That's Cool, But Who Took the Picture?

Someone I follow on Twitter tweeted this picture claiming it is a picture of the Earth and its moon as seen from Mercury.

(1) Who went to Mercury and took the picture?

(2) Can we get him or her a better zoom lens?

Apparently this was actually taken by the Messenger probe in orbit around Mercury and transmitted back. Pretty cool.

Pictures like this make me feel small and actually, they kinda hurt my brain. Trying to conceive of the enormity of the universe in which we exist as relative specks of slightly warm dust just strains my weak mental capabilities.

Still, we are specks of dust that invented flying machines and then managed to get into space - and return alive - in less than a century (unless you believe the conspiracy theorists).

Seeing our own planet as a tiny reflective orb from orbit around another planet takes looking in the mirror to a new and scary level. On a personal level, it seems to me like it would be equivalent to looking in the mirror and seeing all your ancestors and all your progeny looking back. Or on a spiritual level, like looking in the mirror and seeing all your mistakes, kindnesses, lessons, failures and achievements staring you back.

I'm kinda off the deep end here. But when you consider that we have gone from the really ignorant notion that the earth was the center of the universe several hundred years ago to taking images of our own planet from orbit around Mercury, it is humbling. Does it make you wonder what amazing things we will accomplish, solve, prove and discover in the next hundred years? It is daunting and exciting!

But for now, this picture is only gonna get the conspiracy theorists going again.

It's a Scholarship for White Guys Only

This white guy in Texas has set up a scholarship for white guys. His names is Colby Bohanan, President of the Former Majority Association for Equality.

If you watch the video, you will see he is challenged by a professor from Columbia University who sums it up: "Being white is a scholarship."

The good news is you can get the White-Guy Scholarship if you are only 25% Caucasian. But applicants do have to be 100% male (I assume).

Former Majority Association for Equality? Poor white guy. It must be so hard to watch the world change into one of diversity where people of all races and cultures have opportunity and you actually have to compete instead of having it fall into your lap.

He says he's not against anyone, just trying to help poor white people. Well, ok. But why not just help poor people. Why do they have to be white?

Back when I was in high school and home sick from school one day, I watched a white supremacist group on a daytime talk show. This one white-advocating woman kept saying she was just fighting for fairness because white people had lost all power in society. Is that true? Do white people not get enough opportunity in this country?

It wasn't true then, and it's not true now.

Racial minorities make up 1/3 of the total US population, but only 17% of the US House of Representatives and only 5% of the US Senate. And while women make up half the US population, they only comprise 17% of the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

White men control everything but the White House. However, since President Obama is 50% Caucasian, he is actually a "white guy" according to Mr. Bohanan's organization. (Which is just weird, IMO.)

Anyway, my point is this: Minorities and women do have more opportunities than they used to and that continues to improve (I hope), but white guys are still in charge of most things. So isn't giving a scholarship to white guys like lowering the basket for LaBron James?

I'm Not Blogging Because I'm Busy. And Also, My Head's About to Explode.

The swing in power to the far right with the last election threatens our society. Let me count the ways.

GOP House proposes cuts that will cost 700,000 jobs while securing subsidies for oil companies and the lowest tax rates in history for the richest Americans in history.

GOP governors attempting to simply eliminate collective bargaining.

Despite rhetoric to be "all about jobs," GOP seems capable only of attacking poor people by cutting any program they can find that helps the poor, defunding environmental protection, and undermining women's health by passing every stupid hurdle they can think to interfere with a woman's right to choose.

They even want to cut funding to programs that protect our borders.

There are more, but these are the big ones.

Their mantra that "everyone must do their part" is equal parts infuriating and laughable. If everyone must do their part, then why didn't we raise taxes on the richest 2% of the population? And why don't we stop subsidizing the most successful industry in the world, oil?

There is no war on the rich in this country. There is a war on the poor and middle class. And the corporations are winning. I wonder if and when the Tea Partiers who wrought this catastrophe will realize they are being used to destroy a really great country.

I take solace in the impressive protests going on throughout the country. Perhaps our best hope is the overreaching we have seen from the right that results from arrogance. People still vote in this country. I suspect we are going to see some serious push-back.

For more of my POV on this problem, see this prior blog.