"This is the way we lose"
x I think LJ might have stopped being a bitch, hallelujah.
x Jack, however, is still a bitch to Ianto. Who deserves so much better.
x Gabby! You forgot your candy here! I shall treasure that box and think of all the fun times I may or may not remember, but that were definitely had in the past few days.
x I heart Common Rotation. This has been sitting in my mailbox for a few days and I've only just gotten around to reading it.
"Black Is Getting Blacker" read the lead line of The Washington Post cover story on February 20th, 2008--the morning after Senator Barack Obama had "delivered a thumpin'" to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary. After racking up 10 consecutive wins earlier the night before, Senator Obama had run to the stage in Houston, Texas to interrupt the media's coverage of his rival's 'Pep Talk' in Ohio. With all eyes focused solely on him, he announced: "Houston, I think we've achieved lift off here." Different variations of that phrase were the lead lines in the front-page stories of every major newspaper, including: the Hindustan Times, The Austin American Statesmen, and the Melbourne Herald Sun.
The Washington Post's header seemed noticeably darker in relevancey and tone.
Now, "Black Is Getting Blacker" was not about Barack Hussein Obama, but about Shawn-Yu Lin and the other researchers from Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that had created the darkest material ever measured--a thin carpet of carbon nanotubes that is four times darker than the previous record-holder. When asked to describe this new material, Shawn, a scientist who helped create it at the RPI in Troy, N.Y. would only be quoted as saying,"It's very deep, like in a forest on the darkest night. Nothing comes back to you. It's very, very, very dark."
"The more black the better," said Gerald Fraser, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, when asked for a reaction.
'Standard black' up until now had been the darkest black, but The Washington Post announced that now black had a new standard. One that was darker than had ever been dreamed of before. What's shocking and frightening is not the Defense Departments acknowledgement that this new technology could be used for 'cloaking' and 'invisibility', but that it already is. In fact, it had even been reported on before. Google news had run the story over a month earlier. So, why did The Washington Post choose that day to run that headline on its cover? Why would WashingtonPost.com choose to have "Black Is Getting Blacker" on the cover of its main page while burying the story of Senator Obama's historic win--complete with it's "We Have Lift Off" headline--in its Blog section?
What would happen if Barack Obama got a hold of this new technology? Would he use it for good or evil? Nothing in his senate voting record seems to reflect how he would handle it. Should we give him the benefit of the doubt, or just assume that no man can be trusted? It's true, it's tough to love again after you've had your heart broken.
These are the kind of thoughts that cross your mind while standing on a frozen river in Kotlik, Alaska, numb from the -32 degree weather and blind from the frost on your glasses and the Aurora Borealis above. These are the kind of thoughts that keep us from ever seriously considering a career outside of bouncing and singing. The combined years of higher education held by the members of Common Rotation equal only a single degree from a modest technical school, thus preventing us from attempting to answer these types of questions without helmets and at least one hand tethered to an adult or stationary object.
We may never know what The Washington Post was trying to prove. We may never know whether hope is a sign of a person's weakness or strength. However, we will continue to walk that wire. We will continue to bridge that gap between politics and art and science, believing that one is not possible without the other. Believing that if the opposite of something isn't true then it isn't true. Few have been able to. Those that have, should be studied and re-read like the Bible. "How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black," said Nigel Tufnel in 1984. It is to him we look again today.
With hope.
x Jack, however, is still a bitch to Ianto. Who deserves so much better.
x Gabby! You forgot your candy here! I shall treasure that box and think of all the fun times I may or may not remember, but that were definitely had in the past few days.
x I heart Common Rotation. This has been sitting in my mailbox for a few days and I've only just gotten around to reading it.
"Black Is Getting Blacker" read the lead line of The Washington Post cover story on February 20th, 2008--the morning after Senator Barack Obama had "delivered a thumpin'" to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary. After racking up 10 consecutive wins earlier the night before, Senator Obama had run to the stage in Houston, Texas to interrupt the media's coverage of his rival's 'Pep Talk' in Ohio. With all eyes focused solely on him, he announced: "Houston, I think we've achieved lift off here." Different variations of that phrase were the lead lines in the front-page stories of every major newspaper, including: the Hindustan Times, The Austin American Statesmen, and the Melbourne Herald Sun.
The Washington Post's header seemed noticeably darker in relevancey and tone.
Now, "Black Is Getting Blacker" was not about Barack Hussein Obama, but about Shawn-Yu Lin and the other researchers from Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that had created the darkest material ever measured--a thin carpet of carbon nanotubes that is four times darker than the previous record-holder. When asked to describe this new material, Shawn, a scientist who helped create it at the RPI in Troy, N.Y. would only be quoted as saying,"It's very deep, like in a forest on the darkest night. Nothing comes back to you. It's very, very, very dark."
"The more black the better," said Gerald Fraser, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, when asked for a reaction.
'Standard black' up until now had been the darkest black, but The Washington Post announced that now black had a new standard. One that was darker than had ever been dreamed of before. What's shocking and frightening is not the Defense Departments acknowledgement that this new technology could be used for 'cloaking' and 'invisibility', but that it already is. In fact, it had even been reported on before. Google news had run the story over a month earlier. So, why did The Washington Post choose that day to run that headline on its cover? Why would WashingtonPost.com choose to have "Black Is Getting Blacker" on the cover of its main page while burying the story of Senator Obama's historic win--complete with it's "We Have Lift Off" headline--in its Blog section?
What would happen if Barack Obama got a hold of this new technology? Would he use it for good or evil? Nothing in his senate voting record seems to reflect how he would handle it. Should we give him the benefit of the doubt, or just assume that no man can be trusted? It's true, it's tough to love again after you've had your heart broken.
These are the kind of thoughts that cross your mind while standing on a frozen river in Kotlik, Alaska, numb from the -32 degree weather and blind from the frost on your glasses and the Aurora Borealis above. These are the kind of thoughts that keep us from ever seriously considering a career outside of bouncing and singing. The combined years of higher education held by the members of Common Rotation equal only a single degree from a modest technical school, thus preventing us from attempting to answer these types of questions without helmets and at least one hand tethered to an adult or stationary object.
We may never know what The Washington Post was trying to prove. We may never know whether hope is a sign of a person's weakness or strength. However, we will continue to walk that wire. We will continue to bridge that gap between politics and art and science, believing that one is not possible without the other. Believing that if the opposite of something isn't true then it isn't true. Few have been able to. Those that have, should be studied and re-read like the Bible. "How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black," said Nigel Tufnel in 1984. It is to him we look again today.
With hope.