Day's First Blog: Another Day

what has sweet ingredients and flies?

2007-11-20T23:25:00.000-06:00

Christianism at its Finest

2007-02-16T12:49:00.000-06:00

I couldn't believe the news today. You're not just anti-gay marriage anymore. It's gone way past that.

Global Warming

2007-02-02T13:43:00.000-06:00

All the cool scientists are talking about it. What's the big deal?

Our planet's climate has cooled and warmed for millions of years. It happens on a regular basis, such is the testament of the fossil record. It's a cyclical occurence, like the seasons.

Why are scientists so worried? Since the industrial revolution mankind has awoken to the fact that we greatly change our local environments by pollution and wiping out entire species of plants and animals. Now scientists are worried that our environmental impact has global impact. Examine the facts: we have increased our human population six-fold in the past one hundred fifty years. Our appetite for natural resources like land, water, and petroleum is consequently much bigger now than it used to be. And because of sheer numbers and our technology, as a species we pollute a lot more than we used to.

So is humanity collectively responsible for bringing about a possible climactic shift in the very near future? Possible. But so what? Even if global warming happens in the near future, what's all the fuss? The earth will continue to spin, the Sun and the Moon will stick around, the vast water oceans will continue to boil and teem with life.

Basically we're worried about impending disaster. Climactic change may dramatically alter the coasts (where most people in the world live) and increase the occurence and severity of storms like tropical cyclones and monsoons. Local climates would shift dramatically. Forrests become desert; desert become grassland, etc. This would all have happened anyway, whether had people ever lived or not.

But we do live, and we live here. It's all about survival at this point in the game. With global warming definitely happening in our front yard. Can we survive the vast environmental and social changes that will occur? Water shortage, famine, plague, mass migration, and war are knocking on our door. Can we adapt to a brand new world?

end of the world, part 2

2007-01-31T21:27:00.000-06:00

One day the Messiah's gonna come and everything's gonna be great!
Jesus is coming back and everything's gonna be great!
The Age of Aquarius is coming and everything's gonna be great!

a lot of religions depend on some mythical future in which everything will be set right. Evil will be punished and good rewarded. Do these promises make up for the lack of justice in the world? The seeming chaos and meaninglessness we float in?

There is a longing in every human heart for a better tomorrow. And it cannot be satisfied. Ever. Do religious institutions tap into that desire to create fanatical devotion and obedience? I cannot believe that the beginnings of most religions and especially the ancient wisdom traditions are so wicked.

We can never understand what it is that has made out universe. Our minds are cups too small to hold all that invigorating knowledge. So we must talk about the supernatural and metaphysical with metaphors. We place our experiences on the universe and the gods in order to understand them. Maybe these religious promises are just projections of that primal feeling.

Those three little words

2006-12-16T18:49:00.000-06:00

You were right.

Joe, I love my new mac. it's helping me out of a bad relationship i had with my pc laptop. Thank you for steering me to this amazing and wonderful thing :-)

I felt compelled to write this

2006-12-11T16:05:00.000-06:00

An article in the Denver Post today

My heart goes out to this pastor and his family. I want to hold him and his family in my arms. It's not easy. A life full of self doubt and devoid of mercy is not worth living. But i'm happy for them because the truth allows us to live our lives out loud, like we mean it, like we are made to do. That is, the truth sets us free - a really neat guy told me that.

Contrary to Pastor Barnes, I believe that people are born with a sort of pre-sexual orientation already in place. I believe that the time is right for the Christian churches to accept that being gay is okay. I also believe it's about time for the gay community to do some soul-searching and reach out to their Christian brothers and sisters.

Draw us in the Spirit's tether
For when humbly in thy name
Two or three are met together
Thou art in the midst of them
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Touch we now thy garment's hem

Manly

2006-12-06T10:54:00.000-06:00

Joe asked me to make a post about a most unlikely question. "Do you think all effeminate men are gay?" Oh boy. Well, i'll give it my best shot.
Short answer: no. It's a free country and you can play with gender roles how you like. A lot of my straight-male friends are very effeminate, a là 'ohmigod that dog is soooo cute'. Even more of them act effeminately to make jokes with me and others.

Don't get me wrong - the thought has crossed my mind many times when i meet a guy who is impeccably groomed and speaks with an unmistakeably gay lisp, or talks about his male friends with female pronouns. What's up with that?
My theory is that effeminate behavior is an old left-over in the gay subculture's freezer. Before the coming out movement, there was a way to tell someone you were, you know, *different* without actually saying it. A flick of the wrist, an affected vowel here and there, you get the idea. At least i'm pretty sure that's how it happened in the cities. Feedback would be welcome.
And of course there were the bars, where men and women seeking a different sort of excitement found eachother. Before the solidarity of gay pride realized in the Stonewall Riots, a subculture had already formed in these bars. Part of being in the club was acting like the other members. All the cool gays and lesbians were breaking gender norms, so the rest followed suit. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Then again, it could just be a giant extended middle finger to a society that rejects them. It was and is an unwritten rule that only and all men shall act masculine and pursue females, likewise only and all women shall act feminine and pursue males. What better way to poo-poo some silly rule than to mock it?
And in true post-modern fashion effeminate straight guys and masculine gay guys are pretty much accepted. It's a much more ambiguous world, but more mature in my opinion. We're so serious all day using gender roles properly... but we can play with them, too.

Write a letter

2006-11-06T12:54:00.000-06:00

Know what? Ancient cultures and languages turn me on. Yeah, that's right; I am a nerd. But just see it from my point of view for a second.
The diversity of languages long forgotten. The drama of empires rising and falling as their leaders struggle to forge something permanent. Power struggles. Subversive messages and counter-cultural movements. Exotic and foreign-sounding names. The many ingenious ways people have devised to write down their thoughts, feelings, and prayers.
Take for example the Avestan script (here and here). Beautiful, isn't it? It was developed in the 300s AD to write down really old Zoroastrian prayers because the Old Persian language (related to Sanskrit) was falling into disuse. The new alphabet still got squashed under the weight of the seventh century Arabic rulers who brought their own language and alphabet. The hymns and teachings of Zarathustra and many Persians after him are almost gone by 900 AD.
Omniglot.com and AncientScripts.com are devoted to the awesome study of writing systems.

LOL

2006-11-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

There's a what in the Pacific Ocean?

2006-11-05T18:01:00.000-06:00

A vortex of plastic garbage. The size of Texas. Between Hawaii and North America. Gross.

Ted Haggard part Two

2006-11-05T00:20:00.000-06:00

After reading David Kuo's blog on the Haggard scandal, i'm embarassed at how unnecessarily mean and harsh i was. Maybe I'm angry at black-and-white Bronze Age teachings where I see a lot of gray area. Maybe I'm angry at preachers who make faithful persons with same-sex attractions feel guilty, as if they did something wrong. Maybe I'm angry at the spector of prudishly repressed sexuality in our country that forces men like Ted Haggard to retreat into the deep recesses of the closet. A closet of self-loathing, fear, and paranoia. But I do pray that he and his family will find healing. All of us make mistakes. We all need the gentle touch and warm embrace of a loving God. It is not my place to judge or to ostracize.

Ted Haggard

2006-11-04T22:42:00.000-06:00

Everyone's talking about him. Here's my two cents.

Words: guy preached to millions through his ministry about the evils of homosexuality and the folly to engage in such a lifestyle.
Actions: for three years guy calls up the same male escort to get naked massages and buy methamphetamines from while away on business.
His flock are demanding accountability.
He made his own bed, now will he sleep in it? Hipocrisy hurts us all.

Go NPH!

2006-11-03T23:32:00.000-06:00

I loved watching Doogie Howser, M.D. as a kid. Now I have another reason to watch it. Go Doogie!

Muslims 'are here to take over our country'

2006-11-03T21:54:00.000-06:00

Are you kidding me?? If this guy is for real, i weep for all of you Christians, all of you Muslims, and all of you Americans. So very, very sad.

Go New Jersey!

2006-10-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

It's funny to hear myself agree with a very public conservative. Yesterday the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that according to its own constitution, the state cannot deny the benefits of civil union to same-sex couples. Personally, I don't want it to stop there. I want to see the legal term civil marriage extended to all consenting adult couples. But like Andrew Sullivan said, there's just no support for that nationally. So here I see a baby-step in the right direction. Sullivan says he is fine with the move - in the near future gay marriage won't even be a hot topic of discussion (except for some fringe churches maybe). It's good to see our society's understanding of the human capacity for love maturing like this. After all, what's love got to do, got to do with it?

Firefox product-placement

2006-10-24T10:58:00.000-05:00

My computer is a five-year-old (displays open hand, palm out. i'm this many) Sony laptop. If i win the lottery today, tomorrow I will buy a MacBook Pro and a very fast Dell pc. Anywho, my computer cannot upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. Sad, i know. It wasn't displaying Unicode fonts properly, and for a language fanatic like me, that's a problem. So a high-schooler re-introduced me to Firefox. The internet just works better through Firefox-tinted glasses. Thanks for being there for my laptop Mozilla, in its time of need before natural death. And thank you Joel, for your computer savvy.

Brand New World

2006-10-24T10:48:00.000-05:00

I must confess; I love anime and Japanese pop music. Here is a beautiful synthesis of the two: "Brand New World" as the ending credits to InuYasha.

The lyrics (in Japanese and Romaji) as well as an English translation appear in the video. Sing along and enjoy!!

Something has changed within me

2006-10-19T16:47:00.000-05:00

Something is not the same
Wicked, "Defying Gravity"

In the past I have claimed to be a prophet. It is kind of a joke, but in every joke there is the element of truth. I feel the energetic calling of the inner and outer universes. It's like a message is trying to break free and get heard. Stay tuned.

Daily Dish

2006-10-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

So i just discovered Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish and i really like it. Libertarians like him usually make a lot of sense to me - he's for gay marriage, legalizing marijuana and banning late-term abortion. Thing is tho, log cabin republicans are strange birds... At least Sullivan has separated himself from the main party with the monicker South Park Republican.

Just another day

2006-10-12T23:42:00.000-05:00

I'm still here. Tired of debating with evangelicals about the sinfulness of homosexuality. Drifting away from the Catholic Faith (again). Love working at ASMS - these kids surprise and amaze me every day. They actually get excited about competition between the four houses, not unlike the House Cup competition held every year at Hogwarts.
I just had a really good conversation the other night with one of my guys. I told him i had a hard time explaining to people what I believe in. He told me he felt the same way. We're on different paths spiritually (he's into Zen and i'm not), but it's nice to know there are other ppl out there like me.

The Most Dangerous Things

2006-09-08T14:48:00.000-05:00

A History Channel documentary today examined the Free Mason involvement in the founding of the United States of America as a liberal democratic republic free from the English crown. The influence is considerable. An historian (A historian?) talked about the dangerous values Free Masons held - liberty, equality, reason, brotherhood, etc. So dangerous were their ideals and values that they forever changed the course of the West. The spell of monarchy was broken.
Some things never change. The "powers that be" are corrupt in our day as they were in their day. The nation-state is failing its purpose. Religious fundamentalism and international economies gain power. The unprecedented world human population and its hunger for natural resources are approaching the limits of what humanity and the biosphere are capable of providing. The climate is changing. So arm yourself with knowledge.
Learn basic, practical skills like using a map or guiding a boat. Healing with first aid, natural ingredients, the remedies of the old wives. Tying knots and building fire. Learn jokes, games, riddles, songs, and dances. Learn to let of go your fear and guilt.
Above all learn to think for yourself. Do not be cattle - don't accept blindly what any media outlet, fashion magazine, or charismatic television preacher says as dogmatically true. Don't accept what wikipedia or cnn says at face-value - do research, hopefully with a library card. Appreciate beauty of everyday things. Don't accept teachings ancient or modern without testing them, because human knowledge and understanding constantly changes. Do not seek what the ancients learned. Seek what they sought.

postmodern catholic

2006-07-31T17:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to Mass for the first time in months. I found out you're Catholic pretty much for ever: you don't forget the prayers, the songs, the sit-stand-kneel routine. You still get bored at the homily even though you like the priest. Why go back if i'm such a heretic? Because "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name."
That aside, I'm glad I was raised Catholic. The Catholic Church is friggin huge. So big and intimidating that it attracts a lot of conspiracy theories. So big that there are actually vigorous disagreements in the church that pose no threat to the stability of the entire Communion. We have Opus Dei, Liberation Theologians, Jesuits, Sisters of Mercy, and Mel Gibson. Is this diversity a good thing for the Church?
Yes. Without diversity, there is no dialog and no fruitful questioning. Is disagreement and discord warm and fuzzy? Anything but. However it does strengthen faith, if not commitment to deeper principles like community of faith.
There is only one Bible. Is there only one way to interpret its messages? No.
Do the ideas in the Bible mean the same thing to all peoples throughout history? No.
Can we accept people into our churches whom we perceive (with our beam-filled eyes) to be unrepentant sinners? We really don't have a choice.
Can we pray with people who we know are downright wrong? I sure hope so.

Living the Spirit of Different Worlds

2006-06-29T21:16:00.000-05:00

Lots of people feel like they don't fit in. I feel that way a lot.
I need to leave the busy, fast pace of city life for the serenity of the country and nature's peace. Clean air, trees. Close to the unapologetic cycles of nature. I want to settle down with my future husband out there and walk with him under the stars in a quiet wood.
I need to live in an exciting metropolis alive with theatre, choirs, parades, bands, pubs, bright lights and neighbors. Good food and always something new to see. Diversity and creativity. I'd also prolly have a better chance of finding my future husband there, no?
I have a love-hate relationship with religions. Maybe I need to go single for a while. I love God, but even we have huge differences sometimes. I want the security of sharing my faith with a community of believers, but I can't stand the idea of conforming and giving up my autonomy. It's like I'd be cheating on God.
At once people are gods, but no more and no less than animals. We are a perfection of music, but we fail horribly at simple things. Selfish but selfless. Rational but passionate.
Life is a necessary chemical reaction in a now cold, decaying universe.

or

Life is the sum of spirit forms straining in their/its material cocoons, waiting to burst out and slow time down, bend the rules of physics, colonize the stars, or just start over.

Food Poisoning

2006-06-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday at about 8pm i started feeling bad. An hour later my managers sent me home from work because they all agreed i looked sick. On the drive home i had to stop to throw up. Eight hours later i had thrown up five more times, not to mention other problems of the digestive system.
I pride myself on having a strong stomach. i once ate a pizza and a half pound of french fries then before going on the three biggest roller-coasters in Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
How the mighty have fallen. The way i felt can best be described by the words of a song we sang in Lit Choir during Lent, adapted from psalm 102. I am "like a pelican in the wilderness. Like a bird alone on the roof."

X3

2006-05-29T15:03:00.000-05:00

Go and watch it. So good. The Da Vinci Code was good too.

United 93

2006-05-11T18:26:00.000-05:00

Saw United 93 last night with my brother and his girlfriend. Man, that was a sad movie. Also kind of predictable; everyone already knows the plot. But one thing really stuck out at me. All the characters prayed before they did something huge. They prayed before leaving the hotel to begin a day of terror. They prayed before stabbing a few people and hijacking the aircraft. They prayed before rushing the terrorists and killing them. To me it was saying faith is a powerful motivator. Prayer gave them strength and sustained them.
Here I could make a passionate call to Christians and Muslims to reconcile their differences before it's too late, but I won't. Damn fundamentalists for hijacking the faith of countless millions. When you're so sure you're right that you'll kill yourself and everyone around you, the terrorists have already won. I pray that everyone guard their heart and keep watch at your church, mosque, synagogue, coven, shrine, etc.
Tonight I'm going out with a friend who is recently back from Iraq. Here's to a night of beer and women. or something ;)

Stumbling Blocks

2006-05-07T12:48:00.000-05:00

I commend Christian churches for their charity work this last year. Hurricane season really caught America off-guard, and American churches did the best job getting aid where it needed to go. Seeing active charity only strengthened my belief that faith can be a powerful force of good.
A friend recently pointed me to Christ and Culture. I don't know the author, but it's clear he's very intelligent. His recent post (the one Joe wanted me to see) is on churches splitting because they disagree about homosexuality.
Homosexuality. Such a clinical word, don't you think? Same-sex attraction and gay sex are human universals; gay men and women have lived in every part of the globe, in every culture and society, since the dawn of history and before. The same goes for hundreds of other animal species. It's perfectly natural, if you take my meaning.
Lots of people who read the Bible literally believe that homosexuality is unnatural. While it makes me sad, that's fine with me. Just please let the churches get some real work done. Rather than campaigning to end same-sex marriage and gay adoption rights, American churches could save a lot of time and effort by focusing their creative and practical energies on charity work, because they're good at that. Hurricane season starts in three weeks.

2006-05-05T18:48:00.000-05:00

So I've finally caved. Today I went to a large clothing store in the mall to buy some new underroos. That's all. Two unintentional pairs of shorts and three unforeseen, unplanned polo shirts later, I came down from my shopping high. I was buzzing like a bee on drugs. Popular culture has sucked me in and influenced my buying new and fashionable stuff. In my defense it's been years since I've bought clothes for myself, and I've lost twenty-five pounds in six months, so almost none of my clothes fit properly. And those shirts just looked so fine. Now on to more meaningful yet less relavant stuff...
Have you noticed how snowfall melts? At first the process is very slow and gradual. The texture of the snow changes. If it's warm enough, ice melts into water and the fluid follows gravity's call. As water runs off, the structure holding up the layers of accumulated snow gets weaker. A collapse happens eventually because weakened older snow that was supporting the upper layers gives in under the weight of newer snow. The collapse can be seen as the avalanche from a glacier, icebergs from an iceshelf, or on a less violent scale, the edge of a shoveled driveway. Walking home to my dorm one day I saw the effects of snow melt and it reminded me of "punctuated equilibrium" in the theory of evolution. Constant pressure can cause both subtle and violent change, depending on what and when you're watching.
I have some other thoughts a-brewing right now, but they'll carry new post because they're mildly controversial.

What is New?

2006-01-18T23:57:00.000-06:00

I have been away from the blog for a very long time. Christmas was awesome. My Uncle Rob(who also doubles as my Godfather) and Auntie Kate brought my new baby cousin (Dylan Thorworth) to Mobile to stay with us for the Holidays. I am a total sucker for this kid; I really will do anything for him. The cool thing is I'll be his "Gay Uncle Day" and that means buying him tons of presents and such :-D.
I got a very special Christmas present: airplane tickets to NYC so I could visit with my best friends in the world, Kevan and Brendan O'Neill. I got to LaGuardia on Friday afternoon (6 Jan). We went ice skating that night and I met one of their new dental school friends. We also visited Central Park, the Museum (i think they call it MOMA or the Met), Times Square, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Ground Zero, Chinatown, and ate at a restaurant in Little Italy. We even saw Hairspray on Broadway! But the best part of the trip by far was seeing my old friends. It's really neat how you pick up right where you left off. I really want to visit them again, and my excuse will be we still have to see SoHo, Chelsea, and the Village.
Currently I'm writing a short-story and attempting to invent a beautiful language like the two "Elvish" languages J. R. R. Tolkien did. Recently I read an empowering sermon by Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson in the last issue of Dignity USA. It motivated me to go back to church. I went to Corpus Cristi on Sunday and realized how much I missed community prayer. Yeah the Body of Christ!

It's the End of the World (as we know it)

2005-12-12T23:02:00.000-06:00

The History Channel showed this great program on Easter Island tonight. I was really fascinated and intrigued. Until they started talking about why the island was a desolate grassland when the Europeans found it.
Turns out Rapanui (Easter Island) was first colonized in the five hundreds. The island has several volcanoes and rich soil. The people that settled there were famous for the gigantic statues they made, called moai.
The moai made them rich, and their population centres got crowded. Agriculture depleted the rich soils so they cut down more trees to grow more food. After repeating this process on such a tiny forrest island, they cut down all the trees, and could grow no more food.
Civil war erupted. The island was destroyed in less than 1500 years.
So naturally I overthought it and got very frightened. We could easily do the same thing on a global scale. As animals, our population increases until it hits some limiting factor like the availibility of food. And for every one person in 1800 there are now like six and a half.

Da Vinci Code: part one

2005-12-05T17:12:00.000-06:00

Last night there were some very good shows on the History Channel about The Da Vinci Code, the Knights Templar, Priori of Sion, and the Catholic / Christian faith. Most of the stuff was common sense. While under its aegis, Opus Dei operates independently from the rest of the Catholic Church, but they generally aren't involved in conspiracy theories and subversive plots, etc. But something really struck me.
The big deal in The Da Vinci Code, a work of fiction that takes place in the modern world, is the Search for the Holy Grail, Sangraal. By leaps and bounds that you can only take in the world of Faerie, San Graal becomes Sang Raal and the Holy Cup of Jesus becomes a Royal Lineage, the only real cup that can hold the Divine Blood. Reaction to the book was fever-pitch. The books heavy emphasis of the Divine Feminine really scared the patriarchal veins of Christendom, but a deeper chord got struck.
The book held that Jesus and Mary Magdalene (the infamous adulteress) got married and had a daughter, Sarah.
*cue the freaking out*
"Whoa, Jesus never got married! He didn't have children!"
All I wanna ask is, why is that such a big deal, whether he got married or not?
Jesus is fully human, right? If he had not married, surely the Gospel writers would have commented on that pretty huge part of his life. But they are mum, one way or the other, so how do we know?

It's that time again!

2005-11-30T19:23:00.000-06:00

The Holidays are here!
It's the most wonderful time of the year...
With Mannheim Steamroller and the Vince Guaraldi Trio blarin' on the radio.
With the smells of potpourri, wood fires, and hot chocolate as it warms your belly.
With the early nightfalls and crisp winds that chap your lips.
Man, I really love this time of year.
Happy SolstiFestiRamaChanuKwanz'Mas!

Rent

2005-11-29T00:00:00.000-06:00

A movie hasn't made me cry since Haley Joel Osment's performance in A.I. Until tonight.
I saw Rent, y'all. I identified with Angel, and I really wish I had her great attitude.
Bravo to the cast for moments like "Will I?", "Tango: Maureen", "La Vie Boheme", and "Without You".
One of the major forces in the story is the AIDS epidemic. It was a shameful time in American history; the excuses people gave for choosing to ignore the situation still make me very angry. But what's done is done. We live with the consequences of our actions and the actions of others. It's way easier sung than done, but I "must let go to know what's right."

There's only us; there's only this.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss...
There's only now; there's only here.
Give in to love, or live in fear.
No other path, no other way.
No day but today.

2005-11-27T11:34:00.000-06:00

Iron Chef is amazing. The concept of master chefs competing with themed ingredients coming from different cuisine training turns me on. Everyone needs to eat, so cooking is important, right? I cannot think of a better way to celebrate diversity, quick thinking, and the art of cooking than some friendly competition in Kitchen Stadium. Back to you, Fukui-san.

On Individuals or Electron Party!

2005-11-20T20:40:00.000-06:00

My two best friends in the world are identical twins. I met them the week of September 11th, 2001 at Notre Dame and we bonded almost instantly after that. Right now they are studying at Columbia University in NYC to be dentists.
Here's a philosophical question: The Roman Catholic Church does not officially claim to know the exact time a human body is infused with an eternal spirit. The event is shrouded in mystery. But the RCC says that people should not interfere with the life-giving process, banning all forms of contraception (except the Timing Method, aka Vatican Roulette). Additionally, the Vatican considers abortion to be murder in all cases. Such teachings would lead to the conclusion that body and spirit are fused upon conception, the joining of sperm and egg. Biologically, it is an amazing occasion and a lot of really cool stuff happens. But why is the soul thing tricky?
Wells and Pippen, affectionate nicknames for these dudes, were conceived in only one event. The meeting of a single female gamete with a single male gamete. I know this because hundreds of people (including me) get them confused very often. [Fortunately there are tricks to tell them apart. Wells has a mole between his eyes and Pippen has a scar on his left eyebrow.] The point is, for a very short time these two gentlemen were one organism. By some mystery one became two. Was the fertilized ovum enfused with two souls? Were their spirits granted after the separate lives became apparent? Is a spirit something attached to the stuff of the earth that moves and changes, grows and splits? Was the fertilized egg a non-person phase in the same way that egg and sperm are human life but not human persons?
I don't know the answers to the questions, but they really drive at the heart of the idea of an individual.
Another case of our complex biology is beginning to make its way into the American legal system. It has long been known that chimeras exist: organisms with two very similar but still distinct sets of DNA. Happens in plants all the time. It also rarely happens in animals. Guess what? Human chimeras can have blood types different from the DNA collected for evidence by police, because some very special people have more than one set of human DNA. It has been observed in different animal species that the fusion of fraternal (or sororital) twins can create a chimera. This kind of fusion may be the way human chimeras occur, but to my knowledge it has not been observed in humans. However it has been documented that some individuals have two sets of DNA. Kinda changes the legal definition of an individual in this day, when our courts use DNA evidence to find out whodunnit.
If these human chimeras were once (approx. nine months before their birth) two organisms, do they have two souls? Again, I'm simply not smart enough to know the answer to this question.
What I really want to get at, is can we define individual in a satisfactory way? Scientists agree that once you've seen one electron, you've seen them all. Same goes for protons, they're all interchangeable. Every Carbon atom with 6e, 6p and 8n is like every other C atom with the same set up. The benefit of Quatum theory was that it helped physicists explain why atoms don't fly apart, but the cost was that all of the sudden, my electrons are mingling with yours, and yours with mine. It's very unlikely, but the possibility is still too great to have distinct electron orbits, like the Dalton model. Now we have electron clouds shimmering around nuclear clouds, but every now and then an electron shimmers really close to or really far from its nucleus. We're always mingling with our environment and vice versa. Wells' electrons are partying with Pippen's electrons and so on.
So it breaks down on the tiny scale. So what?
I think there are deep consequences to how i think about individuals, or the inability to define them in classical terms, the messiness of counting. Maybe my thinking runs back to grade-school when i read a cheesy sci-fi. In "My Teacher Flunked the Planet", Bruce Coville writes that humanity, of all the intelligent species in the Galaxy, is special because "there is only one of them." We appear to be different individuals, but it is only the consequence of a defense mechanism for an emerging mind. There is a strong bond or connection that binds us so closely, and we're almost ready, almost mature enough to break down the walls that separate us. In the book the bond is expressed as mental/spiritual. That's part of what I was getting at in my post earlier today about "Inner Light" and "Flame Imperishable".
How different would the world be if we all stopped thinking in terms of us v. them, and began using more fluid ideas?

2005-11-20T14:28:00.000-06:00

Gosh, nothing much to report here. I get today and tomorrow off from work, so tonight i might go and watch Harry Potter which i have heard some good reports about. Notre Dame won, Auburn beat Alabama. Crazy people are getting crazier all the time (I might or might not be talking about Joseph Farah and Pat Robertson).
If i could say something thought-provoking or stimulating, it might be this:
Christ is in you. Take that how you like. It is written in the Christian Scriptures a few times. Paul said it outright, and Jesus promised to send his holy spirit, our advocate.
This teaching leads to some interesting conclusions. We all share a lot in common. We are all made of the stuff of the earth, we are all H. sapiens, but we also share some kind of divine spark. In "The Silmarillion" only Eru (the One) can give a special life-giving thing called the "Flame Imperishable". The Quakers talk about the "Inner Light" that guides us. I think these descriptions come pretty close to it.
Look past division and labels and get to the heart of the matter; there's a lot more similarity that difference when it comes to people.

Love Thee, Notre Dame

2005-11-16T08:26:00.000-06:00

When I woke up Saturday morning, the first thing I saw was a Navy ROTC guy.
Naked.
Quite a surprise, and a pleasant one if you take my meaning. Looking past the grade-A beef (which we should all do), he's also an intelligent and friendly person. He and his roommate, my good friend from Alaska, let me sleep in their room on campus for the Navy game at Notre Dame last weekend.
Navy games are special because the first football game Notre Dame played in the stadium in 1930 was with Navy. Additionally, Notre Dame has won the last 42 (43?) consecutive games in the long-standing rivalry.
The weather was perfect. I saw a bunch of old friends. The Liturgical Choir sang beautifully at the bookstore. Tailgates of course always rule. The Dome and Our Lady shined even brighter than last year.
blah blah blah
It was great to be back, and I miss college. But most of my friends from school are scattered across the world now, doing good work and studying for their professions. So in a way we can't go back.
Before I log off for another obscenely long and unannounced time, I just want to recommend four movies that I haven't seen. Please go and watch:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Loved the book. The movie should capture a lot of the spirit and clarify some of the crazy England-talk (e.g. "git", "wodger", "Prime Minister").
Rent. The soundtrack rocks on many levels. I haven't seen the play. BUT everyone I know that's seen it, raved about it. Like "Love! Valour! Compassion!", most of the actors from stage play their famous roles on the big screen.
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I recently finished the Chronicles by Lewis and I say, read them!! Oh, already done it you say? Read 'em again. Even though I disagree with his strongly paternalistic view of the world, the lessons he teaches are priceless.
Brokeback Mountain. Director Ang Lee and actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal present the story of two cowboys whose relationship shifts from platonic to physical. "Brokeback Mountain" examines the consequences of it. I don't want to make a controversial post about gay and lesbian relationships yet, but I will say I expect Ang Lee to do a fabulous job.

I got some comments earlier, and I'll get back to you soon.
Correction: The ban on married priests in the RCC is only 790 years old, not 890 years old.

You are a Priest For Ever

2005-11-06T16:40:00.000-06:00

The Roman Catholic Church needs to change its tune on priests right now. Rather than excluding men with homosexual tendencies from the cloth, they need to crack down on paedophiles in the ranks and weed them out. Discouraging gay men from the priesthood would worsen an already bad shortage of Catholic priests in the United States, where a very large minority (proportionately much larger than the general population) of priests anonymously self-identify as gay. Remember this: Gay does not mean paedophile, and paedophile does not mean gay. They aren't mutually exclusive groups, but they do not correlate.
The RCC must also update its policies on married priests and female priests. The perspectives that these groups can offer to congregations is invaluable and needed.
If the Church believes in the full equality of women as believers, then the exclusively male hierarchy must open its doors to the half of humanity that gives us birth and more than half of our DNA. The inequality is staggering; a church that is mostly women has never been ruled by a woman. The RCC has several religious positions for men: acolyte, deacon, monk, priest, (arch)bishop, cardinal, pope. If a Catholic woman wants to serve God's Church she can be a nun or an acolyte. Pope John Paul II hailed Darwin's Theory of Evolution and its subsequent alterations as a great achievement for science. If the Vatican can be open-minded about modern scientific observation and theory, it can embrace women as full partners and co-inheritors of the Church. As one of my friends said, "If you're a Catholic you get seven sacraments. If you're a woman, you get six." Let's demand more sacramental grace for our sistren.
What about married priests? Converts who were already married ministers upon initiation into the RCC have breached the 890-year-old celibacy requirement. Some rites of the Catholic Communion (e.g. the Maronite Catholic Church) already offer marriage to priests, with policies similar to that of the American RCC on married deacons. Allowing more diversity into the priesthood can only strengthen it.

2005-11-05T13:10:00.000-06:00

I work at Felix's Fish Camp. Y'all should come out and visit sometime. It's on the Causeway, the Western edge of Spanish Fort.
After work yesterday I was driving home and saw Venus (The Evening Star) and the waxing crescent Moon over Mobile. It was beautiful. You could almost see the ecliptic. That's the imaginary plane circling Earth where you find the Sun, Moon, zodiac, and all the planets.
It's a really special time for watching the night sky. Venus just completed its Greatest Eastern Elongation (3Nov) which means it'll be up for a few hours after the sun sets for the next month or two. And Mars was recently at nearest fly-by (29Oct) slash Opposition, which means it's that big pink spot nearly overhead at midnight. For both events to happen close together like this is quite rare.
I took Astronomy a couple years ago. Great class, easy, and it's fun to impress people with the stuff I learned there. It also helps me appreciate the Universe we live in a lot more. I definitely see God in Nature.
Venus will be setting a little sooner every night now until it crosses the sun, but until December 4th it will be getting brighter. At that time it'll have a -4.5 magnitude brightness, brighter than anything in the sky except the Moon and Sun, and visible even during the day. So keep your eyes on the skies.

First Post: Introduction

2005-11-03T23:32:00.000-06:00

Hi. This is going to be a spot where I talk about stuff. My name is Day. I think I have darned original and crazy ideas, which makes me pretty standard I guess. I read Clifford Geertz's "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" a couple times for my BA in Anthropology and fell in love with post-modern complexity. There's a lot of room here for me to talk about who I am and what turns me on or off, but we'll save that for later.
This is a safe space. If you like discussion this is the place for you; please come in with an open mind and heart. And leave your shoes at the door. It's comfy in here. So please sit down on the plump chairs. Have a drink. The coffee and tea are freshly brewed, steaming, and filling the room with that special aroma. The beer and water are kept very cold. The subtlely scented candles are lit. Living flowers bloom by the bay windows.
Enjoy!