Long knives, bunny inspectors, and send a bunny to the pre-Cambrian?

View 702 Monday, November 21, 2011

I have my medical class again this afternoon, and this morning I had to go out to get my fasting blood work done, so the day is a bit shot. I have been hard at work creating a new character for our book, and that part goes well if a bit slowly. I had hoped to have more words done, but that won’t happen today of course.

The storm over the pepper spray event at UC Davis continues. The protestors got what they wanted, except that there doesn’t seem to be any message from the protestors. The incident was ugly and won’t go much to the credit of the police, but it was an incident. It wasn’t Kent State. Now they have suspended the campus police chief. That’s silly, as is the campaign against the chancellor.

And the long knives are out: some Democratic Party officials are suggesting that President Obama ought to announce that he will not run for re-election, thus making things smooth for Hillary Clinton, who would certainly get the nomination.

As expected, the Supercommitee could agree on nothing, and will disband as Congress takes flight for the holidays. Now we will have the automatic drastic cuts: Medicare and the Military budgets will grow only 16% over the next five years instead of 21% as was planned. There will still be a huge deficit, spending will continue to go up, and the National Debt will continue to increase. We will still be dependent on borrowed money to run the federal government. The media will continue to tell us about the drastic budget cuts, only there won’t be anything cut. There will still be bunny inspectors and the TSA will continue its Kabuki Safety Dances, while planning to expand to trains, and busses. And the beat goes on.

Regarding my corrections in mail yesterday:

CERN, FTL, and evolution

Jerry

You wrote: "Evolution is hardly in danger from CERN."

But wait! Given FTL information transmission by neutrinos, can time reversal be out of the question? In that case, could not a rabbit be sent back to the pre-Cambrian era to become fossilized for future excavation?

Mike

I should have thought of that!

David Em is a long time friend and advisor and a very early pioneer in the use of computers to generate fine art. His “The Art of David Em” was one of the first computer-generated books of art ever published. I met him at a presentation at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science back when using computers to do presentations and art was science news – I forget precisely when, but during the 1980’s. Today I got this announcement from Michelle:

THE SHAPE OF THE UNIVERSE:

Recent Deep Space Photography

Curated by David Em

November 30, 2011 – February 9, 2012 (Gallery closed for the holidays, Dec 17 – Jan 8)

Reception: Wednesday, November 30, 6 – 9 PM.

Pasadena City College art gallery

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The Shape of the Universe is an exhibition of deep‐space photography, curated by artist David Em. The exhibition features recent images captured by NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space telescopes, as well as several ground‐based astronomical telescopes.

Assembled with the cooperation of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at Caltech, the European Southern Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, curator David Em presents high-resolution prints in a way that encourages their consideration both as photographs in the context of fine art and as documents of new discoveries in cosmology. Additional information about the exhibit is at http://pasadena.edu/artgallery

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This exhibition was made possible by support from the Pasadena Art Alliance, the PCC Foundation, the Division of Natural Sciences and the Division of Visual Arts and Media Studies.

Image credit: NASA/JPL—Caltech. Infrared image of our Milky Way galaxy produced by NASA’s Spitzer space telescope, 2009.

GALLERY INFORMATION:

The gallery will be closed from December 17 through January 8.

DECEMBER HOURS: Monday through Thursday: 11:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M; Friday, Saturday: Noon to 4:00 P.M. Closed Sundays and school holidays.

WINTER HOURS: (Jan. and Feb.): Monday – Thursdays: 11:00 AM – 4 PM. Closed Fridays and Weekends.

Recorded Gallery information: (626) 585-3285 <tel:%28626%29%20585-3285>

Gallery admission, reception and related events are all free of charge and open to the public.

PASADENA CITY COLLEGE ART GALLERY

1570 East Colorado Blvd.

Pasadena, CA 91106

I certainly intend to go see that!