Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.
This month's crazy creationist goes to the Texas State Board of Education, with emphasis to Don McLeroy.
Who is Don McLeroy?
He is a practicing dentist and super-conservative Christian creationist who has been on the Texas Board of Education for a little over ten years before recently being defeated by just a sliver of votes. Before leaving, he managed to oversee the textbook standards revisions done once every decade. Where in the past he has attacked evolution and called for teaching weaknesses of evolutionary theory alongside the theory itself (if he knows enough about it to name any weaknesses at all), he and fellow ultraconservatives on the board were narrowly overturned by more sane and rational members. The Board has turned their sights this month on history standards, with minor adjustments to sociology, government, and economics as well.
The myth has been propagated for a long time that America was founded as "a Christian Nation," and the Texas BOE would like to continue that myth. Although in a sense, the first pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution in their native countries, almost immediately upon arrival did they manage to commit similar or equal atrocities against people of different faiths from their own. When the time came to construct a government for the United States, it was decided, by enlightened, rational minds, that religion of any kind deserves no place in the formation of any government. For that reason, America was founded to be the first secular nation, neither condemning nor condoning any one faith over any other.
Evidently, however, the members of the Board don't want their children to know that, which is why they voted down students learning "the reasons the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.” This is also why they completely removed Thomas Jefferson, who is credited with the term "separation of church and state," which, even though is not verbatim mentioned in the constitution, is clearly implied, as the first amendment cannot mean anything else, and have decided to teach John Calvin in his place. Predictably enough, they removed teaching the first amendment and all its implications, choosing to stress the second amendment, and all its implications.
In an attempt to teach balance, the BOE has pushed for the teaching of the Venona papers, which loosely try to vindicate McCarthyism. They seek that students learn the violent acts of the Black Panther Movement alongside the works of Martin Luther King Jr, but strangely they rejected any addition of any Black or Hispanic names that contributed to American History.
The phrase "capitalism" has been replaced with "free-enterprise system." “Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” says Terri Leo, one of the Board members. By changing the name, they attempt to shadow any criticism or flaw with capitalism, plus they probably like using the word "free," because it makes them sound like freedom-loving patriots.
They would like their children to think of America as a haven of tolerance, incapable of making mistakes. That's why they want to play down the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, and what's more, because they consider tolerance to be a Christian virtue, they want tomorrow's leaders not to understand that the government cannot promote Christianity over anything else. In McLeroy's own words, “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.” You could make a case for that, but it can't be "canceled out" by imposing conservative bias into the curriculum, that's called "truth is in the middle." Biases should be corrected with factual accuracy, not by swinging the pendulum all the way around, so that the system is still broken, just in another way.
Why should you care that Texas educational standards are being decided by biased religious fundamentalists with no expertise is history, sociology, psychology, or economics? Well, because of Texas's large size, textbook publishers but a lot of weight on what Texas wants in their books, and many other states simply follow Texas's lead and buys whatever books they buy. In other words, what they teach in Texas could eventually make its way to your state, though California is large enough to fend off Texas standards for a while. Moreover, these standards will be difficult, if not impossible, to change until the next revision comes around in ten years, which means that your children could be at risk at learning incomplete or skewed facts about basic history.
Thankfully, Don McLeroy is on his way out, so there's not much more damage he can cause, but he managed to deal a heavy blow to educational standards before leaving.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
I'm a feather on the wind.
Posted by Hoban "Wash" Washburne
I drive an old pickup truck with gauges that work when they want to or not at all. It squeaks and yelps as it goes over bumps. It rumbles when it is taken out of gear and roars when turned on. I refer to my truck as a she. She is a very finicky truck and I love her to death.
And sometimes, when I am driving her around, I feel like a pilot in a movie.
I say this because tonight reminded me of exactly that feeling. Let's start from when my brother and I head off to the store at around 11pm.
As we are leaving the shady liquor store some fellas try to get us to buy any drug we can think of. My brother, naturally, tries to shake a good deal out of them as a joke while I get the car running. Except that she won't start. Here's what was happening in my head:
Click click click--silence.
"Dammit, I knew that damn starter was trouble. Shoulda gone for the name brand."
Click-----
"Come on honey. I'm sorry, but I just need to you start now so I'm not stuck with some angry drug dealers and you are stolen from me and taken apart."
Click click ROAR.
"Thank you thank you thank you!"
Look at each other:
"We barely got out of that one!" (cheesy I know)
Off to the next store but this time I say I will be staying inside to keep the truck running. My brother takes longer than usual at this other shady liquor store. As the rain begins to come down like in that scene in Jurassic Park I notice the Oil Pressure Gauge is alarmingly low and the Engine Temperature Gauge is alarmingly high. Shit. Now what?
"Keep her running! We can't risk her not starting back up again here!" (yes, now it's 'we')
"She can't run much hotter! Especially with the Oil Pressure so low!"
"Wait, maybe at idle the fan isn't kicking in and we already know that the pressure drops when at idle... What if we get her running to get some air flow, the fan going, and oil cycling?"
"Yes! Make it so! (shut up)"
"We can't leave him in there!"
"Go without him!"
Suddenly, perfectly on cue, out comes my brother running through the rain into the truck and off we go. As we speed into traffic the Oil Pressure raises into the green and the Engine Temp backs off as the fan kicks in... Narrow escape.
To sum up: I glamorize my boring life by comparing the mechanical failures in my aging pickup to exciting Hollywood action scenes.
You know you do it too...
I drive an old pickup truck with gauges that work when they want to or not at all. It squeaks and yelps as it goes over bumps. It rumbles when it is taken out of gear and roars when turned on. I refer to my truck as a she. She is a very finicky truck and I love her to death.
And sometimes, when I am driving her around, I feel like a pilot in a movie.
I say this because tonight reminded me of exactly that feeling. Let's start from when my brother and I head off to the store at around 11pm.
As we are leaving the shady liquor store some fellas try to get us to buy any drug we can think of. My brother, naturally, tries to shake a good deal out of them as a joke while I get the car running. Except that she won't start. Here's what was happening in my head:
Click click click--silence.
"Dammit, I knew that damn starter was trouble. Shoulda gone for the name brand."
Click-----
"Come on honey. I'm sorry, but I just need to you start now so I'm not stuck with some angry drug dealers and you are stolen from me and taken apart."
Click click ROAR.
"Thank you thank you thank you!"
Look at each other:
"We barely got out of that one!" (cheesy I know)
Off to the next store but this time I say I will be staying inside to keep the truck running. My brother takes longer than usual at this other shady liquor store. As the rain begins to come down like in that scene in Jurassic Park I notice the Oil Pressure Gauge is alarmingly low and the Engine Temperature Gauge is alarmingly high. Shit. Now what?
"Keep her running! We can't risk her not starting back up again here!" (yes, now it's 'we')
"She can't run much hotter! Especially with the Oil Pressure so low!"
"Wait, maybe at idle the fan isn't kicking in and we already know that the pressure drops when at idle... What if we get her running to get some air flow, the fan going, and oil cycling?"
"Yes! Make it so! (shut up)"
"We can't leave him in there!"
"Go without him!"
Suddenly, perfectly on cue, out comes my brother running through the rain into the truck and off we go. As we speed into traffic the Oil Pressure raises into the green and the Engine Temp backs off as the fan kicks in... Narrow escape.
To sum up: I glamorize my boring life by comparing the mechanical failures in my aging pickup to exciting Hollywood action scenes.
You know you do it too...
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Poll for the Silent
Posted by Malachi Constant.
I was walking along, about to board the bus home, when I saw someone I know. We're very close, but not as close as we used to be; I know her, and I know her well, but I don't know her well anymore. I wanted to wave, and even to stop and chat, but for some reason I didn't. I walked towards her for about fifty feet, in her plane view, on my way to the bus. I eventually got less than ten feet in front of her, looking at her the whole time expecting her to see me and wave, but I finally turned and entered the bus, without saying a word. I feel like I should have made more of an effort to say "hi." I should have waved in some way, or smiled, or even gone up and tapped her on the shoulder, but I just couldn't bring myself to care enough. I tried to rationalize it, "Why should I bother, she didn't notice me," "Never mind that she was talking to other friends, she's not blind, and I was close enough to spit on her," but I realized that if I really cared about her, I would've gone out of my way just to bid greetings.
I bring this up only as a specific instance, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time. Almost once a day do I see someone I recognize and can name, but they seem to give no hint of recognition to me, not because they don't remember me, but because they never notice me in the first place. Because I feel there's an expectation that they, as a conscious human being, should notice that I'm right there in front of them, when they don't notice, I usually don't feel responsible to call attention to myself, but rather just let them keep walking, without any knowledge of my existence.
When I say "right in front of them," I'm not exaggerating. There are a handful of people I know whose personal space I can invade, not sneaking around, either, before they notice I was within eyesight for a hundred feet. In other words, on the occasion where I decide to stop by and say "hello," I habitually get close enough to physically poke them on the shoulder, staying within their line of sight the entire time, before they learn that I'm there at all. On rare occasions, I can get that close under the same circumstances and still go unnoticed.
So I ask you, reader, how often does this kind of thing happen to you? How often do you go unnoticed by someone you personally know for what seems like too long? Have you ever gone unnoticed so long that you decide to remain unnoticed, and walk right past someone you know and like without saying a word? Have you ever been shocked to find someone you know standing right next to you, with no other explanation than that they walked right up to you, right in front of you, and you none the wiser until long after you should have reasonably seen them? Comments can be left anonymously and I eagerly await your thoughts.
I was walking along, about to board the bus home, when I saw someone I know. We're very close, but not as close as we used to be; I know her, and I know her well, but I don't know her well anymore. I wanted to wave, and even to stop and chat, but for some reason I didn't. I walked towards her for about fifty feet, in her plane view, on my way to the bus. I eventually got less than ten feet in front of her, looking at her the whole time expecting her to see me and wave, but I finally turned and entered the bus, without saying a word. I feel like I should have made more of an effort to say "hi." I should have waved in some way, or smiled, or even gone up and tapped her on the shoulder, but I just couldn't bring myself to care enough. I tried to rationalize it, "Why should I bother, she didn't notice me," "Never mind that she was talking to other friends, she's not blind, and I was close enough to spit on her," but I realized that if I really cared about her, I would've gone out of my way just to bid greetings.
I bring this up only as a specific instance, but this kind of thing happens to me all the time. Almost once a day do I see someone I recognize and can name, but they seem to give no hint of recognition to me, not because they don't remember me, but because they never notice me in the first place. Because I feel there's an expectation that they, as a conscious human being, should notice that I'm right there in front of them, when they don't notice, I usually don't feel responsible to call attention to myself, but rather just let them keep walking, without any knowledge of my existence.
When I say "right in front of them," I'm not exaggerating. There are a handful of people I know whose personal space I can invade, not sneaking around, either, before they notice I was within eyesight for a hundred feet. In other words, on the occasion where I decide to stop by and say "hello," I habitually get close enough to physically poke them on the shoulder, staying within their line of sight the entire time, before they learn that I'm there at all. On rare occasions, I can get that close under the same circumstances and still go unnoticed.
So I ask you, reader, how often does this kind of thing happen to you? How often do you go unnoticed by someone you personally know for what seems like too long? Have you ever gone unnoticed so long that you decide to remain unnoticed, and walk right past someone you know and like without saying a word? Have you ever been shocked to find someone you know standing right next to you, with no other explanation than that they walked right up to you, right in front of you, and you none the wiser until long after you should have reasonably seen them? Comments can be left anonymously and I eagerly await your thoughts.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
I Gotta Go
Posted by Lennie Small.
I was on campus today leisurely making my way to class, but it was relatively unfamiliar land on campus. In accordance with normal bodily functions, I had to pee, which means I had to walk past my classroom to go hunt for a restroom. Halfway through circling the building, I found one, but it was the women's room, so I quickly hypothesized a couple potential locations where the men's room should be found. At first I tried the door ten feet down the way, but that was the entrance to some administrative office, which not only did not have a bathroom but was also no place where I belonged. My next guess was on the other side of the structure, by symmetry, but there would be no door at all to be found there.
After one more circle around the building I was left with no choice but to conclude that this small lecture hall was built without a men's room. Perplexed, I eventually wandered to the adjacent building and finally found somewhere to do my business, but I feel like such a basic need should be better covered in the modern times in which we live. After all, how hard should it be to find a bathroom in a college lecture building, particularly when they obviously found enough room for the ladies' room?
I was on campus today leisurely making my way to class, but it was relatively unfamiliar land on campus. In accordance with normal bodily functions, I had to pee, which means I had to walk past my classroom to go hunt for a restroom. Halfway through circling the building, I found one, but it was the women's room, so I quickly hypothesized a couple potential locations where the men's room should be found. At first I tried the door ten feet down the way, but that was the entrance to some administrative office, which not only did not have a bathroom but was also no place where I belonged. My next guess was on the other side of the structure, by symmetry, but there would be no door at all to be found there.
After one more circle around the building I was left with no choice but to conclude that this small lecture hall was built without a men's room. Perplexed, I eventually wandered to the adjacent building and finally found somewhere to do my business, but I feel like such a basic need should be better covered in the modern times in which we live. After all, how hard should it be to find a bathroom in a college lecture building, particularly when they obviously found enough room for the ladies' room?
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Crazy Creationist of the Month: February (Part 2)
Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.
Welcome back. We were just getting to the part where Ken Ham calls his fellow Christians to action.
It's not enough for Ken Ham to deny science and reasoning, or to influence others to do the same. He has to rally Christians to fight against science, education, and intelligence. And when he says neutral ground, he doesn't mean between religion and secularism, he means between the Bible and science. In other words, everyone who is Christian must assert as fact what the Bible says regardless of what any evidence may indicate, and to have doubt or honest skepticism is unacceptable.
True, but only half true: it's only getting rid of the Bible in government institutions, but it's also getting rid of the Quran, The Book of Mormon, The Bhagavad Gita, Dianetics, or any other religious scripture. Ken Ham is under the impression that freedom of religion means anti-Christianity. The truth is that separation of church and state inhibits government from imposing any religion with tax dollars paid by people who have the freedom to worship any other religion. Freedom of religion means that unlike in Iran, where apostasy is punishable by death, Americans have the right to practice (peacefully) any religion they choose, be it Christianity or no religion at all. However, since Ham has already claimed that having no religion is a religion, then of course he must assert that separation of church and state is just rejecting Christianity for another religion. Here's a lovely quote.
Where to start? Okay, the beginning. Not everyone has a religion, but we've already tackled that. Next point of dishonesty, that the Bible is God's word. This allows Ham to dismiss every other religion whose holy book is claimed to be on God's word, but it is well know that the Bible was written by men, and by today's standards, inferior men at that. Therefore, in this case, God's word is man's word, whether Ken Ham likes it or not.
The next section of the speech is where he bashes the newly released film, Creation. I can't say much about it, because I never saw it because it seemed boring, but this has nothing to do with the loss of a belief in God (unless, like Ham, you equate evolution with atheism). The film clips he shows transitions him into the point that belief in evolution leads to moral relativism, which Ham equates to having no morals at all. He says that "children of evolution" are committing school shootings as an act of natural selection. This is offensive, but you wanna talk about beliefs leading to violence or murder? How about when someone kills an abortionist as a "service to women?" How about when a mother prays instead of taking her daughter to get medical treatment, and the daughter dies? How about the people who were killed in the riots against the Danish cartoons depicting and image of Muhammad? Ken Ham is forgetting not only that his religion is responsible for the deaths of millions, but also that evolution does not claim any moral standing, it's just a model of reality.
Then we get to the Gap commercial. Ham claims that the Gap holiday commercial is more secularized and shows how we're losing God in America. Here's a brief summary about what happened: Gap made a commercial including Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, and winter solstice. The American Family Association, a Christian activist group, saw it and threw a bitch-fit, calling for the boycott of all Gap stores. Gap responded by cowering like a dog who's been beaten too much, and making a new commercial that only mentions Christmas. The AFA ended the boycott and the Christian fundamentalists win again. If anything, this shows that religious fundamentalists have too much power over the free market, but I wouldn't even extrapolate that much from it.
Next he talks about how blasphemy is so widespread and acceptable. He says that it's too common that Christianity is openly mocked and that Jesus is blasphemed against. Kind of like how Ken Ham blasphemes against and dishonors the God of any other religion, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism? Kind of like how Ken Ham openly mocked Catholicism and mainstream Christianity earlier in this very speech?
Ham cites his book, Already Gone, and claims that too many young people are abandoning the church.
He clarifies that hypocrisy means that the church is saying that one must obey and believe the Bible, but it's ok to not consider Genesis as historical fact. He says that if people think it's ok to dismiss some of the Bible, then why not get rid of the whole thing, and that, he says, is how Americans are losing faith. For once, I agree with him. If people choose to dismiss the Genesis fables, or any of the huge number of inconsistencies or contradictions, then they've already found one flaw with the Bible, and that automatically nullifies when the Bible says it's infallible. With that in mind, you can't reasonably trust anything in the Bible that's not verified by anything else, so if you're going to have to filter it through your own interpretations, why not throw it away and view the world through your own interpretations and formulate what's right and wrong for yourself? You already do that anyway, whether your a religious believer or not. For example, Ken Ham is taking it literally when the Bible says to preach the gospel to as many people as you can reach (Mark 16:15), but he's neglecting to preach that the Bible says that when a man rapes a woman, she must marry him (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or that any man who does any work at all on the Sabbath must be put to death (Numbers 15:32-36), or that Jesus said you must hate your parents if you are to be with him (Luke 14:26). Ken Ham, as well as any other sane believer, ignores these instructions, because they're morally reprehensible, but that just shows that the Bible is not a literal and perfect account from God, and they know it, so to say that it is literal and perfect is hypocrisy. The internet has made this information widely available and easily accessible and that may be the hypocrisy that causes young people to leave the church, many of whom choose to worship God in their own way.
The next statement cites BioLogos as a form of Christianity accepting evolution. Francis Collins, who founded BioLogos and worked on the Human Genome Project, thinks that God drove evolution and that Adam and Eve were a metaphor for the first evolved humans. He says this because he believes in God, but also searches for truth and is forced to assign God the role of creating evolution. Ken Ham doesn't search for truth, he has already decided truth, and therefore he must attack and dismiss any evidence, legitimate or not, that conflicts with his absolute truth.
Billboards are a noticeable theme in Ham's address. He calls attention to the billboards put up by atheist groups, billboards that say "You can be good without God," or "Don't believe in God? You're not alone," or a quote from Richard Dawkins. Ham claims that these are examples of secular humanism seeping into the culture and replacing God's word. This is interesting because later in the speech, he calls for more billboards like the ones his organization produces, billboards that speak out against abortion or gay marraige from a biblical perspective. Basically, freedom of speech should only apply to him. He can't be bothered with opposing views except to attack them.
He ends with a little suggestion to fix the economy: prayer. Because we Americans turned away from the Lord, he says, He has turned away from us, and if we turn back to God we will be an economic superpower by His will. Of course this implies that by praying, we will deserve a better economy than any other country, even if they pray, because Ham doesn't care about anyone who doesn't believe what he believes. Anything bad that falls on them is what they deserved for not worshiping God the same way he does.
I could only write so much on this, and to get the full effect of the stupid you'd have to watch it for yourself. It's an hour long, but if you have the time, you might get some laughs. Since all the points I've commented on have been better said on Youtube alone, I'll cite some of the major flaws in his reasoning with links to well-made corrections. Flaws like that atheism is a religion, and therefore requires faith, that God has established moral absolutes, that evolution is intrinsically atheistic, and most importantly, that the Bible is God's word.
Welcome back. We were just getting to the part where Ken Ham calls his fellow Christians to action.
The Bible says if you're not with me you're against me (Matthew 12:30). [...] There is no neutral ground.
It's not enough for Ken Ham to deny science and reasoning, or to influence others to do the same. He has to rally Christians to fight against science, education, and intelligence. And when he says neutral ground, he doesn't mean between religion and secularism, he means between the Bible and science. In other words, everyone who is Christian must assert as fact what the Bible says regardless of what any evidence may indicate, and to have doubt or honest skepticism is unacceptable.
What [separation of church and state] really means is we get rid of the Bible. That's what it really means in people's minds today, in the secularist's mind.
True, but only half true: it's only getting rid of the Bible in government institutions, but it's also getting rid of the Quran, The Book of Mormon, The Bhagavad Gita, Dianetics, or any other religious scripture. Ken Ham is under the impression that freedom of religion means anti-Christianity. The truth is that separation of church and state inhibits government from imposing any religion with tax dollars paid by people who have the freedom to worship any other religion. Freedom of religion means that unlike in Iran, where apostasy is punishable by death, Americans have the right to practice (peacefully) any religion they choose, be it Christianity or no religion at all. However, since Ham has already claimed that having no religion is a religion, then of course he must assert that separation of church and state is just rejecting Christianity for another religion. Here's a lovely quote.
You can't have freedom from religion because everyone has a religion. In fact, there are only two religions, ultimately, either you start with God's word, or man's word. So what they really mean is, freedom from Christianity.
Where to start? Okay, the beginning. Not everyone has a religion, but we've already tackled that. Next point of dishonesty, that the Bible is God's word. This allows Ham to dismiss every other religion whose holy book is claimed to be on God's word, but it is well know that the Bible was written by men, and by today's standards, inferior men at that. Therefore, in this case, God's word is man's word, whether Ken Ham likes it or not.
The next section of the speech is where he bashes the newly released film, Creation. I can't say much about it, because I never saw it because it seemed boring, but this has nothing to do with the loss of a belief in God (unless, like Ham, you equate evolution with atheism). The film clips he shows transitions him into the point that belief in evolution leads to moral relativism, which Ham equates to having no morals at all. He says that "children of evolution" are committing school shootings as an act of natural selection. This is offensive, but you wanna talk about beliefs leading to violence or murder? How about when someone kills an abortionist as a "service to women?" How about when a mother prays instead of taking her daughter to get medical treatment, and the daughter dies? How about the people who were killed in the riots against the Danish cartoons depicting and image of Muhammad? Ken Ham is forgetting not only that his religion is responsible for the deaths of millions, but also that evolution does not claim any moral standing, it's just a model of reality.
Then we get to the Gap commercial. Ham claims that the Gap holiday commercial is more secularized and shows how we're losing God in America. Here's a brief summary about what happened: Gap made a commercial including Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, and winter solstice. The American Family Association, a Christian activist group, saw it and threw a bitch-fit, calling for the boycott of all Gap stores. Gap responded by cowering like a dog who's been beaten too much, and making a new commercial that only mentions Christmas. The AFA ended the boycott and the Christian fundamentalists win again. If anything, this shows that religious fundamentalists have too much power over the free market, but I wouldn't even extrapolate that much from it.
Next he talks about how blasphemy is so widespread and acceptable. He says that it's too common that Christianity is openly mocked and that Jesus is blasphemed against. Kind of like how Ken Ham blasphemes against and dishonors the God of any other religion, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism? Kind of like how Ken Ham openly mocked Catholicism and mainstream Christianity earlier in this very speech?
Ham cites his book, Already Gone, and claims that too many young people are abandoning the church.
Research shows that two-thirds of our young people are walking away from the church, and you know the number one reason the research found? Because of hypocricy.
He clarifies that hypocrisy means that the church is saying that one must obey and believe the Bible, but it's ok to not consider Genesis as historical fact. He says that if people think it's ok to dismiss some of the Bible, then why not get rid of the whole thing, and that, he says, is how Americans are losing faith. For once, I agree with him. If people choose to dismiss the Genesis fables, or any of the huge number of inconsistencies or contradictions, then they've already found one flaw with the Bible, and that automatically nullifies when the Bible says it's infallible. With that in mind, you can't reasonably trust anything in the Bible that's not verified by anything else, so if you're going to have to filter it through your own interpretations, why not throw it away and view the world through your own interpretations and formulate what's right and wrong for yourself? You already do that anyway, whether your a religious believer or not. For example, Ken Ham is taking it literally when the Bible says to preach the gospel to as many people as you can reach (Mark 16:15), but he's neglecting to preach that the Bible says that when a man rapes a woman, she must marry him (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or that any man who does any work at all on the Sabbath must be put to death (Numbers 15:32-36), or that Jesus said you must hate your parents if you are to be with him (Luke 14:26). Ken Ham, as well as any other sane believer, ignores these instructions, because they're morally reprehensible, but that just shows that the Bible is not a literal and perfect account from God, and they know it, so to say that it is literal and perfect is hypocrisy. The internet has made this information widely available and easily accessible and that may be the hypocrisy that causes young people to leave the church, many of whom choose to worship God in their own way.
The next statement cites BioLogos as a form of Christianity accepting evolution. Francis Collins, who founded BioLogos and worked on the Human Genome Project, thinks that God drove evolution and that Adam and Eve were a metaphor for the first evolved humans. He says this because he believes in God, but also searches for truth and is forced to assign God the role of creating evolution. Ken Ham doesn't search for truth, he has already decided truth, and therefore he must attack and dismiss any evidence, legitimate or not, that conflicts with his absolute truth.
Billboards are a noticeable theme in Ham's address. He calls attention to the billboards put up by atheist groups, billboards that say "You can be good without God," or "Don't believe in God? You're not alone," or a quote from Richard Dawkins. Ham claims that these are examples of secular humanism seeping into the culture and replacing God's word. This is interesting because later in the speech, he calls for more billboards like the ones his organization produces, billboards that speak out against abortion or gay marraige from a biblical perspective. Basically, freedom of speech should only apply to him. He can't be bothered with opposing views except to attack them.
He ends with a little suggestion to fix the economy: prayer. Because we Americans turned away from the Lord, he says, He has turned away from us, and if we turn back to God we will be an economic superpower by His will. Of course this implies that by praying, we will deserve a better economy than any other country, even if they pray, because Ham doesn't care about anyone who doesn't believe what he believes. Anything bad that falls on them is what they deserved for not worshiping God the same way he does.
I could only write so much on this, and to get the full effect of the stupid you'd have to watch it for yourself. It's an hour long, but if you have the time, you might get some laughs. Since all the points I've commented on have been better said on Youtube alone, I'll cite some of the major flaws in his reasoning with links to well-made corrections. Flaws like that atheism is a religion, and therefore requires faith, that God has established moral absolutes, that evolution is intrinsically atheistic, and most importantly, that the Bible is God's word.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Long Way From Home?
Posted by Lt. Dan Taylor
There is a young man who I have seen in my work a couple of times recently. As far as I can remember he has been wearing the same shirt every time. He is clean, his are clothes clean, his facial hair is trim and tidy but he has the feeling of someone lost or homeless.
Some of the girls have said they get the creeps from him. I can see why. He is always there for a couple hours just staring off into space or just watching people around him with a detached semi-smile on his face. He doesn't look menacing or crazy. Just... there.
Whenever he comes to the counter he knows what he wants and can talk well enough but has a slowness that goes with the whole creepy/lost feeling. Today he bought a tin of tea, out of the blue, and then asked me:
"Could you tell me where I am?"
"You mean, like, what streets we're at?" I asked. He shrugged a bit as if to say: 'sure.' So I told him the cross streets as I pointed and he almost reluctantly followed my gestures. Feeling as if I hadn't answered his question I asked:
"Where are you trying to go?"
He took a long sort of look at me then said:
"Well...Originally: Hershey Pennsylvania."
My face must have shown my complete bewilderment because he nodded and said:
"Well, thanks. 'Night." Then he sort of meandered out.
I still feel a little unsure about the whole situation. It had the feeling of in a movie or book when an angel or something comes to someone and asks them questions that they need to ask themselves but in a less literal way. "Could you tell me where I am?" or "Where are you trying to go?" Hershey Pennsylvania? It was so odd that I can't help but wonder about it still.
There is a young man who I have seen in my work a couple of times recently. As far as I can remember he has been wearing the same shirt every time. He is clean, his are clothes clean, his facial hair is trim and tidy but he has the feeling of someone lost or homeless.
Some of the girls have said they get the creeps from him. I can see why. He is always there for a couple hours just staring off into space or just watching people around him with a detached semi-smile on his face. He doesn't look menacing or crazy. Just... there.
Whenever he comes to the counter he knows what he wants and can talk well enough but has a slowness that goes with the whole creepy/lost feeling. Today he bought a tin of tea, out of the blue, and then asked me:
"Could you tell me where I am?"
"You mean, like, what streets we're at?" I asked. He shrugged a bit as if to say: 'sure.' So I told him the cross streets as I pointed and he almost reluctantly followed my gestures. Feeling as if I hadn't answered his question I asked:
"Where are you trying to go?"
He took a long sort of look at me then said:
"Well...Originally: Hershey Pennsylvania."
My face must have shown my complete bewilderment because he nodded and said:
"Well, thanks. 'Night." Then he sort of meandered out.
I still feel a little unsure about the whole situation. It had the feeling of in a movie or book when an angel or something comes to someone and asks them questions that they need to ask themselves but in a less literal way. "Could you tell me where I am?" or "Where are you trying to go?" Hershey Pennsylvania? It was so odd that I can't help but wonder about it still.
Crazy Creationist of the Month: February (Part 1)
Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.
This month's crazy creationist is Ken Ham, for his State of the Nation address on February 16.
Who is Ken Ham?
Ken Ham is the president and founder of Answers in Genesis. He believes that the Book of Genesis should and must be interpreted as a literal account of the universe being created in 6 days. He is also responsible for the building of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which portrays Adam and Eve coexisting with dinosaurs before The Fall, Noah herding every animal on the Ark, and a number of other biblical tales, as certain fact.
Following the president's State of the Union address, Ken Ham has made his second annual State of the Nation about what's wrong with America and what, if anything, good Christians can do to bring it back.
He starts off citing that President Obama has declared that America is "no longer" a Christian nation, but a nation of many faiths. This offends Ham because he thinks his religion has the right, over any other, to govern the United States. He goes on to emphasize that this used to be a Christian nation, but that things have changed.
He then states that problem number one for the country is that we are losing faith (just like the Israelites did in the Book of Judges). We are forgetting good Christian values, such as reading the Bible, heterosexual marriage, and banning abortion and euthanasia.
This is why so many people have a problem with fundamentalists, because they think their Holy Book gives them the right to impose themselves into public matters, like abortion rights, gay rights, and setting biblical verses on government property.
His next outrageous claim is that when people compare Creationism to Science, they're not talking about observable science, the science that brought you all the modern technology you enjoy today, but about evolution which, he claims, is not real science.
As if speciation has never been observed, a topic that can be thoroughly researched by two minutes on Google, Ham is clear that because evolution conflicts with his view of Scripture, it must be wrong and therefore, not science. However, there is no separation in the real world between science that everyone agrees on and evolution, they are both equally science. Evolution is as much a part of science as gravity is, and in fact there is more evidence behind evolution than gravity, because the law of gravity can be shown to be demonstrably wrong in rare instances.
When Ham says America is a nation that was built on the authority of God's word, he is lying. The founding fathers were secularists who knew the value and importance of keeping religion out of government. I have no clue where Ham is getting this idea.
Ham's next fallacy is that evolution is a belief about the past, about origins specifically. Evolution is not a belief like Christianity is a belief. It's not really believed at all as much as accepted because it has been shown to be true. Creationists like to drag down evolutionary theory to a belief because then it looks like they are on equal ground, and that creationism has the benefit of being supported by God. But that was never true and evolution requires research and study to believe, not faith.
He then quotes Shirley Tilghman, president of Princeton, as saying
She's exactly right, people like Ken Ham are attacking evolution in order to try to convince the public that there is a controversy in the scientific world where there is none. For example, more historians deny the Holocaust than scientists deny evolution. Tilghman is saying that schools have a responsibility to teach real science, and too bad for Ken Ham if he doesn't consider evolution science, because the scientific community does.
Another cheap attempt to bring down evolution is to declare it the religion of atheism.
When people say that atheism is a religion, or requires faith, or is a belief system, they just show that they don't understand the basic definitions of the terms they're using. When properly defined, it becomes clear that atheism cannot be a religion in any sense of the word. Moreover, evolution is not synonymous with atheism and never has been. Ken Ham says these things because he wants you to think that theism and atheism are just two different religions, and that his religion has the authority of God behind it. As usual, he's completely wrong.
Ham is redefining science, not anyone else. Science has always assumed to be working with natural processes because there has never been a case where assuming supernatural causes has shown to be right over natural ones.
Stay tuned for part 2 of February's Crazy Creationist of the Month, where we'll go over the second half of Ham's ridiculous blatherings.
This month's crazy creationist is Ken Ham, for his State of the Nation address on February 16.
Who is Ken Ham?
Ken Ham is the president and founder of Answers in Genesis. He believes that the Book of Genesis should and must be interpreted as a literal account of the universe being created in 6 days. He is also responsible for the building of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which portrays Adam and Eve coexisting with dinosaurs before The Fall, Noah herding every animal on the Ark, and a number of other biblical tales, as certain fact.
Following the president's State of the Union address, Ken Ham has made his second annual State of the Nation about what's wrong with America and what, if anything, good Christians can do to bring it back.
He starts off citing that President Obama has declared that America is "no longer" a Christian nation, but a nation of many faiths. This offends Ham because he thinks his religion has the right, over any other, to govern the United States. He goes on to emphasize that this used to be a Christian nation, but that things have changed.
He then states that problem number one for the country is that we are losing faith (just like the Israelites did in the Book of Judges). We are forgetting good Christian values, such as reading the Bible, heterosexual marriage, and banning abortion and euthanasia.
This is why so many people have a problem with fundamentalists, because they think their Holy Book gives them the right to impose themselves into public matters, like abortion rights, gay rights, and setting biblical verses on government property.
His next outrageous claim is that when people compare Creationism to Science, they're not talking about observable science, the science that brought you all the modern technology you enjoy today, but about evolution which, he claims, is not real science.
When they use the word 'science,' I'm going to talk about that later on, but when a lot of people us that word, they're not really talking about observational science that built the technology to make a broadcast like this happen. They're really talking about evolution...
As if speciation has never been observed, a topic that can be thoroughly researched by two minutes on Google, Ham is clear that because evolution conflicts with his view of Scripture, it must be wrong and therefore, not science. However, there is no separation in the real world between science that everyone agrees on and evolution, they are both equally science. Evolution is as much a part of science as gravity is, and in fact there is more evidence behind evolution than gravity, because the law of gravity can be shown to be demonstrably wrong in rare instances.
What has happened that has really caused this? Such a fundamental change from a nation built on the authority of God's word to a nation now where we see those reminders of being built of God's word are basically being removed...
When Ham says America is a nation that was built on the authority of God's word, he is lying. The founding fathers were secularists who knew the value and importance of keeping religion out of government. I have no clue where Ham is getting this idea.
Ham's next fallacy is that evolution is a belief about the past, about origins specifically. Evolution is not a belief like Christianity is a belief. It's not really believed at all as much as accepted because it has been shown to be true. Creationists like to drag down evolutionary theory to a belief because then it looks like they are on equal ground, and that creationism has the benefit of being supported by God. But that was never true and evolution requires research and study to believe, not faith.
He then quotes Shirley Tilghman, president of Princeton, as saying
"Christian fundamentalists in the United States have launched a well-publicized assault on the theory of evolution..."
She's exactly right, people like Ken Ham are attacking evolution in order to try to convince the public that there is a controversy in the scientific world where there is none. For example, more historians deny the Holocaust than scientists deny evolution. Tilghman is saying that schools have a responsibility to teach real science, and too bad for Ken Ham if he doesn't consider evolution science, because the scientific community does.
Another cheap attempt to bring down evolution is to declare it the religion of atheism.
They're saying, 'When you look at the universe, life; mankind; all of reality, the supernatural has nothing to do with it. Everything is explained by natural processes.' Do you realize that that's the religion of atheism or the religion of naturalism.
When people say that atheism is a religion, or requires faith, or is a belief system, they just show that they don't understand the basic definitions of the terms they're using. When properly defined, it becomes clear that atheism cannot be a religion in any sense of the word. Moreover, evolution is not synonymous with atheism and never has been. Ken Ham says these things because he wants you to think that theism and atheism are just two different religions, and that his religion has the authority of God behind it. As usual, he's completely wrong.
Do you realize what they're doing? They're redefining science, and they've redefined science as having to do only with naturalism and the supernatural can't be involved, so they're eliminating the Bible, they're eliminating Christianity and replacing it with another religion.
Ham is redefining science, not anyone else. Science has always assumed to be working with natural processes because there has never been a case where assuming supernatural causes has shown to be right over natural ones.
Stay tuned for part 2 of February's Crazy Creationist of the Month, where we'll go over the second half of Ham's ridiculous blatherings.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Crazy Creationist of the Month: Runner Up
Posted by Lionel Boyd Johnson.
Welcome the first ever Crazy Creationist of the Month. This month, trailing off in second place, you guessed it, is Ray Comfort, for his two week series of blog posts, "Seven of the most important questions you will ever ask."
The premise is that everyone is going to die eventually, and there are a few questions that will define your life and give you meaning before you, too, eventually die. Let's take a look at the first one.
How do I know God exists?
First off, it's a loaded question; it assumes God exists already. However, the question of "Does God exist, and if so how will I know," is important, especially if there is an afterlife and God controls what happens to our "souls" after we die.
So how does Comfort answer?
Correct, your decision to believe in any god is a personal choice, and can't be justified with logic or statistics. There are many logical proofs for the existence of God, and they've all been thoroughly refuted and disproved a long time ago. The same goes for any alleged disproof of God, it can't be disproved for sure. So which fallacious proof does Comfort offer?
Ray Comfort and former star of Growing Pains Kirk Cameron went on Nightline a few years ago under the claim that they could prove that God exists without the use of faith or the Bible. Of course they didn't do it, but the argument they gave before resorting to the Bible was, "Creation is 100% scientific proof there was a creator, you can't have creation without a creator." Obviously it was all just a publicity stunt, and they clearly knew that their argument was flawed because they had been spouting it for years before that.
There are a number of fallacies in this claim, first among them being that creation proves a creator. Creation implies a creator, but that assumes creation; existence doesn't imply anything. On that same note, if everything had to be created, who created God? Comfort has already answered this by saying that God is eternal, but then why not cut out the middle-man and say all matter and energy in the universe is eternal, which evidence indicates it may be. If anything, his argument stands against existence for God, because if given the choice of the universe being eternal and the universe being created by something else that's eternal, Occam's Razor allows us to assume that the universe is eternal. But that's making assumptions as well.
The real argument Comfort is giving here is a combination of straw man fallacy and false dichotomy. The straw man is that the atheist believes that nothing created everything, a mockery of Big Bang cosmology. However, the Big Bang Theory states that there was a singularity: consider that all matter is mostly empty space within atoms, and that protons and neutrons themselves are mostly empty, then consider that matter can be converted to energy following the equation E=MC^2. Now consider compressing all matter to a plasma-like state so dense that nothing exists outside of it, not even time. This is the singularity, and it didn't explode like the word "bang" suggests, it wasn't floating around for a while until something happened to it because there was no time or existence before it. There was a rapid expansion of space-time that still continues to this day (note that the universe is expanding). This isn't idle speculation either, it's the most comprehensive explanation for all the observed phenomena in the cosmos. The false dichotomy is that Comfort implies that by attacking Big Bang cosmology, it would give credit to his argument by default. It doesn't, it's a dishonest and childish attack on what he doesn't understand and refuses to understand.
Besides, none of this goes any distance to prove the God of the Bible, which is what he's really lobbying for.
Not true again, it makes more sense that life adapted to conditions on earth, the parts of it that are easy enough to adapt to, anyway. If things were different, and we lived on Venus, Comfort would just claim that Venus was designed for life. It's all a meaningless tautology.
Comfort has failed to prove that God exists. Again. Every question after this one is completely inconsequential, since they depend on the first question. That's all for the best, since they're pretty unimportant questions. What does God have that I need, What is God like, How do I approach him to get the gift [of eternal life], all the answers given assume that God exists, and that He exists exactly as the Bible describes Him. What irritates me is that Comfort is asserting as fact things he doesn't know, and can't know, and does it as a career. Don't mistake Comfort's seven questions for important, it's just a dishonest attempt to proselytize under the guise of thoughtful reflection.
Stay tuned for the winner of February's Crazy Creationist of the Month. (I'll give you a hint, he thinks Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs as beasts of burden.)
Welcome the first ever Crazy Creationist of the Month. This month, trailing off in second place, you guessed it, is Ray Comfort, for his two week series of blog posts, "Seven of the most important questions you will ever ask."
The premise is that everyone is going to die eventually, and there are a few questions that will define your life and give you meaning before you, too, eventually die. Let's take a look at the first one.
How do I know God exists?
First off, it's a loaded question; it assumes God exists already. However, the question of "Does God exist, and if so how will I know," is important, especially if there is an afterlife and God controls what happens to our "souls" after we die.
So how does Comfort answer?
It’s amazing how many people think that God’s existence is a matter of "faith." They think that we choose to accept that an invisible God exists, without any real evidence for His existence. We just "believe."
Correct, your decision to believe in any god is a personal choice, and can't be justified with logic or statistics. There are many logical proofs for the existence of God, and they've all been thoroughly refuted and disproved a long time ago. The same goes for any alleged disproof of God, it can't be disproved for sure. So which fallacious proof does Comfort offer?
Could you believe that a soldier’s barracks had no builder? Obviously someone put it together, because buildings don’t happen by themselves. The fact that the building exists is positive proof that there was a builder. Who could believe that a building—with its doors, windows, heating, air conditioning, carpet, electricity, etc., happened by accident, made from nothing?
Its design adds to evidence of a designer.
Ray Comfort and former star of Growing Pains Kirk Cameron went on Nightline a few years ago under the claim that they could prove that God exists without the use of faith or the Bible. Of course they didn't do it, but the argument they gave before resorting to the Bible was, "Creation is 100% scientific proof there was a creator, you can't have creation without a creator." Obviously it was all just a publicity stunt, and they clearly knew that their argument was flawed because they had been spouting it for years before that.
There are a number of fallacies in this claim, first among them being that creation proves a creator. Creation implies a creator, but that assumes creation; existence doesn't imply anything. On that same note, if everything had to be created, who created God? Comfort has already answered this by saying that God is eternal, but then why not cut out the middle-man and say all matter and energy in the universe is eternal, which evidence indicates it may be. If anything, his argument stands against existence for God, because if given the choice of the universe being eternal and the universe being created by something else that's eternal, Occam's Razor allows us to assume that the universe is eternal. But that's making assumptions as well.
The real argument Comfort is giving here is a combination of straw man fallacy and false dichotomy. The straw man is that the atheist believes that nothing created everything, a mockery of Big Bang cosmology. However, the Big Bang Theory states that there was a singularity: consider that all matter is mostly empty space within atoms, and that protons and neutrons themselves are mostly empty, then consider that matter can be converted to energy following the equation E=MC^2. Now consider compressing all matter to a plasma-like state so dense that nothing exists outside of it, not even time. This is the singularity, and it didn't explode like the word "bang" suggests, it wasn't floating around for a while until something happened to it because there was no time or existence before it. There was a rapid expansion of space-time that still continues to this day (note that the universe is expanding). This isn't idle speculation either, it's the most comprehensive explanation for all the observed phenomena in the cosmos. The false dichotomy is that Comfort implies that by attacking Big Bang cosmology, it would give credit to his argument by default. It doesn't, it's a dishonest and childish attack on what he doesn't understand and refuses to understand.
Besides, none of this goes any distance to prove the God of the Bible, which is what he's really lobbying for.
But there is more. The evidence shows that this earth upon which we live was intended for our use. We have lighting during the day so that we can see what we are doing. The sea breeze keeps the air fresh and cool, and the warmth of a massive ball of fire in the sky keeps us warm and dry. Cows give us succulent meat to eat and leather to wear. They chew grass and give us milk, and from the milk we get cream, cheese, butter, yoghurt, and ice cream. Sheep give us mouth-watering meat to eat, and wool from their back gives us warm sweaters, and supplies carpet for our comfort. Chickens lay eggs for us to scramble, and sacrificially provide finger-lickin’ meat on our plates.
Not true again, it makes more sense that life adapted to conditions on earth, the parts of it that are easy enough to adapt to, anyway. If things were different, and we lived on Venus, Comfort would just claim that Venus was designed for life. It's all a meaningless tautology.
Comfort has failed to prove that God exists. Again. Every question after this one is completely inconsequential, since they depend on the first question. That's all for the best, since they're pretty unimportant questions. What does God have that I need, What is God like, How do I approach him to get the gift [of eternal life], all the answers given assume that God exists, and that He exists exactly as the Bible describes Him. What irritates me is that Comfort is asserting as fact things he doesn't know, and can't know, and does it as a career. Don't mistake Comfort's seven questions for important, it's just a dishonest attempt to proselytize under the guise of thoughtful reflection.
Stay tuned for the winner of February's Crazy Creationist of the Month. (I'll give you a hint, he thinks Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs as beasts of burden.)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
50 at 5:00
Posted by William Edwards Deming.
I was driving around the area yesterday, and it sucked. Five o'clock Friday traffic, and the rainy weather.
My first point of complaint is the weather. It had just stopped raining, and the sun was just starting to shine. With me driving west, that meant that there was a thin gloss of water on the road to perfectly reflect the sun that was already shining in my eyes. It was so bad I couldn't drive without holding my hand in front of my face, and it was physically painful even still.
Top that off with the rush hour traffic. Traffic has always been very interesting to me. Something about the interaction between people on such a large scale fascinates me, and being a topic of such interest, I become very frustrated when everything fucks up. The fact that millions of dollars was put into the highway as a system of ensuring that I can keep traveling at high speed; when I come to a complete stop on the freeway, in the fast lane, for no less time than a minute, I'm overcome with a feeling of defeat, like something (or several things) in my life has gone horribly wrong, and now here I sit, my delicate temporal planning shattered. These traffic jams aren't caused by an accident, either. It's mostly that people don't know what they're doing and can't get it together that causes them to slow down. Basically, everyone is ruining everyone and, interesting though it is (and it is interesting), I hate being a part of it.
So next time you're on the road, remember, keep the big picture in mind, and be courteous to your fellow driver.
I was driving around the area yesterday, and it sucked. Five o'clock Friday traffic, and the rainy weather.
My first point of complaint is the weather. It had just stopped raining, and the sun was just starting to shine. With me driving west, that meant that there was a thin gloss of water on the road to perfectly reflect the sun that was already shining in my eyes. It was so bad I couldn't drive without holding my hand in front of my face, and it was physically painful even still.
Top that off with the rush hour traffic. Traffic has always been very interesting to me. Something about the interaction between people on such a large scale fascinates me, and being a topic of such interest, I become very frustrated when everything fucks up. The fact that millions of dollars was put into the highway as a system of ensuring that I can keep traveling at high speed; when I come to a complete stop on the freeway, in the fast lane, for no less time than a minute, I'm overcome with a feeling of defeat, like something (or several things) in my life has gone horribly wrong, and now here I sit, my delicate temporal planning shattered. These traffic jams aren't caused by an accident, either. It's mostly that people don't know what they're doing and can't get it together that causes them to slow down. Basically, everyone is ruining everyone and, interesting though it is (and it is interesting), I hate being a part of it.
So next time you're on the road, remember, keep the big picture in mind, and be courteous to your fellow driver.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Careful With That Jackhammer
Guest post by Kilgore Trout.
So I had a pretty epic dream last night. I was playing a video game, and the story for the game was amazing.
As part of a top-secret mission you are seated into a craft and launched into the future along with your team. The reason? A nuclear spill in the future has made it so people cannot have children. And because of a time warp caused by the spill, people in the past are dying, therefore everybody's parents are slowly dying before having children, and therefore people are getting younger until they die, Ã la Benjamin Button. (This getting younger thing is happening in the future where you are going, not in the present, but somehow that's bad for the present too. It all made perfect sense in the dream)
So your mission is to stop that, save the world, and save everybody from dying. You are obviously battling some enemies (but I don't really remember them). Eventually, you find a group of people who have children (they are special because nobody's been able to have children). So you have to protect these people against the enemies (All I know is they're dressed like FBI agents.) Anyway, here comes the epic part.
So what happens is somehow is you and the children people are in your craft and I guess you're supposed to be with them all the time. So at this point in the dream I'm like “I got stuff to do.” So I decide to quit the game.
The game says, “Do you want to quit or just leave the craft?” For some reason I just leave the craft. Then it says, “Fast forward 1000 years...” The craft is buried under rock or underground or in magma or something like that and the game asks you, “Do you want to dig the people out?” I don't remember what I answered but here is, as close to verbatim as I could, what the game said in the dream: “1000 years later. The world is destroyed, empty, buried in ashes. And you just a spirit of a baby, with a JACKHAMMER.”
Think about it, it makes sense. Such a good line.
I expect an offer from Microsoft games any hour.
So I had a pretty epic dream last night. I was playing a video game, and the story for the game was amazing.
As part of a top-secret mission you are seated into a craft and launched into the future along with your team. The reason? A nuclear spill in the future has made it so people cannot have children. And because of a time warp caused by the spill, people in the past are dying, therefore everybody's parents are slowly dying before having children, and therefore people are getting younger until they die, Ã la Benjamin Button. (This getting younger thing is happening in the future where you are going, not in the present, but somehow that's bad for the present too. It all made perfect sense in the dream)
So your mission is to stop that, save the world, and save everybody from dying. You are obviously battling some enemies (but I don't really remember them). Eventually, you find a group of people who have children (they are special because nobody's been able to have children). So you have to protect these people against the enemies (All I know is they're dressed like FBI agents.) Anyway, here comes the epic part.
So what happens is somehow is you and the children people are in your craft and I guess you're supposed to be with them all the time. So at this point in the dream I'm like “I got stuff to do.” So I decide to quit the game.
The game says, “Do you want to quit or just leave the craft?” For some reason I just leave the craft. Then it says, “Fast forward 1000 years...” The craft is buried under rock or underground or in magma or something like that and the game asks you, “Do you want to dig the people out?” I don't remember what I answered but here is, as close to verbatim as I could, what the game said in the dream: “1000 years later. The world is destroyed, empty, buried in ashes. And you just a spirit of a baby, with a JACKHAMMER.”
Think about it, it makes sense. Such a good line.
I expect an offer from Microsoft games any hour.
Up Yours, Whitey
Posted by Carlos Argentino Daneri.
A civil rights group is trying to bring affirmative action to the University of California system.
Even though affirmative action was banned more than a decade ago, these guys want it back.
I knew something was wrong with affirmative action the first time I ever heard about it. Eventually, I learned the name of this fallacy: truth is in the middle. Picture yourself walking along, and you see two $5 bills on the sidewalk. You should turn them in to lost-and-found, but you'd prefer to keep them for yourself. After all, you found them and how do you know the guy at the lost-and-found won't just keep them for himself? With this minor moral dilemma in mind, would it be right to average the difference and keep only one of the $5 bills?
Similarly, if a particular racial group is underrepresented, by prejudice or any other reason, does it balance things out to favor them over any other group? It doesn't, because it doesn't work that way because there's no such thing as reverse racism.
The activist group is called "By Any Means Necessary." Think about that, they're going to do what they think is right no matter what, regardless of how unfair or unconstitutional it is. This, I think, is the worst name for any group to give themselves because it shows flat out that they want to impose themselves where the law and the people have already spoken.
A civil rights group is trying to bring affirmative action to the University of California system.
Now in California, the Berkeley-based civil rights activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) filed a federal lawsuit in order to increase the number of African American, Latino and Native American students at the University of California.
Even though affirmative action was banned more than a decade ago, these guys want it back.
In 1996 California voters approved the Prop 209 constitutional amendment, which banned government institutions from using race as a consideration to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities who are employed by the government or attend public universities.
I knew something was wrong with affirmative action the first time I ever heard about it. Eventually, I learned the name of this fallacy: truth is in the middle. Picture yourself walking along, and you see two $5 bills on the sidewalk. You should turn them in to lost-and-found, but you'd prefer to keep them for yourself. After all, you found them and how do you know the guy at the lost-and-found won't just keep them for himself? With this minor moral dilemma in mind, would it be right to average the difference and keep only one of the $5 bills?
Similarly, if a particular racial group is underrepresented, by prejudice or any other reason, does it balance things out to favor them over any other group? It doesn't, because it doesn't work that way because there's no such thing as reverse racism.
Connerly said it is the affirmative action policies that are actually racist. By using race as a consideration at all, the progress of the civil rights movement toward a color-blind society is threatened, he said.
"Proposition 209 is in essence the same language as the 1964 civil rights act," Connerly said, referring to the 1964 federal legislation which banned Jim Crow laws.
The activist group is called "By Any Means Necessary." Think about that, they're going to do what they think is right no matter what, regardless of how unfair or unconstitutional it is. This, I think, is the worst name for any group to give themselves because it shows flat out that they want to impose themselves where the law and the people have already spoken.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Girl in the Pink Sweater
Posted by Romeo Montague.
I was walking around school today, pretty normal. As I walked past the library, I saw this girl. Overall, she was cute, but I wouldn't find her particularly gorgeous. However, she had this lovely smile on her face, a look of complete contentness, and she had overwhelming confidence in her stride, like she was extremely satisfied with her life. I don't know why, but I instantly found her far more beautiful. There was something about the way she carried herself, with such happiness and serenity -- even though she was walking alone -- that drew my eyes to her. I never knew something like that could have such an effect on me...
I was walking around school today, pretty normal. As I walked past the library, I saw this girl. Overall, she was cute, but I wouldn't find her particularly gorgeous. However, she had this lovely smile on her face, a look of complete contentness, and she had overwhelming confidence in her stride, like she was extremely satisfied with her life. I don't know why, but I instantly found her far more beautiful. There was something about the way she carried herself, with such happiness and serenity -- even though she was walking alone -- that drew my eyes to her. I never knew something like that could have such an effect on me...
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sex Scandal, Sex Schmandle
Posted by Alvah Scarret
The opinion section of any decent newspaper (or online version) is going to have articles there simply to stir the pot of ideas. Get people talking. I think this is a good thing. It can be annoying when the headlines are cheap hooks to get reactions, but papers need people to read them and people just don't read for no reason.
Moving on...
I often glance at the opinion section to see what people are writing on different issues. Particularly the ones that I didn't think were issues, or hadn't thought of in a while. Today I stumbled on a gem that had the tagline:
Should the media dig into the private acts of public figures (elected and appointed offices most importantly) to sniff out any possibly disqualifying ones? I get what the author is saying. He thinks that National Enquirer and other tabloid snooping and accusing, however often it is false and stupid, can reveal elements of character in potential or current public servants that are important. His example:
Do we care that Edwards was sleeping around? So the guy is a sleaze. Does that mean he doesn't have a good record as a statesman? Does that mean he couldn't do a good job? Sure, it may not look so good but luckily for us no public office job is staying faithful. The article continues:
The opinion section of any decent newspaper (or online version) is going to have articles there simply to stir the pot of ideas. Get people talking. I think this is a good thing. It can be annoying when the headlines are cheap hooks to get reactions, but papers need people to read them and people just don't read for no reason.
Moving on...
I often glance at the opinion section to see what people are writing on different issues. Particularly the ones that I didn't think were issues, or hadn't thought of in a while. Today I stumbled on a gem that had the tagline:
Not all affairs produce corruption, but the media should dig into the private acts that should be publicly disqualifying.
Should the media dig into the private acts of public figures (elected and appointed offices most importantly) to sniff out any possibly disqualifying ones? I get what the author is saying. He thinks that National Enquirer and other tabloid snooping and accusing, however often it is false and stupid, can reveal elements of character in potential or current public servants that are important. His example:
By rights, the Edwards story should have been entered in the “public service” category as well. If the supermarket tabloid’s reporters hadn’t gone digging where other journalists declined to even tread, we might never have learned how close the Democratic Party came to nominating a truly disgraceful character for the presidency.
Do we care that Edwards was sleeping around? So the guy is a sleaze. Does that mean he doesn't have a good record as a statesman? Does that mean he couldn't do a good job? Sure, it may not look so good but luckily for us no public office job is staying faithful. The article continues:
If Americans aren’t reading about Edwards and Rielle Hunter, they’ll just read about Tiger Woods or the Jolie-Pitts instead.Better the former than the latter. Watching Woods unburden himself last Friday made me think: This really shouldn’t be any of my business. I’ve never had the same thought watching John Edwards confess his sins. Athletes and actors don’t work for us directly; they’re entrusted with great wealth and fame, but not great power. But the private peccadilloes of politicians tend to interfere with, and corrupt, their commission of their public duties.
I would think that NONE of this was my business. Actor or businessman or politician or athlete or astronaut. If a running politician has a secret habit of cutting up kittens in his garage, however, I might think that would be important. Or if he killed a guy. But both of these are examples of behaviors that represent a definite danger to the responsibility entrusted to a politician. Plus, they are actual crimes.
I'm not condoning this behavior by saying cheating on your spouse is OK in private. Nor am I saying it doesn't show something of the person's character. I am saying that it almost never matters to the JOB, and such invasive investigative journalism should not be encouraged. The author made a good point that mirrors my own:
Not all affairs produce corruption, and we don’t have to know every sin that our politicians commit. Bill Clinton wasn’t on the ballot in 2008, and maybe the public didn’t need a substantial investigation into his post-presidential sex life.
I'll end with that.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The White Man's Burden
Posted by Malachi Constant.
There was an article in the paper a couple days ago discussing an event about the privileges white people get just for being white.
Nothing. At least, it should be nothing. People were called "German," "Spanish," or "English" back when there were fewer people who qualified under several ethnicities. As people from different nationalities interbred, it eventually became easier to just use skin color. For example, I have so many different countries in my background that I don't even know all of them or what fraction I am of any of them. What do I call myself with respect to race? German-English-Irish-maybeScottish-maybesomeothershit? No, I just say white, because it's easier, and I don't really care about tying myself to any country or any number of countries. All I know that I am for sure is American, and I can't even say native American. For another example, a girl I know is Hispanic, but has such dark skin that I just call her black. Some people think black is a derogatory term, but if I had used the phrase African-American, I would have been wrong, because she's not African. Another girl I know doesn't like to be called African-American, again, because she's not African; she prefers to be called black, because it's just an adjective and it's accurate. People who imply more than just skin color when they say "white" are usually exercising the same stereotypes that they are speaking against.
That's perfectly fair. Indeed, there are statistics and 20/20 reports that indicate that there are, undeniably, inequalities between races. I'm sure you've heard of studies that indicate that a black man makes so many cents for every dollar that a white man makes in the same position, and that there is an abundance of certain races in certain job titles. I believe this is the whole point of the event that the article is mentioning, and I'm all in favor of it. But one quote in particular caught my attention...
They need to represent themselves? How is that? When I read this, I got the image in my head of the guest speaker picking white people out of the crowd and asking them to defend their race. Obviously, this is an extreme exaggeration, and I suspect that what the writer meant to say was that white people should be there as another racial group to enhance diversity in the discussion. But that brings up another point, what can one white person, or even a group of white people, have to say on behalf of the entire race?
Here's the thing, a political party, extracurricular club, or religion can be represented by a smaller fraction of that group, because those are things made of people who choose to define themselves as Democrat, Anime Club member, or Christian, to name a few examples. If one person of the group doesn't agree with the merits of the group as a whole, he/she can leave, but my skin color is a circumstance of birth, and I never had any say in the matter. So one white person could never represent the whole of white people because there is nothing common among white people except skin color.
There was an article in the paper a couple days ago discussing an event about the privileges white people get just for being white.
"'Uncovering Whiteness' refers to some of the dynamics around whiteness," she said. "We don't talk about it the way we talk about other things. Back when this country was founded, people were called 'German,' or 'Spanish' or 'English.' When did we become 'white'? What does being white imply past just your skin tone?"
Nothing. At least, it should be nothing. People were called "German," "Spanish," or "English" back when there were fewer people who qualified under several ethnicities. As people from different nationalities interbred, it eventually became easier to just use skin color. For example, I have so many different countries in my background that I don't even know all of them or what fraction I am of any of them. What do I call myself with respect to race? German-English-Irish-maybeScottish-maybesomeothershit? No, I just say white, because it's easier, and I don't really care about tying myself to any country or any number of countries. All I know that I am for sure is American, and I can't even say native American. For another example, a girl I know is Hispanic, but has such dark skin that I just call her black. Some people think black is a derogatory term, but if I had used the phrase African-American, I would have been wrong, because she's not African. Another girl I know doesn't like to be called African-American, again, because she's not African; she prefers to be called black, because it's just an adjective and it's accurate. People who imply more than just skin color when they say "white" are usually exercising the same stereotypes that they are speaking against.
"The purpose of this is to get people thinking about the privileges they have in society whether it's based on race, skin tone, religion or whatever," he said. "You need to be able to recognize what advantages you have over the guy sitting next to you and know what advantages he has over you. We need to stop taking things for granted because these inequalities and injustices still exist."
That's perfectly fair. Indeed, there are statistics and 20/20 reports that indicate that there are, undeniably, inequalities between races. I'm sure you've heard of studies that indicate that a black man makes so many cents for every dollar that a white man makes in the same position, and that there is an abundance of certain races in certain job titles. I believe this is the whole point of the event that the article is mentioning, and I'm all in favor of it. But one quote in particular caught my attention...
Junior international agricultural development major Christina Ortiz noted that there weren't many "white" people planning to attend.
"If you're going to have a discussion about a certain type of people, then it's essential to have them there," she said. "They need to represent themselves. [...]"
They need to represent themselves? How is that? When I read this, I got the image in my head of the guest speaker picking white people out of the crowd and asking them to defend their race. Obviously, this is an extreme exaggeration, and I suspect that what the writer meant to say was that white people should be there as another racial group to enhance diversity in the discussion. But that brings up another point, what can one white person, or even a group of white people, have to say on behalf of the entire race?
Here's the thing, a political party, extracurricular club, or religion can be represented by a smaller fraction of that group, because those are things made of people who choose to define themselves as Democrat, Anime Club member, or Christian, to name a few examples. If one person of the group doesn't agree with the merits of the group as a whole, he/she can leave, but my skin color is a circumstance of birth, and I never had any say in the matter. So one white person could never represent the whole of white people because there is nothing common among white people except skin color.
You'd Have to Quit Smoking, Too
Posted by Randle Patrick McMurphy.
There was a pregnancy scare among a small group of friends of mine. A friend of a friend was "late" and the worries were building up. As far as I know, it looks negative, so she's off the hook this time. I'm glad that she's probably not pregnant because she's certainly not ready for a child. However, when I first heard the news, I was almost surprised at how indifferent I was. This was a life changing experience for this woman, and still is even she turns out not to be pregnant, but I can't seem to care at all.
I think the reason I have no sympathy for her is that this isn't something that's completely beyond her control. What I mean is, there were a number of poor decisions to be made by her to lead to this predicament. Most importantly among them: the choice to have unsafe sex. If it turned out that she was safe and that something went wrong, then for the most part, that was beyond her control, and I think I would feel a little worse for her, but the possible consequences of unprotected sex are well known and there is no excuse for an educated adult to be in such a situation. I realize that using a condom does make sex less enjoyable, but you know what's really unenjoyable? Having a child when you're in no place in your life to raise one.
If it turns out to be a false negative, and she actually is pregnant, I'm not saying it was all her fault. The father would have a lot to answer for as well. I'm saying that it's important to take responsibility for your baser instincts and be able to control them, and be smart about it.
There was a pregnancy scare among a small group of friends of mine. A friend of a friend was "late" and the worries were building up. As far as I know, it looks negative, so she's off the hook this time. I'm glad that she's probably not pregnant because she's certainly not ready for a child. However, when I first heard the news, I was almost surprised at how indifferent I was. This was a life changing experience for this woman, and still is even she turns out not to be pregnant, but I can't seem to care at all.
I think the reason I have no sympathy for her is that this isn't something that's completely beyond her control. What I mean is, there were a number of poor decisions to be made by her to lead to this predicament. Most importantly among them: the choice to have unsafe sex. If it turned out that she was safe and that something went wrong, then for the most part, that was beyond her control, and I think I would feel a little worse for her, but the possible consequences of unprotected sex are well known and there is no excuse for an educated adult to be in such a situation. I realize that using a condom does make sex less enjoyable, but you know what's really unenjoyable? Having a child when you're in no place in your life to raise one.
If it turns out to be a false negative, and she actually is pregnant, I'm not saying it was all her fault. The father would have a lot to answer for as well. I'm saying that it's important to take responsibility for your baser instincts and be able to control them, and be smart about it.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Dumb Brain, Dumb Body
Posted by Mack and The Boys
I'm not much for reading the health section of the paper, or the health section of anything, but in a sickday induced boredom I wandered off the usual path...
I discovered an article in The New York Times entitled 'Low I.Q. Predicts Heart Disease'. I wasn't really surprised at the conclusion hinted by the title, but I was a little surprised that it was published with such a direct headline. People usually try to protect low intelligence persons from all the bad labels often associated with them: socioeconomic status, occupation, health risks, etc.
The article made a point that had occurred to me as I read the headline:
The article, however, mentioned another possible theory:
I'm not much for reading the health section of the paper, or the health section of anything, but in a sickday induced boredom I wandered off the usual path...
I discovered an article in The New York Times entitled 'Low I.Q. Predicts Heart Disease'. I wasn't really surprised at the conclusion hinted by the title, but I was a little surprised that it was published with such a direct headline. People usually try to protect low intelligence persons from all the bad labels often associated with them: socioeconomic status, occupation, health risks, etc.
The article made a point that had occurred to me as I read the headline:
People with lower intelligence also are known to adopt less healthful behaviors — they smoke and drink more and are more likely to have a poor diet. It may be that people with low I.Q. have a more difficult time understanding complex health messages and don’t fully understand the long-term health effects of an unhealthy lifestyle.This seemed pretty straight forward to me, and the most likely correlation between the behaviors of those that test highly in I.Q. tests (educated, wealthy individuals usually) and the behaviors of those that don't.
The article, however, mentioned another possible theory:
It may also be that a high I.Q. is associated with better overall neurological and physiological “wiring,’’ meaning all the body systems, from brain to heart to liver to kidneys, function at a more efficient level.For instance, some studies suggest that people with high I.Q. also have faster physical reaction times.
Intriguing, no? The idea is that those that score better not only are smarter but everything in their bodies is working better making higher intelligence possible. This also makes sense to me in thinking of those in lower socioeconomic situations scoring lower as they do no have access to healthful options in many areas of their health and may not even know enough to care.
Take a peak at the article... It's interesting.
Even if it is in the Health section.
Monday, February 15, 2010
A Shortage of Men
Posted by George Sand.
The New York Times printed an article last week, basically about the plight of single women in universities. Since about ten years ago, women have outnumbered men in colleges and universities, and the article is about the fact that women have a hard time finding a date because there are so few men.
Always be wary when faced with figures. First of all, there are 20 percent that you would consider; that doesn't mean that no one could love the other 20 percent, so really everyone is fighting over the 30 percent that are single. Secondly, these numbers are useless because they are strictly anecdotal, and have no data to back them up. However, addressing the point she's making, there are always few people you really connect with on a romantic level, when compared against the number of people you meet that you just plain don't care about or don't even think about. You're at no more disadvantage than anyone else when you remark that there is such a small percentage of people you meet that you want to date.
What a tragedy that would be, if a woman asked a man out on a date. I, for one, have been flattered when a girl has asked me out, even if I'm not interested. Moreover, I find it extremely weird when I hear about a girl who likes a guy, but does nothing, waiting for him to notice her, when it's clear that he simply hasn't given any thought to it, and that he would probably be very open to the idea if he were just prompted with it.
Bullshit. This assumes that a girl must be in a relationship. If you don't want to "do more than you're comfortable with," then don't. The worse that can happen to you is that you're single. Being single won't kill you. In fact, you can learn a lot about yourself.
If you want something more, you should consider not sleeping with someone you just met and know nothing about. When you do, it sort of sends the message that it's just for the sake of a good time.
Remember when people were complaining that there were too many men on college campuses? That men were setting the norm by population, and basically the same crap was going on? Does it seem like the situation has reversed and they're still complaining about the same thing, just in a different way? If a date is what you want, and you can't get it, maybe you should ask someone out where you would normally wait to be asked out; maybe you should be more open-minded about people you wouldn't normally consider; or maybe you should just exercise patience, and realize that not having a date isn't the end of the world, and that many people have dates and are still miserable.
The New York Times printed an article last week, basically about the plight of single women in universities. Since about ten years ago, women have outnumbered men in colleges and universities, and the article is about the fact that women have a hard time finding a date because there are so few men.
Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.
Always be wary when faced with figures. First of all, there are 20 percent that you would consider; that doesn't mean that no one could love the other 20 percent, so really everyone is fighting over the 30 percent that are single. Secondly, these numbers are useless because they are strictly anecdotal, and have no data to back them up. However, addressing the point she's making, there are always few people you really connect with on a romantic level, when compared against the number of people you meet that you just plain don't care about or don't even think about. You're at no more disadvantage than anyone else when you remark that there is such a small percentage of people you meet that you want to date.
Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day.
What a tragedy that would be, if a woman asked a man out on a date. I, for one, have been flattered when a girl has asked me out, even if I'm not interested. Moreover, I find it extremely weird when I hear about a girl who likes a guy, but does nothing, waiting for him to notice her, when it's clear that he simply hasn't given any thought to it, and that he would probably be very open to the idea if he were just prompted with it.
“Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,” Ms. Lynch said.
Bullshit. This assumes that a girl must be in a relationship. If you don't want to "do more than you're comfortable with," then don't. The worse that can happen to you is that you're single. Being single won't kill you. In fact, you can learn a lot about yourself.
“Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” she wrote. “This results in more casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.”
If you want something more, you should consider not sleeping with someone you just met and know nothing about. When you do, it sort of sends the message that it's just for the sake of a good time.
Remember when people were complaining that there were too many men on college campuses? That men were setting the norm by population, and basically the same crap was going on? Does it seem like the situation has reversed and they're still complaining about the same thing, just in a different way? If a date is what you want, and you can't get it, maybe you should ask someone out where you would normally wait to be asked out; maybe you should be more open-minded about people you wouldn't normally consider; or maybe you should just exercise patience, and realize that not having a date isn't the end of the world, and that many people have dates and are still miserable.
With Headlines Like These
Posted by Stephen Harper
I enjoy a good sporting event like anyone else. Basketball game? Sure! Soccer match? I'm in! Winter Olympics? NO. Not only do the Winter Olympics look puny and stupid in comparison to the Summer (Real) Olympics, but everyone seems to think that when I say 'I don't care' I really mean: 'When I say No, just try harder.'
Let's start with the recent death of the Georgian Luger. It's sad when someone dies at what is intended to be a clean sporting event. It would almost be acceptable to hear about it and all the details around it every time I turn on any sort of news or talk show for a week if he had been doing something like track and field or soccer. The man was racing down an iced track on a non protective device going as fast as possible. What the hell did people think would happen eventually? Not to mention it's a lame sport. Just like Curling or Biathalon or Figure Skating or that one where the skiers go down a hill and off a jump. Who cares?
All of this would be a non-issue with me if it wasn't thrown in my face everywhere. Like when I check my e-mail and get headlines like: "Snowboarder Complains About Peers' Pants" or "Ski Champ Dad's Awkward Moment." It's even on real news channels like The New York Times.
I can respect any 'sport' people dedicate themselves to and competitions for them. That does not mean it should be an Olympic Sport because people do it.
I enjoy a good sporting event like anyone else. Basketball game? Sure! Soccer match? I'm in! Winter Olympics? NO. Not only do the Winter Olympics look puny and stupid in comparison to the Summer (Real) Olympics, but everyone seems to think that when I say 'I don't care' I really mean: 'When I say No, just try harder.'
Let's start with the recent death of the Georgian Luger. It's sad when someone dies at what is intended to be a clean sporting event. It would almost be acceptable to hear about it and all the details around it every time I turn on any sort of news or talk show for a week if he had been doing something like track and field or soccer. The man was racing down an iced track on a non protective device going as fast as possible. What the hell did people think would happen eventually? Not to mention it's a lame sport. Just like Curling or Biathalon or Figure Skating or that one where the skiers go down a hill and off a jump. Who cares?
All of this would be a non-issue with me if it wasn't thrown in my face everywhere. Like when I check my e-mail and get headlines like: "Snowboarder Complains About Peers' Pants" or "Ski Champ Dad's Awkward Moment." It's even on real news channels like The New York Times.
I can respect any 'sport' people dedicate themselves to and competitions for them. That does not mean it should be an Olympic Sport because people do it.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
How Long Can You Go Without?
Posted by Carlos Argentino Daneri.
I was chatting with a close friend of mine, and among the many subjects that came up, she told me that the longest she had gone without sex (neglecting preadolescence) was three weeks. She went on to say that those three weeks were like torture to her.
Obviously, this woman likes having sex, and good for her. But three weeks? That's her record? Is three weeks even long enough to get over the person you last broke up with? (I'm not saying, in that last sentence, that every sexual partner she's ever had was one with whom she was in a committed relationship, because that would be foolish to say.) It made me wonder how many people she had sex with that she didn't even like; she just wanted to have sex. Knowing her, I would wager that it isn't many, since she considers sex a way to become closer with your partner. Even so, I don't think sex should be that essential to anyone, especially if your irreligious enough to consider masturbation as an option.
She acknowledges that her strong desire to have sex has gotten her into trouble before, and I can see how it would. Call me old fashioned when I say that sex should only be with someone you love, or at least like, but if you're going crazy in three weeks without intercourse, your desperation shows that you're probably going to take the first opportunity without consideration.
Immanuel Kant wrote about utilitarian behavior towards your fellow human being. He wrote that it is wrong to use a person strictly for their utility, as you might do with an inanimate tool. The relation that I'm postulating here is that this woman might have once been in the habit of considering a sexual partner only for his body parts, and that it bears consideration to be called immoral.
I was chatting with a close friend of mine, and among the many subjects that came up, she told me that the longest she had gone without sex (neglecting preadolescence) was three weeks. She went on to say that those three weeks were like torture to her.
Obviously, this woman likes having sex, and good for her. But three weeks? That's her record? Is three weeks even long enough to get over the person you last broke up with? (I'm not saying, in that last sentence, that every sexual partner she's ever had was one with whom she was in a committed relationship, because that would be foolish to say.) It made me wonder how many people she had sex with that she didn't even like; she just wanted to have sex. Knowing her, I would wager that it isn't many, since she considers sex a way to become closer with your partner. Even so, I don't think sex should be that essential to anyone, especially if your irreligious enough to consider masturbation as an option.
She acknowledges that her strong desire to have sex has gotten her into trouble before, and I can see how it would. Call me old fashioned when I say that sex should only be with someone you love, or at least like, but if you're going crazy in three weeks without intercourse, your desperation shows that you're probably going to take the first opportunity without consideration.
Immanuel Kant wrote about utilitarian behavior towards your fellow human being. He wrote that it is wrong to use a person strictly for their utility, as you might do with an inanimate tool. The relation that I'm postulating here is that this woman might have once been in the habit of considering a sexual partner only for his body parts, and that it bears consideration to be called immoral.
Kids and Classical Music
Posted by Count Almaviva.
I went to a small, free concert put on today by the music department, and for the third week in a row, a couple had brought their two young kids. It always struck me as weird that anyone would bring their children to a classical music concert, or really any concert. Considering that the role of the audience is to sit quietly, listen, and appreciate, children aren't usually capable of that. Of course, asking these kids to sit patiently for an hour is asking too much, so they frequently moved about and pestered their parents, distracting all of us.
Why would you bring your kids to a live performance? Isn't it obvious that they're not mature enough to understand it? If you're the kind of person who thinks that baby's benefit from the "Mozart Effect," you should know that the experiment people reference when making that claim was performed on college students, and still only showed a temporary effect. When I say temporary, I mean less than a half-hour. The scientists conducting that study never made the claim that listening to classical music can make you smarter. As a personal anecdote, I know a girl who was forced to listen to classical music as treatment for ADHD. It didn't work, and today she hates classical music. Lots of people can get into classical music without listening to it as young child; I'd even go so far as to say most people who like classical music weren't strongly exposed to it as children. Conversely, many people who were brought up on classical music care nothing about it. Whatever taste in music you have is just your taste. It doesn't say anything about your intelligence or reasoning capabilities.
The point I'm trying to make is that there's no reason to bring your children to a classical music performance unless they really want to go. To give the parents some credit, a small-time free concert is probably the best kind of performance to take your kids to if you really have to, since no one has paid to be there and the object of it is to have fun listening to music. I know when I hear whining kids in an expensive concert hall, it bugs the hell out of me because they really have no place there. Another point of credit, as far as kids go, they weren't that bad, and maybe they really did want to be there.
I went to a small, free concert put on today by the music department, and for the third week in a row, a couple had brought their two young kids. It always struck me as weird that anyone would bring their children to a classical music concert, or really any concert. Considering that the role of the audience is to sit quietly, listen, and appreciate, children aren't usually capable of that. Of course, asking these kids to sit patiently for an hour is asking too much, so they frequently moved about and pestered their parents, distracting all of us.
Why would you bring your kids to a live performance? Isn't it obvious that they're not mature enough to understand it? If you're the kind of person who thinks that baby's benefit from the "Mozart Effect," you should know that the experiment people reference when making that claim was performed on college students, and still only showed a temporary effect. When I say temporary, I mean less than a half-hour. The scientists conducting that study never made the claim that listening to classical music can make you smarter. As a personal anecdote, I know a girl who was forced to listen to classical music as treatment for ADHD. It didn't work, and today she hates classical music. Lots of people can get into classical music without listening to it as young child; I'd even go so far as to say most people who like classical music weren't strongly exposed to it as children. Conversely, many people who were brought up on classical music care nothing about it. Whatever taste in music you have is just your taste. It doesn't say anything about your intelligence or reasoning capabilities.
The point I'm trying to make is that there's no reason to bring your children to a classical music performance unless they really want to go. To give the parents some credit, a small-time free concert is probably the best kind of performance to take your kids to if you really have to, since no one has paid to be there and the object of it is to have fun listening to music. I know when I hear whining kids in an expensive concert hall, it bugs the hell out of me because they really have no place there. Another point of credit, as far as kids go, they weren't that bad, and maybe they really did want to be there.
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