Fight the Amoral Fight

See? I'm back! ;)

gg - I'm thinking it's good to keep your co-workers guessing about your sanity. You're welcome! ;)

I did read the next entry (... irony). I get Coyne's blog via RSS feed so see them all. As a group, the folks who comment there are a step above the usual internet denizens in their sense of humor and breadth of general knowledge (and they are more polite than most) so once I start reading the thread I find I can't stop - and you never know where they'll go with it. This in contrast to some other blogs where I read just the OP and ignore the comments.

My favorite posts of Coyne's are the biology posts - including the odd critters he finds. He just finished "Owl week" where he had a post each day about owls. Videos, pics, stories, biology ... anything owly. Cool.
It reminded me that I hadn't heard my local owls in quite awhile and I began to worry. They recently did some tree trimming nearby and this is not a good time of year for that. I was thinking about that the other night when I went downstairs to check on garage cat and, when I got there, I heard one loud *screeeeech* that was an owl. Like s/he was letting me know s/he was okay :)

calpoppy - oh no Outer Limits! When I was about 7 or 8 I talked my sister (who was 'babysitting' while our parents were out) into letting me watch Outer Limits with her on the little B&W TV in her room. She said I couldn't because I'd have nightmares. I said I wouldn't because I'd feel safe with her beside me. She let me crawl into her bed and watch ... and I had horrible nightmares! For days and days! LOL I was, and am, a total wimp when it comes to scary movies.
I could watch Twilight Zone, though. Go figure.

Bogon - George Lucas has said that he intentionally used a standard story formula for Star Wars. He has also denied it a time or two, which is weird, but, he is weird.

In a series of interviews with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell talked about the various story formulas and character types and such that have been used throughout the world and through time. He loved Star Wars and worked with Lucas and, I think, those interviews with Moyers were filmed at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. I should read my own link, probably, instead of going from memory, lol

I saw Star Trek in syndication but didn't know it wasn't new. I always liked it. I was eleven when Star Wars came out (I think) and liked it, too. In neither case did I consider the socio-political messages being sent by their creators. Not until years later.

Having watched those Campbell interviews when they first aired, and having done some small amount of study in that realm, I can see what the respective creators were trying to do and they are quite different.
Both are fun to watch, though, without any analysis!

I do prefer Star Trek. I'm not a huge fan of heroes who can do no wrong. Or, rather, who can do wrong, repeatedly, and get away with it while others suffer the consequences. Because heroes are special and above it all and that ticks me off.

In Trek the characters are flawed and have weaknesses. They lean on each other to shore up those weaknesses, make up for their individual flaws, and get things done. They don't have any magical powers to fall back on and have to muddle through, working together, just like the rest of us. And they do great things - not just for themselves or some elite class, but, for everyone (except Redshirts).

Then again, I don't believe in magic or supernatural powers and I am a pinkolibrulcommiesocialistscum (something like that). And it's all because of Star Trek! LOL

Well, anyway. You're right about the movies, especially the first one, and I still like them :)

I liked the first three Star Wars, too. The last three? Not so much.

Thanks for offering your take! I do realize that most folks think these things are all fluff, but, that's what They said about Shakespeare, at the time. These two story-lines are part of our culture now, based on previous cultural memes, and inform our views - even for those who never saw them - whether we like it or not!

Ylee - I did! It was! He was! Could be! LOL
He is very very tall. He didn't look too happy when I saw him and he'd just left the stage. He didn't look too healthy, either.
I'm supposing it's a kid's book since he was on the kids' stage.
Of course, most of the FoB is kid stuff, anymore.

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There was sun this morning as the fog blew away but then real clouds showed up. Now it's chilly and grey and windy and rain is coming.

Up to an inch of rain forecast, here in SP, starting sometime tomorrow (probably evening) and ending Thursday (probably by morning). Seems there is some confusion about timing, still.
The weekend should be warm and sunny, hurray! Then the return of the marine layer, boo!

I need to take a nap. I'm thinking 'til Friday.

Well, I got around, here and there, finally. Other people's blogs are much more fun than mine :)

Here, have a TED talk:




Didn't get that nap. Had chocolate, instead.
See wu later :)

Karen - I'm not sure sitting at the computer counts! LOL
I like reading about all you do. By the time I'm done considering your efforts, I feel like I've accomplished something and can take the rest of the day off! ;)

I think I saw everyone at the FoB at least twice by virtue of the fact that I kept walking in circles, lol
It shouldn't be too difficult for you to get to USC from the south. It's going through downtown that is really confusing (to me). My fall back plan when I can't figure out the freeways in LA is to get off and use surface streets - the joy of a proper street grid! Mostly, anyway.
Then, I love LA. I love the buildings and the people and the sheer variety of experience that is possible there. Like any city, I guess, but this is the closest I've got to call MY city :)

Ylee - thanks for laughing! I like that - "You're new here, aren't you?" LOL

Chocolate is an unalloyed good. I am trying to not drink coffee in the mornings (taking Vivarin, though, to prevent the headache) so chocolate is necessary sometime during the day.

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Newsflash: It looks like it may rain. We'll see ;)
Nice thing is, despite (or, because of) the clouds, it is 72 degrees here. Warmest it has been since Sunday.

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Here's some stuff (funner stuff last):

A woman's prayer group has vowed to pray* for the women of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Isn't that nice?

* some comments at that blog are NSFWU

...

International Paper Company won their anti-trust case and the Justice Dept. allowed them to buy a competitor. Now they have more capacity than they need. So, they are closing their Santa Paula factory and firing 60 employees.
An interesting comment on that article (which does not tell the whole story but the comments help add to the info available) points out that IP is the last regular customer of the railroad here in town.

This is not all bad for me. I mean, it's bad for the town, so, bad for me that way. But, I can hear that factory late at night and hear the train whenever it is there. My world will be quieter.
I'd rather have the noise.

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Everyone know about the DNS Changer Malware thingy?
The FBI is here to help!
No, really, go there if you don't know what that's about already.

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Okay, here's some fun ...

A Burlesque version of Homer's works. I haven't read it, yet, because I got distracted by all the other cool stuff there. Read the About page for more info on The Public Domain Review, which I think is a great idea because it is so hard to sort through all the stuff available.

The downside to having found that is obvious ;)

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For just a little more commentary on Star Wars along with a few other movies, you might read Scalzi's movie critic article on Evil ... or the Victim of Framing? which I meant to post the other day but didn't.

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I am the laziest person on the planet this week.
Seewu!

Wow look at the radar. I think it might rain!

The latest discussion says, essentially, "Oops!" and they've upped the totals and altered speed and direction of the oncoming STORM OF THE CENTURY. No, not that. But, you know, rain.

Here they are:
"Short term (today-sat)...isolated thunderstorms had developed
approximately 350 miles northeast and ahead of the approaching low
pressure system late this morning. They were moving north northeast
at 40kt. The activity developed within an area where guidance had
indicated an area of convective symmetric instability. As the low
moves over the area guidance continued to indicate an area of csi
centered south of the area. Area will likely enhance rain rates this
evening and have adjusted quantitative precipitation forecast up as well as adjusted timing. The
areas of highest quantitative precipitation forecast is over the south facing slopes of Ventura and
Los Angeles County mountains. With current speed and movement the
low center will move east over the south half of the area just after
midnight differing and slower from previous solutions. Have adjusted
probability of precipitation up Thursday morning through Thursday afternoon...the remnants
of the system currently approaching northern California will shift
east and the southern portion will skirt the area and combine with
lingering moisture and instability over the area. Temperatures were
5 to 10 degrees up from yesterday at this time and several degrees
above normal."

See that last line? It was 72 degrees - four degrees above the forecast high this morning - not when I posted at 2:20 but a couple hours earlier. At just after 3PM it was 86 degrees here! It was like a sauna! Then the temp dropped by 15 degrees in about a minute and a half. Not kidding.
How fun is that? LOL

The t-storms they mention have pretty high tops out there over the ocean. This might get interesting somewhere for someone :)

'k that's my weather update. Cuz this is a weather blog, you know.

That, too, Ylee! :)
I like to pretend I'm following weather in order to justify my being here with all the awesome people on WU. Shhhh don't tell anyone I'm faking!

Here, watch: "csi" is a handy weatherspeak abbreviation for "convective symmetric instability" and is used to describe an aspect of thunderstorm formation.
Hah! Pretty good, huh? LOL

BC - what you have written is very beautiful and much appreciated.
Having said and meant that, I will now proceed to be a jerk ...

I'd say it's more a matter of definition, then, than perspective. Semantics, maybe.

If I say the view of moonlight reflecting on the water is "magical" do you think I mean outside the physical realm? Because I don't mean that. I am describing my own emotional reaction to what I see when I use that word.

Moonlight reflecting on water and hitting my eye to be analyzed by my brain is well defined by physical processes. There is no need nor room for a magical or supernatural explanation. We are well beyond that, by this time.

Similarly, emotions happen in the brain as a result of the many complicated interactions of the gazillion cells and various chemicals that exist there. There is not more to our minds than that. I know. That seems like kind of a bummer (it's actually really cool but that's another story).
Complicated, even so complicated as to be currently inexplicable, or inexplicable by or to me or you, does not equate to magic.

So we can use words like magic and supernatural to express how we feel about an event, or how we perceive it, but, we cannot say that event was actually the result of magic or a supernatural force.

Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
That doesn't mean it IS magic. And "technology" can easily be replaced with any object or process that we don't currently understand, including biological processes.

In the context in which I wrote that I don't believe in magic or the supernatural I was referring to the Star Wars characters who have special powers, eventually explained through a "natural" occurrence of midi-chlorians in their bodies which allow them to make use of the Force in ways that are otherwise inaccessible. Other people, the regular Joe/Jane on the street, do not have access to these powers, making the Jedi and Sith a special class of citizen, above the unwashed masses, and making those masses nameless and expendable.
Jedi are like the demi-gods of Greek myth - half god and half human, like Hercules or Achilles.
Demi-gods and Jedi get (or take) special privileges in their societies. We, now, also look for 'demi-gods' - those who are above us, purely good, perfect - in order that we may follow them in hopes that we will be redeemed through our service to them. Don't deny it. It is visible everywhere.

It's why child-raping priests go unpunished and why Mitt Romney knows he can erase his etch-a-sketch. Once a person (or group of people) invest themselves, their own identity, in the perfection of another person (or group of people) they will not give it up. They will forgive nearly anything, no matter how horrific, no matter how many of them are hurt.

I don't like that. So, whenever I feel that there is something "magical" about almost anything, I look deeper to find the "technology". It's a lot more interesting and fun than magic, anyway.

There isn't anything wrong with the feelings you describe - in my opinion they should be sought and savored at every opportunity - but, to say that I believe in magic because I am sometimes emotionally moved by the sight of moonlight reflecting on water, well, that is just not true.

So ... dashing that off without even a third read-through and sure it'll tick someone off - hopefully not you, BC, as you know that I tend to take off on what folks say here without necessarily responding directly or personally. You get me thinking and then I tippity-tap away :)

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Oh! Less than a tenth of an inch of rain, btw (weather blog, you know!), but, it was a fairly steady light rain for a couple hours last night, and a brief while this morning.
Don't know why I bother with reading the discussion, let alone posting it ;)

Now, I need dinner, lol

Well, BC, that's what I figured (hence, "as you know ... ") - and even folks in real life like to do that to me, because I'm an easy mark, lol - but I've been wrong before and ended up with someone taking what I wrote very badly. In real life I can see it happening and work it out. Not so much on teh internets. This kind of communication requires giving others the benefit of the doubt in a different way and it is sometimes hard to do.
Thanks for the windup :)

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I forgot to leave something earlier. An xkcd from a little while ago. I haven't been following but went through some recently and found that one to be really fun. Be sure to click to make it big enough to read :)
I have a favorite part. Guess!

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A perfect golden hour experience today, sought and savored, and mentioned to reiterate the point, obviously, LOL
I was HUGE I was tiny I was all I was nothing I was

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Then I came home and ate waaaaaay too much dinner followed by waaaaaay too much ice cream. Now I'm going to go have some cookies and milk to settle my stomach. No, it will work - it's magic! ;)

Because, at that depth, they are UNDER PRESSURE!!!!
AAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Oh, my, that cracked me up.



Star Wars heroes had very cool magical powers.
Star Trek heroes had intelligence and ingenuity, courage and conviction, law and integrity.
I prefer the latter, is all I was saying.

Externalized forces are unnecessary, unreal, random, useless. Magic and other imagined manifestations of the supernatural go away when we understand the underlying principles, the real cause of observed phenomena.
Poetry, love, beauty, altruism are not magic - they are emergent properties of the physical properties of the brain. They don't go away when we understand them. Reality is sticky like that.

Cookies make upset tummies better. That's a form of sympathetic magic, like homeopathy. It works just as well, too, and I had some Pepto before bed, LOL
The cookies were tasty and I don't regret my foray into the dark arts :)

... Oh, look, Spet has made an appearance ... must be part of Aubie's wayback machine's influence over wu bloggers. More magic? LOL

Oh, are we having a debate? I thought we were just sharing. So, that's good to know! Whenever someone seems to be skipping over half of what I've written (perfectly acceptable in a debate but confusing in a conversation) I figure I haven't been clear and try again. I am relieved to know I can stop repeating myself!
I expect a weekend full of muggleness, but, that's fine. Last weekend contained enough excitement to last awhile :) I hope you see the sun, BC!

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Several days ago Jerry Coyne wrote a long piece on Narwhals that really deserves attention. Well, it got plenty, I'm sure, but more is better.
I sure learned a ton so I'm linking it here for those who might like some interesting reading over the weekend :)

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Sort of following up on the TED talk up there, Foreign Policy mag has an issue devoted to women and politics around the world. I haven't read any of the articles in their entirety but they do look worth it.

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Have you ever seen little birds dive-bombing a hawk? I'm sure you have.
Well, this morning one of our local hawks was taking his shift in the eucalyptus tree (the various larger birds seem to take turns in that tree), just hanging out, occasionally calling out, and this little Jay was harassing him! The Jay kept hopping from branch to branch, lunging at the hawk at each pass and making a heck of a racket. The hawk would flinch but otherwise seemed intent on standing its ground (so to speak). Finally, the hawk flew off to a palm tree, the Jay close on his tail. The Jay seemed satisfied to have moved the hawk and went away, while the hawk then took to the air again, calling to his mate. Anyway, it was weird. Don't know what the Jay's problem was - the hawks are there frequently and there is no nest in that tree. I also wonder if Jays taste bad.

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Oops gotta run! I may be around when I get sick of muggleness but, in case, Happy Weekend, WU :)

I know. It's late. I was in the mood to fugue and thought I'd bring this one by here.




Not great for a Monday morning but perfect for a Sunday night :)

My week looks away-from-computer-ish at this time, though I will try to write something about May just to freshen things up.
Else, Happy Week WU!