It’s never too late for Festivus!
Have at it.
This post is in: Open Threads, It's Never Too Late for Festivus!
It’s never too late for Festivus!
Have at it.
This post is in: Music, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
A 16thC villancico, sung live, acapella and in Spanish on their Christmas TV show. Enjoy. ??
THE MONKEES
RIU RIU CHIU (1967) pic.twitter.com/0klRa3XG8Z
— Michael Warburton ?? (@MichaelWarbur17) December 24, 2021
Success! #NASAWebb’s first mid-course correction burn helped fine-tune Webb's trajectory toward its orbit around the second Lagrange point, a million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth: https://t.co/fCx9tOm7ZI#UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/1fb7EGbzE9
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) December 26, 2021
President Joe Biden marked his first Christmas in office by making calls to military service members stationed around the world, offering them holiday wishes and gratitude for their service and sacrifice for the nation. https://t.co/mhkFgn4K9m
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 25, 2021
Perspective: Photographer Jesse Rieser traveled to 18 states over a decade to document Christmas's contradictions. https://t.co/SRJiwJghwA
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 25, 2021
An inflatable Santa Claus loomed four stories over a Christmas tree lot, waving in the breeze and catching Jesse Rieser’s attention as he drove through Phoenix in 2009.
The decoration was absurd, Rieser said later, but joyous in its own way…
Inspired, he set out the next year to document Christmas’s contradictions — its sincerity and creativity on one hand, and its awkwardness and bleakness on the other. Rieser traveled to 18 states over the next decade, from Oregon to Florida, and ended in New York City to capture images that were visually distinct from those of less populated areas.
After researching each region, Rieser knocked on the doors of houses with decorations he wanted to photograph. Often, he said, people were eager to discuss their flamboyant displays. Many of them told him that they staged the elaborate scenes to tap into nostalgia for their childhoods, while some said they were trying to bring joy to other families — a particularly poignant goal during the isolating coronavirus pandemic.
“A lot of these homes become the sort of de facto community centers for the neighborhood,” Rieser said. “The kids want to come, so the parents come. It sort of brings people together in this kind of adorable side effect of this mass consumption.”…
“There’s joy in the void of the unexpected,” he said. “It’s sort of like they’re controlling the narrative for those five weeks of the year when … other times, people feel like they may not have the autonomy or control over their life.”
This post is in: Garden Chats
Thank Murphy the Trickster God for things we can count on… like mushrooms, wildflowers, and our ever-loving Ozark Hillbilly:
Top photo: I have absolutely no idea what kind of fungi this is. I had never seen it before I took this pic and have not seen it since. I still think it is extraordinarily beautiful.
Autumn Dagwood. We didn’t get much color this year until I had surgery, at which point I had no desire whatsoever to drag a gallon of piss up and down the hills and hollers. Still, the dogwoods never disappoint.
I happen to think that goldenrod is even prettier after it’s gone to seed.
A Pretty One. Everybody likes Zinnias, even little green beetles.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: The ReliablesPost + Comments (51)
This post is in: Covid-19 & National Security, Foreign Affairs
This post is in: Movies
I had planned to watch the Matrix tonight, got settled in the chair for a viewing session with a nice big Fresca on ice with a splash of unsweetened cranberry, grabbed the remote, started the movie, and immediately turned it off the moment the code started pouring down the screen.
I’m just not emotionally prepared for this to be bad. I have no idea if it is, as I have assiduously avoided reviews, and I would appreciate it greatly if you put no spoilers in the comments. But just the thought of it potentially being bad scared me off.
I dunno why. I guess the first one brings back so many memories. I was in grad school, at a really good but tumultuous time in my life, and I remember going and seeing it 4-5 times in the theater. The story was great, and for nerds, along with a couple other movies (Wargames, Sneakers, Hackers, Johnny Mnenomic, were popular ones, there were others much less so, etc.), it was really groundbreaking.
The soundtrack was amazing, the bullet time tech was astonishing. It was all just so cool and new and fresh.
And now, as an old, I don’t want that excitement, which is still there when I think of the Matrix, tarnished.
Does that make sense?
by Major Major Major Major| 41 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology, Tech News and Issues
From the aboriginal Australians to the Zuni people, human civilizations have celebrated the winter solstice for as long as we’ve comprehended the seasons. It is a time for optimism, hope, miracles, and light. Even before we understood the solar system, we knew the basics: at a certain point, less sun gives way to more. These days, we’ve figured out a lot more about our place in the universe, but that doesn’t make this moment any less special. Humans look up, and forward; it’s who we are.
This morning’s launch of the James Webb Space Telescope got me thinking about where we’re at as a species. We live in an age of wonders, but it doesn’t always feel that way. For better and worse, we’ve atomized; we don’t have as many universals as we used to; sometimes it seems like solstice celebrations are one of the few things we have in common any more. We’ve broken down a lot of old structures and sources of meaning, which has been great for a lot of people, but we sort of forgot to replace them with anything. People report having fewer friends than they used to. Deaths of despair have skyrocketed in this country, and lots of people feel lonely and isolated, a situation that the last two years have not improved. Maybe it’s all a big coincidence that we’ve forgotten how to talk to each other, but I’m not so sure. People need communities and shared goals and things bigger than themselves.
Which brings me back to thinking about that telescope, about the thousands of people who worked together for decades to build a device which, if it works, might revolutionize our understanding of reality. If we want to find meaning in something, work together, and better ourselves, we could do worse than focusing on space. It’s how we will press forward with figuring out what the universe is; it’s how we will defend our planet from species-destroying asteroids; it’s how we will find extraplanetary life. These represent big tasks and big questions. Space exploration is broadly popular, too, and it’s not even that expensive, in the grand scheme of things–the James Webb telescope only cost $10 billion.
There’s something deeply humbling about cosmology and space exploration; something awesome, in the old sense of the term. They inspire feelings in me that a less atheistic person might find in religion. Carl Sagan had it right when he convinced NASA to turn Voyager 1 around and take one last picture: Astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
So I guess my message on the darkest week of the year is: there are worse directions to look than up!
Happy launch day to all who celebrate.
This post is in: Gay Rights are Human Rights, Open Threads
The good…
Gay Santa ad highlights big shift in Norwegian society https://t.co/hwYlRO0601
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 23, 2021
… “We wanted to celebrate the 50-year anniversary since the abolition of a law prohibiting same-sex relationships,” says Monica Solberg, Posten’s marketing director. The ad has been watched well over two million times online.
“The magnitude of response took us a bit by surprise. We expected a reaction, but not to such an extent.” …
Until 1972 homosexuality in Norway was a criminal offence and changes in attitudes have taken time. Norwegians may now shrug their shoulders at an ad showing Santa kissing another man, but had it not been for one activist in particular things might have been different.
Kim Friele has been credited with relentlessly campaigning for the changes first to the same-sex law in 1972 and then to Norway’s partnership law that allowed same-sex marriage 21 years later.
Such was Friele’s national importance that when she died aged 86 last month, she was given a state funeral attended by members of Norway’s royal family.
Friele had once told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK how until the 1960s same-sex couples had to meet in secret underground clubs and how they were judged by society.
She reacted by giving lectures in schools and universities, appearing in the media and becoming a recognisable face during public debates…
During her campaign, Friele met conservative parliamentarian Wenche Lowzow, who would go on to become the love of her life.
While the couple were eventually able to tie the knot in Norway’s first same-sex civil partnership, their relationship cost Lowzow her political career.
Few members of Norwegian society are afforded a state funeral, but hers was held in Oslo’s cathedral and broadcast live on national TV.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store spoke at the service of “a warm, friendly, brave and powerful human who changed history”…
The funny…
— Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens (@CSMFHT) December 20, 2021