Remember little Knut?

Some new pictures of Knut here.

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Gooses! Geeses!

Unlike the geese in the song from the original Willie Wonka movie, these geese weren't laying golden eggs. But they were definitely making their mark, so to speak. While I was changing clothes at the gym today, I overheard people complaining about the sheer quantity of the geese around the pond near the rec center. And the noise they made. And all that poop. Can't something be done about them?

Um, who is encroaching on whose territory with all this urban sprawl?

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What might this be?

In honor of Hermann Rorschach's birthday, "What might this be?"



It's also Julian of Norwich's birthday, by the way.

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Orthodox Rabbi: Don't use Bible to judge others

This morning I noticed that Joseph at Plunderbund had posted the following:

Orthodox Rabbi: Don’t Use the Bible to Pass Judgement on Others

Living in a college town like Columbus, Ohio means people tend to be open to many different viewpoints. It also means they are less likely to judge viewpoints that are different from her own.

It’s one of the reasons I moved back here.

It’s also, I assume, one of the reasons Rabbi Steven Greenberg is in town.

Greenberg, “America’s first openly gay Orthodox rabbi”, was here to give a sermon and speak at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on the OSU campus.

I was actually there at St. Stephen's to hear Rabbi Greenberg's sermon--really a piece of luck, as I've missed church a lot lately to catch up on my sleep and I didn't know he was coming. He gave a fascinating sermon, and was back in the afternoon to talk about some of the issues he covered in his book, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition.

I haven't had a chance to write anything yet about the sermon or the afternoon session, so I'm happy to at least be able to link to Joseph's post at Plunderbund.

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Open Thread

Brand new thread.

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Happy birthday, Grandma

November 6 is the birthday of my maternal grandmother--the one Daughter in Ohio was named for. It's a little amazing the consistency with which I am able to remember the date, without even trying to. Remembering birthdays has never really been my strong suit.

Maybe part of it is the fact that it comes just a few days after All Saints' Day. And then, we're getting into that whole holiday season, where it's pretty natural to think about traditions and continuity. Where you've been, and where you're going. The people who continue to touch our lives even though they are no longer with us.

I'm sure I could ramble more about all of this, but I need to get to bed. But this is where my heart is right now, and I really needed to say so "out loud".

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Comet 17P/Holmes

Look at Cassiopeia's W. Start at the center star of Cassiopeia and follow that (third) star to the lower left, to its second star. Stay on that trajectory for 5 times the length between the two stars and note a yellowish bright object in the constellation Perseus. Or, as Hubby likes to say it: set the W as the center of a clock and look for Holmes around 7 or 8 pm. Let us know if you see it! We're just waiting for the clouds to dissipate.


Very cool...an exploding comet! Visible to the naked eye, but even better with binoculars or telescope.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071103/ap_on_sc/brighter_comet

Photo credits = Mahon About Town Newsletter, Nantucket

- listener

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Open Thread for the fresh, new week.

Play nicely. . . .

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Fall back flashback

From an article in the New York Times, February 27, 1967...

...legislators are getting protests from farmers who object to doing chores in the morning darkness, from drive-in movie proprietors, from early-to-bed, early-to-rise communities, from the mothers of children who will not sleep until the sun goes down, and from indignant defenders of "God's time."

State Senator Bobby Rowan of Enigma, GA, rose recently in the Senate chamber and said:

"Not since Biblical times has there been a man who could change sunrise and sunset, but the bureaucrats are attempting to do it."

And Gov. Harold E. Hughes of Iowa, who has promised to veto any legislative action that would keep his state off daylight saving time, was criticized sharply by a rural delegation a short time back.

A spokesman for the group, Hugh A. Vail of Indianola, told the Governor that daylight saving time would weaken are resistance of Iowa's children to Communism.

"A child gets up in the morning under daylight time and cries because he has lost an hour of sleep," Mr. Vail asserted. "A parent has to whip him to get him to go to school. Maybe he has had breakfast and maybe not.

"He whines all day. When he comes home, his parents give him aspirin. We are living in a drug age. The schoolchildren are so busted that they have to have drugs. Then when Communism comes along, what are we going to do?"

(I don't have an actual picture of Mr. Vail, but this is how I imagine him.)

I can only assume that, were we having this debate today, somebody would claim that accepting Daylight Savings Time means the terrorists have already won.

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Autumn Open Thread

The image comes from Kalle Koskinen's Photo Gallery.

It's a gorgeous fall day here in Columbus too. Going to take the dogs out for some playtime.

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Goodbye, Cousin Washoe

Image from Friends of Washoe web site

Washoe the chimp has died. I hope she's somewhere cool.

Scientists have announced the death of the first animal to break the language barrier, a female chimpanzee called Washoe who could communicate 250 words in human sign language.

Washoe was not only the first animal to learn a human language, she also passed on what she had learnt to her adopted son before dying on Tuesday at the ripe old age - for a chimp - of 42.

Her death was announced by scientists at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University, where she had lived in a research centre.

"Her name sign is formed with the fingers of a 'W' hand flicking the ear on the same side," read her biography on the Friends of Washoe website.

"Washoe is the first non-human animal to acquire a human language and her adopted son Loulis is the first to acquire a human language from another chimpanzee," it said.

Washoe, born in Africa in 1965, was the main subject of the 1997 book "Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are," written by the institute co-director Roger Fouts.

From a description of the language studies conducted with Washoe...

...Washoe was now also able to coin new words: the first time she saw a swan her trainer asked her 'What's that?' and she responded with 'water bird'. Washoe would often sign spontaneously, initiating sign language 'conversations' with her trainers. She also, quite spontaneously, developed 'swear words' - words which she added on to her other utterances to indicate displeasure. For example she would sign 'dirty' before someone's name if they had displeased her. The implications, then, is that she was using the words she had learned to fulfil communicative intentions: she was actually using language, rather than producing stimulus-response behaviour.

Washoe's Biography

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Who're You Gonna Call?

Happy Halloween, everybody!

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Open Thread

Took Brady (the collie) to the dog park yesterday. He had fun. I had fun watching him have fun. It's a good thing.

Another busy week ahead of me, but here's an open thread.

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Howard Dean: Right again

A post by Subway Serenade/Astral Technician

When Howard Dean spoke at DemocracyFest on of the things he spoke of at length about was how the Democratic National Committee was reaching out to find common ground among evangelical and other Christian groups. He made the point that these folks are moving away from the hard right positions of "God, Guns and Gays," and moving toward issues of the occupation of Iraq, poverty, social justice and environmental stewardship. Dean said that there is much common ground that can be explored in the next election cycle.

Last night I found this in the New York Times:

The extraordinary evangelical love affair with Bush has ended, for many, in heartbreak over the Iraq war and what they see as his meager domestic accomplishments. That disappointment, in turn, has sharpened latent divisions within the evangelical world — over the evangelical alliance with the Republican Party, among approaches to ministry and theology, and between the generations.

(Snip)

Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.

The backlash on the right against Bush and the war has emboldened some previously circumspect evangelical leaders to criticize the leadership of the Christian conservative political movement. “The quickness to arms, the quickness to invade, I think that caused a kind of desertion of what has been known as the Christian right,” Hybels, whose Willow Creek Association now includes 12,000 churches, told me over the summer. “People who might be called progressive evangelicals or centrist evangelicals are one stirring away from a real awakening.”

This ten page article in the Sunday Magazine offers much to consider as progressives try to find common ground with a constituency that was led astray by wolves in sheep's clothing (Fallwell, Dobson et al) that for far too long has held sway over the public presentation and perception of American Christianity.

“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” said Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World and an informal adviser to George W. Bush when he was governor. “To some extent — we have to see how much — the Republicans have blown it. That opportunity to lock up that constituency has vanished. The ball now really is in the Democrats’ court.”

Amen.

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Pneumatic Anatomica

Click the image for a larger view.

New shared items here.

Make your own lolcat picture here.

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NBC Wants to Give Gravel the Boot

I was dismayed to learn that Political Director Chuck Todd, speaking for NBC, has arbitrrarily set criteria that prevent former Alaska senator Mike Gravel from participating in Democratic candidate debates sponsored by NBC. These criteria are:

• Sen. Gravel has not campaigned in Iowa and/or New Hampshire at least fourteen times in the past year;


• Sen. Gravel is not polling at 5%;


• Sen. Gravel has not raised one million dollars.

In his blog at democrats.org, the senator disputes the first two claims, asserting for instance that he is level with Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dod and Joe Biden in CNN polling. I wonder if Mr. Todd has also disqualified Rep Kucinich and Sens Dod and Biden on the basis of their poor showings in the polls.

While I do not agree with all his positions and views, nonetheless Mike Gravel speaks for this voter with his opposition to the current war in Iraq and to a projected war against Iran. He speaks for me on other issues as well and is, frankly, a breath of fresh air in the fetted atmosphere which is politics as usual in the United States. However, whatever one may think of his platform, it is vitally important that all Democrats, especially other candidates, pull together to support Sen. Gravel now in the face of the NBC ban. The corporate media, including NBC, has no business shutting him out of public discourse and thereby effectively silencing him.

Please join me in calling for a reversal of NBC's dicision to exclude Sen. Gravel from the Drexel University debate on October 30.

P.S.
I have e-mailed Chris Matthews (hardball@msnbc.com) and Kieth Oberman (countdown@msnbc.com) on this matter. Suggestions on who else to contact would be welcome.

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NASCARGOT

Heh. Look--the word NASCAR in some sort of unholy union with the words "escargot". That amuses me, so I shall post it before I fall down go night-night.

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We "fall back" on November 4

I've heard a number of people today say that this weekend is when we set our clocks back, so as a public service announcement, I thought I'd pass along this reminder:

On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete.

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Open Thread

It's still totally dark outside and it's pouring rain. I still need to leave for work in half an hour, so I'd better get moving. But here's a fresh thread.

Oops--quickly updating to add this picture...



20 October 2007, Blogger Bash in Montpelier, Vermont
back: Denise, Anne*from*VT
front: sunlight, listener
wearing "I support the National Nurse" buttons.

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A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice

Last weekend, I attended a retreat at Proctor Camp and Conference Center. The theme was Celtic spirituality. One thing our leader said was important to the Celts was a sense of time and seasons--and celebrating these things. While I was at the retreat, I was thinking about how much I need to establish a more sane, more purposeful, and maybe even more reverent relationship with time. But then the retreat ended, I drove home, and an entire week sped by without my even managing to write down some reflections on all of this. So far, not so good.

Actually, though, during the hectic work week, getting adequate sleep is a perfectly valid use of my time. Now that another weekend has arrived, though, I will try to remember and reflect a bit on the retreat.

One of them women who attended said that she knew she needed a retreat precisely because she felt like she didn't have time for it. I can certainly relate to that. But, because I knew I needed a retreat, I started making plans as soon as I found out it was happening. I last attended the women's retreat (with the same leader) three years ago, but that time it was held at a convent near Cincinnati. My car had died on the way there--certainly a less-than-serene way to begin a retreat weekend. So, this time, even though the retreat location was much closer, I decided to take the precaution of renting a car. Initially, my plan was to pick up the car Friday morning, work a full day, and leave for the retreat center straight from work.

As the day approached, I realized that plan was insane. On both Wednesday and Thursday I work a full day, and then teach in the evening. When, exactly, was I going to pack? I decided that, even though I was already splurging on a rental car, I probably did need to take Friday afternoon off, even though it meant missing out on some income.

So, when Friday morning arrived, I told myself that I'd done a reasonably good job of getting my ducks in a row. No, I hadn't packed anything. And I hadn't figured out what I was going to bring as a dish to share at Friday night's potluck. But I was taking off the whole afternoon, for heaven's sake!

The air was thick with free-floating anxiety.

As planned, I left work at lunchtime, stopping at the store to get pet food and to pick up a few sundries I needed for the weekend. Then I spent some time stuck in traffic due to construction. Once I finally arrived home, Demetrius and I needed to head right back out to pick up the rental car. On the way there, we passed a church with a marquis sign that read, "Are you ready to meet your God?" Given that whole free-floating anxiety thing, I was less amused by these words than I might have been at some other time.

Why do you ask that NOW, church sign people, as I prepare to drive out of town alone in an unfamiliar car? Do you know something I don't?

And there's a difference between being prepared, in the sense of having a clean conscience, and being ready. Am I ready? Not so much. I've been looking forward to retreat for some time, thank you.

Oh, and one more thing--while I think I'm cool with my God, I'd just as soon not meet yours. Ever. 'Cause apparently he's the sort of guy who encourages you to put up scary messages in front of your church, and that's not very nice.

When we got to the rental place, we had to wait a good half hour, even though we'd called ahead, so I arrived back home just as Son in Ohio was getting home from school. Somehow this afternoon I had taken off to allow myself plenty of time to get ready was more than half over. I certainly didn't have enough time to go to the grocery store and find something to bring for that night's potluck. I printed out the directions to the conference center and started packing my overnight bag, planning to stop at a grocery store on my way out of town. Which I should be able to do, if traffic wasn't bad.

Um, yeah. Given the way the rest of the day had gone, how likely was that? I stopped anyway, because I really didn't want to show up empty-handed. As I left the store and tried to make my way out of Columbus in Friday rush hour traffic, it was pretty clear that I would be arriving late. So I decided I would just focus on arriving there in one piece, and in a reasonably calm state of mind. I put in a CD and sang along.

Once I was finally on an open stretch of I-71 outside of Columbus, the church sign people accosted my eyes again. Two signs, one right after the other. The first read "If you died tonight, where would you spend eternity?" and the second warned, "HELL IS REAL." Once again, I just had to answer back...

It's not that I'm worried about where I'd end up. It's just that, contrary to what the Klingons have been known to say, today is not a good day to die. Mmm-kay?

I sang along with my Paul Simon CD, "...everybody gets a tongue to speak, And everyone hears an inner voice. A day at the end of the week to wonder and rejoice."

I thought about those words. Things certainly do seem out of balance if I don't take that time to "wonder and rejoice". And just to , and spend time in nature.

And, I ended up doing all of those things during that little retreat that lasted less than 24 hours. But I need to do a better job of weaving them into the fabric of my everyday life.

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