Honestly, I don’t give a shit that you think you have the right to own a gun because someone 200+ years ago said you do to prevent (or allow for) an insurrection or whatever. If this issue is going to be solved, you’re going to have to agree that in the 21st century, maybe your right to own a gun isn’t as important as people — children — living or dying.
Category: blog
-
200+ Years Ago
-
Statement from the Interplanetary Black Hole Association
Everyone knows that Red Matter isn’t the problem.
Of course, we all grieve at the loss of the planet Vulcan. The billions of individuals senselessly executed by the time-traveling Romulan Nero is a tragedy from which the Federation will likely never recover, and no words can take the pain away from the thousands of off-world Vulcans who now have no home to which they can return.
But now is not the time to engage in knee-jerk, politically-tainted talk about new laws involving the use of Red Matter to create black holes.
Nero, obviously an extremely disturbed Romulan, represents the kind of evil that unfortunately exists in this galaxy, and no new legislation or regulations can do anything about that. Evil and madness will always be a factor within the various civilizations of sentient humanoids, and no one can predict how or when it will manifest.
Loose talk about further restricting the lawful possession of Red Matter or the fundamental right to manufacture black holes will not change that, and will not bring the lost souls of Vulcan back.
-
The Earth Will Be Peopled by Entirely Another Generation
Yes, they cared about this a hundred years ago, too. From the New York Times, December 12, 1912:
For those who delight in that sort of amusement to-day is a day to celebrate by writing a great many letters and dating them, each and every one, 12–12–12. The sequence of the twelves makes positively a one-day stand and no more. Those who put off their writing after to-day will never again while they live have this opportunity! When again a person takes pen in hand to indite a letter with the figures 12-12-12 in the dateline, an entire century will have passed, and the earth will be peopled by quite entirely another generation. Last year there was 11-11-11, but, alas there never can be a 13-13-13, unless they change the calendar a great deal.
Found via the indispensable Twitter account, The Times Is On It.
-
Alber Saber Convicted of Blasphemy
My heart breaks at the news. I just did a post at Friendly Atheist on Alber’s conviction, and here’s a taste:
Egypt has struck a major blow to the fundamental human right to freedom of expression, and unjustly stripped an innocent man of his freedom, as Alber Saber, the 27-year-old atheist activist and blogger, was convicted today of blasphemy and sentenced to three years in prison.
In a case similar to that of Indonesia’s imprisoned Alexander Aan, Saber was discovered to have been an admin of an atheist Facebook page. An angry mob surrounded his house, and he was soon arrested and charged with blasphemy. While awaiting his verdict, Saber was attacked by fellow inmates who cut his throat with a razor blade after finding out that he had “insulted” their religion.
Click on over to read the rest. We have so much further to go.
-
Toby Nails Mitt Romney
Me and my boy Toby, three years old, in the car on our way to daycare this morning:
Toby: Daddy, what does Mitt Romney look like?Me: Well, he’s tall, has a big head, gray hair neatly combed, he always wears a suit, and he’s white.
Toby: That’s why he is mad.
-
Tittering at Tombs
So this guy seems like he was in a hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil:
Whereas these folks seem like they took their sweet time:
I bet this guy knew exactly where he was headed:
But as the man says, only the good die…
I know. But they made me titter.
-
Hillary and the Continuum
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast:
The presidency was once described by some historians as a prize, won in one election by this team, in another by that team. The metaphor suggests that elections are discrete and separate from one another and that the stakes aren’t much greater than those encountered on a game show. But that’s not the case anymore. Prize is the wrong metaphor for how we ought to see the presidency today. Now, we ought to see it as an instrument through which progress can either be advanced or retarded, and rather than thinking of each election victory as a prize, we ought to think of each as a step on a continuum.
This will be especially true in 2016, when a Republican victory would put at mortal risk the gains of the Obama years. So the next election will be no time to leave all this to chance—or to Andrew Cuomo or Martin O’Malley or even to Joe Biden. Hillary has to do it. She could handily beat the whole parade of Republicans. They’re children next to her. None of them is even in her weight class except for Jeb Bush, but he seems to me pretty easily disposed of with one question: “Okay, America, you’re being the given the choice to extend either Bill Clinton’s presidency or George W. Bush’s. Which way do you want to go?”
. . . The Democratic Party’s leaders and money people won’t be able to force others not to run, but they should do everything within their power to signal to the political world that it’s Hillary and just get on the damn bus.
I am highly sympathetic to this. Though I worked briefly for the Hillary presidential campaign in 2007/2008 (I had to leave due to health problems) I had begun to sour on her candidacy in the trench war between her and Obama. Common wisdom had it that whoever the Democratic nominee was in 2008, all they had to do was not get into a scandal (cough – Edwards – cough) and they’d get a walk to the White House, so it became an extraordinarily emotional choice for Democrats and progressives as to who nabbed that nomination.
But we do live in a zero-sum political universe these days, perhaps now more than ever, a time in which it’s not as though a GOP win would mean a status-quo administration with a tilt to the right. That’s what we thought we’d get with W., and not only did he turn out to be a radical conservative, he’s now considered too liberal for the current GOP. In other words, this is no game. It’s crucial that, every time out, the Democrats nominate a freaking stone-cold winner.
And yeah, that’s Hillary right now. I hate anointing candidates, I hate nepotistic, legacy-based candidacies, but Hillary Clinton as a person unto herself is serious as a heart attack. And we can’t afford to screw around.
-
Charlie Crist’s Metamorphosis, in Four Feelings
Charlie Crist, former Republican, former Florida governor, former victim of Marco Rubio's dreaminess, has entered his latest metamorphic stage, formally registering as a Democrat — at a White House Christmas party no less!I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing. And since this is my blog, I'll elaborate on them in painful detail. That's what the Internet is for.
Feeling 1: Schadenfreude. Crist had already declared himself an independent not too long ago, after the wingnut arm of the GOP more or less kicked him out for making physical contact with President Obama that did not involve fisticuffs or a shiv. But often these Republicans that leave the party to become independents do so to allegedly “remain true” to their conservative principles, unfettered by the lunacy of the rightward-lurching GOP (and yes it often happens after a defeat). Think Lincoln Chaffee, Jim Jeffords, etc.
But to go all the way and become a Democrat, an explicit member of the team opposing the Republicans, rather than becoming some mavericky, above-the-fray free spirit. This is very much in the fray.
So I get a kick out of that. “I used to count myself as one of you, but you're so batshit and evil now, that I'm not only leaving, I'm joining the other side to actively defeat you.” So that's great.
Feeling 2: Skepticism. Crist is someone who, as a politician, is remarkably flexible. One might say “plastic,” in two senses: Both rather malleable, as well as feeling rather inauthentic. Read Halperin and Heilemann's Game Change, and you read about a governor who was so keen to milk every bit of political favor and celebrity that he could out of the 2008 GOP primary process, that he behaved like some kind of electoral coquette, teasing various candidates with the prospect of his (then weighty) endorsement as the all-important Florida primary approached. Rudy Giuliani had all but taken Crist on a honeymoon, when at the last minute, when it was clear Rudy was toast, did he jump ship and back McCain. (And rumors say that he timed his engagement and wedding to ensure he was good-and-traditional-seeming before the eventual nominee chose a running mate. Those rumors also related to questions of his sexuality, which, true or not, only make the timing seem more suspect. But again, this is unsubstantiated — and really, unfair — rumor.)
Of course, when running for Senate and primaried by Marco Rubio, he sold himself as very conservative. When he lost the primary and ran as an independent, he sold himself as a sane, competent moderate. Losing that, he will now sell himself as a progressive with centrist bona fides when he likely runs for another term as governor, just with a different letter after his name.
It's all just so convenient, so pungent with self-preservation and the maintenance of his political relevance. I don't doubt that Crist is not a right-winger, and I certainly think he doesn't belong in the GOP as it currently exists, but he didn't belong in it in 2010 either. Or in 2008. But nonetheless he's spent a career opposing the progressive side of the political wars, and now he wants us to believe that he (presumably) is supportive of, say, a Democratic supermajority in the Senate and a Pelosi-run House of Representatives. That's quite a shift, wouldn't you say?
Feeling 3: Welcoming. Crist has been on the right side of a lot of fights, even a cynic like me has to admit. Often enough, and in the fact of sufficiently fervent opposition from what was once his own team, that it does make me believe that he has a core set of principles, deep down, that even a political chameleon like him just can't deny. While his party was crying socialism, Crist was on the right side of the 2009 stimulus fight (which is what started this whole thing rolling). And in an issue very close to my heart, he's been on the right side of electoral reform, specifically with his very un-Republican support and signing of legislation that restored voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences. In a party that was doing all it could to make voting difficult for all but rich white people, Crist wen to the opposite pole and made it easier for folks who had committed crimes and paid their penance to vote. Gutsy. I think that speaks to an innate sense of fairness he has, and it was very heartening for me to see him take that stance.(I've not been able to determine if Crist has ever expressed support for abolishing the Electoral College or adopting the National Popular Vote plan, so if anyone knows, tell me.)
Feeling 4: Worry. While I'm delighted to see the Republican Party lose more and more decent folks thanks to their recalcitrance and insanity, I'm not sure I'm at all comfortable with what it means our two-party system is going to look like over the next generation or so.
First of all, the fact that we have a two-party system is pretty damned entrenched now, so that even if one of those two parties goes completely off the reservation (which I think we can say the GOP has), there's little chance that a third party might rise up to take its place, or even enter the conversation as a viable third choice. That means we're stuck with one of our two major political institutions, one of the two prime generators of candidates and policies, becoming more and more insanely theocratic, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, corporatist, and frankly, unstable. “Apocalyptic” is not an inapt descriptor for the modern GOP, both in terms of religion and in terms of their willingness to crash the entire nation into the side of a mountain if they don't get their way. As more less-crazy folks leave or are booted out (Dick Lugar is on my mind as far as that goes), the more dangerous this already-dangerous party becomes.
I also worry for the Democratic Party. Now, I'm under no illusion that the Democratic Party is a bastion of pure-of-heart, incorruptible progressive heroes. It, like the GOP, is awash in corporate money and has far too large a share of conservatives as it is. But it is, right now, the only game in town if you're a politician who actually wants to govern in good faith. Even if you hate Nancy Pelosi and are queasy about gays, if you want to actually make a play to get some work done for the good of the country, you pretty much have to be a Democrat.
But what that means is that we have a Democratic Party with little that resembles a guiding philosophy beyond not blowing the place up on purpose. It's one thing to have folks like Lugar, Chaffee, Huntsman and others who get branded as “RINOs” or “Republicans In Name Only.” But just because one is a RINO, I'm not sure it follows that it's a good idea for the Dems to welcome with them with open arms.
Being a RINO is not the same as being what I will call a DFAIAP (pronounced “duh-fay-yap”): a Democrat For All Intents And Puposes. Lincoln Chaffee, I expect, is a DFAIAP, and would probably be just fine inside the Democratic Party should he decide to join. But then a couple of years ago, the Democrats gained Arlen Specter, who I would say was really a RINO, but whose politics really didn't square with the Democratic Party (and the party activists seem to agree, rejecting his bid for the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat in Pennsylvania in 2010).
A Democratic Party that welcomes in a slew of RINOs rather than DFAIAPs dilutes itself and weakens its purpose. We already have a party devoted, with laster-like precision and frothing insanity, to the world's plutocrats.(You could argue we have two, but only one of them is sociopathic about it.) What the country really needs is a party that clearly and boldly champions rational, pragmatic, practical, and compassionate policy to counteract the plutocrats. But when one party is Right Wing Crazytown, and the other is Right-of-Center Less-Crazytown, it's not going to be much of a discussion.
I'm not sure, frankly, if Crist is a (former) RINO or a DFAIAP. But the overall issue concerns me. And we may never really know, with confidence anyway. Crist is a slippery one.
-
My Own Conspiracy Theory about the Disability Treaty
Everyone with even a shred of humanity is livid with the Republican Party today, because yesterday they voted down the U.N. treaty that would have urged other nations to adopt the kinds of reforms and accomodations for disabled persons that we in the U.S. have adopted under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But I suspect we just might all be angry for the wrong reason.
First, here’s what we’re talking about:The 2006 treaty, which forbids discrimination of the disabled, has enjoyed bipartisan support. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the treaty would encourage other nations to develop the kind of protections the United States adopted 22 years ago with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The international treaty’s thrust, he said, was a message: “Be more like us.”
The common understanding is that the nutters from the noisy right are so obsessed with “black helicopter” U.N. conspiracy theories, that they think even a treaty simply meant to project our own example of compassion and helpfulness to our disabled neighbors is actually an evil plot to turn our children into blue-helmeted atheist zombies. There are, no doubt, plenty of Republican lawmakers who do, in fact, think this way. And I use “think” in the loosest sense of the word.
But, forgive me, I think blaming this on right-wing conspiracy-mongering is probably giving the GOP too much credit. (I know, right?)
The thing about building accomodations for accessibilty for the disabled, is that it costs money. Money that people who really, really love money would rather not spend on ramps and lifts. And this treaty from what I’ve come to understand is very much geared toward influencing economies like China and India that are growing so quickly that it’s even scaring the bujeesus out of them.
So my guess is that folks who own a lot of those businesses that operate in China, India, and elsewhere, probably don’t want to be bothered to spend money to help those who need a little extra hand getting around. So those rich operators inform their bought-and-paid-for representatives in Washington, the Republican Party, to put the kibosh on this whole treaty thing, or else they might find that the campaign checks they send will stop showing up in the mail.
To justify this betrayal of basic humanity, the GOP members then scream about how our liberty is at risk, the dumbasses who vote for then believe it, and there you have it.
I don’t imagine that Bob-Fucking-Dole would feel that he had to wheel his ailing carcass to the floor of the Senate to plead with his own freaking party to back the treaty if he thought the obstacle to ratification was just how spooked Jim Inhofe might be about U.N. boogeymen. I bet you Dole knew that his real adversary was going to be the giant sacks of cash strewn about the halls of the Senate office buildings.
I admit, this is, in a way, a “conspiracy theory” of my own, the kind of thing I absolutely have no evidence for. But I do think it’s far more plausible that this is way more about money, and some folks’ unwillingness to spend it, than it is about the supposed fears of educated, successful, powerful men of an imaginary international conspiracy — and a fairly silly, unimaginative one at that.
There’s no way they’re all that crazy. And calling them crazy gives them too much credit. What I think they are is just craven, cynical, and heartless.
-
Google Death-Drones to Murder Rhino Poachers From the Skies! Wait.
First, I saw the headline.Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers
Badass! Now this is what technology is for! Look out, rhino-killers! Time to taste electronic death from above!
Then I read the actual article.
First things first: No, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is not using drones to vaporize poachers.
Son of a bitch!
But thanks to a five million dollar grant awarded by Google on Tuesday, the organization is expanding its use of unmanned aerial vehicles to track and deter criminals who illegally hunt endangered animal species around the world.
WWF spokesman Lee Poston is not calling these vehicles drones, because he doesn’t want people to confuse them with the military kind.
Hmm. Tell me more, technology-savvy animal rights activist.
These drones are light enough to be launched by hand and can be programmed to fly about 18 miles at a maximum elevation of 650 feet, for almost an hour. The cameras on the drones allow rangers on the ground to spot would-be poachers, especially in hard-to-reach places.
And then it hit me. If Google isn’t using these harmless, camera-equipped flying machines to destroy those who would perpetrate rhinocide, then what motive could they possibly have?
Twofold answer.
1) Take panoramic aerial images for use in the upcoming maps product Google Jungle View, and
2) Keep tabs on the activities of both rhinoceros and poachers in order to better target them for ads.
Well played, Sergey and and Larry. Well played.
-
Drink Me
Though I am going to be very deliberate about keeping my work and FtB activities separate, I would be remiss if I did not plug the fact that you can buy coffee mugs emblazoned with the logo of my CFI blog, The Morning Heresy, for the somewhat-reasonable price of $16. I don’t make anything off the sale myself, of course, so this is all about self-promotion and ego inflation. Oh, and supporting the grand project that is fostering a society based in science, reason, and secular values.
Have a gander at this:
Sexy, no? I’m told these mugs imbue the drinker with hyperskepticism and a strained sense of humor. But I can’t prove it.
-
Cry-Me-a-River Tweet of the Century
Thus:
I am amazed at the hatred, filth, sacrilege, anger, condescension, ignorance, triviality, & flippancy heaped upon @pontifex on #askpontifex
— John Mercer (@jfmercer) December 4, 2012
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Yeah, you know, the Pope has enabled and covered up the rape and assault of countless children, but guys, let’s not be so mean to him on Twitter. That’s just a bridge too far. Have we, at long last, no decency?
-
Freethought Blogs, Unscrewed
Hey, you know what's neat? Freethought Blogs now hosts me, Hank Fox, and Stephen “DarkSyde” Andrew, and we three have something kind of cool in common. We are all former contributors or denizens of the primoridal atheist blog Unscrewing the Inscrutable, founded by the mad genius Brent Rasmussen. Brent was doing godless blogging when our iPhones had rotary dials, and I was lucky enough to join his roster of contributors in its latter stages. Brent got tired of it all, and shut the thing down a few years ago, but obviously, it's spawned a lot of bloggage from its now-rotting carcass. And I mean that in the best sense.
Anyway, I think that's cool.
Brent and I actually go back further than even UTI, originally meeting (virtually) as fellow crudemembers aboard the USS STIMPY, he as chief medical officer Dr. Stupid, and I as Lt. Cmdr. Stinky Wizzleteats, which all took place on the bulletin boards of the Prodigy online service back in the very-early 1990s. I was just an awkward lad at the time, and Brent was old even then. Imagine.
-
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the E-book
I have trouble understanding the panic that much of the culture seems to be experiencing over the rise of e-books at the expense of their dead-tree predecessors. I understand that there are charms and benefits that are unique to the physical codex, and there are few who appreciate those more than I do. But there are times I feel that folks who prefer physical books to their electronic brethren are behaving not as though a particular medium for content delivery is going out of fashion, but that literature itself is doing to disappear, like a species crucial to the ecosystem is about to go suddenly extinct.
Might I suggest a little moderation of this cultural neurosis? Yes, it is true, sales of e-books will likely surpass those of physical paper books any second now, if they haven’t already. Tablets and e-readers are getting cheaper and cheaper, and purchasing the electronic version of a book is therefore becoming a smarter idea overall, in regard to their convenience (great), price (usually lower than new physical books), selection (almost unlimited), and in terms of the raw space they take up (absolutely none). This ship has sailed.
All that said, I’m also totally in favor of the romanticization of physical books. In the various getting-to-know-you exercises I’ve had to endure in several jobs, for example, one almost always gets the “what’s your favorite smell” question, and my answer is almost always “old paperbacks.” The combination of pulp, glue, ink, and dust form a bouquet that takes me back to my first memories of being totally engrossed by a book. Extremely evocative. And of course, I enjoy the book as an object: it’s a memento, a trophy, an award, a physical manifestation of someone else’s Big Thoughts. Of course they’re wonderful.
But let’s get a little perspective. When it comes down to it, regardless of what the latest curmudgeonly missive from a disgruntled (and probably ungodly rich) author and bibliophile might tell you, the primary function of a book is not to induce reveries of nostalgia, or wonderment at a bookbinder’s craftsmanship. It’s to read the words that someone has written. That being the purpose, the e-book is the winner, and to argue otherwise is to, I think, misunderstand what the hell a book is for. I miss the smell, but I am loving the space I get back in my apartment.
For some, this panic has less to do with the object itself, the physical book, than it does with the place from which one purchases said object. I feel some of this anxiety, as the bookstore has long been my favored place of escape. In any city or town (and this was particularly true when I was a touring actor), I would find great relief when I’d discover the nearest bookstore, be it a superchain, local indie, or used book shop.
But this is not necessarily because I wanted to buy books. Sure, I often would, but these places were to me oases more than stores. I never felt like I’d have to worry about being disturbed, or judged for being nerdy, or what have you, while surrounded by Other People’s Big Thoughts. Usually quiet, inviting, comfortable, often serving coffee, bookstores have been a Safe Place for Paul.
So I don’t like the idea of them disappearing. And perhaps they won’t. A long piece in The Atlantic by Ann Patchett tells of her adventures in opening a new independent bookstore in Nashville, and the place goes gangbusters. I think this is supposed to imply that there is a real hunger for this kind of place that has been neglected in the wake of Amazon’s success, but I have to wonder if it has more to do with the fact that she’s a famous person who, because she’s famous, got a ton of free national publicity. I don’t know. I’m glad if there is a glimmer of hope for bookstores, but I’m skeptical at what Patchett’s experience can tell us about the real world.
Even with that skepticism, however, I don’t believe that bookstores or the physical book itself are doomed. Just as there will always be those who prefer vinyl LPs to MP3s — much more so, actually — I think the traditional codex will always have a healthy and active market to satisfy. Despite e-books’ advantages, there’s little that’s wrong with the physical book, and even ravenous e-book consumers can appreciate and enjoy receiving and owning physical books. Just not so damn many, you know?
There’s also longevity to think of. I have little to no confidence that the .AZW files that I’ve “purchased” to read on my Kindle will be accessible in thirty years. Or even ten. What with the rise and fall of various software and hardware platforms and DRM locks, one can never trust that one will still “own” their e-books decades from now. My physical copy of Anathem, then, will remain with me, as will, for example, our Harry Potters, hopefully to remain in the family over the generations. I don’t see myself passing my Kindle Paperwhite to my grandkids. (I’ve posted thoughts about the Paperwhite here and here.)
Even longer-term, there’s simple degradation. Hard drives, CDs, solid state drives, all these media upon which we “permanently” save all this content will fail, eventually. So far, (as best I know) the best way our species has found to preserve the written word is on well-cared-for paper (acid-free being optimal, so I’m told). You want to be able to read something 200 years from now? You better hope someone sacrificed a tree to set it down in print.
And they probably have. And so they probably will. I have a sort of book that I authored (my master’s thesis converted to e-book format), but it will likely never be “in print” if it never gets beyond the hundred or so copies it’s sold so far. But I’d guess that anything that’s gone above that threshold will wind up in physical book form, and will have an audience and a market.
But nothing like what it might have had before the coming of the Age of the Kindle. And that’s okay. As we as a society adopt new technologies and formats, there will always be things we inadvertently lose as a result of all we gain. It’s okay to be sad about those lost things, but one shouldn’t panic. One shouldn’t rend one’s garments as though Culture and Wisdom themselves are being frittered away in a cloud of electrons. If enough people want to buy physical books (or LPs, or typewriters) someone will make them. In the meantime, I’ll keep the ability to have thousands of books at my literal fingertips and trade the smell of pulp, ink, glue, and dust.
There are lots of other smells out there. And more importantly, a hell of a lot more books to read.
UPDATE:
Hyrax in the comments gives technical clarification:
Actually, the most enduring method of recording the written word we’ve come up with is microfilm. While acid-free paper will last a long time, as long as the storage conditions are good– not too damp! and then there’s the problem of what the cover and binding are made of– it’s still quite susceptible to fire and water and can be easily torn. And even then it will degrade over time, given long enough. Microfilm is fireproof, waterproof, and should remain in perfect condition for hundreds of years. Of course, there is the teensy downside of needing a microfilm reader to, y’know, read it. And the massive downside that microfilm readers are basically instant headache inducers, although YMMV on that last bit.
I did an internship in a very large research archive for a summer, and I learned a lot about the preservation and fragility of books. I mean, books my father read as a child in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which now rest on my bookshelf, have yellowed and brittle paper, and many of the covers are coming apart. If you take care of them, books can last a good while, but typically what you buy in a bookshop isn’t going to be archival quality.
Also, even though your digital copy of the book might not last the test of time, thanks to cloud storage it will likely still be out there somewhere. Even if a person can lose their individual copy, the knowledge won’t be lost.
-
A Song for Eustreptospondylus
You know what dinosaur has a musical sounding name? Eustreptospondylus. Just say it out loud. I mean, if you can. It's pronounced “you strepped a SPON dull us,” which, coincidentally, is also how you say “My hovercraft is full of eels” in Hungarian.
My boy Toby, who just turned 3 last week, is obsessed with dinosaurs. Not like, he's really into dinosaurs, I mean obsessed. He plays exclusively with dinosaur toys, and these dinosaurs not only fight each other (or, as Toby, says, “dey're fighting to-gedder!”), but they have entire social lives with each other. Usually this means they visit each other's houses to watch movies and eat hot dogs (the herbivores, too), and when one of them gets too aggressive, well that's it, they get a time out. When we play outside, we pretend to be dinosaurs (lately we're Allosauruses a lot, and sometimes we use our jackets as wings to be Quetzaoatluses, which I know, aren't actually dinosaurs), and when we had his birthday party with all the relatives, every time I'd present him with a new gift to unwrap, he'd look at me with a mad kind of sparkle in his eye and ask, “Is it dinosaurs?”
So he really likes them. He watches the cartoon Dinosaur Train a lot (we don't have cable, so we do Netflix on the Apple TV), and now he's completely invested in repeated viewings of the BBC faux documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs (and its various offshoots), narrated by Kenneth Branaugh. Toby even loves Branaugh's voice, and repeats much of the narration in a baritone English accent, which you have ot hear to believe.
One of the dinosaurs profiled ever so briefly on Walking with Dinosaurs (or, as Toby believes it to be called, Rarring with Dinosaurs) is, you guessed it, Eustreptospondylus. And something about that word spoken in Kenneth Branaugh's sincere-yet-grave voice gave it, to my ear, a kind of classical meter, and I couldn't help but presume it was one of those dinosaur names that Mr. Branaugh probably had to work on a bit before he could say it without laughing (like my other favorite that he says, “Muttaburrasaurus”).
And long story made a little less long, Eustreptospondylus sounded like it shoud be in a song. So I started singing this around the house, much to the dismay of all who share this home with me.
To the tune of “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay”:
Eustreptospondylus!
He's such a blunderbuss
Hope he don't fondle us!
Eustreptospondylus
Eustreptospondylus
Suffers from wanderlust
So he rides gondalas
Eustreptospondylus!
I hope this little ditty infects your brain as it has the one from which it first spawned. You're welcome!
pav alexander 