current affairs
Stereotyping in Stereo
It would be appropriate
if the end of our civilization were brought about by blasphemous cartoons. I’m a struggling idealist most of the time, thinking education and knowledge can save the world. But everyone’s misanthropic skepticism would be justified if this silliness spiraled out of control and ended in war – the kind of war we’ve been able to wage now for fifty years.
No, Chicken Little. The sky is not falling. It’s just a pessimistic morning.
Deadly Doodling II
Deadly Doodling
Pots and Kettles and Dark Hues
The recent brouhaha over the war in Iraq has drawn Bush and his gang out of its shell of silence. Cheney has recently stepped into the fight:
Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday lashed out at Democrats who accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, saying such critics were spreading "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired" in Washington.
Cheney also suggested that the Democratic attacks could undermine troop morale.
"The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out," Cheney said in a speech in Washington to a conservative think tank.
"American soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions and desert temperatures . . . and back home a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie," Cheney said. (L.A. Times)
In a sense, he has a point. If the administration did indeed admit to “selectively choosing” intelligence so as to make the war a little more attractive, would the average soldier be inclined to go back out, day after day risking his/her life? Probably not. In other words, troop morale would be affected were the charges admitted (and I’m not even saying here they’re true).
But Cheney’s claim that merely suggesting it, his claim that asking tough questions about the origins of the war affects troop morale, is absurd. It amounts to using the soldiers’ daily risks for political gain – a way of stifling the critics. Not the race card, but the soldier card.
And then he calls Democrats "opportunists."
But what choice do they have?
After all, a little honesty can go a long way. So it’s better, in the end, I suppose, to shut up and die for a lie, knowing that its for the greater good, because now that we’re involved we can’t withdraw, even though our involvement was finagled by intelligence massaging…
It’s all more convoluted than that attempt at a grammatically based illustration.
If the Bush administration has nothing to hide in this matter, why is it historically tight-lipped about everything? Why is it swinging away with such panic blows?
NYT on Bush Nomination
The New York Times says the following of Harriet Miers, Bush’s nomination for Supreme Court:
In choosing Ms. Miers as his nominee, Mr. Bush once again signaled the importance he places on personal loyalty and familiarity. Ms. Miers has served in a number of posts for the president, and at one point was his personal lawyer.
That’s a nice way of saying, “Bush’s primary method of chosing nominees depends -heavily- exclusively on cronyism to the point of ignoring
a complete lack of experience.”
Unfortunately, we’d have to live with Miers’ lack of experience a bit longer that we lived (and people in New Orleans died) with other appointees’ lack of experience, should she be confirmed.
Help
"We give help to everyone in the world! When do they help us!? We help bail out this and that country, send aid here and there, notably saved and re-built Europe in WWII. What do we get for our efforts? Hatred."
Thus complained someone once about how hated America -- saintly, in this person's view -- is in the world. Poor us. What do we do when we do get that help?
Hundreds of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned
US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees. (commondreams.org)
That's right -- we burn it.
(Thanks to Chhavi for this.)
More on ID
Thud mentioned “the kind of ID that also rejects short-history ‘the world is 5000 years old’ creationism.” It’s been my sense lately that “ID” is an effort by more moderate believers to distance themselves from the more literal, fundamentalist reading of a six-thousand-year-old universe. Look at the
Catholic church’s official position: the Vatican holds that God created the universe, but it makes no claim as to how he did it. Very sensible, but too sensible for fundamentalists – who often are rabidly anti-Catholic as well.
The problem lies with the fact that creationists – and I mean the hard-core, 6k variety – take the issue very personally. I once stumbled onto a teen message board of a fundamentalist sect and jumped in on the question, “Do you believe in evolution?” I found that the kids’ initial reaction was always an emotional one. “I’m not descended from primal sludge!” was a common theme. While I fail to see how the origins of my species affect my personal worth and self-confidence, the thought of being able to trace the human race back to amoebas somehow offended their sense of personal dignity.
“Something that used to be sludge can’t possibly be a child of God,” they reason. “I am a child of God,” they continue, concluding with, “Therefore, I did not evolve from primordial soup.”
Not the most well-founded syllogism I’ve ever encountered, but these are emotions we’re dealing with, not reasonable, rational responses.
Accepting evolution is rejecting God. For them, it means rejecting the very bedrock of their lives: the Bible. It makes the Bible a liar, because the use of figurative language has largely escaped them as a possible interpretation. If “And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1.5) can be interpreted figuratively, so can “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3.16). If the Bible got it wrong about biology, then what confidence can we have in it regarding salvation.
This black-and-white, either-or thinking permeates the fundamentalist world.
All we had to do was elect an evangelical president to see that.
The Poll
More creationism nonsense in the news. This time, yet another poll:
In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.
The poll found that 42 percent of respondents hold strict creationist views, agreeing that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”
In contrast, 48 percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time; but of those, 18 percent said that evolution was “guided by a supreme being,” and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism.
The poll was conducted July 7-17 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The questions about evolution were asked of 2,000 people, and the margin of error is 2.5 percentage points. (Source)
Creationists will never get through their head that creationism is, at best, a philosophical theory, not a scientific one.
In the end, though, I have no problem with teachers mentioning the idea of ID and asking students what they think of it, as long as it’s not called science. What will it be called then? I don’t know. I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t take too much time from the already overburdened curriculum.
What was most striking about the poll was the data dealing with a simple question: Who should decide what’s taught?
The poll showed 41 percent of Americans want parents to have the primary say over how evolution is taught, compared with 28 percent who say teachers and scientists should decide and 21 percent who say school boards should. Asked whether they believed creationism should be taught instead of evolution, 38 percent were in favor, and 49 percent were opposed.
Parents decide? In the end, I guess they do – they’re going to elect the officials who will force this nonsense down the public’s throat. But should they have an active hand in deciding what’s taught?
What would a nice response be for a science teacher? Mine would be along these lines:
Great! Saves me some time. You’re going to do this pro bono, right? And while you’re at it, since I didn’t study any of this in college and am completely unqualified to teach it, why don’t you make out my lesson plans for me? And write and grade the tests? Shoot, just come in and teach, and I’ll simply serve as a pedagogical consultant. You do the work, I get the pay. Sounds great.
Maybe parents want to come in and decide the entire curriculum and teach it as well? Teachers will just wander about the internet…