Putting women in their proper place

Ladies! Here’s the class for you!

The class, “Biblical Model for Home and Family,” is one of nine courses, with others focusing on the value of a child, clothing construction, nutrition, and meal preparation, that make up a homemaking concentration Southwestern began offering female humanities majors this fall.

The move has attracted criticism, but Bible-based homemaking courses aren’t that unusual. Masters College, a Christian liberal-arts school in California, offers courses teaching women how to cook, manage time, and “joyfully submit to their husbands.” Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., offers a marriage and family class teaching wives how to meet their husbands’ needs and keep marriage exciting.

Why am I not surprised that this course is offered by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, new home to William Dembski? It does seem like his kind of place.

That’s a seminary, where people go to get lobotomized anyway…but what is the Discovery Channel Store’s excuse? Here’s what they advertise as appropriate science gifts for boys:

    Cube Word Series 2 Set (“Create your very own interactive world”)

  • Discovery ATM Machine (“This at-home ATM is an excellent way to learn about saving money.”)
  • Discovery Radio Controlled Arthropods
  • Virtual Distance Football
  • Discovery Star Theater

And here’s what the girls get:

  • Rainbow In My Room
  • Discovery Sew Fun Sewing Machine
  • Discovery Pink Slide and Text Messengers (“Chat with your friends wirelessly and transmit text messages up to 15′ away.”)
  • Discovery Diamond Dust Microscope
  • Discovery Fashion Design Studio

Yeesh. No wonder we have a hard time getting women into science.

Oh, well — it could be worse. They could be endorsing female genital mutilation. Nobody would be crazy enough to do that.

Where’s PZ?

People keep sending me horrible, frustrating news stories — I’ll post some later, but first, I have to restore my center with pleasant contemplation. Deep breaths. Grade some more exams. Watch some fish for a little while.

OK, here’s a pleasant memento: Mrs Janes’ 3rd grade class at O’Brien Elementary School, in Kent, Washington. The year is 1966.

i-df4051628c5ffa75e6e96ff3d5f3e4c8-mrs_janes.jpg
(click for larger image)
Top row: Cindy Burton, Kathleen Sturtz, Nancy Bull, Mary McHugh, Debbie Long, Becky Barnier, Darlene Yamada, Susan Rea, Billie Anderson, Mary McKay, Cathy Jenkins
2nd row: Mrs Janes, Richard Campbell, Richard Nault, Arthur Yabara, Brian Pittenger, Chris Bauer, Loren Deanton, Pat McCart, PZ Myers, Steven Brewer, Tommy Marino, Rob Kimoto
3rd row: Kathy Willkie, Jill Johnson, Mary Gjerness, Linda Bevilaqua, Mike Dixon, Carla Fleming, Patty Spitzer, Cathy Jones, LaJuana Smalley, Bill McDaniel

This is where I met my wife. I’m in the picture somewhere, and so is she. Think you can find us?

I think I’m feeling better now.

Names are added now, you can all stop guessing. I’m fourth from the right, middle row; the Trophy Wife™ is third from the left, front row.

Highway to hysteria

I swear, they’re trying to see how stupid they can get before my head explodes. Read Isaiah 35:8:

And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Obviously, to any brain-dead literal-minded pismire of an evangelical Christian, that is a reference to I-35, the interstate that cuts through Minnesota and Texas. Obviously. Never mind that unclean PZ Myers has driven on it quite often, or that this is the road with the bridge that collapse, or heck, that it is just a long piece of concrete with trucks blatting out nasty hot gasses all day long.

Good god.

Don’t watch this video unless you’ve got an awesome tolerance for high-density super-concentrated stupid and dancing howling raving demented fuckwits. This is America, land of prophecies, dreams, and visions taken as insight, where imaginary demons and angels are supposedly fighting over a strip of pavement.

Must rest. Intracranial pressure rising…rising…rising…

(via Minnesota Monitor)

Say hello to Charlie

I have to second Steve — this is an amazing blog, The Daily Coyote. A woman and a cat living in remote Wyoming have a friend, a young coyote.

This has got to be a frightening relationship. That’s a place where coyotes are shot on sight, with no remorse … maybe if a few more people read about Charlie, though, they won’t be so quick to kill.

It’s not the ugly that offends, but the stupid

Here’s a horrible story: a man who bears a grossly disfiguring tumor on his face, one that threatens his life and has afflicted him since adolescence, is only now considering surgery to correct the problem.

Why not before? Because it might require (and now definitely would require) blood transfusions. And he’s a Jehovah’s Witness. You have to wonder what wretched, evil excuse for a human being among his church associates has been telling him that he shouldn’t get this life-saving surgery because God wouldn’t like it.

Zebrafish Lab Eureka!

This week is the second to last week of the semester before finals and everything is coming down to the wire, including my neurobio lab project. PZ was so kind as to come in and help me out this past Sunday morning; the morning after the blizzard had quieted leaving everything covered in various quantities of snow. In going over my methods we found that I wasn’t adding a drop or two of water on top of the auger layer with the immobilized zebrafish. The reason this is important is that so after the spinal cord severing is accomplished, the auger layer is separated allowing water to surround the fish immediately and preventing air exposure. The fish can then be pipetted up and put into a dish of water for observations. PZ also suggested using water with an increased concentration of calcium (14g/100mL) to facilitate better fish recovery. The fish should not be left however in the calcium water for an extended period of time because it can adversely affect development.

Repeating my methods and taking into practice the slight changes that PZ recommended, I found that after one day, four of eleven fish were still alive! After slicing up more than sixty fish with a 100% mortality rate after one day and wondering what on earth I could have been doing wrong, I was ecstatic. It’s unfortunate that this success has come so late in the game and the writeup for this project won’t show much for results other than how not to butcher zebrafish. I have learned quite a bit though about the interesting techniques I’ve been using and also about the differences in zebrafish at various stages of development. So with that, back to the lab I go to continue working with zebrafish.