Stories By Van

It's mythical day once again, and I've spent a good amount of the day with a bunch of adorable cats at a shelter. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to adopt. I was with someone that was getting her first kitty, and I know her and Pancake will love each other forever. Anyway, I was thinking of a topic to talk about today and it hit me; cats are super important in ancient myth. Greek, Egypt, Asia; cats are regarded as one of the most important animals in human history. So, I thought they were the perfect things to talk about today. Let's do this. Here's a few different stories of cats throughout ancient history. Our reverence of cats has deep roots. Tens of thousands of years before the ancient Egyptians held them in highest regard, felines figured prominently in world mythologies. In the pantheon of gods and deities, the majestic feline has reigned supreme for over 30,000 years. Mythology is a civilization’s collection of stories addressing its worldview, bel

An independent press is one of the essential pillars of a democracy, and we need to support journalists and whistleblowers alike to protect it, says lawyer and free press advocate Trevor Timm. Welcome to America! Land of the (almost) free! That goes double for our press. We're not even in the top 10 in the world for having the most press freedom. Or the top 20 ... or 30... read on and I'll let you know why freedom of the press is something we need. Now more than ever. The First Amendment of the US Constitution is only 45 words, but it packs a punch. It protects free speech and a free press in America (in addition to religion, assembly and petition); without it, the country would look completely different. “The First Amendment is the safety valve of our democracy,” says US free press advocate Trevor Timm. “It has always been the bulwark against secret government, against authoritarianism and against tyranny.” Americans take great pride in their press freedom. But the

I don't know about you guys, but I love Existential day above all others. Granted, I can't get any real work done on these days because I spend most of the time just sitting in my room pondering the question. That's why these "impossible" questions are so much fun to think about. There's no real answer, and yet we search for one. We try and find that one answer that applies to all of us as one, but the thing is, that can't be done. At least not in the world we live in today. The only real  answer you can discover by digging deeper is one for yourself. That's it. And it's beautiful. I mean, the way you perceive the world and your place in it is the most important, right? Once you realize that, there's that tiniest taste of pure inner peace. It's like a drug, or eating potato chips. Once you get that initial taste, you'll want more and more. Luckily, inner peace can be achieved without narcotics or fatty foods. Just sit and think for a

You think you know your brain? Well, think again. It is our most important organ, no doubt! But it can indeed trick you & the scare the shit out of you. I did some research, and I'm bringing you 6 horrifying facts you didn't know about your brain. 1. Your Neurons Are Cannibals Your brain, as they say, occupies hardly 2% of your body weight but still consumes almost 25% of the body energy. The tens of billions of neurons in our brain require constant energy input. Keep them devoid of energy and they will start eating themselves, spreading a ruckus around your brain. When your stomach is rumbling with hunger, your neurons are hungry too & this is when they begin to eat parts of themselves for energy. This very cannibalism is a part of the communication process urging you to eat. So dieting, my friends, is a bad idea for a healthy brain. 2. Your brain will get you stuck in an endless loop if you don’t deal with unfinished thoughts All of us, sometime o

In the feature film “Looper,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an assassin who kills men that the mafia want dead in the future. He then disposes of a body that never existed. His job is simple yet strange, because time-travel hasn’t been invented, and won’t be for another 20 years. How Joseph Gorden Levitt’s character knows that he is done with his contract as a looper is when he has to kill himself from 30 years in the future, and his older self came back in time to change the course of events that creates an ultimate crime lord. The idea that time-travel can be used for such a dark purpose makes one realize that time-travel wouldn’t be just fun times with the Doctor from the hit show “Doctor Who,” that BBC viewers have come to love. Time-travel is one of the strangest ideas that mankind as ever come up with. Time-travel is the ability to go into the future or the past and interact with the objects and people there. It seems like the greatest thing humans could invent, and if that

Alright everyone, I have been putting off this conspiracy theory because of the pure rage it instills within me. I'll try and keep myself as biased as possible, but I can not guarantee that some things will slip out. Okay, now that the disclaimer is out of the way. Why Do Some People Believe the Earth is Flat? Members of the Flat Earth Society claim to believe the Earth is flat. Walking around on the planet's surface, it looks and feels flat, so they deem all evidence to the contrary, such as satellite photos of Earth as a sphere, to be fabrications of a "round Earth conspiracy" orchestrated by NASA and other government agencies. The belief that the Earth is flat has been described as the ultimate conspiracy theory. According to the Flat Earth Society's leadership, its ranks have grown by 200 people (mostly Americans and Britons) per year since 2009. Judging by the exhaustive effort flat-earthers have invested in fleshing out the theory on their websi

Another Sunday, another Life & Death blog post. Let's get things started on a positive note. You and everyone you’ve ever known will someday die. According to some psychologists, this uncomfortable truth constantly lurks in the back of our minds and ultimately drives everything we do, from choosing to attend church, eat vegetables and go to the gym to motivating us to have children, write books and create companies. For healthy people, death usually lurks in the back of our minds, exerting its influence on a subconscious level. “Most of the time, we go through our days unaware, not thinking of our mortality,” says Chris Feudtner, a pediatrician and ethicist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania. “We cope by focusing on the things more directly in front of us.” What would happen, though, if the ambiguity surrounding our own demise were taken away? What if we all suddenly were told the exact date and means of our deaths?