Dastardly, Bastardly,
Andrew–unethical,
Lied to his legions and
Basked in their praise

Practiced his dangerous
Megalomania;
Playing with matches, he
Started a blaze

Yearningly, burningly,
Well-meaning innocents
Read about Wakefield, and
Swallowed it whole

Choose not to vaccinate,
Uncomprehendingly,
Fearful and tearful and
Not in control.

Recently, decently,
GMC councilors
Looked at the evidence,
Started to scoff;

Tales of misconduct were
Incontrovertible;
Guilty of charges,
They’ve stricken him off!

Mournfully, scornfully,
Cognitive dissonance
Keeps his supporters from
Seeing the light

Changing their minds would be
Counterintuitive–
Thinking him guilty is
Reason to fight.

Context: I was reading the (quite predictable) reactions here. By the way… if you have not yet voted there, please do so. The case itself is not terribly interesting to me–the man acted monstrously, and has been officially slapped down. Sadly, it probably will boost his income. No, the interesting part is the familiar pattern of responses–like the hybrid offspring of Festinger’s “When Prophecy Fails” and an Oliver Stone movie. Conspiracy belief is sustained, not weakened, by disproof.

Martin Gardner is, for me, always paired with Jerry Andrus; both men appeared to see the world from a slightly different perspective than the rest of us, but were ready, willing and able to share their vision, to our great joy.

Turns out Andrus had, a dozen years ago, paid his own homage to Gardner, in the form of a paper cutout illusion of the form both men were so fond of. This one also happens to be perhaps my own favorite; I have one sitting on the shelf in my office (well, did–things are in boxes right now). (At the link, you can print out your own to cut and fold!)

A dragon you can make yourself
To sit, perhaps, upon your shelf
A silent, somewhat creepy pardner
Reminding you of Martin Gardner

So I got an email last night, wondering what the cuttlefish signal was–akin to the bat signal, but alerting me to those rare occasions when someone needs something in verse. It’s happened before, surprisingly–“Lousisiana, 2010” was a response to a specific request, for instance. Last night, the call came on behalf of (but not from) Orac. The anti-vax pinheads (seems to me I have written on them a few times in the past) fancy themselves musicians. Actually, go take a look at Orac’s post, cos otherwise you won’t believe what passes for lyrics in people who have lost all semblance of critical thinking.

Anyway, I churned out the following for the comment thread. I apologize to Lennon, McCartney, and music lovers everywhere.

Ah, look at all the stupid people
Ah, look at all the stupid people

Jenny McCarthy doesn’t think twice, no research, doesn’t know what it means
Fighting vaccines
Works on her website, wearing a face that she bought from a surgeon out West
Along with her breasts

All the stupid people
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people
Where do they all belong?

Doctor Habakus, thinking that risking your children is everyone’s choice
Raises her voice
Look at her working, spreading her disinformation to anyone there
What does she care?

All the stupid people
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the stupid people
Ah, look at all the stupid people

Jenny McCarthy botoxed her face, now her smile has been turned to a mask
Don’t even ask.
Doctor Habakus, off to get paid thirty pieces of silver for what she has done
At AutismOne

All the stupid people
Where do they all come from?
All the stupid people
Where do they all belong?

First, you plant a red tomato
Then you just sit back and wait, oh,
Just a month or two, while evolution does its nasty deed.
When it ripens, there’s no tellin’,
Cos it might be watermelon,
If it weren’t for Jesus Christ, defending each and every seed.
You could go for evolution’s
Oversimplified solutions
Or take solace, knowing Christ was in your garden all along
From the first one, back in Eden
(Where there was no need for weedin’)
To the modern agribusinesses that keep our nation strong
Every farmer with a tractor
Knows that Jesus is the factor
More than pesticides or herbicides, of this we can be sure:
Should the urge to garden seize us
We should put our faith in Jesus:
If there’s one thing that He taught us all, it’s how to spread manure.

Cuttlecap tip to PZ, of course.

Birds do it; bees do it; bats do it too—
And pretty much anything down at the zoo
From Galapagos Tortoise to Red Kangaroo
Seems plenty of creatures have fun when they screw

The sexual prowess of hamster or rat
Or the lust of a Tom, whether turkey or cat—
But whatever you do, be advised when you chat
Not to speak of the human along with the bat

The world all around us is vast and complex
And it’s filled up with species that like having sex—
And scholars who talk about some of the specs
Shouldn’t fear that the axe will descend on their necks

The facts are the facts, and there’s no need to quarrel;
Or hide what we’re meaning, in verbiage floral—
It cannot mean someone is more or less moral
For noting both humans and bats enjoy oral

But just cast your eyes upon U. College Cork,
Where discussions of bats and their sexual torque—
The gymnastic maneuvers they ply when they pork—
Might imply we have babies through sex, not through stork

If you’d like to express with me, strong opposition,
Upholding the freedom that’s long been tradition
(Cos no one expects the Bat Sex Inquisition!)
Please follow the link, then, and sign the petition.

Cuttlecap tip to PZ, of course.

They tell me that I’m missing something—
Never what that is,
But it’s something—something major—something big.
They tell me God could grant this thing—
Apparently it’s His—
And they chafe when I don’t give a flying fig.

I don’t miss the wings I’ve never had
Nor gills I’ve never tried
I don’t miss a pair of antlers for my head
And I can’t imagine missing stuff
I can’t have till I’ve died,
When the people who are telling me … aren’t dead.

Should I miss the influenza? Should I
Miss the measles, too?
I’d miss polio, except, of course, I don’t.
There are many things I do not have
Which I will not pursue—
If you’d like to add religion… well, I won’t.

Of course, I’d miss my son or daughter,
If I were left alone
And I’d miss them till the day my heart gives out
I would miss the many friends I have
And others I have known—
That’s what living, and what loving, is about.

But I will not waste a single moment—
Not a single breath—
Not a heartbeat, cos it’s more than what it’s worth
In missing things religion says
I’ll find out after death—
I don’t want to miss a moment here on earth!

For Sastra, for this comment.

We see the slick on top, but we don’t see beneath
See what it’s done to the fish, 

Now all I need is someone who can sing…

By request, for Fmagyar, who is one of the many who will see the devastation firsthand–diving under the slick to check coral transplants.

I was just listening to Token Skeptic #18, and nearly gave myself whiplash with all my nodding in agreement. In my classes, I am known for my opposition to the goal of “raising awareness”; fuzzy, ill-defined concepts like that do more harm than good. Take a page from the success of science, and operationally define the things you wish to change, or it is too easy to either see change where there has been none, or miss real change that has happened while you were off looking at something relatively irrelevant.

In the far northeastern corner of the country
Where the women are both beautiful and wise
The exercise of civil rights
Has led to protest and to fights
From women who won’t stoop to compromise

In Farmington, the sunny skies of April
Are telling us that Spring is here again
And it’s time to go bare-chested
Cos it’s time the law was tested
That allows this both for women and for men

Freedom never used is hardly freedom
It’s common sense, the likes of Thomas Paine
So leave your shirts behind, cos you won’t need ’em
When you’re visiting the lovely state of Maine

It’s the right of all, in Maine, to go half-naked
Not illegal here, and nor is it a sin
You can bet there’ll be more sequels
Till we’re seen as merely equals
And we realize that skin is merely skin

Freedom never used is hardly freedom
It’s common sense, the likes of Thomas Paine
So leave your shirts behind, cos you won’t need ’em
When you’re visiting the lovely state of Maine


Story and photos from here.
Excellent coverage here, with a thoughtful and non-sensationalist video report.

In other non-news, the decidedly asocial Cuttlefish is dipping a tentacle into social networking. There is a deally over there to the right that links to my facebook page, and I am now a twit, or whatever you call the people who are on twitter. @cuttlefishpoet (is the @ part of the name? I don’t know), for those who care. Be advised, I am still more comfortable with a quill pen and inkpot than with 140 characters, so be gentle.

Notes and quotes and anecdotes
And third- or fourth-hand stories
A cheesy website, which promotes
Colloidal silver’s glories
A drop of homeopathy,
A touch of chiropractic,
Let’s claim it’s enteropathy,
Or try another tactic—
It doesn’t matter much at all
Which quack earns our reliance,
So long as children never fall
Into the hands of science!

Tales of sales and such details
Show evil in Big Pharma
When alt-med leaves such paper trails
We’ll claim it’s just bad karma.
Vaccines are money-grubbing schemes—
Each virus or bacillus
Is part of nature’s plan—it seems
That doctors want to kill us.
We’ll separate the false from true
By confirmation bias—
There are no data we can’t skew;
Just go ahead and try us!

We agree, the CDC
Has no concern for health
It’s all a great conspiracy
Protecting doctors’ wealth
You can’t trust doctors any more
It isn’t even funny—
This is important! This is war!
We trust the former Bunny!
Vaccines are tools of mind control
That’s really why they’re made
But they’ll have no effect on us—
The tinfoil hat brigade!