A Video for Sunday

Here is another beautiful nature, time-lapse video. Absolutely breathtaking:

A video for Sunday II

Here is a gorgeous time-lapse nature video filmed in Iceland. Absolutely breathtaking!


Midnight Sun | Iceland from SCIENTIFANTASTIC on Vimeo.

A Video for Sunday

One of the things I have missed posting the most since my hiatus were my Sunday videos.  Allow me to explain why I post videos for Sunday, because I'm not sure I ever have.

 I am an Atheist, but I grew up in a Christian Protestant denomination.  I no longer have a belief in God or the supernatural because, as rational individual, belief in such things does not make sense.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of church growing up.  I would be lying if I said I didn't miss it a little bit.  In addition to a sense of community that church provided, I enjoyed the lessons and stories that I learned, as well as the opportunities for mediation on life that my church provided.  I could never get past the superstitions and a lot of the Christian dogma of Christianity or any religion (hence, me becoming an Atheist).  But I took away so many other life lessons from my church. This included the importance of treating people with love and compassion (even those you may not like), the importance for standing up for the poor and weak, and standing up for what is just and right.  These are values and simple traditions I have tried my best to hold onto, even though I am no longer a person of faith.  Sunday videos are my own attempts to recapture those traditions and lessons of life that I received growing up, but in a more secular (and hopefully, entertaining) fashion.  Sometimes, my videos may deal with helping others.  Sometimes they may deal with issues of social justice.  Sometimes they may deal with the origins of existence and our place as human beings in the world.  Sometimes it may be just a fun video that hopefully gives you something to think about.

This week's video comes from Carl Sagan's series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.  Over the past year, I have grown to be a huge Carl Sagan fan, and am currently in the middle of watching the whole Cosmos series on YouTube.  This particular clip has to do with the evolution of human beings. The special effects are far from spectacular by today's standards, but the video still gives viewers something amazing to ponder.



I am happy that they are making a new Cosmos series, produced by Seth MacFarlane, and hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson (perfect Choice).

Onion: "Future U.S. History Students: 'It's Pretty Embarrassing How Long You Guys Took To Legalize Gay Marriage'"

Here is an article from The Onion I read a week or two ago, and it took me a while to post it.  It is funny as always, and more importantly, it does speaks some truth.  There will be a day where U.S. History students will wonder why the hell it took so long to legalize gay marriage, just like students today question why the hell it took so long to end slavery or give equal rights to African-Americans.  As someone who teaches an American social studies class, I can tell you that students do question these things.  My favorite passage:

Mr. Bernard, 58, told the class that he himself could remember how in the 2030s gay marriage was still a somewhat touchy subject in certain parts of the country.

"It's true," said Mr. Bernard, gesturing to a holographic projection of late-20th/early-21st-century antigay preacher Fred Phelps on the classroom's V-screen. "Most people had come around by the time I was your age, of course, but you would still read and hear things about how certain people in New Washington were trying to overturn the court's ruling. Hard to imagine anyone being that adamant about gays not marrying, but those were different times."

"In fact, I remember President Romney even gave this speech once calling gay marriage 'an issue that continues to divide many in our nation, including myself,'" Mr. Bernard continued. "Of course, that was before his openly gay son, Craig, served four terms as president a couple decades later."

 The last paragraph of the article really depresses me, mainly because I afraid it might be true:

After concluding the week's examination of the history of gay marriage rights, classroom sources in the year 2083 said they would be moving on to the topic of how their grandparents' generation was too late to do anything about global warming.

A Video for Sunday

Here is one of my all-time favorite music videos.  Pearl Jam teamed with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane in 1998 to show a very dark, grim view of humanity.  WARNING: This video contains lots of disturbing images.

Global Warming Contributes to Snow Storms. No, Really.

 

Photo by David Eulitt/Kansas City Star

Right now, many parts of the country has either been hit, or is being hit with major winter snowstorms and blizzards.  This includes the Kansas City area where I live.  There are people who think that because of these massive winter storms, global warming is a myth.  Some of you might think Bill O'Reilly.  Actually O'Reilly does believe global warming is real, but did jokingly say recently that he he needs to call Al Gore to explain all of this snow.  Well, Al Gore responded in a piece to Huffington Post by quoting Clarence Paige in the Chicago Tribune:

"In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow."

"A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species."