YOU CAN TRUST SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY

From China. Came across a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article about the dinosaurs who evolved into birds. The photos were the best I've ever seen in that area. What's exciting about these findings is that they definitely pinpoint changes in body types which could be said to reveal what Christians call "missing links" as in when they challenge natural selection: "Where are the missing links?"

But the thing which most excited me was a recognition of how much scientists argue among themselves and debate the facts. I mean no claim goes without challenge, serious challenge. Scientists don't let anything pass which is questionable. Everything is open to debate. Nothing is sacred. It's a process I can trust. Scientists practice the truth that "When it comes to the truth, nothing can be sacred."

On the other hand, look at the evangelicals and Bible literalists! They begin with the sacred which goes unchallenged, and they circle around the Bible, facing outward and defend, defend, defend. No one challenges any of the Bible's outlandish claims. They are not scientists and have no method for arriving at the facts. That's how you know that their claims are without merit. Any outfit which doesn't first arrive at the bedrock facts of their case cannot be taken seriously, in fact, in the whole history of humankind, they are always proven wrong.


DEATH BY HEMINGWAY

I don't know what Hunter's motive was, but I know he tried to write and live like Hemingway, and now we hear that he died like Hemingway, eating a tasty bullet. Yes, Hunter S. Thompson is dead, poor "Hunt" is dead and lying in his grave, and all the Gonzoists in the world can't write Hunter back together again. His tale is told and it's the tale of an idiot, a sound and a fury signifying more signifying. Will we never leave off signifying since all our signifying is naught but excuse and justifying what it is we're bound to anyway? Goodnight sweat Hunter, goodnight.


GARLIC BREAD

My wife brought up garlic last night as a method to combat my climbing cholesterol count. High but not too bad yet and well within the range of diet and exercise changes. I brought it down last year by similar methods. But garlic reminds me of the old, wildly red-haired, bony woman who used to visit with my grandma when I lived with her. My grandmother would make me give Mrs. Smelly a big hug every time she visited grandmother's house. How I hated the ordeal. The woman reeked, stank of garlic. Then in reading Vidal's book, THE GOLDEN AGE, I discover that Eleanor Roosevelt also ate raw garlic every day for some reason or other. Now did this woman know that Eleanor used garlic? Is that why she used it? Was I connected by reeking air to the President's wife through the habits of an old, bony, red-haired woman?


MAY I RECOMMEND A MOVIE?

Watched a great Italian film this week called "The Embalmer", directed by Matteo Garron. An older male, a younger man and a woman are the three legs of this triangle of jealousy, and the triangle is revealed slowly, like a striptease dance, until the dirty underwear comes off only at the very end.

A relentless film about obsessions and passions. Dialogue is right on and seems as plebeian as the characters it reveals. Love, lust and passion are never mentioned as these three characters go about swinging their wrecking balls at one another in a worsening triangle of entanglement. Mood is unrelievedly somber. The tension never eases up though nothing seems too ominous until the very end of the movie, then, of course, as in all good creative work, the conclusion justifies the entire film. By being so right on, so inevitable, you are surprised you hadn't seen it coming. It's so obvious, isn't it, you think, as the final scene sinks in....


STILL MORE ITALIAN

Just watched for third time "La Strada" by Fellini and am forced to say, wow, it's still a powerful film about loneliness, isolation and yearning and lost hopes. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had imagined that "La Strada" would seem as old as black and white with emotionally unbelievable characters who do things out of romantic passions I no longer believe in. Then, as I watched it, for awhile, Masina's winsomeness was almost too much for me, but she was a little retarded, we must remember, and completely naive to the ways of the world. Finally, when the great Zamponi grovels with his lonely pain in the sand by the sea, it breaks on me that I am also that lonely man, selfish and feeling absolutely alone in my loveless state of selfishness, and that, indeed, if we are honest with ourselves, we are all as isolated as the brutal strongman or as the "yearning for the unattainable" Gelsomina. Honestly, life is like that, and no amount of gods are going to take that away if we are truly honest with ourselves, though that truth should set us free to take life in like a whole watermelon rather than shrink like seedy puddle in the sun.
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"Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm." —C. Wright Mills