(November 2005) Fifty-three years ago today, our country exploded the first hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands. What process of elimination led us to drop a bomb on these (apparently) expendable islands? And how many species evaporated because of this decision?
I spent today on much less serious stuff, but my day nevertheless exhausted me. I completed myriad administrative tasks (yawn) while trying to catch up while asking myself if this is what I received my MFA in poetry to do. (No.) And lawsie lawsie me, do I need to find some time for myself before I forget what my novel is even about!
Meanwhile, the news about Bush Inc’s newest conservative Supreme Court nominee is sobering, even if I don't have to worry about ever needing an abortion.
And let’s not forget to mention the taking-a-hard-stand-for-justice Methodist Church (motto: we only like people who are just like us), which recently kicked out an openly lesbian minister who is in a long-term, committed relationship but reinstated a straight southern minister who cast out a gay parishioner.
Gives new meaning to Jesus’s admonition to love those that persecute you, doesn’t it?
Um, you might be interested to know that Kinsey’s data siggests that we are nothing more than a natural variation. We also know that many of you so-called normal people fantasize about someone with the same anatomy or wear diapers to sex parties or enjoy being whipped or asphyxiate yourselves in erotic play and have any number of other never-to-be-spoken-aloud fantasies.
Of course, casting queers out into the sexual wilderness does allow bigoted people to pat themselves on their milquetoast backs and say what good Christians they are while they (sometimes manage to successfully) suppress these longings.
As for me, I think it’s high time that we define some new rings in Dante’s hell based on one’s level of homophobia. Hell itself would, of course, be a blow job from Fred Phelps—which would no doubt be the WORST form of torture, but would nevertheless finally satisfy this guy’s internalized homophobia.
On a similar note, I saw this sign at a protest recently: Would someone give the man a blowjob already so we can impeach him? So you see, Fred is just the man for the job!
All of which brings us to the topic of Dr. Randall of the Harvard University physics department.
Now if you happened to read the Science section of today’s New York Times, then you already read this intriguing sentence: Dr. Randall and string theory had their own kismet and you already saw a photo that confirms that the fine doctor is not only brilliant but also drop-dead gorgeous.
(And BTW my entry title is a very obscure reference to Dr. Randall and string theory, which posits that our uni(multi-, actually)verse is a brane—or, as Dr. Randall puts it, is an “island of three dimensions floating in a sea of higher dimension, like a bubble in the sea.” Add an obscure Bee Gees tune about “my dog and me on the edge of the universe” and, bingo, you’ve got today’s title.)
Anywho, Dr. Randall climbs mountains and absorbs the world around her deeply enough to ask questions that never even occur to other physicists, or most people. And she wants me. Bad.
Yes, I am certain of it!
So. Ahem. (Must be politically correct.) I need to re-read this intriguing article after I’ve absorbed some of these new theories for a few days, but can share this confusing typo-infused sentence from the once venerable Times in the interim:
Dr. Randall is intrigued by that fact that her results, as well as other results from string theory seem to paint a picture of the universe in which theories with different numbers of dimensions in them all give the same physics?
(Oh for the LOVE of GOD hire a goddamn copy editor already!!!!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment