For Small Creatures Such As We, The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love.

In Defense of Holden Caulfield

I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever understand why exactly people hate Holden Caulfield from “The Catcher in the Rye”.

I mean, sure, you could defend your dislike with a classic gem such as, “Oh, he’s just a whiny, pretentious f***boy! He’s so boring, all he does is complain!”

But at that I’m just like

okay, wow, I’m sorry the incredibly depressed mentally ill teenager who has no true friends and is constantly being ignored by the people he tries to reach out to and is constantly being told he’s useless and a bad influence by his peers and has alluded to being sexually molested by multiple people as a little kid and has to deal with the pain and hardship of growing up in a world he can’t help but see as superficial and hypocritical and WHOSE CLASSMATE FRICKIN’ COMMITTED SUICIDE IN FRONT OF HIM isn’t a conventionally cheerful or likeable protagonist????

I don’t understand why that’s so hard for people to grasp; it just straight up BAFFLES me. I mean, people eke out all sorts of ways to like downright villains like Alex (DeLarge) or Loki or Ramsay Snow/Bolton, or antiheros like Jaime/Cersei Lannister, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

Why is it so hard to dole out a little sympathy for Holden, who, ultimately, just wants to protect children from the evils of the world—arguably one of the noblest and most heartbreakingly tender aspirations of all?

Weil die Nacht im Sterben lag verkünden wir den jüngsten Tag es wird kein Erbarmen geben lauft, lauft, lauft, LAUFT, LAUFT, LAUFT, UM EUER LEBEN!!!!

Rammstein, “Der Meister,” Herzeleid, 1995

Neil deGrasse Tyson slams rapper B.o.B for his flat-Earth theory. Watch the mic drop heard ’round the world.

“Perhaps Carl Sagan’s life’s work is just now bearing new fruit. He inspired enough of the Earth’s citizens to take our place in space seriously; to know and appreciate the fragility of our world; that we have so far avoided a nuclear weapon war; that we started thinking about the climate of Mars and especially the climate of Venus as compared with the climate of Earth; that his landmark television series is being updated and broadcast in new generations. There are more science websites today than ever in history; more science interest than in the last 30 years. Perhaps this new fruit will help us - dare I say it - change the world. Perhaps we’ve begun a new enlightened era of scientific discovery that will soon include people from everywhere. Although it has taken decades, Carl Sagan may yet save the world as we know it.” – Bill Nye The Science Guy speaking at The Library of Congress during ‘A Celebration of Carl Sagan’ to celebrate the official opening of the Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive to the public at the Library of Congress. [x]

I always thought it was weird that the GeoComTex employees in this episode wore the American flag on the wrong shoulder considering the star placement.

Five Episodes: Dalek

A genius named Eleanor Lutz made a beautiful map of one interesting slice of Mars (based on this USGS map). She says:

Recently I’ve been really into old maps made by medieval explorers. I thought it would be fun to use their historical design style to illustrate our current adventures into unexplored territory. So here’s my hand-drawn topographic map of Mars, complete with official landmark names and rover landing sites.

Not only is it beautiful to look out - it’s fun to explore. I never new that Mars’ small craters are officially named after small earth towns - here, Lutz labels them and (in caps) indicates their home country on earth. The large craters bear the names of famous scientists.

I highly recommend heading over to http://tabletopwhale.com/ to check out the higher resolution version.

The Big Bang Theory Merchandise: http://bit.ly/1aAdDNX