Changing Our View

Eclipsing our differences (WSJ image)

For time immemorial our species has stood in awe of nature. And that emotion, psychologists aver, affects behavior toward others:

A new paper in the journal Psychological Science, by Sean Goldy, Nickolas Jones and Paul Piff at the University of California, Irvine, suggests there is at least one psychological way that celestial events can indeed influence us. When people gaze up at an awesome sight like an eclipse, the researchers conclude, they become more humble and caring when they look down at their Twitter feed.

The researchers took off from earlier studies that Dr. Piff did with Dacher Keltner and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. In one study, people were shown videos of earthbound awe-inspiring sights like a towering tree, a sublime landscape or an erupting volcano. Afterwards they felt less significant themselves and more caring toward others.

In another study, researchers placed students in front of either the majestic Berkeley Eucalyptus Grove or a tall but boring campus building. A confederate then came by and dropped a bunch of pens on the ground, apparently by accident. The awe-struck students in the grove put more effort into helpfully collecting the dropped pens than did the students by the mundane building.

December, 1972: Apollo 17's "Blue Marble"

Additional support for the Awe => Humility => Caring connection came from a comparison of millions of tweets from those who were in the path of an eclipse and those who were not.

they also used more words expressing social connection, like “care” “love” and “thanks,” and they expressed more humility and tentativeness, saying “maybe” or “perhaps.”

The second age of space travel does not seem to be as marred with criticism as space travel was during the Sixties. As mankind slips the surly bonds of earth and explores the wondrous, dangerous, and awe-ful universe, perhaps human beings will be prompted to set aside their differences and be more aware of how much they have in common with each other.

Moon over Foster City

There are high-res close-ups of this morning's super-blood-flower moon, and you won't find them here, dear reader.

I woke at 4:15 a.m. and snapped this photo of the moon over a neighbor's house. He has more lights on than normal. Perhaps he's gazing up, too.

Blue Moon, You Saw Me Standing Alone

iPhone 6 pic from our backyard in Foster City

Like some of our neighbors, we woke up at 5:15 AM to check out the "super blue blood lunar eclipse".

The viewing of the super moon was anticlimactic. Like other events in life, IMHO, it was over-hyped.

But that's what I also thought about last August's solar eclipse until people who saw it live assured me that it was special.

Let's hope the surprises in astronomy continue to be good.

"Moon over the City" (SF Chronicle) beats "Moon over my backyard"

Disappointed in the Eclipse (Doughnuts)

While over a million people are spending thousands of dollars apiece to see a total solar eclipse that will last 2½ minutes, I celebrated by spending $12 on a dozen "Eclipse" doughnuts from Krispy Kreme.

For several hours a day this weekend Krispy Kreme is serving its popular "Hot" doughnuts with chocolate instead of regular glaze. (Light turned to dark---how clever.)

We like chocolate, and we like regular hot-glazed, but somehow the combination was inferior to either. At least our experience will last several hours rather than a couple of minutes. We were disappointed, but not as underwhelmed, I suspect, as some of our fellow citizens will be later today.

Just like #Eclipse2017, blink and you'll miss #ChocolateGlaze. Full schedule details: https://t.co/LOLi61V1SL (US/CAN) pic.twitter.com/tUTXRrb6Hs

— krispykreme (@krispykreme) August 19, 2017

Where the Sun Doesn't Shine

One friend is going to Shoshoni, WY but he won't stay for
the antique tractor show.

We know at least three different parties who are going to see the total solar eclipse on Monday. Our friends and relatives will be heading to small towns in Oregon and Wyoming (Nashville is the only major city in the eclipse path) and roughing it with possibly no GPS, cellphone service, or credit cards (terminals may be down).

Community officials are trying to get visitors prepared. Ms. Hammon, the Idaho Falls spokeswoman, said eclipse-watchers should prepare for traffic delays and bring food, water, medications—and even paper maps because of expected spotty cell service because the area’s reception will be taxed by the crowds.

Rental fees for cars, hotel rooms, and even portable toilets have skyrocketed.

Thousands of dollars will be spent per eclipse-watcher, and your humble blogger can think of only one other 2½-minute experience that could command those prices, but this is a family blog.

As for me, at the same time I'll be headed away from the noise and haste over the Pacific to visit family in the old hometown.

Astronomical Privilege

Boston Globe: The solar eclipse path will overwhelmingly pass over Trump Country

The path of ideal viewing spots for this month’s highly-anticipated total solar eclipse cuts overwhelmingly through places that voted for President Trump in November.

There are about 240 counties roughly along the central path of the eclipse, a 70-mile-wide trail extending across the country where people will be able to see a total eclipse, meaning the sun will appear completely obscured by the moon.

And about 92 percent of those counties swung in Trump’s favor, while fewer than two dozen counties voted for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Trump won many of those counties by a wide margin, securing an average of 71 percent of the vote in counties he won along the path. Clinton, by comparison, got only about 56 percent of the vote in counties she won along the eclipse path.

And of the more than 6.2 million votes cast in those counties for one of those two candidates, 59 percent were for Trump, while 41 percent were for Clinton.

Is the solar eclipse throwing shade at Hillary Clinton supporters? https://t.co/h4aXugEGDA pic.twitter.com/pYMEmsvq1m

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) August 2, 2017