I think the critical difference between what's going on at the wildlife refuge in Oregon and its most popular subject of comparison both is and isn't what it appears to be. It appears to be race, but it isn't (but it is). It appears to be a difference between how people are treated based on color, but it isn't (but it is).

It's actually about ( fear )

I've spent a good portion of the last 60-72 hours some manner of fuming. ( I probably should cut-tag this fucker )

oh, and I can't say one bit of this on facebook because EVERY SINGLE PERSON I'M MAD AT IS THERE. And when I do say any of it to them, it will be to their face, not a passive aggressive angry post I EXPECT them to read and react to. Instead I write this simply passive angry post that I DON'T expect any of them to see.

Though, to be completely honest, I'm actually past the rage part. Now I'm just getting shit done. There will be a house meeting, though. Because For The Love Of GOD why can't these people put the dishes in the motherfucking dishwasher?

( My letter to the Red Cross )

I wish I still had my "I'm not in the mood for this" icon.

The way I see it, lots of things change at the quantum and cosmic levels.  On the quantum level, nothing ever stays where you left it, and you can't really know everything about anything.  On the cosmic level, space can no longer be perceived as flat.  But what gets me is when it is implied that knowing these "new" things about the quantum and cosmic somehow changes the way the world works (and has worked for millenia) at the macroscopic level.  Schroedinger's cat is an interesting analogy for demonstrating uncertainty principles and wave functions, but if you take a real cat and put it in a real box, it is going to really die at a real point in time.

Anyway, theories on the mutability of time and space become interesting to me when they explain previously observed phenomena - or when a satisfactory test can be designed.  But the type of thing that is frustrating to me is, for example, white holes.  While I understand the question "Where does everything that falls into a black hole go?" white holes are, if you'll forgive the pun, an idea from whole cloth.  They have never been observed, no indirect evidence has ever been observed, and the explanation is, frankly, unnecessary because black holes aren't actually holes.

So maybe time is an approximation.  So be it.  F=GMm/(r^2) is an approximation - but it's a useful one.  Kepler's laws are approximations - but useful ones.  Maybe my irritation is a function of incomplete information.  Because what I frequently hear is "This new cool thing we think might be so!" without any application.  My first reaction is "How is that useful to anyone?"  It feels like someone (oh, the ubiquitous "someone") is trying to take what could be valid and useful information and using it to show other people how little they know.  This is NOT inherently wrong, but when they are doing it not to encourage people to learn but to encourage them to be fearful, I get a little cantankerous.  When one says the rules we know are wrong but don't replace them with something else, it leads to an excess of unease.

So, meh.  Apparently I felt like ranting.