Colbert Trash Talks The New Planets

Quite possibly my favorite segment on The Colbert Report to date. Steven Colbert and his writers are geniuses. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of my personal heroes. What a great clip mixing factual science with Colbertian hilarity. Just watch...

turning heads

turning heads,
originally uploaded by tess j..

Obviously any life threatening disease is a very hard thing to go through and it definitely helps you realize the really (REALLY) important things in life. It took a while to open my eyes and see things the way I do now. At first I was angry and depressed, then confident and understanding, and I am still evolving to this day. I still get caught back up in the stupid things that many people think are important. It's hard to stop behaving the way you are brought up to and the way society tells you to. Animals have that strange tendency to learn bad habits and keep them, no?

It's not something someone can truly understand without experiencing it (or some other life threatening disease/accident themselves). I wish that on no one, except maybe the really bad people on Earth to give them a clue, but I still even want them to survive, they just need nature to smack 'em around a bit. The world would be a much better place if everyone appreciated life the way a sufferer/survivor can.

For me, in my post cancer life, there are two things that are important, knowledge and happiness (a.k.a bliss). Knowledge to me is a deep understanding of the qualitative and quantitative essence of everything from us (humanity) to the universe (everything else). Whatever gets you to your bliss is what you personally live for, mine are: love, family, teaching, and just having fun (flickring is fun :-)). Finding your way through the maze of life is difficult, no doubt about it, but the ride is worth every penny and none of us really should want to give it up.

The universe is an amazing place and we are so fortunate to be able to be here at a time when so many scientific truths are being realized, (one of which is being able to survive cancer). We are like babies who just figured out how to move around and explore. I know I will tick a few people off when I say it is our will and our committment to life that allows us to be here. Go live your lives and be free to be happy and never, ever stop learning. Man, am I ever preachy...

Same sex marriage

I have edited my original post from 2004...

Okay, I have a question. How exactly can and will gay marriage hurt you? This sorry excuse for a modern day witch hunt, an attempt to quash something you do not understand and are afraid of, is as pathetic and closed minded as inquisitions and ethnic genocides.

Some say that there is no equivocation of this circumstance to the others I listed. I disagree. All of them started off with progress in one direction only to be countered by small and closed minded bigots with big discriminations, things that seemed reasonable to the masses at the time.

People are taught to fear and loathe that which they do not understand. It is easy to be a follower, to go along with what others tell you, especially when the leader is someone you respect.

Just as in the past, leaders are telling their followers what to think. And the mindless masses follow.

Sanctity of marriage, bullshit. Marriage is a word that carries a bunch of religous baggage and a whole lot of legal ramifications, good and bad. I believe that goverment, all governments, should allow unions with every right that marriage brings with it to anyone that wants to agree to spend a life together. Unions should only be considered 'marriage' if it had some religous pretense and therefore should be up to the church that issues the 'marriage' in which case, some churches CAN allow same sex marriage. This is separation of church and state, plain and simple (in my mind). The state has ABSOLUTELY no right to interfere in church affairs just as the church has ABSOLUTELY no right to deal in government. I wish it were so simple.

At this point, 2 years later, in my life/learning, I would be all for getting a state sanctioned union, that anyone could have, and telling the church (Catholic marriage in my case) to kiss my ass.

Vegetarianism, Nature and Christianity

Hey! We're trying to sleep....,
originally uploaded by buggs_moran.

Well, here we are at the end of month two of the great vegetarianism experiment and I've got to say this has been the easiest life change I have ever made. When it comes to life altering decisions and my health, willpower has a tendancy to putter out. I have tried diets, fad diets, low carb diets, being 100% sober, working out every day, etc., all high willpower items. They all failed. I think that this one (vegetarianism) is easy because I KNOW in that gray mass of mine that it is the right thing to do.

I honestly don't see myself ever going back. I might stumble or fall here and there, but it will always be what I come back to. Which brings me to my next point, nature. Look at the photo attached to this post. Is it natural for us to think, "hey, there's some potential food..." Of course it is, we're animals, omnivores to boot. But does it mean we HAVE to eat other animals? Is it only because we are told to and media blitzed to (you know; pork, the other white meat, beef, it's what's for dinner, etc.) from a very young age?

Ask any smoker, drinker or overeater how easy it is to give up something and then ponder giving up meat. You might say it's not the same thing, giving up smoking/drinking/gluttony is good for you. You are correct, it isn't the same thing. But I counter with, isn't giving up meat good for the animals? Giving meat up is hard to do if you just say "can I give it up?" But, if you actually THINK about it, not just say "no I couldn't do that", but think of the pain, torture and anquish that animals go through when we murder (shut up, you know it is) them for meat. Remember they have the same intelligence (relatively) as your pet mouse, snake, cat or dog.

This brings me to my third part of this post. I read today in free inquiry that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas denied that we have any duties of charity to animals according to the Bible (I assume). Even a pope in the 1800's supported that idea... What do I think? Funny you should ask that.

If you've ever owned a pet you already know that this is complete bunk. The charity for and livelihood of our pets (as well as other animals) is our responsibility as the only species that has the ability to regard things from a moral standpoint (that we know of, damn that was pretentious of me).

Side note: The main point of this article was in support of the Great Ape Project (GAP), which looks to form "rights" for the closest genetic relatives to humans. I support the GAP. What right DO we have to allow torture and death of these amazing animals (watch the videos on the site, you might change your mind).

Those little birds in the photo there are dead now, and it really pissed me off that they died. I don't know what happened, maybe it was the few days topping 100 with some insane storms, maybe a predator, who knows, but it was more than likely nature... All I know is, that I cared for their well being. Why? What makes little birds with pea sized brains more important and more worthy of life than the mosquito I just smacked off my arm? I don't have the answer... I guess it's all about how much we really care to care, if that makes any sense. Some might say, "we are the superior being, and whatever we decide to do is okay." I leave you with this thought:

Isn't it the mark of an intelligent being to understand our place on this planet, the harm we do to it and the ramifications of our actions? Is torturing and killing animals, wasting natural resources (we could feed people many times over with what it takes to raise one cow) , and destroying the environment really worth it?