Guestblogger: David Kreutz

So if the world is about 6,000 years old, how do fundamentalists explain dinosaur fossils? Is it that they were placed there by God as a test of faith? Well according to Rusty Carter of Littleton, CO based Biblically Correct Tours they were created on the sixth day, rode (as babies) on the Ark, although most were fossilized during the flood, and died off due to overhunting and/or climate change. The group offers private tours at The Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Not to be outdone however, a group of atheists have decided to sue the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, claiming that the three crosses in the cities logo are violating their constitutional rights and constituting an establishment of religion by the state. For those who don’t speak Spanish, Las Cruces means The Crosses.

(In case y’all hadn’t noticed that on the countdown thingy at left.)

If Harriet Miers is appointed to the Supreme Court, does that mean Professor Kelley will get promoted to White House Counsel?

This has got to be a relief for the National Hurricane Center forecasters:

But it may not last:

A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE OVER THE CENTRAL CARIBBEAN SEA IS PRODUCING CLOUDINESS AND THUNDERSTORMS OVER JAMAICA… PORTIONS OF HISPANIOLA… AND ADJACENT CARIBBEAN WATERS. THIS SYSTEM CONTINUES TO SHOW SIGNS OF ORGANIZATION… AND UPPER-LEVEL WINDS APPEAR CONDUCIVE FOR A TROPICAL DEPRESSION TO DEVELOP DURING THE NEXT DAY OR SO. AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT IS SCHEDULED TO INVESTIGATE THIS SYSTEM TOMORROW… IF NECESSARY. INTERESTS IN JAMAICA… THE CAYMAN ISLANDS… AND ELSEWHERE IN THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA AND ADJACENT LAND AREAS… SHOULD CLOSELY MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS AS IT MOVES WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT 10 TO 15 MPH.

Dr. Jeff Masters and Steve Gregory have more.

The next name on the list is Stan. After that comes Tammy, Vince, Wilma… and then, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.

Hurricane season continues until Nov. 30.

Is the Supreme Court on the verge of recognizing that McCain-Feingold violates the First Amendment? Could be.

The Red Sox won the first game of their doubleheader with the Blue Jays, so they’re once again tied with the Yankees for the AL East lead. Now both teams are in action, with New York trailing Baltimore and Boston leading Toronto early. After tonight, each team has five games left — the last three of which are against each other at Fenway Park from Friday through Sunday. GO SAWX!!!

P.S. Other important games in progress right now involve the White Sox and the Indians, both losing at the moment. Hurrah!

UPDATE: Boston trails 6-5 in the ninth. Noooo…

The New Orleans police chief has resigned.

Mmm, Starbucks. :) In other news, I swear I saw Dick Enberg in the hotel lobby this morning. P.S. Are Washington lobbyists who work for hotel corporations called the “hotel lobby”? And if so, do people snicker after they say this? :)

Sarah’s mom sent along some more pictures, which I’ve added to the Other people’s pics of Sarah gallery. I particularly like this one, taken in September of last year, which coincidentally was the last time I communicated (via e-mail) with Sarah:

And this one is fun. More here.

Also, if you missed my previous post about it, here is Sarah’s brother’s touching tribute to his beloved sister. And there’s much more, of course, at the memorial page.

At the risk of overly baring my soul… it surprises me, I guess, how much I’m still hurting over this. I keep emphasizing how my grief is nothing compared to Sarah’s family and the friends she was still in close touch with, and that’s true. But at the same time, getting over the totally unexpected and tragic death of someone with whom you were once as close as I was to Sarah is definitely not easy. In some ways, having fallen out of touch makes it worse, because you’ve got regret compounding the grief. Not a fun combination.

Sometimes I close my eyes and I see her, smiling at me. This happened a lot on the plane ride to Phoenix — every time I’d close my eyes to try and sleep, Sarah was there. Other times, I still find myself having these momentary half-conscious thoughts about how somehow, someday, Sarah and I will share a good laugh over all the fuss everyone is making over her, when this whole thing blows over. When this whole thing blows over. Right. Every one of those thoughts leads to an immediate and painful snap back to reality, of course.

I’m not very “good at grieving,” if you will — this is a longstanding fact of my life — so the “grieving process” for me is really an endless back-and-forth between shock/denial and acceptance; I don’t really do any of those pesky intervening steps. Instead, I basically toggle between the two states. When the toggling gets less frequent, I’m doing “better,” and when the toggling stops, I’m okay again. So I guess that’s what happening with those half-conscious thoughts… toggling.

I also find that I can’t listen to happy or upbeat music — my heart isn’t ready for it. When I open my iTunes, I inevitably gravitate to Ars Musica recordings featuring Sarah, or to sad songs like James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and slow, mournful ballads like Sugarland’s “Stand Back Up.” Someday I’ll be able to listen to “Mississippi Girl” or “4th of July” or “Alcohol” (”…helpin’ white people dance”) again… someday soon, probably… but not yet, and that surprises me. I didn’t realize I’d be quite this heartbroken over this.

Honestly, what I wouldn’t give for a good cry. Alas, I haven’t cried once over this. I shook when I was paying my respects to Sarah’s body at the wake… I shook when I was singing “A Welsh Lullaby” to her at the funeral… I felt the beginnings of a tear in my eye a few times during her brother’s eulogy… but a good cry? Nowhere to be found. I never cry over anything. Becky has seen me cry exactly once in the entire time we’ve been together, and that was over a breakup, not a death. Aside from that, I can only recall crying one other time in the last six years (I was with my parents on that occasion), and that was over something really stupid. When it comes to the really big stuff, like death and grieving, I unintentionally bottle up my emotions, intellectualize them, and express them in forums like this… which does help, but not as much, I think, as it would help to just sit down and cry. But for some reason, that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Argh.

I’m not sure how to conclude this post, except to repeat what I said a few days ago in a post that got unexpectedly Instalanched: I miss you, Sarah.

Jeff Goldstein has some unflattering thoughts on the media coverage of Katrina’s aftermath. I’m not endorsing his argument, I just thought it was interesting enough to be worth reading.