Exceive

Some very nifty mechanical sculptures - take a look!

The quilts on this site are digital pictures consisting of pieces made by a number of artists.

Unlike SITO, these artists have to apply to be part of the project, and apparently only the best are accepted. This gives a more consistant and higher quality result, but I like the SITO collaborations better. They have more character.

Still, both are worth looking at.

As a creation story, evolution sucks. No, it would have to be improved considerably in order to suck. No POV characters, no coherent plot, barely discernible theme, and if there is a moral the moral is a soul-crushing lesson in humility.

The only thing it has going for it is truth. With a small ‘t’.

I think the fundamental problem is that we define “myth” as “a falsehood that the ignorant ancestors told because they didn’t have the benefit of our modern knowledge.” But myth is much more than that - a myth is a story that makes us who we are. Life has meaning when we are able to fit our personal experience into our mythology. Myth is more True than mere theory or fact.

Christianity (at least as some practice it) rejects the separation of the mythic and the historic. It is very, very important that Jesus was an actual person and not a mythical character.

For some Christians (myself included) the historical fades into the mythic - Jesus was (is) a person no less real than an innocent bystander in one of the pictures of Falluja yesterday, Moses a legendary leader with a mix of history and story similar to Alexander the Great, and before that, the historical connection becomes extremely hazy. The Genesis narrative as pure myth (my myth, and True even if not particularly factual) does not bother me in the least.

But if a myth is just an ignorant untruth, then either evolution is false or the Genesis narrative is wrong and those who derive meaning from it are ignorant or worse.

Contempt for myth causes a great deal of pain all around. It drives creationism - a lie that is even worse theologically than scientifically. Those for whom evolution is their mythology live in a very cold universe. And so many of the rest live on commercial mythologies from bright screens.

I’m switching from regular comments to a wiki system.
This becomes very, very free-form. Anybody can edit anything, you can create new pages, link all over the place, include pictures (but you need to get them on the web somewhere else - I’m not hosting your graphics at this point).

Click the “wiki comment” link and have at it.

Just about 100% wrong, except for the final outcome. Funny how a paper trail makes exit polling more accurate. And how the discrepancy always falls the same direction.

I’m glad I was wrong about the last bit.

I am an artist.

I read fantasy, science fiction, and mythology more than all other types of fiction combined.

I am (on and off) an SCA member.

I am a costumer.

I am mentally ill.

I have studied way too much philosophy: I know several reasons why “I think therefore I am” is not valid. I am well aware that there is no proof that there is any such thing as, well, anything.

The Administration derisively refers to people who share my view of foreign policy as the “reality-based community.”

When you deal with people who consider my grasp of reality exessive, you keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t hurt themselves. You think twice before you let them use butter knives. You don’t let them use nukes! You don’t let them keep blundering around with the most deadly military force there ever was!

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Voting so far

There is a school next to my office, and there was a line of voters when I got here at 8:10. Maybe 30 outside, no idea how many inside.

My wife voted this morning. Our polling place had a short line - there has never been a line there in my experience.

People are getting out there. That’s good no matter which way it goes.

Good News for Republicans!

For your convenience, the new voting machines come with your vote already installed, saving you the inconvenience and exposure to those people.

Sit back, relax, let the machines vote for you, and watch the fun on TV.

Prediction
I’m predicting a substantial Kerry lead in actual and electoral votes, with Bush winning in court on a technicality from British Common Law that has never been used on US soil and is not, in fact written, existing only as a matter of case law regarding the sale of diseased ferrets but understood to include any type of snake-like mammal used for the hunting of vermin. The controversey over whether the legendary judge who decided the case is based on an actual person will give three extremely obscure academics their 15 minutes of fame.

And 10-15 dead, 50-75 wounded, 3000-4000 arrested.

Our last Bush mask went today. Along with a pair of devil horns.