We’re moving!

Still WordPress, mind you, but new digs to mark the new beginning new focus: Jackanapery. I made up that word, and  I’m ridiculously proud of it (and amused by it). It’s going to more tightly focus on skepticism and questioning and all that. It’s going to be me being a bit more of an activist for rationality and all that jazz. It’s going to be far less of the “oh, look, I saw a pretzel today” kind of posts.

Probably won’t manage daily posts, but I’m committing myself to at least 3 a week. If you currrently are subscribed to me (through email, WordPress, Google Reader, whatever) I hope you’ll follow me over there and subscribe to the new digs. I think it will be fun.

Also: if anyone has ideas for a proper banner, this visual arts impaired dork would appreciate help.

Also: kinda thinking of doing a Tumblr blog just for short geeky fun posts as a side thing. Stay tuned (on Jackanapery)! In the meantime, enjoy the first post.

Two cases in point, recent events wise:

1)A girl scout takes to Youtube to say that people should boycott the Girl Scouts cookie sales to protest their evil, nefarious ways. Those evil, nefarious ways, of course, being that stuff about being open and inclusive of transgendered children. Her, and the people supporting her, have the usual vapors that can be summed up with the phrase “BUT WHO WILL PROTECT THE CHILDREN?!” You know, the usual mixture of fear and hate-mongering mixed with a boneheadedness that makes ignorance look like bloody Socrates.

This does not make me happy, other than in the way I joked on Facebook, to wit: they have made it so it’s a moral imperative for all good people to eat girl scout cookies. I plan to do so. I mean, I get to support transgendered kids, and eat cookies. There is nothing but win there.

No, what really makes me happy is that the internet is in an uproar, and people are organizing counter measures. I really hope that in a few months we see an announcement that the Girl Scouts broke some cookie-sellin’ records. Let the bigots choke on a few metaphorical tagalongs.

2)Jessica Ahlquist, a sixteen year old with more chutzpah than whole platoons of older folk, won her ACLU backed case to have an explicitly religious banner taken down at her school. This banner, hung in a public school, was so unconstitutional that it beggars the imagination. Such a violation of church/state separation should even have religious folk up in arms. Alas, not so — most seem to be condemning her as some kind of terrible demonic atheist, and in the aftermath of the judge’s damning summation against the school district, many took to twitter to, you guessed it, rip in to the 16 year old. Including with some messages that look an awful lot like threats of violence. And, of course, because where you find religious bigotry you can be sure other bigotries aren’t far behind, and you get things like this:

Oh my gosh http://t.co/Ra3UdelL—
Jessica Ahlquist (@jessicaahlquist) January 12, 2012

It’s 2012, and that’s downright depressing. It’s downright depressing that a 16 year old who stood up for the constitution is being treated so shamefully by so many. It’s downright depressing that so many Americans really don’t support the constitution, and that so many Christians still expect special privileges.

What isn’t depressing is Jessica, who is standing up to all that bile and bigotry with what can only be described as pluck, a sense of humor, and incredible composure. We can all learn a lesson from her, and it makes me ashamed to think how often I’ve kept quiet in the face of all those little barbs against atheists. Another wonderful thing is the number of people who waded in and did Twitter battle with the hordes on her behalf. A bunch of bigots learned something today: atheists may quarrel amongst ourselves a lot (herding cats and all that), but damn it, we will protect our own.

So yeah, some ugliness that makes me happy, because so many are standing up to counter it with beauty. We have a chance, folks, we crazy humans.

So, so true. And I wish I could say that I am one of those people that, of course, ya know, it ain’t about me.

BUT IT IS.

Damn it.

Right here is the problem with my country. We have everything, frickin’ everyhing, and it’s not good enough. We live in an age in which we live longer, and healthier, lives than ever, and we freak out and worry and complain about how unhealthy and horrible the modern world is. We have marvelous toys, inventions of passionate and talented humans, and we complain that they don’t shave off a few more nanoseconds of work. We have marvelous toys and games, and complain bitterly because sometimes they break down. It’s like we’re petulant children, unable to enjoy what we have, always wanting the next thing, and unable to accept when things don’t go exactly our way.

And I’m just as guilty as everyone. So a late New Years resolution: I’m going to try to enjoy the wonders of the world, and complain about the mostly trivial annoyances less often (Read: I’m going to try as hard as I can to do this, and probably fail more than a little). I’m going to try to appreciate the marvels we are surrounded with, and the people who make them possible. Gratitude is good. Not the mushy, pointless kind of religion, where all the gratitude is placed on the nonexistent, and the actual benefactors ignored (how many graces before meals ever say, “hey, thanks, farmers!”?). I mean the concrete, wow, a whole bunch of talented people made my computer possible, and all the cool things it does, and maybe I can remember to acknowledge how cool that is before I start bitching about how, say, Chrome and Flash have started behaving funky on a few websites. Because really, the benefits I get from these things far outweighs the few annoyances that arrive from the natural tendency of the world to fail to be perfect.

Or, to put it another way, I know damn well that I am not perfect, nor do I particularly want to be, and in fact would argue that “perfect” is an incoherent concept born of simplistic ideologies. So I’m not really entitled to other people’s perfection, right? Maybe I can just be thankful for all the good things that come into this world because there are so many crazy talented, hardworking folk out there.

In the rain-forests of Brutha’s subconscious the butterfly of doubt emerged and flapped an experimental wing, all unaware of what chaos theory has to to say about this sort of thing…

– Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Which, frankly, is about as neat a description of skepticism, and how it works within you, as I’ve ever seen. As a rule I’m leery of anyone who claims Road to Damascus kinds of experiences. I suspect, at the least, delusion and self-deception; at the worst, bull shit being piled high. Human minds simply don’t work that way. We hold onto our ideas, give them up only reluctantly. Presented with contrary ideas, or with evidence that our ideas are wrong, we circle the wagons.

It takes a long time for those first seeds to take root and pry up a bit of the pavement in your brain. The blinding flash on the road is only the moment when you become aware of what has already happened.

The fun, of course, is that following those little butterflies, when they emerge, can be extraordinary. The journey is hard, and painful, and will remind you every step of the way what a limited being you are, as a human; yet it is chrysalis, something new born. Niggling doubts and questions took us from living in caves to landing men on the Moon, from pitiful superstitions about human origins to the discovery of evolution. Those tiny, tiny thoughts, those doubts that pop up and refuse to go away, are our greatest gift.

Which, I think, serves as a good theme for this blog, going forward.

So this is mostly the “I’m not dead” post, though I rather feel like it, still. I had fallen short on the Postaday thing anyway, so time to regroup for next year. Thinking about what I want to do with the blog, give a bit more focus and all, and how to work it into what will probably be an increasingly busy academic life (that will probably mean less posting, just for sanity, especially if I do the “more focus” thing, too).

So in the meantime, here’s Brian Cox explaining why atoms are mostly empty space:

I honestly don’t remember if we honestly didn’t hear the “have gone astray” bit, or if we just ignored it. Whatever. We’d die laughing, singing “OH WE LIKE SHEEP!” and generally being, you know, 12.

And I swear, to this day Christianity has the faint whiff of beastiality to my ears. (whiff? to ears? Hey, it’s late, what do you want from me?)

Today, I listened to Handel’s Messiah, and started laughing when it got to that bit, and posted to that effect on Twitter and Facebook. My sister responded appropriately. It makes me happy to know that we are still 12.

Dear Santa: I want lots of books and I don’t care what else you bring to me I suppose you are awful busy making toys.-Gertrude Barber.OH1904—
R.L. Ripples (@TweetsofOld) December 22, 2011

Gertrude Barber, you were a heck of an awesome young lady. I hope you had a good life with many wonderful books.

In other parts of the Gregory universe, I have been OD’ing on a rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Just got done with season 3, which was when the show really hit its stride. It’s fun how once in a while you see people in this show that became bigger later. One episode had a younger Mayor of Sunnydale (Buffy fans will understand), and Data got kidnapped by Artie of Warehouse 13.  I knew there was something fishy about that guy…I also like this season because they started to let Patrick Steward indulge his acting chops a bit more, especially in the wonderful episode with Mark Leonard reprising his role as Sarek. Funny note: in season 3, they apparently discovered that Steward was a sex symbol, at least judging by the increase in the “sexy Patrick chest” moments.

Tonight also was a movie night, with Premiers Désirs, which was a surprisingly sweet coming of age story. Flawed, and not a ton of substance to it, but it is one of those movies that leaves you meditating on the better parts of being alive.

And yes, as you can see, I am terribly busy. Cough, cough. Call it unwind time. Oh, and I doubled the memory on my Macbook, which is now running much more smoothly (and Excel and Word open up about twice as fast as they did before…). Simple things can make a geek happy! Also, I watched George Carlin’s It’s Bad For Ya last night, his last concert special for HBO. Very, very funny. The cantankerous old bastard went out strong.

Also: my brain is flitting all over the place. In case you hadn’t noticed. So to bed.

But alas, in this hyper-connected world, this is the kind of thing the Republicans are mostly giving us. The Cult of Ignorance has, at last, fully unveiled itself as The Cult of Idiocy. These are people who are positively proud of the fact that they are dribbling morons. And it’s these people the Republicans offer up to us as being qualified to deal with the realities of our interconnected world.

Or, to put it another way, here’s the scary thought: Newt Gingrich, in this picture, actually looks sane. He at least has a grasp of the international situation. I mean, he knows there are other countries. He can probably name a lot of them. He can probably name leaders. In the Republican primary season, that is some seriously egghead shit right there. I’m surprised the other candidates aren’t making fun of him already, calling him Poindexter and the like because he might know more about Mexico, say, that what he gleaned from reading the Taco Bell menu.

Mostly, the take away here is that, when Newt Gingrich is looking like the less scary option, things have gone galloping past bad and right into holy fuck I’m wetting myself territory. A significant portion of the American electorate is positively proud of stupidity, and has the candidates to prove it.

So, seriously, we need a new Poe’s Law for Republican presidential candidates. Because at this point, there is no satire too extreme to not  pass for the real thing.

Luckily, the Buffy Boson will destroy them, so that’s okay.

(Yeah, I taint got nuttin’ for ya tonight. Rainy day, been playing games and being a bum. Sue me)

(and subscribe to One Minute Physics — it’s a gas, and educational to boot!)

Ancient Graffiti.

And yes, I admit that the one that made me giggle the most was the bit of anti-Christian graffiti. But in all fairness, it’s easy to forget that 1800 years ago, say, Christians were pretty much Hari Krishnas, hanging around in airports and making people roll their eyes a lot. It’s easy for even a non-Christian like me, in this Christian dominated and saturated culture, to forget that it is like all religions — really, really frickin’ weird sounding if you aren’t already part of it. “You eat your god?” “Yep.” No, really — you eat your god?”

What makes this bit of graffiti especially hilarious is that whoever did it probably had their own seriously goofy ideas. “A Jew on a cross? That’s silly! Now, this goat who farted the world into existence, this is serious stuff! DO NOT BLASPHEME THE GOAT!”*

Mostly, all this graffiti gives me a curious pleasure and hope. People are people and always have been. Pissed at politicians, bemused by the latest bit of (the other guy’s) crazy, hot for that sexy lady/man down the way. That is real history, right there.

*be thankful such a cult never took off instead of the Christians, or we’d have Learned Theologians today opining on the Pure Essence and Uncorrupted Odor of the Holy Fart. And I don’t even want to contemplate what people would be wearing around their necks.