Another Day, Another Crackpot theory

Well, many of you know that since I read Desmond Morris' "The Naked Ape" I have been completely enamored with the "Water Ape" Theory.

This theory states that we humans, during that time when we were apes, descended from the trees, and then, instead of walking on the savannah, we got into the water... The theory has some very good points... the most damning of the points being that humans can swim immediately after birth, but can't walk... much less take care of themselves on land for more than 2 years. Humans also have hair like a seal all over their bodies (very tiny except in key places). And fat that is distributed under the skin, like a whale or a seal, not around the internal organs like an ape. Also... we are the only primates that can control our breathing... the other primates, they drown in water. In fact, very few animals can control their breathing... the vast majority of the animals that can... live in the water.

And, of course, it has been disputed by science not because it's a bad theory, but because the woman who came up with it was a crackpot.

So, for 40 years, the standing theory in science is that humans were apes in trees, then one day they climbed down, lost their hair, stood upright, started to control their breathing, had babies that couldn't even run from predators, got amazing dexterity control, and were humans... no reason for these changes... they just were.

...And then Science goes off to laugh at the Christian Creation theories...

You may also know my absolute hatred for the "Pangaea" Theory (For those not in the know, Pangaea is the theory that all the continents were once fitted together into a "Supercontinent" called "Pangaea" which lived on the left side of the planet). My problem being that things in space form (Roughly) spheres... not spheres with a big lump on the left side... Pangaea was a violation of the general laws of gravity and the nature of space...

But last night I was led to an answer to Pangaea that I could believe in...

http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/81096/detail/

The theory was first put forth (Like the Water Ape theory) in the 60's by a fellow named S. Warren Carey.

Here's the theory; the Earth has been growing since the creation. The continents were all once connected... but they were all connected together... the planet had no oceans (That's not true, but the oceans were in a different place... inland).

The video talks a little about how this theory works, and it should be noted that I really don't buy the timeline...

But put in a larger timeline, and fitted with a modified (Heavily) creation model, I think I like it better than any other Creation Earth model I have experienced (Isn't that arrogant? Erm... please take that in the manor of which I meant it :D);

Here we go:

Starting with the "Cooling Disk" theory of creation, we lived in a Birthing Nebula, like the one in the Belt of Orion. Inside this nebula, a disk of material formed, spinning around a central point. This point will ultimately become the sun... for now, though, it is just a disk-y mass.

Five distinct masses begin to separate themselves in the disk, the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, along with a whole mess of smaller pieces of material which has no home.

At this time, the sun is huge, and not quite making nuclear fusion really well, but it has a lot of mass, so the other four planets orbit it... Jupiter orbits really close to the Suns' surface.

Time passes, and the Sun shrinks, putting a lot of pressure on the materials inside it, which then pass the Coulomb barrier (The point where the electrostatic force that keeps atoms away from each other is overcome). The sun then goes "live" and lights up, making a solar system of four planets and a whole bunch of junk.

The junk starts to fall toward the sun and towards Jupiter... and gravity forces them to form a "Ring" around the sun akin to Saturn’s rings. The rings form 4 distinct bands, An "A" Ring, which is thin from being swept into the sun, a "B" and "C" ring, which, separated by a gap, are rich with the junk at the center of the system, and a "D" ring, of which material is constantly falling into Jupiter.

Time passes, and inside the rings, the rocks are forming planets... small ones at first... probably started by a large asteroid which, being the biggest thing in the ring, starts to sweep up the rest of the ring during its orbit of the sun. Before long (Galactically speaking), the rings disappear, leaving four planets; Planet "A" is small, most of the material being swept into the sun, Planets B and C are the same size, being part of the inner rings, not stolen from... planet D is also small, having its ring material being stolen by Jupiter... but Jupiter is smaller than the Sun, so the D is not as tiny as A.

Pressure on that initial asteroid that formed these planets, becomes intense... and deep within these planets cores, the rocks too pass the Coulomb barrier and become molten, heating up the mass of rock from the inside... And when something heats up, it expands.

All four of these little planets then begin to expand... ice and gasses that were part of the ring of matter that is now a planet start to boil to the surface, heavier metals start to sink to the core. This is a great sifting process for the planets. Soon you have all kinds of interesting layers of material; heavy metals at the core, light metals on the surface, mixed with heavy liquids, and then gasses on top of all of that... Poof, you have a living breathing planet...

But more telling than that is the fact that the crust has been expanding, like a cookie in the oven, the crust has cracked and popped apart, allowing new crust to form underneath it. The new crust (Like those on your cookie in the oven) is deeper into the planet... the planet, having an atmosphere, prevents what little junk is left in the system from filling those holes... so they remain, like wounds... Water fills the holes on Earth and Mars...

Time passes again, and now you have life forming on Earth and maybe elsewhere, but the four planets are still, slowly, expanding... but Mercury runs out of space inside it... the atoms pass back through the Coulomb barrier, and Mercury's core goes cold. A little while later, Mars, also being on the smallish side, follows suit, losing it's ocean and it's atmosphere, neither one being replenished from the boiling gasses in the crust. Earth and Venus, though, are larger, and still have some growing to go... so they haven't gone cold yet.

This theory intrigues me... and, like the water ape theory before it, it was abandoned in the 70's by science... even though (As the video shows with the ages of the ocean floor) it does seem that newer science is supporting this theory (the plates on the planet are moving away from the Atlantic and the Pacific... not just the Atlantic as Pangaea maintains... it's hard to have a supercontinent that lived in one place but came from two places).... There doesn't seem to be a reason for this abandonment... it just was... and now we teach Pangaea... Which violates the laws of nature...

The Japanese have nothing on Science for being stubborn about something even when all the evidence points away from the theory.

Hmm...

---Me

FREEDOM!!!

Because I know many of you don't watch Japanese Animation I generally don't post about it...

However, I did get a degree in Animation, so I do enjoy watching said animation...

And sometimes one thing just completely startles me...

This one thing is Otomo Katsuhiro's new project called the "Freedom Project". Six Direct-to-video (Which in Japan doesn't mean "Relly Bad" like it does in America) animations sponsored by Nissin Cup-of-noodles (Which shows up a lot in the Anime, sometimes with rather humorous results).

Other than the fact that the opening song is voiced by Utada Hikaru (One of my favorite singers), the animation was so stunning I literally stopped talking to Maia on the phone to stare, open mouthed, at the anime...

Otomo Katsuhiro is best known for the anime "Akira", which is one of the landmark Anime's in the history of the Genre. The animation in that was so groundbreaking that, in 1989 when it came out, many Americans suddenly sat up and took notice of this little niche market called "Anime"...

He's out to do it again.

Freedom Project takes place on the Moon, about 300 years in the future. A disaster befell the Earth and killed everyone but the folks on the (then) fledgling moon colony... so the only survivors of the Human race live on the moon.

That was then, this is now.

Now, the main charcters live in a thriving moon colony where they race really nifty motorcycles (Think Tetsuo's bike from Akira, except with SW Episode One's variations and sound effects). I won't give away too much of the plot, but it has me hooked... I can see why it has been rented out every time I went to the video store for the last three months...

The animation is, mostly, 3D... but the only reason I can tell is that they still have "Drift" (As in the movements are a little too fluid, the head moves to the left and drifts back to the right a little. One of the little telltales of 3D animation... and something that is really hard to detect). But the 3D models are perfect... they look hand-drawn! There are still shots (Where the crowd is watching the bikes prepare for racing, so nothing is moving...) which are obviously hand-drawn, but the animation... is 3D... and it merges seemlessly! I was having a hard time seeing the switch... (In fact, I'm still not sure where the switch really was!)...

The thing that I loved most, though, was the opening credits (Again, not just because of Hikki's song), there are shots of the bikes racing in the "Racing Tubes" which are rendered as if they are from the Manga (Comic Book)... complete with ziptoning! (The black dots that comics use to simulate gray values so that they can print it... if you have ever photocopied somthing that was drawn in pencil, you'll understand what I mean. Ziptoning prevents that "Blotted black" look that you get when printing a page). The bikes squeal around corners and there are little floating "KI! KI! KI! KI! KI! KI"s (The Japanese sound for squealing tires in a comic) that drift by the skidding bikes! It's absolutely gorgeous!

If it wasn't $60 for each 30 minute disk (USED, no less)... I'd own the whole lot... as it is, I'll have to just rent them, watch them, then wait until I get home and buy it there...

Ironically, Anime is one commodity that Japan knows it has and prices accordingly... I have rarely found any Anime for less that $20... new OR used. Most new DVD's are $70-$100. Now I only buy Anime I know I can't get in the US... I bought Macross the movie, which is 25 years old (And completely unavailble in the US), used for $70... because I had no other choice. It sold new at $75, and resold at $70... that's the way it is... And the only extras on the disk are 4 television commercials from the original movie release in 1984...

So, if you folks are looking at buying Star Trek: Remastered and are complaining about the $140 price tag for 20 hours of television... keep in mind that Anime is roughly $100 per each hour over here...

---Impressed with "Freedom Project"

Copycats

So, now the girl that tried to committ suicide is resting at home...

meanwhile, back at school, there are a rash of second year girls (Including a few that I know pretty well), that have decided to cut their wrists too...

Insane.

Of course, they are copycats, and these wounds are superficial... but still... they are cutting themselves...

The second year teachers have been in a long string of emergency meetings.

The entire second grade is flying out of control.

I can understand it, though... the original girl got a lot of attention for her attempt... for a teenager, attention is like crack cocaine...

The worst part about it is that these girls are sorta doing it because it is fashionable... I've noticed my kids are wearing many more band-aids these days (As opposed to two months ago). It seems like a third of my school has suffered some injury...

They just can't do things in half-measures, can they?

---Disturbed slightly...

And the terror spreads.

So the terrorists have claimed yet another victim; Japan.

Starting on November 20, Japan will institute a new procedure whereby they fingerprint and photograph every foreigner who enters Japan.

Any foreigner... even those of us that live here and are returning. when Maia goes home to visit, she will have to wait in long, unhappy lines of foreigners when she returns to Narita who must all be herded into a room, fingerprinted, photographed and released after a computer check in immigration.

The truth is; of course, we aren't the problem... it's the terrorists whom they can't catch with fingerprints and photographs that are the issue... because the only terrorist attacks Japan has ever had were Japanese... And they aren't fingerprinting and photographing the Japanese... That would cause a riot here... The Japanese see fingerprinting as something one only does to criminals...

Which, I guess, would be us... the foreigners... Gads, no one thought about how we, residents here, would feel about that... especially if we were sensitive enough to this culture that we actually agree with that sentiment (fingerprinting=criminal)...

I left America, where I was Guilty until proven Innocent, and came to Japan, where I was Innocent until proven Guilty... but now, due to Mister Osama, I have found myself, once again, Guilty...

See, really what has occured is that the US, freaking out about 9/11, has given Japan permission to give in to their xenophobia and let their inner fear out... all in the name of Anti-Terrorism. Al Queda isn't going to get caught by a fingerprint and photograph scan... That's the saddest part; If they ever target Japan, it'll happen, and then Japan'll realize they had the terrorists' fingerprints and photographs all along, sitting in a database somewhere... but that didn't stop them... Then they'll decide that they need to move to the next step... whatever that would be (Having not had an opportunity to proove my innocence to anyone yet... I'm hoping I'm not here to be among the Guilty). So now terrorism is a great excuse to do anything to anyone... Well damn, people! Whose next? Will Iran claim that destorying Israel is a valid operation because it is stopping terrorism? Horrifyingly enough; that thought process would make more sense than attacking Iraq to stop the terrorists in Saudi Arabia... From Iran's point of view, Israel really is a terrorist nation... They'd have proof that could even stand up in court. Better proof than the U.S. did.

We have all, as a civilized world, taken one step backward. We let the terrorists win, and we are all too blinded by fear to see it.

---Disappointed

A strange, but important, milestone...

Some of you folks know this about me, others don't, depending on what time period in my life you knew me... but I draw comics as a hobby... Not the funny Haha kind (Though I have done that in the past as well), but the Superman kind -30 page comic book-thingies.

I started in 1995 with a comic called "Dokuko's Angel" which I wrote, 5 pages at a time, for a Japanese Anime magazine that the local fan club put together (Not professional in any way). I drew about 18-some pages (with a couple of inserts to make it 20... but the actual pages I wrote were 18) before I grew bored of it and quit.

later, in 1999, I used those pages to send portfolio packets to comic book companies... of which I received a few rejections, but mostly no response at all...

Except one little British company which wanted me to write a 20-page short for their little Anime magazine...

I wrote "Letters Home" as a 20 page short in 2000... It was a war story set way in the future. I had based the characters on the people in my workplace at the time, and it came out okay.

But I never wrote an issue two.

In 2001, the British company asked for another Letters Home, but it was right after 9/11 and I didn't really think it appropriate to do the second episode (The story was about a surprise attack on Jupiter... or humans)... so instead I wrote "Legend of Innocence", a Retro Sci/Fi... sorta a Science Fiction written from 1890's POV: Space Ships have sails, Mars is red because of red plants, you can breathe in space, etc... I wrote 20 pages on that story as well.

But again, there was never a part 2...

Well, it has turned out that Comic writing is my peraonal Discipline Barometer. I don't really write them to be published, I kinda did a half-assed attempt at that in the 90's... I really write them because I enjoy doing it...

But I have a real problem passing 20 pages...

When I got here, I took a different tack; I decided to write a story based in a very established world, Star Trek. I wrote "By Her Reason Swayed", which was a 18-page short story which made the circulation of fan websites and was generally well received.

I relaxed, I didn't panic when I completed BHRS but I decided this was going to be the end of this do-one-thing-a-little-and-move-on thing... I was going to do a full "episode" of this Star Trek thing... Not for the Star Trek part... but to prove that I could do more than 20 pages. So, in January, I started writing a script... and then ran out of steam... I put "Tamerlane" on the shelf.

That was stupid, I know it... I got my head screwed on straight and then in August, I picked up the pieces of Tamerlane, refubished the script, and began work on it again...

A couple of weeks ago, I started drawing "The Champion", the first "episode" of the Tamerlane comic... I put pen to paper.

This is the "Splash" page at page 21 (Not 20 of the first comic, page 21 of this new comic). I completed it just after penning pages 2-5 (Scene one).

This is important because now there are, technically, 23 pages of Tamerlane.

I have broken the 20-page-barrier, something that has haunted me since 1995...

---Gleeful. :D

P.S. If anyone is interested in reading "By Her Reason Swayed", or see "The Champion" when I finish it in a couple of months (Hopefully...), I made a forum for my little comic over at: http://www.usstamerlane.com Just click on the picture and look in the first forum marked "Episodes"... It's the "Omake" (Omake being Japanese for "Special" or "Extra"... it's not a main-story event... it's a side-story). If you register in the forum, I have to approve you (Because forums are the new place for spammers, and they automatically register, post pornographic pictures all over the forum and are really nasty... so now I have to manually approve everyone)... anyway, if you register (And I would love it if you did!), please put "Star Trek" at the very first place in the interests field so that when I purge the user database of the spam bots I can see who is a real "Human" and who isn't... (If you want to know why I do this, look at the member list... there are 10 real members at my site now... everyone else is an automated bot... and I purged that list 10 days ago). I'll try to approve folks quickly, but I don't check Tamerlane every day anymore (I have had the site up for two months, and only 10 real people have registered... but more than 1,500 spam bots have registered... I really just don't get excited anymore about "You have a new registeree at your forum!" messages...)

Another day...

I don't often talk about the people in my Kyudo dojo... I don't know why... It seems that they are everyday people doing everyday things.

Even if that is everyday Japanese things, it is still everyday things...

Last night an everyday thing occured that I wish wasn't everyday.

A while back, one of the members of my dojo got married. The woman he was marrying was pregnant with their child, and so he got all organized and went through a long-arduous process of preparing for, and having an elaborate Japanese wedding.

Of course, the dojo (Sans me... I'll explain why later), went to the wedding.

At the wedding, this Fellow performed a Kyudo firing procedure, and I believe Sensei did as well... Certainly Sensei joined in and was a very big part of this wedding. The Fellow is a beloved member of our dojo, and one that Sensei picks on mercilessly.

When the little boy was born, the Fellow and his new wife brought him into the dojo with all of us and officially declared Sensei as the Godfather of the child (There was even paperwork...). Something that made Sensei's entire week.

The little boy died Wednesday night from SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Which people still know so very little about, and there is nothing that can be done.

And is... in a very sad sort of way, an everyday occurance on this planet.

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