I remember cutting holes in a box and sticking my head in it. The eclipse back then (partial) wasn’t much of a show. Maybe it was more about cutting holes in a box and making the “pinhole camera” than about what came later.

Monday we joined some other family members out at a farm in the country. We had a grand time. Everyone had the eclipse glasses, someone brought out a colander, and my granddaughter had made two sun viewing boxes out of shoe boxes. They worked terrifically, once we remade the holes much smaller. The sky got darker, the planets appeared, and then suddenly after three and a half minutes Bang! the sunshine came back.

It would have been easier to stay another night, but granddaughter had to be at school on Tuesday, so we headed out. This time I didn’t even try the interstate, and I managed to cut the trip down to 8 hours. A very late night, but I think we’ll look back on it with fond memories once we catch up on our sleep.

It’s a very straining thing to wear the colander. Not everyone can manage it.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf093941e413032d8fbaf6a7d9000fa5f585ca65c7653cd6a8f42e1f3657d95e.jpg?w=600&h=690

some very funny memes
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e28778093a72663ac8faa3f5ebfc8f97b88ca685ec67c5384458ea5ed492960.jpg?w=600&h=317

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5fc8094445aba567e590bade608967d329f63fc0dda82058b1633d39a6b6a4a.jpg?w=600&h=471

and a couple of good stories.

But the Libs discovered the only really important impact of the phenomenon.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/04/total-eclipse-of-the-sun.php

You can point out that someone found a way to make even a solar eclipse about…what else?…race. And it comes from Texas:

They did it. They found a way to make a solar eclipse about racism. pic.twitter.com/9zqZJOFNZW

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 8, 2024

As to why any scientific fields have been “mainly out of reach for Black folks,” I can only point out that 1) single-parent households are not, on average, conducive to academic achievement; 2) a culture in which kids who get good grades in school are disdained for “acting white” is fatal to academic achievement; and 3) black students who are encouraged to major in Black Studies and similar fields don’t become astronomers. Those factors are evidently more than 50 years of affirmative action have been able to overcome.

I don’t see how The Babylon Bee can stay in business with this much competition.

My highlight: springing my 5-year-old daughter from school today so we could watch the eclipse together.

After making us some ice cream cones, and donning our eclipse glasses:

“Dad, this is a cool syzygy”

(h/t: miguel+cervantes)