The Shooter

I am certainly one of the opinion not to make haram that which is allowed. We do not need to make religion or life more strict than necessary - Allah swt can get it right without our meddling. In my own life, however, I've learned there is a lot of gray in the sense of just because something is a thing you can do, doesn't mean you ought to do it.

Many things can distract us from what life is all about - the world reaches for our attention at all sides so that we may waste our time in things that do not benefit us. I can easily fall prey to this and find an evening spent in almost nothing that would bring me closer to God, nothing that would reveal Truth, nothing that would rend away falsehood, nothing that would benefit my fellow creatures.

At the same time, I have noticed that inspiration and God-consciousness can be found almost anywhere - it all depends on where your heart is present. The same thing can take you away from God or take you to Him depending on the intention and presence of heart. The key, apparently, is to recognize the difference and to leave aside those things when the tide is pulling out.

For example, last night I saw a movie called The Shooter starring Mark Wahlberg with my mother. As many of you know, I go to the movies with my mother nearly every weekend. It is a practice that evolved over time as something my mother and I enjoyed as a chance to get out of the house, be together as women, etc., from a time when it served a very needed purpose for reasons I won't go into, to now where it is perhaps less needed but is a valued tradition. Many negative things can be said about this tradition - it wastes money and time in idle pursuit that supports a mega-industry where millions and millions of dollars are spent on special effects while people in the world suffer for lack of resources. And perhaps that is enough right there to call to account upon our souls. Ya Allah.

It is also, however, an expression of love for me and my mother to do this together. And some movies that have nothing in their scripts or plots or screenplays about God nevertheless make me think about God. The Shooter is a violent, bloody revenge-filled story of a sharp-shooter framed for an assassination with a notable degree of implausibility and predictability (that didn't stop me from liking it, btw). Yet there I was, reminded of the early Muslims who fought against all odds for Islam, for God. They succeeded in part because they believed it could be done. When they lost faith, they lost the fight as well. But when they believed firmly in God, in the Prophet (saw), in Islam, in themselves, then nothing could defeat them against the will of Allah swt. What you expect and believe comes to bear. As Allah swt has said, "I Am as you think I Am."


It is not that Allah swt changes upon our thoughts, as I see it, but rather that our window or path to God is straitened or straightened by our expectations, beliefs, and perceptions. If in the dark you see a monster in the closet, then for how it affects you, it might as well be so. And is it really such a leap that if your perceptions of the environment can affect you as if those perceptions were real, then your perceptions of the environment may be able to affect the environment itself? If you can envision your bullet make its mark, then you may have an influence in making it so. When I was a track athlete in high school, I knew this to be true when it came to athletic performance. An athlete who envisioned in detail the successful execution of the task prior to a race ran faster, better, farther than on pure physicality alone.

It is a step further to take that beyond the self to the external. However, philosophically, it is hard to say what is more real about "reality" than the self's perception of it. Some theorize that reality is nothing more than a construct (ala The Matrix). If we change our perception, perhaps we can change "reality", like the person who cures his cancer by knowing/willing/believing it so, or the person who dies because he knows/wills/believes it is his time. Was the person intuiting something external or was he constructing it from his self?

"I Am as you think I Am."

Death

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it
unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind
unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one,
even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies
your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow
your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden
the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd
when he stands before the king
whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling,
that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing,
but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,
then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
then shall you truly dance.

- Kahlil Gibran

Words of Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventures of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you tell is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul, if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "YES!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty hours.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder

(Originally found at KoziWolf)

Comet McNaught - Another Beautiful Image

Another lovely one from APOD.

Transformers

Okay, I really have to laugh at myself, because I want to see this movie:



Shia LeBeouf is a decent young actor, anyway - see him in The Greatest Game Ever Played - a nice based-on-true story, and Holes, based on a popular book for, say, 10-14 year-olds.

Tire Mat

Isn't it pretty?

Well, we got snow today - not much accumulation, though - it was very wet snow.

On another topic, am I the only one out there who still has 37 cent stamps? I still have lots of them, because I used to buy stamps for several months at a time because I wanted to use the Eid stamp and had to get it online. Then I switched to online banking and I hardly use stamps at all anymore. I guess I'll have to eventually some more 2 cent stamps. Glad they're switching to forever stamps - I wonder if you have to ask specifically for forever if stamps or if all 1st class stamps will be forever stamps? (The date for the rate change is May 14, fyi).

Went to the eye dr. and ordered new glasses today - got sunglasses and regulars - have to wait for the regulars to be made, should be about two weeks. Expensive, but getting new glasses is nice.

Worked at Sylvan today - or rather, went to training there. Just when I start to get in the groove of the whole spring break thing it is over. Only a few things on my list got done. Oh well, that's typical I guess.

Retired Mats

Mats made from recycled tires

I just love these things - I remember my parents having them when I was growing up, and when I ran into the guy who makes these in our area at the flea market I was very happy to buy one. They last forever, they work better than any other mat out there, and they recycle an otherwise dangerous waste product - old tires.

Postscript: After seeing mine, mom ending up buying one from him at the flea market.

I just heard thunder!

Way cool - first of the season - sounds great when you haven't heard it in probably 9 months. :) It's raining - ooo, more thunder! Cool! Now it is hailing - aside from the damage/injury factor, hail is really neat - it bounces on the ground when it hits and looks like snow sometimes after it is all over. Ahh, there go the warning sirens - but the weather has already moved on - no tornadoes here.

Grand Canyon Lava Flows

The above link is to a neat image that shows the lava flows that used to cascade down the sides of the Grand Canyon and dam the Colorado River. Can you envision that? It must've been quite a sight! Click on the high resolution image after the description - it looks much better.

I often think about geologic processes and time. I have this little fantasy of being able to see all the changes that have happened on Earth, see where people have been and what they did, and see all the animals that ever lived, etc.

For example, yesterday I was watching some NOVA reruns (one of the best TV shows ever, folks) and one of them was about a place up north called the Scablands. It turns out that during the past glaciation period, glaciers came down into Montana and blocked a river creating a lake called Lake Missoula - it was a huge lake, like one of the Great Lakes of today, and modern day Missoula would've been nearly 2000 feet under water at that time. Well, water gets into the cracks of the ice and eventually causes the ice dam to break, like what happened in Iceland in '96. When this happened, it created a massive, fast and powerful flood-draining of the lake all the way into Washington and to sea. The water flow of the draining created potholes in the scablands tens of feet wide and deep - features that exist nowhere else on Earth. What's more, it happened over and over again perhaps hundreds of times. It is possible people might have witnessed it or even been victim to it - who knows?

And then I was watching a Deep Sea Detectives rerun and they were investigating cenotes in the Yucatan and Cozumel Island. These are pools of water that Mayans held as sacred entrances to the underworld and would drop sacrificial items (and apparently people) into them. In this episode, the divers were diving in from an entrance at the coast into the caves for more than a mile to get to a deposit of offerings that had been discovered with no apparent above-ground entrance that they could've been deposited from. First thing that was awesome was seeing the halocline - the boundary between the salt water and sea water - that they passed through. Then, seeing these caves that are now underwater but were completely formed above water. Caves take a long time to form and they form on land, not in sea, but now they are covered. So I wonder, how long ago were they above the water? My guess is that it was during the last Ice Age, because sea levels were lower then. Did anyone ever see them above ground? Similarly, there are people who think the Bimini Road is manmade. I don't know that it is, but there is increasing evidence of a lot of archaeology to be done underwater - evidence of human habitation in places now underwater. It is all fascinating to me!

Focus!

Scientific American: Beyond IQ: Youngsters Who Can Focus on the Task at Hand Do Better in Math
Attention span and reasoning may get higher marks than intelligence, especially in math

I have often noted, as a high school math teacher, a direct correlation between a student's ability to focus and persevere through a lesson and/or problem and what they ended up learning, retaining, and what grades they earn. Attention span and follow-through seem to be real issues affecting students' learning, and not just for those with diagnosed ADD or ADHD.

Spring Break

Well, so far I have had a very unproductive spring break. I worked on Saturday and my friend Laura came over to watch movies and spent the night and we went to the Flea Market on Sunday after mom came over to walk the dogs. I slept too much today and feel icky because of it, let alone guilty over my lethargy and lack of productivity. While I certainly look forward to breaks, sometimes at their outset I feel a big expanse of black open time to fill by myself - insha'allah not all in idle pursuits. I know some things I ought to do or might want to do, but will I? Even I don't know the answer to that question.

About the speaking at the conference thing - when someone listens to a speaker, they make an assumption or have an expectation that that person is an expert on their topic, or at least more knowledgeable than they are. But how often that is not the case! When it comes to Islam, few can really claim to be an expert, although many do. Only those who are nearest to Allah swt and most faithful and enlightened along the Right Path speak with any semblance of justice to the faith. So part of me really does not like to open my mouth, for anything I could say would be inadequate. But if we never say anything, then it seems people with bad intentions and fools fill up the silence with their nonsense. It is up to us to make what we say count, to make it meaningful. It is up to us to do the same with the time that is given to us in this world, however long or short it may be.

We have to make our intentions good and strive in the way of Allah swt, and perhaps Allah swt will turn to us and make something good of our actions.

Hidden Portrait

What do you know, it really is Spring

The vernal equinox was on Wednesday. But this being the beginning of spring break, I held my breath for any true signs of spring. But alhumdulillah they are everywhere. Colorado is notorious for getting snow during spring break. But today there isn't snow - there is rain. All-day bring up all the worms kind of rain (although I haven't seen any worms yet). The first real rain of the year. It is nice for a change - everything looks greener already. I have several bulbs growing and a few may even bloom in the next few weeks. The yellow crocuses are done and the purple ones are blooming now. My Forsythia is blooming and so is my tiny cherry tree that I cut waaaaay back a few years ago. Cherry blossoms are so pretty!


Forsythia in bloom

I just got invited to go speak at the International Reverts Conference in Toronto. I had wanted to go because a lot of the topics look interesting and inspiring, but the cost of travel and taking a day or two off work prevented me. But as a speaker, part of my expenses should be covered so insha'allah I will go. I got assigned a topic to speak on and so I guess during this spring break I will be working on that a bit. My topic is about the Battle of Badr. I had just read something on it a few weeks ago, but I will be looking for more. Maybe I will see someone from otowi land there! Speaking on an Islamic topic always makes me much more nervous than my teaching work. I feel a greater weight in doing it.

Happy Spring Break for those of you sharing the schedule - Happy Spring for all!

Recurring Dream Addition

I had previously posted about recurring dreams and recurring places in dreams that I have noted in my life. (You can find the post by going to the labels in the sidebar and choosing dreams).

Well, last night I had a dream that I came to realize involved a recurring place.

Where I work, all the math teachers have a math office in which there is are two long lines of work desks facing each other where we all sit and work. In my dreams, a variation of these desks exist, but they are in a huge warehouse-type building that is kind of dark. In my dream last night, these desks were under a quarter-circle glass window that went from the floor and arced up to the ceiling. We were noting that it was raining really hard outside. As soon as we said that, it stopped raining, and a few seconds later, it was snowing a dry windy blizzard snow and was snowing so much that it was instantly accumulating on the glass panes. Then I woke up.

But I remembered dreaming of this place before. In previous dreams, the rest of the warehouse was also dark and had many cubicles and partial walls. I can remember sneaking around the warehouse trying to get computer parts and software for something we needed to do but didn't have the right stuff for. I also remember the landscape outside of this building being a lot like the surroundings of my junior high when I had went there years before, except that there was a practice baseball diamond in my dream in a wrong place.

And on the subject of dreams, something interesting happened last week. It was the middle of the night and I was asleep and I dreamt that something like a small animal jumped on my bed or someone hit my bed. Then, it happened for real, being strong enough to wake me up. I have no idea what actually made the bed move because I don't have any animals that move about the house and no one else was there. But it felt like someone punched the bed down near my feet, or something like that. I was not startled and didn't feel afraid, I just went back to sleep. But when I thought about it later, I thought it was pretty strange - nothing like that ever happened before that I can think of.

Interspecies Relationships

Cat Nuzzles up to Deer Herd

I see parts of this particular herd often on my way to work as I drive up Mesa Road near Garden of the Gods. It is a mini-thrill on the mornings when they stop traffic to cross the road.

I just think it is interesting and cool to see different species interact in sometimes surprising ways. I have read many stories of moms taking babies of other species as their own, for example. I think it makes people wonder about and expand upon their ideas of how they see the world and how they think animals see it, too.

Moon from ISS

Trace Bundy Video - a few from YouTube, more are there

The Love Song



Pachelbel's Canon




Carol of the Bells



excerpt from his song "Patanga", probably my personal favorite of his.

Year 4

So, according to my archives and blogger, yesterday's rose post marked the first post of the 4th blogging year for otowi, and this is the 730th archived post. Hmmm, I wonder what will end up in the blog this year??? And why did I start blogging on St. Patrick's Day anyway?

Yesterday I went to my 2nd job at Sylvan. Right now I mostly tutor math and reading. Working there, I have all kinds of students - from about 1st or 2nd grade through adults. The adults that go to Sylvan are usually either special needs adults or G.E.D. pursuers or occasionally some college support for those who have been out of school a very long time, etc. Then in the evening mom and I went to see Trace Bundy, at the Palmer High School Auditorium. He is extremely gifted at what he does. You can see some of his stuff on YouTube, although I think he has compiled some or all of that on his MySpace.

Something's Hiding in the Rose.

Can you find it?

Imam Sajjad (as)'s Dua for Sickness

Imam Sajjad (as), great-grandson of the Prophet (saw), wrote some of the most beautiful duas. This is one for reciting at a time of illness.

O God, to Thee belongs praise
for the good health of my body
which lets me move about,
and to Thee belongs praise,
for the ailments
which Thou causest to arise in my flesh!

For I know not, my God,
which of the two states deserves more my thanking Thee
and which of the two times is more worthy for my praise of Thee:
the time of health,
within which Thou makest me delight
in the agreeable things of Thy provision,
through which Thou givest me the joy to seek
the means to Thy good pleasure and bounty,
and by which Thou strengthenest me
for the acts of obedience
which Thou hast given me success to accomplish;
or the time of illness
through which Thou puttest me to the test
and bestowest upon me favors:
lightening of the offenses
that weigh down my back,
purification of the evil deeds
into which I have plunged,
incitement to reach
for repentance,
reminder of the erasure of misdeeds
through ancient favor;

and, through all that, what the two writers write for me:
blameless acts,
which no heart had thought,
no tongue had uttered,
and no limb had undertaken,
rather, as Thy bestowal of bounty upon me
and the beneficence of Thy benefaction toward me

O God,
bless Muhammad and his Household,
make me love
what Thou hast approved for me,
make easy for me
what Thou hast sent down upon me,
purify me of the defilement
of what I have sent ahead,
erase the evil
of what I have done beforehand,
let me find the sweetness
of well-being,
let me taste the coolness
of safety,
and appoint for me
a way out from my illness to Thy pardon,
transformation of my infirmity into Thy forbearance,
escape from my distress to Thy refreshment,
and safety from this hardship in Thy relief!

Thou art gratuitously bountiful in beneficence,
ever gracious in kindness,
the Generous, the Giver,
Possessor of majesty and munificence!

First Hint of Spring

My friend Carol put a lovely picture of a Crocus from her yard on her blog. I thought I should share a picture of mine as well! The first bulb flower of the year in Colorado - so beautiful, and timed so perfectly with the new time change. :) My mom has a whole bunch blooming right now, including purple ones, not just yellow. I hope to get some more Crocus bulbs for next year - they are so cheery!

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

Picture Caption by Team Snowfoot: The geese were of no help...
We knew they knew where the cache was but they weren't talking.

This is from a log entry of a geocache I placed with my nieces and nephew in December. It is so far turning out to be a good difficult cache that challenges some of the experienced cachers and yet remains accessible to all.

Here's the Cache's Webpage.

And here's another BEAUTIFUL picture of the lunar eclipse from last week.

A few of my favorite links for the week

Free American Sign Language Lessons

I've always been interested in languages, and I've always been interested in sign language - I used to constantly do finger lettering as a child until I learned to type and then I was constantly "typing" with my fingers - a sort of fidget. I've long thought it would be great to learn sign language.

Find Out What Maintenance You Should Be Getting For Your Car

Today I was listening to the auto tech teacher at our school. He was saying that cars are designed to last between 400,000-500,000 miles but the main reason they do not is that owners do not keep up on maintenance. I know I don't really do any "maintenance" aside from oil changes, etc., so I found a site that tells you what your scheduled maintenance for your particular vehicle should be.

Colorado Springs Police Blotter

I like to read what is going on in the town. I think every police department should publish a blotter and every citizen of that locale should read it.

Read and Search Journal Articles for Research

This came in VERY handy when I was doing my master's degree. I'd love to get another degree and take more classes whenever I can afford it, insha'allah.

The Eclipse of the Moon

This image was taken in two exposures in Austria. The short exposure was for the moon, a longer telescopic exposure was used to get the background stars (most of which would not be detectable to the naked eye).

Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

Scientific American: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

I've always been fascinated by timekeeping and calendars....

Revisiting my 2007 goals

In late December, I set some goals for 2007. We are about to enter the second quarter of the year, so it is time to revisit:


1. Take a multivitamin every day.

I am doing this. I had bought a year-supply bottle of Walgreens-brand Centrum - simple cheap vitamins without a lot of extra stuff that no one is quite sure what it really does.

2.

I had a goal to walk 10,000 steps a day (pedometer). Well, this one has not worked out. I have added more walking - an additional two to three days a week - but not 10,000 steps a day every day. My goal as of now is to simply exercise every day. It would be nice to be able to run a 5k without stopping - maybe by the end of summer.... I like yoga and need to get back into it. Update: I bought the classic Richard Hittleman's Yoga 28 day exercise plan for 99 cents and just did day 1. My intention is to do the whole thing; I am sure if I do that my body will definitely feel the difference. I once took a 6-week community education class of yoga once a week for an hour or hour and a half, and even from just once a week, I noticed big improvements in my flexibility, etc.

3.

Eat less sugar and drink more water.

I haven't been drinking more water - I need to work on that. Sugar is a little less.



4.

More religious reading, including Qur'an.

I am doing this, but I may be able to step it up. Also continuing to read for fun. I would like to get in the habit of using a library card - I've always been one to buy books rather than borrow - which has its advantages and disadvantages. Wayfarer once found a paperback trading program - maybe I will look into that as well. But neither of those ideas are really really high priorities.


5.

Save money, pay down debts, etc.

I established a budget line item by line item and am focusing on keeping the budget balanced. There isn't much room for saving, but a little bit here and there is better than nothing. I got a second job also - just a few hours a week.

6.

Take a small vacation.

I'm rethinking this one - I think it is just too expensive and not the best use of my money. I might replace this goal with one of actually having a semi-clean house and keeping it that way....

Statistics in Religious Archaeology

Scientific American: Special Report: Has James Cameron Found Jesus's Tomb or Is It Just a Statistical Error?


Tomorrow night on the Discovery Channel there is scheduled to be aired a special about an ossuary in Jerusalem that some are claiming could belong to the family of Jesus (as). Some, of course, would then go so far to suggest that Jesus's (as) bones are there as well - although that is a much more wild claim. An interesting aspect of the names in that ossuary is that they may include the name of Mary Magdalene.

The article above is about a hypothesis test calculated around the probability of the names mentioned in the ossuary existing in that particular combination. Based on certain assumptions and research about naming in Jerusalem at the time, a statistician calculated 600 to 1 odds that that particular set of names belonged to the family of Jesus (as) and not another family with similar names.

This is actually the kind of stuff we're studying in my AP Statistics class right now. The kids are learning to conduct hypothesis tests, so maybe we will discuss this article next week and see if the students can determine what his assumptions were, what his null hypothesis was, etc.

As for other stuff going on recently in the land of Otowi:

1. I am going back to work at Sylvan Learning Center on Saturdays. So, I will once again be officially in the realm of the two jobs. I worked at Sylvan several years ago and did their SAT prep course off and on for a while after that and the couple that owns the Center asked me to come back. I tend to say yes to requests from people I know and like, and I could use the money in my ongoing quest to try to keep a balanced budget. The vast majority of my paycheck is gone on the second of the month - the day I pay bills - mortgage, utilities, school loans, old debts, etc. As we all know, debt sucks, and I have an ongoing goal to pay it down and not increase it.

2. The past week was Luau week at Coronado. It is a school tradition to have a luau dance once a year - a dance and opening of the pool combined. So every day was a different dress up day - crazy shades (sunglasses) day, class colors day, pirate day, lifeguard/scuba day, and beach day. We had snow this week and that may have been a factor in that kids did not seem to be dressing up in high proportion. I dressed up for class colors day and beach day and managed a very vaguely pirate-ish hijab for pirate day. But for beach day I ended up wearing my Islamic swim suit, aqua socks and favorite hibiscus beach towel. Several students enjoyed that.

3. My mom's birthday is Monday. Brother and I are taking her out to dinner tonight (along with brother's family, of course). I hope dad will go, too - he often decides not to participate in things. I did get her a present, but she knows she will have to wait for it, because it isn't released for a few weeks yet. Mom really liked Casino Royale, so I ordered it for her on DVD, and I will give her tickets to Trace Bundy, although those aren't really a gift. Trace Bundy is the most incredible acoustic guitarist I've ever seen or heard. My student mentoree who runs the guitar club at Coronado has a connection with Trace Bundy and did all the work to bring him out for a show. I believe his music falls within what is permitted Islamically on the basis of the rulings of Ayatollah Seestani and several others who have the same ruling. If The Police tickets weren't so outlandishly expensive, that is another concert I would've been tempted to attend even with my misgivings about where the music would fall in the context of rulings. The Police has always been a favorite of my mine. Synchronicity was worn out on my cassette player when I was a kid.

4. Blake, another teacher in the math department, is a fan of Terry Brooks. We were talking about The Silmarillion as I had been reading it because he had started it and never finished it, so then we started talking about The Sword of Shannara trilogy by Brooks. He just started re-reading it, so I got a copy for 1 cent off Amazon and started reading it, too. So far it isn't impressive (two chapters in) but not bad either. Clearly it isn't a Tolkien, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. I am often not impressed by books in the first few chapters and they still can turn out to be good. Now Harry Potter books are usually good from the get-go (children's books are often better at that), but that's another story - literally.

5. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is coming to print! I just had to pre-order it....

Lunar Eclipse Saturday

Scientific American: Global Shadow Play: Lunar Eclipse To Be Visible From Every Continent
Western U.S. won't have much to see, but other areas may have quite a show. Namaz e Ayat may be obligatory tomorrow evening. Where I live, we'll miss it.


Here's a cool video of a lunar eclipse of the sun taken from the STEREO B spacecraft - it is far away, and that is why the moon disk is smaller than the solar disk compared to their ratios as seen from Earth.

And while we're at it, here is another installment of Guess What the Picture Is?:

Scientific American: Fact or Fiction?: Living People Outnumber the Dead
Booming population growth among the living, according to one rumor, outpaces the dead