Living in the past III

Al Denelsbeck

unidentified amphipods gathering around floating snail shell in aquarium
Today we have an image posted in 2010, the first of the ‘Just Because’ images back when I suspected that it might become an ongoing thing (present count is 50 such posts.) However, it’s even older than that, coming from my saltwater aquarium in Florida back in 2004. My memories of exploring, collecting, and observing in Florida are very distinct, more distinct and certainly fonder than my memories of the first job when moving back into North Carolina afterward, so it’s hard to believe that they’re in that order, and that this was nineteen years ago. The calendar of memory is a funny thing.

What we see here are ‘scuds,’ or to be more precise, amphipods, though the term is broad and encompasses thousands of species – I can’t get any closer than that. Call them water lice if you like, though they’re harmless and non-parasitic, generally either scavengers or trash-eaters. I collected them with the seaweed, rocks, and shells that populated the aquarium, serving as food for the other species therein, but here they’re gathering on and about a snail shell small enough to float with a little air bubble trapped within – it probably measured less than 10mm wide. I have distinct memories of lifting clumps of seaweed, or really any interesting find, from the water while snorkeling and suddenly having a mass of these crawling across my hands, as the emergence into air caused them to bail free from the surfaces they’d been clinging to and try to regain the water – creepy-feeling, yet harmless. But seeing them using the shell in this manner when it floated close to the aquarium glass begged the macro shot, producing a unique perspective – I was lucky that the walls of the snail shell were so thin that light passed easily, since getting the strobe aimed into the opening otherwise would have been far more challenging.

That don’t work

Al Denelsbeck

We have some funny trends in our media – books, films, TV shows, and so on; these trends are, in a way, a self-perpetuating culture of ‘expectations,’ clichés and tropes that are used because they’ve been overused, and so we begin to think they’re correct. Many of them get addressed – the affect of gunshots, the idea that using a defibrillator on a ‘flat-lined’ patient will do a damn thing, the repeatedly-disproven canard that torture will produce dependable info – but there’s one that I’ve seen very often that I’ve also never seen rebutted, and it sorely needs it. I was reminded of this by Terry Pratchett, who was pretty good about catching silly clichés but actually uses this one too often. In short, it’s the wise (generally old) mentor that never answers, “Why?”

You’ve seen it. Mr Miyagi never telling Daniel why he has to paint the house in an awkward manner. Obi Wan Kenobi being cryptic. Countless characters saying, “Never touch the red button,” or whatever. The message is, if it’s important information, you should never have to explain what it is or why it’s important. Never question wisdom – just obey blindly.

Bringing it to attention like this makes us recognize that it’s a bad practice, and obviously a bad practice, for numerous reasons. Sure, sometimes it’s a plot device – the one told to simply obey, doesn’t, and learns the hard way that they should’ve, which in and of itself is a stupid lesson too.

Let’s start with, refusing to answer isn’t reassuring to anyone, kids or adults. You know who quickly figures out that we don’t answer because we probably don’t actually have a good answer? Damn near everyone. We’re inviting them to use their imagination, and chances are what they come up with isn’t the slightest bit accurate. Will they imagine that we’re hiding something interesting? Will they imagine that we’re just too stupid to know? Will their curiosity provoke them into trying to find out, or trying to prove us wrong? (Again, plot device, which is only useful in stories, not real life.) Or will they simply assume that there is no good reason, and ignore our advice? None of these are useful. And seriously, what kind of idiot would bet on their student learning their lesson by disobeying, especially with any kind of serious consequences in the mix?

Not to mention that blind obedience is an incredibly bad practice. Sure, we want people to obey us, because we’re smart – but we’re also teaching them to obey everyone, or everyone who seems to have some form of authority, and it takes no effort to produce examples that no one should be trusting. Blind faith, and even trust, are really bad traits. We might have trust in something because it’s shown to be dependable, which works pretty often, but it can easily be misplaced – think of the person who routinely speeds through a school zone because of their experience with a lack of police, or no kids running into the road. Hell, around here there’s a vicious trend of people blindly stepping out from a storefront into a parking lot, because they trust all drivers to be paying attention. You know, just like they themselves are…

We all know examples of people who really want blind obedience too, because it’s easy to manipulate others when they possess this – you’re on an atheist blog, I’ll let you do the math here, but it occurs in much broader areas than that, too. Why would we encourage this?

Most especially, if we have someone who’s asking why, who’s actively seeking information or a better understanding of a subject, we should be rewarding that. These are the people who learn, who have active minds that are trying to grasp things better. If nothing else, it proves that they’re paying attention. But by all means, we should never cut off the quest for more knowledge. The smartest people I’ve known are/were all polymaths whose curiosity led them down diverse paths that nevertheless gave them a better grasp of things overall, and the differing perspectives were nearly always beneficial. Learning something by rote, by merely repeating what we’ve been told, is only good for continuing to repeat – not for advancing. To advance, we have to wonder why.

Additionally, by engaging with someone asking questions, we have the opportunity to discover that there are misconceptions or misunderstandings lying beneath the knowledge that they have, that we might never have stumbled upon by being terse or dismissive. We also have the ability to discover that our own explanations or instructions were lacking in some manner, perhaps because we assumed a certain level of knowledge, or simply because we skipped over something crucial. I always encourage my students to ask questions for just this reason, but also because there’s a high probability that they’re not the only ones who have the same question. Their lack of hesitation to throw out questions is helpful to those within earshot who have greater difficulty with this, too shy to speak up, often thinking that it’s their fault that they fail to understand. We should never try to teach someone to keep their mouth shut.

Answer the questions. Give the reasons. Provide the explanations. If absolutely nothing else, it establishes that we really do know what we’re talking about, but most times it’s far more useful than that. And remember that anyone who doesn’t, probably isn’t very wise in the first place – they certainly don’t want others to be.

Living in the past II

Al Denelsbeck

black racer Coluber constrictor with eastern garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis prey
Once again, our selection hails from 2009*, but this is likely the last from that year, since my posts were initially quite thin, and most of the images smaller. I happened upon this little scene entirely by paying attention to my hearing, catching the rustle near my feet and pausing to see what made it. This is a black racer (Coluber constrictor,) either northern or southern subspecies, having just captured an eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis.) Racers are nonvenomous, so the garter is quite likely still alive here. It’s the only time I’ve gotten a photo like this, and it’s possible that I was the cause – well, of course I was the cause of the photo being taken, but I mean my passage along the path in the woods might have spooked the garter snake towards the racer, or at least drawn attention to itself. I would have liked to have watched the aftermath, but as the image suggests, I barely had a view as it was and the racer could easily slip out of sight. I elected not to disturb it any more than necessary, especially since I needed the flash to get any shots at all.

I’m always on the lookout for behavioral images of this nature, and rarely see such, probably because most species are aware of me before I’m aware of them, and this halts their stalking and puts them on alert at the least. Many species are vulnerable when eating, and a snake trying to down another snake is going to take a bit of time, so they’re more likely to avoid a meal if it means they might become a meal. And seriously, do you want to surreptitiously stalk a snake? I’ve tried that – the snake had more awareness and patience.

* Initially, I identified this as a northern black racer, though at this point I don’t think it can be differentiated – the range overlaps with the southern variant and they have no outwardly visible difference. Basically, it matters more to them than to us, but simply identifying it as a black racer suffices.

Living in the past I

Al Denelsbeck

I noticed in passing that the post count was at 2,470 at the end of last month, which meant that I could reach 2,500 posts at the end of the year – if I did better than I have been. I wasn’t worried about it – I’d prefer to post regarding content rather than arbitrary numbers – but then this afternoon I realized how I could meet this goal and have a bit of content in the winter dead season, and so we have a new topic, appropriately numbered with Roman numerals because it’s clarssy (and stupid.) This means we’ll take a look at images from past posts that I feel like revisiting, which does not inflate the uploaded images artificially nor require scanning or editing or any of that yaya. Almost effortless. What’s not to like?

multiple exposure of starfield showing rotation
I’m thinking I’ll do this in chronological order, so we’re going way back to the early days with the second post, since the first had no images. What you see here is a slide (well, the digital scan of one,) and this was done in-camera, a multiple exposure because film cameras can do that, of the starfield overhead one night. I’m not absolutely sure of the intervals but I think they’re 45 seconds apart. Worse, I’m not sure exactly where I was aiming or even what lens was used, so I can’t tell you which stars these are. Which is unfortunate, because right there in the center is something else, a singular point that was either captured in just one of the exposures, or wasn’t moving with the stars.

The possibility exists that this was a geostationary satellite, always over one point on the Earth so it was keeping pace and rotating with the planet (while the stars weren’t.) Or it might have been only a momentary light without moving much – or simply a schmutz on the film. I don’t know – I’ve reviewed the starfields in Stellarium countless times since then, trying to pin down where I was aimed, and never yet plotted it. However, you can get a rough estimate of the distance to the plane of the ecliptic because of the flattening curves: they become straight on the plane, essentially straight out from the ‘waist’ of the Earth. But I would think a geosat would have to be there too, and this is not – it’s some degree North of that.

So the mystery lives on. But the image is still pretty slick, and surprisingly colorful, so we’ll concentrate on that.

“Mean?” Please.

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a while since I’ve tackled a post of this nature (instead of a post of nature,) and I’m out of practice, I think. More, my reading and web surfing hasn’t been related to this as much anymore, so I’m not inspired to address such topics anywhere near as much. But in light of recent developments (as well as re-reading Richard Dawkins’ The god Delusion,) I think it’s worth a post.

Outspoken atheists are very often considered a bit, “mean,” and numerous critiques of their publications, editorials, or talks revolve around the tone, far more than the content – offering a reasoned rebuttal of the points doesn’t occur very often. The implication is that religious folk are just sitting here minding their own business when they’ve been savagely attacked, belittled, and bullied, just for their beliefs. Which, naturally, deserve respect.

You know what’s coming, of course, but I want to highlight that, even when most of us recognize the failures and weaknesses of religion, we’re still influenced by the cultural emphasis on it, to the point where we tend to be a lot more wishy-washy in our response to it than is warranted. I don’t think this is doing us – or anyone, really – any favors.

We’ll start with the whole ‘tone’ thing, because it not only shouldn’t ever be an issue, it’s also manipulative; we need to recognize this and, really, call it out frequently. This isn’t nursery school – no one has a right, or should even have an expectation, of not getting their feelings hurt. The vast majority of us heard far worse in high school, and we have R-rated movies and murder podcasts and political campaigns and all that jazz – no one is a stranger to ‘bad tone.’ Hang around a construction site for an hour sometime. Quite frankly, nearly every example of atheist or secular editorials is far milder in tone than is warranted, when we consider what’s being addressed (which we’ll get into in detail shortly,) so we need to recognize this as sidetracking, at the very least, and not be swayed by it. Actually, it’s preferable to highlight this as the crass tactic that it is.

I’ve addressed the ‘respect’ thing before and won’t reiterate those points, I’ll just offer the reminder that respect is earned, and earned for providing benefit or accomplishing something worthy – not because anyone has declared themselves in possession of a label. While anyone may have the privilege to choose some standpoint or hold some opinion – indeed, we couldn’t take this away even if we were so inclined – this has nothing to do with whether it’s respectable or not. I am 100% supportive of free speech and of maintaining this privilege even in the face of today’s hypersensitive cultural fads, the modern-day witch hunts for those that do not hew tight enough to the ‘Woke’ standards – but I am also 100% supportive of responding to any given free speech with the countering opinion, if warranted, that one has their head up their ass. Respect, and its necessary sister Disrespect, are both functional aspects of defining how beneficial our culture should be – but only when they’re wielded with that function in mind.

I’ll sidetrack just slightly here for a related aspect, because too often people cannot see the difference. Censorship, one of the primary tools of cancel culture, is not merely a stronger version of disagreement; bluntly, it’s the admission that you can’t actually make your case convincingly and have to resort to force. Moreover, it never works. What we’re after is changing peoples’ mind towards a more beneficial standpoint, which censorship is incapable of, and might actually work in exactly the opposite manner, breeding resentment among those so censored and thus strengthening their resolve. If we’re confident that we have a better standpoint, then we should be able to demonstrate this with open exchange.

Which brings us back around to the atheist/secular treatment of religion. Let’s keep it in perspective. No concept of supernaturality, of deities, of extra-physical realms of existence, of even souls or karmic vessels, has the slightest empirical evidence to support it. Nothing. There is no method to differentiate any popular religion from the volumes of mythology that our history and literature is chock full of. No form of scripture comes even remotely close to the millions of interlocking bits of evidence we have of the age of the Earth, the development of life, the nature of the universe, or even accurate portrayals of human nature – some (most) of the stories are so ludicrous that they defy adequate adjectives. No examples of supernatural knowledge exist, no predictions of coming events, nothing to even promote humans towards improvements; for every example of beneficial guidance, there are at least as many recommendations and examples of emotional, reactive, and outright reprehensible actions. The bare fact that countless atrocities, throughout history and now, are directly intertwined with religious fervor is plain evidence that it doesn’t work, but the exhortations of sexist, bigoted, and exclusionary behavior are, by themselves, enough reason to discard any suggestion that this is useful guidance. In the US, the vast majority of prejudicial laws, passed or proposed, are religiously motivated.

This is not news to those of us that choose to engage. But we tend to minimize, even subconsciously, the vast extent of the issues – solely because we’re conforming to a culture that has embraced this stupidity. The culture isn’t what we should be focused upon; the stupidity is.

It goes much further than that, though. Despite this plethora of nonsense, it takes no effort whatsoever to find some religious pundit spouting judgment, abuse, and hatred, whether it be against gays, unwed mothers, teachers of evolution, or those politicians that don’t lick the pundits’ asses; somehow, not even the moderate religious ever speak out about the ‘tone’ there. There is no accurate tally on how many followers of this loving, just god (their words, not mine) were absolutely delighted to hear about a mass shooting in a gay nightclub, but enough of them certainly weren’t shy about spouting this in public, were they? Just about any natural disaster is pounced on by countless self-appointed fosters of ‘good’ behavior as evidence that their god is a nasty little fuck regarding his creation, and the assertions that misfortune is direct evidence of god’s displeasure are exceedingly rampant. Not only are they not ashamed of this hatred and animosity, they promote it in others and use it to solicit donations. Well, that’s sure a great way to build a better society…

Even those that don’t publicly denounce the various immoral behaviors that earn their ire are complicit in promoting legislation (no doubt with church donations solicited under the guise of providing benefit) to force everyone to conform to their bronze-age ideas of ‘good.’ There is no benefit to be found here, no respect, no love for fellow human beings, no humble servitude, not even the bare recognition that their god already has the whole system under control. Religion is, and has always been, a power play, a method of influencing (if not outright enforcing) the self-proclaimed authority of the religious leaders themselves. It might be strictly local, it might even be with the conviction that this is wise and just and benevolent, but it remains firmly intertwined with classism and influence and, “I know what’s right.” We’ve been conditioned for centuries to, “have faith,” and, “trust in god’s word,” and, “you can’t be good without religion,” that we rarely ever consider that none of it can be supported even remotely as well as any sixth-grade science project. We let this horseshit go on because almost everyone before us did, and it’s now part of our ‘society.’

Lest you think I’m being hyperbolic, dismissive of those religious figures who really are just interested in promoting good behavior, I’ve met plenty – including my own father, who performed guest sermons for his churches whenever possible. I’ve no doubt that many – perhaps most, perhaps not – aren’t on a power trip, desiring to be held as an authority; yet they still seem to believe that their ideology is valuable and beneficial, with no way of demonstrating how or why. And this is still lacking in focus a little. We have standards for college professors, electricians, mechanics, doctors, and so on, well beyond their mere desire or ‘calling’ to provide a service; when we need guidance or expertise, we look for people who have a supportable understanding of the subject at hand. We would be rightfully dismissive of a biologist that failed to understand (or “believe in”) how a cell functioned. But when it comes to religion, there is no background, no support, no facts whatsoever. Even the most ardent and active theologians are mostly unknown by the majority of preachers, as well as being dismissed out-of-hand by followers of other faiths. Religious people tend not to recognize this, but most of the world considers them mistaken (since no religion holds a majority of followers within the world’s population,) and worse, there’s absolutely nothing that they could offer to support their views; it makes no difference who I’m referring to. Religion is nothing but a personal opinion. Which makes it remarkably useless to base any decisions on whatsoever.

Which leads us to, There is nothing ‘mean’ about being dismissive of religion. It does not belong in the same conversation as any science, as politics, as medicine, or really, as any public forum – full stop. No one brings up their hobbies, their pets, their childhood stories in such cases, all of which have more factual support than any religion worldwide. The cheesiest teenage comedy movie hews closer to reality than the best examples of religious scripture (and is it even logical to select only the ‘best’ within the morass of outright goofy stories within scripture?) We need to be perfectly comfortable with cutting this off the moment it appears, telling people that it doesn’t belong, and maintaining that we have had countless methods of determining useful information for centuries now, that work and show measurable results.

This is the point: society is not about ‘majority opinion’ (otherwise known as ‘mob rule’) – it is about benefit and improvement. A grocery store that only carried one brand, one flavor, one variety of anything isn’t very functional, yet we’re allowing that same kind of bullshit to take place, in far too many circumstances, with much more important decisions. Call it out. Never hesitate to treat this as the ancient superstitious mythology that it is, and most especially, as a personal opinion that has no useful function. We’ve let this go on for far too long, to obvious detriment.

But, some caveats. Doing this usefully, and not antagonistically, is better of course, and by far the approach should be to denigrate the ideas, not the people – people are always a mixture of good and bad, wise and stupid, beneficial and detrimental, and don’t deserve being lumped into any given category, so we should always stick to the ideology. Being very matter-of-fact can be remarkably disarming; simply saying, “We’re not discussing religion, we’re discussing science,” is enough of a reminder that any religion is only one among many, as well as establishing boundaries (that should never have been loosened in the first place, and still remain in numerous European countries at least.) Or simply pointing out, “That’s simply your religion,” as a reminder that our culture is made up of plenty, while, “I’m sure god can speak for himself if he finds it that important,” is snarky but humbling. “Do you have anything that’s relevant to this conversation?” is also sharp, but makes the point of not even considering religion a factor. “What studies are you basing this on?” and, “Can you back this up with figures?” are both effective in directing attention towards goals. And these aren’t even being mean, just practical.

We see what happens when we don’t, when we allow religious folk to set their preferred standards of ‘decorum’ and what’s appropriate – this country is backsliding rapidly right now, and we’re letting it happen in the guise of being polite and non-confrontational, of yielding to a perceived majority as if religious people could agree on three things amongst themselves, or simply because we have the impression that we ‘shouldn’t make waves.’ But you’ll notice that the religious don’t seem to be following those rules, and an awful lot of our politicians are sucking up to them because they’re making the most noise.

I can imagine the rejoinders from some religious folk right now: “Well, that’s not all religious people – they don’t speak for me.” But you’re not speaking for you either; if the rabid fundamentalists are the public face of religion, the biggest influence on politics and policies and so on, whose fault is that? If we consider the actions within our society from the standpoint that they were coming from some other religion, especially one with standpoints or morals or consequences that we don’t like, and realize how badly that would suck, well, now we understand why restrictions against such things were put in place very early on in the creation of our political system – you know, the ones that are now largely ignored. While religions are ostensibly for everyone, to bring benefit to humankind overall, you wouldn’t be able to tell that from most of the practitioners, the ones that view everything from the ‘us’ and ‘them’ standpoint. “It’s okay if it’s ‘us’ but not okay if it’s ‘them,” isn’t a useful policy – it’s not a policy at all, but tribalism, as nonsensical as fretting about sports rivalries. No one in this country should have to be reminded that religion has no place in politics – no personal decisions do, no matter how much of a majority holds them – yet we’ve let this happen. Who’s going to fix it now? Should we wait for god to do it? Feel free to ask that of the millions of ‘god-loved’ people who have died in religious conflicts, but you may have a hard time getting an answer…

So yeah, speak up, speak out, make our voices heard. It would be a long time before we got to be as mean as some of the religious folk have been, or really, as they are right now.

Nein, November

Al Denelsbeck

Hah, get it? Because ‘November’ actually means, ‘Ninth Month,’ since it used to be, until Julius Caesar introduced a new, slightly more accurate calendar and had to add two months to it so that Groundhogs Day would keep falling in February, and he liked the summer so he put the extra months in the middle and named them after himself and his Shetland pony Augustus.

Okay, that’s not entirely accurate, and we’re going pretty far afield for the post title, so let’s just enjoy the end-of-month abstract.

bare stump in shallow water of Jordan Lake at sunset
It’s not hard for scholars of this blog to figure out when or where this was taken, and believe me, I enjoyed typing, “scholars of this blog,” as if decades from now literati will be discussing the nuances of the circumstances in which I’ll say, “fuck.” The Girlfriend will tell you, “Any chance he gets,” so that’s out of the way. All that aside, we have some colors and a really boring silhouetted stick, but it was what I had on hand since Jordan Lake is thin on wrecked fishing trawlers or semi-submerged church steeples. Seriously. Still, for being shot blind with the camera held down near my ankles, it framed up nice, once I got rid of the distinct tilt because, for some reason, the camera body feels ‘level’ when it’s far from it, horizontal or vertical. And here you were hoping for an un-edited photo at the close of the month. Too bad.

Visibly different, part 48

Al Denelsbeck

facade of Savannah Cotton Exchange in Savannah, GA in overcast
The opening image today comes from September, 2013, the ornate façade of the Cotton Exchange building in downtown Savannah, Georgia. I couldn’t begin to tell you the names of architectural styles, and I’m very much in favor of artistic efforts coming after full functionality has been established (having moved too much furniture into someone’s idea of a ‘dynamic’ layout with stupid landings on the stairs,) but there’s a lot to be said for the character of this period, in comparison to the majority of office buildings today. And it’s one of the reasons why this section of Savannah is meticulously maintained as an historic district.

But we notice that the light is muted and overcast, lending a somber air to the scene and not producing a whole lot of color. This speaks to us in subconscious ways, and can affect how we feel about a particular view regardless of what it’s actually of. When you think about it, this is almost silly, because it’s only light, and while it’s associated with weather, is that really all that different? We see rain all the time, it’s no big deal, but try telling our subconscious that.

Now we see it a mere two minutes later.

facade of Savannah Cotton Exchange in Savannah, GA in direct sunlight
Knowing the timeframe, it’s obvious that the clouds were scattered and moving fast, permitting bursts of sunlight and overcast interspersed. Now the color has popped a bit, and the contrast and shadows have increased significantly, all of these changing the appearance and mood of the exact same subject. It’s also clear, though perhaps not consciously noted, that the light is coming from the left and thus the building is facing into the light, which is a subtle positive aspect, while the oblique sidelighting makes the ornamentation sharper and almost tactile. I often point out to my students that high-contrast light is for textures and surfaces, while low-contrast light (hazy to overcast) is for colors; this is partially because cameras, and especially monitors, still have a narrow dynamic range, the amount they can vary between their brightest and darkest registers, so the increased contrast of bright sunlight can actually cause colors to bleach out while shadows deepen far too much. It would have been great if I’d had a flower bed in the foreground to demonstrate both of these in one photo, but while it was entirely possible (given how manicured this section of Savannah is) to have found something in the vicinity to use in this way, I wasn’t thinking about it at the time. I know, what a slacker.

You might also have noticed that the sky in the latter image has darkened, but it might not have – with the increased light on the building, the shutter speed increased, which would have darkened the unchanged sky. So, it’s darker in the image, but perhaps not in reality – I’ll let you classify that as you wish.

Busy bee

Al Denelsbeck

pollen of lemon tree blossoms on brush
The image above, naturally, needs no explanation, because you certainly should recognize it if you are a decent human being – you’re honoring the holiday just like the rest of us. But for all the insolent and sulky teens out there, this is residual pollen – specifically, the pollen of lemon trees – the stuff that remained behind on the paint brush after I came back in from the greenhouse. That’s right, it’s Pollinate The Lemon Trees Wintering In The Greenhouse Day, which is easy enough to celebrate.

blossoms of lemon trees in greenhouse
The Girlfriend obtained a pair of lemon trees earlier in the year, and after a cold snap they were moved into the greenhouse for the winter, where a small oil heater maintains the temperature at a minimum of 10°c. We’re not exactly sure what prompted them to bloom now, but they’re bustin’ out like kittens in the clothes hamper who have heard the can opener, and so given the lack of beehives within the greenhouse (a distinct oversight of ours,) it is incumbent upon me to, um, see to their needs manually. We’re not sure how well this will work, but some of the earlier flowers are showing signs of germination, so I suppose I can add that to my résumé.

It’s been a busy week and I’ve had little time to give to the webby stuff, but I should be able to catch up a bit more. Now all I need is something to photograph and/or post about…

Profiles of Nature 54

Al Denelsbeck

Life isn’t fair, and it’s not even well-balanced. We can’t try to get philosophical and consider it a test – that’s just lame. We’re here with yet another Profile after we thought they were dead and gone, with no dramatic, heroic denouement to occur. Deal.

northern mockingbird Mimus polyglottos horkin' down berries
Today we meet Hrisovalantis (‘Hrisovalantisbusbyberkeleydomperignon’ to his friends, because his friends aren’t too swift,) taking a holiday break from his routine diet to stuff himself full of cranberries, unaware that these weren’t cranberries at all, but something with a laundry list of ‘possible’ side effects longer than most pharmaceutical commercials – Hrisovalantis is going to have a fun evening, and so are all the others on the bus he’s taking back home. Note that when we say, “routine diet.” we mean the diet that we’re all on, the one that involves no actual change in food intake but the intentions of such, starting tomorrow, and thus the holiday break is actually gorging himself blind – don’t act like we’re not intimately familiar with this. And when we say, “we,” we’re referring to all of us within this country in a typically wecentric way, and not all of us like we should – we don’t all celebrate the same holidays, you know? But we do here, so we better get over it. We don’t know Hrisovalantis by name but recognize him in that vague, “We should probably know where we met you but can’t for the life of us recall where or why and this is gonna be really embarrassing,” way, because Hrisovalantis specializes in being a background restaurant patron – not in movies or TV series, but in real life, engaging in bland and casual conversations without making a sound, which we don’t notice because we’re too wrapped up in ourselves, unlike some of us. This is not a lucrative skill, but it makes enough scratch to cover the meals at least, and Hrisovalantis always grabs some extra mints and toothpicks to sell afterward, so he’s doing okay – don’t ask who buys them. Nonetheless, Hrisovalantisberkeleybreatheddomdeluise (it’s growing on us) has big goals because they’re easier to score within – we can’t believe we’ve never used this gag before – and will soon move on from restaurants to become a background attendee of sporting events, only one of the non-stupid ones (there are three, and we’ll let us figure out for ourselves whether that means the events themselves or the fans overall – we think it’s a generous overestimate anyway.) Will Hrisovalantis live out his dreams? Will happiness and prosperity reign? We wont know because we never follow up and we’re not even reading this in the first place. Hrisovalantis’ favorite kind of scissors handles are the kind that allows two-and-a-half fingers in one side but won’t easily release his thumb on the other, though we suspect he’s just saying that because it’s a fad.

We may be here next week, or we may not, but we’re probably not done, so we can stop blubbering and jolly well man up – that’s the human ‘man’ and not the gender one, so we can just piss off with that.

Not perfectly clear

Al Denelsbeck

sunset over Jordan Lake showing faint crepuscular rays
Was on the way past and stopped at Jordan Lake yesterday at sunset, even though it looked as promising as always, which means, “Not at all.” True to form, the sun set without a cloud in the sky, leaving nothing to produce nor capture any colors, but as it dropped still lower, the bare hints of high-altitude humidity began to show through faint crepuscular rays. I won’t blame you if you’re not seeing them easily – the first indication to us was so faint that we could see it better through peripheral vision rather than directly, but eventually some streaks were distinct enough, and the lowermost horizon got some nice color. It worked, and wasn’t more than a tad chilly out there. Good enough.

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