Dying Giraffe

Saw things so much clearer

Tried to endure what I could not forgive.

Give or Take Five Decades

Now We Are Six:

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

A. A. Milne.

Ah, sometimes I grow so tired

But I know I've got one thing I got to do.

It Was a Day of Days

A Reminiscence:

Yes, thou art gone and never more

Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;

But I may pass the old church door

And pace the floor that covers thee;

 

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,

And think that frozen lies below

The lightest heart that I have known,

The kindest I shall ever know.

 

Yet, though I cannot see thee more

'Tis still a comfort to have seen,

And though thy transient life is o'er

'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;

 

To think a soul so near divine,

Within a form so angel fair

United to a heart like thine

Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

Anne Brontë.

Athene Noctua

Sadie's got a sleepover with her besties, so Sam and I are gonna have a Boys' Night at Island Queen to celebrate the upcoming three-day weekend.  Rather looking forward to the extra day off thanks to Dr King, naturally, as well as the National Championship that evening (Go Buckeyes!).

It's worked out that I can watch today's inaugural Unrivaled game between my newly-adopted Lunar Owls and the Mist before dinner.  While I chose the team largely because their signature color is my favorite purple, it also features my favorite player in the W, Napheesa Collier (I admit to having a serious crush), her Lynx teammate, C-Dub (she was so damned fun during the playoffs), and Skylar (one of my faves on the Storm along with Gabby).  I hope their season goes better than the Celtics', but mostly I hope everybody has a good time.

Speaking of things going better, today marks the fifth anniversary of my filing for our DVPO in King County Superior Court.  I've been reflecting a lot on the events surrounding that momentous decision, and I tell ya, it's really nice that our lives are so chill now.  Ain't without its challenges, but much, much quieter...

 

Update: what a fun, fast-paced game! Fortunately, the NTodd Curse did not manifest tonight (84-80!). I enjoyed the show so very much, and am excited to watch season to unfold.

The Secretary Is Hereby Instructed Not to Communicate the Notice of the Approval

Breaking news on the Equal Rights Amendment! ⬇️#ERA #WomensRights #Feminsm #ProChoice pic.twitter.com/AZqivVVE55

— National NOW (@NationalNOW) January 17, 2025

I'm sorry, but no.  I wish the ERA were part of the Constitution, but Biden can't just wave a wand to make it so.

'tis true that Article V's text is silent as to time limits, but that cuts both ways from where I sit: Congress has the power to propose amendments, which it does through Joint Resolutions, and absent a constitutional constraint, that power means Congress can write whatever it wants into the proposals.  That was pretty much the gist of Coleman v Miller (1939):

Unless Congress establishes a time window for passing an amendment, it remains pending indefinitely and can be passed at any time. Congress has the sole power to determine whether it has been passed.

Congress did establish a time window for the ERA (consistent with all but two proposed amendments since 1917), it elapsed before the requisite states ratified.  It ain't valid to all Intents and Purposes unless Congress says, "nevermind, it's all good!"  And the President has absolutely nothing to do with it at all, as Congress jealously reminded everybody when Lincoln inadvertently signed the 13th Amendment:

Resolved, That the article of amendment proposed by Congress to be added to the Constitution of the United States respecting the extinction of slavery therein, having been inadvertently presented to the President for his approval, it is hereby declared that such approval was unnecessary to give effect to the action of Congress in proposing said amendment, inconsistent with the former practice in reference to all amendments to the Constitution heretofore adopted, and being inadvertently done, should not constitute a precedent for the future...

Biden's pronouncement, welcome as it might be symbolically, has the same force of law as a tweet from the fascist, rapist felon waiting on deck.  Guess we shoulda elected Harris/Walz and a Congress to help 'em out.

Selah.

I can hear it callin' me the way it used to do

I had no idea Joan Baez recorded this one first.

Classifying Ungulates Came Later

Naming the Animals:

Having commanded Adam to bestow

Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew

To empyrean palaces of blue

That warm and windless morning long ago,

And seemed to take no notice of the vexed

Look on the young man's face as he took thought

Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought,

Now to be labelled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

 

Before an addled mind and puddled brow,

The feathered nation and the finny prey

Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.

Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay

Into the tragic eyes of his first cow,

And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.' "

Anthony Hecht.

"God just give it to SpaceX. They’ll have us back on the moon by the end of next year."

Here you can see the moment Starship blew up 😱pic.twitter.com/G1nbdqolxi

— Jenny Hautmann (@JennyHPhoto) January 16, 2025

Just gonna leave this here (from Dec '24):

[T]he HLS hasn't had even one test flight in space, let alone around the moon, in lunar orbit, landing, or anything to certify the platform for crews.  So how does anybody think SpaceX is gonna land at all in 2025, especially since they haven't even demonstrated the necessary in-orbit fueling yet?

To honor David Lynch's passing beyond the veil, I'll conclude thus: it is happening again.

My Dear Marshal Stalin

Almost done reading The Daughters Of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War, and I've been thinking about how Americans tend to think the whole world looks at things the exact same way we do, discounting silly things like cultural filters and the like.  For instance, Roosevelt wrote Stalin about Poland's post-war status, particularly regarding her right to self-determination (which was the proximate reason for Britain's entry into the war with Nazi Germany after their fuckup in Munich):

Roosevelt’s letter was an appeal to both the friendship he believed the United States had developed with the Soviet Union and the friendship that he himself had developed with Stalin personally. Harriman had long been a believer in the power of personal relationships—not that they determined the outcome of geopolitical affairs, but rather had the power to influence them. The personal relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt certainly had had that effect on the “Special Relationship” between Britain and the United States.

However, as Harriman’s deputy in Moscow, George Kennan, had asserted earlier that week when asked to report on the personal profiles of the Soviet delegates, “[For a Soviet official to] do anything or say anything in deference to a personal relationship which one would not have done or said in a straight performance of official duties would be considered equivalent to acting in the interests of a foreign state.” While Stalin might very well have liked to maintain his relationship with Roosevelt, Harriman knew that for Stalin, friendly neighbors would always trump personal friendships, without question.

When it came to Poland, Harriman knew Stalin “wanted to dominate them, to make certain that they would never again serve as a pathway for German aggression against Russia.” Roosevelt’s appeal would be as ineffectual as a glass hammer in moderating whatever behavior Stalin felt was necessary to bring his neighbor into line. No inducement, “short of going to war,” was about to change that.

Well, Poland did finally have a free and fair election, when Lech Wałęsa became president...in 1990.  It strikes me that Trump's obsession with treating everything as a business deal pretty much bodes as much ill for the next 50 years as Roosevelt's naivety did at Yalta.

Selah.

Unfortunately, Life Contains an Unavoidable Element of Unpredictability

The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.

RIP, David Lynch.

#throwbackthursday

My childhood bedside lamp, which I hope has brought somebody else a bit of joy these past several years.

Cryin' won't help you

Prayin' won't do you no good.

affirmation and self-erasure

A Blank White Page:

is a meadow

after a snowfall

that a poem

hopes to cross

Francisco X. Alarcón.

"If ye rule o'er our land ye shall rule o'er our graves."

On the right is a shot I took of Ethan Allen at the State House during some protest or other in Mount Peculiar way back in '11.  Which brings me to this date in history:

In Convention of the representatives from the several counties and towns of the New Hampshire Grants, holden at Westminster, January 15, 1777, by adjournment.

Whereas the Honorable the Continental Congress did, on the 4th day of July last, declare the United Colonies in America to be free and independent of the crown of Great Britain ; which declaration we most cordially acquiesce in : And whereas by the said declaration the arbitrary acts of the crown are null and void, in America, consequently the jurisdiction by said crown granted to New York government over the people of the New Hampshire Grants is totally dissolved:

We therefore, the inhabitants, on said tract of land, are at present without law or government, and may be truly said to be in a state of nature ; consequently a right remains to the people of said Grants to form a government best suited to secure their property, well being and happiness.

Let's recall, however, that Vermont declared independence not from Britain, but rather New York, and achieved such essentially via thuggery in service of greed.  You know, the American way...

Good times, bad times

You know I've had my share.

Disfigurations

i:

To a heap of stones broken from one stone;

to rubble, but not without shape,

 

arid, but not without something to say,

written in the dust, speaking, not

 

with words; to a cairn considered

like this, all that is immovable in us

 

made into an offering to when the dust

of boundary stones becomes a road,

 

just as hours of grief create the need

for a journey, hours absolved by tears

 

that soften the stones of the road;

to the order of the journey and the stations

 

of rest; to the pool where the five porches

weep when a stranger troubles the waters.

Rachael Boast.

If I claim to be a wise man, well...

It surely means that I don't know.

Solar Return

Prodigal Sun:

Didn't the end of the day
say something,

the beginning of the night
worn with its first stars?

Didn't the tops of the trees
say anything,

the roofs warn or say wait,
the buildings?

What did you think would be there
but darkness, night, cold.

Night long we thought of you.
We asked the moon

to stay up after us watching
for you.

You were in our dreams,
falling free and abundant,

sun for the land without asking,
sun even for the stones,

who didn't care one way
or the other.

Sun profligate, burning both ends
of the circle you describe.

We were afraid for you,
for ourselves, for the rest

of the days.
Who knew the next day would

even still come and you back,
there at the door,

at the roofs, at the sky,
forgiven.

Dennis Saleh.

Day of the Defenders of Freedom

#OTD in 1991, Kremlin’s storm troopers tried to crush protests in #Lithuania. Killed 14, wounded 700+.

But they couldn’t crush the dream of freedom, after decades-long occupation.

Lithuanians bravely prevailed in 1991, helping bring to an end the nightmare of Soviet communism. pic.twitter.com/W2yoygiIpi

— David Harris (@DavidHarrisNY) January 13, 2025

The January Events were extraordinary.  Might even be instructive (or a bit inspirational?) as we head into darkness next week:

On January 11 a shadowy new “authority” announced its existence: the National Salvation Committee (NSC). Members of the reactionary CPL/CPSU [Communist Party of Lithuania/Communist Party of the Soviet Union] and the Soviet military constituted its core. The NSC claimed to “take full responsibility for the fate of the republic.”

Soviet troops invaded and occupied the offices of the Lithuanian Department of National Defense in Vilnius, Alytus, and Siauliai. The press center in Vilnius was attacked and occupied. In the onslaught seven people from the crowd that was guarding the building (without weapons) were wounded, four of them from rifle fire. On the same day the press center was occupied, journalists from thirteen separate periodicals published a joint independent newspaper, Laisvoji Lietuva (Free Lithuania).

On the evening of January 11 a task force of KGB paratroopers, Alfa, arrived in Vilnius. Around midnight on January 12–13, representatives of the NSC demanded the Supreme Council’s resignation and “announced” the introduction of direct USSR presidential rule. On January 13, at 2 A.M., paratroopers in armored vehicles advanced on the radio and TV center and the television transmission tower in Vilnius.

People had formed human barricades to protect the structures. In the attack on the tower 13 civilians and a KGB officer were killed and 702 people were wounded. Loudspeakers from the tanks and armored personnel carriers announced that the NSC had taken political power, that a curfew was to be introduced at 6:30 A.M., and that the chief of the Vilnius military garrison, Major-General Uskhopchik, had been appointed military commandant of Vilnius.

In challenging the Soviet empire, the Supreme Council of Lithuania was well aware that its chief weapon rested with the mass support and solidarity of the Lithuanian population and the democratic community abroad. That support could only be earned and sustained by preserving the nonviolent character of the attempted political and social changes.
...

On January 8, as Soviet intentions of a coup became evident, Vytautas Landsbergis made a radio appeal: “Come and help your own government, otherwise a foreign one would overcome us.” Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi was shown on national television. From January 8 on, a round-the-clock civilian watch began at the Supreme Council building and (in the next days) around other strategic facilities (such as the TV transmission tower).

In an orderly manner, according to a defined schedule, people came from all over Lithuania to keep watch. Citizens of Vilnius offered them food and room for rest. Unarmed policemen and undergraduates of the police academy joined the watch, with the task of preventing armed confrontations. On January 12, some 7,000–9,000 people gathered around the TV transmission tower, mostly young Lithuanians. The crowd sang, played music, and amused themselves deep into the night.

When local radio brought news of tanks and other military vehicles on the move, people formed a human barrier around the tower. The tanks came forward, crushing cars, busses, and trucks that stood in their way. One woman and one man were crushed to death under the tank treads. Soviet soldiers beat Lithuanians in their path with rifle butts. As stated, the troops opened fire, killing fourteen people. The soldiers' brutality, however, did not crush the people’s will to resist.
...

During the attack on the radio and television tower, live broadcasts of the atrocities continued until the Soviets wrested control. Because of clever camera layout, the whole of Lithuania—and consequently the whole world—could observe the details of the paratroopers’ attack. When the tower and radio stations were seized, the Supreme Council’s separate radio transmitter inside the parliament building went off the air too. Yet several hours later technicians managed to connect with the transmission aerial in Kaunas.

Soon after 5 A.M. the latest news from the Supreme Council was back on the air. Citizens from Kaunas and neighboring localities gathered around the Sitkunai transmission center and the Kaunas radio station. An appeal to Soviet troops “Do not shoot at peaceful people!” was read over the radio. The protection of the Sitkunai aerial was vital to secure the flow of information to the country.
...

The January events in Lithuania and in Latvia (on January 20 Soviet troops killed four people during an assault on the Latvian Ministry of the Interior) demonstrated the failure of the Soviet policy of violence...The use of violence against peaceful civilians produced a kind of “political jiu-jitsu,” that is, the use of violent force rebounded politically against the Soviets, stimulated further resistance and disobedience, created tensions within the Soviet ranks, and decreased their chances of defeating the resistance.

As British journalist Anatol Lieven has noted, Soviet “measures however only increased the determination and morale of ordinary Lithuanians. Those who, immediately after the declaration [of independence], had been critical of Landsbergis and Sajudis, became increasingly supportive, and popular demonstrations returned to their pre-independence dimensions.”

A public opinion survey conducted on January 14, 1991, confirmed this rebound effect. Compared with earlier data, the survey revealed a marked increase in support for independence among non-Lithuanians, and among Russian-speakers in particular: 98% of Lithuanians, 75% of Russians, 66% of Poles, and 74% of other nationalities approved of the March 1990 declaration of independence. An analogous survey conducted six months earlier showed the following figures: 94% of Lithuanians, 47% of Russians, and 54% of Poles.
...

The ability of the Lithuanian people to remain calm in a most complicated situation, “to resist provocations of the foreign troops, to refrain from any acts of physical resistance so desired by the enemy”, played a decisive role in turning world public opinion in favor of Lithuania’s independence. The image of resolute, defiant, yet nonviolent civilians asserting their independence in the face of ruthless Soviet brutality further undermined the remaining hold of the Soviets on the Baltics.

Recommend the people of Greenland take note of how well civilian-based defense can shut down invasions.  It'll certainly have a greater chance of success than a violent response.

PS - Even when I was there the previous summer, I saw a couple different ways Lithuanians resisted the Soviets.

What have the years of your life taught you to be?

 
Apparently, Kerry Livgren wrote this song to convince his wife to convert to Christianity.  Whatevs, I dig it sans the Christ.

Il faut imaginer sisyphe heureux

The More Loving One:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

 

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

 

Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

 

Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime

Though this might take me a little time.

W. H. Auden.

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

And all your money won't another minute buy.

Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss

In Time of Plague:

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade.

All things to end are made,

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

   Lord, have mercy on us!

Thomas Nashe.

Ye Gods, avert the omen!

Speaking of old readings, I was actually thinking about Asimov's book, The Gods Themselves, just the other day (idly musing about unlimited energy in the context of climate change), then I happened to see a post about it over at Skulls in the Stars:

The book begins in a somewhat quirky way, which made me suspect that it is intended at least in part to be read satirically: the first chapter that appears is Chapter 6, which is overtly acknowledged in a footnote to not be an error: Asimov started his saga in the beginning of the story, and we are presented with the background of the story in Chapters 1-5 soon after, intermixed with “continued” parts of Chapter 6!

In the background of the story, we learn that Radiochemist Frederick Hallam has discovered that the contents of a sealed glass container of Tungsten-186 appears to have been replaced. He accuses his coworker and rival Benjamin Dennison of making the switch, and the latter man dismisses him sarcastically. This leads Hallam to extensively test the sample in question, leading to the discovery that it has turned into Plutonium-186, an element that cannot exist in our universe!

Already we have a scientist who is not driven to do research out of noble intentions, but out of spite; it will not be the last time. From this discovery, it is realized that this impossible element, if trade is continued, will provide an unlimited source of energy for both universes, ours and the para-universe that initiated the exchange.

The physical explanation that Asimov gives for how this works is science fiction brilliance. Most people are familiar with the principle of conservation of energy, in which energy cannot be created or destroyed. But that fails if one is talking about universes with different physical constants.

In particular, the para-universe has a strong nuclear force that is, well, significantly stronger than ours. This means that Plutonium-186 is stable in their universe, but is extremely unstable in ours, and becomes a powerfully radioactive over time, as the laws of its home universe are supplanted by the laws of the transplanted universe. It emits positrons until enough protons have turned into neutrons to make it Tungsten-186 again.

In the para-universe, the Tungsten is unstable, with too many neutrons, and it emits electrons until enough neutrons have turned into protons to become Plutonium-186. In this way, both universes get energetic sources. As a physicist, I was practically drooling over the cleverness of these ideas.

Curiously, this process, according to Wikipedia, was the genesis of the story, when Asimov was having a conversation with Robert Silverberg and he was asked to name an isotope. Silverberg named Plutonium-186, which Asimov noted does not exist, and Silverberg challenged him to write a story about it. It is worth noting that this back and forth mirrors, in a sense, the argument between Hallam and Dennison at the beginning of the novel!

I thought the science-y stuff was pretty cool, but also the para-universe's sex-y stuff reminded me a bit of Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness in its pronounced departure from our own (or maybe it's not if you move on from our outmoded binary construct).  Now considering a re-read.

The cover of the paperback I had is pictured above.  I'll prolly just get the Kindle version, unless I can muster the patience to wait for 7 people ahead of me at the lieberry.

In conclusion, there's no such thing as a free lunch...

Other Forms Were Near

Been thinking of Gabriel for some reason, though there be no snow here in the Sound:

His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.

It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Truth be told, I'd not read The Dead until '89, when Jenny Boylan had given an assignment for our creative writing class.  Dunno why, but the line, "a few light taps upon the pane," really stuck with me most out of the entire story.  It comes to mind often when I feel a quiet sense of yearning, or when the winter rain patters against my own windows.

Selah.

PS - And sometimes, there's this: "I start wondering am I dead, is life real..."

You know it's time, you see the sign

Alea iacta est.

Unhappy about some far off things

The Stars Go over the Lonely Ocean:

"The world's in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
Said the old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"
Said the gamey black-maned boar
Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

Robinson Jeffers.

#throwbackthurfriday

Wonder what I was playing (c. 1991).

Surprise Is on Our Side

I hear tell there's a prequel script just searching for a director ("Which it will be ready when it's ready!").

Then Too Late, Too Late

Crossing the Bar:

Sunset and evening star,

      And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

      When I put out to sea,

 

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

      Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

      Turns again home.

 

   Twilight and evening bell,

      And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

      When I embark;

 

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

      The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

      When I have crost the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.