Star Stuff

Hubble Telescope ~ NASA

Excerpted from Lessons of Immortality and Mortality from my father, Carl Sagan, by Sasha Sagan, in New York Magazine:

"You are alive right this second. That is an amazing thing," they told me. When you consider the nearly infinite number of forks in the road that lead to any single person being born, they said, you must be grateful that you're you at this very second. Think about the enormous number of potential alternate universes where, for example, your great-great-great grandparents never meet and you never come to be. Moreover, you have the pleasure of living on a planet where you have evolved to breathe the air, drink the water, and love the warmth of the closest star. You're connected to the generations through DNA - and, even farther back, to the universe, because every cell in your body was cooked in the hearts of stars. We are star stuff, my dad famously said, and he made me feel that way."

Riding a bike

I remember learning to ride a bike. First there were training wheels, which came off after a couple of days. Then came that sudden and liberating feeling when momentum and balance came together - I was riding on my own. Our house was in a neighborhood with a long flat road, and near the far end it became a horseshoe with an adjoining road with a steep hill. I mustered the courage to ride down the hill, picked up speed, and saw traffic whizzing by at the bottom. In a panic, I forgot to slow down with the foot brakes. As I neared the bottom, I made a hard left turn into the last driveway, hit the asphalt curb and went head over heels over the handlebars onto the front lawn, pride shaken but not broken. I got back on.

Watching this video brought those downhill memories back. Whoa.

Lunar Eclipse Tetrad

From nasa.gov:

In 2014, there are two solar eclipses and two total lunar eclipses as follows:

2014 Apr 15: Total Lunar Eclipse

2014 Apr 29: Annular Solar Eclipse

2014 Oct 08: Total Lunar Eclipse

2014 Oct 23: Partial Solar Eclipse

From the Vineyard Gazette:

"A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, earth and moon align, causing the earth's shadow to fall on the moon and darken it. During the lunar eclipse, the moon appears a blazing red, and this is called a blood moon. The color results from the refraction of sunlight in the earth's atmosphere or, more romantically, all of the sunsets and sunrises of the earth.

"But this one is special. In fact, it is the first of a series of four total lunar eclipses. This unique happening is referred to as a tetrad. The initial lunar eclipse of the series occurs in the early morning hours of April 15, and the subsequent ones fall on October 8, April 4, 2015, and September 28, 2015.

"Although lunar eclipses average twice a year, not all of them all total eclipses. The other types include penumbral eclipses and partial eclipses, but a tetrad of four total eclipses is notable. During the 20th century, there were only five tetrads, but from 1600 to 1900 there were none."

Once in blue moon, one might say? No, a blue moon is something entirely different.

Enjoy. 

Liberal Totalitarianism

Anthony Burgess was ahead of his time, by more than 50 years, in fact.

Remember the Ludovico Technique, an aversion therapy where the forced watching of violent images (while listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under a nausea-inducing drug), conditioned Alex to modify his violent behavior?

A Clockwork Orange ~ 1971

Well, this week Mother Jones reported on political scientist John Hibbing at the University of Nebraska, who has done studies with eye-tracking technology to determine the different physiological responses of conservatives and liberals to negative and aversive images.

University of Nebraska 

"Conservatives tended to focus their eyes much more rapidly on the negative or aversive images, and also to dwell on them for a lot longer. The authors therefore concluded that based on results like these, 'those on the political right and left may simply experience the world differently.

"One of the biggest differences clearly involves the emotion of disgust. Hibbing and his colleagues showed that a higher level of disgust sensitivity is predictive not only of political conservatism but also disapproval of gay marriage."

Clearly? Really? May I suggest Mother Jones' editors will find a much higher correlation between liberal Hollywood producers, directors and actors and their negative and aversive images in the movies? Jack Reacher and Gangster Squad, two movies that Hollywood studios humbled themselves to delay for a couple of weeks after the Sandy Hook shootings, come to mind. Never mind Django Unchained.

For the sake of argument, let's give Hibbing's findings a momentary presumption of validity. How does one square conservatives' alleged "disgust sensitivity" with this week's news about the leftist digital mob that forced Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich's resignation due to an entirely legal $1000 donation in 2008 to California's then successful Proposition 8 ballot initiative, that amended the state's constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman? Know that over several years at the company, Eich never espoused his personal views, nor limited the hiring or advancement of Mozilla's gay employees. He simply gave money to a cause consistent with his personal beliefs, but California's campaign disclosure laws exposed some who supported Prop 8 to death threats, job loss, property damage and public censure.

Recall that 2008 presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both supported the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that same year, positions they both held until 2012 until it was no longer politically advantageous. By logic, should the President resign? Will the left conflate Clinton's prior "disgust" with gay marriage and disqualify her as a 2016 candidate? And, will contributors to candidates or causes that held views that future sensibilities find politically incorrect later be denied employment or advancement ex post facto?

And how does one understand the "disgust sensitivity" of a small number of over-entitled students this week at Dartmouth College? They took over the president's office overnight to advance a 70-item "Freedom Budget" of "micro aggressions" by the administration, insisting on strict new quota and preferential admission policies for "womyn" and people of color, as well as unisex bathrooms, even in sports locker rooms. What's more, the aggrieved students' manifesto demands the school's health plan cover sex change operations to empower "body and gender self-determination."

Today's politically correct notions of social justice, accelerated by the Internet, unchecked by a compliant mainstream media, and ignored by a weary and resigned public, know no bounds. Such irony isn't just disturbing, it's downright dangerous.

N.B. I fully support same sex marriage.