spin at 120 revolutions per minute. This caused Kittinger to lose consciousness" wow.
And how cruel is history? Here's a guy who did this absolutely amazing/breathtaking/heartstopping and dangerous thing that, I'm sure as a soldier and as someone of that generation didn't think of it this way, but as something that you think will secure your legacy. And unless you are a student of aeronautics or physics or of the space program you probably will never hear about him (until his obituary, at least.)
Well I know it's not much but I'll always remember your badassity, Joe Kittinger (or at least remember there was a guy who fell from heaven once...) He truly is a Real American Hero. word.

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Do Republicans Know Something the Rest of Us Don't?

(besides a new definition of Victory)


At a campaign event in Exeter, Rudy was taking questions when asked " If (there's) something living on another planet and it's bad and it comes over here, what would you do?" the boy asked.

Giuliani, grin on his face, said it was the first time he's been asked about an intergalactic attack.

"Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens,"
well of course we'll be prepared because preparedness is how Rudy rolls even if he doesn't have any concrete plans in place at this time against those most illegal of Aliens.

GWeeB however, is not one to wait around for Alien Overlords to launch their attack. Oh no, not at all. A former Canadian Defence minister tells what he's learned about a forward defence base planned to be constructed on the moon to guard against rogue Aliens

though it seems that may be a little bit of overkill. Even if they get past the Ultimate Weapon (and incredibly effective)SDI once they get here our Earth germs will easily wipe them out. (unlike those pesky Arabs)

either way get excited people; It's Star Wars! nothing but Star Wars...


(really I'm just happy to see Republicans find "that vision thing", even if that vision will probably lead to us getting owned- I mean have you seen like every alien invasion movie ever?)

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Ephemeral Desires: Things that are too cool/trendy for me*

*but I still want to try or experience.Or wish that I could

• I would love to be smart enough and at the point of geniushood where I can say something like "my new theory modifies the theory of space and time" and not only be able to have such a theory but be able to say it "matter of factly"in a sincere way as Einstein did. That's so badass.
  
• Apparently the new celebrity weight loss trick is to replace snacks and meals with baby food. Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Marcia Cross (love her) reportedly all do it. I don't know, I mean the jars are small but I've never seen a thin baby. Does baby food taste good? Any infantilist out there let me know.
• I think though if I were able to get a good night's sleep maybe even just a few nights a week that would make me feel better than a baby food diet.Maybe this really cool Lull Flower Lamp will help me actually fall asleep and the SleepTracker watch can hopefully tell me how long I'm actually asleep and now just thinking with my eyes closed at 3 in the morning.
  
• I would love for the Cellphone Empowerment Act to become law and take effect. I hate 2 year cellphone contracts and would love to be able to " break the cellphone contracts within 30 days of signing for any reason."
• This is kind of sad and mean but I wish I could have been in the office when the Portland Trailblazers brass was told that their first overall pick/savior of the franchise once in a generation player, Greg Oden would be out until at least March after knee surgery. Or maybe I'd wanna be with Trailblazer fans to hear them curse and drink away their sorrow and scheme some way to injure Kevin Durant so his brilliance this year won't magnify and mock their pain. I feel so bad for Greg though, he seems like a good kid. I blame Josh McRoberts for this, somehow.
  
• Along those lines I would have loved loved loved to have been backstage at Live Earth to see Madonna get put into a headlock and detained by Bloc Party's bouncer because he didn't recognize her or know who she was. That must have been fabulous, though I wonder if that Scotsman guard has already been "disappeared."
• It seems that London is where all the cool shit happens. On the London Stage an adaption of one of my all time favorite movies " Todo Sobre Mi Madre" or All About My Mother" has just opened as a play and reportedly it is really good. Please come to America; I want to see you.
• Led Zeppelin is reuniting. For one night only. With no plans to broadcast or distribute the concert. And tickets will be given away through a lottery. What are the odds of me snagging a seat? Oh about One-in- 20 Million. Damn
  
• Elliot Williams. Please come to Duke. If you're seriously the next Johnny Dawkins, I'm already salivating, especially when you're on the court with Gerald "G-Love" Henderson. Plus we're better than Memphis in all regards.
• Alan Ball's and Aaron Eckhart's new film Nothing is Private has been called odious and has sparked outrage because of scenes of "pedophilia" where Eckhart reportedly has preyty graphic sex, including sodomy with a very young looking 18 year old. Hmm I don't know if that would be more offensive/erotic than seeing Porno for Plants, or the "O" faces of those in the midst of Le Petit Morte at Beautiful Agony. But either way I now have to see it to keep up and bolster my hipster avant-garde rep.
• Mark Cuban must be trying to bolster his cred as well, launching Magnet Films, which will release "rule-breaking" films such as an "erotic-noir-thriller starring Asia Argento, and a Viking movie with a 'black metal' soundtrack" and Murder Party which "tells the tale of 'a gang of deranged hipster artists' who plan to lure a victim to their Brooklyn loft and ritually kill him as part of their performance art." Well, I mean, if it's for art...
• I don't think the new Iron Man movie will necessarily be considered art but after seeing the trailer, even though I know nothing about the character I actually got excited about the movie. Robert Downey Jr. looks really funny and cool in it and shock beyond shock Gwyneth Paltrow is actually acting again. (Directed by John Favreau and staring the too gorgeous Terence Howard.)Hopefully the full movie is as cool as the trailer makes it seem. We'll see May 2nd.
  

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Overheard in L.M.E.- Placing Blame

From the 18th of February. Context may be lost (though I think it may be about Britney Crazy Spears

ev livid e (i love van gogh. such emotional and powerful paintings!)
a dam e: (hahah)
a dam e: indeed
ev livid e: the family is "in major intervention mode. Her mom is constantly crying. Her family is freaking out."
ev livid e: oh dear :-(
ev livid e: bad parenting
ev livid e: ]:O
ev livid e: I want to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and John Lennon — but I want to stay alive.
-Madonna
ev livid e: just found that quote. how awesome...ish
a dam e: yup
a dam e: she's so out of her mind
ev livid e: which is precisely why im doing my brain training project right now
ev livid e: so i won't end up like her or britney
ev livid e: hmm...maybe after britney kissed madonna, she transferred her crazy germs over
a dam e: i blame justin
ev livid e: i blame isaac cohen
a dam e: i blame christina
ev livid e: i blame jayden james
a dam e: i blame walt disney

Auto response from ev livid e: reading
ev livid e: i blame louisiana BUT not the french
a dam e: i blame the napoleonic code
ev livid e: (ps i like this new thought process...think locally, act globally)
ev livid e: i blame bridget bardot
ev livid e: (but NOT the french)
a dam e: i blame jean-luc godard
ev livid e: i blame the american film industry
a dam e: i blame celluloid
ev livid e: i blame follicles
a dam e: i blame melatonin
ev livid e: i blame the sun
a dam e: i blame the big bang
ev livid e: (how mindblowing is that. i just went from follicles to the sun!)
ev livid e: the tiniest of things to the largest!
a dam e: was a bit of a leap
ev livid e: i blame the public
a dam e: i blame the private
ev livid e: i blame curiosity
ev livid e: (concrete--->abstract. im so fucking awesome)
a dam e: i blame envy
ev livid e: i blame vanity
a dam e: i blame lust
ev livid e: i blame paris (hilton) (but NOT france!)
a dam e: i blame conrad hilton (her granddad)
ev livid e: i blame hospitality
a dam e: i blame compassion
ev livid e: i blame technology
a dam e: i blame intellectual pursuits

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The World is Full of Morons

And we thought L.C. Upton was "dumb."
TMZ conducted an interview at San Diego State to see how many of the respondents knew what year 9/11 occurred. C'mon San Diego I used to respect y'all. And I know its a very small sample but still. This is not good, people.
(But I think my favorite part of the article is TMZ' commentary at the end):

It is understandable though, that collegians would be more likely to remember the last time Britney had a hit rather than the day that changed America forever. Oh Brit Brit! Ding Dang!

Over 2,700 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

I mean could you go from anything more frivolous to anything more sombre? I'm sure you
could have put some sort of intermediate sentence or two. It's just a really abrupt transition.

Speaking of shaming the American Higher Educational system just watch this clip of a college kid (a junior at presumably Vanderbilt! wow) who flew out to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and more importantly watch his face.


But we are not the only country of fools. Oh no. The whole world is filled with dolts. Here is a clip from the French Who Wants to be A Millionaire and it is shocking. Not only did this guy not know that the moon revolves around the Earth, but neither did half the audience. At least the college kid was probably hung over. Poor Sophie; your daddy is a moron. From Best Week Ever:

I mean even us U.S. Americans know that (hopefully.) Copernicus must be spinning in, err...Copernicus' grave must be spinning around him.

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Sometimes I Really Wish I Was Smarter

I've had this for awhile but I didn't know how to fit it in so I didn't. But anyway astronomers have found a gaping hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light years across devoid of stars, galaxies, gas and even dark matter. I really have always been fascinated with astrophysics and the like and the questions it rises (here's my theory on the Big Bang that I first thought about in 6th grade history class: the material necessary for it came from the end of the past universe in the Big Squeeze or contraction or crunch, where all matter in the universe contained itself into that speck that Banged and birthed the Universe and it is a cycle and this cycle of universe birth and death will conitnue for all of time. That's as deep as I can go), and I would have loved to study it but I think the fact I suck at math may hinder me. But it always blows my mind.
The Universe really scares me sometimes and makes my brain hurt trying to think of the scope and size of all existence where a hole that would take light a billion years to go across has just now been discovered.I don't feel this has been made as public and as big a deal as it should be. Just think of the metaphysical leaps and questions that this can raise. There are huge holes of nothingness scattered all over all that we can imagine and more. The Universe the Everything The Endless Boundless in certain parts it's a little patchy. I really wish I was smarter so I could understand if this means that these could possibly be wormholes or gateways/tunnels to other universes and levels of existence. Or maybe we were right when we were kids in elementary school and we hypothesized (at least me and some friends) that maybe the Universe is a piece of cheese (in this case swiss) on a sandwich eaten by an off duty police officer.
And you know how Keanu Reeves is always mocked and ridiculed and deemed to be a slacker intellectually because of his Ted persona. I actually think he may be the wisest of us all and is actually pondering the size and scope and life cycle of the Universe and our infinitely small place in it All you can say when you actually think about it is "Whoa"

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About Last Night

my life is really boring. ugh
No matter so last night was the lunar eclipse and I must say the whole of the experience was worth it. I went to bed at around 11:30 after setting my alarm and the coffee maker because I've never been able to stay up all night but if I have an hour or so of sleep that is enough to keep me going for quite awhile. So the alarm sounded at 1:40 and I got out of bed quite energized, I made it to the kitchen the coffee was percolating (good word) and it was a clear and quite comfortable night. I figured I would have the best view of it in my backyard so I plopped down in a chair with my coffee and digital camera and waited. My cats of course came to me at this point meowing and begging for affectation, which kind of ruined the mood of silence in the dark with nothing awake but myself and a spider spinning her web being caught in the slight glimmer and shine of the stars. All the news report said the eclipse would begin around 1:55 and though I didn't have a watch I could see the shadow creeping over the full moon. Not much was happening but I thought the moon affected most things of nature and that my cats should have noticed/paid attention or at least acted a little strange at this event, but then I realized that's not the case. They're not wolves...or women. But nature and the universe has it's own pace. It took me about 3 refills before the moon was even 3/4 covered, though that down time gave me time to think and enjoy the silence; I discovered, around 2 that one of my neighbors may have a drinking problem ; the tab of an aluminum can puncturing the top also punctured the stillness and echoed quite loudly (sure it could have been any kind of can but I like to think that it was someone who only in such quiet moments could have some peace; from family or stress. Or that someone works the graveyard shift and that beer is their only solace and motivation to get up and go to a job they hate.) As the moon begins to get eclipsed more I see it drifting down towards the horizon, ever so slightly but enough for it to creep behind the branches of the tree my grandfather planted 50 some years ago.
At this point, my cats had curled up on and around my feet and I didn't necessarily want to wake them but I needed to find a better vantage. As I go through the house around 2:40, and woke up my mom per her request I figure that the only place I could see it, without wondering too far into the street was in my front yard. I didn't really want to stand that whole time but I figured this was supposed to be amazing and rare and I didn't have a job or any real or compelling reason to wake up in the morning I sucked it up as the Earth cast it's shadow on the moon.
The way I interpreted all the articles was that the moon would be a pretty evident red but the moon ended up looking more like an old worn penny with a slight discoloration in the middle, as if the oils from countless hands had over time affected the copper. Though in my mind I originally thought, for some reason it would be a more vibrant red but I realized seeing a blood red moon would have freaked the shit out of me and that would have been way too evil, even for my Vampiric fantasies. I was happy with a copper moon. It was still gorgeous and as only the last sliver of the moon remained I stared in wonder and just amazing and tried to wonder what others would think of at such a moment, whether one could look at such a thing and not think of deep thoughts, of what the ancestors would have done. But as my mom went inside to sleep, having to wake up in a few hours to go to work herself, my thoughts shifted to the little girls room. I wanted to see the full eclipse and the moon reclaim it's glow and full size but after about another 15 minutes (it was around 3:15 at this point) and no change in the coloration I decided to go inside and call it a night. I checked the internet and was relieved to see that I wouldn't be missing much; the eclipse wouldn't end until well after 4 and there was no way I could deal with staying up that late with no stimulation.
I got into bed and screwed around on the internet for a bit and thought about either writing long forsaken e-mails to distant friends, or actually writing this post, in an attempt to live up to the address of this site and actually deliver a midnight transmission, if not exactly at midnight with that same kind of late night secret talk vibe, where anything said above a hushed tone would feel scandalous. But then I decided to check Facebook and go to sleep. And that is precisely what I would have done if my bladder would have agreed with me. I'm not a coffee drinker really (maybe once every six months) and accidently making a whole pot and refusing to waste any resulted in me having to get out of bed like every half hour. I think I was so caffienated that the only thing I can relate it to is the feeling of being pissed at the end of a long night. Except instead of being sleepy and needing to pass out I was tossing and turning in my mind.
In between those potty breaks though I had pretty vivid dreams, I guess you can still call them dreams even if you are semiconscious but I enjoyed them thoroughly. In one part of my dream I wrote a chapter, in my head of a play between an pentinent person who felt they deserved punishment, for no real crime, and so was welcoming their own death and a reluctant and confused executioner. An axe was involved. But the majority of my dreams involved what I now consider my ultimate job, or dream job if you would pardon the pun, but to be a speech writer for John Edwards and follow him to the White House. I guess my thoughts turned to how good I am at rhetoric, at times in situations that don't even call for it, but at first I dreamed that I guess somehow I came to John's attention and he recruited me and I become integral to his campaign and he gained momentum as my speeches achieved widespread acclaim (insert a montage and snippets of John giving speeches from across the country, with a feeling of hope and pride and uplifting pervading it all as I'm behind the stages with my arms crossed holding a yellow legal pad to my chest and a pencil over my right ear, as my glasses are high on my forehead holding my hair back) But of course as I was achieving this "only in D.C." fame there was the issue of whether my transsexuality would be a negative and an issue that could be used against John. I strategize, in the dream that me being a part of his campaign could actually help him in the LGBT community and that my words would be enough to convince others, and though no one really knows who speechwriters are I offered to resign but he refused. I then am interviewed by the Advocate and I'm sitting in a large black plopable chair, one that's large enough where you can sit crosslegged as I chose to do. Somehow I convinced the interviewer to, at the end of the interview allow me the chance to look over my answers and clarify any statements, because this way I would be more candid and say what came to mind instead of worrying that things would be taken out of context and so participate in a boring talking point memo, in an attempt not to hurt John's campaign or "to be the reason that" as I said in the interview " John is not elected and I take away this country's great hope" and in fact the campaign chair had given me not a list of talking points but rather a list of things not to bring up. But the interview goes really well, I remember talking about how Elizabeth is among the best people I have ever met and talk her up. Then the questioning turns personal and I balk a little because the only person I actually love is doing the Peace Corps and she may not know how I feel about her and that it would be unfair for her to, after two years secluded and without the internet, to return to a maelstrom such as that would cause, without any warning. The interviewer, I'll say it was a woman though I'm not sure, is once again praising the iconic , or at least memorable nature of my speeches and I tell her I'm not happy with them, and that I feel I can and must do better. I tell her that until a speech I was involved in crafting had a place in the American Rhetoric Top 100 that I was not good. "Do you know the 'the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels' speech? Until I write something that good this praise is unwarranted" I said (and I believe when awake as well. I LOVE that speech) Later I am giving a speech at some banquet and it's very self deprecating and full of humour as I'm being honored, though I don't remember the details of that affair besides opening with a joke and maybe talking about the issue of poverty or about the response to Katrina and the failure of government and praising the new day that an Edwards administration would bring.
Then I suppose after I got back into bed my more rational side took over and I figured that when I move up to San Francisco that I could become a speechwriter for Gavin Newsom, though he doesn't need my to gain experience and get my name out there. Which would happen fairly soon in order for me to enter the campaign while he nomination is still in the balance. But it was all just a dream (dammit) And I finally fell to sleep around 5:30, though I was awakened around an hour later and finally got up for good about 20 minutes before I wrote BBE* this morning.
So that's the (overly long) story of how I stayed up to watch the lunar eclipse, drank too much coffee, spent a lot of time going to the bathroom ,couldn't fall asleep, but discovered my vocation and set up a fantasmic plan.
Now the hard part begins. Being awake sucks.

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I Wish To Be The Moon Tonight

Sorry. Today I have had my focus and mind in a million different pieces, on old friends, future jobs, apartments. And whenever I have to write something that I deem important its hard to not have that work on your mind, no matter what else you're doing, and right now I have one and a half letters (I've been working on one unsuccessfully for the last week) to write to the love of my life at this moment, dearest Hubby, I also need to call one of my good friends from Duke and also a really old friend from middle school who I'm getting back in touch with, plus two "life update" letters to AmeriCorps teammates (coming out is fun!), and all the attendant stress (at least for me; I always feel as if I need to entertain in a way, to be all that they expect or at least fulfill my expectations of what they're expecting)

And so I'm oddly happy and content with life, (when you feel love and that someone cares about you it tends to make you feel that but there is so much I can't iron out but like I can't keep a..thought that is not jumbled with so many others. I'm barely coherent to myself right now. Which is why I'm looking tonight to focus on something more than myself and to be calmed by wonder. At around 3:30 tomorrow morning there will be a lunar eclipse [Update: that should be between 1:30 and 3] where the moon turns red. On the West Coast it is supposed to be particularly visible and vibrant but this page has more information and about how it may appear where you are (and thanks to google analytics I know I have people in illinois, new york, iowa and irvine reading this ::knocking on wood::) I'm sure that 500 years ago it would have been a sign of the apocalypse, but know it is perhaps an occasion only for insomniacs, seekers or midnight tokers.

I am actually really looking forward to it. I usually sleep with a mask over my eyes and last night was no exceptions but I guess it was uncomfortable so last night I removed it for a second and saw the clearest and brightest full moon I can remember seeing. It was breathtaking and I stared through my windows for quite some time. I can only imagine what tonight will bring. Hopefully it will not clear but organize my mind yet still remind me of the beauty of it all.

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Spiritual Mindfuck- The Pale Blue Dot

(i googled blue dot because i wanted some information on the application and I stumbled upon this. Needless to say this is a thousand times cooler.)

The image to your left is called the Pale Blue Dot photo and the faint dot in the middle of that blue outline is the Earth. It is the Earth in a beam of sunlight. It was taken from over 400 billion miles away. The whole thing blows my mind.

From the Wikipedia article:

On February 14, 1990, Nasa commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission, to turn around to photograph the planets it had visited. NASA ultimately compiled 60 images from this unique event into a mosaic of the solar system.One image Voyager returned was of Earth, 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) distant, showing up as a "pale blue dot" in the grainy photo.

In That dot is all that we are and that we will ever be, all our hopes, and all our dreams. It is so beyond my level of understanding. But Carl Sagan said it far better than I ever could in a graduation address (and we got the CEO of GM; awesome):

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

(here's a video of Sagan reciting it.)



Certainly puts things in perspective. Like everything in perspective. And to think that a planet so small and so insignificant in the span of the universe would be the only one with life seems just a bit more ludicrous. There could be a billion of these "little dots" and with worlds and histories and civilizations like ours that think, that when they look into the dark night sky that there is only emptiness and death, never realizing that we're here thinking the same thing.
The image below is Earth (the smaller, fainter dot at the top) and Mars taken from Jupiter; that really helps to give the tinniest sense of just our solar system.
And though thinking about our insignificance in the greatest scheme of things may seem depressing and nihilistic I prefer to be an optimist. Maybe times people complain that they can't make a difference because the world is so big, but looking here you realize how small it is; you can't be intimidated by something that size. But something that size you should also feel a sense of parentage to and protection towards because it is so small and fragile and it is all we have or ever will. We're all alone, together.

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