Diverse Voices And Blazing Visitors

    

Tucson Weather Today

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I finally got around to watching the movie Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

Didn't like it.

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For the last couple of nights, as Eva enjoyed her final 8 P.M. nightly run around the pool deck before retiring to her sleeping pillow for the night, she cooperatively joined the barking brotherhood of dogs for a mile or so around that were loudly protesting the chorus of yelps and howls from an assembled pack of yowling coyotes performing out in the scrubland.

Just a part of the simple life out here in the relative wilds of Southern Arizona.

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Yesterday I read that space rock enthusiasts across the Northern Hemisphere should get a pretty good show from the Geminid meteor shower Friday night, the shower being at its best overnight from Friday, December 13 into early Saturday, December 14. So last night I put on my jacket and cap and took Eva outside a little after darkness fell.

If I'm Lucky I Might See Something Like This

The meteor shower’s prime viewing time is supposed to run from 13:00 UT December 13 to 10:00 UT December 14 with its peak to come at some time around 2:00 UT (7 P.M. Tuscon Time) with meteors falling at a rate of 1 to 2 per minute.

At around 7 P.M. Tucson Time Eva and I went out and I looked up into the night sky but saw nothing, nothing but a lot of stars and about a three-quarter bright white moon that washed out the Southern view. Then we went out again and again every fifteen minutes or so but saw no movement up there.

None at all.

But Eva was in her glory, trotting around the pool in the semi-darkness and pausing each time she neared the North gate to gather in all the night sounds and smells from out there in the scrubland.

It was after eight o'clock that I saw my first meteor. And it was a good one. High in the Northern sky it seemed to just appear all at once, to just leap into existence and burn brightly as it streaked from East to West across the blackness above. The strangest thing about it though was that in mid-streak it seemed to ease apart and become three separate meteors burning and traveling side-by-side. Too soon, of course, it just disappeared... winked out, burned up in the Earth's dense atmosphere.

We lingered out there for some twenty more minutes but it was too cold for an extended stay, then went back inside where it was warm. Eva conked out and went to sleep for the night. I sat and watched some TV for a while, occasionally looking out the window into the starry sky.

Eventually I went to bed, read a few pages from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy on my kindle for a few minutes, then gave in to a deep sleep.

I woke up at four A.M. and decided to stay up and write this and get it ready for uploading. Right now -- right this moment -- at 4:29, I am contemplating the wisdom of fixing a cup of instant Folgers and then bundling up for another trip outdoors.

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I did it; good coffee; no sightings.

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Did You Know . . .?

The names of all continents both start and end with the same letter.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 2012, a 20-year-old man shot and killed his mother at their Newtown, Connecticut, home then drove to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 20 first graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. The Sandy Hook tragedy was the second-deadliest mass-shooting in the United States, following the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.

The community of Newtown, which has some 27,000 residents and is located about 45 miles southwest of Connecticut’s capital, Hartford, eventually decided to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was razed in the fall of 2013; a new school will be built on the same site.

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WORD FOR TODAY

reconcile
verb
1. to compose or settle (a quarrel, dispute, etc.).
2. to bring into agreement or harmony; make compatible or consistent.
3. to cause (a person) to accept or be resigned to something not desired.
4. to restore (an excommunicate or penitent) to communion in a church.
5. to cause to become friendly or peaceable again: to reconcile hostile persons.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Anna Marie "Patty" Duke
(born December 14, 1946)

Patty Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom The Patty Duke Show for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely O'Hara in the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls. She was later elected president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988.

Morey Amsterdam
(December 14, 1908 – October 28, 1996)

Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966.

Lee Ann Remick
(Dec 14, 1935 – July 2, 1991)

Lee Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), and The Omen (1976).

Ginger Lynn
(born December 14, 1962)

Ginger Lynn is an American pornographic model, prominent in 1980s videos. She also had occasional roles in low-budget B-movies. AVN has ranked her at #7 in a list of the 50 greatest porn stars of all time.

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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
--William Safire

This Is Who I Am

    

Don't Feel Like Thinking Up A Title

Tucson Weather Today
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As I was walking southward on Conestoga Avenue I noticed that I was being paced by a pair of coyotes on the other side of the road. I think they were wanting to cross over but were prevented from doing so by my presence. There was a lot of brush over there and even though I took seven shots with my camera only one of them caught a full body photo. Here it is:

Coyote ambling down Conestoga Ave., Tucson, AZ

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THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES

The Humane Society of The United States is the nation's largest and most effective animal protection organization

This is s real-life Rescued Dog

Now living with a family that cares.

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Sam Harris Is Still Around

His latest book is:

The Moral Landscape

Lawrence M. Krauss, theoretical physicist, Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, author of The Physics of Star Trek and Quantum Man wrote:

Reading Sam Harris is like drinking water from a cool stream on a hot day. He has the rare ability to frame arguments that are not only stimulating, they are downright nourishing, even if you don’t always agree with him! In this new book he argues from a philosophical and a neurobiological perspective that science can and should determine morality. As was the case with Harris’ previous books, readers are bound to come away with previously firm convictions about the world challenged, and a vital new awareness about the nature and value of science and reason in our lives.

Okay... I admit that I have not yet read The Moral Landscape but I intend to do so soon.

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Animism

The New Athe­ists' Narrow Worldview is the title of an article by Stephen T. Asma in The Chronicle Review, published January 32, 2011

The article's basic premise seems to be that The New Atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens Dennett, PZ Myers, et al.) are "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" by lumping 'all' religions together in the same (superstitious nonsense) pot -- that they're wrong in imagining that the primary job of religion is morality; that they are ignoring non-western beliefs such as Buddhism, for example, which is about finding a form of psychological happiness.

Animism is defined by dictionaries as:
Animism (from Latin anima "soul, life") refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle.

According to this article, animism is the belief that there are many kinds of persons in this world, only some of whom are human, and that animism in its various forms is the world's largest religion.

Ste­phen T. Asma is a professor of philosophy and a fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture at Columbia College Chicago. His latest book is "Why I Am a Buddhist"

As is often the case, some of the rational comments following this article are more illuminating than is the article itself.

I can't say that I wholeheartedly agree with Stephen Asma's Buddhist conclusions, but as always for me, new ideas are worth reading and considering, and I will admit that the subject of animism is fascinating food for thought.

And I intend to delve more deeply into this subject of animism.

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Who Needs A Title Anyway?

Tucson Weather Today

My friend and fellow writer is alive and writing again. If I were a poet (which I most emphatically am not) I would emote my great relief and exultation at receiving that absolutely grand and glorious news. I have missed his daily posts at Spilled Beans and I am looking forward to reading his upcoming offerings at that web site.

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A few minutes ago, at approximately 7:01 A.M. all the dogs in the neighborhood began to bark and howl and make a cacophonous commotion, and Eva came running in to where I sat at my keyboard from the living room where she'd been snoring on her nap pillow and informed my (by jumping up and down and whirling in place) that she felt an undeniable need to go out on the back deck immediately.

Recognizing her instinct-driven agitation I immediately complied, accompanying her out the back door leading to the fenced in expanse of desert scrub, where the canine hubbub was being spurred on by the howls and yapping of a pack of coyotes loping across the dry wash a couple hundred feet to the rear of the house.

I had grabbed up my camera on the way out, but not a peek did I get of the clamorous marauders.

After about five minutes all settled down to a few scattered barks from the less experienced pups somewhere in the surrounding area.

So I came inside from the cool sixty degree temperature and sat back down here to record that somewhat exhilarating event.

And Eva went back to doggie dreamland.

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Oh... and before I forget, a new picture has surfaced of last month's Thanksgiving Dinner 2010 as enjoyed by the dogs of the family. Notice how well trained they are, sitting there patiently and obediently awaiting the command to "Go!"

Eva, Tycho, Cedric

Click the pic for larger view)

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My mouse has two daddies... exclaims PZ Myers (noted biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris) who has written a piece regarding a recent genetics-oriented announcement. PZ begins:

This is awesome news. Biologists have figured out how to enable two male mice to have babies together, with no genetic contribution from a female mouse. I, for one, look forward to our future gay rodent overlords.

Not being overly endowed with much of an understanding of even basic biology, I enjoyed PZ's analysis of this breakthrough.

I thought you might like to read about it, too.

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I viewed a short video featuring a series of Bushisms -- which only proves that speechification is not the forte of everyone.

A New Landscape For Me

As I promised yesterday , here is one of the pictures of snow that still abides atop one of the Rincon Mountain peaks to the South.


Again today I walked for about a mile down the path that runs alongside the dry wash.

It's much different than walking on the tree-lined sidewalk on Old King's Road back in Jacksonville, Florida. And there was no Winn-Dixie supermarket waiting for me at the end of the mile; so I turned around and walked back to the house.

I saw no quail today nor any roadrunners, but last night Mike asked me to go outside to the pool area and listen to the coyotes singing in the distance; it was a fine chorus indeed, accompanied by the barking and howling of many neighborhood dogs.

I edited to double-space this new paragraph five times and it still kept defaulting to a single space, so to heck with it.

Got some more unpacking of boxes done today. I found some of my old software disks (or is that 'discs'?) and will load them onto this computer eventually. And I also opened two large boxes containing some of my photo albums. Images of long ago people and events. Memories. Nostalgia.

Et cetera...