#RevThread # 67
The Funny Specks
Part 1 of 2
1/ Do you sense that something’s really wrong, that Trumplandia is not how the USA is supposed to be? There are these puzzling signs: all the weird, insulting re-namings; the constant firings;...
The Funny Specks
Part 1 of 2
1/ Do you sense that something’s really wrong, that Trumplandia is not how the USA is supposed to be? There are these puzzling signs: all the weird, insulting re-namings; the constant firings;...
2/.. the Rico lawyers over in Mueller’s office; the abuse of women; the coziness with Russia; the macho bullying; the endless, tasteless ostentation; the constant dancing at the edge of the law;...
3/..the use of religion to gain respectability; the inability to trust anyone but family; the doubts about the weaker family members. What’s going on?
Today I’ll use a brief text, tell a story, and give you two connections. Tomorrow I’ll reflect on the whole deal.
Today I’ll use a brief text, tell a story, and give you two connections. Tomorrow I’ll reflect on the whole deal.
4/ Here’s the text:
“And God made the two great lights -- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night -- and the stars.” (Gen.1:16)
“And God made the two great lights -- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night -- and the stars.” (Gen.1:16)
5/ Until the1920’s the world had no idea how vast is the little clause:
“--and the stars”.
Marcia Bartusiack’s “The Day We Found the Universe” tells the story of how the pioneering American astronomer Edwin Hubble figured out what “the nebulae” are.
“--and the stars”.
Marcia Bartusiack’s “The Day We Found the Universe” tells the story of how the pioneering American astronomer Edwin Hubble figured out what “the nebulae” are.
6/ Before Hubble’s discovery, human beings thought that the Milky Way, our galaxy, was the entire universe. There was a new and powerful California telescope, and it saw to the end of the galaxy, which was great, but it had a problem.
7/ There were these little funny specks of something the telescope showed -- vague, nebulous specks. Hence their name, “nebulae”. The most likely explanation was they were tiny specks of dirt on the various lenses of the new telescope.
8/ They cleaned it all up, but some of the funny specks remained. Hubble had a daring hypothesis. Maybe they were extremely, unimaginably distant galaxies. Maybe the universe was impossibly larger than we knew.
9/ That was whacky. Then one October night, Hubble actually figured out how to prove it and he did. Read the book; it’s really thrilling. Nobody believed Hubble until the great Albert Einstein met with him, went up to see for himself, and declared Hubble correct.
10/ Each funny speck is as big as what we had thought was the whole universe.
11/ Because we had a commonly accepted paradigm of the universe as being the Milky Way, and had taught that for generations, the other scientists could not see what they were looking at. One of the marks of genius is to recognize what folks like me can’t see.
12/ All the things about Trump’s presidency that I put in the first tweet of this thread? They’re like the specks of dust that turned out to be something so much bigger than even talented observers have imagined.
13/ Here’s something about the political universe we now live in: we have freely chosen as our leader, as the person in charge of the most powerful arsenal of death ever assembled in history, a man who is deeply entwined in organized crime.
15/ The @Lincolnsbible thread published on Feb 8 has a very good brief synopsis and some context. I’ll retweet it to you today.
16/ The documentation at citjouno.org is extensive and the research is compelling. If you start there you’ll be led to devastating documents from the Treasury Department and you will begin to see what is meant by mafia states.
17/ I’ll send out a reflection on all this tomorrow. God is still God, and we are still free, but this is not an ordinary moment. Everything we love is at risk.
