Whoa Nellie

September 11: 5 Years Later

2006-09-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the 5-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Back when it first happened, I wrote the following essay:

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"Oh, my God..." That's all I could say when I turned on my T.V. the morning of Tuesday, September 11th. There I saw the image of a lone tower of the World Trade center in New York City; it's twin having collapsed only moments before. My mother had awakened me to tell me that two jet airliners had struck the twin towers and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.. It seemed that the United States was under attack from some unknown terrorist foe. On my couch I sat in shock and horror as the realization of it all began to come; this was not a movie, this was really happening. My heart shattered into a thousand pieces as I learned that there had been an untold number of people, including fire and policemen, inside that tower before it crumbled to the ground. "The second tower will surely fall," said the reporters on the T.V., now that there is nobody left to fight the fire still raging within. "Oh, my God," I said aloud again to my mother on the phone; it's all I could think to say, despite the fact that I am an atheist. I began to feel rage now as well, wishing to strike back at whoever had done this -- but who was it? Then it happened, the second tower collapsed, joining its twin. "Oh, my God," I said again, tears streaming down my face...

As the day wore on, I sat glued to my television, fearing that the horror was not yet over, anxious to find out who had done this. I saw the horrible images of the airplanes crashing into the two World Trade Center towers again and again and again, from every conceivable angle. With each new angle, a newfound grief rose up inside me. Then the stories of survival, and loss began to be told; stories of people aboard the hijacked airplanes calling their loved ones on cellphones to say goodbye. With each and every story, more new grief and tears.
Since then I have been almost paralyzed by my shock and grief. Despite the fact that I did not personally know anyone lost in the attacks I still felt personally traumatized. And I have wanted revenge. But against who?

Whoever they were, they define what evil is. I hate them. The hijackers directly responsible for this atrocity are all dead, and I wish I believed in a Hell where they will burn in anguish forever. But those hijackers could not have done this alone. Who is the terrorist organization responsible for this? I want them to pay for their crimes against humanity.

The news media almost immediately jumped to the conclusion that it could be none other than the favorite media scapegoat of the last 10 years, Osama bin Laden. They were therefore automatically assuming that this was a foreign attack. They made that assumption when the Federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed as well. But that heinous act was committed by an American citizen, a military veteran no less. Why does the media never allow for more than one possibility at a time?

Evidence has indeed begun to mount pointing a finger toward Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. If they are shown to be responsible, I believe they should be taken out swiftly. But I do not want to see any more innocent blood spilled!

The American President-by-accident G.W. Bush has used extremely strong language (rather unskillfully) in his addresses to the American people declaring a War on terrorism. Media pundits are all pounding their fists crying for military action, speaking of long drawn out conflicts costing more innocent lives. On the streets, people are saying such disturbing things as "bomb all those Arabs, nuke 'em all into oblivion." Arab-Americans, some of whom were also killed in the attacks, have become the targets of hate from other ethnic Americans. An Indian man was shot and killed in Arizona because he was mistaken for being Arabic. My own father, who is Mexican and a disabled veteran of the American army, has gotten angry glares from people on the street; apparently hate is so blind that all people with dark skin are now its targets. And the news media has the audacity to claim that America is united. Bullshit!

Has humanity learned nothing in thousands of years of tribal warfare? Hate begets hate. It's a viscous cycle. It can only be broken when we decide to stop hating and seeking revenge. Isn't peace and justice what we all really want? Then why don't we actively seek it out?

Terrorism is like a cancer on the human organism. Cells mutate and turn against the very organism from which they sprang. Think of those hijackers aboard those planes. There were families with children aboard all of those planes. They must have been so frightened. The hijackers had to have seen the terror in their eyes; perhaps they also overheard some of the cellphone calls to loved-ones. They knew that they were about to kill all of these people and countless others in the buildings that they were preparing to ram. No matter what their religious beliefs they must have felt something. That they carried out their dreadful missions anyway is a testament to their insanity. Their hatred transformed them into something monstrously inhuman -- like a cancer.

To fight a cancer you must cut out the mutant cells. This is how we should fight terrorism as well. But, with cancer the possibility that it will come back always remains unless the root causes are identified and a cure is developed. So too is it with terrorism.

Why did these people hate us so much? Why is the USA hated by so many in the world? G.W. Bush tells us that it is because they are evil and we are good, "They hate freedom," he tells us. What!? Nobody hates freedom, and nobody ever considers themselves to be evil. People hate either because something hateful has been done to them or because they have been taught to hate. The USA is not as good as the government and the media would have us believe. This nation was founded with the blood of genocide against the native inhabitants of the land, and on the backs of a vast population of African slaves. And we have not gotten much better, only the PR machine has gotten better. In World War II, when we were the supposed 'good guys', we interned our own American citizens who were of Japanese descent. We saturation bombed German cities killing thousands of innocent civilians. And let us not forget that we are the only nation in the history of the world to unleash the hellish fury of nuclear weapons on an enemy when we bombed two cities in Japan killing thousands of innocent civilians. Since then we have continued our own reign of terror with police actions, covert wars (in which we trained terrorists to fight guerrilla wars that killed many thousands of innocent civilians), and economic sanctions. Those sanctions have lead to the deaths of untold numbers of innocent civilians while the dictators that we have hoped to hurt by this remain in power. Let us also not forget that America's #1 most wanted, Osama bin Laden, is a monster of our own making. He was trained by our own CIA in terrorist tactics to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. A fact that has gone little noticed by the news media so far. America is hardly the 'good guy'.

Now, the American public is whipped up into a frenzy of hate and calling out for blood -- even against its own innocent citizens. They want us to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age for harboring Osama bin Laden. But in case no one has noticed, they are already in the Stone Age. The country is in ruins after 20 years of occupation and civil war. What good will it do to bomb them? It won't get at bin Laden who is likely hiding away in some remote mountain cave. Sure, it may punish the Taliban for allowing bin Laden to live and operate in Afghanistan. But it will also end up killing innocent civilians who have nothing to do with any of this. They don't know bin Laden from Jack. Think of all the children in Afghanistan. Imagine their terror as US warplanes begin dropping bombs on them. Why do they deserve to die? No one deserves that; not us and not them.

If in our desire for revenge we strike out in hate and knowingly kill innocent civilians, we will become just as inhuman as those cancerous hijackers were. We will become the evil that we hate.

We should be allowed to have our feelings. We should be allowed to feel the shock, horror, anger, and grief after the horrible events of September 11th. But we should not allow those feelings to make us become the very evil that did this to us. We need to act with reason. We need to seek the truth. Let us not look for war and revenge. Instead, let us seek Peace and Justice.

-Bryan Méndez,
17 September, 2001

To be, or not to be…a planet

2006-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.
- Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

On August 24th, 2006 the International Astronomical Union decided upon a definition of the word planet. A planet is (a) an object orbiting the Sun that has sufficient size and mass so that it is (b) roughly spherical in shape and (c) has cleared the space about its orbit of any other objects of similar size. A dwarf planet meets the first two criteria, but not the last one. Under this definition, Pluto is a dwarf planet not a planet.

For the past several years, there has been a discussion amongst astronomers as to whether or not Pluto should really be considered a planet. Pluto has always stood out when compared to the other planets. It is very small, composed of a high proportion of ices, is in a very elliptical and inclined orbit, and has a satellite, Charon, that is half its size. In fact, Charon does not orbit Pluto directly, but Pluto and Charon orbit about their common center of mass located in the space between them. By comparison, the Moon is 27% the size of Earth and the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system is near the center of Earth. But why should being an oddball cause us to question Pluto’s status as a planet? The problem is that there was never a scientific definition for the word planet.

Planet is a word of Greek origin that means wanderer. It is the name that the ancient Greeks gave to the objects in the sky, visible to the naked eye, that appeared to wander about the stars: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They were originally thought to orbit Earth along with the Sun, Moon, and stars. When it was recognized in the 17th century that the Sun was the center of the Solar System and that Earth went around it along with the other planets, Earth was now considered to be a planet. That bears repeating, Earth was not always considered a planet. Earth has only been considered a planet for about 400 years.

As time went on and telescopes became more powerful and our theories of gravity more refined, we discovered additional planets. Uranus was discovered in 1781 by William Herschel while he was searching for double stars in the constellation Taurus.

In 1802, Ceres was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. It is a small object located between Mars and Jupiter, and it was called a planet at the time. Later discoveries of many, many similar small objects in the same region between Mars and Jupiter led astronomers to reconsider calling Ceres a planet but rather designating it as the largest member of a newly discovered class of objects called asteroids. Asteroids were also called minor planets. Ceres meets the first two criteria under the new definition of planet and so should now be known as a dwarf planet.

Discrepancies in the orbit of Uranus led astronomers to suspect a large planet was tugging on it from farther out. Urbain Le Verrier's calculations eventually led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846 by John Couch Adams.

There were other discrepancies in the orbits of the outer planets that led astronomers to suspect that there was an additional planet or planets beyond the orbit of Neptune. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. However, Pluto was found to be too small to have disrupted the orbits of the outer planets, and its discovery was therefore coincidental. It was considered a planet nonetheless.

Since 1930 there have been many hypotheses that there might be more objects located beyond the orbit of Neptune, and in the early 1990s the first objects began to be found. Objects found beyond Neptune have been called trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) in general and over 1,000 objects have now been found. Pluto, it appears, was simply the first discovery of a new class of similar objects located beyond the orbit of Neptune, much like Ceres. There have been several TNOs recently found which are nearly as big as Pluto and even one that is bigger. This object, 2003 UB313, doesn’t even have an official name yet.

It was really the discovery of these new objects that called Pluto’s planetary status into question. Pluto is clearly a member of this newly found population of objects. But, Pluto had been considered a planet for over 70 years and many felt it should not be demoted as Ceres was some 150 years ago. But if Pluto is called a planet should we call all of the TNOs planets too? Surely 2003 UB313 would deserve to be called a planet since it is bigger than Pluto. Thus, the discussion about Pluto lead to the question of just how we should define a planet.

Many ideas were considered. One suggestion was that a planet could be defined as any object large and massive enough to become roughly spherical, but that does not orbit around another such object (that would make it a moon[1]). The object should also be not quite massive enough that it could ignite any kind of nuclear fusion within itself, thus making it a star. Many astronomers found this definition unsatisfactory. There are over 50 objects in the Solar System alone that would meet this definition, and we expect that there are possibly hundreds more yet to be discovered beyond the orbit of Neptune. Eight of those objects (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) differ from the others in several important ways. One is that they are each the biggest thing around by far in their orbit about the Sun. They actually influence the space about their orbits ejecting, absorbing, capturing, or shepherding smaller objects. Also, what about systems like Pluto and Charon where they each orbit about a center of gravity outside the primary object. Should that be considered a double-planet system? The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth, and in several billion years the center of gravity of the system will be outside Earth. Would the Earth-Moon system become a double planet as well?

Others felt that planet was a culturally defined word and that scientists should not bother trying to attach a scientific definition to it. After all, defining the word planet doesn’t help us understand the formation and evolution of the Solar System any better. However, it can be useful to classify and categorize objects based on their physical properties to better understand them. Having labels for those categories aids in communicating about them.

The IAU, which is the international body recognized by astronomers as having the authority to officially name celestial objects, finally decided to try and settle on a definition at their biannual meeting in Prague, in the Czech Republic, in August of 2006. Again, the definition they decided upon was: A planet is (a) an object orbiting the Sun that has sufficient size and mass so that it is (b) roughly spherical in shape and (c) has cleared the space about its orbit of any other objects of similar size. A dwarf planet meets the first two criteria, but not the last one.

Many astronomers still feel that this is an inexact and unsatisfactory definition. It does not state how cleared an object’s orbit needs to be. Thousands of asteroids are found about the orbits of Earth and Jupiter, for example. By stating that a planet must orbit the Sun, it forgets the over 200 “planets” discovered in the past two decades orbiting other stars. It does not make explicit the dividing line between a star and a planet. It creates a new term dwarf planet when a perfectly good term had already been in use for such objects, planetoid (minor planet has also been in use for over 150 years). There are enough objections to the definition as it has been officially written, that it is very likely that it will change again, probably in the near future.

But really, what’s in a name? It’s still interesting that
· Mercury has a huge iron core for its size;
· the surface temperature on Venus reaches 400+ degrees Celsius;
· Earth has active plate tectonics and a vibrant biosphere;
· Mars may have once been capable of supporting life;
· Ceres may have a tenuous atmosphere and frost;
· Jupiter has hurricane-like storms that can last for centuries;
· Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System;
· Europa and Ganymede may have liquid water oceans beneath their surfaces;
· Saturn posses a ring system more impressive by far than any other gas giant;
· Titan may have lakes of liquid methane and methane rain;
· Uranus spins tipped over on its side as it orbits the Sun;
· Neptune has weather with even faster winds than on Jupiter;
· Triton is geologically active and has geysers of liquid nitrogen;
· Pluto and Charon may have atmospheres that freeze and snow to the ground;
· 2003 UB313 has a very reflective surface and may have one or more moons; and
· Sedna is the farthest object in the Solar System ever detected and may belong to the long theorized Oort Cloud of icy objects left over from the formation of the Solar System.

Whether these objects are called planet or not, they are still very interesting and worth learning about and investigating further.

[1] In English, the Moon is the proper name for Earth’s natural satellite (in Latin it is Luna). The word moon in lower case refers to a natural satellite of other planets.

What is Love?

2005-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently this email has been forwarded about the web for some time, but it has only just reached me today. I don't know where it comes from or who the people were who generated the supposed research.

Regardless, I think it's just about the sweetest thing I've read in a long time. I hope it brings a smile to your face and lifts your spirits a bit.

~ ~ ~ . Love Is . ~ ~ ~

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year olds. "What does love mean?"

The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.

1. When my grandma got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandpa does it for her now all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. Rebecca- age 8

2. When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouths. Billy- age 4

3. Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving Cologne and they go out and smell each other. Kari- age 5

4. Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs. Chrissy- age 6

5. Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. Terri- age 4

6. Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK. Danny- age 7

7. Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy and my daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss. Emily- age 8

8. Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. Bobby- age 7

9. If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. Nikka- age 6

10. Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday. Noelle- age 7

11. Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well. Tommy- age 6

12. During my piano recital, I was on stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore. Cindy- age 8

13. My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night. Clare- age 6

14 Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken. Elaine-age 5

15. Love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford. Chris- age 7

16. Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day. Mary Ann- age 4

17. When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. Karen- age 7

18. Love is when mommy sees daddy on the toilet and doesn't think it's gross. Mark- age 6

19. You really shouldn't say I LOVE YOU unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. Jessica- age 8

20. And the winner was a 4 year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly man who had just lost his wife. When the child saw the man cry, the little boy went over into the man's yard and climbed on top of the man's lap and just sat there. When the boy's mother asked him what he'd said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

January 20th: Not One Damn Dime Day

2005-01-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

I received this email from a friend and I think it's a brilliant idea. I intend to do it.
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A way to protest: Don't spend a dime on Inauguration Day, Jan 20

Inauguration Day, A Silent Protest

Since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose the war in Iraq, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.

During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target. Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,300 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. Over 10,300 have been seriously injured! The politicians owe our troops a plan -- a way to come home.

There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.

PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON

Top 10 Movies That I Saw In 2004

2005-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

At the end of the year everyone puts out Top 10 lists of things in the past year. Well, why should I be any different? In looking back at my ratings for all the movies that I saw in 2004, I have compiled the following Top 10 list (Note: this is of the movies that I saw):

1 - Spider-Man 2
2 - Garden State
3 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4 - The Incredibles
5 - Shrek 2
6 - Spanglish
7 - Kinsey
8 - Fahrenheit 9/11
9 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabhan
10 - The Phantom of the Opera

God's Law

2004-12-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

Here is a humorous email that I recieved from a friend today, it goes well with my previous post about gay marriage:
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Dear President Bush,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said, "in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man and a woman." I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? (I'm pretty sure she's a virgin).

3. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

4. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2.clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it? How can I help you here?

5. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Aren't there 'degrees' of abomination?

6. Lev.21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

7. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

8. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

9. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14) I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. It must be really great to be on such close terms with God and his son, even better than you and your own Dad, eh?

Hey, it's a free country...well, not that free

2004-11-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago on election day, 11 states had votes on ballot measures that would define marriage as only between a man and a women. The measures passed in all 11 states. The reason they did this was to keep gay people from marrying each other.

Explain to me how two people who love each other, want to spend their lives together, want to create a family, and want to enter into a social contract to do so are a threat to the institution of marriage. The federal law passed in the U.S. Congress during the Clinton administration to limit marriage to one man and one woman was called the Defense of Marriage Act. Politicians (mostly conservative ones) speak about defending the institution of marriage. But again, I ask the question: how are homosexual unions a threat to marriage? It seems to me that infidelity and the ever increasing divorce rate in the United States are threats to marriage. Yet, we make no laws concerning them.

People claim that marriage has always been defined traditionally as between a man and a woman and therefore it should stay that way. Fine…if it were only a cultural institution. But, it is also a legal institution with rights recognized by the government. It is clearly discriminatory to limit such a legal institution. The government has an obligation to treat all citizens equally. It cannot deny that obligation based on cultural tradition.

Slavery, Jim Crow laws, and denying women the right to vote were also cultural traditions that allowed the government to discriminate against people. The error in them was eventually recognized and corrected. So now the courts of the U.S. are beginning to recognize the error in denying marriage rights to homosexual couples.

Religious fundamentalists claim that gay marriage is an affront to morality, because the bible (an ancient text claimed to be inspired by an invisible being in the sky) says so. Yeah, that book says a lot of things, especially the book of Leviticus, which is usually used as the example of where the bible denounces homosexuality. Most of the stuff in Leviticus is ludicrous and is ignored by the churches of today. However, I simply do not accept such religious arguments as rational, and do not believe that they belong in the public discourse over civil law. Thankfully, the framers of the constitution agreed and declared that the government may not endorse any religion or discriminate against anyone for their religious beliefs. Banning gay marriage because of religious beliefs is simply unconstitutional and un-American.

Even less rational people claim that allowing gay marriage is a slippery slope leading to polygamy and bestiality. What utter nonsense. First of all, polygamy probably should be legal. Why is it illegal in the first place? More religious reasoning? I mean, if it doesn’t cause harm to anybody, what right does the government have in denying anybody to do something? Secondly, for crying out loud, animals are not humans and our laws do not apply to them. If some goat herder wants to marry his little cabrita, well too bad. Goats don’t possess higher reasoning and they don’t pay taxes. As funny as they are, marriage with them is pointless. Let’s just enjoy their cheese.

A Divided Nation: Shades of Purple

2004-11-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

TV networks love their graphics. As well they should. Graphics are a powerful way to display data and glean meaning from them. In the past two presidential elections, TV talking heads have spoken about a divided nation and shown us a map of the United States with states where the Democratic candidate has won colored in blue and the states where the Republican candidate (Bush) has won colored in red. While that tells the story of the electoral college that actually elects the president, it doesn't really tell the tale of a divided nation.

Looking at those maps, people get the impression that the Heartland and the South are Republican strongholds and that the West Coast, Great Lakes, and Northeast are big time Democratic realms. But that's not the tale told by the numbers. In most states the margin of victory for one candidate over the other was pretty thin in both elections. That says that the states themselves are fairly evenly divided. So, to represent that I decided to make a map where I would mix red and blue in each state according to the way the popular vote in that state went this past election day. A vote of 50% for Kerry is equal to pure blue at 50% intensity and a vote of 50% for Bush is equal to red at 50% intensity and the final color of the state is the combination of the two colors. This gives us a country of shades of purple.

When you look at the map you see that it's remarkably purple. Clearly the "blue" states are on the bluish side and the "red" states trend toward the redder side of purple. But what the map really shows is that this a nation divided throughout. Now, I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing that the nation is so polarized everywhere rather than by national region. But I do think it's a sad thing.

I’m not the only one who has made such maps. A Princeton professor, Robert J. Vanderbei, has made maps using the same scheme but broken down by county rather than by state . These maps tell a very clear story not told by the other maps. Rural regions are more conservative and urban regions are more liberal.

(Image from http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/)

This is a fact that has been long known. Reasons for it depend on a great many factors, I suppose. Not the least of which is that the urban centers are places where people have the chance to interact with people who are not like themselves, people who have different ways and ideas. Meeting people who are not like you is a powerful thing. It forces you to look at your own way of life and ask very basic questions about why you do the things you do. Such exposure to a diversity of cultures allows people to become more accepting of different ideas and less afraid of people who are not like themselves.

Back to the maps. Even in the county-by-county map the overriding color is purple. Neither red nor blue dominates strongly especially when population density is taken into account. What I take from this is that no party has a "mandate" from the people to govern from their ideological base. Yet, we have a federal government controlled by a single party that is already sending clear signals that it intends to continue to do just that. Just because a candidate wins an election by 3% (which is quite small considering the size of this country) does not mean they have a right to pursue policies that half the country vehemently disagrees with. The arrogance of President Bush is unprecedented, he has recently spoken of having gained "political capital" in the election that he intends to spend. He says he will "work together" only with members of congress who agree with him. That's not right and that's not good leadership.

I encourage everyone to share these purple graphics with others, especially your political representatives and ask them to govern from a purple perspective, not from a red or blue one.

Happy Autumnal Equinox

2004-09-22T22:20:00.000-07:00

Today is one of two days during the year when no part of Earth's axis of rotation is pointed toward or away from the Sun and everywhere on Earth receives 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. It's called the equinox (equal night). Everywhere on Earth sees the Sun rise due East and set due West on this day. Special places of note on Earth are: the Equator, where the Sun is directly overhead at noon on this day; and the north and south poles, where the Sun circles the horizon the whole day. There are lots of misconceptions about this Day. Perhaps you've heard the story about being able to stand an egg up on its end during the Equinox. Well, it's nonsense. It's no easier to stand an egg on end today than on any other day. Some people have the mistaken concept that the Earth physically flips it's tilt on this day. Not at all. Earth's tilt stays fixed in one direction in space and as it orbits the Sun the orientation of the tilt relative to the Sun changes.

There's a little Science lesson for the day. Enjoy it. Especially all you pagans and nature lovers out there. What better day to acknowledge the overwhelming beauty of the world!

The Burning Passion of a Thousand Dying Suns

2004-09-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

I've been using that phrase off and on for many years. But I have no idea where it comes from. I think I first started using it back in my Stellar Astrophysics class at U of Michigan. I hated that class with the burning passion of a thousand dying suns. Not because it was hard (it was) and not because it was boring (actually the subject matter was interesting), but because of the horrible teaching of Professor Cowley. What a jerk. It's just not right that university faculty can get tenure despite a complete lack of teaching skill.

The state of education is just one of the many topics that I'm likely to rant about here. There will be plenty more...