tisiwoota

While driving through Utah, I came across this strange structure.

Anyone have any idea what it is?
Is it just an artsy thing, or is there some function to it?

…Bueller?

*~*~*

UPDATE: The answer, via Raj in comment below.

Lying in me

Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.

Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.

I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.

While sorting through some old papers, I came across a page I had clipped out from the letters section of the student paper at my alma mater.

To appreciate the fantasticness of the below, you need to know two bits of background information:

1) Professor X, the most conservative professor at the institution, had recently written a letter to the paper implying that a student who had taken a liberal position in an editorial was simply aping the opinions of his professors and essentially acting as their lapdog.

2) A group of liberal professors had recently sent a letter announcing their intentions to protest an upcoming speech by a prominent conservative judge by boycotting the event. This led to much controversy about whether encouraging students to boycott opposing views was an appropriate exercise of free speech.

And now, the piece de resistance:

PROFESSOR X ATTACKS STUDENT SUBTLY

We have always understood that attacks by members of the faculty against other members of the faculty are not appropriately carried out in the pages of this venerable paper. So we would not dream of attacking Professor X’s recent letter in which he suggests that, while a particular student is a careless and perhaps even dishonest reasoner, he (Professor X) would not dream of attacking him publicly because it’s always been understood that attacks by members of the faculty are not appropriately carried out in the pages of this venerable newspaper.

No, of Professor X himself we will not speak. We write only to suggest to those members of the faculty who do feel compelled to assure a student in the pages of this venerable newspaper that they would not dream of attacking him in the pages of this venerable paper that they might seek to resist accompanying said assurances with an attack on said student in the pages of this venerable paper.

Finally, lest it be thought that we are open to debate regarding the above suggestion, we must let it be known that the undersigned members of the faculty will not pursue the liberal ideals of constructive disagreement with, nor even attend lectures by, anyone who holds a divergent opinion.

Signed,

Professor Y (of philosophy)
Professor Z (of mathemetics)

Wow. Lactic acid has been exonerated. It’s not a “foe” but a “fuel.”

Lactic acid will be gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise… You get sore one to three days later. The time frame is not consistent, and the mechanisms have not been found.

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

Not that I’d ever known the slightest bit about whatever biochemical mechanism it was purported to work through– but it was one of those thoroughly ingrained accepted bits of wisdom such that because “everybody knew it” you just assumed someone somewhere had actually gone and proven the process step by step.

It brings to mind an episode from my time as a barista in a coffee shop: a patron wanted to know whether our beans had been chemically treated, and was aghast to find we had only one blend that was water-processed. She launched into a tirade as she made her way out of the shop: “Do you know what they use to process that? [Chemical X!] That’s the same thing they use in [some vile toxic product]!” Of course, what it was impossible to get in edgewise was that it was only something on the order of 1 part-per-million of Chemical X was used in the process, and all of that would be burned off by roasting temperatures far higher than Chemical X could withstand. Funny how people can think merely knowing the name of a chemical is enough of an explanation to know that that’s what’s causing Y effect.

But wow. Lactic acid. Now the ultimate example of just how powerful the echo chamber of folklore chemistry can be…

Essay on the Personal

Because finally the personal
is all that matters,
we spend years describing stones,
chairs, abandoned farmhouses–
until we’re ready. Always
it’s a matter of precision,
what it feels like
to kiss someone or to walk
out the door. How good it was
to practice on stones
which were things we could love
without weeping over. How good
someone else abandoned the farmhouse,
bankrupt and desperate.
Now we can bring a fine edge
to our parents. We can hold hurt
up to the sun for examination.
But just when we think we have it,
the personal goes the way of
belief. What seemed so deep
begins to seem naive, something
that could be trusted
because we hadn’t read Plato
or held two contradictory ideas
or women in the same day.
Love, then, becomes an old movie.
Loss seems so common
it belongs to the air,
to breath itself, anyone’s.
We’re left with style, a particular
way of standing and saying,
the idiosyncratic look
at the frown which means nothing
until we say it does. Years later,
long after we believed it peculiar
to ourselves, we return to love.
We return to everything
strange, inchoate, like living
with someone, like living alone,
settling for the partial, the almost
satisfactory sense of it.

Man [to take] DNA tests to ‘prove’ Hitler and Himmler were forebears

[T]he department of forensic medicine at the University of Granada has taken his theory seriously enough to do the DNA tests on both him and the exhumed remains of his father and grandparents. . . . The university forensic team has previously worked on other high-profile identifications, including bodies from unmarked civil war graves, and the remains of Christopher Colombus.

*~*~*

Irreverently, this somehow reminds me of the opening chapter of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where the meek and muddled foreman of a construction project turns out to be “a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr. L. Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats. . . .

[H]is mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent’s house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back. Mr Prosser was often bothered with visions like these and they made him feel very nervous.”
…
{Googling, btw, leads to this interesting tidbit: “in the lands conquered by Genghis Khan, 8% of the people are his direct descendants. In fact, world-wide, one in every 200 men is related to the mighty Khan - which works out to about 16 million men.”}

Here:

Vaughn Pedersen recently received some family news he’s been waiting at least six years to hear. For him, it was a matter of history finally being set straight.

“This was quite a present,” the Elgin resident said.

Pedersen is a sixth-generation descendant of the Shawnee Indian chief known as Blue Jacket. Legend had it that Blue Jacket was a white man, Marmaduke (Van) Swearingen, who, after being captured by the Shawnee, joined them in their struggle against white settlement. The story goes he was thus named because of the coat he wore at the time of his capture.

But new DNA evidence shows almost certainly that Blue Jacket was in fact an American Indian and not white, as the myth had it.

DNA Test, genetic genealogy, genography

First, the obvious: DailyKos has links to the White House Press Conference Video and a detailed transcript that includes the “audition tape” segment.

Second, NY Times has finally decided to cover the story (acknowledging their belatedness thusly: “Others chided the so-called mainstream media, including The New York Times, which ignored Mr. Colbert’s remarks while writing about the opening act, a self-deprecating bit Mr. Bush did with a Bush impersonator.” –And suggesting the lame excuse that the sole reason for every single major media outlet initially not covering the story was because they had each thought the routine “just was not funny.”)

Third, Colbert’s 60 Minutes Interview– which only makes me like him even more (Perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen him react as himself, out of character):

“It has been said, I don’t know if it’s any truth to it, that all good comedians have some painful experience in their in their lives. Any truth to that thesis, do you think?” Safer asked. “Sure,” Colbert replied. “My father and two of my brothers died [in a plane crash] when I was 10. I think I did my best to cheer my mom up.”

And look, he sounds like a great dad:

At home, Colbert is a doting father who makes sure his kids do not see the other Colbert — he only rarely let his kids watch the show.

“It’s just like a pure silly thing. But you know, I truck in insincerity. With a very straight face, I say things I don’t believe,” Colbert tells Safer.

“Kids can’t understand irony or sarcasm, and I don’t want them to perceive me as insincere,” Colbert says, “Because one night, I’ll be putting them to bed and I’ll say … ‘I love you, honey.’ And they’ll say, ‘I get it. Very dry, Dad. That’s good stuff,’” jokes Colbert.

Now some highlights from comments on the DailyKos thread:

1) From the “press secretary audition tape” segment, the reference I missed because I’m too young: The tape used an old clip of Dan Rather saying “No Mr. President, are you?” (except with “Mr. President” replaced with “Mr. Colbert”).
>>
This is a complicated multiple reference for people old enough to remember it: 1) it shows another time when a television personality spoke pointedly to a sitting President in front of an audience and was called disrespectful by conservatives for doing so, 2) it is a Watergate reference, so it recalls another Republican president with horrible approval ratings, and we know what happened to him, 3) it is a Watergate reference at a time when a brand new [Republican] scandal involving hookers at the Watergate was just uncovered a couple of days ago, 4) it’s a hat tip to Dan Rather’s finest hour even as [Republicans] continue to defame him over the way they set him up with the TANG documents, 5) Rather was almost fired by CBS over that remark and TV executives had to meet with White House staffers about the incident, so Comedy Central executives should expect a call from Karl Rove any day now, although I’m sure they’d laugh at any suggestion that Colbert should be fired, since he is a comedian and not a real newscaster. Bottom line–Colbert was aware that he was taking a professional risk in “talking back” to the president in this way.
>>

2) An interesting take on the situation:
>>
Whereas the whole point of the night was for these fake-ass talking heads to feign being out-of-character, in a very Hollywood-talk-show kind of way, Colbert insisted on staying completely in character. If everyone else was there to play, Colbert was there to work.

Colbert absolutely upstaged everyone there: politicians, media, everyone. He wasn’t there to please them. [. . .] The other speakers were playing to the room, and Colbert was playing way past the room, to the TV cameras and to us, out here, his past, present, and future fans.

He stayed in physical manner-character even during asides which were way out of ideological-character. In other words, he delivered his real attacks on Shrub in the exact same right-wing-alpha-male tone and unsmiling, superior-know-it-all-competitive-jerk manner that he used for delivering his fake attacks on the press and “liberals”. The “glacier” punchline is a stellar example of one of these asides. Deadpan can be very unsettling– people are uncomfortable when they can’t distinguish when someone is kidding and when they are being serious.

That bit also exploited his violation of the “knee-jerk he-said-she-said/balance” rule that all those corporate-whore celebrities hide behind. They were clearly getting uncomfortable with his relentlessness in attacking the administration. Then, he faked like he was going to break that tension and go attack Jesse Jackson (to be “fair and balanced”?), and instead threw his “glacier” punchline right back in Shrub’s face. That was a huge “fuck you”.

3) …Which has quite a culminating thesis:

By brazenly and unilaterally violating a bunch of social contracts in order to obtain “full-spectrum dominance”, Colbert provided a living example of not just Shrub’s M.O. but the entire right wing political philosophy– that of all of Corporate America, the Neocons, and the dispensationalist fundamentalists. Colbert simply and thoroughly took advantage of them, their hospitality, and their goodwill. This is probably the first taste that Shrub and some of his cronies have gotten of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this shit. Colbert “broke comity”, on purpose. He took, greedily and unapologetically, from the commons, for his own gain, without even the slightest indication of shame, any sense of decency, indeed any regard for the feelings of anyone else in that room. It was completely fitting with the character.
>>

*~*~*

I don’t think I would go *quite* that far, but it is very striking how Colbert has so thoroughly co-opted the tone and mannerisms of right-wing commentators to deliver the opposite message. I’ve noticed in reading conservative essays that they are typified by a certain form and style (which I wish I could articulate; about as far as I seem to be able to get is saying that there’s a certain loftiness of phrasing, and an invocation of impersonal logical principles in a knowing way that implies there can be no other way of framing). I’ve often wondered what it would look like to have progressive arguments presented in a form that “sounds” conservative. If I’m making any sense.

I am reminded also of Bernard-Henri Levy’s Letter to the American Left, in which he expresses dismay at finding in his visits to American “anti-Republican strategists confessing they had never set foot in one of those neo-evangelical mega-churches that are the ultimate (and most Machiavellian) laboratories of the “enemy,” staring in disbelief when I say I’ve spent quite some time exploring them”. Even if the end is just to have a better arsenal against a perceived “enemy,” I do think it’s important to gain an understanding of the sort of discourse that works on the other side. On that measure, Colbert has done (or demonstrated) something of real value. The other hopeful take on the impact of his performance is that it could inspire more truth-tellers to come out of the woodwork from within the administration/military. That momentum was already there, but Colbert’s example (something which did take some courage! It was the moments when he looked directly to the President and held his gaze that I thought, This is why this was uniquely a role for Colbert to pull off, rather than Jon Stewart) seems to be a rallying point for the dissident ball to keep rolling.

On the other hand, I think the target on the horizon has to be favoring approaches that enable bridge-building and civil discourse. Howevermuch Colbert may have taken on a role that was somehow needed, I do think the ultimate goal has to be a functional bipartisan government. In other words, this is the point at which my affectionate reverence for Colbert tails off and my civic worship of Obama (and sigh, grudging acknowledgment of Mitt Romney) takes over.

This was (is) my horoscope for today. “Power Play” is about an accurate as you can get for a shrouded reference into the heart of an exam day, don’t you think? Well, maybe if it said mind-games… anyway, I have to agree that the test and I were definitely trying to convince each other of things, sometimes at cross purposes. (We’ll have to see how accurate it will be about pegging the other exam days as well; though I kind of dread to read those descriptions…)

Power Play
This is a good day for getting to the bottom of any problem, either in a relationship or in some other encounter between you and another person. Or you may become involved in an intellectual conflict of wills with another person. Someone may try very hard today to convince you of some truth that you would rather not accept, or you may do this to someone else. It can go either way. Be very careful about these attempts to persuade, because they can become the basis of a very subversive, smoldering conflict between you and another person. It may be hard to bring such a confrontation out into the open where the two of you can air your grievances. And it may be that there aren’t any real grievances at all, but that one of you is trying to pull off a naked power play.

(And considering I could have used a solid extra five, if not ten to fifteen more minutes to get complete answers, I have to say the timing was definitely the naked power play on this one…)