Cosmic Creature Of The Night

P L E A S E C L I C K !!!
Look what NASA'a Spitzer Space Telescope brought in for us: a coiled creature called NGC 1097 and spiraled, like our Milky Way galaxy. This is 50 MILLION light years away.

Those long, spindly "arms" are all stars and look at the center, at the "eye". That's a monstrous BLACK HOLE surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the black hole is blue, the stars are white.

This black hole is truly a monster - 100 MILLION TIMES THE MASS OF OUR SUN. It feeds off gas and dust, and the occasional unlucky star. Our Milky Way's central black hole is quite tame in comparison, with only a few million suns, or stars.

The ring around the black hole is BURSTING with new star formations. Other dots in the picture are stars from our galaxy or other distant ones. LIFE!! Explosive eh?

Spider Commits Suicide

Okay this is true, I know it because the HIStory Channel never lies. There's this parasite, loves spiders innards, and when it burrows into the stomach parts the spider starts to feel poorly. This parasite is called a leech-miasis. So it starts to get fat inside the spider until the poor insect is in agonies of pain. Now, the spider lives with a seeming knowledge that it will die if it falls into water. But I saw it jump right into a pool of water with what (anthropomorphically) looked like purpose. Surely it knew it was carrying a parasite? I don't know, but somehow must've known it would die in the effort, and chose death rather than live with such pain. The film showed how the parasite crawled out of the spider as it died.

If true, what does the ability of other animals to understand suicide tell us about life? Even more poinant, what does it say about sacrifice, not just blind instinctual action?

Remember the elephant matriarch who threw herself in front of a pack of wild dogs to save her sister? No, not to distract, she tried that. She tossed her weight onto the dogs by throwing her immense bulk onto the ground. They tore her up pretty badly but she accomplished what seemed her goal: saved her sister. Gave her life. Just laid down. I know it sounds (again) very personally anthropomorphic but what a concept - humanity in other animals.

I like it. Might mean there's hope for us.

My Country, Stupid

"I SAID I LOVE THIS COUNTRY DAMN IT NOW GO SIT ON A FIRECRACKER AND GET OUTTA MY FACE IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN LEAVE !!!!"
America ....... America ...... God shed His grace on thee......please!?

Okay I'll Bite Damn It

This is shameless of me, I've actually decided that since so much about death is being fed through all media I should naturally do likewise. That said, on with the show:

IMHO: Death is the best part of this journey - you have no idea where you're going or what you'll look like or who you'll meet or what you'll think or even if you'll be able to. Isn't that exciting? Why don't more people find that ... a wonder?

Imagine if we didn't put these ridiculous large heavy carved stones over the dead who lay useless underground: if you didn't know they were there, you might not have to think about them as dead, you just MIGHT be able to think of something else. WHY do we memorialize the dead? I understand having memories but this ritual is just wasteful. How did this habit get so popular?

Thank you and goodnight Farrah, Michael, and the nameless tens of thousands who also died in the last week. HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU! MIRACULOUS JOURNEY! SAY HI TO EINSTEIN! GIVE JESUS MY BEST! KISS MOTHER TERESA FOR ME! TELL POPE CLEMENT HE WAS A FOOL! HEY MOM - HEY DAD - CAN'T WAIT TO BE WHATEVER YOU TURNED INTO! CAN'T WAIT TO COME BACK FOR MORE....

LIFE and DEATH and LIFE and DEATH and . . . .

"Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln...

....did you enjoy the play?"




I was thinking after reading your last post, (yes yours) the importance of pain in our lives. Sometimes it's all you need.

How many of us go to amazing lengths to insure we never feel anything but what we choose? It reminds me of that kid with the iPod, he only has to hear what he wants, talk when he wants, listen or not listen, the universe can continue to expand and he only needs to care about his own little world. Is this okay?

It's not easy - after getting a dose of pain I look for it to get lost, fast. I reach for something, anything, even just a book. We don't like to feel uncomfortable. Some say we should never have to be. Now I imagine a machine-run world where our backsides are so wide from never having to do anything we turn into giant arses. Not an appealing vision.

This isn't a judgment call. I'm simply curious what you do to relieve pain. Any kind. Talk to me, Mrs. Lincoln......

Our Unquiet Sun

You are looking at a total solar eclipse isn't it fascinating? This thing, this star we call the Sun, and in latin is "Sol" makes our "Sol-ar" system the miracle it is. Without the gravity of this actually quite mediocre star, there would be no galaxy. Does that mean there would be no life?? That is exactly what it means. No life.




"Sol" is a star like many others its size, it's like a tiny nuclear reactor plant, using fusion to operate. If this planet were only a few inches closer or farther away, life couldn't have taken footholds here. That always makes me wonder exactly where WOULD it have started, if not here - on Earth. IF AT ALL. We've found the building blocks, the nitrates, the microbes, even the frozen water, but not the life we seek. Only here. And the Sun could wipe us out. Actually, one day it will - but humankind will have gone extinct by then, probably the last to extinguish.

And look at this Solar flare, doesn't it make you feel small and helpless against such forces? Amazing.





This is the moon as it "transits" or moves across the face of the Sun. It took over 12 hours to make the complete trip.






Can you see the light at the center of this nebula? It's coming into being - all those gases and dust clouds, all that space debris forming odd shapes and mysteries in our minds. Nebulas are nurseries for stars, this is where they're born.


Here's an X-ray image of the Sun, you wouldn't even recognize it otherwise. And this was taken while the Sun was "quiet" how incredible.


So restless, this unquiet star, Such power.

I truly believe the ancients knew something about this orb of magic and wonder. What did they know that we may've forgotten?







Look closely as VENUS transits the Sun. See it?


If nothing else, we owe this star our everlasting WONDER.

June 6, 1944

O lonely dove of peace, whereby you find no resting place but these .... ?


Dare I walk this land so emboldened with youthful dead hearts, and not feel a great piercing cry lift from my soul ..... a cry for peace oh peace rest within my heart, I give you comfort, come now - all is done. All is done. Rest.