United 93
We all roughly know what happened in the case of United 93. It was the fourth plane that was hijacked on September 11, 2001, to hit a high profile target. In this case, it was not the World Trade Center or the Pentagon but possibly the White House or the Capitol Building. If the Presidential mansion had been destroyed, September 11 would have been an even more shocking event. The plane never hit its target because some passengers found out via phone during the flight that two planes had struck the world trade center and they realized that their hijackers in all likelihood would fly the plane into another high profile target. To prevent this larger catastrophe, they banded together, stormed the cockpit, and overpowered the hijacker flying the plane, leading it to crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I have seen my share of films in the airplane hijacking/catastrophe genre, but this one is different because we know it is based on a real event and the creators made some clever moves: First, they recreate perfectly what it feels like traveling on a United plane across the country so you have the sense “Yes, that could me be on the plane.” Second, they show you what we did not know about United 93, namely, what happened behind the scenes at the Federal Aviation Authority that fateful morning of September 11 that in our lifetime we will never forget. I still remember getting the email. “Peter, watch CNN. Plane struck the world trade centre…” Anyone who lived through this day and did not lose a relative or personal friend will enjoy watching this film.
What a mouth will do
Kiss
the impossible hope that love
will last. An end to looking
as if for one glove.
Swallow the sweet
lust of fruit—one way a body
can be pleased.
Tell others why.
Tell others nothing.
Feel the tongue and how
goodness
and mercy can flow
like a river from the north
or how it can rage as only rage can
and know there isn’t much to say
after that.
“What a mouth will do” by Betsy Johnson-Miller, from Rain When You Want Rain. © Mayapple Press, 2010.
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Is the Widnening Sex Abuse Scandal the Greatest Challenge to the Catholic Church Since Martin Luther
If the core of your religion is love for other human beings, allowing priests to sexually abuse children entrusted to them undermines the credibility of the institution. Now the central question is how many committed catholics will not tolerate this hypocrisy and demand changes to church. I doubt that celibacy will go any time soon—but who knows. Here is Henry Herzberg’s (New Yorker) take on the situation the church of Peter is in:
INDULGENCE
In October 31, 1517, a Roman Catholic priest and theologian, Dr. Martin Luther, put the finishing touches on a series of bullet points and, legend has it, nailed the result to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany—the equivalent, for the time and place, of uploading a particularly explosive blog post. Luther’s was a protest against the sale of chits that were claimed to entitle buyers or their designees to shorter stays in Purgatory. Such chits, known as indulgences, were being hawked as part of Pope Leo X’s fund-raising drive for the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica. The “Ninety-five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” touched off a high-stakes flame war that rapidly devolved into the real thing, with actual wars, actual flames, and actual stakes.
Continue ReadingIn the Name of Science, I offer my Boobs
This line is coined by Jen McCreigh, a brave student from Indiana. She writes on her blog:
This little bit of supernatural thinking has been floating around the blogosphere today:
“Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.
I have a modest proposal.
Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?
On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.
So, who’s with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you’ll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake! Or join the facebook event!
PS April 29, 2009: What I learned from Boobquake
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92 Million YouTube Views and counting: Justin Bieber “Baby, Baby…”
I have never seen any clip that has been viewed over 90 million times. The kid is 15 but looks like 13. The marketing machine behind this guy is phenomenal. Congrats Usher.
Twitter Yourself into a Historical Figure
The New York Times reports that
the Library of Congress will archive the collected works of Twitter, the blogging service, whose users currently send a daily flood of 55 million messages, all that contain 140 or fewer characters. Library officials explained the agreement as another step in the library’s embrace of digital media. Twitter, the Silicon Valley start-up, declared it “very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history.” Academic researchers seem pleased as well. For hundreds of years, they say, the historical record has tended to be somewhat elitist because of its selectivity. In books, magazines and newspapers, they say, it is the prominent and the infamous who are written about most frequently.
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