This one is a poll

In reaction to the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s billboards, FoxNews asks, “What’s your reaction to the ‘Imagine No Religion’ billboards?”. Unfortunately, you only get your choice of two poor answers: “I’m not offended…it’s free speech” and “I’m offended…America needs religion”. What about “I’m offended…but it’s free speech”?

Sadly, “America needs religion”, the worst of the two, is currently leading with 56% of the vote.

Two tactics for dealing with religidiots

An elementary school in Missouri has been allowing the Gideons to distribute bibles to students on their lunch hour. It’s crazy stupid, a clear violation of the separation of church and state (not that fundie churches care about that anymore). Fortunately, Americans United is on the ball.

In its brief, AU asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that school district promotion of religion puts pressure on nonbelievers or dissenters and is unconstitutional.

“In the cafeteria, students who choose to take Bibles and those who choose not to will be visible to much, if not all, of the student community — a prospect made more likely given the school’s small size, 427 students,” the brief said. “Any child visibly ignoring the availability of the Bibles or returning to class empty-handed will stand out to his peers and thus feel pressured to take a Bible.”

The Gideons distribute the Bibles “to encourage the children to accept Christ as their personal savior.” The Bibles distributed at South Iron also include a place for students to sign under the written statement: “My Decision to Receive Christ as My Savior.”

That’s a sound, frequently-used strategy. May I suggest another? Next time the Gideons invade the school, dispatch a crack team of radical atheists to the lunch room to:

  • Show students where the racy/violent parts of the bible are.

  • Teach them how to fold an origami pigasus from the pages.

  • For students with less dexterity, to referee paper airplane flying contests.

Let’s teach students to disrespect foolishness!

This is not a poll

But if you want to do a little something to tweak the noses of the Religious Right, the American Patriarchy Association has called for a letter writing campaign. It seems that Hallmark Greeting Cards are peddling a line of gay-friendly cards, which irks poor little Donald Wildmon something fierce. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because they’re cute, stylish, and witty, but at the same time he’s afraid to mail a coming-out card to his Mom?

Anyway, Wildmon is asking his flock to send negative letters to Hallmark. How about taking a moment to send the very best to thank Hallmark for being non-discriminatory? Use the AFA’s form, or email directly to Donald J. Hall.

Bonus action! Since poor Don is having a snit over being left out, maybe we can make it up to him. Next time you’re in a store with the gay greeting cards, buy one! Make Hallmark happy by giving them a little money. Then the fun part: send it to Don! I’m sure he’ll appreciate a coming-out card or gay wedding announcement. Do it even if you aren’t gay or aren’t getting married — it’s the thought that counts, you know.

Here’s his address:

Donald E Wildmon
AFA
PO Drawer 2440
107 Parkgate Drive
Tupelo, MS 38803

Just watch. With this outpouring of love and happiness, Don’s heart will grow three sizes that day, and he’ll realize that love is love and he doesn’t have to dictate who may share their love, and that his love for his wife (or his dog or George W. Bush) is not diminished if two other people of the same sex care for each other.

The insanity begins

The first day of classes is on Wednesday.

<insert long despairing wail here>

I have to get ready now, so life is going to be a bit frantic for a few days. This term I’ll be teaching Developmental Biology, a fun class and not a problem right now, and I’ll also be teaching our intro course, Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development. That’s going to be a bit more work; it was taught for the first time last year, and it still needs some fine-tuning.

Then, just because my semester isn’t crazy enough, there are travel plans. I’m losing a lot of weekends this term. Here’s the rough schedule for the year, which will probably expand as time goes by:

7 September: Minneapolis, Minnesota
12 September: Denver, Colorado
19 September: Madison, Wisconsin
25 September: Long Beach, California
31 October: Toronto, Ontario
13 November: Kearney, Nebraska
20 November: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
30 January: Edmonton, Alberta
mid-February: Greencastle, Indiana (tentative)
22 April: Ashland, Oregon

If I’m not in your area sometime, don’t fault me, I’m trying. Now, where are all the invitations to speak in Australia and Hawaii? Why isn’t the deep South asking me to come on down?

Will we ever stop running away from the source of the problem?

This story about the struggles of a high school biology teacher in Florida is depressing. David Campbell, the teacher, is a hero — but it’s the kind of hero sent off to suffer and fail in a misplaced struggle, who dutifully falls in battle, a victim of bad leadership and poor strategy. It’s the same old tactics the educational bureaucracy has been pushing for 50 years or more: tip-toe gently about the subject of religion, never challenge the idiocy students bring into the classroom with them, always strain to allow them to accommodate science to their personal superstitions…which means pretending that science doesn’t directly contradict their cherished myths. It doesn’t work and has never worked, and the problem gets worse and worse every year.

[Read more…]

Our baby is gone!

We just moved the last of Skatje’s stuff out of our house and into her dorm room. No more kids at home! We’ve come full circle now to 1983, back when we were a couple living in a studio apartment, living on Mac&Cheez and free government cheese food, scraping by on minimal grad student stipends. Now we’re in a big old empty house that we got because it was a perfect family home, but otherwise, we’re still getting by on the cheap, since we still have two kids off at college.

Oh, and we’re also left holding the bag on two cats.