SAVED - some things should be - some things shouldn't be...

You know it's bad when you have an urge to reintroduce yourself to your own blog because it's been so long...

I have lost a part of myself for a time - which makes me incredibly sad. Because that part I lost for a time was the writer in me. My confidence in my writing took a hard hit in the last couple of years - but it shouldn't have. First - because one rude critique from a friend who then proved they weren't a friend anyway shouldn't overwhelm the comments I've received from even strangers who have enjoyed my writing. But more importantly? I need to write for me. Not for anybody else - and not for accolades or critiques or even publication - I simply need to write. I'm healthier all the way around when I write - and I have lost it for a time. Sad? Because I can't recapture what I might have written - I can only go forward. Writing is something that should be saved.

Random thoughts. Sometimes they should be saved. Some amuse me years later - so they're worth writing down. The first is one that I have espoused before - maybe even in this blog - but since I have no rule that I have to be original - ya'll will have to hear it again! :) DD and I watched a show on UFO's tonight. Nonsense entertainment. I'm not a believer in extra-terrestrials - though the existence of life elsewhere wouldn't bother me either - my God is big enough for that! But these 'documentary' shows where the narrator stupidly asks questions like 'are UFO's real?' just drive me nuts. Of course they're real!! Duh!! A UFO is - by definition - an unidentified flying object. If somebody saw something flying - an object - and doesn't know what it was - then it is unidentified and thus is a UFO (an UFO??). Ugh. The dumbing down of American culture and language just irritates me sometimes. I'd like to throw an identified object at some of these documentary 'journalists' (title used oh so loosely) sometime when they're not looking and when they do the 'huh - what was that?' I can then yell 'that was a UFO, idiot!'. So Christian of me.

While I was still in mid thought-rant about UFO's - a commercial for some new show comes on. An hourly show I think. The premise is that the star has short term memory loss. His wife has died - and that's the last thing he remembers - his wife dying. And he's trying to find answers to that - and so goes around investigating - and explaining to everybody he meets - repeatedly - that he has a condition that has caused short term memory loss and he is unable to create new memories. That even a long conversation may lead to him forgetting what the beginning of the conversation was about or who he is talking to. So. I have a question. How the heck does he know he has a short term memory condition if he is unable to create new memories? Seems to me that's not plausible. Wouldn't he have to be continually told that he has a short term memory condition? Again - if the audience is dumbed down enough - anything will work. Now don't get me wrong - I love a good stupid entertainment-only television show or comedy movie. Love it! I watch some reality tv and just laugh and am thankful that I haven't ever been bit by the 15 minute fame bug. But I expect those shows to be dumb and filled with dumb people. But a documentary - I expect it to not be dumb - or dumbed down for a dumb American audience. And if it's a serious television drama - get the background right. Yes - it irritates me in books too. Even dinosaurs being alive somewhere on earth again was plausible when Michael Crichton (what a loss - great author!) - explained the process in depth of taking dinosaur DNA from an insect that had bit the dinosaur and thus had dinosaur blood in it's innards and then was trapped in resin that became amber. Dumb shows that think they're smart are - dumb. And they shouldn't be saved.

On the other hand - The Denver Museum of Natural History should have been saved - and now it's too late. Perhaps there wasn't even an effort to save it - perhaps I'm in a 1% minority - but it should have been saved. It's spring break and we didn't travel out of state this week - but instead have been doing activities in the area. Yesterday it was the museum. I knew that it had been re-named the Denver Museum of Nature and Science - but what I didn't realize is that the original museum is lost and gone. I remember going to the museum as a child and it was such a fascinating place. Marble staircases with brass decoratively scrolled railings climbed twelve feet up to the second floor - and then another twelve feet to the third floor. The place reeked of history - of time - of old things worth saving. The butterfly room was one of my favorites - as well as the gems and minerals - but the massive dinosaur that greeted you when you walked in the building was impressive as well. The planetarium was a cool new feature - but had been incorporated in such a way that it didn't take away from the museum. There was a place to eat downstairs - and realizing that this huge building had a huge downstairs filled with 'who knows what' just added to the mystique. Now - this new DMNS is a modern ugly monstrosity inside with lime green walls and escalators. And outside - it's just another concrete and glass piece of ugly. I saw a piece of the railing that had been preserved - along with it's gorgeous stained and polished wood top railing - stuck in a corner of one of the wild life exhibit corridors. Thank goodness those areas still have the beautiful high beamed ceilings and corniced/crown-moulding-rich details. But the beautiful brick has been covered with that invention of sheetrock - the stairs completely removed - and all I can ask is WHY? I understand adding elevators. I understand creating exhibits that are exciting for today's jaundiced youth who need color - movement - lights for anything to be real to them. But why ruin the history of a museum? It just astounds me. And then while sitting and waiting for part of our group to finish in an area - I see a sign that there is now funding available to re-do a particular section that is only 20 years old! Seriously? Perhaps that money could be used for something a bit more responsible than redoing a 20 year old - I mean young - section of a museum? I smell earmarks. That museum should have been saved. And I think they know it. Because a small exhibit on the main floor showed the history of the museum itself and had a request to the public for photos of the interior of the museum as it used to be. Guess they didn't think to preserve that piece of history. Idiots.

1948 (over 40 years old then):












Modern ugliness:













Interior Disney World look:
















Style of the old interior (the only pic I could find!):







Guess I'll have to visit the National or New York Natural History museums. Apparently history is more important on the east coast. For now. Hopefully this doesn't become a trend - can you imagine the Louvre being turned into a concrete and glass monstrosity?? mmmm - maybe we owe the French a lot more respect - they know how to save.

Speaking of the museum - there is one more thing that should be saved that I must note before I close. Truth in science. Now I absolutely expect when I go to a museum that I am going to be hearing the theory of evolution. And I have absolutely no problem with my children being subjected to learning this theory even though I believe, personally, in a world created by God - a God capable of creating evolution as well - but certainly not a 'something from nothing' primordial ooze theory. But I object strenuously when a theory (and that is all it is - unless something has happened in the last few days that I haven't seen on the news and there is now scientific proof in the form of re-creatable experimentation that results in ooze creating cells all on its own - in which case I must begin worrying about the ooze in the bottom of my greenhouses) is put forth as fact. Not once in any display or presentation at the museum was it referred to as the theory of evolution. And yet - if I wanted to espouse creationism in public - that would need to be espoused as the theory of creationism - yes? When have scientists become so afraid of their own rules and refuse to follow scientific theory principles? In my usual wallflower tongue-tied personality - when the presentation was being made in person to my kids and their friends who were with us that - 'this chart shows the evolution of man from primate' I merely stepped in with the observation of "Well it is a theory, now, isn't it! I always wonder whether this all amuses God?" - delivered of course with a large smile. The volunteer nervously moved right on to a display of mammoth teeth. Truth - and the pursuing of truth even when it means following good scientific principles of acknowledging that a theory is only that - yes - truth should be saved.

Save something worth saving today.