culture

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your dictionaries!

Jason Thibeault19 Comments

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nicole Palmby. You killed grammar. Prepare to die.

Okay, not really. But I needed some sort of introduction for my first post as sub-blogger of Dana’s Wonderful World of Snark. I am Nicole Palmby. And while you may not have killed grammar, it certainly is on its deathbed, and, as grammar is my mama, I plan to avenge its impending death.

I wrote this article late last week and edited it earlier this week, but I was a little reluctant to post it following Kaden‘s beautiful piece on grade inflation. I think, though, that what I have to say needs to be said, and I look forward to what you have to say about it, as well. Enjoy.

—–

My current day gig is shaping the literary, grammatical, and writing minds of the future leaders of your local Target team.

Okay. Maybe that’s an unfair assumption. I could be shaping the minds of future political leaders. For example, I could be grading the vocabulary assignments of the next George W. Bush! Some days I feel like I am.

Regardless of the future endeavors of the attitude-wielding, SMS-ing, bleary-eyed nodes of apathy, I am entrusted to ensure each pile of flip-flops and hoodie is able to identify the theme of classic but boring novel title here> and write a competent, even if uninteresting, five-paragraph essay.

Anyone who knows me might smile and mutter some comment about the ease of my vocation–“You mean you get to talk about books and writing all day and get paid for it? Man! Your life is rough, innit?”–but let me assure you that getting paid to talk about books and writing is not what it once was.

There was a time during which schools valued the education gifted to their students (because education really is a gift) and parents cared about what their children were doing all day. It wasn’t so long ago that students went to school because they knew they had to, and the community was proud if it was the custodian of a “good district.”

It seems that while the days of the “good school districts” still exist (I teach in one), much of what makes a school “good” has morphed into something wholly unrecognizable.

It used to be that, upon graduation, students were not only capable of writing a five-paragraph essay, but an 8- to 10-page research paper in MLA style with print sources. They understood the mechanics of the English language. They were able to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively within those mechanics.

However, I have received numerous essays this year completed–grudgingly, mind you–in what is known as text-speak. Yes, that’s right: English Honors students turned in formal essays that used the number 2 instead of “to” (and in place of “two” AND “too,” for that matter), used “ur” for “you’re” and “yr” for “your.”

While I love the ease technology gives my workload, I can’t help but shake my head at the price American children are paying for the conveniences they have. My junior students–also Honors–have difficulty placing apostrophes properly. They can’t tell me the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they’re.”

Programs that proofread, while I admit they can be helpful, have created a dependency. Students have no accountability for their own writing skills. After all, why should they remember that it should be “all right” not “alright” when Microsoft Word in its infinite wisdom makes the correction for them as soon as they strike the next key?

When I was younger and still taking math classes, my teachers usually allowed us to use calculators to check our work–after we had done the problems ourselves. Their logic was simple: you have to know the long way before you can use the shortcut. I think the same logic should follow in writing. Yes, you do need to know to correct the spelling of “there” to “their” so that when, later, the computer does it for you, you’ll know why.

Students today put no value on their education.

Although perhaps I shouldn’t put all the blame on the students. If they could they’d text and watch Flavor of Love all day. They don’t know enough to value their education.

Besides, it isn’t only students who devalue education in the United States. Some parents have a decreasing amount of involvement in their (not they’re) children’s educations. They blindly trust that the school is taking care of things.

Unfortunately, when a school budget is dangled by a thread of standardized test scores, many schools find themselves focusing the curriculum on test-taking skills rather than academic skills. I don’t agree with the practice, but when it comes down to teaching “real” curriculum or not having to eliminate instructional positions, I can’t say I’d act any differently.

I have my opinions about standardized testing, but that’s for another carnival.

Regardless, there is still a significant decline in the emphasis put on education in our nation. And yet, college enrollment (and graduation) is higher than ever. What kind of message are we sending to our children when they barely graduate high school and are admitted to colleges and universities once thought of as prestigious?

The result is a nation of employees who rely on the automatic proofreader in their word processors, and who are unable to be accountable for what they write.

The written word is a powerful weapon. Writers wield whole worlds with their pens, and, unlike surgeons, lawyers, and real estate agents, there is no examination that must be passed in order to become certified. Anyone can become a writer with just an idea, paper, and pen.

And instead of sanctifying this power, we reduce it to busywork assignments, let students take it for granted, and eventually, take it for granted ourselves. In fact, a colleague of mine suggested encouraging students to take their notes in text-speak in order to practice summarizing and resist the urge to write every single word. What an optimistic way of ensuring students are incapable of doing what every employee must do at one time or another: write intelligently, following general writing standards.

Unfortunately, this travesty has become so widespread as to be seen in every media outlet all over the world. Just today, in fact, while watching TV, the closed captioning on the television clearly read “presidentsy” instead of “presidency.” Really? I mean, really?

As what often feels like a single, tiny voice shouting into the wind, I fear there will be no end to the apathy toward the English language. Today prepositions are generally accepted at the ends of sentences. (I’m guilty of this myself when the “proper” grammatical construction reads/sounds awkward.) What happens tomorrow? “You’re” and “your” become one interchangeable word? Come on. (Oops! Preposition!)

Are Americans really so lazy that we’ve gone from omitting the “u” in various words—color, honor, etc.—to accepting English essays that use “yr” in place of “your,” which should really be “you’re”? I’m curious what Lynne
Truss would say about American students (and adults, for that matter) English education and writing styles.

As a writer, as a teacher, as an American, I urge citizens and political leaders to work to effect (and that’s effect, not affect) a change in the state of English education in the United States. Write to your senators, representatives, school board presidents, governors…whoever will listen! We need to act fast or No Fear Shakespeare will become Shakespeare for Americans, and the Bard’s famous line, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” (Julius Caesar III.ii.74) will quickly become “Peeps, lstn ↑!!1!”

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your dictionaries!
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Robert T. Bakker Just Got Right Up My Nose

jacob23 Comments

That’s right. That Robert T. Bakker. The dinosaur guy. The one who gave me all sorts of delicious ideas when I was using dinosaurs as the springboard to building a better dragon.

He got so far up my nose tonight he made my brain recoil.

Brian Switek at Laelaps interviewed Dr. Bakker several weeks ago. I didn’t read the interview. I was saving it for later, like an expensive bottle of wine: I was busy with the IDiot schlock at the time, Expelled was getting ready to come out, this blog was just a wee thing that needed constant feeding, and, well, I wanted to read it when I could actually savor it.

And then I dropped by Pharyngula today, and discovered that Robert T. Bakker’s been hating on atheists.

Even Dr. Bob.

Dr. Bob said this about us:

We dino-scientists have a great responsibility: our subject matter attracts kids better than any other, except rocket-science. What’s the greatest enemy of science education in the U.S.?

Militant Creationism?

No way. It’s the loud, strident, elitist anti-creationists. The likes of Richard Dawkins and his colleagues.

Dr. Bob, don’t take this the wrong way, because I love and respect you for your palentology and all of those awesome books on dinosaurs without which I couldn’t have built a better dragon, but… fuck you, okay?

Fuck you and your Pentecostal bullshit.

Not only have you jumped on the “atheists are anathema” bandwagon, but you’ve got to throw your lot in with anti-elitism, too? You, a learned man? You want to use “elitist” as an epithet?

You disappoint me, sir.

First off, I’m sick to death of the “atheists are the enemy” schtick. Creationists are the enemy. We atheists are allies, no matter how much you may dislike our views and our expression of said views, and, yes, our “elitism.” After all, no atheist is going to come in and shut your museum down because it doesn’t pander to our dogma. No atheist would kick your science out of schools, put you out of a job, and ridicule you because your knowledge of science doesn’t match a fairy story told by belligerant goatherders three thousand years ago.

You know who’s your enemy, Bob? Militant creationists.

Those fuckers were attacking science long before we loud, strident, anti-creationist atheists jumped into the fray. And you’d better be gods-damned glad we’re drawing their fire, because you know who’d be taking the bullets if we weren’t?

That’s right. You.

It’s bad enough we have to take rancid bullshit from the IDiot set, but then people like you, religious scientists, turn around and fire away. We take shit from every religious bastard in the universe. Forgive us for getting tetchy. Excuse us for biting at the hands raised against us rather than slinking off with our tails between our legs.

What’s wrong, Bob? Because I’m sure at some level, you know it’s absolute bullshit to think that if the atheists went away, the creationists would withdraw from the field, too. Do we gleeful unbelievers threaten your faith? Is that what led to this:

Dawkins performs clip-art scholarship with the History of Science and Religion, a field that over the last several decades has matured into a rigorous discipline with fine PhD programs, endowed professorships, well-funded conferences, edited volumes luxuriously printed by Oxford, Harvard, and The Johns Hopkins Press. With footnotes.

PZ already took you apart on this one, so I won’t do it. I’m just saying that your whole response to the critics from your original wrong-headed comment came across as the rantings of a terrified theist. And it’s pathetic.

You spend nearly the entire response frothing about “The Brights.” Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been pretty deeply immersed in atheist circles for a while now, and I had no idea what the fuck Brights were until John Pieret put them down in a comment on this blog. Apparently, enough pathetic souls are hanging on to the silly notion to keep you in material, but I have news for you: the vast majority of atheists aren’t “Brights.” So spending nearly a full article ranting about how Darwin wouldn’t have been a Bright is just a joke.

And it’s not like anybody gives two tugs on a dead dog’s dick what Darwin was, aside from the IDiots who have a huge stake in him being an atheist. He could have been a rabid fundie, for all we care. It’s his science that’s important, not his religious beliefs. What, we’re supposed to be ashamed to be atheists because Darwin wasn’t? That kind of shit may be important to Christians, who seem to have a pathological need for arguments from authority, but we atheists don’t care, aside from the chortle it gives us when religious buggers’ arguments from authority go horribly awry (Einstein, anybody?).

Then there’s all of the whining about how we just haven’t read the science wuuuvs religion, and look, it’s got footnotes! literature. You go on and on about Dawkins not having enough footnotes in The God Delusion. You veritably sneer at the fact. You go on and on with the Harvard, the PhDs, the “luxuriously printed volumes….” Who’s being an elitist snob now, Dr. Bob?

I could spend a long time writing up a series of treatises for you, richly footnoted, even, explaining just how and why it is that threatened Christians look like such raving ‘fraidy-cats when confronted with an atheist who’s not silent about their views. I could, and if necessary will, demonstrate that creationists didn’t need strident, loud atheists to try to destroy science. But you already know all of that. You just don’t want to admit it. And I’m not going to take precious time away from my writing right now to whip up a scholarly treatise for a man who should know better.

Although if you come here and bitch to me, I’ll do it. Don’t make me pull out the Super-Deluxe Paddle with Footnotes and march you out to the woodshed, my boy.

Because, you see, in the end, this is just an annoyance and a disappointment. I expected better of you. I expect better of all Christians who have a brain that they employ for tasks other than apologetics. But I’ve learned that my expectations often won’t be met – something about atheists seems to turn you into raving lunatics – and so I can forgive you.

I’ll continue reading your books and articles and even interviews, although now I’ll be wincing in anticipation, wondering when you’re going to get sidetracked by that “atheists are the enemy” bullshit, and that’s just sad, because you’re a brilliant man and your paleontology is first-class. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you were largely responsible for one of the most incredible shifts in understanding ever. I know. I was there. I
got raised on the din
osaurs-are-cold-blooded gospel, and then along came a heretic, and what do you know? They weren’t so cold after all.

See, Dr. Bob? See what heretics can do? We apostates and unbelievers, we shake things up, we change things, we can drive things in a whole other, entirely wonderful direction.

And I think you’ll be surprised when the loud, proud atheists force Christianity to a new level. Between the fundies who want to keep the faith static, and the atheists who don’t actually threaten to do away with it entirely but sure as fuck demonstrate that a happy, complete life can be lived God-free, you Christians are going to have to achieve a whole new level of faith. But you’re not going to get there knocking over straw men like Brights and snivelling about how Darwin wouldn’t have been one, oh, no.

You are a brilliant man. I know you are. That interview you did with Brian, aside from the silly comment about atheists being the real enemy, that was stellar stuff. That was a tour-de-force. So turn some of that savage intellect away from the whining and crying and engage us, for fuck’s sake. We’re not going to talk you out of God, and you’re not going to talk us in, so how do we reach both the faithful and the faithless? How do we defend this wonderful science of ours from the shitheads who want to do away with it no matter how many Christians say science and religion are bosom buddies? (And you do realize that’s useless, right, because in the militant creationists’ eyes, you’re no more a Christian than I am.)

The floor is open, Dr. Bob. Let’s get a dialogue going. Let’s stop sniping at each other and turn the fire on the fuckers who want to take science down.

Atheists are standing by to take your call.

Robert T. Bakker Just Got Right Up My Nose

Gather Round, Ye Elitist Bastards

jacob30 Comments

(Postdated so everybody gets to play.)

Right, my darlings. We’re overwhelmingly for a Carnival of the Elitist Bastards, which must mean we’re all elitist bastards. ¡Viva los bastardos del elitista!

For those of you just joining us, or who haven’t yet decided to make your opinions known, there’s still time. Go here and weigh in. There’s room for more than one Carnival on this site.

And I do not want to hear, “But Dana, I’m not good enough to write for a carnival!”

Of course you are. We’ll have no more of this crazy talk.

I might hear, “But Dana, what is a Carnival of the Elitist Bastards?”

That’s what we’re here to discuss.

First, for those of you who already plumped for being elitist bastards, I’d like you to stop reading. Yes, right this instant. Go write down what you thought such a carnival would be, and then come back for the rest. Don’t let my opinions sully your original ideas.

Got it down? Good. I’ll just continue, then, shall I?

It’s always helpful in these cases to start with a definition. Being elitist bastards, we are likely elite, are we not? Here’s what the Free Online Dictionary has to say about that:

e·lite or é·lite
n. pl. elite or e·lites
1.
a. A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status: “In addition to notions of social equality there was much emphasis on the role of elites and of heroes within them” Times Literary Supplement.

b. The best or most skilled members of a group: the football team’s elite.

2. A size of type on a typewriter, equal to 12 characters per linear inch.


Somehow, I don’t think #2 works for us, but if one of you clever buggers just felt an idea go “ding,” run with it.

An “elitist” is defined as “someone who believes in rule by an elite group.” Seeing as how we expect our fearless leaders to have two brain cells to rub together, I believe that puts us firmly in the elitist camp.

But what kind of elitists are we? Thankfully, they have a quiz for that.

I happen to be a Book and Language Snob.

You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every book ever published. You are a fountain of endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and never fail to impress at a party.

What people love: You can answer almost any question people ask, and have thus been nicknamed Jeeves.

What people hate: You constantly correct their grammar and insult their paperbacks.

Yes, that’s me. Hi, me. And what sort of elitist are you?

And what’s so wrong with being an elitist, anyway? The Washington Post, never known for its brain power these days, likes to think it has our answer:

Other than being called a criminal, a philanderer or a terrorist sympathizer, is there an accusation in American politics worse than being branded an “elitist”?

The word supposes something fundamentally effete and out of touch, a whiff of brie and latte. There’s something about it that grates against our Jacksonian, egalitarian self-image.

[snip]

Admittedly, it’s a fine line. It’s okay to be perceived as smart (Bill Clinton) but it’s not okay to be perceived as bookish and intellectual (Adlai Stevenson). And it’s okay to be elite. Olympic athletes are elite, as are Marines and Navy SEALs. But it’s not okay to be insufferably proud of your elite skills, which is just obnoxious.


Could we expect any better of a newspaper owned by Reverend Moon? Probably not. And that was a terribly elitist thing of me to say, wasn’t it? (Update: I just realized it’s the Washington Times that’s owned by Rev. Moon, not the Post. How silly of me. I wonder what in this article could possibly have led me to confuse the two? Apologies to the Post – you’ve actually displayed a little less fuck-wittedness than the average mainstream newspaper lately.)

Here’s how I see things: I think it’s time to plant a boot firmly in the arse of the anti-elitist bastards. I think it’s time to show the world that there’s nothing wrong with being “bookish and intellectual.” That, in fact, the world needs to celebrate more thinkers and fewer meatheads. Meatheads got us into this sorry state. Thinkers can think a way out.

It’s time we took the word “elite” back. Time we turned the tables on the “populists” and made their “anti-elitist” and “anti-intellectual” poses the obnoxious ones. What they’re basically saying is, people are stupid and enjoy mucking about with stupid people because they’re too stupid to appreciate intelligence.

I say bunk.

I call bullshit.

I think there’s all kinds of elites, and they’re just too damned afraid of being branded elitists to say so.

Is there anything wrong with preferring wine over beer? No.

Is there anything wrong with loving a complex, elegantly worded novel more than mass-produced, simplistic trash? No.

Is there really anything wrong with being so smart you need a bigger skull for your brain? No.

And what the fuck could possibly be wrong with being an expert in a field and knowing more than a layman? Absolutely nothing.

People like to spout off about the “wisdom of the masses,” but when the masses intentionally lower themselves to the mental level of their most intellectually deficient member, then the masses just ain’t that wise. I think it’s time for the masses to aspire to some of that vaunted wisdom rather than trying to flatten the bell curve with a sledgehammer.

I think it’s time we stop letting our culture celebrate willful ignorance and start promoting genius instead.

So that’s my view of this Carnival of the Elitist Bastards: we celebrate our cerebrums, jerk the sledgehammer out of the hands wielding it against us, and kick anti-elitists to the curb. We’ll delve into the delightful varieties of elitist and elite pleasures. We’ll wax philosophical and hold up the elite of our societies for praise.

I don’t think we’ll have any shortage of material.

But that may not be what first came to your mind when you decided that a Carnival of the Elitist Bastards would suit you right down to the ground.

So it’s your turn: what do you think this Carnival of the Elitist Bastards should be?

The floor is open.

Update: for more Carnival of the Elitist Bastards information, including contact info for yours truly, see this post.

Gather Round, Ye Elitist Bastards

Liv Tyler and Human Sexuality

jacob2 Comments

I don’t slavishly follow celebrity news, but AOL’s newsfeed does, and yesterday it popped up an announcement about Liv Tyler splitting from her hubby. Then there’s the provocative post Paul’s got up over at his place, and it comes down to one thing.

Time to confront my latent potential for bisexuality once again.

There’s a backstory here. Stick with me and we’ll get there.

Back in the days before the X-Files went to total shit, a friend and I were having a scintillating discussion about television women while we were shelving books at the store. No customers were harmed in the making of this conversation. Seth and I had the place to ourselves, and we used the time wisely to debate the relative attractiveness of some TV stars. He mooned over Lucy Lawless. I told him Gillian Anderson was the only woman I’d become a lesbian for.

“Oh, my God, so would I!” he exclaimed.

“You don’t have that problem, Seth,” said I. “You’re a guy.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said with the fervency of a born-again. “If I found out she was a lesbian, I’d have a sex change!”

I’m not sure if she’s the only woman he’d have a sex change for, but I know she remained the only woman I’ve ever been sexually attracted to until Liv Tyler burst on the scene.

Liv, many apologies if you ever read this. I don’t spend my nights imagining hot, dirty monkey sex with you, but ye gods. If you and Christian Bale both showed up on my doorstep clammoring for my hand, I’d have an extremely tough time deciding between you.

And that used to disturb me, because I didn’t think I “swung that way.” But as I’m getting older, I’m finding myself more and more drawn to feminine beauty. At this point, I don’t give a rat’s ass if Right turns out to be Mr. or Ms. I’d be happy either way.

(At this point in the conversation, I should probably mention my criteria: Mr. or Ms. Right will be wealthy enough to let me quit my job, absolutely fascinated by my writing, quite capable of amusing themselves for long periods of time while I’m busy with said writing, and dead-set against the idea of having children ever. Absolutely must have excellent brain. God Delusion Index should be virtually nil. Physical attractiveness a plus. And no, I’m not intending to get married ever, thus the high standards and the refusal to lower them. Thank you for playing.)

Where was I?

Anyway. So, yes, Liv Tyler makes me question my assumptions about my own sexuality, especially when she does cruel things like separate from her husband and thus reminds me that a running joke between me and my former roommate was who would beat the other one to the door if she ever showed up, a joke that got gracefully retired when Liv tied the knot.

It does not help that the best kiss I have ever received, bar none, was from a woman. Alas, not Liv Tyler. But a damned attractive woman nonetheless, and made all the sweeter by the fact that we had every man at the party sweating. There are moments when you need to put your habitual preferences aside for the sheer fun of blowing a circuit in a smug bastard’s mind.

Then Paul comes out with his “Why do Men Look at Teen Nudity?” post, and I got to thinking about it, and I realized I’m damned shallow. When it comes to men, I find a broad swath of them attractive, but my hormones only start singing at young, voluptious women who are not simply attractive but incredibly so.

Which, I suppose, is normal for someone who isn’t really honestly truly bisexual, but more of a dilettante.

My hetero guy friends, at least the few who are comfortable enough in their masculinity to admit as much, seem to be the same way: it takes an extraordinarily attractive man to get their attention. And they never drool over old guys. The cut-off seems to be around the mid-thirties for both sets of us. Of course, my guy friends who are old enough to be attracted to older folk are usually not of the generation that would admit such things, so my sample is deeply flawed.

Human sexuality is a fascinating thing, innit? I don’t think it’s so cut-and-dried as so many claim. What we find attractive is amazingly diverse. Attraction to the same sex doesn’t seem to be as rare as modern society would like to believe. Some of it seems hardwired, of course, but it seems to have mutable fringes. If that weren’t so, I don’t think so many societies that condoned homosexuality in varying degrees would have seen quite as much of it. It seems to me – and this is scientific by no means – that when the restraints are removed, we’re a lot more versatile in our likes than society would have us believe.

Me, I’m just going to enjoy drooling over whomever catches my fancy at the moment, be it male or female, young or old. And while I’m not going to wait for Liv Tyler to ring my doorbell – we all know how likely that is – I’m not going to cut off a good thing if it presents itself just because it doesn’t come in my usual flavor.

Liv Tyler and Human Sexuality

John Derbyshire Gives Blogger Heart Failure

jacob1 Comment

I hear your two questions: “Who the fuck is John Derbyshire?” and “Which blogger?”

This blogger. Me. And this is John Derbyshire. Everybody say “Hi, John!” Yes, I’m asking you to say hello to a conservative columnist. A cheery hello, at that. Even though he’s a homophobic racist hypocrite (as he admits himself), we can extend a cautious hand of welcome. After all, for a conservative, he is, as he says, “a mild and tolerant” racist homophobe, which is damned near miraculous for a National Review Online columnist.

He immigrated illegally from Great Britian before he became legal and started hating on all the brown immigrants, so that likely explains why he’s the kind of conservative who can give me heart failure for being rational, reasonable, and uplifiting.

I found him on The Panda’s Thumb. He’s one of the rare few conservatives who’s been quoted as saying non-outrageous things about evolution. I still hesitated before clicking that “Continue reading A Blood Libel on Our Civilization at the National Review” link. I mean, it’s the fucking National Review. It’s fuckwit central. But I like to think I have courage, and at times even an open mind, although that’s been hard to keep open after the abuse it’s taken from the neocons. So I steeled myself and clicked.

His article has a promising start. Right under the title, it asks, “Can I expell Expelled?”

Absolutely, John. You most certainly can. By all means. I’d be delighted to hold the door open while you boot them in the arse, even.

Things then became a bit rocky, but I soldiered on:

What on earth has happened to Ben Stein? He and I go back a long way. No, I’ve never met the guy. Back in the 1970s, though, when The American Spectator was in its broadsheet format, I would always turn first to Ben Stein’s diary, which appeared in every issue. He was funny and clever and worldly in a way I liked a lot. The very few times I’ve caught him on-screen, he seems to have had a nice line in deadpan self-deprecation, also something I like. Though I’ve never met him, I know people who know him, and they all speak well of him. Larry Kudlow, whose opinion is worth a dozen average opinions on any topic, thinks the world of Ben.

Oh, deary, deary me. He loves Ben. No good can come of this.

So what’s going on here with this stupid Expelled movie? No, I haven’t seen the dang thing. I’ve been reading about it steadily for weeks now though, both pro (including the pieces by David Klinghoffer and Dave Berg on National Review Online) and con, and I can’t believe it would yield up many surprises on an actual viewing. It’s pretty plain that the thing is creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism. How could a guy like this do a thing like that?

Easy, my dear John. Ben Stein is an opportunistic assclown. He’s snookered you into thinking he has a frontal lobe. I am so sorry you had to find out the truth this way.

Heh. You said porn. Hur hur hur.

So far, not so bad. Gingerly, I continued picking my way through the piece, convinced that at any moment, I’d get my legs blown off by a sudden claymore landmine of neocon fucktardedness. There were moments where I’d stop, breathless, convinced I’d just tripped a wire:

The first thing that came to mind was Saudi money. Half of the evils and absurdities in our society seem to have a Saudi prince behind them somewhere, and the Wahhabists are, like all fundamentalist Muslims, committed creationists.


Awshit. Just when it was all going so swimmingly, here we go with the Islamofascists are responsible for everything bad!!1!1!!! spiel. What a fucking disappointment… holy fuck, what’s this?

This doesn’t hold water, though. For one thing, Stein is Jewish. For another, he is rich, and doesn’t need the money. And for another, the stills and clips I have seen are from a low-budget production. Saudi financing would surely at least have come up with some decent computer graphics.


Ye gods. Logic! Tortured, twisted logic, true, but considering we’re dealing with a conservative mind writing in the National Review, that’s pretty damned impressive. Most of them just leave it at “Islamofascists didit, blow them all to bits, the end.” The man questioned his assumptions. He tried applying reason.

This is where the heart attack happened. Clutching my chest, I continued to read:

It is at any rate clear that [the producers of Expelled] engaged in much deception with the subjects they interviewed for the movie, many of whom are complaining loudly. This, together with much, much else about the movie, can be read about on the Expelled Exposed website put up by the National Center for Science Education, which I urge all interested readers to explore.

Total. Heart. Failure. He, John Derbyshire, a conservative writer for the National Review, just referred his readers, nay, urged them, to visit ExpelledExposed.com, not to debunk or sneer but to learn.

I’d say “be still, my heart,” but you’ve stopped, so that’s redundant at this point.

My own theory is that the creationists have been morally corrupted by the constant effort of pretending not to be what they are. What they are, as is amply documented, is a pressure group for religious teaching in public schools.


My heart stopped already, right? Can it stop again? He even freely admits that these fuckers are trying to pass religion off as science!

One of my favorite comments came from “Pixy Misa” (Andrew Mazels) who correctly called Ben Stein’s accusing Darwin of responsibility for the Holocaust “a blood libel on science.”

I would actually go further than that, to something like “a blood libel on Western Civilization.”


Wow-e-wow. Just… wow. I know I’m dead, now. Conservatives in our country just don’t say things like this. I must have ended up going down the wrong leg of the Trousers of Time this morning. Total alternate universe. Has to be.

Western civilization has many gl
ories. Ther
e are the legacies of the ancients, in literature and thought. There are the late-medieval cathedrals, those huge miracles of stone, statuary, and spiritual devotion. There is painting, music, the orderly cityscapes of Renaissance Italy, the peaceful, self-governed townships of old New England and the Frontier, the steel marvels of the early industrial revolution, our parliaments and courts of law, our great universities with their spirit of restless inquiry.

And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear. China, India, the Muslim world, all had fine cities and systems of law, architecture and painting,
poetry and prose, religion and philosophy. None of them ever accomplished what began in northwest Europe in the later 17th century, though: a scientific revolution. Thoughtful men and women came together in learned societies to compare notes on their observations of the natural world, to test their ideas in experiments, and in reasoned argument against the ideas of others, and to publish their results in learned journals. A body of common knowledge gradually accumulated. Patterns were observed, laws discerned and stated.

Glories! Yes! “Spirit of restless inquiry,” even so! Science, “greatest of all our achievements,” absolutely! I’ll even forgive you that little sneer at other countries for not having a scientific revolution, because by your narrow definition of a scientific revolution, you’re right. They didn’t have one. But you understand the glory and importance of science, John, and that…

…brings to us a feeling for what the scientific endeavor is like, and how painfully its triumphs are won, with what sweat and tears. Our scientific theories are the crowning adornments of our civilization, towering monuments of intellectual effort, built from untold millions of hours of observation, measurement, classification, discussion, and deliberation. This is quite apart from their wonderful utility — from the light, heat, and mobility they give us, the drugs and the gadgets and the media. (A “thank you” wouldn’t go amiss.) Simply as intellectual constructs, our well-established scientific theories are awe-inspiring.


This, my darlings, is where I began to cry. Because John Derbyshire, a conservative, stated precisely how I feel about science. He expressed perfectly my own sense of wonder, my awe and appreciation, my love. His passion and mine recognize each other joyously. This is what draws us together over the divide. This is what makes those differences in ideology solvable. A conservative gets it. He understands, and respects, science. This is hope, people. This is fertile middle ground, this is. He can’t be the only conservative in this country who feels this way.

And how does he feel about Ben, now?

And now here is Ben Stein, sneering and scoffing at Darwin, a man who spent decades observing and pondering the natural world — that world Stein glimpses through the window of his automobile now and then, when he’s not chattering into his cell phone.


Ouch. And Intelligent Design?

The “intelligent design” hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism. (A thing that cannot be said of Darwin. See Chapter X of Voyage of the Beagle.)

And yes: When our greatest achievements are blamed for our greatest moral failures, that is a blood libel against Western civilization itself.


Very ouch.

All that’s needed now is for more true conservatives like John Derbyshire to get so disgusted with the neocons and theocons that they wrest back conservatism from the assmonkeys destroying it. It can be done. That middle ground that I was pining for a bit ago, it can be created again. We’ll all be freely mingling in it, visiting from our respective ends of the political spectrum, cheerfully ribbing each other over what we consider each other’s silly ideologies, but able to debate rather than degrade, talk rather than shout.

That’s what this article has shown me. It’s still possible. The divide is not yet an impassable chasm. There are some people on both sides busily building bridges and caulking the cracks. They’re making it possible for us to reach each other.

And when we get there, won’t we ever have a delightful time bashing the IDiots? Once I get my heart started again, anyway.

John Derbyshire Gives Blogger Heart Failure

Book Meme Mania

jacob

Book memes! I got these from John Lynch at Stranger Fruit, by way of PZ. And I’m gonna do them both. Just because I’m the kind of person who lurves literature. Actually, no. I love really good books and I hate pretentious fuckers who claim to love books but love prestige more.

Allow me to clarify: If you loved a classic because the story grabbed you, fantastic, you’re a person who lurves literature. If you’ve read every book on the classics list because that gives you snob value, you’re a pretentious fucker and you can bugger off.

So. Ones I’ve read in bold, ones I own but haven’t finished reading in italic, ones I’ve wanted to put through a chipper-shredder struck out.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Hmm. 30. I must be an unlettered bumpkin, eh? Don’t tell that to the hundreds and hundreds of books now threatening to combine my apartment with the one immeditately below.

Let’s see how we do with cult books, then.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (1957-60)
A Rebours by JK Huysmans (1884)
Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (1991)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (1993)
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (1971)
Chariots of the Gods: Was God An Astronaut? by Erich Von Däniken (1968 )
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782)
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg (1824)
Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health by L Ron Hubbard (1950
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley (1954)
Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968 )
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973)
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter (1979
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (1982)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948 )
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino (1979)
Iron John: a Book About Men by Robert Bly (1990)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and Russell Munson (1970)
The Magus by John Fowles (1966)
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (1962)
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958 )
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
No Logo by Naomi Klein (2000)
On The Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (1971)
The Outsider by Colin Wilson (1956)
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (1923)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (1914)
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám tr by Edward FitzGerald (1859)
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937)
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922)
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774)
Story of O by Pauline Réage (1954)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)
The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda (1968 )
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1
883-85)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values by Robert M Pirsig(1974)

Not much of a cultist, either, apparently. And what the fuck is To Kill a Mockingbird doing up there in the cult books? That wasn’t cult, that was social fucking justice, that was. It was the only assigned book all throughout high school that didn’t make me want to vomit. Well, I take that back. I loved A Tale of Two Cities, actually. Yes, I’m one of those awful people who doesn’t think Dickens is too verbose. But the rest of them – I mean, for fuck’s sake, couldn’t we have read something in freshman lit that blew fewer goats than The Oxbow Incident? Like, oh, say, Moby Dick? And if you knew, if you even suspected, how much I passionately loathe Moby Dick, you’ll know just how bad The Oxbow Incident is.

Other than the part where some dude gets shot and there’s a gory description of one of his buddies heating up a gun barrel and cauterizing the wound. That was entertaining.

A quick note: The Annotated Dracula was awesome. I got my recipe for paprika hendel from it.

One last book note here: you’ll remember me mentioning Mr. Vail last night. He’s the reason I read Siddhartha. We used to have a lot of chats after school when he was supervising study hall, and one day, he looked at me and said, “You should read Steppenwolf. You’re just like the main character.” And I suppose he was right. I was ill-suited for the town I was in. But that didn’t matter half so much as the fact that Herman Hesse is an incredible author and I enjoyed the whole book immensely, even while being baffled by it. That’s why I snapped up Siddhartha, and loved it even more.

See? I read a few things outside of SF and non-fiction. I even like some of it.

Book Meme Mania

And Now, A Note From Our Senior Teen Correspondent

jacob1 Comment

Editor’s note: I met Kaden a few years ago in a writer’s forum, and he blew me away. It’s rare for an adult to actually meet a teenager who can think rings around the smartest people you know. So we became fast friends, and I’ve almost given up arguing with him because he’s too frequently right. It’s with great pleasure, then, that I extract the post he so cleverly tried to hide in the comments and emblazon it across the face of En Tequila Es Verdad for all the world to see.

I’m reasonably sure he was joking about being our Senior Teen Correspondent, but I’m making it official. At least until I have to give way to Chronos and appoint him as our Senior Young Adult Correspondent.

Without further ado, then, I present you Kaden’s report on abstinence-only education and the general fuckwittery thereof.

Being something of the Senior Teen Correspondent, I thought I’d shed my view on things.

SOME parents – I repeat, some – know what teens are doing these days. Some of _those_ parents know how to address those topics and have a mature, constructive discussion; but its only a small percentage of that smaller group of parents who also can summon up the courage to initiate that kind of discussion with their teen.

Other parents are about as clueless as a color-blind bomb defusal team. Abstinence-only education has NEVER worked. Of course, even in-depth sexual education won’t stop a hormonal teenager from doing what they really want to be doing, but at least they have an idea of what could happen.

Clearly, though, the combination of sex ed, increased parent/child discussions, media coverage and a general increase in public knowledge, has had positive effects. Teen pregnancy rates across the U.S. have declined since about the 90s. Though, unfortunately, some statistics say that its started to level out and climb back up again in recent years.

In any case, the question at hand. Should abstinence-only education be taught in schools? No, and for a few reasons.

One, the saturation of media in our culture makes that level of sheltering nigh impossible, and even dangerous if it were actually achieved. Things like YouTube, the limitless number of pornographic websites, late-night HBO, and just about any music video with the images or words: bling, pimp, ho, playa/er, gangsta/er, rap.. well, you get the idea. It all educates us youngin’s, in the wrong ways, if we were never educated any other way.

Two, on a more positive note, the culture has started to shift its paradigm as well. Condom commercials, which are frequent in most European locales, are finally starting to make their way into our networks. The younger age brackets right now are starting to learn things that we, as parents, will be able to more effectively teach our kids than our abstinence-fed parents were, by and large, not able to do for us.

Three, if you learn only one thing about us, its that the more obviously you try to hide the christmas presents, the more we’ll start snooping around in closets.

Four, sex ed does actually help. I go to a high school five days a week. I see it every day. Between rock stars, sex idols, playboy and, of course, the internet, we are one horny bunch of people. However, programs like Planned Parenthood, where we can get free, confidential contraceptives, means that its all fun and no kids. At least, more often than before.

So look, the evidence that sexual education is a positive, if not wholly effective method, is irrefutable. To try to deny that is just..

Wait, who are we arguing with?

Republicans? Oh..

Fuck.

-Kaden, Senior Teen Correspondent, En Tequila Es Verdad

And Now, A Note From Our Senior Teen Correspondent

Expelled: a Boon to Humanity

jacob2 Comments

Nonono, my darlings, there’s no need to worry: I haven’t seen the film and been converted. That’s about as likely as me developing a deep and abiding love for my uterus. Considering I’d be first in line for a home hysterectomy kit, you can suss out the odds. They’re roughly the same as a meteor landing in Times Square and dancing The Masochism Tango.

Not even going to see the film unless Mark Mathis brings me a free copy. That’s right, Mathis: you want to convert my ass, you do it on your own dime, you slimy shit. You can send Mr. Dumbski down with the video – he’s the boil on the butt of my city, so he wouldn’t have a long drive. Let’s see how your film stands up to a scientifically literate layperson, eh?

I think we all know how that’s going to go.

But Expelled isn’t unmitigated evil. It’s an opportunity. And it’s been a boon to many sectors of society.

Movie reviewers have gotten their first real challenge in years: how do you review a film that won’t let potential critics screen it? Reading through the list of reviews on Expelled Exposed, I get the sense this is the first real fun they’ve had in years. No other movie has forced them to become spies. Not many movies present so many opportunities for mockery. Aside from actually having to suffer through the film, they seem to be enjoying themselves immensely.

Expelled has also led to a Cambrian Explosion of art. Let’s just have a quick survey, shall we?

In drawing and photoshop, we have the classic “IDiot…” from Decrepit Old Fool. We have the excellent Yoko Ono as Kali, Stomping on Ben Stein from Secher Nbiw. Quidam’s What? It’s Not a Copy, Ours is brown! Midwifetoad’s No Intelligents Allowed. And so much more!

In video, a plentitude of mockumentaries have sprung into being. RichardDawkins.net airs Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed. You can find FSM Expelled on YouTube.

Comics: Ben Stein’s Career Goes Down the Toilet. Win Ben Stein’s Intelligence.

Song: Bensteinian Rhapsody.

So. Much. More. This has been a mere smattering of the bounty, my darlings. A taste only.

And it doesn’t end there.

Expelled’s benefits to science could prove incalculable. The movie has tied Intelligent Design to religion with steel hawsers. Try denying it’s all about God now. It’s exposed the fact that ID is scientifically empty to a far wider audience than the Dover trial and any number of evolution sites have. It’s proven that ID has to fall back on lies, fallicies, theft, politics and pleas to the churches to get into science class, because it can’t get there on its own merits.

Many people who wouldn’t have given two shits about evolution will now likely be curious just because of all the fuss. And there’s an abundance of evolution sites to satisfy their curiosity. I’m sure an explosion of books, movies and lectures will follow. There’s a hook, now: in exposing the antics of the Expelled crew and the Discovery Institute, there’s a wonderful opportunity to slip real science in with the gory details. They wanted us to “teach the controversy?” Great! By all means, let us teach the controversy. It’s amazing how much science you can learn when you’re discovering why everything those assclowns say about evolution is wrong. Keeps it interesting, too.

We’re not going to reach everyone. Plenty of folks will be happy to pretend that Expelled is purely the truth, because it feeds their persecution complex and their deep-rooted need to be lied to. But there are far more who will be pushed right over to our side because they’ve now seen the clothes stripped from the ID emperor. There’s no pretending it’s science now. They’re not going to fall for fallacious arguments about Darwin = Hitler, Darwin = atheism, Darwin = evil. And they’re going to understand now just what it is that’s trying to sneak into their kids’ science classrooms, and I doubt they’ll like it one little bit.

This run-up to Expelled’s release has helped us hone our responses. We’re prepared. We have all the resources, wit and wisdom we’ll ever need to help folks understand the difference between science and pseudoscience. So when they come stumbling out of Expelled feeling bludgeoned by the rampant stupidity, we’ll be ready.

They’ve heard the lies. Now they’ll be ready for the truth.

And we’ll have Expelled to thank. How fucked up is that?

Update: Blue Collar Scientist has a fantastic compendium of reviews.

Expelled: a Boon to Humanity

One Apology Down, 303,829,130 To Go

jacob3 Comments

Atheist-hater extraordinaire Monique Davis has finally issued an excuse apology to atheist extraordinaire Rob Sherman:

Yesterday, State Representative Monique Davis (D-Chicago) called me from the Floor of the Illinois House of Representatives to apologize for what she had said to me at last Wednesday’s hearing of the House State Government Administration Committee.

[snip]

Rep. Davis said that she had been upset, earlier in the day, to learn that a twenty-second and twenty-third Chicago Public School student this school year had been shot to death that morning. She said that it was wrong for her to take out her anger, frustrations and emotions on me, and that she apologized to me.

Rob reports that he forgave her, which proves he’s a kinder human being than I.

I think this is a sad fucking excuse for an apology, and I shall now count the ways.

1. It took being named Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” before she even bothered to offer an apology that should have been profuse and immediate.

2. It was issued privately, which is wonderful – except that while her statements were aimed at Rob, they hit us all. Christians, atheists, et al deserve a very public mea culpa. This wasn’t a private matter. The offense happened when she was acting in her official capacity. It’s ridiculous that she seems to think she can then apologize as a private individual.

3. This wasn’t even an apology. It was a fucking pathetic excuse followed by “I apologize” and it does nothing to solve the latent problems that led to her outburst in the first place.

The phrasing in this so-called apology tells me she’s only sorry she let her feelings out in public, not that she’s sorry for the underlying prejudice. Note the key words “anger, frustrations and emotions.” That so-called apology offers no understanding of or remedy for her (b)latent motivations. It’s just damage control. It’s spin. It’s pure fucking bullshit. But I’m sure she thinks this solves everything.

It doesn’t.

Oh, I grant you she fulfilled the letter of an apology:

1. An acknowledgment expressing regret or asking pardon for a fault or offense.

2.

a. A formal justification or defense.
b. An explanation or excuse…

But she sure as shit didn’t manage the spirit:

[A]pology usually applies to an expression of regret for a mistake or wrong with implied admission of guilt or fault and with or without reference to mitigating or extenuating circumstances. [emphasis added]

Without that pesky little implied admission of guilt or fault, her apology means nothing. It’s ass-covering. She’s just trying to make people stop giving her a well-deserved spanking. She’s not going to take anything to heart. She’s not going to rethink her attitudes toward atheists. She’s not going to take a step back and realize that such attitudes have no place in public service. She’s not going to face what her outburst says about the meaning of the Constitution with its Establishment Clause and prohibitions on religious tests for public office.

She doesn’t see how damaging her outburst is to the dignity of her office. She doesn’t understand the damage done to her church. All of this is manifestly obvious by that half-assed excuse for an apology offered to Rob Sherman and no one else.

And she can get away with this because Christianity has a stranglehold on this country, and atheists are god-haters with no morals, no PAC, and no impact. Everybody can feel just fine hating on atheists. It’s a total non-story.

If she had said “You have no right to be here” to a Muslim, there would have been an outcry. If she’d said it to a Jew, the media would have been screaming it 24-7. Same thing for a gay, a welfare mom, a drug addict, or any number of reviled minorities who still get defended when some complete assclown of a Democrat slips up. Even Republicans are forced to backpedal furiously when they let their prejudices slip that badly. Her apology would have had to be profuse, and extremely fucking public.

But she shouted down an atheist, and so there’s nothing.

That, more than her lack of insight, apalls me. It shouldn’t matter what shade of citizen was the subject of that tirade. You could have sat a serial killer, a child molester, or a Republicon in that same chair, subjected him to that same abuse, and I’d say the same thing I’m saying now: “Twasn’t right, and you need to apologize to us all.”

There’s that pesky Constitution again, you see.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The Constitution never, not once, adds “unless they are atheists, or another despised group, or unless the Representative is having a bad day, or if the theoneocons get in power and decide who does and does not deserve these rights.”

The right to petition is even in their very own Illinois State Constitution, in case you were wondering:

SECTION 5. RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE AND PETITION

The people have the right to assemble in a peaceable manner, to consult for the common good, to make known their opinions to their representatives and to apply for redress of grievances.

That’s right below the section on freedom of religion, mind.

To sum up: No public official has a right under either the United States Constitution nor those of the states to tell any citizen of this country that they have no right to come before the government and testify. And this is what I think Monique Davis needs to realize, and make abundantly clear, in a very public apology.

I’ll even draft a sample one for her:

“I want to extend my sincerest apologies to Rob Sherman, to the people of this great State of Illinois, and to all Americans, for the remarks I made to Rob Sherman during his testimony before the House State Government Administration Committee. My outburst was inexcusable. I apologize to those I hurt. I reaffirm the rights of all citizens to petition their government, whether they profess a faith or no faith. And I pray that I can understand and overcome the fear that led to this regrettable outburst. Let this incident give us the opportunity to reach out to each other in understanding and in hope, and strengthen our commitment to the principles of freedom this country was founded upon. Thank you.”

See? That’s not so hard. And it’s a fuck of a lot better than a snivelly excuse and a quick dodge.

Lessee… it’s been two hours since I started this. Let’s see how many people Monique Davis needs to apologize to now:

303,829,771

I’d hurry before that number hits 400,000,000, myself.

One Apology Down, 303,829,130 To Go

News Flash for Monique Davis: It'll Only Get Worse

jacob

As the citizens of the United States still await her apology, Keith Olbermann sits up and takes notice:

It’s not every day that a Democrat earns the dreaded “Worst Person in the World” top honors on Countdown. Muchos gracias, Keith!

Illinois Rep. Davis’s antics have even earned her immortality in song. And a good song it is, although she can’t carry much of a tune.

Your own dear Dana has jumped on the email bandwagon, as a full week without an apology is seven days too many:

Dear Rep. Davis:

You do not represent me, but you have affected me as a citizen of this country.

On April 3rd, you told atheist Rob Sherman, “You have no right to be here!”

You launched a tirade against him for not believing in God. You did this not as a private citizen, but in your official capacity as an elected representative of the citizens of Chicago. Your behavior was utterly outrageous for one of our democratically elected leaders. And yet you’ve shown no shame.

No apology. No explanation. Not a single word.

You should be deeply ashamed, as an American, as a Christian, and as a human being.

I feel sympathy for you. I truly do. I can only imagine that your vitriol came from a deep-rooted fear of atheists. It must be a terrible thing to live with so much fear. But that doesn’t excuse your ignorance or your actions.

Atheists are part of your constituency. You represent them. You cannot do so effectively when you scream at one of them that he has no right to be testifying before his own government.

Atheists are human beings. We have a moral compass, just as you do. We live, we love, we feel. Our lack of belief in a deity does not in any way minimize our humanity, or make us dangerous to you. Do not mistake a desire to see church and state safely separated for the desire to destroy all religion. The vast majority of us have no issue with what others choose to believe. We do take issue with those who would force their faith on us. We most certainly take issue with those who would tell us we have no right to petition our own government.

I want you to reflect, and pray, and consider what happens when a population is dehumanized, ostracized, and condemned by virtue of their creed. I’m sure you have a basis for comparison. Christianity, after all, was once a reviled faith until it grew strong enough to oppress in its turn.

You owe your city, your state, and your country an apology, but you owe one to your savior most of all. From what I
understand of him, he preferred compassion to condemnation.

Sincerely,
Dana Hunter

In my copious amounts of spare time tomorrow, I will be compiling a list of news outlets and writing up a nice little email we can all send along demanding attention. Such outrageous attacks from elected officials shall not pass unnoticed and unanswered.

And if many more days go by without a heartfelt mea culpa, I won’t be in such an indulgent mood, either.

News Flash for Monique Davis: It'll Only Get Worse