Guess what time it is...

It's Monday, October 14th. It has come to the point in the year when we bash of Chris Columbus. This is what Columbus did...

1. He did not discover America, neither did the Vikings or Native Americans. America was discovered tens of thousands of years ago by hunter gatherers from the Asian continent. We don't know exactly where they came from but they did spawn the great civilizations that would eventually populate North and South America.

2. He did not start slavery in the Americas. Spain already had slaves from the African continent 500 years, at least, before Columbus was born. It was a natural extension of an already existing institution. The Dutch, British, French and Spanish all had a hand in the African-American slave trade. You can't blame one man for the sins of a whole continent.

3. Columbus did not discover a direct route to Asia. While his mission was a failure, he did find two new continents to explore, yes, and to exploit. It was generations of men who followed that led to the European expansion.

We should really leave the dead man alone. Columbus Day is just a holiday in October to give the banks and federal employees a day off. Deal with it!

What did Columbus do? Why, he sailed the ocean blue in 1492...

Division

Everyone talks about division. It’s a fact of our current human condition. We love to divide individuals into groups with similar characteristics. We conveniently ignore that we are all the same species and that is the most important factor we share. It does not matter if you are white, black, or yellow. It means little if you are Anglo-American, Afro-American, Sino-American or any other hyphenated description you want to invent. You would only be different if you were the “Man from Mars” in Blondie’s Rapture. It makes little difference if you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, pagan or worshiper of the Great Individual Raindrop. Why does it matter? All it does is separate us! I am sick of gay, lesbian, bisexual and x/y chromosome confusion syndrome.  Of course, this would not be complete without normal, abnormal, crazy, “different,” or strange. Do we really have to continue this?

Of course, if you are an American, it all started when “all Men are created equal” was put to paper.  Are we illiterate enough to not understand what that means? Well for those who don’t know, the Enlightenment use of the term Man or Men refers to the human species or Homo sapiens. It did not mean the male of the species. The Founding Fathers had a vision and knew what they were doing. They were planning ahead. Jefferson believed it! He knew that the time was not right to fully force the belief of equality for all. It took the Civil War to knock down a barrier that kept slaves from being equal to their masters. It took Women’s Suffrage to remove the barrier that kept women from being equal to men. It took nearly five decades for the full recognition that all humans are equal.

 Yes, we are still having a few issues. The new issues are not easily discernible. Gender identity issues come to mind. You can no more tell the difference between gay and straight than you can tell the difference in German and Austrian. You can’t tell by looks. You can’t tell by language. You can’t even tell by their family name. So really, what difference does it make? NONE! You treat the individual as an individual and carry on. Why are we really concerned? Yes, I am ignoring the social conventions about differences, but those aren't real! They are something we made up. A proof in “made up” is the equality of animals to Man. No matter how you put it, there is and always will be a difference.

Okay, I’m a dreamer. What can I say? We will eventually get to a point in our existence that division is no longer desirable. I can tell you exactly when that is going to happen. It will happen the day we play out the opening ten minutes of The Day the Earth Stood Still. That monumental event will remove any division within the human species. We will finally be knocked off our individual pedestals and stand as one species on Earth.  Your neighbor of a different religion, ethnic background, and sexual orientation will be standing next to you and you both will understand there is no division.

VA comments on shutdown

You have seen how the politicians have pointed fingers at those they think is to blame for the government shutdown. The Veterans Administration has done the same. The VA's website blames Congress. I believe it is inappropriate for a government agency to comment on who's to blame for political made on the hill. It is not the place of any government agency to officially blame any agency.

VA Appropriations Lapse Plan

Dear Starbucks...

No Starbucks coffee shall pass through my lips. I refuse to allow myself to be uncomfortable just so others can be comfortable. I shall honor your request and not bring a gun into Starbucks. Sorry, but that means I won't be coming in either.

Need a crazed serial killer?

I have been watching Criminal Minds for about a year and I'm starting to get caught with episodes. This morning I caught the last ten minutes of "Our Darkest Hour" and found Tim Curry starring as the villain. Man, I do mean villain! I have been a fan of Tim Curry's for years and first saw him in Rocky Horror Picture Show. As he gets older, Curry refines his art. He really does have a knack for the bad guys. His performance in Criminal Minds shows he has taken 'bad' to a crazier level.

"Angels, Aliens & UFOs"

For a logical thinker, it is difficult to digest some of the tripe that is produced on "film."  The heading of this post is a Ken Klein production. You have to watch this for yourself. He has appeared on Coast-to-Coast so I am immediately concerned that that connection means this video is just the kind of tripe I mentioned.

This production is broken down into segments about mysterious figures in lights and shadow, orbs with faces and other paranormal phenomena. I see nothing that cannot be explained by logical reasonable study of the natural, known world.

The first segment demonstrates the images taken and later seen when the images are reviewed. Take any photo from your collection and give it a good look. I mean a REAL good look. Do you see any shadowy figures or animals? The odds are that if you let your mind wonder a bit, you can make out shapes in trees, bushes made by the light and shadow. Trees frequently reveal faces in the leaves and branches. This sort of things are highlighted in the first segment of the video. You have to decide if you are seeing real faces or something creates by the human brain. More often than not, your mind will pick out shapes that aren't really there. This is called pattern recognition. No real mystery.

The second segment is describing the well known, well disproved spirit orbs. Fuzzy, out of focus balls floating around in photographs have been proven to be dust motes. If you zoom in on the fuzz balls, you can see faces. These faces are caused by two things, pattern recognition and light refraction. Moving fuzz balls are dust motes lifted by air currents.people make so much over common things.

The rest of the video shows examples of over active imaginations, wild guesses, and just plain bad "science." People see things all the time and recognize naturally occurring events because they have a good understanding of the world around them. Fewer people see fantastic things because they do not have a good understanding of their surroundings. These people drive me crazy

Why so big?

I'm a huge fan of science. I have always had to ask why is this what causes that. The hallmarks of a true scientist. Recently, I have been participating in a few projects at Zooniverse primarily in astronomy. Looking at all the stars and galaxies millions of light-years away makes me wonder, "Are we alone?" My answer is, "we can't be!" I mean, look at the shear volume of the universe! All those stars with sooo many planets!

Without getting in too deep of a religious discussion, why did God great such a horrendously huge place just for Man? It's mindbogglingly! I'm not so much asking the Almighty why, but I think that it is part of human nature to ask that question. I mean, we have made such a mess of this place and he gave us so much more to play in?!?! You would think that we could do what we needed to do in a star system sized universe. Why so big?

Here's an example...

 
In this picture of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, every fuzzy spot is a galaxy. This is looking back as far as we can see with current technology. Now, try and convince me we are alone in the universe.