Confessions of a Geek

Ok, I admit it. I'm such a geek. It was brought home to me on a visit to the Liberty Science Center. I must have said "cool" about 80,000 times. First, we got to see part of a real-time kidney transplant -- sure it was a little icky, but it was amazing. Then, we went to the Imax theater to watch natural disasters. I said to my companion volcanoes are my favorite natural disasters. She said "I wan't aware you had one." Yeah, some people don't have a favorite natural disaster. I find that odd. The film was about the volcano on Monserrat -- major pyroclastic flows. Then an earthquake and tornado. We also toured the microbe lab where kids can extract DNA and little ones can learn about germs. And the "eat or be eaten" exhibit, including the world's most poisonous snake. The Science Center turns normally sophisticated adults into little kids. And geeks like me. . .well, we're already little kids.

Tweety birds

It's gone too far. I, reluctantly, joined Facebook as well as Care2, a community for Environmental Bolsheviks. But I have resisted LinkedIn and certainly Twitter. 140 characters. Good grief. Anyone who has had to edit a decent news story down to so few words it no longer says anything is repulsed by the idea of condensing life's little moments down to a few probably not so well-chosen words. I've said before I don't care what Wolf Blitzer does in the few seconds a day he's not on the air. But now, Twitter has reached it's lowest possible moment. A woman Tweeted her circle that she was having a miscarriage and she was glad because she would have had to go out of state for an abortion. Any normal woman who has ever had a miscarriage, even if she didn't particularly want the pregnancy, knows that it means she has lost a baby. Even if she doesn't believe that life begins at conception, she knows she lost a baby. To trivialize that to a tweet is somewhere beyond disgusting. And to treat abortion as a minor inconvenience is disgusting beyond words. We can only hope the Twitter universe has hit bottom and there is nothing worse -- if you can imagine it -- on the way.

Twinkle, twinkle

Saw Bright Star the other night. Not out here in the boonies, of course. Only movies based on comic books or featuring fountains of blood spraying across the screen. In New York City. Ok, the thing about an English major going to see a movie about John Keats is that you kinda know how sad it's going to end. And, I'm not saying this was a great build up to the whole dead in Florence thing. But the actress who played Fanny's little sister was incredible. Naturally, I didn't take notes on the credits -- I watched them all because I was with a film editor, so we had to read all the credits -- so I don't know her name, but she was the best little actress I've ever seen. I know, you're supposed to say "actor" for male and female now, but isn't that a little silly? I don't even have an objection to calling ships "she," but that's fodder for another blog. The cat was also wonderful. I didn't even know cats could act. I'm not saying the above is worth the price of admission, but, if you can get a cut rate price, go see it.