Finally! World of Warcraft is explained with a classical reference.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Finally! World of Warcraft is explained with a classical reference.
Our local high school has been trying to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance group for several years, and somehow it always gets squelched. They’re trying again, and a vote of the school board is coming up soon (isn’t it astonishing that we require a bunch of old fuddy-duddies to approve a simple meeting of gay and straight students?). They’re holding a rally on Monday. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop on by and represent! The more people show up, the more pressure the board might feel.
Here’s a description by the students of the Morris Area High School.
As a diverse group of students with varying genders and sexualities who understand the need for an organization that educates advocates and supports the LBGT+ student body, we promote diversity and equality. We are the Morris Area High School Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). Even if our meetings seem crazy, we do get things done with our talented and energetic members. Of utmost importance is our desire to help change the culture and climate of the school to be accepting of all sexual orientations, genders and gender expression.
As you may have heard, the Morris Area High School Gay Straight Alliance has been seeking school sponsorship for several years. Finally, after much dedication from parents and support from community and organizations, the issue of the GSA’s school recognition will be on the October school board agenda to be presented to the school board members for a vote.
The GSA members are asking for the presence of supporters at a Pre-Vote Rally on Monday, October 19 at the Morris Public Library Community Room at 5:15 p.m. and/or the school board meeting at the Donnelly City Hall at 7:00 p.m. During the Rally, you will hear the experiences of current and past MAHS students, parents of GSA members, and a representative from OutFront MN, whose mission ‘is to create a state where lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are free to be who they are, love who they love, and live without fear of violence, harassment or discrimination.’
Bracelets with the inscription MAHS GSA; COURAGE will be available at the Rally. Be sure to ask for your complimentary band to wear proudly in support of our GSA.
Thank you for your continued support of our sexually diverse and gender encompassing group.
Any atheists out there should make a special effort to attend. You realize we godless tend to make common cause with the LGBTQ community, right?
Knobby Argonaut, Argonauta nodosa
Also, what’s Brian Switek doing, writing about cephalopods? He’s supposed to be writing about dinosaurs
But first impressions can be deceiving. In truth, as I later learned from Klug, the paper nautilus is not a close relative of today’s pearly nautilus, nor is it an echo of the long-lost ammonoids. The creature that had ensnared my mind is totally different.
The argonaut is an octopus, and its prehistoric look is created by the way the squishy creature reproduces. The “shell,” Klug says, “is actually an egg case secreted by two specialized arms,” and made of the mineral calcite. As she swims, a female argonaut cuddles her eggs in the shell-like cases pressed against her sides. Lacking cases, male argonauts just look like itty-bitty octopuses.
Although it makes me want to gather a group of brightly dressed people to assemble a nuclease on the next block.
Yet another sorry story of a prestigious man with a disgusting habit.
John Kearsley, the director of radiation oncology at St George Hospital and conjoint professor of medicine at the University of NSW, gave depressant drugs known as benzodiazepines to the 32-year-old and touched her inappropriately.
That’s the sanitized, softened-down version of what he did — you’d have to read the whole thing to get the details.
But look (he says, sarcastically), this is a MAN who dedicated his LIFE to FIGHTING CANCER … I’m sure someone somewhere would like to argue that we ought to cut him a little slack, and allow him to occasionally slip a mickey to women half his age and drag them into bed for a nice fondling. Won’t medicine grind to a halt if we don’t?
Less sarcastically, I wonder how one gets to be 63 years old, at the top of their profession, director of a major subdivision of a hospital, and still think one can get away with drugging women for sex. These kinds of behaviors don’t just suddenly manifest in a one time accident — I bet he has a long history of these or lesser transgressions, yet no one had qualms about promoting him ever upwards.
Sadly, a young man in England has been diagnosed with stage IV cancer — and he really is an atheist in a metaphorical foxhole, and it hasn’t changed his opinion of religion.
Between now and last Wednesday I’ve worried about various things, but one thought that stands out is religion. Before I go into more depth, I’ll stress that I’m an atheist. Religion, the way I see it, is a reactionary and backward tendency that has stood alongside man throughout history, yet has always blinded communities and corrupted rational thought. As society has advanced, so has our depth of knowledge and understanding of the world and, as a result, religious influence has decreased in many ways, but that’s not to say it isn’t an issue. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the persisting cultural backwardness in the southern USA, and the political situation in Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Iran are all different manifestations of the same illness. Religion does to society what cancer is doing to my spine.
I must gently correct him on one thing, though: we have persisting cultural backwardness in the Northern USA, too. But otherwise, speak it, brother!
He doesn’t object to friends and family praying for him, and has reached out to a deity (who hasn’t answered) himself, but he has his own ideology that provides a good constructive metaphor for his condition. He’s a strong Marxist.
As it happens, I have little reason to believe there’s a lot going on in heaven for me. On Wednesday I was told my that my cancer, on a I – IV grading system, fell into the most aggressive, Grade IV category. No one could commit to giving me a death date, but I’m left with the impressesion that, after chemotherapy, radiotherapy and physiotherapy (to regain movement), all of which should begin next week, I’ll have months to live. This was obviously terrible news, though it perhaps takes some of the pressure off as it makes me more assured in my godlessness, and I also can’t help but feel slightly proud that it’s my spinal cells which have done this. In revolutionary terms, they definitely quality as extremists. They’d dwarf the various coups in Argentina, which overthrew and replaced different governments in the region, or the revolutionary movements in the little communist countries like Vietnam or Afghanistan. My cells certainly take after the Bolsheviks here; if the February Revolution was my initial diagnosis, the October Revolution was my conversation two days ago. The shooting of the Romanov family is yet to come, but we sure these cells will take no prisoners there either. It’s also interesting to see that, due to their rapid growth and malignancy, they follow in the internationalist line, bent on spreading the revolution worldwide. Ideologically speaking, I can’t really complain.
The idea that cancer is revolutionary is an interesting one, and valid — these definitely are cells that are overthrowing the existing order and are tearing apart the bonds of convention.
However, I would also point out that the healthy multicellular body represents a proletarian paradise. There are no bosses (the brain may think it is, but it’s really just a servant of the whole, and it too is made up cooperating cells working to generate the illusion of self), and the entirety of the body is a mass of cells in mutual harmony. All parts are necessary and appreciated, and all cells are fed according to their need.
Marx thought evolutionary theory was the product of a nation of bourgeois shopkeepers, and he was actually quite right: there has long been a focus on conflict and competition, a rather capitalistic perspective. But multicellularity is the end result of cooperation and mutual aid, in which individual cells joined collectives to stand strong against the forces of the environment. I am more in sympathy with Kropotkin than many of Darwin’s heirs on this point (Darwin himself had a more complex view of the subject).
In that sense, cancer is more of a reactionary counter-revolution, in which a few cells abandon the bonds of trust to selfishly exploit their neighbors and the resources of the whole. If they succeed, the whole system will crash, leading to the deaths of trillions of cells…including the greedy and short-sighted cancerous reactionaries.
The struggle for life is also a fight for the welfare of the masses. It is the restoration of harmony and cooperation to all of the cells of the body. I wish my comrade in the Leeds General Infirmary well, and if he should fall, let us all remember that he fell in glorious struggle, as a communal entity resisting an exploitive few.
There’s a letter going around, in support of Geoff Marcy. If you’d rather not read it, just see panels 4 and 5 of this cartoon.
Dear Colleagues,
Due to my outrage concerning the disgusting attack of the (mostly) US1 astronomical community against Geoff Marcy, and the apparent lack of any counter movement against this madness, I would like to draw your attention to the danger of remaining silent in this situation.
What we can gather from the newspapers and web sites discussing the issue, it is clear that the reaction of the community was unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical2. The unleashed hate3, clearly blowing out of proportion the weight of his behavior and leaving wide open space to any further accusation against anybody showing some level of casual interaction4 and furthermore, endanger normal and friendly contacts in the community and in the society, as a whole. I hope you recognize the great danger of accepting the total destruction of someone’s undeniable contribution to science5 because of the hypocritical attitude the community seems to accept these days.
Considering the pace of events, I think that the clock is ticking very quickly. If the mature and free-thinking part of the community does not act right now, I am sure that the game ends very quickly, and those who initiated this dirty, unethical and disgraceful attack6, will win. Today Geoff, tomorrow you or me.7
Sincerely,
Geza Kovacs, DSc
Konkoly Observatoryp.s.: You are free to circulate this letter to anybody you think might be willing to act. This letter has been sent also to other researchers.
1I’ve seen this same weird displacement activity among atheists, too. It’s just Americans who are too sensitive. I have never heard Americans accused of “sensitivity” in any other context. Either there is no sexism in Europe, or European men are especially oblivious.
2Speaking of unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical
, isn’t the accusation that people who are unhappy with the lack of consequences to Marcy kind of unproportional, vicious, hypocritical and hysterical
?
3Ditto. I haven’t seen any expressions of hate at all — mostly regret, dismay, and anger at both the behavior and the timidity of UCB.
4Ahem. Casual interaction
? An official investigation at Berkeley found:
After a six-month investigation, Geoff Marcy — a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been mentioned as a potential Nobel laureate — was found to have violated campus sexual harassment policies between 2001 and 2010. Four women alleged that Marcy repeatedly engaged in inappropriate physical behavior with students, including unwanted massages, kisses, and groping.
I just got out of lab with my cell biology students. I managed to help them do measurements of enzyme reaction rates with no massages, kisses, or groping. I would not call such activities casual interaction
.
5Marcy’s contributions to science have not been destroyed. Neither has Marcy’s career.
If we’re going to talk about destruction, how about the careers of the women who fled astronomy because of the disrespect, or how about their potential contributions to science?
6Again, official, formal investigation by the university in response to a decade of bad behavior by Marcy, with at least four clear victims. If I had to name who was dirty, unethical, and disgraceful, it would be someone whose name begins with “G” and ends with “eoff Marcy”.
7It might be you tomorrow if you are massaging, kissing, or groping your students. It might also be you tomorrow if you’re in the habit of robbing banks; that you might be thrown in prison for that crime if you were to rob a bank is not an argument that bank robbers need to be treated leniently.
At any rate, Kovacs was too late. Marcy has resigned.
I guess all Kovacs can do now is help him land a new position somewhere less concerned about Dr Handsy fondling the undergrads, and more enthused about getting grants and fame. I’m sure there will be no shortage of positions available, and may Cthulhu have mercy on the students8 at his next institution.
8Cthulhu will show no mercy.
Others are coming forward. Would you believe his bad behavior goes back 30 years? Of course you would.
His inappropriate behaviour goes back a good thirty years, when he was teaching at San Francisco State University.
This is where I met him in 1985 when we both worked in the Physics and Astronomy Department while I was a Master’s student and a lecturer. It was well known that he had intimate relationships with several of his female students. But it is not the only aspect where I felt Marcy’s ethics were questionable.
In 1987, Marcy’s colleague in the search for exoplanets realized that he had handed her a revised copy of their joint grant proposal. On the copy Marcy had given her, both their names appeared, his as main investigator and hers, as co-investigator. But Marcy’s official copy, the one he had submitted to the funding agency, bore only his name.
She reported this to the department head, who fired her on the spot. Marcy was the rising star of his department. She then filed a formal complaint for professional misconduct against Marcy. But she was unable to recover her position and she left the field of astronomy. Following these events, a few people tried to draw the University’s attention to Geoff Marcy’s inappropriate behaviour with his female students.
Guess what the university did?
Here is a photo essay of the inside of the MSF hospital in Kunduz that was attacked by US air power. The destruction is chilling.
It’s horrible that this devastation and death was wrought on a hospital, but we need to keep in mind that this is what follows every time our military decides that a point on the map needs to be obliterated. This is the wreckage we leave behind with every mad venture we engage.
We just don’t see the detailed images of the ruined lives and buildings afterwards.
YouTube is generally a blighted mess for atheism — but I’m seeing more people pushing back (but the comments there are still full of fulminating argle-bargle from the usual noisemakers). Here’s an example:
I do want to mention one thing I see a lot. You’ve heard it: tell a self-labeled proud atheist that they should value equality and other progressive ideals, and the immediate rebuttal is “Atheism just means I don’t believe in god. Go be a humanist if social justice is your thing.”
Humanism is not your get-out-of-jail-free card. The existence of humanism does not mean that calling yourself an atheist exempts you from all responsibilities to normal human concerns — you don’t get to foist off all the obligations involved in being a functional member of a healthy society on those humanists over there.
It’s as if they’ve carried the negativity of the minimal definition one step further: atheism means disbelief in god, and disbelief in any concept of social justice. We’ve been making some great strides in improving the cultural perception of atheism over the last decade, but there are still way too many atheists who are committed to associating atheism with sociopathy.
And they all seem to be hanging out on YouTube.
Never having been able to make it through the book myself, I have to admire Kathryn Schulz, who read the whole thing, and thinks Henry David Thoreau was a wanker. Like Ayn Rand, it’s a mystery how such an obnoxious thinker became so revered.
Thoreau went to Walden, he tells us, “to learn what are the gross necessaries of life”: whatever is so essential to survival “that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.” Put differently, he wanted to try what we would today call subsistence living, a condition attractive chiefly to those not obliged to endure it. It attracted Thoreau because he “wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.” Tucked into that sentence is a strange distinction; apparently, some of the things we experience while alive count as life while others do not. In “Walden,” Thoreau made it his business to distinguish between them.
As it turns out, very little counted as life for Thoreau. Food, drink, friends, family, community, tradition, most work, most education, most conversation: all this he dismissed as outside the real business of living. Although Thoreau also found no place in life for organized religion, the criteria by which he drew such distinctions were, at base, religious. A dualist all the way down, he divided himself into soul and body, and never could accept the latter. “I love any other piece of nature, almost, better,” he confided to his journal. The physical realities of being human appalled him. “The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking,” he wrote in “Walden.” Only by denying such appetites could he feel that he was tending adequately to his soul.
Schulz does explain why he’s popular. His nature writing, when not soured with his philosophy, is excellent, and he appeals to something in the American psyche.
Although Thoreau is often regarded as a kind of cross between Emerson, John Muir, and William Lloyd Garrison, the man who emerges in “Walden” is far closer in spirit to Ayn Rand: suspicious of government, fanatical about individualism, egotistical, élitist, convinced that other people lead pathetic lives yet categorically opposed to helping them. It is not despite but because of these qualities that Thoreau makes such a convenient national hero.
Ah. He was a primordial Republican.
