Depraved

I have read, and reread Nicholas Kristof's column about rape.  He has been traveling in Africa.  His facts are difficult to fathom.  Rape.  Of children.  Of toddlers.  A 2 and-a-half month old infant who died of her internal injuries.  What man would do this?  What others condone it?  We are not civilized if such atrocity exists.  This is not beastiality.  Only the human male with his so-called superior intelligence is capable of such depravity.  How do you help these young victims?  A baby might be born by some of the older girls.  what will those new mothers tell their children?  How will that violent beginning end?

And Now, the Scores

With those words the radio host read the scores - just the numbers, not the teams.  And not even what sport they played.  This was some years ago in Ketchikan, Alaska.  A small town by "down south" standards but fourth largest in Alaska at the time.  There were two stations, one AM and one FM.  The FM was mostly staffed with volunteers.  The sports-scores-man reliably reported.  The newspaper filled in the details. 

I looked at the scores in this morning's papers.  I thought of the sports-scores-man.  Listening years ago, I usually could tell which sport generated the scores: 2 to 1, probably hockey; 7 to 5, baseball; 14 to 10, football.  Yesterday's college football contests were a rout for the losers.  The top ten teams won their games by an average spread of 34.33 points.  Boise State beat Fresno State 50 to 7.  In the top 25 contests, the average spread was 24.75.  Where were the squeakers?  The games that kept fans glued to their seats, hearts pumping, cheers and waves rolling? Did the cheer leaders keep their pace?  Did the bands roll a crescendo to urge on the side?  Or did the crowd thin, drawn to the tailgates or frat houses, or home to rake leaves?  Its not much fun to watch a rout. 

Heaven's Gate?

Perhaps you noticed the award of the Nobel Prize in physics.  It has left me scratching my head.  The prize was awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae".  You can read the details on the Nobel website.  Words are important.  The award citation which is quoted above speaks of the "accelerating expansion" of the Universe.  The science reporter for the Washington Post, BrianVastag, was apparently confused.  In his article today he offers these summaries of the citation: "...for showing that the universe is flying apart..."; "..as galaxies continue to pull apart from one another..."; "... how fast the stars...were racing away from the Earth..."; "...the universe's inflation was speeding up..."; and finally, "...mysterious anti-gravitational force must be pushing the universe...".  Well. Pushing?  Pulling? Inflating?  I learned from his article that scientists have calculated the mass of the universe.  Whether it is pulled or pushed, where is it going?  If the universe as we know it is flying away to someplace else, where is that place?  One of the winning scientists comments that these are very philosophical questions.  I'm not sure if it is an advantage or disadvantage to understand their work.  You can accept the Nobel winning calculation that the result of the accelerating expansion will be a black and cold end.  Or you can believe that this is all part of a greater design that is beyond human comprehension.  Your choice.