Loss comes to us all

One of my online friends lost her husband recently. I am not going to get into details here. Even though she was one of those people that lived as an exhibitionist some things are private. I would like to be able to send her words of comfort but I have as of yet been unsuccessful in composing that letter.
The pain of loosing your spouse is different for everyone. I can only talk about my own experience with authority and that is of necessity shaped by my understanding of the universe. For me the pain has not gone away, it really has not lessened . At times I can block it out and the periods that I can block it out for have gotten longer but when I stop and reflect the wound is still as raw.
This is not the concept I want to impart to the rest of the world. I do not wish to add to the despair that the human condition unleashes upon the hapless world. I do not wish to deceive though, I do not want to hand out the platitudes and false hope that the religious toss about with such arrogance and callousness. That well meaning people spew without any knowledge of the truth. She is in a better place ,the pain is ended, you will see them again some day. Cruel words that have no meaning.
Cary suffered in life and so they feel this will some how relieve that suffering. What in fact it does is diminish what she went through. Life’s a bitch and then you die is not a very satisfying philosophy but it is what it is. All you can do for a friend is listen when they talk, hold them when they cry, give them their space when they want it and forgive their outbursts. It is about them and their place in the grand scheme and they will muddle through as will we all. Or they wont. That is the realization that is the hardest. Nobody gets out unscathed ,unscarred, unchanged. We go on in our own way and in the end No one gets out alive.

End of August

The tavern stank. Those were the three words that began the journey I am on today. That was 10 years ago and the Dragon’s Justice project was born in a time of great despair. Since that time it has changed form, title and lost three of the 4 original contributors. 2 Died and one quit. The futility of it is not lost on me. The soft laughter of the fairies long since relegated to the dustbin of ideas. I am rededicating myself to its completion. My joints will not seem to permit the crisis to travel as far as I had first wished. The lost coast is going to be a large enough realm for my mind and body to wander and the story will be told. I owe that much to Cary and her memory.

Manic Murals

Windows Live Spaces
Decided to ride around town and take some photos of the many murals that add to the local color. In keeping with my desire to become a new media douche bag I thought I would co opt the creativity of another to express myself. Thanks to the Ink peoples center for the arts for sponsoring many of these.

The how doesn’t always lead to why.

This post was generated by a discussion from Dkos about the nature of superstition and its effect on politics in America.
I am an antitheist. I try to combat the ignorance of faith with rational argument whenever I encounter it. I feel we will never solve many of our problems as long as we live in a faith based society. I am aware that this puts me at odds with the vast majority of the populace but truth is not democratic. I do not claim to have a monopoly on truth but once something is falsified it is over for me.
Even though I live an unconventional life I am bound by convention. It inhibits my creativity and prevents me from reaching my full potential in some ways. I fall into habits from fear or laziness, I am not prepared to answer which. I think it is to some extent a function of my chronic depression.
These people trying to claim that the universe has been fine tuned for life are driving me to distraction today. It ignores the way in which life happens. These physicists are deliberately ignorant of evolution or so it would seem. They have this desire to make a, “God.” We do not like the world not to have meaning. We are not happy when there is a how but no why. We want a why and we want a complete story. I have heard it said that we are constantly making predictions about the world around us and that that was what intelligence was, making better predictions. . Science is about the what and the how not the why. The universe is not well suited for life. Most of the universe is unable to sustain any form of life. The very idea that it is fine tuned for life is on its face laughable. It took about 8 billion years for our little corner of the universe to get around to creating life. It seems that once the suitable conditions developed life evolved pretty quickly on earth. 300 million years after it first formed. It then took another 4 billion plus to get to what we call intelligence. We will probably never know exactly how it started as the data is not well preserved. We will also never know why other than the fact that the laws of physics permitted it to happen. If we ever find life elsewhere we may be able to conclude that these same laws required it to happen but until then that at least remains an open question.
Our present understanding of the formation of the solar system leads us to think that this type of formation has happened elsewhere many billions of times over. If that is true then the probability that we are unique is very low but it is not zero. As Fermi asked, “If the universe is full of intelligent beings where are they?” or words to that effect.
I have been looking further into Quantum mechanics of late, listening to some lectures and trying to learn the math. Uncertainty and probability waves appear to be the latest refuge of the sellers of superstition. God in the gaps allows for the industry of ignorance that is religion to continue to sell its idiocy to the uneducated. The god wads will say that the concept that life exists because the universe and the laws of physics allows for it is intellectually lazy. I say the idea that there is a creator is intellectually lazy in the extreme not the other way around. Biological fine tuning is an invention of the charlatans. It is encompassant on them to explain why it took 2/3 of the life of the universe to get to life if it so brilliantly fine tuned for the purpose of our existence. . We as humans have existed for .000000014% of the life of the universe. The fraction of space that we occupy is so small I would compare it to the space one electron takes up in your body. So the concept that an all-knowing all powerful being sucks that bad at creating a universe insults even my feeble intelligence.

Dropped down the hill to check out the loud annoying whine of motors and screech of tires that shattered my peaceful Saturday morning. Seems a group of geeks on rice burners were attempting to repave the parking lot of one of the local pot lot auto sellers with the rubber of their back tires. I know this sounds like a bit of a futile pursuit undertaken for the amusement of the rabble but as part of the rabble I was indeed diverted from the mundane pattern of my day for a brief moment. And in the end what more does one really expect from ones entertainments but a moment of distraction on the road to worm food? We are born, we grow, the world takes its periodic dumps on us and yet we go on living each day searching for a reason to do so. Some days it is easy, we have friends to meet, loved ones to love, children to nurture. The things that fill up the days and warm our nights then one day are gone. If one is lucky the days will be many and you will become old. In the fullness of time you will come to the end and be satisfied, surrounded by the things and people that seemed to matter but you will still be alone. I have been at the side of a great many folks at that moment. Some were friends, some were family, some were lovers and others strangers. At that one moment no thing can comfort you, no one can take away the loneliness that falls from the darkness. That is the one truth we must all conquer and once conquered we can go about filling up our lives and be truly happy. Here is a bit of video from the material world to fill up some of your day.

Some new rudeness

There is a new website out there I saw on buzzfeeds about tree porn. Here are a few of my porniest shots from the woods.
Also on the adult entertainment front I put up a new piece of adult fiction on my rude blog that you can read here. Signup is free if you are over 18. It is not all that racy a story but I don't want to put up an age restriction on this blog so I will err on the safe side until the rest of the world is a little less uptight.

Random thoughts on a Thursday

Feeling blah on another gray August day trying to write but having little success. Thought I would share some random thoughts on the issues of the week. Senator Obama has turned into "bend over Barry" never having met a principle he will not compromise. Now it is offshore drilling. It is clear he will be possibly be the worst Democratic president in my lifetime and I was around for LBJ. I say this because he will not support civil rights, He failed to support the 4th amendment in the FISA battle, he does not support the 8th amendment in that he supports a separate but equal civil unions system for the LGBT community. He already caved in on national health care before the election was even underway and now he will sell out the environment to the oil companies. He will hand millions more to the religious right in faith based bullshit so I guess he is unfamiliar with the first amendment as well. Kind of sad for a constitutional scholar 0 for 3. Bait and switch Barry might be better. If I thought it would do any good I would work for a third party as it appears Ralph is right there is not a dimes worth of difference between the corporate stooges. Yes McCain is still a tool not a top gun but the lesser of two weasels is still a fracking weasel. Yes I am a flaming liberal, Human rights includes women and gays, there is no good fucking war, there is no environmentally safe way to drill for oil in the ocean, and medical care is a human right not a profit making modality. Did I mention that I was in a crappy mood. I will leave you with a little George Carlin on the political process and selfish ignorant citizens and the state of hope.