In the wake of Volkswagen's attempt to evade emissions standards:

You would think that being a trained medical professional would make me immune to supratentorial disorders.

The notion of sacrificing your life for others, embedded in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, closing paralleling the New Testament, brings to mind what I find to be a viable adaptionist claim: that some individuals need to die for the good of others in the same genetic pool, which is probably pretty harsh if you happen to be that individual so chosen by selection pressure.

I think the book in The Chronicles of Narnia that left the strongest impression on me was The Magician’s Nephew[site by Keith Webb][on wikipedia]. The setting that I remember most strongly is the ruined and blasted world of Charn, destroyed by the White Witch Jadis by using magic that seems strongly allegorical to nuclear weaponry. I was struck by how the monarchy of Charn started off being benevolent and wise, then became corrupted and evil, eventually spawning the monstrosity that is the White Witch. I also remember the hue of redness encompassing Charn. (Was C.S. Lewis trying to evoke medieval visions of Hell?) What was interesting to me was the explanation for this reddish light—Charn’s sun is a red giant star. While this could’ve just been an idiosyncrasy of this particular world, it actually evoked in me the idea that the civilization of Charn had existed so long that their formerly sun-like star had exhausted its nuclear fuel and was beginning to cool and expand. For some reason (although this is apparently not the reason for its destruction), this also reminds me of the destruction of the planet of Krypton, but that is neither here nor there.

So we enter the realm of darkness. The underworld of the night shift, the hours of the graveyard. My loneliness is a palpable presence, a solid mass. Like rotten meat sitting in my stomach. And I'm too tired to vomit it up.

One of the things I had on my old blog that I haven't figured out how to reimplement in Blosxom is a mini-blog in a sidebar. It let me document various sites I visited without having to write a full-on entry on them. But I don't want to screw around with Perl right now, so I'm just going to do it here, for now.

It’s war, and I’m not entirely sure “normalcy” is what we should be seeking. For those who really believe in Freedom, it’s time to get moving.

Concentric circles. The space gets smaller and smaller, but it’s not bad if you can get used to it.