"Man is a marvelous curiosity ... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea."
Mark Twain 1835-1910 Letters from the Earth
3/09/2009
Well it happened.
While i haven't blogged a lot in the last year or four, I do still pay attention to the news. One of the things I thought I'd have to wait years to have happen actually did today. I was both shocked, and gladdened respectively by the action and the reasoning. Our Socialist-In-Chief listed the prior Paterfamilias's ban on embryonic stem cell research. This is good news not simply for the sake of all the research that was drawing American scientists out of the country to do research, but because of why. His Communalness stated this was done for to keep politics out of science. Who knows, maybe next we'll have schools teaching effective sex education classes that don't have to spend their time preaching abstinence only. Maybe we'll even get Kansas to stop insisting that Intelligent Design deserves a place on the same syllabus as evolution and other science.
Those who know me will know that I'm not a big fan of Barrack Obama. In fact, I dislike all three of the major candidates. But I now personally revile Reverend Wright. I hate those who feed racism, who feed fear, and who feed their own ego with constant grand standing for whatever their cause is. Yes. there are grains of truth to the asinine nonsense falling from Wrights lips, however, there's no damned proof. We all know the story behind the Tuskegee Airmen experiments, and that is in theory the basis for the so called argument that the government created AIDS to kill blacks. Honestly, I think Wright and his ilk give the government too much credit for competence. Whether the ability to create a disease like AIDS was or wasn't beyond the ability of scientists in the late seventies just before it was first diagnosed and classified, isn't worth addressing. The fact that they really think our government could keep anything like that secret is only slightly more credulous than the moon being made of cheese.
I got to watch the good Reverend let nonsensical proposition after inane clause after preposterous prepositional phrase flow from his mouth like the inflow pipe at a grey water treatment plant, I grew more and more disgusted. Reverend Wright was entirely focused on being entertaining and drawing attention to himself. He clearly believes himself to possess the mantle of Martin, but he reminded me of those old minstrel shows with some so called comedian in blackface. For the first time, I found a reason to respect Obama for his courage. Wright is the man who performed his marriage ceremony, and baptized his children, to say what he did to Wright and publicly sever a relationship not for need but for cause takes the sort of moral courage more Americans could stand to have.
It appear that former Massachusetts's Governor Mitt Romney is out of the race. I'm not entirely surprised by this. McCain already has of the delegates needed to win the nomination. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out that both McCain and Huckabee were more worried about Romney than each other or anyone else. But most of all, as i suspected Romney failed to prove he was electable. He failed to raise money, he failed to win in big states, and as a Mormon he offends a large number of conservative Christians simply by existing. At this point I expect to see Huckabee stay in through two more rounds, and then be offered the second slot on the McCain ticket if he exits. The bad part of a combination of these two is that neither has been all that successful at raising money.
For half a thousand reasons I don't watch much TV. Today I saw one of those reasons. While i know that i have a greater knowledge of history than most people, there are somethings that i still find dismaying in their shedding light on how badly most people fail to learn. I don't ask that anyone know the order that battles took place in during the Civil War. I don't ask anyone to know how many 'German' principalities there were ten years after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. I certainly don't ask people to be able to translate dates from the Judaic calender to the traditional Chinese one then into the modern one American and most of the world uses. Most of those things are trivial, or just plane useless.
What I do ask for isn't even a firm grasp of history. Just a basic grasp of logic. The statement of the person in question that spurred this was "I don't think anything predates Jesus Christ." Let's examine some of the things wrong with this statement. Even leaving things written into the bible aside, let's see what things there were in the world at the time we are told Christ was born.
There was clothing.
There were cities.
There were domestic animals.
There was written language.
There was the art and science of architecture, as supported by the claim that Jesus was born in a barn.
There was 'the sacrament of marriage'.
Mary.
Now, some of you might have come to the conclusion that this is one Hollywood's teen or twenty somethings that is a victim of the recent breakdown of the American education system. This person is forty years old. Now given their age, and their religious background I am amazed that a person who normally manages to sound intelligent could actually state this. I know that the schools in the North East were still teaching the meaning of "A.D.", and "B.C." after the time this person would have left school. I can't say for sure that the they would have been taught this in school. I can say, that even with out the evidence I've noted that this proves our education system with the whole hearted cooperation of the media and government has succeeded in its primary goal of suppressing any independent thinking, the suppression of active use of logic and reason, and the crushing of any ability to question authority or how things happen independently. In this persons case, the additional burdens of the two religious sects they have followed probably make it nearly impossible for them not to have made this statement under the right circumstances.
The Sudan, long known for its humanitarian accomplishments has decided that one of the most commonly used male names in the world is offensive. Well, its offensive in some cases, even though its the same name as many men in their country. Even though its the same name as their prophet, even though it was applied by a 7 year old. And yes, even though that seven year old applied the name to a beloved teddy bear being used as a teaching aid. But, because some dimwit decided it was offensive, and because religious proclivities are allowed to dictate speech and expression.
People think it can't happen here, but we do have our own would be theocrats, and they need to be stopped.
I'm an immoderate moderate. My views: Don't like gay marriage? Don't marry someone with the same combination of X's and Y's. Gun Control is hitting what you aim at. Crime control is limiting the actions of criminals. The war sucks, that's how you can tell its war and not a beach party.
