Invest In Science

"Sarah Palin has repeatedly stated that she wishes to see creationism taught in our schools. I believe that every Christian (and indeed every American) should be opposed to this. What science has taught us does not invalidate religious faith, and to those evangelical Christians who believe otherwise, I would respectfully say that you are placing too much faith in the power of science. Not that science isn’t powerful: We now know, thanks to rational thought and the testing of hypotheses, that evolution was the driving force behind the breathtaking diversity of life in the world. And we know that the earth has existed far longer than we have. Science has given so much to the experience of being a creature on this planet. But it does not render our spiritual lives irrelevant.

The anti-intellecutalism that has become the hallmark of religious conservatism in contemporary Christianity (and many other religions) will only set us back–not only economically and politically but also spiritually. We must invest in science; we must teach our children the scientific method; we must share with them the myriad discoveries that the scientific method has brought us. And we must do all of these things in classrooms that are in the business of teaching children how to learn, and not in the business of teaching that faith in God is incompatible with the intellectual rigor and creative innovation that have been the glory of our nation’s past. Christianity loses in that bargain, and so, too, does America."

- John Green

The King in the North

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers

The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well

Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go

This land is all too shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by

For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King's wild company

- Song of the King in the North

Armpit Hair

So it's been raised times over the last couple of days among my friends. Seems to be a hot topic among us for some reason.

Apparently (stress on the apparently) some women are choosing not to shave some of their hair off their bodies. Such as legs and armpits.

I'm going to say it once,

I straight do not give a shit. I'd be a pretty crappy libertarian if I wanted to make women shave themselves. But personally, I feel a lot of women do feel more confident if they get rid of 'unsightly' body hair, put on make up, and all that flim-flam.

When I want to feel confident, I put on a fitted suit jacket. Maybe it's the same thing. If it is, go for it. If you don't want to, don't.

Albuquerque

I always thought 'Albuquerque' would be a good name for a horse that one would take on an arctic voyage and had to end up killing to stay warm, and for food after the iron rations ran out, before being rescued by a monk that lived in a cave near the north pole.

The Elements of the Howling

It's nights like this,
That the winds howl.
My windows are sealed,
My door, locked.
The bedclothes wrap fever tight.
The darkness, still, like a blanket of silence.

But the winds howl through me.
Like a paper bird caught in the tempest.
I can feel them, blinding, shouting,
Begging.

They clutch at me like starving children.
They beat me and mug me, in the alleys off the streets of my own thought.
They claim to love me,
They rape me,
The ask for forgiveness,
As they mercilessly torture me.

They blow through me,
The winds howl like wolves gone rabid.
The winds none but I could hear.
I am their father,
Their brother,
Their lover,
Their son,

But never would I call them friend,
The winds that howl,
That chill my chest.
My lungs.
My throat.
Chilled to ice,
So that breath comes in ragged gasps.

Eyes are heavy.
But the winds blow on and on.
Rattling my bones.
Shaking my heart.
I beg them to let me sleep.

But to the hand of what man are the elements of this earth heedful?
So too the elements of madness.

Believing is Hard.

Every long day of our cruel, bitter and unlovely lives,
The bastard, the bitch, and the sinner survives.
He could be that random bloke with a gun,
Who shot up some local kids, just for fun,

Or it might be the girl who gives a self-sure sermon,
Before she goes out to give herpes to an unknowing virgin,
Or it could be that man who drinks instead of loves,
And ignores his wife and all the serving she does,

Maybe it's the kid who egged your car,
Or the boss whose shouting went too far,
Maybe it's your neighbor who lets her dog shit on your lawn,
Or that guy who you took home who left before dawn.

Those bastards, those bitches, those sinners survive.
And as much as the faith you had, you try to revive,
It gets harder each day to believe in the great, the good,
The hard working, honest folk, as you know that you should.

The bitter sad anger of humanity is surely clear,
We should go out each day, well dressed in our fear,
That some awful person will stab our backs,
And then walk away whistling to cover their tracks.

But then, as much as those people we might resent,
Would you or I, given the chance, do any different?

The only way to make the world sane,
Is to try, and try, and try again.
To believe in the wondrous things humans could be,
And right now, that greatness we should all try to see.

To say I'm not the best chap at the task, is fair,
But still, try seeing the good, even when it's not there.

Smoothness

The handle of my knife protrudes from beneath the pillow I rest my head upon. When an infant I had no pacifier, rather, my mother would give me some small smooth object for me to hold in my hand, to quiet me. My knife handle is hard, a dark brown wood, surrounding the cold fixed steel of the blade. A thing if beauty, as David once said, to see and to touch.

It was a birthday present from my father. I used to use it for carving, and sometimes when spear fishing to clean my catch. But I don't do those things anymore. I lost the will to carve after my rejection from the school of art, and one needs to be near water to spear.

Now its job is mainly for something comforting to grasp when the night is strange. I wouldn't use it to stab someone. It doesn't have a hilt, I'd probably just cut my fingers. It isn't really a weapon. It's a Bowie knife, clipped point. Long. More threatening certainly than my Swiss Army Knife, which I always feel would be a laughably stupid thing to use in a fight.

But I still get afraid at night, during the day too, but that isn't when I need to sleep. Just the smooth feel of it under my fingertips calms me.

I don't find it that strange that I do this. We each of us find solace in materialism, in what we can know is, "Really there". I like to feel the realness.