Friday, March 31, 2006

Eppur Si Muove

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was put on trial for heresy in front of the Catholic Inquisition (NO ONE EXPECTS THE INQUISITION!!! Video Here...). He was writing a book titled “Dialogue on the Tides” and it just happened to slip in there that he believed in the notion of a Copernican Sun. The ever serious Romans and Vaticanians bristled at the idea of the earth not being the rock solid center of God’s green universe, he could have gotten killed for suggesting such a thing (good thing he didn’t make a cartoon about it…), instead he received life imprisonment, which was tantamount to house arrest. He was commanded by the Vatican to never speak of the incident again. An edict was sent to every University stating Galileo’s sentence. His book was burned.

While in University, Galileo developed an animosity to the teachings of Aristotle, someone who had been adopted by the Catholic Church at that point as an honorary saint more or less. His teachings influenced everything from science, to philosophy, to theology. If he had happened to write a gospel, it would easily become the fifth in the bible. So what was it that Galileo took offense to? Aristotle believed that objects of different weights fell to earth at different speeds. Galileo disagreed, now, it isn’t like he was saying God was a woman or anything, really not that big of a contradiction, but … no one expects the inquisition….

While studying this he came into contact with the writings of Nikolaj Kopernik (Copernicus) who came up with the model of the solar system that more or less resembles the science textbooks of today (that is, those not in Kansas). Well Kansas, excuse me … the Vatican, was not happy that someone was contradicting the Truth (Aristotle’s view of the universe was adopted by the Church as the standard description). Now, Copernicus was smart and kept his views private until he retired from his life here, Galileo on the other hand, exposed his belief in the views in public, and tenuously tied them to a little bit of theology.

Since the topic breached by Galileo was not already covered in the Aristotelian cannon he was running into some trouble. Aristotle had been deemed divine writ, i.e. the church honored him with the assumption that his works were divinely inspired. When Galileo challenged the divinely inspired works, he was challenging the works of a conduit of God; therefore his inspiration must have come from the Devil. Galileo marched to the beat of his own drum, the book on tides worked so much better with the Copernican model. He took a bold step and published something that was going to piss some people off.

Now in defense of the Church, it was the standard bearer of the day, and was held responsible for the burden of truth. Such a radical deviation of the norm would have required such a leap of faith that moving such a monolithic institution in that direction would be incredibly difficult. Institutions are slow for a reason; if they were immediately reactionary to the newest craze then their existence would lose meaning.

As Galileo walked out of his trial on heresy, legend has it that he uttered “Eppur Si Muove” under his breath, “And yet, it moves.” He defied the tradition, he said, I accept your punishment, but you have not changed my mind. Turns out his views were vindicated later and have become established science (except in Kansas…); even the Church recanted a couple hundred years later.

All I want to add in comment, is even if an institution burns you for asking the wrong questions and poking your stick in someone’s eye when they hold The Truth, you mutter under your breath that you are right, and go on changing the world day by day.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

I am such a sheep...

Open iTunes. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrassing it is.


Number of songs: 2219 (just over a weeks worth)
Sort by song-
First Song: "2 AM" - Allister
Last Song: Zoot Suit Riot - U. Penn off the beat acapella

Sort by time-
shortest song: For Your Own Safety - The Aquabats
Longest Song: Robin Williams Live on Broadway (longest song is Beethoven's 3rd Symphony...)

Sort by artist-
First Artist: 50 Cent
Last Artist: ZZ Top

Sort By Album-
First Album: ...And Out Come the Wolves - Rancid
Last Album: Zurich - The White Foliage

Do you rate your songs? Nope, no time.
Do you make up your own genre? I have 5 different classifications of Punk Rock
What Artist do you have the most songs by? Exact Tie between Pearl Jam and Green Day, Lou Reed is a close second.
What was the last song you added? Red Hot Chili Peppers "Blood Sugar Sex & Magic

Search the key word and see how many songs appear:
"Sex": 25
"Death": 25
"Love": 68
"You": 217
"Me": 487
''Drugs'': 2
''Hate'': 10

Search for your own name, how many?: None
Do The Shuffle! Shuffle your library and list the first five songs.
1. Moonstruck Pierrot, No. 6 "Madonna" - Schoenberg
2. Eleanor Rigby - Godhead
3. Waiting - Allister
4. Kodachrome - Paul Simon
5. The One I love - David Gray

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Degrees of Awesome

Alright, a ground rule, Say it to yourself, “you can’t be aweso … without ME.” HAH, that never gets old; ok it does, and just did. I apologize. But seriously there are different degrees of awesome of which I now must go into detail.

Degree numero uno: simply awesome, which is akin to “sweet” “ok” “or alright that sounds fine.” This is the most general level of awesomeness. Use it liberally, but not to liberally, this awesome is like putting on lotion after a shower, too much and you end up with white stuff all over and you can’t rub it in and it can just be a mess.

Degree numero two: pretty awesome, pretty awesome is awesomer than awesome. Although some may see the modifier as “pretty” as less than awesome, by adding the qualifier it increases the awesome quotient by one and three quarters. Things that are pretty awesome: getting a free beer at a bar cause your first one exploded and foamed over, free pizza, hearing a homeless man bitch out someone for asking for change for a 20, that would most definitely pretty awesome. If he pulls down his pants and moons her as she walks away that would be the next level of awesome.

The third one: super cool rad awesome phatness, SCRAP!, which I would never say, but it sounds pretty sweet. I would most definitely use, pretty fucking sweet, or the most awesomest thing ever, or in the event of a TNMT flashback: Bossanova. This level of awesome should be used most judiciously. Like if you had to put Icy Hot on your groin, too much … and well you get the picture. No one needs Icy Hot on the gooch.