Wasn't easy being a planet hunter back in the day *promote

I'm looking for
1 tug
The pull of a planet
1 tell
A wobbling sun
I've searched for years
Haven't found a one
But they're out there

1 jump
In radial redshift
1 slip
Of spectral lines
They'll see if I can show them the sines

Pish tosh
Green men
Take five
Take ten

Just a little cash guys

Budget's tight
Don't fund this trash guys

I can take a hint
Better face the facts
Second-hand'll have to do

Eww
All you planet hunters at the bottom
You've got fact & fantasy entwined
Finding planets except they haven't got one

Well they gotta be forming readily
When you think about it given we've got nine

1 jump
A blip in the spectrum
1 shift of meters per second
1 graph of period power
They laugh but I'm not sour

Here goes
18 months of data
Cross & correlate it
All I gotta do is run

Pish tosh
Green men
Ah don't mind them
If only they'd look closer
Would they see a pure void
No sirree
They'd find out
There's worlds galore
To see

Make way for Pegasi
51 Pegasi

First was a world
Round an old pulsar
That's true
But the news
Is a sun-like star
With wobble
Too quick & precise
To be designed
No fluke not a spot
If you like it hot
You're gonna love this find

Pegasi 51b
Planet discovered
Orbit traced
Every 4 days
Hot as can be
Its order-Jupiter size
Was something of a surprise
Especially given its star's proximity

Pegasi 51b
It's a new era
To detect
Exoplanets
Soon there'll be three
As planet pulls on its Sun
It shifts the stellar spectrum
That's how we found 51b Pegasi

How'd a planet get so close in orbit
Cause I thought you needed ice to form it
Did it later undergo some strange migration
Star too small to be so long-pulsating
And too old to be so quick rotating
Is there any other good interpretation

This will certainly help with our funding

We got your funding
We got your funding

Got a surface of 1200 C

It's treacherous
So treacherous

If in time this new breakthrough feels mundane
Planets are common

That's proof
Of the truth
I've been telling you
This is no mean anomaly

Pegasi 51b
Planet uncovered
Round a far
Main sequence star
Spectral type G
We know its mass to be high
Half Jupiter by sine i

It's 15.61 pc from home
And it shakes our faith in how planets are formed
And its star is in Pegasus
Give it an A and thus
Label the planet as b
51 Pegasi

Plotting Doppler shifts is glacial-pace
And that astrometry never prevails
But baby you're in luck cause
Up in space
You got a planet-finder never fails

You got the power of statistics now
You got a view without an atmosphere
So no more nights spent locked up in your tower
All you gotta do is wait right here
And I say

Kepler the planet-searcher
Got a dip, no 2, no 3
We just measure brightness
Plot it out & that's transiting photometry

When your stars do this
And your curves displace
Then your star's got this
Transiting its face

Then you hit compute
And lookie here

You get good diameter data
From that dip
And orbit distance from the length of year

Well now we need this tale supported by
A ground observer with a good Échelle
We got 2000 planets certified
2000 more that only time will tell

But let's take em all, plot em out
And find out if we're really all alone
Is there a rocky world we've found no doubt
That orbits in the habitable zone
Like home?

Kepler the planet searcher
Got an Earth 452b
Part of a throng
40 billion strong

There ain't never been a field
Clever as the field
There ain't never been a field
Better than the field they call
Exoplanetology

I can show you a world
A shining shimmering planet
Found concealed in the band-shifts
Of the closest star in sight

I've found hope in the skies
And facing wonder I wonder
Could the sine wave discovered be
A planet fit for life

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of blue
Placed in that narrow zone
Where water flows
Midway tween cold & steaming

A whole new world
Its sun a faint, reddish hue
Could there be waiting here
A biosphere
Evolving in this whole new world to view

Fathoming a whole new world to view

Unbelievable find
Indescribable feeling
Earthlings someday revealing
Through directly captured light
A whole new world

Don't just stare from a far

Though nigh impossible to see

Wouldn't close up be bolder

Next to its parent's flair
If life is there
We'll know through atmosphere spectroscopy

A whole new world

Block the glare of the star

A laser starshot to pursue

With a star-shaped occulter

Chasing that crazy dream
That's always been
Of walking in a whole new world with you

a whole new world
That's where we'll be
A thrilling chase
A home in space
For you and me

I listened to my conservative brother grouse about the terrible unions for decades. He is a highly educated, highly skilled ex-military pilot with a masters degree in aerospace engineering.

And then he got his dream job, doing exactly what he wanted on a military contract, teaching Air Force pilots to fly a new plane in a simulator.

He was in hog heaven, making great money doing the thing he loved.

Then he found out that the wages he was getting paid were "low for the area." The "prevailing wage" was much higher.

He was thiiiis close to being the union shop steward.

When I mocked him (I had to, mean come on!!!) about joining a union, he said -- you don't understand. We have some government agency negotiating our contract and they did a crappy job.

Yeah, so, what you are saying is you want to band together and get a better wage? As a group? You want to have some power?

It still cracks me up. The side benefit is -- he can never ever grouse about unions again. Because when it was HIS paycheck, suddenly he got all socialist.

Because it isn't socialism -- it is the height of capitalism, really. Except the "capital" isn't money, it is information and time and skill of the worker.

I do not understand why labor is held as such low regard, while we all bow down to the God of Capital. It is such a one-sided way to look at a complicated, entwined economic system. And as I said above, it will be death of corporations. They need healthy prosperous workers as part of the engine of the economy.

Nothing is perfect in this world. But the vilification of labor is a bad bad thing.

I've noticed that Adam has been, more lately, becoming more entwined in these events as is said above, he doesn't understand them. What Adam typically does is have an opinion about most everything. It also seems to be rather random whether the subject is ever raised by him.

I like him on Loveline, but no where else...

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

M'eh - I'll say it again. The OWS guys are angry at the wrong target. They are like a guy who blames his apartment's supervisor for the policies of his landlord.
As I am the most brilliant person I know, I'll just quote myself...
"The FED jacked around the rates. The FED changed Glass-Steagall. The FED told banks they would back ARMs. So in the year 2000, some doofus who earned only 30K a year could walk into a bank to find a literal smorgasboard of million dollar loans he legally qualified which would have laughed him out of the bank in 1995.
Some banks acted conservatively in the bubble and many others chose to do the risky (but still legal) loans. Just like how there were borrowers who behaved conservatively during the bubble, and others who took the risky (but legal) option. The problem was that the number of conservative players was a lot smaller than the risk-takers.
The banks were stupid to take so many risks. People were stupid to take out so many loans. But it was GOVERNMENT that engineered the whole mess. They are the primary offender in this picture. The Federal Government. If government had not interfered in the market, then the whole mess would never have happened."
Cain hit the nail on the head when he said the protesters should be at the White House. The problem is that the OWS crowd is primarily composed of a bunch of fringe, left-wing dupes and they only go where their prog-lib pipers order them to go.


@winston_pennypacker
LOL..awesome.
wait..you are being serious?
duuuuude.
check your facts brother.
who "owns" the FED?
ill give ya a hint..it aint the federal government.
and look into WHO lobbied for class steagal to be recinded/revised.

i find it interesting how tea party folks say that OWS is angry at the wrong people.that they should be angry at the government.
i can agree with that ..in part.
but to ignore the massive influence,corruption and outright theft of our political system by the corporate elite is JUST as naive.
for 30 years both have built a relationship that has become so entwined and entrenched that BOTH need a serious enema.
a plutocracy that has become a machine that enables each other to perpetuate the status quo.

the tea partiers,the original tea party,not the corporate sponsored koch brother bullshit machine,and OWS are both correct in their anger.
wall street for their BLATANT disregard for the law and outright LIES and FRAUD which has been swept under the rug by a government THEY (meaning wall street) PAID for.

the tea party should head down to every occupy protest,join hands with those folks and REALLY start making the whores we call "politicians" start peeing their pants.
because NOTHING gets a government,crown,leader or grand poo-ba crapping himself than a few thousand really pissed of citizens.

but that aint gonna happen because my country still has a majority of retards who buy in to the whole "rightwing nutbag","neo-lib socialist"..blah blah blah.

bullshit fed to the masses in an easy to swallow diatribe broadcast on a media that was bought by the very people fucking you in the ass for 3 decades.

americas propaganda machine is by far one of the most effective.
/rant off

>> ^BoneRemake:

I do not agree with Livemusic and subsequently do not agree with Obscure because that they obviously are descriptively entwined.
Thats not music, but that shit is subjective to the brain receiving the information and everyone elses brain is different. Non the less my voice was read and ingested.


*nochannel
*wtf *femme *comedy
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.
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*art

I do not agree with Livemusic and subsequently do not agree with Obscure because that they obviously are descriptively entwined.

Thats not music, but that shit is subjective to the brain receiving the information and everyone elses brain is different. Non the less my voice was read and ingested.

I'll watch movies that are sad stories about kids, but I won't normally watch them twice. Video games are a different type of entertainment for me where I need to put in physical and mental effort into the story to make it progress. By adding that extra involvement I become much more emotionally entwined with a game than I ever would in a book or movie.

I'm not saying that I don't like conflict or stories with trails and tribulations in general, it is more that some subjects when presented a certain way make me uncomfortable so I'll choose other forms of entertainment instead. It's akin to people not liking horror flicks because they don't like to be scared.

Grave of the fireflies is a good example of a movie that I think is really good, but I don't have any inclination to see again. While being very well done and putting a very realistic light on war, it is very sad and I don't search out entertainment that makes me sad.

No worries on the attack bit, I don't mind explaining myself when I was just being sincere.
>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^visionep:
Very well done, but like Heavy Rain I won't be playing this game.
I'd rather not explore those stories where I might interject my love and caring for my children with a digital character that is abused by the writers.

Do you not watch any films or read any books then? Or is it only digital fictional characters that you refuse to give emotional feeling to? It sounds as though you think you're being evilly manipulated. They've only done what fictional storytelling has done since forever.
"Abuse" of fictional characters is what leads to tragedy in a story, it gives a story a purpose and there's tragedy in (i'll be bold and say it) every decent story. Harry Potter's parents were murdered, he wants revenge. JK Rowling did not manipulate you to feel care for Harry so that you'd buy the book. Without his parents being murdered, there was no reason to be interested about his particular story of revenge and growth.
Would you really like to.. i dunno, read about some hobbits that find a magical ring which turns them invisible, so they win at hide and seek and live happily ever after? That's just a toddler's book.
How do you feel its different in game form? Genuine question, not an attack. Edit: well, probably a little bit attacking, you caught me off guard with that comment!

I'll watch movies that are sad stories about kids, but I won't normally watch them twice. Video games are a different type of entertainment for me where I need to put in physical and mental effort into the story to make it progress. By adding that extra involvement I become much more emotionally entwined with a game than I ever would in a book or movie.

I'm not saying that I don't like conflict or stories with trails and tribulations in general, it is more that some subjects when presented a certain way make me uncomfortable so I'll choose other forms of entertainment instead. It's akin to people not liking horror flicks because they don't like to be scared.

Grave of the fireflies is a good example of a movie that I think is really good, but I don't have any inclination to see again. While being very well done and putting a very realistic light on war, it is very sad and I don't search out entertainment that makes me sad.

No worries on the attack bit, I don't mind explaining myself when I was just being sincere.

Edit: (whoops, hit profile reply instead of 'quote', I'm going to post this on the video comments too)

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
>> ^visionep:

Very well done, but like Heavy Rain I won't be playing this game.
I'd rather not explore those stories where I might interject my love and caring for my children with a digital character that is abused by the writers.


Do you not watch any films or read any books then? Or is it only digital fictional characters that you refuse to give emotional feeling to? It sounds as though you think you're being evilly manipulated. They've only done what fictional storytelling has done since forever.

"Abuse" of fictional characters is what leads to tragedy in a story, it gives a story a purpose and there's tragedy in (i'll be bold and say it) every decent story. Harry Potter's parents were murdered, he wants revenge. JK Rowling did not manipulate you to feel care for Harry so that you'd buy the book. Without his parents being murdered, there was no reason to be interested about his particular story of revenge and growth.

Would you really like to.. i dunno, read about some hobbits that find a magical ring which turns them invisible, so they win at hide and seek and live happily ever after? That's just a toddler's book.

How do you feel its different in game form? Genuine question, not an attack. Edit: well, probably a little bit attacking, you caught me off guard with that comment!

The left is shocked---SHOCKED I TELLS YA----about any suggestions of media-promoted VIOLENCE!

To wit:


A new low in Bush-hatred

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
September 10, 2006

SIX YEARS into the Bush administration, are there any new depths to which the Bush-haters can sink?

George W. Bush has been smeared by the left with every insult imaginable. He has been called a segregationist who yearns to revive Jim Crow and compared ad nauseam to Adolf Hitler. His detractors have accused him of being financially entwined with Osama bin Laden. Of presiding over an American gulag. Of being a latter-day Mussolini. Howard Dean has proffered the "interesting theory" that the Saudis tipped off Bush in advance about 9/11. One US senator (Ted Kennedy) has called the war in Iraq a "fraud" that Bush "cooked up in Texas" for political gain; another (Vermont independent James Jeffords) has charged him with planning a war in Iran as a strategy to put his brother in the White House. Cindy Sheehan has called him a "lying bastard," a "filth spewer," an "evil maniac," a "fuehrer," and a "terrorist" guilty of "blatant genocide" -- and been rewarded for her invective with oceans of media attention.

What's left for them to say about Bush? That they want him killed?

They already say it.

On Air America Radio, talk show host Randi Rhodes recommended doing to Bush what Michael Corleone, in "The Godfather, Part II," does to his brother. "Like Fredo," she said, "somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw!" -- then she imitated the sound of a gunshot. In the Guardian, a leading British daily, columnist Charlie Brooker issued a plea: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?"

For the more literary Bush-hater, there is "Checkpoint," a novel by Nicholson Baker in which two characters discuss the wisdom of shooting the 43rd president. "I'm going to kill that bastard," one character fumes. Some Bush-hatred masquerades as art: At Chicago's Columbia College, a curated exhibit included a sheet of mock postage stamps bearing the words "Patriot Act" and depicting President Bush with a gun to his head. There are even Bush-assassination fashion statements, such as the "KILL BUSH" T-shirts that were on offer last year at CafePress, an online retailer.

Lurid political libels have a long history in American life. The lies told about John Adams in the campaign of 1800 were vile enough, his wife Abigail lamented, "to ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world." But has there ever been a president so hated by his enemies that they lusted openly for his death? Or tried to gratify that lust with such political pornography?

As with other kinds of porn, even the most graphic expressions of Bush-hatred tend to jade those who gorge on it, so that they crave ever more explicit material to achieve the same effect.

Which brings us to "Death of a President," a new movie about the assassination of George W. Bush.

Written and directed by British filmmaker Gabriel Range, the movie premieres this week at the Toronto Film Festival and will air next month on Britain's Channel 4. Shot in the style of a documentary, it opens with what looks like actual footage of Bush being gunned down by a sniper as he leaves a Chicago hotel in October 2007. Through the use of digital special effects, the film superimposes the president's face onto the body of the actor playing him, so that the mortally wounded man collapsing on the screen will seem, all too vividly, to be Bush himself.

This is Bush-hatred as a snuff film. The fantasies it feeds are grotesque and obscene; to pander to such fantasies is to rip at boundary-markers that are indispensable to civilized society. That such a movie could not only be made but lionized at an international film festival is a mark not of sophistication, but of a sickness in modern life that should alarm conservatives and liberals alike.

Naturally that's not how the film's promoters see it. Noah Cowan, one of the Toronto festival's co-directors, high-mindedly describes "Death of a President" as "a classic cautionary tale." Well, yes, he says, Bush's assassination is "harrowing," but what the film is really about is "how the Patriot Act, especially, and how Bush's divisive partisanship and race-baiting has forever altered America."

I can't help wondering, though, whether some of those who see this film will take away rather a different message. John Hinckley, in his derangement, had the idea that shooting the president was the way to impress a movie star. After seeing "Death of a President," the next Hinckley may be taken with a more grandiose idea: that shooting the president is the way to become a movie star.

>> ^Djevel:

When entering into the USAF back in the mid-90's, I was advised not to put down my denomination as Atheist. The SSgt wouldn't go into details as to why, other than if I happened to be in a life threatening situation with others, it may be impressed upon those of religious persuasion to save their brethren before making the attempt for me. It would be easier for "everyone" if I just put "non-denominational" instead. Throughout basic training and tech school, I also had the luxury of additional detail (labor) because I wasn't comfortable attending church services. Later, as I gained rank, it was also impressed upon me that to further my career, organizations, such as Toastmasters, would be enthusiastically encouraged from my leadership chain.
If things have changed since then, fantastic, but I was never given the impression that the armed forces were the enlightenment of civilization in regards to secularism, "all walks of life" withstanding.


And for @Gamble... I know your movies like "Full Metal Jacket" does exactly what's being described, but have you guys (or anyone in the armed services) ever seen/had/heard a Atheist Sergeant ? It seems to me that besides on the death bed and when you are in a "peaceful" defensive setup that only then would religion (and only then) be allowed to function full strength.

It seems incredibly counter-intuitive to have instilled or given religious Christians (the ability to countermand--without a court-marshal & on-site kick to the groin and punch in the face--[ I know they don't have the ability--they just have people that are willing to be unscrupulous for them to cover anything up--how very Christian of... yadda, yadda, yadda...]), to ever (I know the point was that he was a crappy Sergeant, but they're are many like him ; but this one example is mine ) have a Sergeant teach at basic and later on for specialists (marines/rangers/etc...) that creates a not only a physical division within the ranks, but a mental one.

If actually acted upon or even used in the normal functions of combat you put: the mission, the soldiers, civilians, allies, and more like completely missing/noticing any opportunities to get the enemy. Tactics and doing your job should always be priority number one. If religion is in any of these top priorities, except for morality (as it is altruistically linked to religion and life, even Atheists; morality is being linked more and more as a intrinsic property of our evolution and all mammals in general; even bee colonies work together "through Christ" though?...), but morality is a near fully physical psychological manifestation due to instincts and evolution (and religion; especially when you fear dying and going to a lake of fire; this could be considered a "psychotic" attribute, especially when it concerns *this, present, reality*).

As state and religion are compelled to stay apart due to the constitution and how it relates the two and law in the First Amendment; so should religion and military as they have the same correlated negative qualities as what comes from not following the First Amendment. (Yes I know it never says it, but: Thomas Jefferson did, the Supreme Court has used it many time (making it essentially a law, regardless), and the First Amendment if understood correctly (look at the Supreme Court cases involved and how they interpreted it) creates a literal gap between the State (the State can't make a law concerning Religion, whatsoever) and Religion ( Religion like the State must never become entwined in any fashion with the State; if it does it isn't considered a Religion by the State and loses all it's protections, like the notion of organization tax exemption, which unlike a typical organization can make money [this is why so many people hate Scientology as it's literally at the line that shouldn't be crossed and is considered a tax haven by many]).

Only more lives will be at risk. Giving yourself a moral boost using religion can be done silently; I know I used to be heavily religious.
_{Keep your mind at task; this is life and death. It's also not just your life on the line.}
/sorry ran a bit longer than intended

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Everyone knows that the earth is the center of the universe, and that all bodies rotate around it. There is only one person in the world that thinks otherwise and he recanted after he was confronted.

However, unlike your historically famous example, the naysayers didn't have mountains of evidence to support their position, merely hearsay and conjecture.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I doubt any of us here are climatologists, but we are people. As people, we can expect people doing science on climate to not be entirely dissimilar to us...


While I'm not a climatologist, I do have my PhD in Ecology and I regularly teach Environmental science. With that being said, I concur with most of the posts here in that climate change is indeed occurring and is largely anthropogenic. I agree with you that science shifts its focus from one foundation to another, but I disagree with you on most of your statements, namely:

a) "Peer review is more of a contest of popularity and not overall truth value."

This is ridiculous. I am both a reviewer of ecological journals and have had papers reviewed by those journals. While some authors may have an easier time getting published based on their namesake, the vast majority rely on their science alone. Most climatology papers are from large groups where most authors are unknown to the overall scientific community (grad students, post-docs, assistant professors and the like).

b) "Where is the data to support that global warming would even be bad?"

Most data revolving around the immediate biological effects of global warming are located not in climatology journals, but in ecological ones, particularly those on elevational gradients. For example, if an organism has a range at a specific altitude on a mountainside and the climate warms, it has no where to go but up - once he runs out of space, extirpation is eminent. Biological diversity will be reduce drastically in this manner in similarly smaller-ranged habitats or ecotones.

c) "We will entwine any evidence into the web of belief . And ostracize anyone that deviates."

The first person who comes up with solid proof that global climate change is not anthropogenic in a peer-reviewed article will have all the prestige granted to him that he could ever desire. That's always good motivation to deviate from the norm. The problem is, nobody can discover any evidence to the contrary. It's not ostracization by will, but by nature itself.

I doubt any of us here are climatologists, but we are people. As people, we can expect people doing science on climate to not be entirely dissimilar to us. While they my process possess information regarding a particular area, they are not immune to the culture they live and work in. Quine talked about this a lot. That science doesn't evolve like the romantic picture that is painted. Rather, like pop culture, science shifts its entire focus from one foundational theory to another. Einstein doesn't extend Newton, it replaces it. Why do we not, rather, adapt the math of Newtonian physics to incorporate the data of relativity and keep the same mindset of forces instead of space time warps? Quines answer is that, like pop culture, a mans theory only lasts as long as he is around to extend it. Eventually, no matter if your theoretical construct was correct, if you aren't around to sort out the sometimes minor technicalities...your out. The people after you will eventually supplant your theory with something else more trendy. That science is subject to the same rules of the schoolyard as anything else. Peer review is more of a contest of popularity and not overall truth value.

As such, the very act of peer review is subject to the cultural perspective of the day. The moral and political climate of the day speaks volumes to what peer evaluated papers support or don't. Peer review is the best we have in science to approximate how we experience the universe, but it is not without its short comings. Let us not fall into the fallacy of authority, and majority in stating x group of people are more correct than y group opposed. Instead, judge things on merit of the argument.

To that end, I find that I am undecided on the whole debate. Moreover, I hesitate to put government in control of saving the environment...such was already their responsibility in the gulf. I don't want to live in a world of wrappers and smog, and to that end, I am motivated for cleaner technologies. Being wasteful has always felt somewhat despicable. To me, I remain skeptical of mans prowess of weather prediction. Year after year there is tail of "the worst hurricane season in history" that fails to show itself. If you say it enough I guess eventually it will be right, but that takes some of the wind out of the sails(har har har).

Furthermore, where is the data to support that global warming would even be bad? The only fact to the end that I am even familiar with is more extreme weather, and that dried up lake in Africa. I have lived next to lots dried up lakes and rivers...so that seems like more of a social disaster than an environmental one.

In the end, I feel like there is some snake oil salesmanship over the whole ordeal. I think we want to believe that we are the next greatest disaster. We will entwine any evidence into the web of belief . And ostracize anyone that deviates. We have always been at war with Eurasia, after all.

edited: grammar and spelling

If we can trust Wiki I did the research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_art

Subject matter

Most Romanesque sculpture is pictorial and Biblical in subject. A great variety of themes are found on capitals and include scenes of Creation and the Fall of Man, episodes from the life of Christ and those Old Testament scenes which prefigure his Death and Resurrection, such as Jonah and the Whale and Daniel in the Lions' Den. Many Nativity scenes occur, the theme of the Three Kings being particularly popular. The cloisters of Santo Domingo de Silos Abbey in Northern Spain, and Moissac are fine examples surviving complete.

A feature of some Romanesque churches is the extensive sculptural scheme which covers the area surrounding the portal or, in some case, much of the facade. Angouleme Cathedral in France has a highly elaborate scheme of sculpture set within the broad niches created by the arcading of the facade. In Spain, an elaborate pictorial scheme in low relief surrounds the door of the church of Santa Maria at Ripoll.[6]
Around the upper wall of the chancel at the Abbaye d'Arthous, Landes, France, are small figures depicting lust, intemperance and a Barbary ape, symbol of human depravity.pic P Charpiat

The purpose of the sculptural schemes was to convey a message that the Christian believer should recognize wrong-doing, repent and be redeemed. The Last Judgement reminds the believer to repent. The carved or painted Crucifix, displayed prominently within the church, reminds the sinner of redemption.
Ouroboros, single and in pairs at Kilpeck, England

Often the sculpture is alarming in form and in subject matter. These works are found on capitals, corbels and bosses, or entwined in the foliage on door mouldings. They represent forms that are not easily recognizable today. Common motifs include Sheela na Gig, fearsome demons, ouroboros or dragons swallowing their tails, and many other mythical creatures with obscure meaning. Spirals and paired motifs originally had special significance in oral tradition that has been lost or rejected by modern scholars.

The Seven Deadly Sins including lust, gluttony and avarice are also frequently represented. The appearance of many figures with oversized genitals can be equated with carnal sin, and so can the numerous figures shown with protruding tongues, which are a feature of the doorway of Lincoln Cathedral. Pulling one's beard was a symbol of masturbation, and pulling one's mouth wide open was also a sign of lewdity. A common theme found on capitals of this period is a tongue poker or beard stroker being beaten by his wife or seized by demons. Demons fighting over the soul of a wrongdoer such as a miser is another popular subject.[8]

I chose selections from an article about male porn habit that addresses the subject for your reading pleasure. I have a few problems with the article. It seems to assume that only lonely and hurting people use porn, and that isn't true. Still, it makes some good points:

"How addictive is pornography?

‘I'm frightened of real sex, which is unscripted and unpredictable so I engage in pornography, which is totally under my control. But it brings intense disappointment because it is not what I'm really searching for. It's rather like a hungry person standing outside the window of a restaurant, thinking that they're going to get fed.’ That’s how one man described his porn addiction to Edward Marriott...

...Like many men, I first saw pornography during puberty. At boarding school...long before my first sexual relationship, porn was my sex education....Being away from home, my friends and I longed for love, closeness, acceptance. The women over whom we masturbated - surrogate mothers, if you like - seemed to be offering this but, of course, were never going to provide it. The untruths it taught me on top of this disappointment - that women are always available, that sex is about what a man can do to a woman - I am only now succeeding in unlearning.

...'Just like drugs, pornography provides a quick fix, a masturbatory universe people can get stuck in. This can result in their not being able to involve anyone else.’

...Men, as much as women, hunger for intimacy. For many males, locked into a life in which self-esteem has grown intrinsically entwined with performance, sex assumes a freight of demands and needs...

...It is into this troubled scenario that porn finds easy access. For in pornography, unlike in real life, there is no criticism, real or imagined, of male performance...

...Women in porn are always, in the words of the average internet site, ‘hot and ready’, eager to please...

...Men, say psychologists, also feel threatened by the ‘emotional power’ they perceive women wielding over them...they are at the same time painfully aware that their only salvation from isolation comes in being sexually acceptable to women. This sense of neediness can provoke intense anger that, all too often, finds expression in porn...

...The porn industry, of course, dismisses such talk, yet occasionally comes a glimmer of authenticity. Bill Margold, left, one of the industry's longest-serving film performers, was interviewed in 1991 by psychoanalyst Robert Stoller for his book Porn: Myths For The Twentieth Century. Margold admitted: ‘My whole reason for being in this industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't care much for women and want to see the men in my industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up. So we come on a woman's face or brutalise her sexually: we're getting even for lost dreams.'...

...As well as ‘eroticising male supremacy’, in the words of anti-porn campaigner John Stoltenberg, pornography also attempts to assuage other male fears, in particular that of erection failure. Pornography answers men's fetishistic need for visual proof of phallic potency...

...Pornography, in other words, is a lie. It peddles falsehoods about men, women and relationships. It seduces vulnerable, lonely men with the promise of intimacy, and delivers only a transitory fix. Increasingly, though, men are starting to be open about the effect of pornography. David McLeod, a marketing executive, explains the cycle: ‘I'm drawn to porn when I'm lonely, particularly when I'm single and sexually frustrated. But I can easily get disgusted with myself. After watching a video two or three times, I'll throw it away and vow never to watch another again. But my resolve never lasts very long.’

Like many men, McLeod is torn. Quick to claim that porn has ‘no harmful effects’, he is also happy to acknowledge the contradictory fact that it is ‘deadening’.

Extended exposure to pornography can have a whole raft of effects.
By the time Nick Samuels had reached his mid-20s, it was altering his view of what he wanted from a sexual relationship. ‘I used to watch porn with one of my girlfriends, and I started to want to try things I'd seen in the films.’ Married for 15 years, he admits he has carried the same sexual expectations into the marital bedroom. ‘There's been real friction over this: my wife simply isn't that kind of person. And it's only now, after all these years, that I'm beginning to move on from it. Porn is like alcoholism: it clings to you like a leech.’

...Even when in a loving sexual relationship, men who have used porn say that, all too often, they see their partner through a kind of ‘pornographic filter’. This effect is summed up by US sociologist Harry Brod, in LynneSegal's essay Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: ‘There have been too many times when I have guiltily resorted to impersonal fantasy because the genuine love I felt for a woman wasn't enough to convert feelings into performance. And in those sorry, secret moments, I have resented deeply my lifelong indoctrination into (pornography).’...

...Running through all pornography use, according to David Morgan, is the desire for control...

...The user of pornography is also psychologically on the run.
Welldon says: ‘people who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that's why pornography is so repetitive - you have to go back again and again.’...

...For John-Paul Day, an Edinburgh architect, the experience of being a small boy with a dying mother drove him to seek solace in masturbation. He says he has been ‘addicted’ to pornography his entire adult life. He has attended meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous for 12 years...

...Like drugs and drink, pornography - as Day has realised - is an addictive substance. Porn actor Kelly Cooke says this applies on either side of the camera: ‘It got to the point where I considered having sex the way most people consider getting a hamburger. But when you try to give it up, you realise how addictive it is, both for consumers and performers. It's a class A drug, and it's hell coming off it.’

The cycle of addiction leads one way: towards ever harder material...

Morgan believes ‘all pornography ends up with S&M’.
The myth about porn, as a witness told the 1983 Minneapolis city council public hearings on it, is that ‘it frees the libido and gives men an outlet for sexual expression. This is truly a myth. I have found pornography not only does not liberate men, but on the contrary is a source of bondage. Men masturbate to pornography only to become addicted to the fantasy.'..."

Read the whole article here: http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=2302

Other articles on the sibject of porn "addiction":

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65772

http://men.webmd.com/guide/is-pornography-addictive

Any anti-gay argument is automatically entwined with *religion.