You can know the answer, or find it out with an accurate globe and a set of calipers…

Take the distance, point A to point B,
For three points on the map, and you’ll see
Where the arcs intersect,
Take a look! I suspect
You’ll find someone who looks quite like me!

PZ reports on the Rapture Ready response to an atheist summer camp. Nothing that was not predictable, of course. (ETA: I forgot to mention, but should, that the germ of the idea for this verse came from commenter “William”, here. Thanks, William!)

But I have to wonder if the Rapture Ready people have ever actually been to church camp. Ok, sure, some of them probably are conservative, staid, boring and godly camps, where same-sex groups gather to read scripture and look down on others. But that was not my experience. The following… was. The names are changed slightly to protect the innocent*, and to tell the truth I was not a terribly active participant in all the fooling around that was going on, but if anything it was far more than my report here alludes.

I remember Church Camp as a very happy place
Where adolescents gathered with each other, face to face,
And hormones started racing at a rather frightening pace,
And Jesus Christ was nowhere to be found.

I remember rainy days, and soggy, smoldering fires
With teenaged girls and teenaged boys and teenage strong desires,
And all the earthy fantasies that such a place inspires
And, Jesus Christ, we loved to mess around.

I remember Sarah, with her long and gorgeous hair;
She wore a string bikini, and she didn’t seem to care
If it slipped a couple inches while the counselors would stare,
And Jesus Christ himself would find her hot.

I remember Christie, with the braces on her smile;
The daughter of a preacher, she was very versatile,
And we knew that making friends with her was very worth our while,
And Jesus Christ protect us if we’re caught!

I remember learning about what the Bible meant,
Though I never really listened more than one or two percent;
My attention held by how the girls could help me pitch a tent,
And, Jesus Christ, I grew to love that place!

I remember going hiking, going swimming, playing games,
I remember every crush I had—I still recall their names—
Though I rather doubt such memories would fit the church camp aims…
But Jesus Christ? He never showed his face.

(* “Sarah” was actually Sara, and at age 17 she married a man she met at camp, when he was a counselor and she was 14, but looked 18. They spent a lot of time together that year. “Christie” was actually Christine, and a very sweet girl. I think she was my very first meaningful kiss.)

… well, at the end of the week.

I have been a bit quiet these last few days; real life is uncharacteristically busy. Among other things, I am getting ready for my second overseas trip in just over a year. No, I won’t tell you precisely where, or I won’t be able to do one of those “where in the world is…” posts. But… see… it used to rain when we went camping. Every time. We would show up at a national park during a drought, and there would be flash flood warnings that night.

Then my parents started traveling for real. And wherever they went, within a few months there was major unrest. I won’t name names, but I blame the fall of the Soviet Union, the chaos in the Middle East, and even global warming, on my parents’ travels.

And this trip is with them.

I’m heading to an area that struggles with malaria—
Today was spent in frantic preparation for that fact;
With bug repellant for my skin; my first week’s dose of mefloquine;
Permethrin sprayed on clothing, and I still could be attacked.

In truth, I’m really not concerned with flying insects; I have learned,
No matter if they bite or sting, I face a greater threat.
Nor predatory carnivore—one entity disturbs me more:
It’s humans that are scarier than anything I’ve met.

And not just any people—see, I’m traveling with my family,
And frankly, there’s a history that really gets me scared!
See, everywhere my parents travel, governments will soon unravel—
Doubt me at your peril, and it’s best to be prepared!

(The correlation’s spurious, and yet I still am curious,
And someday I may calculate and figure out the odds;
There’s some small probability, despite their false humility,
My parents may, statistically, be War and Chaos gods.)

So, anyway, this may be my last chance to say “buy my book”, or “note the tip jar”, or “don’t bother praying for me, but if you have any decent advice, I am all ears”… especially that last one.

Don’t know how much time I will have this week, and I doubt I will have any time at all next week (or internet, or sanity), but I plan on being back, with as many photos as I can cram onto as many SD memory deallies as I can afford.

It really ought to be a wonderful time, with only a slight but statistically significant chance that the world itself will end.

I like my food spicy; some like their food bland.
I like an adventure; some want their lives planned.
My love is a woman who takes her own stand
While others want someone whom they can command.

While some treat their love like a delicate flower—
Watched and protected, locked up in some tower—
My love, I am certain, has shown she has power,
Which grows every day, and in truth, every hour.

My love has a power, which must be respected;
She’s earned it, of course, she’s not falsely protected
To make up for promises long since neglected,
Like some I could name, though that’s not unexpected.

My love is amazing; my love never tires,
My love, like a goddess, compels and inspires,
A muse to the people—like Dawkins or Myers—
Who wear on their sleeves scientific desires.

Some long for the common; we put our reliance
In methods where evidence earns its defiance;
We’ll climb till we see even further than giants—
The woman I love is a beauty called Science.

What… you want context? Ok, here.

Yeah, well, I was going to wait until midnight to post this, but I’m sleepy. And old, too. So there. Besides, in some parts of the world it has been my birthday for over half the day already! Six July, wherever you are…

I’m not that old, it seems to me;
Not even half a century,
In truth a mere four dozen years—
It’s not as bad as it appears—
To live so long it is my fate;
The Cuttlefish is Forty-Eight.

Each year, I take a look behind,
To see what changes I may find;
The aching knees, the fuzzing eyes,
The clothes that seem a smaller size,
Who knows what other ills await?
The Cuttlefish is Forty-Eight.

The CuttleSpouse is doing well
Although the job-search sure is hell.
The CuttleKids amaze me still,
In truth, I hope they always will—
Who knew that kids could be so great?
The Cuttlefish is Forty-Eight.

This year was not the worst, or best;
I’m not elated, nor depressed.
There’s been some good; there’s been some bad,
As in each year I get to add;
So take a pen and mark the date—
The Cuttlefish is Forty-Eight.

So, yeah… Last year, my birthday was the last full day overseas (again, thanks in humongous part to my readers, without whose amazing generosity I would have had to decline my amazing opportunity), which I spent (among other things) climbing Mt. Vitosha, just outside of Sofia, Bulgaria. No way this year could have topped that, I suppose. Currently, I am preparing for another trip (so I wait that long to leave the continent for the first time, and I get to leave again in just over a year?), so this past year is a bit of a stay-at-home sandwich.

Anyway. Now, the important part. Would you have guessed 48? Older? Younger? Does this blog make me look old?

It has been raining here for roughly forty days and nights; I am partway through several books and several chores; Cuttledaughter is a happy graduate and off having fun; it must be time to collect the detritus, flotsam and jetsam of the past couple of weeks’ worth of comments.

I begin with one that took no thought whatsoever on my part; all I did was take PZ’s post and translate it to cuttlefish:

Like shooting flies with howitzers
Or fighting ants with mines
John Lynch will take his intellect
And decimate Ben Stein’s.

The program claims the topic
Will be “Why Ben Stein Is Wrong”.
Condensed, of course–the unabridged
Is several days too long.

No matter how it’s edited,
I have a nagging hunch,
It’s going to be a long one, so
You’d better pack a lunch.

(Ok, I’ve said what PZ said
And took so little time–
I wonder–how come Myers never
Writes his posts in rhyme?)

Speaking of cuttlefish, Cuttleson just came back from a visit to the semi-local aquarium; he spoke of seeing a 600-pound turtle, of a huge octopus that “looked like he kept turning inside out”… and his favorites, the cuttlefish. And no, he does not know I write this. I’m so proud… I’d give him an award, if I could…

Ok, maybe not a Templeton award:

Stealthily, wealthily,
Billionaire Templeton
Offers his money, with
This little hedge:

Topics appear to be
Multidimensional
Variants on the
Creationist wedge.

Those Templetonians… I wish I had the dilemma of choosing between accepting their tons of money or being a good cuttlefish. I could use the money. (I am reminded a bit of Romeo & Juliet–V.i.78-79; see if you can guess the lines before you look them up.) Oh, well. At least others are in a position to question and refuse such generosity:

The goal of that Templeton chap
Was to re-write the scientists’ map;
Though they thought it seemed odd,
He would print “Heere be Godde”
Where cartographers once left a gap.

Some scientists, sensing a trap,
Caused a ruckus, or maybe a flap
When they turned down his money
And said it smell’d funny
As if it were printed with crap!

Some others jumped right in his lap
Took his money in less than a snap
So the folks in the first
Group, expecting the worst,
Advised they be tested for clap.

See, there I am disobeying my rules about limericks, too. Oh, well. Could be worse. At least I was not off hiking the Appalachian Trail:

Nothing could be keener than to be in Argentina in the morning.
No one could be sweeter than my little senorita in the morning
When I say I’m camping
The Appalachian trail
Honestly, I’m tramping
With some Argentina tail
Any politician will be hungry for some fishin’ in the morning
Lordy, she’s appealing, and my rod could have her reeling in the morning
If I had Aladdin’s lamp for only a day
I’d make a wish and here’s what I’d say
Nothing could be keener than to be in Argentina in the morning!

See, I’d never be able to pull off a Sanford; I am not nearly so technologically savvy. I would never be able to lose my entire staff for a whole weekend (oh, wait–no staff); hell, I can’t even figure out having to register to comment at a site:

User registration
Only leads me to frustration–
Though I try to do it properly, I always mess it up.
So I’ll probably just lurk here
While you people go to work here
And while PZ finds some German beer to overflow his cup.
So I guess I’ll read the greetings
Posted from the Lindau Meetings
Though it seems to me my invitation must have gotten lost
I’d report in rhyme and meter
With my German co-host Dieter
But apparently the Germans know… I ain’t no Robert Frost.

Lastly… a comment on an unconventional but biblical approach to overpopulation:

With zero reproduction rate, and population static,
There are no ills of over-use; it’s really quite pragmatic!
A self-sufficient microcosm, Eden was sustainable–
I don’t know why you think this situation’s unexplainable.

But since Eve bit the apple, well, we’ve reproduced like rabbits,
And the world has suffered greatly from our numbers and our habits;
No more a balanced system that could just as well be sealed,
As the writer of your email has so cogently revealed.

A Malthusian catastrophe could surely be prevented
If with zero population growth we’d only been contented;
The population problem is tremendous and complex,
And it’s all because, in Eden, we decided to have sex.

Not a big post–I composed this as a simple comment on Pharyngula, but it got a bit big, so I thought I’d post it here, too.

Our free will, or its illusion,
Is the source of much confusion;
We make choices all the time, but can we say that they are free?
Mind and body in cohesion
Make us think we are Cartesian,
But the whole of modern science makes me want to disagree!
A causal mind’s existence,
Though a meme of some persistence,
Has the weight of long tradition, but the evidence is slim.
Our environment controls us;
Though Cartesian thought consoles us,
The truth is, we’re reactive, and we never act on whim.
Even my creative rhyming
Is controlled by sound and timing
And a history of consequences leading to this end;
Rhymes appear as chosen freely,
When the truth is different, really—
There are multiple parameters to which I must attend!

(Parenthetically, I mention
That “free will” will draw attention
To the action and its consequence, but little to its cause;
The resulting shift of focus
Makes it seem like hocus-pocus;
Through a bit of misdirection, it appears we break the laws!)

Let’s hoist and let the flag unfrrl:
Go vote! Go vote! For ScienceGrrl!*

The blogosphere’s most precious prrl:
Go vote! Go vote! For ScienceGrrl!

I really think it would be nice
To send her to the cold and ice—
So take my Cuttlefish advice
And vote! (Chicago, you vote twice.)

So send her where the cold winds swrrl:
Go vote! Go vote! For ScienceGrrl!

Yes you! Come on, and give it a whrrl:
Go vote! Go vote! For ScienceGrrl!

(Much more of this, and I could hrrl—
I’ll stop. You vote for ScienceGrrl!)

More info here.

*ok, it’s actually “GrrlScientist”, but you try rhyming that.

Chad Orzel and I have some pretty serious differences when it comes to how and why we write. For one thing, he has help. His dog, Emmy, is an important part of his writing team. My dog is, thus far, no help at all.

Part of it is our respective subject matter. Orzel writes about quantum physics, and by a stroke of fate, it turns out that dogs have a bit of a natural advantage there. Don’t ask me, ask him. (seriously, check out that interview!) Me, I write commentary, often satirical, in verse. Dogs don’t do verse. Dogs are notoriously bad at rhyming, and have no sense of meter at all. So right there, Orzel has an unnatural advantage.

Another difference is editing. Orzel actually takes the time to write, edit, rewrite, re-edit, and make sure he says exactly what he wants to. As such, over 2 years has passed between the writing of “Bunnies made of cheese” and the (not quite yet) publication of the actual book that grew from that seed. Me, if I take an extra hour to look for typos, I may miss the chance on making a timely comment. Almost everything that I post is essentially a first draft, and there is rarely motivation to go back and fine-tune (exception: I am re-doing my book, and taking the time to make a few changes and clean up categories, etc. But that is for another time).

Indeed, my post this time is so timely, it actually precedes its cause! Which actually brings up another difference, although I am not certain what to call it. I write about the real world. Orzel writes about the real world. In his real world, things can meaningfully pop in and out of existence; in mine, if you make such claims people start edging away nervously and trying to remember the number of the proper authorities (1-800-LUNATIC, perhaps [ok, now I wonder who has that number]). Causation takes a holiday in Orzel’s real world, or maybe it just seems that way to me because of my limited understanding. My dog says he will explain it to me some day.

So, as I was saying, this post actually precedes its cause. This post is a book review of a book (How to teach physics to your dog) that is not yet published, and which I have not yet seen. My dog tells me that in another alternate universe I may have already read it, but that does not help here. I submit it in hopes of actually winning a copy of the book which I can then read to see how well it matches my review. I suspect that, having read it, I will need to revise and edit my review, which I can only assume will lead to the publication of another book by Orzel, and perhaps lead to the collapse of the Cuttlefish wave form.

So here goes.

One necessity of teaching: a facility for reaching
Through the mass of preconceptions that can settle like a fog,
And may block new information, or bring misinterpretation;
There’s a remedy for some of this: try thinking like a dog!
That’s the premise of the method that Professor Orzel plied
With the Queen of Niskayuna by his side!

She told him of the habits of the Niskayuna rabbits
How they sometimes seemed to vanish in the Niskayuna air.
It would help her with her chases if she occupied two places
And could trap the little bunnies as they’re running to their lair.
Oh, the yummy little bunnies would have nowhere left to hide
If the Queen of Niskayuna could divide!

“Spooky barking at a distance” clearly needed her assistance,
So they wrangled with entanglement and tackled it with ease;
She learned how to beam a bunny, which to humans may sound funny
But to dogs it’s just as plausible as bunnies made of cheese.
There are laws of Quantum Physics—and they will not be denied—
Which the Queen of Niskayuna takes in stride.

Here the uses and mis-uses (and occasional abuses)
Quantum Physics has been saddled with, are rendered clear for you,
With occasional referrals to the Niskayuna squirrels
(Who are never to be trusted, and are evil through and through).
So begin the thrilling journey that these essays will provide
With the Queen of Niskayuna as your guide!

(I am saddened to discover it’s not Emmy on the cover
But some fancy dog professional who likes to cock his head.
He may look all nice and quizzical, But Emmy’s quantum-physical,
Although, perhaps, as royalty, she’s not one to be led.
Though the picture on the cover she was callously denied,
It’s the Queen of Niskayuna who’s inside!)

Praise the pow’r of faith unswerving
In the face of evidence.
With a doctrine undeserving,
We must cling to our pretense;
Let us climb the rugged mountain
Though the cliffs are in our way:
“Faith and science from one fountain”
Let’s repeat the old cliché.

Faith and science, we must tether,
Through our cunning and our art,
Force the twain to come together
Though they long to cleave apart.
With the use of clever framing
Forge a bond that will not break;
Then, resort to petty blaming
Cov’ring up our own mistake.

Now two currents in the ocean
Long diverged, and long discrete,
One long stilled, and one in motion
Nevermore the two to meet;
Pray that God will cause a blending
Till they carve a single course
Justify our whine unending:
Faith and science, joined by force.

(The original is “Praise the Source of Faith and Learning”–text can be found here.)

Cuttlecap tip to PZ, of course, for reporting on the PEW Forum.

For those with a masochistic streak, Francis Collins sings the original at the end of this mp3.

Oh, yeah, buy my book, note the tip jar, yadda yadda yadda…