2012? Even the Maya are sick of hearing about it!

The Associated Press put out a story yesterday that was picked up by FOXNews.com and MSNBC.com. It was even the second most-read story on FOXNews's website as of this moment (which I can't tell is a good thing or a bad thing, frankly). MSNBC's version of the title caught my attention right away: "Even the Maya are getting sick of 2012 hype".

I was amused by the first three paragraphs:

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

But then I was disturbed by another paragraph:

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," [Ann] Martin [who runs Cornell University's "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site] said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

And that's the disturbing thing, which is what I've tried to focus on with these recent blog postings. 2012 could be a very good thing, whether or not anything actually happens to the Earth. People's awareness and perception of the world around them may, just in itself, may make 2012 a positive reality. But right now the only word that's getting around is "doom and gloom". Uninformed people are getting frightened by what they're being fed by "pop media", and their kids are getting even more scared. That's not cool. I can speak from experience. After watching a show on TV about Nostradamus's and other's predictions, my mom went on to tell her young, impressionable son (I was something like 8 to maybe 10 years old at the time) that she heard that WW III (the nuclear kind) was supposed to happen in 1991. That stuck with me, and it certainly didn't help my psyche and my mood when the Gulf War began in January of that year. Nonetheless, nuclear war did not happen. The world, yet again, didn't end. It's a persistently stubborn little bugger, our world, isn't it? It just keeps on ignoring all of us who say that it's time has come.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X."

...Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.

"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."

And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.

"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."

One more dose of 2012 video

I said my last post would be the one to "cap off" my 2012 frenzy, but after visiting a "big-box" bookstore chain this morning and seeing almost an entire 6-shelf section devoted to 2012 books, I have decided to add one more video series.

I have been hemming and hawing with myself for quite some time over whether to add this video:

The pros: It is a very informative video, with good research and valid data. One of the things that I had still been wondering about regarding the "alignment with galactic center" idea was answered starting around the 3:00 mark of the first video. I knew our solar system sort of wobbles up and down as it goes through its orbit around the Milky Way galaxy, and I had heard that we were supposed to be lining up with the galactic equator right around now. This video, plus other research I have done since watching the video, explains that that isn't the case.*

The cons: Though this video maker says we don't need to worry about doom and gloom from 2012, at the end of the second video he theorizes that we DO need to worry about Jesus coming and the end times approaching.

Gotta take the good with the bad, and on this blog, Jesus bringing the world to an end isn't much better that Nibiru doing it. But regardless, I thought the video, up to the end, did a good job explaining away the far-out theories of 2012.





* By the way, I also independently learned why we wobble up and down through the galaxy in the first place. It's gravity. That's all. As our star (the sun) orbits the galaxy, its path from it's creation set it on a direction to go through the galactic plane's middle. But rather than just continuing on that path in a straight line and whoosh sending ourselves out of the galaxy, the gravitation from all the other stars, gas and dust in the galactic plane pull our solar system back in. The sun's momentum then carries it fast enough to go through the galactic plane again, until gravity pulls it back in once again to repeat the cycle. This isn't just our solar system, but tons of star systems go through this.

2012 on video

I wanted to post a couple of fun/silly/stupid videos to cap off my anti-2012-will-end-in-mass-destruction rant.

This first one is actually informative for those who don't know diddly squat about what the deal is. Turns out the woman who made this video (who also is the one starring in it) actually won an Emmy award for this video. Who knew you could win Emmy awards for blog videos??



This next is one of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of "Nova scienceNOW" speaking on the Nibiru/Planet X stuff. The reason I put this under silly/funny videos is because he has an entertaining way of talkin' 'bout it.



These last three are segments from Penn & Teller's Showtime show, "Bullshit". These guys are always good for a laugh, but be warned: as is their style, there is quite a bit of foul language and crassness. Though that's not my style, the reason why I include them here (other than getting Gary Coleman to be the "brown dwarf star" that is supposed to crash into the earth -- man, that's classic) is that they go out and interview some of the so-called "experts" behind the promotion of impending doom. And all I can think is: these are the people that the population is listening to in order to acquire their information and beliefs? Oy.

Nope, you can't trust the system

My support for 2012hoax.org

Inspired by my previous post, I have added a site on the right-hand side of this blog under the "If you have a few more minutes..." category. This is where I list sites that I like or support.

I'm placing my support with the site 2012hoax.org not because I don't believe in 2012. Rather, I don't think that people need to be scared of anything regarding it and feeling that the world is coming to an apocalyptic end.

The site specifically helps to educate you that 12/21/12 is not Doomsday. It's a site that helps quell fear, of which there is plenty. I'll let the creators speak for themselves:

The "2012 doomsday" is a hoax, a fraud, and a con job. It is a cruel and cynical lie being promoted by scam artists after money: First they scare people to death that something terrible is going to happen, then they publish books and videos on "how to survive". See the scam? You're not going to fall for something like that, right?

The problem is that some people will fall for the scam. Some people will believe it. Some people will spend their money buying books and videos on "how to survive". They will buy worthless survival kits or spaces in shelters that will never be built.

Some people will die because of these rumors.

If you think we are being overly dramatic, then think about this: In September, 2008, Chayya, young woman in India became distraught and depressed after watching poorly done and over-hyped reports about the Large Hadron Collider. She believed these shows when they said that the LHC would cause a 'miniature big bang' or a create a black hole, and destroy the world. She drank insecticide. She was 16...

Why we made this site: One of us regularly visits local school classrooms, giving an astronomy talk and question-and-answer session... Beginning last year a shift in the nature of the questions was noticed over the year before. Instead of "What would happen if you fell into a black hole?" the questions were more along the lines of "I heard that there's a planet that is going to hit us in 2012." When the students were asked where they had heard this information, the top two responses, far in advance of any other source, were YouTube and Yahoo! Answers.

A visit to Yahoo! Answers disclosed that A) There were a lot of people asking 2012 questions and B) there were a lot of people giving incorrect information about 2012. He began writing his "2012 hoax" page in January of 2009, and immediately began getting feedback from many different people who were scared and confused by all of the 2012 doomsday talk.

In May 2009, a teacher left a comment: "…[I] am a teacher and my 3rd graders are hearing about this, and a little child is talking about how if its ending, that she should just end it now. This isnt even close to funny anymore"

On the comments page on this site, the mother of a 7 year old says: "I have a 7 year old that happened to see something on the history channel that scared him so bad , he became depressed and often question the meaning of life, like I said above he is 7!!! This nonsense is scaring our children..."

Fear and ignorance can kill.

This has gone far enough.

I hope you'll take a look, at least. It's worth it. They've done their research and I found their Mayan Predictions page to be pretty informative -- including a little known fact that Mayan calendars exist that include dates after 12/21/12, and that some cultures in Honduras still use the Mayan calendar, where there are "no reports of preparations for doomsday...There is no evidence that the Mayans thought anything was going to happen on this date (other than a big party)."

See? Now THAT'S the kind of information that should be passed along to the population!

And the 2012 frenzy REALLY kicks into high gear...

There have been stories on the internet about the December 21 2012 or "2012 phenomena" for years now. More and more books have popped up about it. And just as Hollywood usually does when something that has always been real starts to become well-known (think "Armageddon" or "Deep Impact" when Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter and people finally realized that, oh, we CAN get hit by comets or asteroids; "The Day After Tomorrow" regarding climate change) we now have a film opening in November about 2012 called "2012" (which I just found out is directed by the same guy who directed the just aforementioned "Day After Tomorrow"....hmmm, pattern of blowing things out of proportion?). Or rather, not so much about what the "2012 phenomena" stemmed from, but rather exploiting the world-ending disaster scenarios.

I have my own peculiar 2012 connection. I wasn't even aware of the "2012 phenomena" until I had an extremely vivid, moving, extraordinary dream 3 years ago that mentioned something about an area not being safe for the "next six years". My wife looking into anything she could about what it could mean, and she stumbled across 2012 and all of its nuances, from mundane to catastrophic. Though we don't exactly know if the dream had anything to do with 2012 specifically, it did seem an odd coincidence. And in the intervening time, we've gone back and forth as to what, if anything, the connection (if there really is any) could mean. One could always argue that it was just a dream, but this wasn't just a dream for me. I think anyone from our most spiritual to our most skeptical can understand what that means. Ultimately, I think we feel that if nothing else, perhaps a better understanding of our world and our people -- a new way of thinking, or possibly a new idea of religion, spirituality and science perhaps stimulated because of the hoopla surrounding 2012 -- would be the most likely scenario for 12/21/12. Regardless, I appreciate the knowledge gained about 2012 prior to this, because if I were to be finding out about it just now? Whoa, boy.

Yesterday's "Cosmic Log" article written by Alan Boyle on MSNBC.com (which I always have a link to on the right-hand side of my blog) discussed 2012 and this movie, specifically. Here's a link to it. Here are some quick excerpts:

The flick's premise is that there really is something behind the speculation about an apocalypse supposedly due in 2012. An earlier viral marketing campaign highlighted the fictional "Institute for Human Continuity," which was said to be setting up a lottery for spots in an underground refuge from doomsday.

Unfortunately, not everyone immediately saw through the IHC's TV commercials (or the Facebook group or the Twitter postings or the YouTube channel...).

"The ads seemed very real," Cosmic Log correspondent Darrell Messbarger wrote in an e-mail, "and some of my daughter's friends were in a dead panic over them. Even their parents."

The worries about 2012 go back way before "2012" was even a gleam in a Hollywood producer's eye. The cornerstone of the apocalyptic claims is the idea that the ancient Maya devised a 5,126-year calendar system that ran into a blank on Dec. 21, 2012. For the doomsayers, that implied that the end date would mark the end of the world as we know it.

There's one problem with that hypothesis: It's only a calendar!!! Over at the Universe Today blog, Ian O'Neill has an excellent 2012 overview that lays out all the cycles within cycles in the Maya calendar system. Another great explanation from University of Portsmouth astronomer Karen Masters goes into why 12/21/2012 has the same significance for the Mayan calendar that 12/31/1999 had for our calendar, or that 99999.99 miles does for your car. Check here and here for more about the Long Count.

The calendar confusion has gotten wrapped up with a whole bunch of other claims, ranging from the alignment of the sun with the galactic plane (which basically happens every Dec. 21) to an expected rise in solar storms (which follows the sun's 11-year activity cycle rather than the Mayan calendar).

I'd like to stop here for a second. One item mentioned above was something that I actually had thought was a factor in my belief that 12/21/12 was significant in more than just a Mayan calendar end-date. I was intrigued by the idea of the sun crossing the galactic center. Now, you'll notice that in the excerpt from Boyle's article, he and the other sites he linked to mention crossing the galactic plane. Yes, the sun does cross the plane twice a year. I wanted a response to the idea of the sun aligning with or crossing the galactic center, which I thought was a more widely-argued talking point and these sites didn't address that.

I did a bit of research. Any of you who have read any of my earlier posts (HA!) will know that I encourage people to know about the precession of the equinoxes. The wha? The fact that the stars don't always line up in the same exact position in the sky over the years. The easiest way to understand this is with your Zodiac sign, as I wrote about in my earlier post, Your Astrological Sign May Not Be What You Think It Is. The basic upshot? The "signs" of the zodiac were established by an astrology invented thousands of years ago. But the stars appear to have moved quite a bit since that time. And even though traditionally a person born on December 21 is considered a Capricorn (which was the sign the sun was in 2000-3000 years ago), if you actually looked up into space to see what constellation the sun was truly in on that date nowadays, it would be Sagittarius. What does this have to do with 2012? The galactic center is IN Sagittarius.

Now, all this time I've been thinking that the Mayans managed to figure precession out, and knew that one long-count calendar period of around 5126 years would end when the sun was aligned with the center. And it would work out with the 2160 years it takes for the sun to go through one zodiac sign, which would get us through the roughly 26,000 years it takes for the Earth to go through one full precession that roughly equates to 65 of the Mayan baktuns even though they put more faith in a cycle of 13 baktuns... Look, there's a lot of math, a lot of numbers, and a lot of calculations that go into all this, whether one takes this stuff seriously or not. For most people, though, who don't spend much of their time thinking about calendars and math, it's easy just to read the words of others who claim they've "worked it out". Problem is, not everything is truly worked out.

The facts are that the only things worked out with 2012 is that the Mayans did (more or less, there is a bit of argument as to the exact date) set their latest baktun to end on a winter solstice. And these days (and by that I mean centuries), the winter solstice aligns more with the galactic center than any other time in the past 26,000 years. In fact, if we want to get technical, the winter solstice has been lined up with the galactic center since 1998, so 2012 isn't special at all in that regard, and there are several sources to back that up. Here's one that actually takes it from a "New Ager's" point of view, but this New Ager has definitely got their math and physics skills well in hand. Here's a quick excerpt from that site:

If the 2012 phenomenon is real, it appears to be more complicated than some assume. My research tells me that in no way does it imply the mass ascension of everyone on this planet, because that would go against the freewill of those who instead of being ready for a higher realm are stubbornly content with the lower. Nor will it happen precisely on December 21, 2012 because that date is supposedly based on only two things: when the Mayan calendar ends and when the sun on winter solstice overlaps the galactic center; the first is of questionable dating while the second already occurred in 1998. The Shift may in fact be more the dimensional effect of a broad wave whose central peak resides on or after 2012, whereby the years immediately before and after the peak might be just as significant. My best estimate is that the window of 2012-2032 is of greater importance than the winter solstice of 2012 itself.

Here's a graphic to help explain what is meant by the sun already crossing the center of the galactic plane back in 1998:



Besides talk of the crossing of the galactic equator/plane, there's even debate as to what is meant by the "galactic center"; do we mean the general bulge in the center of the Milky Way, or a specific point in that bulge that the Mayans may have worked out, or how about the center as we truly know it to be today? If it's the latter, then the sun won't actually cross the true center, because it can't from Earth's point of view, contrary to what many believers may think:



The cross of the two purple lines is where the sun meets the galactic equator, but you'll notice the true galactic center is several degrees below that meeting point. That means it's impossible for the sun to truly cover up or "line up with" the galactic center anyway.

Here is some more discussion from other sites:

The Sun (and hence also the ecliptic) does not approach the center of the Milky Way to closer than about 5 degrees (which is ten times the apparent size of the Sun and the Moon in the sky), and that happens not on 21 December but around 18 December, and not just in 2012 but in every year.

It is of course possible that the Maya recognized some other point as the center of the Milky Way than we do today, but I don't know of any Maya text that clearly defines that point, so there is no evidence that the Maya regarded 2012 as a special year in this regard.

The exact correspondence between the Long Count and modern calendars was lost when the Spanish conquistadors destroyed many Maya documents in the 16th century. In the course of time, the beginning of the Long Count has been proposed to correspond to dates in our calendars that varied by as much as 1000 years.

So, anyway, back to the doomsday ideas, and to Boyle's article:

There are even farther-out claims - for example, that Earth's orbit will be thrown out of whack by an encounter with a roving Planet X (sometimes called Nibiru) or a dark star (sometimes called Nemesis). Some of the doomsayers even cite an article I wrote 10 years ago about the potential for undetected celestial objects on the very edge of our solar system.

I go into the Planet X issue in detail in my forthcoming book, "The Case for Pluto," but here's the Cliff's Notes version: Yes, there's a chance that an icy world bigger than Mercury or Mars is lurking out on our cosmic frontiers. That perceived possibility is based on statistical analysis as well as the fact that its presence would make some computer models work better.

Discoveries of dwarf planets beyond Pluto have added to the intrigue. But a leading proponent of the Planet X hypothesis told me he's not happy about having his work associated with doomsday talk. "It is important to understand that such theories in planetary sciences have absolutely no relation to Nibiru, 2012 or other hoaxes that claim for the existence of 'apocalyptic' or 'mystic' celestial bodies," Japanese astronomer Patryk Sofia Lykawka said in an e-mail.

Even the term "Nibiru" has a dubious connection to doomsday. Some of the folks behind the 2012 flap claim that the ancient Sumerians prophesied the advent of a mysterious planet called Nibiru, but linguistic scholar Michael Heiser makes a pretty convincing case that they were actually talking about the naked-eye planets we know and love.

As for Nemesis, some planetary scientists suspect that our sun did indeed have an encounter with a passing star, which may have played a role in rearranging planetary orbits and even sculpting Uranus and Neptune. But such an encounter had to have taken place millions or billions of years ago, and couldn't happen again until millions or billions of years from now.

I personally see no need for anyone to think that we will have some global cataclysm on our hands in 2012. This movie and all the other sensationalism may just convert more people to the idea that all is doom and gloom. I'm hopeful others who are hearing about this for the first time actually do a bit of research on their own to understand what, if anything, 2012 may mean rather than just taking what a movie or a tabloid TV show or one certain website may have to say. Judging by some of the comments thus far on Boyle's article, I wonder if that is happening. Here's a sample:

"In the past month two of my closest friends approached me - visibly upset - at some 2012 info they had seen online, including a History Channel program. These are two extremely intelligent, perceptive individuals that I have a lot of respect for. However they are - typically, for Americans I have seen - not scientifically educated or very aware. They were both visibly upset, convinced that things might be coming to an end and actually talking about what they might do and how they would prepare for it. I had to sit one of them down, do a half hour of simple google and youtube research with him to get the info on what was being said and look into it a little bit."

"The film 2012 is going to launch the internet meme; Dec 21 2012 to new heights. Just wait and see the frenzy that will ensue over the next few years. Perhaps 2012 will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the web bots 2012 predictions will indeed come true. I have written quite a bit about Dec 21 2012 over the past couple of years, and my blog stats speak for themselves regarding traffic slowly but steadily increasing on a daily basis. I am not in it for the money, I am not a carpet bagger, or a glory seeker, I genuinely believe great changes are on the horizon, and so do many others. Call it an awakening, but the more people who research the topic, the better. Dec 21 2012 will be the start of something magnificent. In the meantime, we will have to suffer the marketing kabal and studios who will 'coin in' and milk this phenomena dry. But let us not detract from what is really going on the world and all around us and in the lead up to 2012. Hold on to your pants folks, we're going to be in for a bumpy ride these next few years."

"Something as arbitrary as a date on a calendar causing all this hype for nothing is not only absolutely moronic, but completely idiotic and baseless. It just goes to show that humans these days are bored, and need a cause or something greater than themselves to believe in. That some astronomical purpose will bring us all together. But, as per usual, it's spun in the light of negativity, and mass-marketed as such by our media. If mankind could only finally for once, lay aside their petty differences and utilize this creative energy to propel us to the stars, maybe the we'd have a common purpose to bind us together, and a hope worth living toward. Instead we have idiots donning wooden signs lamenting that the world is at an end. Except for that we also have the media market behind it, fueling it further, and creating animosity amongst its followers. My Prediction: The world will end in 2012, but not because of some extra solar event... no, it will be the same men and women that wish for it to end, and go around touting that much in forums and other places I've found out there, they are the same idiots that bought thousands of dollars worth of crap just prior to the supposed end of the world at Y2K. They just don't want to be wrong, and I have a feeling that they're the ones you need to watch out for, more than anything."

Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion. I hope that you, dear reader, dear I-came-across-your-blog-by-accident reader :^) will take this posting as part of your own vast research, and pass on your hopeful thoughts to those you care about of what 2012 may bring.

Depression relapse and the personality of your life

(Before I begin, I am fully aware I am breaking my rule of not posting about personal matters. But sometimes you gotta break the rules.)

What do we want?

That's the most important question in life, isn't it? Oh, I suppose some people would say "What is the purpose of life" would be the big one, but since it doesn't seem like we're going to figure that out anytime soon, and no supreme deity seems to want to spoil their fun by telling us themselves, I think "What do we want" would be #1.

But that's either a very easy answer for some people or a very difficult answer for others. When we are children, we believe we know what we want, and darn it, we don't like it when we don't get it.

As we grow up, that doesn't really change. People believe that when we grow up we need to "put away childish things". But how hard is that? If, by "childish things", people mean toys, etc....okay, fine. Many adults don't have toys anymore...or do they? Don't women still like to play the adult version of "dress-up" and "tea-party"? Don't men like their TVs and cars and playing sports? Don't both sexes like playing with money? Aren't these our new toys?

If by "childish things" people mean our selfish emotions, our temper tantrums, our crying, our silliness, etc....okay, fine. Many adults don't have those feelings anymore...or do they? Adults don't have selfish feelings and thoughts from time to time? People don't have tantrums of hurt or pride or determination or celebration? We don't cry? We don't act silly?

The things that make us who we are today are still the things that made us who we were as children. So many "experts" tell us that we need to get ahold of those emotions and reel them back, because it's not good to act out too much in society or with those we are close to. Yet other experts tell us that we need that release to just be childish from time to time. So who is right?

I was going to post just now about depression. I've posted about it before and in that post I said that I'm not depressed anymore.

I've come to realize within the last 24 hours that that is not the case. I still suffer from it. Maybe I always will -- maybe it's like alcoholism, it is a disease that never goes away, and the only thing that will keep you from going back to the bottle is your own determination. And yet, relapse is part of recovery and is expected from time to time.

Is what I'm going through a relapse? I am not buoyed by enough happy emotions right now and the depression is coming through VERY strongly right now in my thoughts and feelings and dreams?

Many experts will tell you that for men, they often feel their pride in what they do, or what their job is. I haven't had a job since I was laid off in early March. And for the 11 years I worked there, I don't know if I can say I felt a pride in what I did. I would say that I prided myself on how I did my job, but my job wasn't ideal. So I guess I did have pride that I walked away from work each day knowing I did my job the best I could.

Now, since then the only thing I have done for work is my weekend wedding DJ business, and a weekly trivia job. The weddings are sporadic, and sometimes I think that it's more trouble than it's worth, lugging all this equipment around with me. But I do get an incredible boost from seeing these people dancing the entire night to the music I'm playing and the lights I'm shining, and the smiles on their faces makes it worth it. I feel pumped up afterward. I don't have any more DJ jobs at this point until next spring.

The trivia job was a weekly thing. The company I worked for has several bars in the state that host these trivia games. I hosted a "show", asking questions, keeping score, and -- best of all -- playing music between questions. It's a lot of fun, and I've gotten a lot of compliments. The location I was at wasn't nearby, but that meant I got to do a bit of driving, which I also like quite a bit anyway. And I got paid a ridiculously large amount of money for the work. Now, however, it appears that that job is gone from me now, too. At least for now, that is. I took a trip out of town recently for about a month, and knowing this, I told my boss that I'd be fine if he put someone else in place if he needed to. He said he'd just fill it in with subs and see how it goes. Well, turns out he put that person in place permanently. And there are no other locales that are in need of new hosts right now.

The trivia thing and the weddings were two things keeping my soul light for the past six months. That's not to say that I didn't have love to buoy me......but, my love life for that same amount of time hasn't exactly been "normal" by most people's standards. It has been turbulent, with plenty of it's ups and downs. Yet love is strong and still remains, while I try to figure out what I am, and what I am doing.

I was asked recently the question I started this post out with: What do I want?

And I don't know. It's easy to ask that question when you are a child, or when you are young college-student-age and you have the world ahead of you to tackle. But it gets complicated when you have a spouse or family, because then it's no longer about what just you want. You can't truly just think anymore about what you want, unless you are the only person that is affected when you make a decision.

I've been alone for six months, yet not alone for six months.

We both have hard decisions regarding how we can move forward because we don't know what the other person wants or thinks, or how best logistically anything will work out together.

This period of time has existed to help me get in touch with myself. I've uncovered a few things, the most recent of them being that I still suffer from depression when I thought I'd beaten it. I wasn't expecting that one.

Then, I came onto my blog just now in order for this post to be mostly about depression and the discovery that relapse is possible, when I saw that a fellow blogger of mine, MySecret, posted something new recently (of which those new posts have gotten less frequently lately over this 2009, as have mine). Intrigued by her title, I checked it out, and it was her results from one of those personality tests that you can take online.

I took the test, which was something like 70-some questions long. As usual, honesty is key in your answers. The test can be found at: similarminds.com/cattell-16-factor.html

Here are my results:

Warmth |||||||||||||||||| 54%
Intellect |||||||||||||||||||||||| 78%
Emotional Stability ||||||||| 22%
Aggressiveness ||||||||| 26%
Liveliness ||||||||| 26%
Dutifulness ||||||||||||||||||||| 62%
Social Assertiveness ||||||||| 26%
Sensitivity |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82%
Paranoia ||||||||| 30%
Abstractness ||||||||||||||| 42%
Introversion |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 90%
Anxiety |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%
Openmindedness ||||||||||||||| 50%
Independence |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 82%
Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74%
Tension |||||||||||||||||| 54%

And you want to know what this told me?

I never have changed.

I've taken tons of these test through my years, and I'm sure you have, too. Sometimes just for fun, other times during serious issues in your life.

I've never changed. The results of this test were in no way surprising. My god, my highest, strongest score was in 'introversion'. It's ALWAYS been introversion with me. And the next highest ones: independence, sensitivity, intellect, perfectionism and anxiety. I doubt anyone who knows me well would argue with any of those descriptions. Some might disagree with independence, but that has been one thing my soul has been crying out for for 16 years now -- if not longer. My version of independence seems to be under the color of "being alone".

Oh, and my lowest score? Emotional stability. Wow, big surprise there. Followed closely by aggressiveness, liveliness and social assertiveness. True, I am none of those. (I see paranoid was also a low score, so is not likely in me; this is good -- I know this all isn't in my head)

So, if I have been seeing all these signs in my life since my youth, shouldn't I accept them? People say that it's not healthy to be so turned-inward and alone. And the anxiety I have doesn't need to be there -- just take a pill or two and that will go away. Y'know, I know I'm anxious now. It was a brilliant shock to me to have someone describe that to me the first time. And I know that comes through as a nervous energy which can affect others around me. You should see how nervous I get before a DJ job or a music editing job, wondering whether I'll do a good job even though I know I'll do great because I'm a perfectionist that way and have skills. Yet I'm asked why do I get like that? Why work myself up for no reason?

Because I have to -- that's who I am. Am I addicted to feeling depressed or anxious? No. I'm not addicted. Or maybe I am a bit, and need to watch that. But it's part of me, always has been. And not everyone in this world has to be happy 100% of the time. People who are down seemingly more often than others are being judged exactly that way -- against others. I don't want to be compared to someone else's idea of what 'happy' is. Not Oprah's, not Deepak Chopra's, not Tony Robbins's, and certainly not Richard Simmons's.

I tell people close to me that I want to be happy. I do. And I need to be happy. But the happiness I need is my own. And I finally need to be happy with WHO I am and WHAT I am. It is clear that throughout my life, these traits indicated above have always been there. They've NEVER changed. That tells me something. Stop trying to change them, because they won't ever go away. I can pretend to be something different, or think that I'm different, but I'm not, and shouldn't be because that's not the authentic me.

What does this test result (and all others I've ever taken) tell me I am? Well, I know it doesn't sound great by "society's standard", but I appear to be a very smart, sensitive, loner whose emotions teeter significantly (hey ladies, quite a catch, huh?). And so what? The world needs me to be this way, otherwise I wouldn't be here like this. If I was supposed to be the charismatic quarterback, then that's what I would have been. There's a reason people form cliques in high school, right? The jocks, the preppies, the nerds, the loners, the rebels... Doesn't stop when we get older -- nor should it. What should stop as we leave high school is the picking on each other for it, or the trying to change ourselves or others.

I suggest that you (and I really don't know if anyone will read this -- let's face it, most people come across this blog by complete accident and don't usually come back, so I won't delude myself thinking I'm changing the world with this blog -- if I influence just one person to think about something by reading what I write, that's well worth it) take the test, or similar, and really think back to tests you've taken like this in your past. How much did they differ? If they do differ from time to time (and you answered honestly), then that's great for you to be malleable (the world needs you, too). But if they stay pretty consistent, as I bet they do, then I have one thing to say to you:

Baby, don't ever change.

I Gotta Feeling -- that this is a fun video

172 Quebec college students got together to make a single-take video to the song "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas. They learned the song, their parts, and rehearsed for two hours and managed to get the whole thing in one take on the second try.

I'm gonna moon you

I'd like to write today about an article on MSNBC.com entitled "Moon Myths: How real are lunar health effects?"

People often believe that "things" happen during full moons.

Though there have been tests and studies and experiments, nothing conclusive has shown that the full moon affects anything we do.

The reason for this is simple -- the light shining off of the moon when it is full does nothing to us, and the moon has no extra special properties when it's full than at any other point in it's cycle.

The only thing testing has shown us as a health connection to the full moon may be, according to the article:

One possible indirect link: Before modern lighting, the light of a full moon have kept people up at night, leading to sleep deprivation that could have caused other psychological issues, according to one hypothesis that awaits data support.

This could have caused people already susceptible to psychological issues related to sleep deprivation to be labelled "lunatics" if they were behaving oddly during full moons.

However, the one effect that the moon unmistakenly has is gravity. The moon creates an obvious gravitational pull on us, most notably the high and low tides in the oceans. But as we all should be aware, tides happen all the time, not just during full moons.

Yes, full moons create higher tides than most other tides of the month (the exception being new moon tides), but it has nothing to do with the light shining on it from the sun. It has to do with the moon's position in its orbit relative to the sun. When the moon is full, it is on the opposite side of Earth than the sun is. That effect of two objects (the sun and the moon) pulling on the earth is what makes the tide happen. The same size of tides also happen when the moon is at new moon, or on the same side of the Earth as the sun is.

The ocean on the side of Earth facing the moon gets pulled toward the moon more than does the center of the planet. This creates a high tide. On the other side of the Earth, another high tide occurs, because the center of Earth is being pulled toward the moon more than is the ocean on the far side. The result essentially pulls the planet away from the ocean (a negative force that effectively lifts the ocean away from the planet).

Even so, the moon is also causing tides at other times of the month, too, not just at new and full phases. Those tides, however, aren't as pronounced as the new and full tides because the moon is on the "side" of the earth. The moon pulls the water towards the side, while the sun pulls the water towards the "front", and the two pulls sort of even each other out:



It's not just the water that gets pulled, the Earth itself does, too. EVERYTHING gets affected by gravity. And the closer you are to an object, the more gravity affects you. In fact, if you are standing up, your feet are ever-so-slightly getting pulled harder by the Earth's gravity than your head is. Never thought of that before, huh?

So, I've recently believed that if anything about the moon affects us humans, or other life on this planet, maybe it is the always-changing affect of gravity upon our body's consitution. Yes, the moon always is overhead at some point once each day, whether you see it or not. The moon-and-sun combo always causes a version of a high tide and a low tide on the earth everywhere twice a day each. At some points during a month those effects are stronger than at other times. Couldn't these gravitational effects be what causes some of us to feel good at some point, or bad, or "off" during a month -- or heck, even during all the hours of every given day?

And let's not forget, the moon doesn't go around the Earth in a perfect circle, either. At some points in its orbit, the moon is closer to earth than at other points. As the Earth and moon dance together on their trip around the sun, the moon's "close point" to Earth changes. There are times when the full moon tide or the new moon tide are even stronger than normal because the moon is itself even slightly closer than usual. The difference between its furthest distance and its closest distance is (according to Wikipedia) about 40,000 km (around 25,000 miles) -- that's a difference almost three Earth's wide! You can even see the moon appear slightly larger when you look at it during those times of year:



Some others say that gravity cannot affect us, that the effects of the moon's gravity aren't strong enough to do anything. How can that be the case when the Earth itself and its water are clearly affected by it? The article addresses this:

The human body is about 75 percent water, and so people often ask whether tides are at work inside us.

The moon and the sun combine to create tides in Earth's oceans (in fact the gravitational effect is so strong that our planet's crust is stretched daily by these same tidal effects).

But tides are large-scale events. They occur because of the difference in gravitational effect on one side of an object (like Earth) compared to the other.

However, there's no measurable difference in the moon's gravitational effect to one side of your body vs. the other. Even in a large lake, tides are extremely minor. On the Great Lakes, for example, tides never exceed 2 inches, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which adds, "These minor variations are masked by the greater fluctuations in lake levels produced by wind and barometric pressure changes. Consequently, the Great Lakes are considered to be essentially non-tidal."

I understand what they're trying to say here. Though the issue with tides is one side of a body vs. another, can't gravity just affect a small body of water? But they are saying that even a large lake only gets pulled by the moon's gravity just two inches at their greatest heights. So if a lake still is affected, shouldn't a glass of water sitting on a table? The answer should be yes, but only very, very, very slightly....perhaps not noticable by standard observation. Couldn't even such a minor difference affect a human being? And since we're not just a glass of water, but very sensitive living tissue (especially our brains), couldn't the slighest change affect us somehow?

The article continues:

That's not to say tides don't exist at smaller scales.

The effect of gravity diminishes with distance, but never goes away. So in theory everything in the universe is tugging on everything else. But: "Researchers have calculated that a mother holding her baby exerts 12 million times the tide-raising force on the child than the moon does, simply by virtue of being closer," according to Straightdope.com, a Web site that applies logic and reason to myths and urban legends.

Consider also that tides in Earth's oceans happen twice every day as Earth spins on its axis every 24 hours, bringing the moon constantly up and down in the sky. If the moon's tugging affected the human body, one might presume we'd be off balance at least twice a day (and maybe we are).

True enough, and I'm grateful that the article's author has the insight to at least acknowledge that possibility. In turn, those "off balance" effects may be more so when the gravitational effects are also stronger.

If we argue that the moon does truly affect us somehow, then why isn't everyone affected the same way as, say, I may be by this? Why doesn't everyone feel exactly the same if the moon's gravity does affect us? Maybe it's as simple as: everyone's different. Everyone reacts to things in different ways. Perhaps one person feels the affects of the new moon more than the first-quarter. Or others feel first-quarter or last-quarter moon pulls more than someone else feels new or full moon pulls. Who knows? Maybe some people feel nothing.

One item I've always thought of as being a "proof" that the moon affects us, or at least half of us, is the menstrual cycle of females. The word "menstrual" is even based off of a word for "moon" (the Greek "mene" evolved the Latin word "mensis", for month). It is widely thought that these cycles were generated into early humans by the moon's cycle.

But right there, there's an interesting insight that I hadn't stopped to think about until now. Humans. Gee, how anthro-centric are we? There are plenty of other animals on this planet who go through a cycle of menstruation or similar (the estrous cycle). And yet it's only the humans and many of the primates whose cycles are around the length of the moon's. Why is that? If the moon did affect a woman's cycle, why didn't it affect all female animal's cycles who are capable of menstruation?

Some info from Wikipedia:

Some authors believe women in traditional societies without nightlighting ovulated with the full moon and menstruated with the new moon. A few studies in both humans and animals have found that artificial light at night does influence the menstrual cycle in humans and the estrus cycle in mice (cycles are more regular in the absence of artificial light at night), though none have demonstrated the synchronization of women's menstrual cycles with the lunar cycle. It has also been suggested that bright light exposure in the morning promotes more regular cycles. One author has suggested that sensitivity of women's cycles to nightlighting is caused by nutritional deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals.

Other animals' menstrual cycles may be greatly different from lunar cycles: while the average cycle length in orangutans is the same as in humans—28 days—the average for chimpanzees is 35 days. Some take this as evidence that the average length of humans' cycle is most likely a coincidence.

Yet, there is this regarding the moon's tidal rhythms in animals:

The approximately fortnightly cycle of the tides has large effects on intertidal organisms. Hence their biological rhythms tend to occur in rough multiples of this period. Many other animals such as the vertebrates, display similar rhythms. Examples include gestation and egg hatching. In humans, the menstrual cycle lasts roughly a month, an even multiple of the tidal period.

The problem here with menstruation is we are talking about tides vs. light in relation to the moon. The studies done on menstruation dealt with night lighting the moon provides.

Perhaps monthly menstruation is just a conincidence. Some things just are. It may seem an odd coincidence, so one is not fully satisfied with an answer of that nature. I don't know what to think anymore, myself. If we argue that the moon is a cause, then are humans just more sensitive to moon changes than chimpanzees? Or horses? Is that why women menstruate once a month, rather than say, every seven weeks? And is it the light or the gravity that does it?

Perhaps menstruation has absolutley nothing to do with the moon. And perhaps "off" feelings have nothing to do with it, either. In the MSNBC.com article:

If one presumes that modern lighting and mini-blinds have pretty much eliminated the one plausible source of human-related moon madness, why do so many myths persist?

Several researchers point out one likely answer: When strange things happen at full moon, people notice the "coincidental" big bright orb in the sky and wonder. When strange things happen during the rest of the month, well, they're just considered strange, and people don't tie them to celestial events.

And that leads to this final note, which is perhaps the biggest logical nail in the coffin of the moon madness myths:

The highest tides occur not just at full moon but also at new moon, when the moon is between Earth and the sun (and we cannot see the moon) and our planet feels the combined gravitational effect of these two objects. Yet nobody ever claims any funny stuff related to the new moon

You have to admit, this is true. No one ever says "must be a new moon".

But I don't want anyone reading this post of mine to think that what I'm talking about is "looniness" or "strange things", such as the standard claims indicated in the article: eplilepsy attacks, increased emergency psychiatric visits, hospital emergency room visits, botched surgeries (whaaaat?), pet injuries or animal attacks. I'm simply referring to that "off" feeling one gets without any outside stimulus.

All I'm asking is, could it be a minor gravitational effect on your body caused by the dance of the Earth, sun and moon? Heck, I've had odd things happen to me, and I've looked at the calendar to see what the moon phase is. It's not always at full or new, either. So I can't know for sure.

I can see how it's easier for people to blame the moon for how they are acting. Perhaps that's why the idea of the "crazy" full moon persists. And maybe my idea of gravity affecting our brains is just as hopeful of a thought, too, without any real truth to it. I have to accept that possibility. So far the evidence up to now (which really shouldn't be ignored) says "no connection".

I'll still hope for some connection, though. Maybe it's really infinistesimal, but when we see how gravitation, the weakest force in the universe, has such a great effect on all the vast items in the universe, I can't help but think the moon's does something to us, too, even as we live on this relatively giant planet with it's own gravitation to worry about.

Or am I just loony, pun intended?

And on the heels of my last post

As my last post discussed evolution, I come across a neat little article explaining why deciduous leaves in Europe only turn yellow. Turns out the idea of evolution may explain. What's better is near the end of the article they supply "the exception that proves the rule", as they call it.

It's an interesting read nonetheless. I had no idea trees in Europe only turn yellow in fall. You guys don't get any red?? Bummer.

Why fall colors are different in U.S. and Europe

Creationism, Intelligent Design and Evolution holding hands

I will occasionally watch the "religious" channels my cable TV provider allows me to receive (aren't they kind?). Even though I don't buy into the dogma, I watch these programs with more of an open mind than I used to (see this earlier post).

I caught one just now with the standard "evolution doesn't exist" message. It featured a speaker who obviously knew what he was talking about -- he stated various scientific facts about animals, some of which I wasn't aware of -- so he wasn't one of those in the religious community who thinks science and scientists are bad.

His emphasis was placed more on the question of how can these creatures have these special characteristics, which science explains as "had to come from evolution", when there is apparently no evidence supporting it? The answer: God made them this way in his supreme intelligence.

But that's not all he said. I noticed several times that he specifically said "the God of the Bible" made them this way. So that must leave out the God of the Qur'an, or any of the other variations of God in this world.

My question: where is the proof that the "God of the Bible" was the one who made the animals? If this guy is looking for proof, can he provide me a better sample than words written down on paper? Cuz that same type of sample is not good enough for him when it comes from a scientist explaining evolutional theory.

And what's more puzzling is that as logical as he tries to make Creationism or Intelligent Design, he then goes on to tell us that he knows God did all this because of Jesus, and he sent Jesus to die for our sins. Which I have never found logic in, frankly, and have a hard time seeing how a logical person like he appears to be can see any validity in that whole story. If the "God of the Bible" is so powerful and intelligent to make creatures the way he did, than why did he make us able to be sinful and then create a human version of himself just to be a sacrifice for something he could have changed anyway?

The last point of the show that I thought interesting was how they used the complexity of an elephant as an example of God's (of the Bible, of course) intelligence. And yet....and yet...at the beginning of this segment they reminded us that there are two forms of elephant in the world: the African and the Indian. And the way to tell the difference? The Indian elephant has smaller ears than the African.

Does them explaining about different types of elephants not seem as a contradiction to anyone else of the show's purpose? I noticed that they completely skipped over ANYTHING having to do with explaining why there are two different types of elephants in the first place.

Did God think we needed two different types of animals as unique and iconic as elephants? If so, then what's the deal with just the slight difference in ear size between the two??

The show taught us that the ears are used as the elephant's cooling mechanism. Soooooo....since India isn't as warm as Africa, couldn't that mean that the ears of the the Indian elephant slowly evolved smaller since it didn't need them to be that big? Apparently the Creationists/IDers say no. They were made that way on purpose.

Fine, then how did such obviously-related animals get to be in different parts of the world? Hard-core Creationists/IDers don't believe the earth's crust is moving (even though there is scientific proof for that) so they don't support the idea of continents once being locked together. So God just thought "Hey, I'll put one type of elephant here, and a slightly different type of elephant waaaaay over here"? If so, then the Bible needs some revising because I didn't know God had such a cruel sense of humor. Well, hold on, that's not quite accurate. We know he does like to mess with our minds at least, what with that whole tree-in-the-garden thing...

So, there are two different types of elephants and God made them the way they are and put them where they are on purpose, and we just need to accept that they are just another extraordinary example of God's plan and intelligence because. Yeah, that's it. Just 'because'. And, oh yeah, scientists still don't know how birds can do what they do with migration, or how earthworms can do what they do, or how bears or hippos or glowworms can do what they do. The only answer that matters is "God made them that way".

May I ask, then, what the point of having so many varieties of animals in a "family" is for? Why are there not just lions, but also tigers? And jaguars? And leopards? And cheetahs? And the cat who is sleeping on the floor in my apartment? What's with all the cats? Did God think there needed to be so many different varieties of cat?

Why is there both an alligator and a crocodile? No one can tell the damn things apart, anyway. We needed two animals that are almost exactly alike? Why are there rhinos and hippos? Or foxes, wolves, shi-tzus and pit bulls? Deer and goats and gnus and impalas and gazelles? He thought we needed the variety?

And if you answer yes, that's fine. Then let me next ask, why did he only create Adam and Eve? These are the ONLY people stated in the Bible that he created out of nothing. If God (of the Bible) knew what he was doing with the animals, then what's with just the two people? That seems awfully unfair.

And if we keep supposing that there were just the two people (which couldn't be the case because Cain apparently had a wife, of whose mention there is nothing in the Bible until Cain goes to the Land of Nod; but I digress since I'm trying to make a point about a lack of original people that many Christians just accept without thinking about it) then why don't we all look the same? Instead we look like white people, or black people, or Asian people, or Native American people, etc. Again, why don't we all just look the same? Where did all this variety come from from just two people (who only gave birth to three sons, and no girls by the way; oops, I digress again)? Even if Adam were black and Eve white, explain the Pacific-Islander-look's origin to me.

It seems clear to me that evolution does exist in the world. You need evidence? Really? Look around, people.

Many people think the theory of evolution is full of holes. I don't doubt that. Any good idea isn't a perfect one. Modifications always need to be made.

But here's what I see. Two different sides always bashing each other. It's either evolution all the way, or it's Intelligent Design all the way.

Maybe the Creationists are right that evolution doesn't exist and we were made the way we are because it would explain humanity's stupidity and stubbornness. When are we going to reach the middle conclusion?? Couldn't it possibly be a bit of both ideas?

Isn't it possible that a "creator" made this planet, this universe, whatever. And threw some things on it that started out in a simple form, but then evolved into the myriad creatures and species we see today?

I see no problem with evolution theory. Some people think it's an insult to think that all life on this planet came from some primordial soup, or from simple bacteria. They don't like the idea we possibly could all be the descendants of sludge. But let's not think we're from sludge. We're here from star-stuff. Materials created in the fiery hearts of suns of long ago, whose birth of us could only come in the death of themselves.

And I'm coming to terms with the idea that we may be here at all in the first place because the universe was created by something greater than us; heck, greater than the universe. We could be part of a great experiment, or maybe not. But something made that big bang, or whatever it was that made the universe exist, happen.

That's my idea of a theory of "Creative Evolution".

Meet the first of Earth's extra-solar cousins!

In the news today: we've now officially discovered the first rocky planet around another star.

We've been searching for "Earth-like" planets for many years, but up until now have only been able to detect gas giants, or "Jupiter-like" planets, around other stars. With new technology and techniques, we've now found the first of what will hopefully be many more "new Earths".

But don't get your hopes up for finding alien life yet. This new planet is very close to its star, so is probably comparable to Venus for living conditions rather than Earth.

First rocky planet found outside solar system

And here are some excerpts:

The planet's composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project's lead astronomer said.

It is so close to the star it orbits "that the place may well look like Dante's Inferno, with a probable temperature on its 'day face' above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius) and minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius) on its night face," said Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, the project leader.

Hatzes, explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away, said the side "facing the sun is probably molten. The other side could actually have ice" if there is water on the planet.

"We think it has no atmosphere to redistribute the heat," Hatzes told CNN from Barcelona, Spain, where he is attending the "Pathways Towards Habitable Planets" conference.

The astronomers were stunned to find a rocky planet so near a star, he said.

"We would have never dreamed you would find a rocky planet so close," he said. "Its year is less than one of our days."

The planet, known as CoRoT-7b, was detected early last year, but it took months of observation to determine that it had a composition roughly similar to Earth's, the European Southern Observatory said in a statement.

Astronomers were able to measure the dimensions of the planet by watching as it passed in front of the star it orbits, then carried out 70 hours of study of the planet's effect on its star to infer its weight.

At about five times Earth's mass (though not quite twice as large in circumference), it is the smallest planet ever spotted outside our solar system.

The planet was first detected early in 2008 by the CoRoT satellite, a 30-centimeter space telescope launched by the European Space Agency in December 2006, specifically with the mission of detecting rocky planets outside the solar system

.

The return of a really clever video

A few posts down you'll see I posted about some of the most popular viral videos. One of them was a "literal" version of the song Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler. I copied a CNN.com video talking about this video, and also posted that video itself.

About a day after CNN did it's story, YouTube removed the literal Eclipse video version claiming copyright infringement, even though the video had been up for months.

Today, I noticed that the video was back up on my blog, so therefore YouTube must have reinstated it. I checked it out, and apparently the video creator, David Scott, (or "dascottjr") didn't even know what happened based on a comment by him on his YouTube page:

Before I myself could contact anyone at YouTube or EMI, the video seems to have been UN-BANNED!!!

To whoever helped this happen, everyone says THANK YOU!!!

Thanks to YouTube, EMI, Sony, and WMG for whatever made them "turn around" their previous actions. And thanks to you and whoever else helped this all happen...*however* it happened....

Congratulations on getting it back online, Dave and all the other literal video creators who had the same thing happen recently.

My guess: what with the recent news stories, people have probably been downloading those original songs quite a bit so the record labels decided that the parodies couldn't be too bad of a thing.

Here's one final video regarding Dave's work along with some others. The last segment is about the video's removal.

A "Plus-size" model?? Please....

This has been a news story for a few days now, but there was some video and commentary on CNN.com today that I wanted to link to.

I am not a woman, so I probably shouldn't open my mouth with an opinion. But, going against my better judgment, I will.

I think this is awesome for women. The models and actresses we most often see in glamour magazines and such are the standard for what a woman is supposed to look like. But that's a "supposed to", isn't it? And by whose standards? Most women do not look like those starlets. So for a woman to show a bit of a belly roll in a picture like this I would think is vastly encouraging for women and girls everywhere.

And let's face it, this woman is actually one of those women you see walking down the street anyway -- a real girl next door. I find it insulting that the talking heads on the video even have the nerve to call her a "plus-size" model. WHAT!? How about referring to her as a "normal-size" model and calling the twigs we normally see in magazines...oh, I don't know...how about calling them "minus-size" models?

Calling this beautiful woman a "plus-size" model just makes all other women who look like her to feel that they must be "plus-size" as well, when they may not have felt that way about themselves before -- and SHOULDN'T. Nor would any their friends, family...heck, even strangers...think to call a woman like this "plus-size". I bet this woman gets plenty of turned heads from guys, and I doubt any would think she's "fat" or "overweight", which is what "plus-size" infers.

If we have to use that term at all, I think we may all have an idea of what a "plus-size" woman would look like. That's not it.

The last comment that bugs me is the final commentator's statement that having women like this in magazines will not sell the magazines because the women who read the mags want "aspirational images". Again, I'm a guy, I don't have the psyche of a woman when it comes to her own appearance. But I would hope most women will realize that the clothes a fashion model is wearing in a magazine is not going to make them skinny like her.

Perhaps I miss the point and should shut up, so I will. But that comment irks me nonetheless.



And here is a link to a Glamour magazine online article about the picture and it's feedback:

Meet Lizzi Miller

Bravo, Lizzi. And bravo, Glamour Magazine.

I'd rather watch a viral than catch a virus

Here's a video from CNN.com regarding what people had voted the best viral videos on the internet. I hadn't seen that first one, but I had seen the other three and thought they were all cool. The Dramatic Prairie Dog has always been my personal favorite.



And here are the full videos:


(Blog author's note 8/24: Interesting...a day after the CNN video comes out the Total Eclipse of the Heart video is removed by YouTube for copyright violation. Funny how that works...well, check out the Air Supply video below instead. I think it's funnier, actually)
(Blog author's note 8/28: Hey! It's back!)







And one more "literal video" cuz I laughed my butt off at this one (blog author's note 8/24: Hopefully YouTube doesn't yank this one, because it was made by the same guy as 'Eclipse' was):



Lastly, I was curious how Matt got all those people to dance with him, and how the whole thing started out. Turns out there's a video explaining it:



And even so, apparently too many people commented on his video that it (or most of it) was faked. Do the conspiracy theorists never rest about anything? And with a cool sarcasm that I wish could be used for all the CTer's round the world, here's Matt's response:



And wouldn't you know it, some people actually believed what he was saying! What does that tell you for the discerning intelligence of some CTer's? In fact, it ended up being picked up by news agencies. Huh??!?!? You know why our information channels are dumbing us down? Cuz people in news agencies don't do their proper research, clearly. It's bad enough we've got people spreading rumors online, but then a rumor gets to be a news story? Yikes.

My favorite comment on this final video is from the host at around 13:25 -- "People should be licensed to use the internet". Amen, brother.