A Rare And Beautiful Thing

I know, I know.

I’m not really here–but you know what happens; as soon as you say “I’m taking a break“, something shows up you just have to respond to.

In this case, it’s NPR’s 13.7 blog, asking the big questions about “defining our place in the universe“:

A widespread critique of science is that it tells us that the more we know, the more insignificant we are. It’s the famous after-Copernicus blues: everything went downhill ever since Earth was moved from the center of the cosmos. Since then, the Sun was pushed out from the center too, our Milky Way galaxy is but one among hundreds of billions of others in an expanding Universe. Even the atoms we are made of are less that 5 percent of the total stuff out there.

It’s the old “science tells us we are the insignificant product of a series of random accidents”, but (hey, it’s NPR’s 13.7 blog) written rather better than the average.

And the nice thing is… having been writing this blog since, what, October of 2007? Yeah, I already have a response. I know my place in the dance of the universe.

Or, as the 13.7 people conclude:

In a complete reversal of the “we are cosmically insignificant” discourse, the more we learn about the Universe, the more precious we — and all of life — become.

That Time Of Year

…. You may have noticed my posting has slowed a bit. I’m making it official, so that I don’t feel the pressure to try to put something up every day; this is the time of year when my grading all starts coming in at once, and won’t stop until mid-May. So I need extra time in meatspace for a while.

Hey, at least this year I’m not waiting until the horrors of anxiety attacks overtake me; this may actually be a step in a very positive direction. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’m just busy.

Too bad it’s during National Poetry Month. But life is what it is. You can buy the book instead, if you like. Or submit something as a guest poet. And I will probably have a few things to post, just because that happens. But don’t expect much for a while.

See you on the other side.

Lost in Boston Fog

We don’t have the answers—
Too early to tell;
There are so many rumors
And myths to dispel
But now, the confusion
Lets anyone yell
And point at the groups that they choose!

Let’s blame it on this group
Or blame it on them
Or name any others
We’d like to condemn
A flood of suspicions
There’s no time to stem…
We’re scared, and there’s no time to lose!

While some have been cautious—
Not wanting to guess—
Still others had issues
They had to address
And took full advantage
Of carnage and mess
To promote their political view

They jumped on their soapbox
While other folks bled,
Ensuring the media
Heard what they said
Some few may be helpful,
But some are misled
I don’t have the answers… do you?

It’s just maddening. I won’t point to examples; some will likely be deleted (may be saved in odd places here or there), or not, I have no idea. The New York Post, alone, claims a dozen dead, where everyone else says two. A suspect is, or is not, in custody. It is a Saudi man, or it is a tax protest, or it is related to Newtown, or… or this or that or too many possibilities. (BTW, the second verse originally named names–but I thought that might be more heat than light, so I got rid of it.)

This is the first year I can recall where I do *not* know that I have students running the marathon. Yes, I do know people who are running–Cuttleson’s best friend is safe and sound, but was not allowed to finish (it was a good day to be slow).

I’m watching Boston’s news coverage–they really are doing a remarkable job of not jumping to conclusions (the internets, however, cannot be said to be exercising the same restraint).

One, or maybe two or a handful, of people did this. Dozens, or scores, or more, ran to help when they witnessed the explosions. Hundreds, or more, donated blood in the days before (and, I have heard, on this day–the word is that marathon runners crossed the finish line and kept running to Mass General Hospital to donate blood–I don’t know if that is true, but damn I hope it is), such that the Red Cross is, surprisingly, not asking for increased donations. Thousands, or tens or hundreds of thousands, have watched and asked “what can I do?”, ready, willing, and able to donate blood, money, and time.

Bottom line is… This was a horrible day for some… and a day that allowed the vast majority to demonstrate just how uncharacteristic this horrible action was.

We are better than this. Yes, we (humans) are also this, but on the whole even this terrible day is better evidence of goodness than of badness.

Yes, the Red Cross says to wait… but don’t wait too long. Give blood, and give regularly. Tell them Cuttlefish sent you. (they may make you sit for a bit longer, waiting for the blood to go back to your brain. Take advantage of this time to eat another sandwich and some cookies.)

See also Ashley Miller’s post.

National Poetry Month–Guest Poet 4: Rikitiki

In my continued observance of National Poetry Month, a contribution from reader Rikitiki. There is something just plain wonderful about a good sonnet:

Legend says we are but that mid-span
‘tween airy angels and demons below:
Our nature wrestling itself ever so –
A battle that’s between the base and grand.
I’ve seen no devil from some fiery realm,
Felt no help, no seraphed beneficence:
Perhaps ‘tis so and I but lack the sense
To realize such fiddling at the helm.
Within, I feel my own duality:
Scoundrel or saint, that label is my own –
Perceived, I judge and measure all alone;
Fashion belief to make reality.
What clarion call becomes my true life’s voice
Is, in the end, determined by my choice.

The Dinosaur Told Me…

The dinosaur told me “be careful”
The dinosaur told me “beware”
The dinosaur told me “it’s happened before,
And the universe just doesn’t care”

The dinosaur told me “Extinction
Is the safest, conservative bet”
The dinosaur told me “don’t think you’re immune
Just because it has not happened yet.”

The dinosaur gave me a warning
She told me to share it with you
It won’t be an asteroid this time around—
We’ll be killed by the things that we do

The dinosaur pointed to history
And biology books on the shelves
The dinosaur told me what’s different this time
Is, we’re doing it all by ourselves

The dinosaur told me “be careful”
The dinosaur told me “it’s true”
The dinosaur said, “it’s a fight to the death,
And the enemy this time… is you.”

Dinosaur
(click to embiggen, a bit.)

Today was a good day for dinosaurs. (Note–I am a big fan of Dana Hunter’s “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur” series.) Today, while watching an American Kestrel, I was completely blown away when the tiny kestrel, skittish in the presence of my camera, nearly flew right into the talons of a huge Osprey (I was reminded of fighter planes escorting bombers–the relative size of these two is astonishing). I saw five different species of ducks–mergansers, mallards, buffleheads, ring-necked ducks, and the first gorgeous wood ducks of the season (got good pics of all, too! Yes, I am obsessive, why do you ask?). And a beautiful prairie warbler, quite the tease, very keenly aware of where my camera was pointed, and pointedly staying one step ahead (well, mostly… I got a couple of nice shots of him as well).

And all of them are dinosaurs. Isn’t that just astonishing?

The dino in the pic above is one of my all time favorites, a black-crowned night heron. The first one I ever saw, I saw in Greece, at Lake Kerkini. This one, I saw… well, lemme ‘splain.

I was getting my oil changed (well, the oil in my car), at an auto-service chain that will go unnamed for now, attached to a big-box store that will also go unnamed for now, that had apparently built on cheap land that had once been swamp. Or wetlands, if you want to be a tree-hugger. While my car was up on hydraulic lifts, I walked the perimeter of the parking lot; this shot was taken from the parking lot of a big-box store.

Isn’t it wonderful, what a zoom lens and cropping can do?

What you don’t see (mostly) is the horrendous treatment of the heron’s home. Discarded automobile tires–at least 8 that I saw. Bottles and cans too numerous to count–mostly soda, but quite a bit more, including antifreeze and oil bottles. Insulated coffee mugs. Wheels from shopping carts. Hundreds of newspaper flyers–no idea what was in the ink they used. An entire single-serving coffee machine, in pieces. Plastic bags by the score. Insulated foam containers. Not to mention, the runoff from the parking lot itself ran directly into the wetlands area, not into a storm sewer–all the crap that leaks from cars on a regular basis was flowing right into that pond. I’m certain I’m leaving out as much as I’m including.

The red deally next to the heron? Near as I can tell, a plastic bread rack.

I’ll be writing to the owner of the big box store, and asking for responsible action. Failing that, I have plenty of pictures, and the addresses of the local papers.

We’ve used dinosaurs before, to warn us. The canary in a coal mine is a dinosaur warning system; we’ve seen the stomachs of starving albatrosses distended with plastics. Dinosaurs know extinction. Will we listen?

A Thousand Words: Pensive

Reading Taslima’s recent posts, here and here, I was taken aback, just a bit. I mean, I really don’t think we need to look to our closest relatives to see common ancestry. I took this picture a few years ago, and I can’t look at it without thinking he or she is my cousin. (Mind you, some of my actual cousins are creationists, so I feel more kinship with this one than them…)

pensive

Might be deep in thought… might not. Same can be said of me.

The Real Tragedy Is In The Timing

“No one is more highly trained”,
And yet, he did it wrong
And so, instead,
A kid is dead
So runs the world along

Police Chief Wade is charged today—
His gun was unsecured,
Atop his vault—
He’s still at fault;
Or so we are assured

The boy who found it shot himself
Fifteen years old, he died.
Let’s make it clear:
Just one more year
And no crime could be tried

If someone wants to kill himself,
You know he’ll find a way…
But charge the chief?
Beyond belief!
So runs the world away

(Ok, I didn’t know until today that “so runs the world away” was anything other than a line from Hamlet. I’m a little bit pissed off at Josh Ritter for stealing Shakespeare’s google spotlight.)

Along the lines of Oh-so-close-to-responsible ownership, there’s a story today out of New Hampshire, in which a police chief will be charged with one count of negligent storage of a firearm (maximum penalty: $1000) in the death of a 15-yr-old boy who found the chief’s service weapon sitting on top of a safe in a closet.

Through the investigation, [County Attorney James] Reams said it was determined that Parsons set the gun down on a safe in a closet.

“The chief left to go run errands and didn’t secure his weapon,” said Reams, whose office will prosecute the case.

While Parsons was gone, the 15-year-old, who lived at the residence but wasn’t the chief’s son, went into the closet and grabbed the gun, according to Reams.

Tragic and horrible, I hope you will all agree. What grabbed me from the article, though, was the reaction of a selectman, Shawn O’Neil. Let me set up his statement, first. What Parson will be charged with is defined as follows (also from the article):

The statute states: “Any person who stores or leaves on premises under that person’s control a loaded firearm, and who knows or reasonably should know that a child (under the age of 16) is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the child’s parent or guardian, is guilty of a violation if a child gains access to a firearm and the firearm is used in a reckless or threatening manner; the firearm is used during the commission of any misdemeanor or felony; or the firearm is negligently or recklessly discharged.”

So, O’Neil’s reaction is, for the most part, completely understandable:

Danville Selectman Shawn O’Neil, board chairman, said Parsons informed him about the charge.
“He told me what transpired and that he was going to be charged with this. It’s a sad situation,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said the board plans to take no action against Parsons in light of the charge.
“It’s an elected position. The board can’t do anything, but on a personal note, I will vote for Wade in the next election,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil questioned whether such a charge would have been brought if Parsons were not a police chief. He said he feels the county attorney’s office faced public pressure.
“I know Wade is personally hurting and this is going to live with him for the rest of his life. This is just one more sad component added on top of this. This is not going to bring Jacob back,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said he still has confidence in Parsons.
“Deep down he’s a really good man. I have the utmost respect for this man. We all err as part of human life. Charging him with this is not going to make anything change,” he said.

And I do feel for the Chief. This is going to rip him apart. Of course, the “responsible gun owners don’t have these accidents” crowd would have to blame the Chief. I mean, really, the only other option is to put all of the responsibility on a 15 year old boy. And who would do that?

O’Neil added that anyone looking to harm themselves will find a way.
“If this kid was 16 years old this would not be an issue,” O’Neil said.

*sigh*

Yeah, a 16 year old dead kid would not be an issue, like a 15 year old dead kid is. I almost wish there was a bit more ambiguity in what O’Neil sees as the real issue.

In the comments, it is suggested that it would be just as easy to commit suicide with a steak knife. Thing is, I know someone who tried to commit suicide with a steak knife. I have seen the oozing wounds on her wrists. The only reason I can say this is, it is damned difficult to cut your wrists open with a steak knife. But pulling a trigger? Bullets, it would seem, travel much faster than the speed of regret.

Oh, and along the lines of Tuesday’s “He took all the precautions, he’s a trained law enforcement officer, trains with weapons all the time”, I give you today’s “”Nobody is probably more highly trained than a police officer,” Reams said.”

Atheism, Strong And Weak

Today, my friends, I’d like to speak
Of atheism, strong and weak—
Of godless views both weak and strong
Which might be right? Which may be wrong?

Weak atheists, they tell me, don’t
Believe in gods. They can’t. They won’t.
But still, they can’t and won’t insist
A god cannot, must not, exist

Strong atheists will make the claim
There is no god to call by name
They do not think it overbroad
To outright claim “there is no god”

But that’s the thing; the Christian horde
Believing in their Christian lord
Are atheists, cos what is more,
They strongly disbelieve in Thor

So, wait—do they believe, or not?
In just one god, or in the lot?
Belief, you see, is quite specific
While non-belief is, well… prolific

Believe in twenty, or in one,
But disbelief, you’re stuck at none
There really is no symmetry
In god belief or not, you see

So, yeah, I read yet another post somewhere (here, specifically) that used the “strong versus weak atheism” construction, which I despise. I don’t blame the site I read, of course–the strong/weak distinction is everywhere. I’ve complained about it before.

Strong and weak imply points on a single continuum; the positions labeled strong atheism and weak atheism are not stronger or weaker versions of each other. Both have precisely the same amount of god-belief: none. But a positive assertion (either belief or disbelief) is necessarily restricted to a given, particular god. We do not claim that “believers” believe in every god; their belief is specific to their particular deity. When they ask “do you believe in god?”, they are asking this for the case where god = their god. Active belief in their god is often (usually?) accompanied by active disbelief in other gods (or simply denial of those gods’ existence). Disbelief–even active, positive, disbelief–in any one god, then, is clearly not sufficient to label someone an atheist. There is a world of difference between one and zero.

The difference between strong and weak atheists has nothing to do with their comparative belief in a god or gods. Both are at zero. As for other beliefs… we all vary tremendously on a wide spectrum of beliefs. There is no set of beliefs that reliably separates two categories of atheists, without either overlap or leftovers, and without also covering a wide number of religious believers as well.

I posit, not for the first time, that the terms “strong atheist” and “weak atheist” are not useful, and indeed obfuscate where they intend to clarify.

Responsible Ownership–99.9999% Of The Time

He’s a best-case scenario, doing it right;
He knows it’s a gun, not a toy
The most dangerous thing in his bedroom that night
Was a visiting 4-year-old boy

You mustn’t be tempted to regulate arms
Which the second amendment forbids
It can’t shoot itself, so a gun never harms
But it’s clear—we must regulate kids.

Whenever the news tells us of an incident where a kid shoots someone, the comment sections are reliably filled with people noting the idiocy of whoever allowed that kid access to firearms. Such irresponsible people make responsible gun owners look bad–and the vast majority of gun owners are responsible.

Mind you, we don’t actually know some of the numbers it would take to make that claim–you might recall, the CDC is expressly forbidden from gathering and analyzing gun death information. Seems the NRA got to write the legislation. But in those comment threads, gun accidents happen only to irresponsible idiots, and normal, responsible gun ownership makes your family safer.

But this time, the gun owner is a well-trained Sheriff’s Deputy. And he wants to set things straight:

“I would like the viewers to know that officers of Wilson County do not make a habit of leaving loaded guns simply lying around,” he wrote.
“The door to the room the accident happened in stays locked unless we were sleeping or we were in it,” Fanning wrote. “This was the only loaded gun in the house other than my duty weapon, which was locked away.”
Wilson County Sheriff Robert Bryan said Fanning had been showing “another person that was there at the house some of his weapons he had locked in a secure gun safe,” reported CNN affiliate WTVF.
No one saw the boy enter the room, WTVF quoted Bryan as saying.
“Split second,” Bryan said. “We’re talking about seconds for that kid to walk in that room unbeknownst to them, grab that gun and it goes off.”
“He took all the precautions, he’s a trained law enforcement officer, trains with weapons all the time.”

This guy did everything right. And his wife is dead.

I can guarantee you one thing. His claims of gun safety and training will amount to utterly nothing in the comment threads; guns are safe in responsible hands, ergo he was irresponsible.

The Promise Of Spring (Yeah… Promises, Promises)

The trees are not budding
The grass is still brown
The remnants of snowbanks
Lay all around town
The flowers aren’t blooming
Except one or two
But there, in the distance,
A brief flash of blue?

There’s rain in the forecast
And that’ll bring mud
Some seasons are lovely
But this one’s a dud
It’s this way for ages,
A very strange thing,
But one—just one—bluebird,
And, suddenly… Spring!

bluebird

Yeah, it’s pretty gray in Cuttletown. The green in the background is from evergreens, not new leaves. But this morning (it rained last night) it was as if the birds had all arrived at once. Songs I haven’t heard in months, old familiar friends back from points south.

The winter birds, with the exception of the jays and the cardinals, have been studies in black, white, and grey. Even the goldfinch was wearing winter colors, and barely recognizable. So when I saw this bluebird, I had to check to be sure it wasn’t a trick of the light and yet another junco. But no! Actual eastern bluebird! So Spring is here!

Which I’ll keep telling myself for a few more weeks until the leaves and flowers start arriving.