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Reading

Thursday 7 November 2024

Here in South Carolina, we’ve grown paranoid about what books students might be reading in school. These books might be exposing our children to horrid ideas that could shake the very foundation of our state, of our country. Ideas like, “Gay people exist.” Notions like, “White people in the past did some very bad things to black people.” Ideas such as, “Horrible things like sexual assault happen,” or “Teens sometimes commit suicide.” We aren’t quite to the point that the notion that “Jews suffered terribly during World War Two” is controversial, but just give us time!

To prevent students from being exposed to books that might in turn expose them to such awful, harmful notions, South Carolina teachers now have to make a list of every single book, article, poem, Power Point presentation, Excel spreadsheet, Google Doc, video clip, painting, sculpture, and any other artifact we haven’t thought yet to add to that list. The list is to be available to anyone (not just any parent of a student in that class; to anyone in the state) so that if anyone has a problem with those materials, they can lodge a formal complaint and work to have that material banned. It’s not just that parents of students in a given classroom can do this; anyone can protest a book, even if they don’t have children in the school in question. Or children at all.

It’s a wonderful time to be an English teacher in South Carolina.

Recently, parents presented three books to be banned. This happened at the State School Board office (none of those positions on the board are elected positions — they’re all appointees from the governor) at 11:00 a.m. on a Thursday. A great time to have an open discussion about the merits of this or that book.

The first book they were considering banning was To Kill a Mockingbird. This is not because of the growing complaint that it presents a skewed view of the African American experience by making it a story of “a white man saves the day!” It’s always been curious to me how we could tell that story without the defense lawyer being a white man: African American lawyers deep in the Jim Crow South were not exactly that numerous. But that was not the potential-book-banner’s complaint. The complaint is the sexual assault that occurs in the book. Except that it doesn’t occur. And that’s the whole point of the book. Still, they made their case before the board.

The second book that some wanted banned was Romeo and Juliet. This was due to the supposed sexual content and the suicide at the end. It is of course silly to suggest that he book in any way promotes suicide, but that was the complaint.

I was anxious about this: These two selections represent the majority of my second-semester work with my honors students. “They are banned, I have no second semester,” I told anyone who’d listen. I decided if they got banned, I’d just do Lord of the Flies instead of Mockingbird. It’s already on our vetted list for our school. (That’s another joy: all novels we read in school must be vetted. Who does the vetting? The school district that recommends it? No — teachers who are told to teach it. “That way,” they cleverly explained, “if it gets challenged in one school, it’s not necessarily challenged everywhere.” I just think they wanted us to do their job for them.) As for Shakespeare, I thought I’d do a greatest hits type unit: I can teach excerpts without the vetting process (though I do still have to list it on my “List of things you might get nervous about” document).

The third book was one that I’ve never taught because our district reserves it for senior year in high school: 1984. That’s right: they wanted to limit access to a book about a totalitarian regime that limited access to information. That’s ironic enough, but one of the reasons someone protested was because — you’re probably not ready for this level of complete and utter ignorance — it’s pro-communist. That’s right: 1984, banned in the Communist Soviet Union, is pro-communist. “Tell me you’ve never read the book without telling me you’ve never read the book,” was the common response among English teachers in our school.

In the end, though, the board was reasonable and declined to ban any of those books. And I can’t believe I just used the word “reasonable” to describe a very basic tenet at the foundation of our constitution.

But it is a temporary victory: those board members can be replaced, and as previously explained, they’re not elected. They’re appointed. And given South Carolinians’ current MAGA-happy political orgasm (a very deliberate word choice: you did see the footage of Trump simulating fellatio with a microphone stand at one of his final rallies, didn’t you?), members of that board are likely to be increasingly conspiratorially minded and less reasonable with each appointment.

It’s a wonderful time to be an English teacher in South Carolina.

Name-Calling GOP

Friday 13 September 2024

I was looking through old posts in the “random post” widget the other evening before heading to bed, and I saw this from 2008.

Playground Politics

Sixteen years later, and nothing has changed.

Maybe immaturity is just a GOP thing?

Signs 2

Thursday 18 July 2024

During our trips to Florida this summer, I noticed several interesting billboards. Many of them were theological; one was political:

Stolen elections have catastrophic consequences

This notion is perhaps the most loaded statement I’ve read in recent memory. It’s certainly the most terrifying.

From the perspective of those who financed the billboard it is a statement about the 2020 election and the ever-persistent myth that somehow the Democrats committed election fraud. The complete lack of evidence for this is no matter: those who hold this view simply acknowledge non-facts as evidence. Those of us firmly grounded in reality are simply and willfully ignorant.

But just what are those catastrophic consequences? Again, from their perspective, it’s multifaceted. First, there’s simply the idea that an unelected individual is currently holding the nation’s highest office. Were that true, it would be catastrophic. But there’s a second notion hiding in that statement: what are people who believe this — in their own eyes, good and God-fearing patriots, one and all — to do about it? A recent article in Newsweek points out that there are renewed calls from the far right for civil war:

[Trump’s post on Truth Social] warning that 2024 will be the new 1776 is in line with other threats of looming civil wars in the U.S. made by Trump supporters following the New York jury verdict on Thursday which found the former president guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money trial.

Newsweek

In Boston University’s BU Today, staff members write,

A recent Washington Post headline says: “In America, talk turns to something not spoken of for 150 years: Civil war.” The story references, among others, Stanford University historian Victor Davis Hanson, who asked in a National Review essay last summer: “How, when, and why has the United States now arrived at the brink of a veritable civil war?” Another Washington Post story reports how Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King recently posted a meme warning that red states have “8 trillion bullets” in the event of a civil war. And a poll conducted last June by Rasmussen Reports found that 31 percent of probable US voters surveyed believe “it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years.”

BU Today

The billboard, then, suggests to informed drivers that a civil war might be the necessary outcome of such Democratic duplicity.

The attempted assassination of Trump will only add to this.

What politicians need to be doing now is talking us back from this brink. Biden and the Democrats seem to be doing this. What will Trump do? Will he try to quell this anger or will he stoke it? I don’t think there’s any doubt about how the man will react.

Those of us who warned friends and family around us who supported Trump in 2016 that he is a dangerous man continually feel more vindicated, but right now, I’d rather be proved wrong.

Major Announcement

Wednesday 14 December 2022

Trump is set to make “a major announcement” tomorrow. “America needs a superhero,” he declares in his announcement of the coming announcement. He’s already said he’s running for president again. All of us with any sense realize a second Trump term is the worst possible thing for our country. What could it be? Is he re-announcing because the first announcement was such a flop?

And what the hell is up with the imagery in this clip?

Destruction

Wednesday 7 December 2022

With Keri Lake taking Trump’s example to heart and refusing to concede an obviously-lost election, I’m afraid we’re seeing what will now be the typical Republican reaction to election loss: deny, deny, deny.

Trump did so much damage to our country, but this Republican denial of reality as a basic election operating principle is the most harmful. It tears at the very foundation of our democratic institutions, and it leads to previously-unthinkable insanities, like the ostensible leader of the party calling for the dissolution of the Constitution and the party saying nothing to condemn such dangerous rhetoric. Republicans have not rejected Trump even when he literally suggested destroying our country.

There is no hope for the Republican party. Just when I think it can’t fall deeper, it does.

Election 2022

Tuesday 8 November 2022

It was a little after six when I realized I hadn’t gone to vote. I’d been putting it off all day, spending the day working on our yearbook for 2022, taking the kids on a bookstore outing, and learning that the $3,000 we spent to fix our outdoor HVAC unit was completely wasted. So, a mixed bag.

The line for voting stretched into the parking lot, but it was moving fast. Even if it wasn’t, I was going to stick it out: “Vote like democracy depends on it” has been an idea consistently popping up on social media, and I’m likely to agree. The radical GOP (which stands for Gaslight Obstruct and Project) seems determined to destroy our democratic institutions, and their traitorous support of a man who tried to overturn a fair election has made me say numerous times, “I’d vote for Satan himself before I’d vote Republican.” Besides, the Republican party of the past is just that: they are, by and large, a bunch of conspiracy theory anti-democracy grifters who take their supporters to be naive children who don’t remember what they said five minutes ago.

As I entered the voting booth, I clicked on the option to vote for the entire Democratic ticket, then clicked through the options to check each selection. It was only then that I realized how many races were one-person (usually one-man) races, with only a Republican running. In all of those races, I cast no vote, though I thought about writing in myself.

What an amusing situation that creates, though: so many Bible-belt Christians here are so anti-communist that they see communism where it doesn’t even exist. They equate anything left-leaning with socialism, which they in turn equate with the very worst version of it (i.e., the Soviet Union). However, elections in the USSR looked more like elections in South Carolina than Republicans here would probably like: one option, and one alone.

If the modern GOP had its way, that’s exactly what they’d enforce.

Day 65: Inferring in the Rain

Tuesday 19 May 2020

Inferring

Authors often say a lot without saying much. A good author leaves a lot for the reader to piece together for herself, and that’s one of the things that can make a book engaging. But filling in those gaps is a skill that readers must learn. It doesn’t come naturally.

This is one of the things I spend a lot of time and energy teaching my eighth graders how to do. The honors kids are usually fairly adept at it, but the on-level students often struggle. I have to model it for them, doing think-alouds in which I say aloud all the inferences that are running through my head when I read. I infer; I predict; I connect to previous knowledge; I comment on what I read. I model, model, model, then turn it over to them to try as a class before they try it in groups and finally as individuals. Scaffolding, that’s called: model it, practice as a whole class, practice in groups, practice individually — the bread and butter of my teaching.

Tom Sawyer is providing ample chance for me to begin exposing the Boy to this kind of critical thinking.

Presently [Aunt Polly] stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl — a sort of glorying over Tom which was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid’s fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom was in ecstasies.

I pause: “What do you think will happen?” I ask the Boy.

“Aunt Polly will think that Tom broke the sugar bowl,” he said after a moment’s thought.

“Right. That’s called predicting…” I begin.

“I know, Daddy. You tell me that every time we read something.” Perhaps not every time, but often enough.

We continue:

In such ecstasies that he even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model “catch it.” He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to himself, “Now it’s coming!” And the next instant he was sprawling on the floor!

“What does ‘sprawling’ mean?” the Boy asks.

I explain, then ask, “Do you understand what happened?”

There is a lot going on in that passage, particularly in the final two sentences: “He said to himself, ‘Now it’s comin!’ And the next instant he was sprawling on the floor!” Missing from this is the fact that Aunt Polly slaps Tom so hard that it knocks him off his chair.

I explained it to the Boy. He thought it was horrible that someone would slap a child so hard that it knocks him out of his chair. I think that’s a fairly reasonable concern, to say the least. Why do we adults find that passage funny, though? I think it’s because of all the work Twain makes us do, all the thinking, all the blanks we fill in. Twain is a master of implication.

In the Rain

It rained all day today. K and I were concerned that it might turn out to be enough to threaten our basement again. Granted, I have filled all the termite treatment holes with hydraulic cement: those holes shouldn’t let any more water into our basement, let alone the geysers and fountains that were gushing in during our last storm. And the crack by the fireplace? I drilled it out completely and patched it with more hydraulic cement.

And then snow

So part of me was thinking, “Okay — bring it on. Let’s see if I’ve got you licked” (to employ a usage from Tom Sawyer that still tickles the Boy).

But most of me was just hoping that it didn’t come to that. When the Boy and I headed out in the morning to see how much rain had fallen, things were looking bad but not dreadful.

We went back out in the afternoon after more rain. We went ahead and crossed the creek at this point like usual: the water was only a few inches above our feet. I held the Boy’s hand, and we ventured up a bit further. The rain continued, and by the time we made it back to this point, the water was waist-deep for the Boy. I held his hand firmly, and we made it across easily, but it was a lesson: “See how quickly the water can rise?” That’s the epitome of flash-flooding.

Scare Politics

I noticed this particular meme this evening on social media:

I find it hard to imagine what kind of simplistic thinking could lead to something like this. Surely no one so naive as to believe that it’s as simple as this meme suggests. To think that we could go from Trump-istan to this worst-case-scenario, utterly exaggerated vision of progressive ideas run amuck in one election cycle — I just don’t get it.

What I do get is the fear buttons this kind of meme pushes. The left has their own versions of these memes, of course. I could probably browse the tweets of friends who lean much further to the left that an avowed centrist (don’t we all see ourselves as centrists? no — we certainly don’t) like me and find the equivalent: we’re one step away from living in a real-life Handmaid’s Tale. (Come to think of it, I believe there was a protest with women dressed as handmaids from the novel/movie/series.) Making decisions from fear is bad enough, but making them from a sense of fear that might very well have been intentionally manipulated — that in itself is terrifying.

The Dog

Two things: how can a dog get that dirty in a matter of seconds? And how can it seem to disappear as soon as she’s dry?

Observing and Inferring

Thursday 13 December 2012

Of the many things I have to teach my students, one of the most difficult is the art of inference. When we read, we infer, but I try to show students that we infer constantly: about people’s body language, about who’s walking behind us, about the mood of our mothers and fathers — simply everything. But as we begin working with it at a visual level, inferring from photographs, I find that students often think an inference is merely an observation. In other words, they look at a situation, make a generalization about it, and think they’re merely reciting facts.

For example, take a look at the picture below.

It’s tempting to say that one observation is simple: this is in a store. After all, there’s plenty to indicate that:

  • in the foreground there’s a display case with meat;
  • in the background there’s what looks like a refrigerator display case; and
  • there are people who appear to be client and salesman.

However, the very verbage of the description belies the fact that it’s not an observation (after all, I used the term “indicate”) but instead an inference. It might be an inference with a very high degree of probability, but an inference it is.

I think that this might be a source of political friction between the liberals and conservatives. They’re both making inferences that they assume to be mere observations, and when the other side calls them on it, the discussion often slides into ad hominem arguments. Anyone who can’t see the obvious inference — which to the speaker is just an observation — is an idiot. After all, it’s as simple as seeing that the woman in the picture above is clearly shopping for Christmas dinner.

Warsaw Winter

Friday 11 December 2009

Hungary had its 1956 uprising, when it appeared that the Soviet satellite might gain its independence. The USSR moved in and reasserted control by force.

Prague had its Spring: reforms and liberalizations in 1968 by the puppet Communist regime that eventually warranted a full scale invasion by the Soviets to settle things down.

Poland never experienced such a “corrective” invasion, though there was always the thought that the Soviets might have invaded had Jaruzelski not imposed martial law on December 13, 1981. Lech Wałęsa’s Solidarity party was gaining too much influence and there was concern that unrest might spread throughout the nation.

The conventional Polish wisdom (as I understood it) has been that Jaruzelski imposed martial law in a bid to preempt a Soviet invasion. Antoni Dudek, a Polish history professor, has published on his blog contents of a note Jaruzelski said to Viktor Kulikov, a Soviet general,

Będzie gorzej, jeżli wyjdÄ… z zakładów pracy i zacznÄ… dewastować komitety partyjne, organizować demonstracje uliczne itd. Gdyby to miało ogarnąć cały kraj, to wy (ZSRR) bÄ™dziecie nam musieli pomóc. Sami nie damy sobie rady”.

It will be worse if [the protests] spread from the workshops begin devastating the party committee, organizing street protests, etc. If it were to spread throughout the country, you (the USSR) would have to help us. We couldn’t manage it alone.

And so the possibility for a Polish Winter to match the Prague Spring was very real.

WałÄ™sa, in the meantime, has suggested that Jaruzelski might be brought up on charges of treason. Dudek admitted that while WałÄ™sa usually likes “strong words,” these words might indeed be “adequate.”

Jaruzelski of course denies all of this. Words were taken out of context. Shades of meaning have been applied that were not intended. It seems to be just the beginning, and given the generally closed nature of the Polish archives (compared to the open archives of the former East German government), it seems a resolution is distant, if not impossible.

Dudek’s blog is available here. The Onet story includes information about WałÄ™sa’s reaction. Hat tip to the beatroot.

Intellectual Walls

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Mis (Teddy Bear)
Mis (Teddy Bear)

Many people were concerned about Obama’s speech, and some conservatives were voicing fears that Obama would try to indoctrinate the youth. Concerned conservative groups urged parents to keep their children at home, to shield them from the insidious message of socialism. “Parents have a right to decide what their children hear!” they protested, “And we’re only trying to protect our children.”

The irony is, in trying to shield their children from a perceived socialist threat, they were engaging in behavior that historically has been most commonly exhibited by — surprise! — socialist regimes.

One of the most frightening features of the Soviet Union and its satellite states was the complete control they had over information. Orwell’s 1984 had the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, which altered historical documents to create the appearance of Big Brother’s omniscience. The Soviet Union, in many ways, did the same thing.

More importantly, though, anything and everything from the corrupt West was censored. The capitalist message was so insidious that it might indoctrinate the happy citizens of the Soviet Union and lead to the downfall of the the most perfect civilization on Earth. Capitalism was bad, so bad that even to think about it was deadly.

The Polish cult classic Mis (“Teddy Bear”) has a scene dramatizing what surely happened each and every time a sports team from a communist country traveled West for a competition. The director of the sports club gives the standard speech before getting on the bus:

You’re going to a capitalist country, which might have it’s own, well, advantages. Take care that those advantages don’t overshadow the disadvantages.

The advantages could be so seductive that they could cast their spell even in the midst of post-war destruction: Stalin imprisoned many of the Soviet soldiers who’d been on the far Western front. They’d seen too much; they’d been contaminated. Indoctrinated.

The Soviets didn’t want informed citizens who could weigh the advantages and disadvantages of socialism and capitalism and choose wisely. Big Brother knew very well how seductive the dark side could be, and he took great pains to shield his younger siblings’ eyes and plug their ears.

Confusion

Saturday 5 September 2009

Some weeks seem intent on confusing the sense out me. Students say things that literally leave me speechless, wondering whether or not the kid is joking. Parents and pundits around the land fall into spasms of paranoia about a presidential speech intended to encourage students to take their studies seriously. An odd, high-pitched whistle begins drifting into the house through the back windows at various times during the week leaving everyone wondering what the devil that sound could be.

A long weekend away from all the confusion and nonsense hopefully will help. At the very least, L will experience and hopefully enjoy her first camping trip.

Start the Presses!

Wednesday 8 April 2009

How to keep dollars local in a global community? It’s not quite isolationism, but it’s a legitimate concern in these Made-in-China times. During the debate — such as there was — about Bush’s first stimulus plan, many joked that we were borrowing money from China to buy Chinese products. Now consumers are more interested in keeping the resources local, and communities are helping out:

A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.

Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses. […]

About a dozen communities have local currencies, says Susan Witt, founder of BerkShares in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts. She expects more to do it.

Under the BerkShares system, a buyer goes to one of 12 banks and pays $95 for $100 worth of BerkShares, which can be spent in 370 local businesses. Since its start in 2006, the system, the largest of its kind in the country, has circulated $2.3 million worth of BerkShares. In Detroit, three business owners are printing $4,500 worth of Detroit Cheers, which they are handing out to customers to spend in one of 12 shops.
(USATODAY.com)

A few thoughts — mostly questions — about this:

First, this shows how utterly arbitrary cash is. BerkShares or Cheers have value because people agree that they do. Dollars, Yen, and Euros, theoretically, work the same way; more people simply agree that they have value. They were willing to agree because currencies represented something tangible: gold, silver, or whatever. Of course the value of gold only arose — in pre-scientific communities — because people agreed it’s valuable.

This leads to the second question: what backs this money? Indeed, we could ask the same of most world currencies, especially the dollar. Does anything, or is it just a dollar surrogate? Is it just pegged to the dollar? If so, that leads to the final thought.

Third, why do they need to do this? Just to keep the cash in the community? Couldn’t they keep the dollars in the community as well — a well-orchestrated campaign to “Keep the Dollars Here” or some such? Would this be happening if the dollar were actually worth something?

Lastly, what of that 5%? Who covers it? Why are banks willing to sell $100 of BerkShares or Cheers or gls-dollars for $95? (This seems to be hinting at what actually backs these currencies.) Is this debt? Do they get something in return from the business that agree to use these local currencies?

Fred Sanford, Where Are You?

Thursday 2 April 2009

South Carolina would probably be in better hands if governor Mark Sanford handed the reins to another Sanford. They both seem to know about as much about education:

The dispute between Gov. Mark Sanford and state lawmakers over the use of $700 million in economic stimulus money from Washington threatens to become a “constitutional standoff” that can only be resolved in the courts, according to a legal analysis released today by state Attorney General Henry McMaster.

The $700 million is a portion of about $3 billion in cash that various entities in South Carolina, including the state government, are expected to receive under President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus program.

Sanford has threatened to reject the money unless it can be used to pay down state debt, but legislative leaders prefer to use the funds as Washington intended, mostly to maintain education spending. (Greenville Times)

Paying down the state debt is a great idea — I’d love to pay down our mortgage debt. However, I wouldn’t sacrifice L’s education to accomplish that, which is exactly what Sanford wants to do.

Sanford says this notion is nonsense, that there would be adequate funding under his budget. Perhaps he’s right. But the worrying thing is that he’s not accepting stimulus money earmarked (I hesitate to use that term, but that’s just what it is) for education. Refuse to accept some other portion of the stimulus money.

Flustered Enraged upon hearing this, I wrote a letter to the governor:

It troubles me that, in this era of waning American international influence, you would consider such drastic cuts in education as would occur if you continue to refuse to use the stimulus money intended for education funding. Our classrooms our crowded; our educational infrastructure is woefully inadequate; our teachers are under-paid — yet you want to force school systems to cut even deeper: up to 480 positions in Greenville County.

The rest of the Western world has surpassed America in the quality of its education: “average” eleventh-grade students study mathematics topics in America that are taught in the fifth grade in Poland, for instance. A six year lag. (How do I know this? I’ve been a substitute teacher in an American mathematics classroom and I lived in Poland for seven years — it’s first-hand knowledge.)

What you’re proposing would only increase that difference.

Please reconsider. The state unemployment rate is significant enough without adding teachers to the fold, and more importantly, our kids can’t afford it.

It seems that South Carolinians are not the only ones concerned, though.

A White House official said Wednesday that only Gov. Mark Sanford can apply for nearly $700 million available in federal stimulus funds, but U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that even if Sanford turns down the money he still plans to seek funding for the state because of the poor condition of South Carolina education.

“To stand on the sideline and say that the status quo is OK there and that the children are well served, it simply defies logic and is not reality,” Duncan told reporters.

Asked if he was developing a plan to send the money to the state in the event Sanford didn’t ask for it, Duncan replied he was, then rattled off several facts about education in the state that bothered him.

Duncan said that only 15 percent of African-American children in the state are proficient at math and 12 percent at reading. He said the state has the nation’s fourth worst graduate rate for freshman.

“Those are heartbreaking results,” he said. “Those are children that if we don’t do something dramatically different for them will never have a chance to compete in today’s economy.” (Greenville Times)

A Greenville Times editorial summed it up succinctly:

Most Republicans in Congress opposed the excessive stimulus bill that greatly expands the reach of the federal government. So did this newspaper in several editorials. But the bill was passed, the fiscally conservative argument did not prevail, and every penny of those hundreds of billions of borrowed money will be spent.

So, as U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying, the “question is do we use it or lose it?” (Greenville Times)

This leaves us wondering why Sanford is so staunch in his refusal. His name was bantered about as a potential running mate for McCain in 2008; there have been rumors of a planned presidential campaign in 2012. Could this be political posturing? Could this be Sanford’s no-thank-you-to-a-bridge-to-nowhere?

Opposing Views

Thursday 15 January 2009

Here’s a comment I posted at aid-gaza.net:

Comment from aid-gaza.net

Comment from aid-gaza.net

(Click on the image for a larger, more legible view.)

The comment, though, didn’t receive the blogger’s stamp of approval, as you can see if you click on through.

It’s hard to take someone seriously who is censors opposing viewpoints after inviting comment. I left another comment, saying just that.

Second comment from aid-gaza.net

Second comment from aid-gaza.net

Wonder if that will make it through?

Update

It did. Spam filtering problems. I suggest Spam Karma.

The Children

Saturday 10 January 2009

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic writes, addressing Israeli soldiers,

[W]hen you operate, operate with the children in mind. It’s a burden Hamas has placed on you — it’s no joy to fight an enemy who hides behind his children. But that’s what you’re facing. (Source)

Atheism and Public Life

Monday 22 December 2008

I am an atheist: I have no positive belief either way about the existence of God or the supernatural. Though it sounds more like agnosticism, my particular worldview is generally called weak atheism: I make no claims either way regarding the existence of a god (I won’t say “There is no god!” in other words.), but I do find it to be more unlikely than likely that such a being exists.

To my knowledge, I am the only atheist in my family. I am not, however, the only atheist in the country. Yet you wouldn’t know it to look at the religious distribution within Congress.

A report on a study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life regarding the religious affiliations of members of Congress begins,

Members of Congress are often accused of being out of touch with average citizens, but an examination of the religious affiliations of U.S. senators and representatives shows that, on one very basic level, Congress looks much like the rest of the country. Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will be sworn in on Jan. 6, are Protestants, Congress – like the nation as a whole – is much more religiously diverse than it was 50 years ago. Indeed, a comparison of the religious affiliations of the new Congress with religious demographic information from the Pew Forum’s recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of over 35,000 American adults finds that some smaller religious groups, notably Catholics, Jews and Mormons, are better represented in Congress than they are in the population as a whole. However, certain other smaller religious groups, including Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus, still are somewhat underrepresented in Congress relative to their share of the U.S. population. (Pew Forum)

Read further, and we find the following, handy chart[, which has been removed].

Look closely — I have, and for the life of me, I can’t find myself in that chart.

Where are the atheists? Are we lumped in with “Unaffiliated” or “Unspecified”? Was there an “atheist” option for the survey? If so, did no one check it because no one is an atheist or because no one is politically naive enough to admit it?

This set me on a hunt to determine how many atheists there are in America. “Atheist Revolution” reports that there is “a commonly reported number is that 1.6% of Americans identify themselves as atheists” (AR). Toward the end of the post, a figure of 10% is suggested.

Applied to the House survey, that would leave some 50+ members as atheists. Yet how many openly atheistic politicians are there? One, that I’ve found: 18-term Democratic congressman Pete Stark from California.

There’s good reason for this: the Pew Forum also contains the opening of a USA Today article about atheism in America.

Being an atheist is not easy in this age of great public religiosity in America. Not when the overwhelming majority of Americans profess some form of belief in God. Not when many believers equate non-belief with immorality. Not when more people would automatically disqualify an atheist for the presidency (53%, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll) than a gay candidate (43%), for example, or a Mormon (24%).

Anti-atheism might have found its ugliest public expression during an episode in the Illinois Legislature this spring. As atheist activist Rob Sherman attempted to testify against a $1 million state grant to a church, Rep. Monique Davis railed, “This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children. … It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! … You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying!”

Lest we dismiss the legislator’s harangue as an anomaly, consider the organizations that bar atheists from membership — the Boy Scouts of America and American Legion, to name two, as well as some local posts of the Veterans of Foreign Wars — and the conspicuous absence of openly atheist politicians on the national stage. (The Pew Forum)

The most famous — and in some ways, the most significant — public expression of anti-atheism comes from Bush, Sr.’s comment to Robert Sherman: “I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”

And yet we’re taking over America, taking God out of everything. My only question is, in what sense?

If anyone is a persecuted religious minority in public life, it’s atheists. Mike Whitney, at Dissident Voice, wrote in 2005 of a study that

showed that in the 1960s only very small minority of the public would vote for blacks, Jews or atheists (all of them in the 20 to 30% range). In the late 1990s when the same question was asked, blacks and Jews scored in the 70% range; not perfect, but much better. Atheists, however, still dithered in the 20 to 30% range. No change. The distrust and bigotry are still as alive today as they were 40 years ago. (DV)

The link Whitney provided is dead, and I have no way of confirming this study, but it certainly seems plausible. We’ve seen that the race barrier is, thankfully, surmountable. When will we have an atheist president? Indeed, when will we have a major-party atheist candidate? My bet: never.

Here in Greenville, I guard my atheistic stance very carefully. I avoid discussing religion with anyone other than close friends. I am fairly certain that no student or co-worker knows that I am an atheist.

I am especially careful around students: I answer students’ occasional questions about my religious views as ambiguously and politely as possible. When showing pictures of a Polish Christmas (as I did this last week) to provide students with a firsthand account of traditions very different than their own, I was asked, “Mr. S, are you Catholic?” I responded: “What do you think?” When the student stated that I must be, I simply said, “Well, remember that our assumptions aren’t always correct,” and left it very ambiguously at that.

The same girl came into class and asked, completely out of nowhere, “Mr. S, what do you think of homosexuals?” How does an atheistic, liberal teacher answer such a question with such obvious religious overtones? I wanted to say, “I think they’re human beings with every right to happiness that you and I have, and I see nothing whatever immoral in their behavior,” but that would have only spiraled into a “But the Bible says” conversation, and it was not where I wanted to go just before class. I don’t remember exactly how I replied, but I know I did my best to dodge the topic entirely.

One of my students has, in large, bold letters, the question “Have you witnessed to anyone today?” written on her English binder. She became frustrated that the Greek underworld as presented in the Odyssey did not conform to her conception of what a proper hell would look like: people writhing in agony for rejecting Jesus. I simply pointed out that the Odyssey was written well before Jesus’ birth and left it at that. “Yeah, I guess, but still…” came her reply, and I actually had to tell her privately, “We can’t take class time discussing why the Christian hell and the Greek underworld are so different.” It would have mad a fascinating discussion, I’m sure, but it would have been a discussion that I would have had to step through very carefully.

The truth is, I felt much more comfortable in Poland being openly atheistic than I ever would in the States. It’s not that I went around with a “God is dead!” shirt on or anything so silly. Moderation: I’m all for everyone believing or not believing exactly as he/she chooses, and I certainly don’t want to be a proselytizing atheist. At the same time, I once used my lack of belief to stimulating an amazingly successful conversation class, and I never tried to hide the fact that I don’t believe.

A lot of this has to do with the differences in the state view of religion in Poland and America, as well as the makeup of the religious landscape itself. Poland is almost exclussively Catholic. There is no competition for souls, and as such, dissenting opinion can be marginalized much more effectively. In America, though, we have free market religion, particularly within Protestantism. Here, everyone is competing for souls. Denominations can handle the competition, but they cannot handle a group saying, “You’re all wrong.” Believers of all faiths can band together against that, and in America, they do. The religious variety in America heightens the us-them dichotomy compared to what I experienced in Poland.

But America is Jesusland.

Take a walk
out the gate you go and never stop
past all the stores and wig shops
quarter in a cup for every block
and watch the buildings grow
smaller as you go

Down the tracks
beautiful McMansions on a hill
that overlook a highway
with riverboat casinos and you still
have yet to see a soul

Jesusland
Jesusland

Town to town
broadcast to each house, they drop your name
but no one knows your face
Billboards quoting things you’d never say
you hang your head and pray

for Jesusland
Jesusland

Miles and miles
and the sun goin’ down
Pulses glow
from their homes
You’re not alone
Lights come on
as you lay your weary head on their lawn

Parking lots
cracked and growing grass you see it all
from offices to farms
crosses flying high above the malls
A longer walk

through Jesusland
Jesusland

Ben Folds “Jesusland”
jesusland
A country that has religious messages posted on billboards cannot ever be a nation that elects an atheist.

Religious License

Saturday 13 December 2008

Here in South Carolina, the Department of Transportation began issuing religious-themed license plates. They have stained glass, a cross, and the words “I believe.”

I Believe' license plate back in S.C., 2 years after ruling | Religion | missoulian.com

One guess as to what happened:

A federal judge says South Carolina must stop marketing and making license plates that feature the image of a cross and the words “I Believe.”

A federal judge issued a temporary injunction during a court hearing Thursday after opponents said the plates violate the separation of church and state.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie said the case needs to be heard in court. In the meantime, the judge said the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot take any more orders for the plates.

Department spokeswoman Beth Parks said the agency stopped taking orders more than a month ago, after it collected the 400 needed to cover the cost of making the plates. She said they are in production, and none has shipped. (AP)

I’m sure there are many in the state who are appalled by this. Just another example of those damn goddless bastards trying to destroy religion in America. That’s what the Andre Bauer, the Lt. Governor, says:

For those who say this violates the Constitution by giving preference to Christianity, I think this lawsuit clearly discriminates against persons of faith,” Bauer said in a statement. “I expect the state attorney general to vigorously defend this, and it is time that people stand up for their beliefs. Enough is enough.” (Harold Online, cached at Google)

plate2Yet how could anyone argue that it doesn’t give preference Christianity? There are no other freaking choices! I’d have gone for a FSM plate myself, but I don’t think my wife would have appreciated it.

Nate, at Shots from the Battery, really hits on the important issue, though:

I really wish we could sue the fundegelical state lawmakers who are forcing us taxpayers to bear the burden of the litigation they knew they were inviting. It’s a waste of $$ that the state taxpayers cannot afford. (SFTB)

Every morning going to work, it seems like I hear about the state making more and more budget cuts because of the falling tax revenue. South Carolina is predicted to have a stunning 14% unemployment rate by the spring, and these nitwits are out trying to make a mindless religious point.