Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Here's one I'm not sure how I feel about. Help me wrestle with this one, y'all.

On soc.religion.christian, John Sparks wrote:

But, evil doesn't exist as a thing. It is basically a privation of good. Like cold is of heat. Heat is a measurable 'thing' it is energy and is measured by molecular activity. Zero Kelvin is the absence of all heat. Cold is not a thing in itself. It is a way to negatively measure heat, or compare a less active state to a more active state. Evil is the same thing with respect to Good. It has no "purpose". To say something or someone is "evil" is to measure them against a higher form of good, or ultimately an absolute standard of "good" - which is God. Compared to Hitler, David Koresh could be said to be "good" - but compared to God, we are all "evil"

Not feeling well, spending a bunch of time lying down out of reach of the computer. Been vertical enough to peek at responses to today's QotD, and am finding the insights useful but have not had the energy+concentration to comment on the comments yet. Maybe this evening, I hope. More to say, but want to go lie down again now.

I was just upstairs lasering the cat, and I realized something "seemed wrong" behind me. So I looked out the window and saw, at the traffic light, a jumble of vehicles. They were arranged as one would ordinarily only see them after an accident, but there had been no sound of impact and I saw no damage. Then I noticed that two young men in white T-shirts seemed to be at the mercy of the handful of young men in dark blue T-shirts ... and one of the blue shirts said "POLICE" in white letters and the rest said "Auto Theft Task Force" in yellow letters on the backs. (only one of the cops looked significantly older than the thieves.)

Only then did I notice that the blue and grey SUVs and the green pickup truck surrounding the expensive-looking white sedan had huge block numbers on the roofs -- to make it easier to coordinate pinch maneuvers from helicopter, I presume.

I had no idea the Baltimore Police were doing something so effective regarding auto theft. (Come to think of it, I only guessed that they're Baltimore cops because I'm in Baltimore ... do the State Police operate within the city at all?) Note that this is the same city that couldn't find my mother's car in its own impound lot for several days after I reported it stolen a couple of years ago -- the weather did more damage to it (windows down, rainstorms) than the thieves did. While I watched, the two guys in white were handcuffed and led to one of the police vehicles, and one of the officers moved an SUV so that traffic backed up on Lombard St. could get past. I found myself pondering how awful it must feel to be bundled off in handcuffs like that (so very different from more entertaining bedroom uses of such devices), glad that I don't indulge in auto theft as either profession or hobby, hopeful at the sight of the local police being so effective, and just a wee bit bitter over how little help the police have been to me when things have been stolen from me.

Hmm. Still feeling tired and dizzy. Also feeling twitchy. Was thinking, "I want to hit something, but it's too late at night." Then I remembered I've got a practice pad for one of my snare drums. Let's see whether that's satisfying enough to take care of this feeling.

More and more often I lust after electronic drums (i.e. a set of percussion MIDI triggers and a drum synth, laid out like a conventional drum kit). Not in the budget; not gonna be in the budget for a long time; I don't even play drums often enough to justify it as anything other than "a toy I want" -- it'd come in handy, yeah, but not often.

There's something viscerally satisfying about pounding the skins (and hitting drum triggers into a synth into headphones would suffice), just as there's something similarly satisfying about the feeling testing your sword arm against someone of comparable skill, or (and this has been a looooong time ago now) that perfect sliding tackle to take the ball from an opposing forward (I was a fullback). My main instrument, by a ridiculously huge margin, is guitar, but playing guitar well, loudly, and fast, while satisfying on a primal level, is a different satisfaction than that from a pair of sticks and a kick-pedal.

Edit at 23:50 -- Nope, the practice pad is quite useful for practice (it doesn't bounce quite right, but close enough to be useful for working on technique) but it's no good for the "I want to hit something" urge. I need the noise. Headphones would do. Feeling the shock waves bouncing back off the wall would be better. Oh well, I'll rat-a-tat-tat on the snare drum just enough to quell the urge in the morning and try to ignore it tonight.