Sanjūsangendō of Kyoto

Sanjūsangendō, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Japan's longest wooden building, rebuilt in 1266. Alas, you're not allowed to photograph the 1,001 gilded bodhisattvas inside, so here's the outside. This page has some photos of the inner hall of statues. If you've ever read the Japanese historical meganovel Musashi (or seen the filmed adaptation Duel at Ichijoji Temple), this was where, on a snowy night in 1604, the ronin Miyamoto Musashi (perhaps the most renowned swordsman in history) dueled with Yoshioka Denshichirō.

     Denshichirō's feet inched forward. At the tip of his sword, his willpower quivered toward the start of a movement.
     Two lives expired with two strokes of a single sword. First, Musashi attacked to his rear, and Ōtaguro Hyōsuke's head, or a piece of it, sailed past Musashi like a great crimson cherry, as the body staggered lifelessly toward Denshichirō. The second horrendous scream -- Denshichirō's cry of attack -- was cut short midway, the broken-off sound thinning out into the space around them. Musashi leapt so high that he appeared to have sprung from the level of his opponent's chest. Denshichirō's big frame reeled backward and dropped in a spray of white snow.
     Body pitifully bent, face buried in the snow, the dying man cried, "Wait! Wait!"
     Musashi was no longer there.
     "Hear that?"
     "It's Denshichirō!"
     "He's been hurt!"
     The black forms of Genzaemon and the Yoshioka disciples rushed across the courtyard like a wave.
     "Look! Hyōsuke's been killed!"
     "Denshichirō!"
     "Denshichirō!"
     Yet they knew there was no use calling, no use thinking about medical treatment. Hyōsuke's head had been sliced sideways from the right ear to the middle of the mouth, Denshichirō's from the top down to the right cheekbone. All in a matter of seconds.
     "That's...that's why I warned you," sputtered Genzaemon. "That's why I told you not to take him too lightly. Oh, Denshichirō, Denshichirō!" The old man hugged his nephew's body, trying in vain to console it.
     Genzaemon clung to Denshichirō's corpse, but it angered him to see the others milling about in the blood-reddened snow. "What happened to Musashi?" he thundered.
     Some had already started searching; they saw no sign of Musashi.
     "He's not here," came the answer, timid and obtuse.
     "He's around here somewhere," barked Genzaemon. "He hasn't got wings. If I don't get in a blow of revenge, I can never again hold my head up as a member of the Yoshioka family. Find him!"
     One man gasped and pointed. The others fell back a pace and stared in the direction indicated.
     "It's Musashi."
     "Musashi?"
     As the idea sank in, silence filled the air, not the tranquility of a place of worship, but an ominous, diabolical silence as though ears, eyes and brains had ceased to function.
     Whatever the man had seen, it was not Musashi, for Musashi was standing under the eaves of the nearest building. His eyes fixed on the Yoshioka men and his back pressed to the wall, he edged his way along until he reached the southwest corner of the Sanjūsangendō. He climbed onto the veranda and crept, slowly and quietly, to the center.
     "Will they attack?" he asked himself. When they made no movement in his direction, he continued stealthily on to the north side of the building and, with a bound, disappeared into the darkness.

-- Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa (1935): Book IV, Wind, chapter 7, Reverberations in the Snow. . Translated from the Japanese by Charles S. Terry (1981).

back from Bangkok

Some photos from my recent post-election trip to Bangkok. Click here to view the whole set of 31 pics...

Yes we did.

I am exceptionally proud of my country tonight...from sea to shining sea.







Click here to see how the U.S. population voted. Scroll down to see cartograms depicting votes by population and electoral college.

Putting the "ick" in Maverick

I grow weary of your pertinacity, America. Perhaps I've focused too much on Sarah Palin in recent posts, assuming that the potential but very real danger of an obdurate Creationist cretin inhabiting the most important office in the world could persuade you to think twice about the Republican ticket. Here then is an argument against the vintage veteran himself.

I have heard conservatives state that they are voting for McCain because he was a war hero. I assume then that these same conservatives must have voted enthusiastically for John Kerry in 2004, since Bush Junior's military service history is truly risible. McCain's record, however, lacks any of the distinguishing characteristics of Kerry's (or Powell's, or Eisenhower's, or George H.W. Bush's for that matter); he was known not for being an ace Navy pilot, but as a spoiled, drunken, gambling carouser who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and used his flyboy image to get laid. He crashed 3 planes, not including the one that was shot down over Hanoi or the infamous Forrestal incident, during which he retired to the "ready room" and watched on closed-circuit TVs as over a hundred of his ship mates fought and died bravely to fight the fire that started when his A-4 bomber was accidentally struck by a Zuni rocket. He was tortured into confessing American military information in Vietnam while other POWs he served with not only never confessed but attempted escape, and were punished harshly for their patriotic intransigence.

America, please look into this investigative article by Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone. If the only things you know about John McCain's history come from his campaign or Fox News, then you owe it to yourself and to future generations to look at the other side of this coin that you value so highly.

If you support McCain because you support everything that the current administration has done for our country (McCain voted in support of Bush 95 percent of the time last year), or if you want Roe v. Wade overturned (which he lists as one of his stated goals on his website), then you should vote for John McCain without regret. His military record alone, however, does not even remotely qualify him for the office of president.

An Appeal to the Purple States

Dear America (but specifially VA, PA, CO, FL, OH, NC, NM, IN, and NV),

I'd like to encourage you to take the Republican vice presidential candidate's vacuous statements and simpleminded beliefs into account when you vote on Tuesday. In the first place, she has advocated the teaching of Creationism in public schools alongside the scientific theory of evolution. I would actually condone this, as long as our science teachers are also required to instruct students on The Dreamtime; how the Egyptian god Re called forth all living things from the endless ocean of Nun; how Eros caused Gaia to fall in love with Uranus, and the accounts of all their children and grandchildren; how Odin the All-Father shaped our world from the body of the frost giant Ymir; and perhaps most importantly, how the Flying Spaghetti Monster created our entire universe while drunk. For there is just as much evidence for all of these creation myths, and many others, as there is for Sarah Palin's legendary fable detailed in two different conflicting stories in the Genesis chapter of the Christian bible. Either we advocate teaching them all in the science curriculum, or we just stick to teaching Evolutionary Theory, which is the only story that has an immeasurable amount of scientific evidence to back it up. Creationists like to argue that Evolution is "only" a theory, but they forget that the scientific definition of the word is very different from its everyday usage. The idea that germs cause disease is also "only" a theory; in fact, gravity is "only" a theory as well.

Still unconvinced that this candidate is daft? In her first big policy speech on Friday, she mocked fruit fly research while advocating more money for parents of special needs children. Drosophila melanogaster, or common fruit flies, are a model organism in biological and genetic research, essential for the study of genetics and developmental biology. This is the equivalent of saying, "Instead of funding research into airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones in the interest of improving car safety standards, we're just going to give cash to people who have to take care of loved ones maimed in car accidents." This candidate is DANGEROUSLY scientifically illiterate. Please view the clip below for details.



"This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment that we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there has been a lot of competition for that prize."
-- Richard Wolffe, Newsweek senior White House correspondent

VOTE

I mean it this time. Last night, I met up with a friend of mine who is not a U.S. citizen. She brought along a friend of hers, a 24 year-old African-American girl originally from Pennsylvania. This girl seemed to be relatively intelligent and sophisticated. She seemed to have her life together. However, when the conversation turned to politics, she revealed that she's not registered to vote. When I inquired why not, she stated that she just doesn't know much about the issues and that it doesn't seem important to her.

15 hours later, I am still stunned and unnerved.

The Jetlag Strikes Back

It's 03:54 Sunday morning and I'm still restless. My evil jetlag has, however, proved useful in getting the remainder of my Aussie photos posted up to Flickr. Click here for more avian therapod dinosaur descendants; for six and a half foot-long goannas; for blue mountain majesty; for feces-ingesting arboreal marsupials; for yellow-footed wallabies and red kangaroos; and for highly venomous serpents. See below for a few samples.

DON'T VOTE.

to quote from a previous blog entry, "Right now, disenfranchised people all over the globe are struggling for the right to self-determination, a right many of us take for granted. Our forebears fought and sometimes died to secure for us the right to choose our leaders. Don't squander this precious gift."

Taronga, Kirrawee, Illawarra, Woolloomooloo

Ho hum, another brilliant day in Sydney. What's uncommon about this one is that I don't have to work. I hopped a bus to the Apple Store this morning and uploaded some photos from last Sunday's visit to Taronga. The koalas, wombats, wallabies, and platypus were all pretty cool, but my favorite encounter of the day may have been with the emu -- mainly because I got to walk right up to the Brobdingnagian beast with no barrier separating us.




Click here to view the thumbnail shots of the zoo (they're the ones with the animals), or else clicking on the above photos will take you directly to their individual pages.

After some morning internet activity I yum cha'd at Marigold in Chinatown with some of the Animal crew, and I'm now riding a train to Kirrawee on the Illawarra line to Cronulla. We just pulled out of Wolli Creek station. Does this sound like foolish baby talk? OF COURSE. But I'm starting to get used to it.

Just call me a drongo if I ever say I want to watch some footy while drinking a cuppa for brekkie.

When Atheists Attack

Dear America,

I'm relieved to see that you're finally beginning to express some trepidation about a "Palin-McCain Administration" (her words, not mine). If you're still leaning in the Republican direction, however, I'd encourage you to read this Newsweek article by Sam Harris. Yes, he is one of the so-called New Atheists, and I know how you feel about them apostates, both old and new. But please, look past his identity and just take note of what he has to say. After all, you don't have to renounce your belief in a god to listen to reason. And it is reasonable to expect a dangerous outcome for our country, indeed the world, if someone as inexperienced and self-righteous as Sarah Palin should happen to be hiked the nuclear football.

Here is the link to the article in its entirety.

"Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated." -- Sam Harris

Top Republican says Palin unready

Click here to read this brief BBC article from Tuesday.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Exactly, Mr. Hagel. I'm speechless as well.

How to Speak Australian

G'day.....Hello/Hey/Good morning/What's up
Bottle-O.....Bottle shop (Liquor store)
Heaps.....A lot/very (as in, "That's heaps cool!")
Mate.....Man/holmes/dude/friend
How you going?.....How you doing?
Sultana Bran.....Raisin bran
Lolly.....Candy
Footy.....Football
Footpath.....Sidewalk
Haitch.....The letter "H" ( as in, "Haitch ess bee see bank")
Hyaah.....Here
Hungry Jack's.....Burger King
Whinge.....To complain
Reggo.....Registration
Cuppa.....Cup of tea
Light globe.....Light bulb
Umbrella.....Disposable instrument that keeps the rain off of you for 10 minutes before exploding in a gust of wind

ignorance ain't bliss

You know what's great about living in Australia? There's no chance that an economic simpleton will become the Vice President anytime soon.

That, and chocolate-scented deodorant.

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Dear America,

What's wrong with you? A new national poll has put Obama and McCain in a dead heat, 42% to 42%. Time is running out for you to wake the hell up. Oh, I watched a little of the Republican Convention; I can see the appeal of all those red, white and blue balloons. But it'll take more than helium to turn this ship around. And what's with McCain now claiming to be the "candidate of change"? Sir, you cannot wear that hat when you agree with the current administration on nearly 100% of its policies, including the failed and foolish ones (100% in 2008, 95% in 2007). In fact, McCain sided with Bush more than any other Republican in the Senate in 2007. This is the "candidate of change"? What happened to the Straight Talk Express of yesteryear? What happened to "the Maverick"? Where be your defiance now? Your ability to speak truth to power? Gone, like all my respect for you when you embraced Jerry Falwell's chubby flanks after rightfully calling him an "agent of intolerance". Crash and burn, eh, Mav?

America, please peruse this article on Sarah Palin from Thursday's L.A. Times, by Gloria Steinem (Yes, she was an idiot in the child sexual abuse scandals of the 1980s, but this time she's on the right side of science, unlike Ms. Palin). Click here to read the article in its entirety, these are just a few representative quotations.

"When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

"She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

Some pics from Sydney up on Flickr

Sydney Harbour Bridge, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

Sydney, Australia: world capital of abandoned umbrellas. Walking from Surry Hills to George Street in the driving rain today, I came across at least a dozen broken umbrellas; tossed aside in gutters, parks, on the footpath, and sticking out of rubbish bins. I even bore witness to an act of abandonment: I saw the wind rip an umbrella out of the hands of a girl six meters ahead of me and watched it float back, people dodging it, until it was caught by a man just in front of me. Actually it wasn't ripped from her hands, since she still held the handle -- it had broken off mid-stem. She didn't even attempt to recover it! She just threw the handle to the ground and leaned into the wind, driving her now empty hands deep inside her pockets.

I'm sitting on the top floor of the Apple store looking at the umbrella that I bought for $11 a few hours ago. It's already bent and pitiful. It won't close because the hooks that hold it shut were busted by the force of the gale. I'll probably toss it into the air on the way home and watch it sail away.

Go to http://flickr.com/photos/ninedragons/ to see the photos from last week, before the rains came.

my first foray into the southern hemisphere

Dear America,

I've been hired for a freelance gig by a company in Australia. The itinerary isn't finalized yet, but I think I'll be leaving for Sydney this Thursday. I'll be back around mid-October -- in my absence please come to the realization that John McCain is a lying (or senile) economic ignoramus married to a thieving drug addict. Sorry, reformed thieving drug addict. Can you imagine if the tables were turned and Mrs. Obama had been the one stealing from her own charity to feed her drug habit?

Have a good time, and don't forget to water my plants.

Sincerely,

SeeLance

Look Who's Popular Now

or, An Examination of the Comparable Popularity of my Most-Viewed Photos on Flickr.

Flickr has a useful and interesting "stats" page, wherein I can easily peruse my photos in order of popularity (judged by a number of criteria, but the one I find most interesting for the purposes of this discussion is Views, or my "200 most popular bits, ordered by the most views". What follows are my top five pics, in descending order:



This photo of Michelangelo's Moses is far and away my most popular, with a whopping 568 total views. What's so great about it? Nothing -- it's an average photo of a breathtaking but not overly famous sculpture in Rome. I've got a better photo of Vatican City's Laocoön group that didn't even break the top 15. But the link to "Horned Moses" pops up early on in Yahoo!'s image search engine; in fact, 147 people have image-searched Yahoo! for "moses" and stumbled across this photo. What does that say about internet users in general? I think it's safe to say that there are a lot of religious or religi-curious people conducting searches on the Web.



Next up, with 343 views is this pic of a Japanese student wearing socks bearing the Playboy Bunny emblem. Some key search phrases entered on both Yahoo! and Google that have yielded this photo are: " teen socks", "teen uniform", "playboy rabbit", and "playboy socks". Not only are the netizens of this world religious, they're also prurient. Fascinating dichotomy, no?




These next two photos (with 302 and 276 views, respectively) are similar and occur right next to each other in my photostream, so it's a fair assumuption that a visitor to one might spot and click the other's thumbnail also. These will rise to the surface if people conduct a search for "harajuku" or "harajuku girls". Thank you, Gwen Stefani.



This one is number five with a bullet. Only a few days ago did it edge past my sixth-most popular photo (another Harajuku girl), with 265 views. Google, Yahoo!, and Baidu (a Chinese search engine) searchers for "Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni" have clicked on this photo I took in HK last December. What can I say, other than that the Olympics are a phenomenon.

Olga Teresa Cordeiro Souza

with Grandma and Stitt in front of the HSBC building, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

July 31, 1926 -- July 22, 2008

"You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil
the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide
unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of
the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of
spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands
before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the
mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the
sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless
tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

dreaming of eating at home

Daruma Gigante, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

I've been up in Walnut Creek for almost 3 weeks now. A bad time to be introduced to Just One Plate, a site devoted to some marvelous restaurants and patisseries (and their chefs) native to L.A. Fortunately, the site gives recipes from these eateries, so perhaps I can prepare braised loup de mer with butter lettuce or seafood nage normand for my grandmother up here. Prospects are doubtful, though: I made banana bread with my sister over the weekend, but it emerged rather gummy and dense.

What a difference a week makes

Ryozen Kannon, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

One week ago tonight, I was lying on the floor of Narita Terminal 1, delirious and feverish, vomiting every 15 minutes. I only recall bits and pieces, like a fast-fading dream, but I know that my sister and a Singapore Airlines rep had to escort me to my flight in a wheelchair. A severe case of food poisoning torpedoed my last day and a half in Japan, but it didn't scupper my entire trip. That was then. Before I returned to the States and heard the news.

I am now in Walnut Creek, in my grandmother's condo. I drove up from L.A. last night. My parents and I checked her out of the hospital today, and she is now sleeping fitfully behind me -- HFA has set up a hospital bed in her living room. Her oncologist expects her to live another month; four short weeks. I expect that I will be driving up and down the I-5 at least a few times for the duration, trying to remain here as much as possible.

As a diversionary tactic, I stayed up all night on Wednesday, my last night in L.A., uploading most of my photos from Japan to Flickr. As a distraction, it didn't work. Nevertheless, The photos are there, and here is the link.

Oyasuminasai.

Nihon ni ikimashou!

Fun Harajuku Girls, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

I'm out of the country for the next two weeks with JC. Tokyo, Kyoto, maybe Nikko...who knows. I'll share with you when I get back.

The Sony Bravia Ads

In the order in which I dig 'em.

Oh My Teapot!

(Russell's Teapot design from InklingMagazine.com by Patrick Quigley)

Russell's Celestial Teapot finally wins over a worshiper! At long last someone has realized that the existence of Bertrand Russell's miniature china teapot, spinning ad infinitum somewhere in the void between Earth and Mars, is just as likely as that of the biblical Christian god! Or rather, that said teapot is just as deserving of idolatry as the god of the Christians. Click here to read the story at The Telegraph.co.uk. The bad news, however, is that this convert to Teapotism is a former Muslim Malaysian, and she's been arrested because Islamic apostasy is against the law in her country, punishable by jailtime.

I've actually been to Kuala Lumpur for a few days (my most memorable experience was climbing Cesar Pelli's stunning Petronas Towers while they actually were the world's tallest buildings) and this news is extremely troubling to me. My impression was that of a tolerant and "moderate" majority-Muslim country, divorced from the hardcore Wahhabism of the Near East, that endorsed freedom of religion and worship as well as the freedom not to worship. It appears now that my impression was wrong.

I offer up a prayer for poor Kamariah Ali:

Our little Teapot, short and stout,
who art in the heavens,
Hallowed be thy Brew.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in High Tea.
Give us this day our daily Scones.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into soft drinks,
But deliver us from Coffee.
[For the Earl Grey, the Chrysanthemum,
and the English Breakfast are yours
now and for ever. Amen.]

Phoenix Weekend

Desert hiking, man-made lake boating, fountain gazing, and carny folk hatin' -- you can see last weekend's set of 37 photos here.





And for Mack's perspective, pics, and a list of our our discussion topics from the weekend, you can cross-reference his blog here.

When Teddy Bear Chollas Attack!

As I was crouching down to take the above photo of Cylindropuntia bigelovii (Teddy Bear Cholla make you holla!), I stepped on a cholla ball which embedded itself in the sole of my trainer. I gave my foot a fast flick to get the thing off, and it rolled up the side of my sneaker into my ankle. Enter one Wilhelm scream, stage left.



Dave tried mashing it between two rocks and pulling, but that only drove it further in. Mack (my hero) finally took off his undershirt and, wrapping it around his paw like an oven mitt, yanked the barbed ball clean off, impaling himself in the process. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to immediately begin packing the wound with tiny leaves torn from a random nearby bush -- good thing poison ivy doesn't grow in the desert. Here is the video of the climax:



If the embedded video doesn't play for you, here is the link to the YouTube URL. Also, for Mack's pics & perspective on our day in the desert, see his blog entry here. More photos to come from our second day on Saguaro Lake...

Field Trip

On the first of February, I drove out to Joshua Tree with Mack and bShawley. The national park is sterling; what's even more first-class is driving 315 miles averaging 45.6 mpg. I think Mack was especially impressed given the fact that he's driven about 4,000 miles in the last 6 weeks, all in a Toyota Tacoma.







I'm posting this now because bShawley has just uploaded his Lomo fisheye pics as well (see the sweet camera in the second image above). You can peep them here, while my pics are on my Flickr page.

Ambulacral Groove

Starfish, originally uploaded by xopherlance.

From the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific this past Sunday. Those are tube feet, and they're what starfish walk around on. Almost as cool as the iridium flare I saw on Monday evening. No photos of that, though.

Dumb just doesn't do it for me anymore

In 1993 I was a freshman at VA Tech, and I loved dumb blondes. Alabama Worley (née Whitman), played ever so sweetly by Patricia Arquette in True Romance, was my Platonic ideal of the female in form and action (but especially form -- know what I'm sayin'?).

Check out this video of Kelly Pickler. This is the first time I've ever heard of her (ignorance of American Idol is truly bliss) and hopefully the last. With her platinum locks, doe-eyed naiveté and sweet Tar Heel accent, she is the living embodiment of 'Bama; and she's helped me to realize that I don't find dumb blondes as attractive as I once did. In fact, the word "loathe" comes to mind.



Some representative Ms. Pickler quotations:

"I thought Europe was a country!"
"Buda...Budapest? I never even heard of that!"
"Like, I know they speak French there...don't they?"
"Like, I want to say...is France a country?"

[All of these lines get laughs from the audience, not the gasps of horror and shame they deserve.]

Are you as turned off as I am yet? Tomorrow I'm attending a panel discussion on nuclear energy at the California Science Center, where I'm hoping to encounter some hottie geniuses who can wash out the bad taste this clip has left in my mouth.

Looks can only get you so far in this country, Kelly, and the world is much bigger than this country. Even so, I'd still like to watch you beat the $#!+ out of James Gandolfini in a motel bathroom.

Lunar Eclipse

This afternoon I was driving Soy home from Yogurt Land when NPR informed us of the imminent lunar eclipse. On a whim, we turned round and headed up to Griffith Observatory to sneak a peek at this evening's main event in our solar system. There were a few news vans, some amateur (and professional) astronomers with their 'scopes, and a crowd of a hundred or two shivering sky gazers spread out across the lawn. What impresses me most about seeing the full moon through the lens of a telescope is the fact that it resembles what it actually is: an orb of pale rock and dust, pitted with scars and craters, sailing through the vast emptiness of space. It is a reality check, a reminder of the true nature of the grand universe we inhabit. Under normal circumstances, a glance up at a full moon will reveal a bone-white disc, seemingly tacked to the firmament and changing its position every so often. I think it's the lack of detail that defeats us -- when viewed under a 25x telescope one can see clearly the receding perspective of the mountains, ridges, and seas as they near the edge of the sphere.

We watched the shadow of our planet slowly encompass our anemic satellite; we saw the fingernail crescent of sunlight shrink inexorably to nothingness. We stayed through the 52-minute pinkish totality, the time when the Earth is between the moon and the sun -- when it is lit only by the light skimming off our edges, through our atmosphere. As Jim, our telescope operator, so poetically put it, "the moon is lit only by all the sunrises and sunsets taking place on the planet right now". There are some good pictures on the Pharyngula Science Blog.

The undercards tonight were just as cool as the main event: we were witness to an iridium flare, when a beam of sunlight catches a reflection off of an iridium satellite passing overhead a couple hundred miles up in the sky -- it looked like a shooting star that grew brighter than the stars around it over 20 seconds or so and then faded away; and the planet Saturn, which looks just as your mind's eye pictures it, only tinier.

Self-deprecation is AWESOME

Why I will vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday

Although I view the Democratic nomination race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as a choice between a mediocre candidate and a truly worthy candidate, there are several key reasons why I cannot in good conscience cast a vote for Clinton. She reflects more mainstream Democratic positions and has endorsed universal health care for a decade, but she is also a war hawk, and there is not much sunlight between her and McCain on many issues. In fact, she is more conservative than McCain on several key issues, as evidenced by Ann Coulter's endorsement of Clinton over McCain. That endorsement should tell you everything you need to know, but here are five major points on which Clinton and I diverge:

1. She is in favor of maintaining the Patriot Act as it is, sections of which have been ruled unconstitutional multiple times by multiple U.S. courts, and is in clear violation of both our 4th and 1st Amendments.

2. She is in favor of military action against Iran, a country whose nuclear program we ourselves established in the 1950s, and for which no current evidence exists. In fact, our National Intelligence Estimates put the Iranians about 10 years away from developing a nuclear bomb and state that they shelved the idea of maintaining a nuclear arsenal about 4 years ago. Despite this, Hillary unapologetically goose steps with the Neoconservatives when Bush rattles his saber at Iran, displaying the same gullibility that led her to so enthusiastically follow him into war in Iraq.

I believe that Pakistan is a much more dangerous prospect, as it most likely still harbors the Al Qaida operatives who planned 9/11 and was one of only two countries in the world that recognized the oppressive Taliban regime as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. But Bush has rewarded Pakistan by dropping the sanctions imposed by Clinton, selling them boatloads of military planes and equipment, and has given them 10 billion dollars in aid since 9/11. All this while the father of their nuclear program, A.Q. Khan, gave secrets of their nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran while riding back and forth from those countries on the aircraft we sold them. He now has been pardoned by President Musharraf and lives free in Pakistan. Agencies of our government are not permitted to detain him and to this day have not been able to even interview him. With key allies like Musharraf, who needs enemies? Clinton criticized Obama for stating that "...if we have actionable intelligence on Al Qaeda operatives [in Pakistan] including Bin Laden, and President Musharraf cannot act, then we should."

3. She is in favor of building a fence along our border with Mexico. This is the most inane idea in recent history. If you really want illegal immigrants out of the country, there is a cheaper solution: impose much stricter fines on the corporations, agriculture companies, small business owners, and contractors who employ them, and then enforce those fines. We might even be able to win back some of our budget surplus that Bush squandered on the Iraq invasion. Without available jobs, aliens will have no other option but to return to their home countries -- if there is no wall at the border to stop them. Of course, doing this would impose a huge financial burden on those American businesses, which would have to hire more expensive citizen workers. Many of them would suffer and even go bankrupt, but that's the cost of not having illegal labor in our country. So instead, let's just throw up another billion or two and build a modern Great Wall of China -- which didn't work for them, either -- because it looks impressive and we can all go back to eating our cheaply farmed food and working in our spotless office buildings.

Alternatively, if you're hankering for a large federally mandated construction project, why not build better levees in New Orleans? They currently are engineered to hold up against a Category 3 hurricane (Katrina was a Category 3.5), and the entire levee system is still sinking so over time it will be less and less effective. Coincidentally, Obama wants to protect New Orleans against even a Category 5.

4. She is in favor of the death penalty, while I believe that, with all the recent exonerations of death row inmates using DNA evidence, a moratorium on executions is needed to prevent the sanctioned murder of innocents who had bad lawyers. I also believe that for the guilty, lifetime imprisonment with one's conscience in a cage under armed guard is a far more effective punishment than the escape and quick release of an early demise.

5. She is in favor of torture. Simply put, Hillary Clinton supports the use of torture by American forces and intelligence agencies, while even John McCain does not. This is one of the reasons why Ann Coulter despises McCain.

Regardless of who you vote for, please vote on Tuesday. If you don't yet know who your candidate is, visit The Pew Forum's website, where you can choose an important issue and compare the candidates' views on that issue. Also, there is this nifty tool that allows you feed in your positions on a variety of political issues and then spits out a chart displaying the candidates which agree with you the most and enumerates the topics on which you disagree.

Map, Schmap

Two of the photos that I have posted on my Flickr account have been selected by Schmap!! to be used in their online map/travel guides. I had never heard of them either, but hey, I'm still honored. One photo features the Walt Disney Concert Hall here in downtown, and the other is a pic of the toilet and bidet in my bathroom at the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome:





The downtown L.A. Schmap!! page is here, and Schmap!!'s deluxe hotel guide to Rome is here. In both cases, my photo (and credit) appears in the upper right.