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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.
It's so incredible - our trusty eye in space is still taking and obeying commands. One of the most astounding, remarkably powerful astrological facts we've uncovered is that we know nothing. Nothing.
There's so much "dark matter" in the known universe I can't begin to estimate how many places life must have taken hold in other galaxies.
But here's a thought, not ignored by many cosmologists:
WHAT IF "LIFE" AS YOU AND I KNOW IT WAS A FREAK ACCIDENT?
When you examine how carbon-based life began here, from some early cosmic thunderbolt into an expanse of ocean, igniting the first nucleated cell, which replicated and sat in the primordial ooze, the tiny one-celled creatures becoming multi-cellular, replicating all over the place until they formed a mosquito, how incredibly random does that sound? So so random.
Almost TOO random.
Maybe the most accidental things are really well-planned out chaos.
The theory of chaotic discipline in the universe isn't new, and it's very ponderous - maybe we humans are thinking a bit too much about it all.
Life - so far as we know - has not occurred anywhere else but here.
I know, you're thinking of water. Where's there's water, life can flourish. 
You're thinking of the polar ice caps of Mars, or Neptune. But that's not frozen water, it's permanently solid gas - mostly methane. There's just no proof that liquid water ran freely on Mars or anywhere else we've been able to explore. Except here.
And we don't understand any other life but water and carbon. On this planet there are 3 forms of life and no more: animal, vegetable and mineral. No silicone-based life, no floating gas-based life.
So picture what a creature on Jupiter would look like: It's a gas giant, any life would be gaseous, perhaps like a blown up jelly-fish sort of structure with tentacles to reach out and grab "food" from the gas clouds. What food?
As I look at this planet from the vantage of space, I have to wonder:
Was this all one big accident?
Remember what, exactly? As I was taught, this is the day we commemorate the people (men, women, babies) who died in wars. We recall their sacrifice, isn't that it? OK dig:
I hear: "I don't support the war but I support our brave soldiers in Iraq" or thereabouts.
When I hear this I look for my lobotomy ice-pick and hope that person is using one. You WHAT???
You don't like fighting or killing, but you like the fighters and killers. Explain please. Explain explain explain.
How about "I don't support rape but I baked cookies for our brave rapists." What's worse, killing or rape? What's the difference.
This should be "Educate Day" so people can understand the truth behind our high-sounding words in those sacrosanct documents we keep mummified in Washington, with the rest of the mummies.
While we're at it - instead of looking to the cartoon we call a President, why not discover who really runs this great brave biggest and baddest-on-the-block country, and the world for that matter. Google "Bilderberg Group" or Freemasons (our sainted forefathers) or just put aside the romance of war we've been programmed to "support" and just think a minute. Think:
You have a very few, perhaps 125 empowered monied elite, who control everything, they are butcher bankers and they are mostly the Bank of England which of course, still owns USA, Inc. When you talk about soldiers you're not talking about real sacrifice. To make a sacrifice you must be fully informed before making that choice. No one sent to kill others and be killed has the complete knowledge base, they truly believe they're "doing it for my country" or "upholding the standards of liberty and justice" which, by the way, we never had.
When did this country have a true democracy? When? Do you see one in action anywhere in the world?When was this country, or YOU for that matter, ever free?
When did the servants take back the power? I thought I've been awake since the 60's when we screamed "Peace now!" in the streets like idiot children. I thought I was helping, being pro-active, stopping war in the name of ....Liberty? Justice? Hell no, I was a teenaged hippie all I wanted was to rebel and piss off my parents - like all kids.
So they fight for freedom, right? Okay.
For whom?
When you bake cookies for a soldier, you help support the machinery that makes the war he or she is fighting possible. Yes even on that small scale. On ANY scale of support, you are saying "Kill the bastards, and come home safe." Irony of ironies!
You're part of the hot lead in that gun he holds to fire at his brother the so-called enemy and misses him and hits his infant baby and in a father's rage he fires at you and splat you're dead and someone has to tell your mother it was all so brave, so just, all for democracy, all for liberties, all for the sacred trust he thought he entered into.
Bull crap. All I see is dead humans.
Don't look at me like that - I almost signed onto this insanity in 1969 when "Peace Now!" wasn't doing squat and I thought, "Gee if I was OVER there in Nam, maybe I could do some good." Yeah, I could make peace by supporting war. What a dance we do around this whole thing, eh?
Are you still dancing?
I could've killed someone. And they would've given me a freeking medal. Is that RIGHT????
They give medals.
They give folded flags to crying mothers, too.
What if we all just said "No". What if every human on this planet could come to an agreement that war only makes certain people very very rich and does nothing much else but cause blood to spill and we're just not having it anymore?
What if you could say "I don't support war, so I can't support the warriors who fight it" what if you could really mean that in your heart of hearts? Wouldn't something have to change? Wouldn't "they" have to stop the military industrial complex machinery and find other ways to keep getting richer?
It's not complicated, though they'd like you to believe it's beyond your socio-political grasp. But it's not. We can really have true peace. We can keep our blood in our bodies.
Dare to think about it my friend. Peace, now. 
O my Constant Reader, how sorely have I neglected you! Might I make amends with a story of truth, to grasp your interest and nourish your curiosity about our world and who populates it? Thank you, I shall:
He was a good dog, he knew it because his human said so. "Good 
dog, Jupiter!" and he didn't know what it meant but he always got a scratch on the ears and neck when his human made those sounds. So the sound "Jupiter" told him he was being called. This tawny and black Shepard understood something basic. He loved to hear "Atta boy!" it always brought those nice massages.
Jupiter was digging in the woods, found a choice bony object which pleasantly assailed his incredible sense of smell with thousands of other scents and made him almost dizzy with the joy of it all. He started to gnaw on this bony object, then remembered his human, whom he loved with his all of his large dog heart, and decided to share his find.
David - his human - was sitting on the back steps watching his loyal dog scratching in the woods, then trot out into the open yard with something in his mouth, something hard, grayish and round. David's ancestral memory told him he knew what this was. But his logic forbade the completion of that thought. It bespoke of nightmares and things unseen but just as real.
"Hey boy, what've ya got there, huh? Come and show me fella."
Fella did. He showed him alright. It was unmistakable. A de-fleshed human skull.
Horrified, David wrapped it in his shirt and brought it into the house on top of the washing machine, out of reach of Jupiter. His heart was pounding. Then he called those magical 3 digits.
"9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency please?"
Rapid breathing, high-pitched voice: "My dog just dug up a human head! Send an ambulance! It's a head and no body! Please send someone and hurry! My wife, she can't handle these things!"
Soon an ambulance pulled up, with patrol cars. When the policeman saw what it was, he radioed for back-up and the homicide squad, who then called in the coroner. It wasn't within this cop's expertise to know if it was 10 years old or 10 days new.
"My wife is sensitive to these things, I sent her away" lied David in answer to inquiries. He was off-balance, but intact - sane. "He's in shock" whispered one cop to another.
Homicide knew the rituals - the area of the woods was immediately cordoned off with police tape and the skull was left for the coroner to examine - and take possession of.
Jupiter was barking incessantly, just as he had earlier in the week when David and Mrs. David were arguing. It upset his doggie balance of mind/body - something we may've lost in our evolution who knows....but David was anxious to have the offending object removed - now. How little he understood what a severed head signified. This skull was dis-articulated almost surgically from any other bones, it was obvious to the coroner that something or someone had removed it manually, and with forethought.
Certain features will tell a forensic pathologist the gender of the person who owned that skull. Men have lower cranial ridges, women have specialized anomalies, they're smaller, and there was no doubt this was female. There was no pelvis to confirm this, which would've been more helpful. But on we go....
"Oh my wife, please don't let her see any of this. She's so delicate, so sensitive." What a strange thing to say thought homicide man. I thought he said he "sent her away".
"And your wife is where, sir?"
David looked annoyed. "I told you, she can't be involved in this, it'll upset her greatly. My dog finds all kinds of things you see, but I thought this was pretty important so I called you guys."
He's off topic again, thought homicide man. Coroner man was busy looking for trace evidence in the woods, anything that may look out of place, or hopefully other parts of a human skeleton.
{Note of interest: Edward Fouqard's theory: when you commit a crime, some part of you is left at the scene, and you bring away some part of the scene with you. Transfer. }
When all the commotion died down and these professionals left his property, David knew he'd started something rolling and it didn't seem even, it was slipping downhill and after him. Too late to shut the barn door, he thought.
"Why did I mention my wife???" he angrily asked the air. "They didn't want to talk to her, why did I bring her into this?"
Leaving the police tape in place, he took Jupiter into the basement and closed the door. The dog with the big heart didn't understand why he was being isolated. He whined and sat patiently.
David crept upstairs and stared at the blood-soaked bed.
Then he followed the blood spatter on the walls and ceiling with his indifferent, reptilian eyes, reliving the part when he hit her over and over with the hammer. Finally he entered the bathroom and saw what was left of his work.
"Lots to do here...." he thought calmly. "All this blood."
Having been able to strangle, dismember, and scatter his wife's remains weeks ago, David berated himself for not thinking this through more clearly. He knew that natural predation like fox and bear would carry away almost all traces of her - never expecting his own beloved dog to dig up that nicely buried head.
He thought about those last moments, the argument in the kitchen, her weak rationale, his firm belief that she was seeing another man, her lying, crying, justifying - which was what he heard when filtered through his already biased mind. David was convinced of her infidelity but couldn't produce any evidence. He expected Mrs. David to break down with her confession and dirty little secret, but she didn't. She couldn't. She had no secret.
That's when he snapped. It told him, basically, that her lack of interest in their bedtime pleasures came from something lacking in him, and this he could not accept. He wrapped his hands around her throat. And held on tight.
Squeezing with anger and psychic pain, unable to stop, David watched the life leave her gaze. She stared at him but saw nothing. Her mouth froze in a rictus of disbelief, pain, and fear. Then suddenly she opened her eyes! Still alive! His mind raced around like a cornered mouse. Grabbing the hammer from the kitchen drawer he bashed in her skull time and time again, leaving blood spatter on the walls and ceiling. Nothing on earth could stop his hand. Mrs. David died tasting her own blood.
That's how she looked, though still beautiful, when he carried her to the bathroom, rested her body in the tub, and left her there for a few days while he thought it through.
When the solution came, he was ready. After removing her clothes and jewelry, he severed her head from it's perch on her neck, he cut off her arms, then her hands, then burned her fingertips because he saw it done on TV. He cut off her legs, feet and lastly, he was left with a torso having no appendages.
Each night he took a piece of Mrs. David's once-animated corpse and buried it in the woods. He tried to keep them separate. It was alot of work and could only be done at night, a little here a little there, thinking no one would be the wiser.
Mrs. David's friends called every now and again but he put them off rudely and explained he and the wife needed space to work out their marital differences. A friend usually understands.
David couldn't stop worrying his brain about the police.
"They have her skull" he thought "and I know they'll be back. I have to go check the other parts in the woods. This has to go right, I won't lose my freedom - not for that bitch anyway. Hell, she got what she deserved - I told her never to shut me out."
During the following week, the coroner acquired Mrs. David's dental records and made a positive match. He'd already called homicide so they could take it from there. Dr. Coroner knew this was murder, not an accidental killing with a panicked attempt to hide the evidence by cutting up the remains. No, this was murder which always means Knowledge Aforethought. Even if deprived of air in her last moments in the heat of the time, it took meditative thought and preparation to slam a hammer into a skull over and over, then dismember a human being. It took a sociopath. It took David.
David. Who now decided to re-visit the woods each night and check those places where his wife's body parts were buried. But he'd been under surveillance from the day he called the police and never took a moment to realize such a basic fact. He got caught because his ego allowed him to act with immunity, an arrogant, untouchable non-suspect.
After his arrest, trial and conviction, David became quite acclimated to prison life. He managed to keep from being raped for almost a whole 3 days before his first "blanket party" then becoming someone's "wife." David learned his value in prison, and took full advantage. Besides, as a person with no empathy, no conscience, the atmosphere he thrived in best was a regulated, regimented schedule - something he could understand. It had no feelings and no thought to the human condition. Like him.
Today he sits in a 6' by 8' cell with a TV, cable, a radio, daily showers, all the writing material he wants including stamps sent to him by a young lady who thinks he's "a doll" and got a raw deal. Poor misguided girl - but who are we to say?
This is the human animal. We can kill in wars, we can murder because of hurt feelings, we don't protest a government that spends ten of thousands a day to keep our uninvited presence in Iraq, our priorities are convoluted, the same nature/nurture that created a David is now creating many more, and where does this all end?
My Constant Reader - do not be surprised to learn someday of a remote island - yes, of the damned - where this country may be forced to keep our anti-social, anti-civilized, dangerous creatures and all for the betterment of the larger society.
Because if you cannot feel another's pain, it's easier to hurt them.
And think on this if you would: In one day during the civil war, at Shiloh, over 20,000 humans were killed by their countrymen. 20,000. In one single day's work of hate and fear. Just to balance things out here - which do you feel is the worse crime and why? 20,000 during wartime, or one person in an argumentative marriage. Is Mrs. David's life more valuable because she was one victim, not thousands?
Or does it really matter? Are we bound to obey our instinctual need to destroy what we should be protecting?? I give you this planet as a prime example of poor protection skills, bad management. We are neglectful stewards of spaceship earth. But what of spaceship David? He too, was neglected - as a neglected ignored human child, he grew into a man who went on to cause utter ruination.
David is a real person, only one of so many. Who is more at fault here, a man for taking a life? Or a society which allows him to grow up without a conscience. He wasn't abused as a child, but he was ignored - I think that's worse. Kick me, punish me, just don't make me invisible. Fertile ground for a fledgling sociopath.
Parents: if you want a better world, raise decent sons. Teach them to do the same with theirs. Help them instill a conscience because it's not something we can grow.
Mrs. David would tell you that.
If she could .......
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:
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