Yesterday the sun bombarded the Earth with a wave of charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME). This CME is believed to be the beginning of a new cycle of heightened solar activity; these occur every 11 years. Incredibly, scientists predictions for the arrival of the wave were off (early) by only 13 minutes.

News reports this morning said that the solar flares were so massive that people as far south as New York were able to see spectacular aurora displays, created when charged particles from the Sun encounter Earth’s magnetic field.

As phenomenal as that kind of natural light show is it is also a sure enough sign that the universe is providing an unmistakable window for us to look through, a gargantuan magnifying glass turned the other way ’round that reminds us just how puny we are among the stars—and how little true power we possess.

Astronomers and astrophysicists have peered into a minuscule portion of the most inactive, mundane piece of galactic real estate they could imagine with Hubble (how small? Take a penny and hold it at arms length—then look at the size of Lincoln’s eye) and discovered over one thousand other galaxies of varying sizes and intensity.

Who’s to say there’s not another species out there looking back at our tiny blue marvel and wondering the same thing, perhaps as equally in awe as we are of Nature’s potency.

Newton thought the apple a grand metaphor for a far larger force at work; Galileo and Copernicus saw far greater potential in telescopes than for merely keeping an eye on the far horizon for uninvited guests. So compelling were these new frontiers of rational thought and exploration that the mighty Catholic church—as it has persisted in doing over the centuries—decided it and it alone would be the judge of what lay outside our tiny island of improbable miracles. That has always struck me as one of historiy’s most astonishing ironies—that the church would have the pathetic hubris to define the very thing which Providence put there to begin with. Quite literally “But for the grace of God go we.”

When will mankind take genuine notice of elements so powerful as to be nearly unfathomable to us? When will honest men realize that we must stand for a greater good, for one another, brother and sister, or be all too easily reduced to the cosmic dust we came from.

The Sun is whispering to us. Over the next year she will raise her voice repeatedly.

This is it kids! All media and end-of-the-world prognosticators tells us 2012 is to humanity what the eraser is to the chalkboard. The forecast calls for cloudy skies followed by long periods of immeasurable suffering. Leave the umbrellas at home ’cause where we’re rumored to be heading you won’t need ‘em.

Now we’ve all heard the various scenarios—an object striking the earth, or some kind of geo-physical cataclysmic event like the magnetic poles shifting their positions . . . even dark whispers about solar maximum. Whatever it may (or may not) turn out to be I thought a little cosmic perspective might be in order.

The things you are about to read are, in fact, going to happen. Chances are beyond excellent that mankind will not be around to witness them, the very nature of their occurence dictates that. But it must be understood up front that these awe-inspiring events won’t happen for at least five billion years. So relax and enjoy the rest of your day at the happiest place on . . . well, Earth.

Marshmallows

If you don’t have any in the pantry go ask your neighbor for some. Or, if you’re the type with a strong imagination you can play along in your head. If all you have are the small ones, grab yourself a couple small handfuls; if you have the jumbo kind you would melt between a slab of chocolate and two graham crackers then resist the temptation to do so and grab about six.

Take those marshmallows and cup them in your hands, then enclose them between your palms by bringing your hands together by forming the best possible sphere two human hands can create. They may press against your palms, that’s okay. For our needs here I’d like you to imagine your makeshift globe as the Sun, your hands being the surface and the marshmallows being the interior or core.

Got it? Pretty simple so far.

Give a moments thought to a couple of simple physical properties at play here: there is heat being generated by your body and radiating into your marshmallow ‘core’, and there is also pressure being applied all around that same core, right? Again, pretty simple. If you apply enough heat and pressure the ‘core’ will begin to alter. In our case the marshmallows will begin to soften, which should lead to (besides sitckiness) the slightest of downward pressure from your closed hands.

Still with me? Here’s the fun part . . .

Now begin squeezing thoe palms together, as equally as you can, nice and slow. What should happen, in some fashion, is white stuff should ooze or protrude from any crevice it can find—as you compress your hands you increase the pressure inside and that matter inside wants to get out. We both know you’ll wind up mashing the stuff into a glob of sticky goo, but that’s all part of the illustration, as you’ll see.

Toasted! Marshmallows And Everything Else

Remember I told you to imagine your cupped hands as the Sun? Here’s why:

We all look up in the sky and see the sun as a bright ball of light. Nothing new there. Have you ever considered what creates all that energy? At its core is a process of nuclear fusion going on where hydrogen protons are being fused into helium protons—that takes a staggering amount of heat to accomplish, but at around 15-million degress the Sun pulls this off.

Before I get too far along we should be aware of the Sun’s sheer magnitude. First consider how big our Earth is. Don’t just sit there and nod your head saying “Yeah, it’s pretty big.” I mean look out to the horizon all around you and then think about how really small that vista is compared to what is covering the rest of our planet. That’s awesome, right?

For comparisons sake, wrap your head around this: The Sun is approximately 108 times the size of the Earth. This means the Sun, from a volume standpoint, could hold somewhere around 1.3 million Earths. That’s scary awesome.

Now, back to what’s going on inside the sun. As hydrogen turns into helium the sun creates enough pressure to keep the forces of its own gravity from causing it to collapse upon itself. That’s cool, until all that hydrogen runs out . . . and it will. That sounds very bad, doesn’t it? I can’t say it isn’t, but consider that now the Sun has a core of nothing but helium. There’s gotta be a way to get energy out of that helium to keep the Sun burning bright, right?

Of course! We just need more heat, because 15-million degrees ain’t gonna fuse nothin’ now. For the whole solar system’s sake we need to seriously stoke the furnace and do it fast. But check this out—the Sun has a way of doing that on its own, a mechanism for ratcheting up the heat to the next necessary level; it’s called loss of equilibrium. It’s pretty simple, really. Once all that hydrogen is gone then there’s far less matter to keep the Sun’s gravity from forcing the star to collapse in on itself. Which is precisely what it begins to do.

This is what was happening when you began to squeeze and compress all those marshmallows between yuor palms. That compression was creating more heat to be concentrated into a much smaller mass. Makes sense?

That same thing is what will happen to our Sun. Tht gradual collapse will eventually crank up the internal heat to around 100 million degrees. At that temperature the helium protons will be able to begin fusing into carbon.

So the Sun is going to shrink?

Only the ‘surface’. Think about the process for a moment—if more heat and more pressure are being created, and as a result there’s a whole new batch of energy from this new nuclear fusion of helium into carbon . . . then where will that energy go?

This new fusion will create much more energy than the old one. This means the Sun’s outer atmosphere will have nowhere to go but out . . . in a big way. The sun’s surface will “cool” to somewhere around 2,000 degrees and will begin to glow red. This event is what astrophysicists call a Red Giant.

All that marshmallow pushing through the spaces between your fingers and palms—that is what is going to happen inside our Sun, without the zero calorie tastiness of marshmallows, of course.

At this point we arrive at our first frightening example of what would factually be the complete eradication of every living thing on Earth.

POOF!

As the Sun’s atmosphere expands it will first enter into Mercury’s orbit — bye Mercury! Everybody wave bye bye to the closest planet to our Sun. The increasing proximity to the Sun will mean lots more radiant energy will begin hammering the Earth. This will be nothing but bad news.

As helium continues to turn into carbon at the Sun’s core its outer atmosphere will enter into Venus’s orbit. Her fate will be identical to Mercury. Guess who’s next on the menu?

The Sun, at this point, will fill at least half the horizon, if we would be around to actually see it. I tell you what, Arizona gets f$!@*%ng hot during the summer, but this new kind of heat would put Hell to shame.

Earth’s atmosphere would essentially be vaporized; the surface of our planet would eventually reach the same temperature as the surface of the Sun. The oceans would begin to boil, quite literally. They would reach a rolling boil and very soon evaporate away. Rocks—entire mountain ranges—would begin to glow white hot. As the Earth entered into the Sun’s atmosphere it would encounter gases that would act as a brake on its orbit, slowing enough to cause the planet to spiral downward. Our home, humanity’s very birthplace and graveyard, would eventually go up in a planetary puff of smoke.

I take consolation from this, actually. Nobody is spared. Politicians, lobbyists, and the obscenely rich (sometimes the same person) won’t be excused—not a damn thing they can do to forestall their own demise with the rest of we little people. So too for the drug cartels, lawyers, gangs, radical fundamentalists, communists, whining liberals and their socialist bed buddies, and Barney.

Man, that feels good, doesn’t it? :^)

When Mingling At A Party Can Be Bad

Mingling at a cosmic party can have particularly undesirable effects.

Consider Andromeda—not the strain or the goddess, rather the galaxy. In galactic terms it’s our next door neighbor. She’s three times the size of our cozy little Milky Way. Yet even as the universe expands Andromeda is coming toward us, and when she knocks on our door it won’t be for a cup of milk . . .she’ll want the whole candy bar (get it . . . Milky Way galaxy . . . candy bar). The melding of two galaxies can be quite messy.

If you’re not sick of marshmallows yet then let’s return to those white puffs. Most of us have, at one time or another, stuck a marshmallow or two on a stick or an unbent wire hanger and held them close to a heart source, like a camp fire or (for you city folk who rarely get to the outdoors) just above the burner on the stove. Depending on how you hold the stick one may be closer to the heat than the other, and subsequently may begin to slide down to kiss, then stick, to the second puff. This is fine, unless the first one is on fire.

When two galaxies collide there is an amazing amount of stellar matter that merges. Surprisingly, there is a lot of space between the larger bodies and, statistically speaking, it is highly unlikely any of these will collide. A collision might be too convenient. Sometimes jumping in the pool is better than testing the water first—you get the shock over with sooner.

Our humble Earth has a certain gravitational affinity for the Sun, a consequence of the two objects comparative masses. But during the collision of galaxies it is entirely feasible that a star or planet of considerable mass could slide between us and the Sun. That would disrupt the pull of the Sun and we could begin orbiting around the new star, giving Earth only her second home star, ever. Sometimes new is good . . . this is not one of those times.

Without an energy source like the Sun nearby the oceans would freeze, all plant life would die, which of course means mankind isn’t going to fare well either. All that without any kind of object impact or collapsing home star. Depending on the mass of the new object and its distance from us we could suffer a mind numbing list of geological catastrophes, the sum of which would easily set us on the path of entering the fossil record just as any large asteroid impact might.

So what about that white goopy mess of marshmallows you created from the built up pressure and heat inside your hands? Well, to get rid of that you’d have to turn up the heat again to convert the sticky mass into something else, some other kind of energy (or foodstuff). The same can be said for the Sun.

When all that helium has been used up all that will be left is a core of carbon. This is where the train pulls into the station. You see, to convert the carbon into some other form of energy for the Sun to use would require far more heat that it could generate by further collapsing. This is the end of the line for our Sun. At this stage, when it can no longer support the processes of nuclear fusion at its core, it becomes a White Dwarf. Nothing left for the Sun to do now but cool for billions of years and eventually go dark.

So the next time you stick a marshmallow on a stick, and thrust it into the fire to toast it, think of our complete extinction!

As much as I love my country, certainly as much as I consider it a genuine blessing to be an American citizen, I am not alone in my utter repudiation of the election season. I will grant that it does have a certain element of entertainment to it—we Americans take measured delight in watching the mighty fall, or at least stumble.

Last night gave us the starting gun for the rush of the 2012 elections. Now we spend the next 11 months awash in political rancor and candidate sniping. Sadly, rather than seek a way to bring more respect to the process we seem to embrace it.

There was a time, some 250 years ago (roughly) when the ideal for selecting men for roles in the new federal government was to entreat the public to choose men of great public or community respect and admiration; men did not campaign for these positions, they were chosen by the constituents . . . by we the people.

These words of John Adams are perhaps far more relevant today than in his own time:

What is to become of an independant statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but Truth, Virtue, and his country? I will tell you, he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.

Does that really need any embellishment?

My underlying thought here was the ramping up of all the negative campaigning we’re about to be inundated with. So I thought I would break out a couple examples from our early history to illustrate that our modern mudslingers are in no way innovative in their sniping.

Thomas Jefferson on Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry was know as quite an orator. It was through one of his passionate speeches that he pursuaded the House of Burgesses to arm a militia in preparation for what was sure to become war with Britain. Before that time, however, Henry had married a wealthy woman and through a dowry acquired 300 acres and six slaves to run a small plantation. To remain solvent enough to run the place he took a few weeks to study law books then applied for a license to practice law.

Thomas Jefferson, genuinely admiring of Henry’s gift for oratorical persuasion, was less than enthused with the man’s legal acumen. “His judgement in other matters,” Jefferson wrote in a letter to fellow Virginian, James Madison, “was inaccurate; in matters of law it was not worth a copper: he was avaricious and rotten hearted. His two greatest passions were the love of money and of fame: but when these came into competition the former predominated. What we have to do is devoutly pray for his death.”

Zing! That’s pretty harsh, even by today’s standards. I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard it the first time.

John Adams and Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine did much, with his first pamphlet alone —Common Sense— but some of the ideals espoused didn’t sit well with John Adams, John Jay, and other influential founders. Adams, not one to let his pen lay idle, let flow his ink to express his lack of Paine-fandom: “What a poor, ignorant, malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass.”

“Crapulous” Man, what a great word!

Paine, having thoroughly lit into the British monarchy in his pamphlet, was certainly unafraid of Adams: “John was not born for immortality,” he wrote in response.

“The spissitude of the black liquor which is spread in such quantities by this writer,” Adams wrote of Paine, “prevents its daubing.” [in it's closest contextual definition here, 'daubing' would likely mean "to paint unskillfully"]

Paine acerbicly retorted, “Some people talk of impeaching John Adams, but I am for softer measures. I would keep him to make fun of.”

That’s political bitch slapping, 18th century style. Paine would later be proven something of an early American political prophet. After George Washington’s election as our first formal President of the United States, Adams led the Senate in a lengthy debate over how to properly refer to the man who held the office of president. Washington himself, somewhat exasperated by the lengthy titles suggested by Adams, wisely suggested “Mister President,” thus avoiding any hint of monarchy in the brand new government. Adams wouldn’t fare well despite his truly well-intentioned efforts. The senators thus began referring to him as “His Rotundity.”

Almost makes current mudslinging seem tame by comparison.

“The fact that ships sailing the Atlantic are tracing the curve of the earth is an intrinsic property of our earth’s geometry.”

Okay, that part is easy enough to entirely understand. Should not take tremendous effort to visualize a ship way off in the distance upon the ocean, almost a dot on the horizon. Unless you’re a card-carrying member of the Flat Earth club, this makes complete sense.

“The fact that we can step away from Earth and take a grandstand view is an extrinsic geometric feature.”

Again, sensible enough. We can see the actual curvature, even vast geographic features and distances, while hang gliding or on a plane flight. Zoom out a little further still, say just into orbit, and you can then internalize the “extrinsic” grandstand view.

Now, take a deep breath and really focus . . .

“But space-time has no extrinsic geometry. Travel in any direction as far as you want and you are still within the universe; travel in any straight line at the speed of light and you may eventually recross your path.”

WAIT! As Douglas Adams wrote, “DON’T PANIC!” Sit back for a moment . . . let that part sink in. It DOES make sense, in a ‘leap of faith’ sort of way.
.
Okay. Once you have that fixed in your mind then read the next part.

“If the universe is indeed akin to a finite and unbounded sphere, then its radius is time itself, and we cannot step outside and take a grandstand extrinsic view—which should not trouble us at all, until we approach the primordial singularity . . .”

Now, take in the sensual yet disturbing sensation of the human brain, your brain, turning to goo . . .

” . . . a point at which the mass of the earth (along with all the stars visible to us) squeezes into a space smaller than a gnat, smaller than a virus, smaller than a proton. The universe, at this point, becomes so dense that the speed of light is forced to change, and time itself—the “here” and the “then” and the “now”—loses all meaning.

I forgot to suggest having a napkin handy for the inevitable drooling.

How utterly insignificant are all the petty problems we face in light of this little exercise? Lose another sock in the dryer? Didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas? Take a whiff of time without meaning.

There . . . now don’t you feel better?

The soon-to-be-legendary eyes

15 years later and he's in the same position now

 
 
 
 
 
 
As most kids like to do, he seemed to especially enjoy sitting behind the wheel, didn’t matter what car. Now he does it for real. Where the hell did 15+ years go?

The impetus for this quick post wasn’t to show off old pictures as much as to share, perhaps, what struck me as the blossoming of the Christmas spirit from its most ephemeral to its most humanly tangible. Christmas, as we know and celebrate it (in its often ugliest capitalist form) is a uniquely American holiday. The real joy for we adults, I dare say, is watching the unfettered delight and bacchanalistic rapture of children as they steep themselves in all the trappings of an American Christmas morning (or Christmas Eve, for those who celebrate it the night before).

That very spirit gets captured in a frozen moment in countless photos taken by family. The two below are no exception:

All the well wishes exchanged during the holiday season can’t come close to touching us like the elation and unbridled joy, or the heartfelt smiles fixed upon the tiny faces of our children . . . and forever in our hearts.

Merry Christmas everyone, and my best wishes for a healthy and prosperous new year!

But, really, I consider this kind of stuff to be akin to mental peanut butter—it sticks to your brain and takes a bit of not entirely unpleasant work to fully unseat the matter at hand. If nothing else you might come away with a sense of awe, or maybe just a little conversation piece for later.

If you’re still here . . . thanks for sticking around :^)

Those who know me well enough understand that I have a quiet sort of curiosity, which, like a ceaselessly crying baby bird, constantly clamors to be fed. This doesn’t make me special or unique—it is but one facet of what makes me, well, me. To illustrate this I can tell you that when I do watch television it will most often be something like Discovery Channel, History Channel, or the Science Channel.

If I want to learn about the seedier side of human nature I’ll watch the local evening news for about ten minutes. Then I’m good for the next decade. Seriously. Try to convince me that local newscasts aren’t a downer . . . and good luck doing so.

Anyway, back to me!

Over the last couple years I have enjoyed offerings from The Teaching Company (The Great Courses); eleven of them thus far covering histroy (DUH!), meteorology, black holes, the brain, espionage, mythology, comparative religion, even basic structural engineering. I mention this because while browsing through another set of courses on sale I came across one titled The Joy Of Science (60 lectures—WOW!). While my wallet put an emphatic kibosh on ordering it, I did find the postulation at the end of the course summary intriguiing:

“Dr. Hazen also raises questions about claims that science is approaching its end—that all there is of significance to be learned about the natural world will soon be known.”

What . . . seriously?

The Holy Catholic Church knows better. Hell, they even tried to hide science in the basement like some sick, ethically impoverished parent. Okay, before someone gets offended understand that I’m talking back in the 17th century, people. The name Galileo might ring a bell.

Point being, man is far too curious to ever run out of things to explore, much too needful of knowledge. Once that has been achieved then he moves on to expression of that knowledge through such means as writing, art, or music. People of antiquity couldn’t quite understand their surroundings and events so they took to fanciful storytelling—myths, parables, fairy tales.

The First Doubter, Perhaps Also The First Scientist

At some point someone decided they’d had enough of all the hocus pocus and determined that a much closer inspection of what was behind the curtain was in order. We know the sky isn’t blue because Zeus (or God) colored it that way; it’s blue because of the way shorter wavelengths gets dispersed in the atmosphere, they are absorbed by gas and thus scattered. Longer wavelengths, like red, orange, and yellow pass straight through the atmosphere because they are largely unaffected by gas molecules . . . until the sun’s light is further down on the horizon, at which point those longer wavelengths are detected more readily by our eyes as they are bounced off particulate matter in the air, and we see a sunset.

See? The rational explanation does nothing to diminish the beauty of either and, frankly, just seems to make a whole lot more sense. Easy for me to say in the 21st century, of course.

Since I mentioned broad daylight and sunset I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on nighttime. We definitively state the night as being “dark,” right? But the explanation is a little deeper than that . . . sort of. First you must understand that all objects emit radiation. Some reflect more than they absorb, and vice versa. During the day the Earth reflects much more visible radiation—the longer wavelengths—so we can see; certainly, the Earth absorbs radiation, more than it reflects, actually. But at night, since the Earth produces negligible amounts of radiation at visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, we can’t see.

And you thought it was because we weren’t facing the sun.

The Universe As Death And Life

As of this writing I am currently (slowly) reading Charles Pellegrino’s Ghosts of Vesuvius. Though controversial, I was completely awed by Last Train From Hiroshima, and when GOV was suggested to me I knew I was in for an equal treat. Pellegrino has a deftly masterful way of taking the ponderously scientific and making it accessible to the reader. His writing, in both the aforementioned books, vaporizes any fallacy that science is approaching its end game.

On page 6 of Ghosts of Vesuvius he discusses how life may have been given a chance to take hold at the most profound depths of the oceans, around volcanic vents:

I know of a world in which water emerges four times hotter than steam, but the overlying miles of ocean press down with so much force as to forbid the water to boil, though it emerges hot enough to glow.

Ever drawn your hand away from a rush of steam, like from cooked food? Then you know how hot steam can be. Now reread the above quote again.

Tell me that doesn’t stoke your imagination.

And at the end of that first chapter he makes mention of noted cosmologist Carl Sagan, who “once tried to convey time’s vastness by compressing the entire history since the Big Bang (approximately 13.7 billion years) into a single year—with Earth forming between August 15 and September 10, dinosaurs arriving just ahead of Christmas Eve, and human civilization occupying the last few seconds of December 31. By Sagan’s measure,” he writes, “we have just entered the New Year, equipped with brains and seeking to understand how we were born.”

We don’t just think about the micro-world, we are intensely curious about what lies on the other side of our atmosphere. The cycle, in an odd yet sensible way, becomes a bit less vague, perhaps a touch better understood, when you consider that the macro and micro are what brought us here. We are cosmic dust. We exist because of what came from out there.

Does that sound like science is getting ready to wrap everything up and go home for eternity? I don’t think so.

As the title suggests the book deals with volcanism and its dual role as destroyer and preserver. Matter consumed by fire becomes carbonized, thus entirely destroyed yet also preserved because it no longer is susceptible to decay. This is the case with those unfortunates who lived in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Pellegrino provides exquisite (if not horrific) examples of what transpired as Pompeei’s inhabitants attempted to escape the volcanic onslaught of Vesuvius:

At the boatyard of Herculaneum, a man on horseback was vaporized to the bone in less than two-tenths of a second. Before the nerves could even begin to transmit pain, they had ceased to exist; and as he and the horse fell, the volume of water released from their tongues and their eyes and their internal organs flashed jets of vapor into the air—where, being immeasurably cooler than the surrounding atmosphere, the jets caused the ash to condense, to crystallize instantly into clumps of fluff—adding a strange, mineral snowfall to the terrestrial din. Their tongues were charcoal and their blood had become lava snow before their bones could fall to the ground.

Not only does man want to understand volcanoes and almost everything about nature iteself, we want to understand how nature affects us. In this case, nature not only killed but preserved, both horseman and horse, if only in skeletal form, their bones left for the archeological record.

Stepping Back To See The Bigger Picture

Dr. Pellegrino takes us for a ride along a historical timeline . . . but backwards. In doing so he brings a different, very intriguing perspective to the history of Time as we know it, not just the history of homo sapiens. He begins the journey in “A.D. 1996″ (Ghosts of Vesuvius was published in 2004). He uses population numbers and the construct of a human cube as a framework for imagining the sum total of humanity on Earth at a given point in time.

In this year there are nearly 100 million fewer of us than shall exist just a year later (1997), yet the mass of human flesh upon the planet weighs in at just 450 million tons. Squeezed head to head, shoulder to shoulder, we humans would form a cube barely more than a mile on a side, barely more than four times the height of the Empire State Building or the Twin Towers. And if one were to shove that cube off the edge of the continent and into the Atlantic, it would fail to raise the height of the world’s oceans by the width of a human eyelash.

Now, again, I would argue that if science (and man) were interested in strictly numbers we would stop at the population figure. But we don’t. Many nations undertake a census to understand their demographic makeup, and from that we work to understand where our populations are coming from and going to . . . then ask why, and begin a whole other course of investigation. That would be social science, every bit as inquisitive as biology, medicine, astro-physics, etc.

An interesting historical aside: This is something I did not know, something I am a bit ashamed to say given my reading and study of late 18th and early 19th century America, especially the Revolutionary War period. Pellegrino writes about the names of streets in Manhattan when the town was practically just a village. One of the streets he mentions is Cherry Street—one particular address being Number 3, Cherry Street. I did some quick research and discovered this particular location had a mansion on it which was leased by the Continental Congress in 1785 to serve as the residence for the presidents of Congress. In 1789 George Washington moved in as he began his run as our first President of the United States. Pellegrino writes “George Washington had spent a presidency at Number 3 Cherry Street, the site of America’s first White House in America’s first capitol city. Number 3 Cherry Street is fated to disappear without a trace, under the northwest foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge.”

In case you were wondering, the global population was not much over 750 million in 1789.

One of my favorite sentences thus far comes after a lengthy discourse on the makeup of stars and their behavior within galaxies and constellations, about both the violence of the stars (collapsing of gas and dust, ingredients which led to our Sun), and their beauty:

Much as our species has been made puny against the power of volcanoes, geology diminishes under the frightful majesty of the stars.

There is so much more for us to know, so much so tantalizing just beyond our grasp. We humans are many things at any given time. Nature knows so much more than we do. It remains upon us, as a species, to strike the right balance and show her the proper respect even as we pursue those same answers she withholds from us. Perhaps she does so because she knows we are not ready to know.

As for me, I cannot fathom a time when I will know all there is for me to know. For I, like you, am but stardust, and in so being am innately curious to know everything divergent and convergent within its meaning.

Fill my mind with knowledge and I shall know of power.

Give my power purpose, reason, and wisdom, and perhaps I shall ultimately understand myself.

Until that time I shall continue to be in awe of volcanoes, the heavens, and everything ethereal and physical inbetween.

The United States Postal Service is currently running a commercial aimed at driving more usage of buying postage online. I’m all about getting everyday tedium accomplished online, paying bills, etc. But this ad starts with a man saying “There’s nothing worse than having to wait in line at the post office . . .” It takes maybe three or four seconds and then it’s on to the rest of the commercial.

Nothing worse than standing in line at the post office? This is supposed to be a motivator for buying stamps online? I have zero issue with buying stamps online, only the implication that there is nothing worse than waiting to buy them at the actual post office. There really is:

• You might rip an excruciatingly loud fart during homily at mass.
• You might get caught waiting to make a left turn after an all too hearty meal of Mexican food (this actually happened to me, and I can assure it is, without a doubt, worse than standing in line at the post office)
• You might find a vein in your hot dog—okay, that’s a dusty, old joke, but it’s still relevant.
• Your doctor may sternly inform you to cut out fried foods. May as well just kill me on the spot.
• You only now learn, from reading my blog, that Soylent Green is made from people.

As trivial as most of those are they all qualify as being worse than the postal premise. It has always struck me how utterly flippant people are in their use of phrases like this. Say it aloud to yourself and listen: “There’s nothing worse than (insert personal lament here)”.

Nothing worse?

How about living in a society that rewards stupidity? “That’s absurd!” you say.

“Please,” I reply.”It’s only absurd in its ease to prove.”

“Where I come from we like to see proof” you boast. Innate curiosity mandates that I ask the natural question, “Where ya from?”

“Missoura.” (That would be Missouri for those of you not from midwest, or those who don’t recognize their own dialect.)

See . . . too easy. “Perfect,” I say, “then you’ll understand my first example.”

LaToya Jackson. She has far more money than you and I (and the other three people who read my blog) combined, hence the ‘reward’ criteria being satisfied). She publicly stated “Victory was served.”

There really are worse things than feeble-minded celebrities (or feeble-minded has beens) being given a few more seconds of exposure. People who would actually claim to look up to her . . . I’m sure they exist. Yeah, that’s worse.

Need more proof that we reward stupidity? Okay.

Let’s synchronize our Wayback Machines to February 1992. Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, sued McDonald’s for the thrid degree burns she suffered due to the hot coffee she spilled in her lap.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill [I'd have argued for 100%-JN]. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds’ coffee sales. The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000.

$640,000 is a solid award for brazen stupidity. Back to my initial postulation, that there are few things worse than living in a society that rewards stupidity.

I’ll stop at this last one: sharing national breath with a voting bloc as mind numbingly pathetic as its elected representatives. In 2011 our Congress managed to achieve the lowest poll rating—for performance—in our history: a 9% approval rating. How mud-brick-stupid are those who actually gave the thumbs up?

Only marginally dumber than those who keep returning the same non-performers in the first place.

For my money there’s little worse than any individual, collective, society, or nation that willingly refuses to engage their grey matter. Being stupid is not a crime, sadly. But if we could use it as a “revenue source” to reduce our deficit—say, by taxing every day idiocy—imagine how staggeringly fast we could reduce the federal deficit!

Oh, so now you want “everyday stupidity” defined. Well, for starters:
• texting while driving . . . monumentally stupid
• tugging on Superman’s cape . . . Croce said that was a no-no, and would be truly counter-productive, so it, too, is stupid
• leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the aisle . . . okay, that falls more under rude and inconsiderate, but it’s close enough to stupid to be valid.
• saying “Can I get” when ordering something that’s clearly on the menu. Stupid. Period.
• attempting to make meth inside a Walmart so you don’t have to buy all the fixin’s and carry them back to your Airstream home. Oh yeah, someone actually thought this was a smart idea. Not so much . . . that’s not just stupid, that’s f!$*ing stupid—on two counts.

This morsel is far too juicy to let go without a factual—yet entertaining—clipping from the news story:

Police arrived at approximately 6 p.m. as the woman was mixing the unpredictable potion in the back of the store. “When I saw her she had just finished mixing sulfuric acid with starter fluid in a bottle,” says Officer David Shelby.

According to KSDK [television], when questioned, she denied attempting to make meth in the store, but firefighters at the scene say otherwise.

“When firefighters were on the scene she made statements to them that is what she was doing, she was attempting to obtain these chemicals and was in the process of trying to manufacture meth. However, she said she was not very good at it,” said Shelby.

That, folks, is laughably stupid. WOW! “She was not very good at it.” Talk about your inability to polish a turd.

Anybody want to guess what she might say to her cell mate? “There’s nuthin’ worse than gettin’ busted for making meth at Walmart.” In her defense, her use of “nothing worse” in this situation is far closer to truth than what most people use it for. What could be worse?

The whole illegal enterprise could blow up on you. Literally. Frankly, not a waste in my book, because we then have one less moron living among us, sharing our air, voting, etc.

Which brings me to perhaps the ultimate conclusion: there is nothing worse than anything but death. Want to steal someone’s thunder when they proclaim “There’s nothing worse than coffee without cream!” Four words is all it takes.

You could be dead.

That locomotive slams to a roaring halt.

But as I have stated before on this blog, I won’t care about a damn thing when I’m dead—because I’ll be dead. There ain’t nothin’ more final than that. What’s worse at that point? Probably living. Think about it. Would you really want to continue living, coexisting, with whatever killed you in the first place? That would be pretty horrific, and in all likelihood would qualify as being far worse than standing in line at the post office.

When casual conversation allows the “nothing worse” mantra to slip in, before nodding in agreement consider the weighty untruth of the statement: being unemployed with a family to support—likely worse by comparison by a long shot; while having a cold sucks, there are many things worse than that—like cancer; being denied something you deserve or earned because you don’t fit a specific demographic or fulfill a quota—yeah, that’s worse than many things; nothing worse than stampeding crowds on Black Friday? How about the derailment and commercialization of the season—I think that qualifies as worse; any heartbreak or loss . . .

Point made?

So every time you see that commercial the rest of this holiday season, please think of this post. Moreover, I appeal to your greater sense of intelligence and enlightenment (you obviously read!) to take a split second and think before beginning or ending a sentence with the words “there’s nothing worse.”

Unless of course there really isn’t. In which case you should be held in our prayers and God’s grace for the suffering which visits you.

The question is undeniably intriguing; the answers as numerous as a star-filled night sky.

Dorothy Thomspn, and a host of contributors, make no attempt to compromise upon any one definition; they display a rational yet emotional antithesis to the one-size-fits-all school of pop culture. Romancing The Soul is a tour de force of very personal storytelling in the truest sense. Most of the accounts related could easily be construed as fodder for a movie script, yet their power comes from their firm roots in real life experience.

The stories speak not only of the individuals who experienced them, but also to the greater cosmogony of paired soul theory. Allusion is made to creation theory as it pertains to the soul, that through the passing of spiritual time all souls evolved in intimate union until eventually becoming one entity, which then divided and the two halves seek one another—”each half having not only its own gender, but a portion of the contra-gender.” This breaking up of a primal unity is echoed in the creation myths of many peoples the world over.

But Thompson and her contributors don’t delve into any theoretical forensics in search of universal answers. Doing so may have provided an intriguing framework from which to view the stories in, but would have tossed the empirical into the necessarily emotional, perhaps a bit like watching someone who has jogged in circles while touching their forehead to a baseball bat—they come away awfully dizzy and disoriented. Appealing to our better angels gives the book presence and an impressive personal jolt.

Two words spring to mind regarding this book: evocative and affecting. Even from a male perspective I can clearly perceive the emotional tug some of these stories contain. To list even a few examples here would only serve as distraction from the whole, but I can best convey the sum feeling with a movie-type analogy:

Think of any movie you’ve watched where two characters seem hell bent on remaining apart, whether through circumstance or willful control. Imagine the feeling you’ve had sitting and watching these people attempt to bond with others when you instinctively know that these two characters are meant to be together. Now try to recall the anxiety you may have felt each time one or the other is reluctant or outright dismissive—now recall the feeling you had at the end when they finally came together and how enitrely fitting it was for both of them . . .and you.

Many of these stories—more properly termed personal events, I suppose—engender that same slap in the face and tug upon the heart. If ever you have had doubts about the concept of a soul mate these episodes can only serve to squelch such dubiety and plant the seed of wonder.

But to approach this book in an effort to learn in some academic fashion would be to miss the point entirely, to succumb to primitive or “prelogical” thinking. Ms. Thompson’s goal is neither to validate one theory or another, nor is it to dismiss as trite any nuance of thoughtful assumption. During an e-mail exchange about the book she offered this insight: ” . . . it isn’t all about love and romance . . . it’s about” an ascension upon “your own personal ladder, of knowing who you are, what you are, why you are on this earth.”

The overtones should not be mistaken for being dogmatic or religious. Quite the contrary, actually. The intense experiences shared rise upon one common foundation: spirituality. If you can’t separate the two concepts—spirituality and religion—then you likely won’t properly understand the more ephemeral yet unmistakable truths the book contains.

Those possessing a more logical bent will undoubtedly hew toward the rationalization of soul mates as contrived personal mythology. But again, you must open mindedly approach the theme of souls as a matter of inherent emotion, not logic. A myth can only be a myth if you don’t believe it, that is, if you stand outside it in some manner. If you stand inside a myth it embodies something different—it becomes divine truth. Somewhere in-between those liminal stages is the emotional singularity we refer to as our soul.

Romancing The Soul is an invitation to explore, via flesh-and-blood testament of others, perhaps the most profound intrigue of enlightened man—a puzzle which only the individual can truly answer: Is there a kindred spirit for me, a duality of contra-gender invisibly fused into the profound purity of Oneness?

The answer is never handed to us on a silver platter; we must attentively seek it if we truly desire such wisdom. Ms. Thompson, et al., summon those who pursue such knowledge of transcendence and ask only for them to read with an open mind . . . and an open heart. Plato proposed the idea that humans are of two minds: one for thinking and reasoning, and the other for emotion and passion. Arguably the evidence presented in Romancing The Soul leans heavily in favor of the latter, yet is wrapped firmly in tensile strength of deeper intuition — the ‘you just know’ factor.

A review copy of Romancing the Soul was kindly provided by the author, Dorothy Thompson. My thanks to her and Zumaya Publishing for the opportunity to participate in the virtual tour.

Because she has been supportive and helpful in my promotional efforts I knew right away I would write a review for her book. I don’t review every book I read, to be sure. At the outset writing a review was my way of saying thanks. I didn’t mention it, figuring I would fly under the radar and surprise her with it later.

Of course, if I didn’t care for the book I would have told her as much. Ms. Thompson knows that although I may be verbose I always strive to be fair and professional in my reviews. Her book would be no exception to that important rule.

A couple weeks later she e-mailed me to ask if I would consider doing a review for the book as she was going to be doing a small virtual book tour of her own in support of it. I replied and told her “I was planning on doing one anyway.”

The theme of the book involved the idea of soul mates. I wouldn’t think it too outlandish to say the majority of us have, if not encountered this head on, at least considered the notion. I was primed and ready for it to arrive.

When it finally came I read a bit of it and was struck by how much it resonanted with me. Without the least forethought or mindful consideration I lit upon my keyboard and wrote her an e-mail, the contents of which is below.

I don’t offer this up as any form of personal healing or self-aggrandizment; once you read it I believe that much will be clear. My intent for posting it is as a prelude to her first ‘stop’ on her tour on Monday: my blog, for the review of Romancing The Soul. I believe its essence is woven within the content of her book.

Dorothy,

Amor Vincit Omnia,
Jeff

  •   •   •   •   •  

I certainly hope you will come back Monday morning and read my review!

You couldn’t turn on the television in the last month without seeing an ad for Walmart’s lay-a-way offering. When you walk into Walmart, K-mart, etc., you’re not expecting luxury. You expect economy, a decent deal for the few bucks you have to spend. One would fully expect to find just about anything you needed to make the holidays festive at these retailers.

Typically, however, I wouldn’t expect to find Santa.

I remember Santa only coming to big shopping malls, or maybe the elementary school. He usually set up shop in a tasteful, sometimes elaborate display in the center of the mall, lots of room for fluffy ‘snow,’ maybe two or three small Christmas trees (decked out, of course), and perhaps a few cheeky elves replete with pointy caps and shoes.

Point being that a visit to see Santa should feel like a visit to see Santa, not one to the old folks home.

I was in a Walmart this morning to get a few groceries and came across this:

If this is how Santa rolls at Walmart during the most hyped holiday of the year, one can only imagine how the Easter Bunny would hold court . . . on a porcelain throne, perhaps?

This must be where Laid-Off Santa comes to meet good girls and boys. Look at the austere set up. How can you not feel saddened by this. Hey Santa, how about I give you a gift this year, huh? Looks like the Peanuts gang gave you their homely tree, too.

Man, you couldn’t even afford a “Will be back at” clock sign! That sign on your “chair” tells me you must have given Madoff some of your meager funds. (If you can’t read it, it says “Santa will return tomorrow”, hand written in blue marker). You’ve hocked your big, overstuffed, impressive throne-like chair for a black La-z-boy? Damn!

And what’s the deal with the faux living room cardboard standup? Even televisions are embracing 3D these days, Santa. You know that, right? And they slapped you in the middle of the electronics department—well, looking on thr bright side at least they didn’t stuff you into the tire department; the Garden Center would have been a bit more airy . . . and . . . green?

As if the über-commercialization of the holiday wasn’t enough of a spirit killer for me, this profane, desultory Santa display would have made me laugh out loud if it weren’t so utterly uninspiring. Instead I am struck by how pathetically tragic this is for children who deserve more.