During Thursday’s (Feb. 24, 2011) interview with Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, Stephen gave a very brief and sneaky shout out to the Guardians of Free Speech, Anonymous, in the form of a Guy Fawkes mask super-imposed on his face.
Check it out here. — Video has been removed due to Viacom International Inc. not realizing how embedded clips help promote their shows –
Either Stephen (or one of his editors) is simply covering his own ass or he’s making a subtle but interesting statement. I’m not sure how this will be perceived by the populous at large but I, for one, call it down-right awesome.
Julia Sweeney’s one-woman show, Letting Go of God, is one of the most inspiring monologues I’ve ever heard. A brutally honest recollection of her path from superstition to reason.
From the poster of Virgo on her wall to the copy of ‘Origin of Species’ on the deck of a Galapagos cruise-boat to her pair of ‘No God’ glasses, Julia bears her heart, mind, body and yes (dare I say it) soul to tell us the story of how she slowly came to realize there was no God.
Considering this is the second time I’ve posted about this amazing performance, I honestly can’t recommend this show enough. Julia is funny and inspiring, all the while, presenting deep and thought-provoking content.
I’ve given Matt Smith a full season to woo me over but sadly, he’s just not doing it for me. Therefore, I hereby state… Now and forever after… David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor, is MY Doctor.
Now, I’ve been a Doctor Who fan for a while. I have fond memories of watching Tom Baker era episodes during family dinner & I quite like the Peter Davison era as well. I missed initially when the series returned but caught up pretty quickly a few of years ago and have been loving the ride ever since. I liked Christopher Eccleston fairly quickly with his big grinned humor just barely concealing a starch seriousness and pain of recent losses. When the first season came to a close and all we got from Tennant was,
“Hmm, new teeth. That’s weird. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Barcelona!”
… I wasn’t really sure. But then came four seasons of the absolute best television I’ve ever watched. Tennant’s Doctor immediately embodied every humanistic value and idea I hold dear. He approached every situation with compassion, curiosity and reason with a skeptical mind seeking for and usually finding the natural explanation. He engendered the best of humanity in those he met and left them all better people. (Even Jackie)
Tennant’s Doctor also had a dense pain hidden on his face that could come out at any moment in a way that made you realize he’d been holding it back for far too long. He carried a burden but never let it get in his way of doing what he thought had to be done for the good of the universe.
There’s always the possibility that Matt Smith or some future Doctor could swoop in and steal the crown… but I’m highly skeptical. Well, I say skeptical, I mean doubtful. Well, pretty impossible actually, now that I think about it…. anyways… Oh, look at that… That is beautiful!
Composer and conductor Eric Whitacre used his blog, Facebook and YouTube to put a call out, assemble and audition over 200 singers for his virtual choir. He sent them all sheet music so they could each video themselves performing their individual parts and Whitacre Scottie Haines (thanks Ian) then spliced it all back together to create the truly beautiful, Lux Aurumque.
The AMNH has put together this amazing tour of the entire known universe based on the most up-to-date astronomical data. Every object is in its correct location, with proper scale and movement.
I simply had to share this. Its a clip of Star Trek: TNG with, more or less, random words dubbed in that just happen to match up with people’s lips. I don’t know anything about Dayjob Orchestra’s music, but their spoof/parody videos are brilliant.
Felicia Day *swoon* (and Sean Astin) try to educate the public about colliding galaxies in this hilarious NASA PSA for the Spitzer Space Telescope.
There are a lot of great little inside jokes in there. “What in the name of Joss Whedon?” And Felicia makes a wonderful point:
It just goes to show you don’t have to make up explosions or doomsday scenarios to make science interesting. Astronomy is pretty interesting on its own.
Just watch this… as the video progresses, try to NOT let your mouth hang open in disbelief.
Oh… My… God! Now, I know many people are genuinely ignorant of things that don’t really affect them in their day-to-day lives. But really, America? This level of ignorance is just absurd. Apparently there are people living among us who don’t know how many sides a triangle has and don’t see something wrong on a map where the entire country of Australia is labeled “Iran” or “North Korea”.We also seem to have had THREE world wars and Hiroshima and Nagasaki are only famous for sumo wrestling.
