Stones & Bones by Char Matejovsky

So, here's how it happened:

I was at work, manning the register when this guy comes in all white of beard and quiet of manner and he asks for his special order and I hand it over, intrigued by the cover, which, as you can see, shows a dinosaur painting a picture of a white-bearded guy.


Oh, dear, I think, this could be very bad or it could be pretty cool. - I will now admit that I have a suspicion of pictures of old men with big fluffy white beards. Usually some kind of santa or god is going to be involved. My prejudice proves wrong, I am happy to say, when the man who has ordered the book and who is receiveing it with obvious glee says, "It's evolution in verse."

The guy with the white beard is Darwin, or a reasonable and amiable facsimile. The verse itself is catchy, and does not give in to simplistic language- mitochondria, for example, appears in one stanza (and, remarkably, does not feel forced). The illustrations by Robaire Ream are well-done, at once intricate and clear.

Included with the book is a cd with the book sung by a children's choir quite charmingly.

Among my favourite bits:

Evolution's the solution
to the data that we find,
when we study bones and fossils
and we keep an open mind.

Along the way, we get a time-frame, and an acceptance that not everything is known, but that we have not given up on learning what we can and are looking for more knowledge. In all, a very exciting view of scientific discovery and interpretation.

Since this is from a small publisher (Polebridge Press), the book is a bit pricey (it was about $19.00), but it is library bound (which means durable), and highly enjoyable by both the four-year-old and the thirty-nine-year old. The next oldest generation also liked it.

www.stonesandbonesbook.com is their web address if you have trouble finding it in your local bookshop. I am also going to recommend a visit there to click on things- as there is a really neat timeline, and resources for parents and kids about evolution. I am rather thrilled about this.

General Complaint

There is the saying, "So many books, so little time". Well, as any reader knows, it's true. I am trying to prioritize my reading list, which grows every day. There are books which I read of political or educational necessity, books which I read because I missed them the first time around (having not been born in time to catch the first release of most 18th century literature), and books which Look Darned Nifty.

They pile up. I have a grand plan involving shelving everything in such a way as to have what needs reading isolated from what's been read. Or something. I have one involving a calendar and an actual plan- X in January, Y in February. Yah, sure. I have also agreed to co-chair a reading group for romance novels. (I know. I know- really, I do. We'll see what happens.)

This past year I read more non-work/politics-related stuff than I had in about a decade. I also read more politics stuff than the year before. I also decided that if I do not like a book, or if I do not properly hate a book (also valuable), then I do not have to continue.

For example- I hated the Christmas Box. A lot. But I lost my place and didn't want to re-infect my brain by accidentally re-reading any of it, so I let it slide. (It was horrible in every way I expected; bad plot, poor writing, and overwrought tugs at the heartstrings. Plus it brought back memories of Salt Lake in wintertime, which is a definite strike against it as far as I am concerned.)

I also did not totally read Blackwater- though it was informative in many parts. It just was not really anything new, since I'd been paying attention to the situation beforehand. I might still pick it up, but maybe not.

In any event, I look forward to finding some good books in the new year, and to finishing the good ones or really really bad ones I already have laying around.

I am hoping to discover a new hated author in the same way I look forward to discovering a new favourite. If I could find the opposite equivalent of Max Brooks next year, I will be happy to spend time underlining the especially egregious parts. I have not had a good underlining since Stan Rice died. Well, Harris came close.

The thing is, in order to really find such things, I have to go into it cold, or expecting the best. I need to keep an open mind in order to be either pleased or dismayed. I went into The Christmas Box expecting to hate it, and I did, but not gleefully.

Anyhoo. I am working on a plan. Or two. To organize my reading. Or I might just continue at it willy-nilly.

Also....Spreading the word

For those who cannot get enough of Carl Sagan, there is an interesting thing happening here:

http://kasranov.blogspot.com/

Kasranov has made a rather nice 40-minute episode of Sagan's Pale Blue Dot- using footage from here and there and scoring it very nicely indeed. He writes about the process of making the film as well. I am impressed and hoping for more. Now, more than ever, it's good to remember that rational thought can be expressed with grace, humour, and humanity. Thanks, Kasranov, for the reminder.

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality

By Andre Comte-Sponville.

I'm on page 62 of this little book so far. Written for the lay-reader (ie, non-professional philosopher), Comte-Sponville's work is a contemplative and personal examination of atheism, morals, and history as it regards the building of ethics. Unlike many now-popular works on atheism, it does not exhort a complete abandonment of Judeao-Christian traditions as far as a code of living goes, rather he posits that we are best served by building on these materials- the teachings, he avers, are valid with or without God. I am inclined to agree with many of his ideas so far, though not totally with his interpretation of political history (into which he does not go deeply, so it is almost a non-issue. At least at this point).

A run-down of the contents (and questions):

I. Can We Do Without Religion?

II. Does God Exist?

III. Can There Be an Atheist Sprituality?

Conclusion: Love and Truth.


So far he has taken both nihilism and post-modernism to task -citing the rejection by post-modernists of the ideals of the Enlightenment, to wit- the denial of knowledge and humanity by its insistence that it is impossible to know truth, or that there even is such a thing as truth. While not proclaiming that there is One Big Truth, Comte-Sponville decries the idea which follows so often in that line that since we can not find it, it is not worth looking for. Nihilism and Post-Modernism are, it seems, linked in their common denial of history and their lack of will to affect the future. (After all, if there is no way to know the past, what business do we have trying to do anything in the future?)

Interestingly, he delineates two kinds of Barbarism-

There are two types of barbarism, however, which it is important not to conflate: The first, irreligious, is merely generalized or triumphant nihilism; the second, fanaticized, attempts to impose its faith on others through use of force. Nihilism leads to the former and leaves the field open to the latter.

The dangers of these barbarisms are clear- in the case of the first, there is an unrootedness, a committment only to the whims of the holder, and a denial of ideal or ideologies, an abandonment of culture and cummunity in toto. Indeed, the very idea of culture is antithetical to nihilism.

I think of a number of people in the "atheist world" who do not appeal to reason in favour of atheism, but spend their time in the excoriation of religions, and people who have faith in any form, without regard to whom they are alienating, or why, and with the idea only of shouting down any questions or challenges (Hitchens, particularly of late, as well as many angry forum participants). There is often to be found the expression that religion and faith need to be utterly abandoned, that they have contributed nothing to human thought or history (I know, but what is history, anyway- yes, yes.).

In the case of the latter- we see it in many ways:

They know everything there is to know about Truth and Goodness. Of what use is science to them? Of what use democracy? Everything worth knowing is in the Book. One need only believe and obey. Between Darwin and Genesis, human rights and Sharia, the rights of peoples and the Torah, they have taken sides once and for all.

Examples greet us on the front pages of the papers every day.

Letter and thoughts on zombies

Someone wrote a letter to the wsws in response to the review of the World War Z book. In it they asked about the zombies themselves, as I did not write much about them. To be honest, they are less written about in the book than one would expect. They are The Threat, and they are also actually scientifically explained, but they are not the focus. The actions and reactions of the people not infected are the focuses.

But the zombies. Hmm... I could draw, I suppose, some parallels between their urge- to the point of self-destruction- to eat everything around them. It could be taken as a commentary on the environmental situation, or rampant consumerism and credit debt. But I do not think that's it.

I think of it as the determination to protect the status quo at any cost- where there was once a Join Or Die attitude, there is the current now of Join And Die and then bring others into it as well.

It's still in its development stages, this line of thought.

Break

I have been reading some intensive political documents which I have been finding confusing and annoying. I hate it when people's own sentences contradict each other, but there you go.

As a relief to that, I have also been reading a bunch of Babylon 5 novels. Now, I came late to the show (like, ten years), and enjoyed it immensly. The novels are another thing. I like some, I loathe some, I ambival some (yes, it's a word. Well, no, actually, it isn't. But it will be).

What I do like about the Babylon 5 world, if you will, is that there is not black and white going on, and sometimes there are no win situations in which no one wins. Unlike Star Trek, or a number of other sci-fi universes, failure is an option in Bab5. Technology and magic do not solve everything. You make a bad decision, and the consequences are there for you and everyone to try to clean up.

Anyhoo- I'm still alive.

Another book I read was The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, by Lemony Snicket. Darned good, really. It's the tale of a misunderstood and scalded potato pancake who is so frustrated he cannot stop screaming. Even as the various christmas creatures he meets try to tell him what he "really" is, he clarifies patiently but with obvious annoyance what he actually is, why, and the symbolism he represents. It's heartwarming, charming, and also has a somewhat happy ending (not fot the latke, though).

If you MUST read a holiday book, make it this one.

Finished it......

It's been a while, but I was reading. And writing. So, here:

from: http://wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/mons-o25.shtml

World War Z: Monsters of this society’s own making
By Christie Schaefer
25 October 2007

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks, Three Rivers Press (CA), $14.95

Zombies do not exist. Mass tragedies, natural and social, do, however. American writer Max Brooks in his best-selling science fiction work, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, understands this, and though he is committed to zombies as his metaphor, his message is clear: We are not prepared for disasters. Why we are not prepared is one of the many subjects of this book.

Unlike much of the work in science fiction and horror genres today, Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft) approaches his work with a straight face—there is not the expected and desired wink that would make it seem “all right” and less frightening. From the first pages of this book, which is written as a series of interviews with survivors of a future “zombie war” from every level of society, Brooks is in character. The book’s press material carries on the conceit; Brooks gives interviews in which he details the war that officially cost some 600 million dead. It is the seriousness with which the author takes his subject that makes his efforts effectively chilling.

Brooks’s narrator starts out by detailing his falling out with the chairperson of the United Nations Postwar Commission Report when he finds that more than half of his work has been left out of the official version of the events. The half left out was the human factor—the opinions and emotions of those who survived. He asks, “But isn’t the human factor what connects us so deeply with our past?” This work, then, is the presentation of the human factor.

Offered as vignettes presented by the participants themselves, and moving from the first recorded outbreak in rural China through the most industrialized and technologically advanced area of the world, and even into space by way of an international station, Brooks’s book leads us through a catalogue of the world’s failings. That many of these failings are exacerbated, if not flat-out caused, by governmental hubris is no small element.

Starting with the first narrative, that of Kwang Jingshu, a doctor at a hospital in a relocated village that prior to the war had upwards of 35 million people, but now has barely 50,000, we see examples of the ineptitude of society at dealing with a rising plague. The doctor excoriates the younger staff of the hospital when the initial call for help comes through: “The younger doctors, the kids who think medicine is just a way to pad their bank accounts, they certainly weren’t going to go help some ‘nongmin’ [farmer/peasant] just for the sake of helping. I guess I’m still an old Revolutionary at heart. ‘Our Duty is to hold ourselves responsible to the people.’ Those words still mean something to me...and I tried to remember that as my Deer bounced and banged over dirt roads the government promised but had never quite gotten around to paving.” With this simple passage, Brooks points up the differences between the party line of Mao’s China and the reality.

The outbreak the doctor finds upon visiting the family is covered up, and thereby allowed to spread. The second interview, with a human smuggler, lays out the means of the plague’s spread—people eager to leave China in light of the zombie threat or out of economic desperation do so. Many disappear into the poor neighborhoods of their host countries. As the smuggler states, “What better way to hide than among that part of society that no one else even wants to acknowledge. How else could so many outbreaks have started in First World ghettoes?”

As the plague takes hold, and it becomes clear that there are no really safe places (each geography offers its own advantages and deadly drawbacks), it also becomes clear that modern tactics of warfare are also inefficient at best in dealing with this type of monster. Carpet-bombing, firebombing, body shots—nothing is working. As long as the brain of the beast is intact, the head, even when cut away from its body, will keep snapping and infect any who get nipped. This lack of understanding of the enemy leads to one of the biggest military defeats early on in the war, which leads to panic. If the army cannot stop them, what hope is there?

What various segments of the population do during the panic provides Brooks an opportunity to offer insight into present-day social decay. For example, one group of super-rich, including a barely disguised Paris Hilton, holes up in a fortified mansion and broadcasts their lives for the less-rich to watch as the world is exploding.

This part of the story is told through the interview with a mercenary bodyguard. He recounts an episode during which his clients were filmed while reacting to a televised street fight between humans and zombies: “I remember I was standing next to this guy, Sergei, a miserable, sad-faced, hulking motherfucker. His stories about growing up in Russia convinced me that not all Third World cesspools had to be tropical. It was when the camera was catching the reactions of the beautiful people that he mumbled something to himself in Russian. The only word I could make out was ‘Romanovs’ and I was about to ask him what he meant when we all heard the alarm go off.” (The House of Romanov, of course, was the imperial dynasty overthrown in Russia in 1917.)

Through the use of the interviews, Brooks has managed to create a book with many highlights and “ah-hah” moments. He makes the most of these people, and writes with a straightforwardness that ends up being neither preachy nor guilty of what is known as an “info dump.” Through the views of the survivors, we see the struggle for basic survival, on the one hand, and the dispassionate planning for the annihilation of masses of people by the powers that be, on the other, through the politics of “acceptable losses.”

Moving into the years past the major outbreak and into the years of “cleanup,” we are shown the psychological effects of the war, from survivor’s guilt to the mechanics of the quislings—humans who convince themselves that they are zombies. As one interviewee puts it: “They’re always drawn to what they’re afraid of. Instead of resisting it, they want to please it, join it, try to be like it... Collaborators, sometimes even more diehard than the people they’re trying to mimic, like those French fascists who were some of Hitler’s last troops. Maybe that’s why we call them quislings, like it’s a French word or something.” Of course, Vidkun Quisling was the Nazi-installed president of Norway during World War II, as is footnoted in the book.

Brooks’s use of footnotes is interesting in that it gives the action of World War Z a bit more weight by maintaining the literary ruse that we are reading an actual account of events in the not-too-distant past.

In all, given recent world developments—Hurricane Katrina springing immediately to mind, and oft-mentioned in reviews of this work—the scenario laid out here is what is truly frightening: world governments too corrupt, uncaring or crisis-ridden to assure the basic needs of their citizenry in the face of massive disaster, and that citizenry left to its own devices.

The novel makes clear that society had not been challenged solely by the walking dead, that things were in decline long before the zombies showed up and provided an immediately tangible crisis.

That Brooks limits his Narrator in most cases to parenthetical statements and comments about the physical reactions of those he is interviewing makes the times he does step forward authorially all the more potent.

This is especially true in such interviews as the one with former White House chief of staff Grover Carlson, one of the few times when Brooks’s Narrator character takes a confrontational stance. Asked about the response of the White House to reports of the walking dead, Carlson replies, “Given how low a priority the national security adviser thought this was, I think we actually gave it some pretty healthy table time.”

He continues to brag that Phalanx, a supposed anti-zombie drug, was pushed through the Food and Drug Administration. When the Narrator points out that Phalanx didn’t work, Carlson explodes and launches into a tirade about how it didn’t matter, what mattered was that a panic had been avoided, and asks, “Can you imagine the damage it would have done to the administration’s political capital? We’re talking about an election year, and a damn hard, uphill fight....”

When the Narrator later states, “So you never really tried to solve the problem,” Carlson answers, “Oh, c’mon. Can you ever ‘solve’ poverty? Can you ever ‘solve’ crime? Can you ever ‘solve’ disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can ever hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That’s not cynicism, that’s maturity.”

The increasingly contentious interview continues, with the former official turning belligerent, his answers to the more and more pointed questions becoming short sarcastic quips. Carlson ultimately telling the interviewer to “grow up” as he returns to shoveling dung.

Ultimately, this book is a frightening thing. The reader may come away hoping that no major disasters will ever happen again, but one knows all too well that something is bound to arise that will challenge society on a mass scale, be it fire, flood, or not-so-natural disaster, and that the social order neither is prepared nor has the capacity to confront it adequately. Official reactions—martial law, war, hoarding, isolationist survivalism—only indicate the bankruptcy of the present order. New ways of solving massive problems are needed. Though this book does not provide a blueprint, by any means, it does provide—in a very pointed, astute and entertaining form—food for thought.
---------

And I'm off to read a little Babylon 5 novel before bed. But not the ones by Peter David, oh, good lord, no.

There's a Word For That, But I Don't Know It

From "Shelf Awareness", an insider booksellers' thing:

Speaking of the Strand, the New Yorker offers many column inches in its coverage of the store's Books-by-the-Foot service, begun in 1986 to provide "ready-made libraries for private homes, stores, and movie sets."

A current client: the upcoming Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The books, for Indy's personal collection, are to cover "paleontology, marine biology, and pre-Columbian society. They had to be in muted colors and predate 1957."

"People have gotten so character-specific nowadays," Jenny McKibben, a manager at the store, told the New Yorker. "It can't just be color anymore. With high-def, they can just freeze the film and say, 'Oh, that's so inappropriate.' "

The store offers 18 basic library styles, for purchase or rent. The random hardcover bargain books version goes for $10 per foot of shelf space. For $30, clients can customize the color. For $75, they can get a "leather-looking" library.

"Character specific", cry me a freaken river- buy your library for *you*, not to match your couch.

Wow. I didn't realise I was going on 11 years of hating the Strand bookstore for their anti-bookish behaviour. True, I was leery of them when I saw an interview with one of their buyers some 8 years ago about how they will often find valuable things stuck between the pages of books, or discover that they'd drastically underpaid someone for their used books, and not contact the seller.

In the same interview, they did cover the Books By The Foot sales, admitting that they do often break up sets of books.

There's a lot wrong with this.

One- Your library is supposed to reflect you- your tastes, your passions, your hates (I'm looking at you, first edition volume of Stan Rice "poetry"). It is something which is built over the years- at which you can look and maybe chuckle at your youthful indescretions (ahm, I'm looking at you, "A Fine Old Conflict"), or rediscover a half-forgotten gem, getting even more out of it now that you have a better Understanding Of Life than you did some twenty years ago. In other words, it is a part of what you are made of.

Two- The breaking up of sets is Taboo Number One of honest booksellers. Now, if you happen to only find a volume or two of a set (thanks in part to The Strand's having broken it?), that's one thing. But if you have a set (no matter how pretty), you keep it intact. It is a single being. It travels together. Unity.

Three- I just hate them. No, wait, let me make this into a valid point. I do not appreciate their distict lack of respect for books. That they are willing to view them as "set peices", as mere objects regardless of the ideas contained therein leads me to believe they are philistines. No ofence to actual Philistines- which I know there are, because I read it in a book which I chose with care.

Actual Philistines (according to my ex-Rabbi, that would be us, the remaining ethnic Jews) like books. We are also known as "People of The Book" (I think you get to pick *which* book of which you are nowadays. I digress.)

So a better word might be "Uncouth barbarians who would destroy civilization if it meant a quick buck".

Magazinery

For some reason, I picked up a copy of The Progressive the other day. "Letters to the Editor" has long been my favourite section no matter the publication, so I started there. Lo, and let the forehead-slapping out of frustration begin... I don't even have the energy to rant, as the letters were so consistently internally inconsistant that it would take too much typing and I have other things to do.

On to Scientific American instead. Whew.

Michael Shermer, with whom I sometimes agree, writes a generally insightful column for the mag. This one proved quite interesting (September 2007 edition).An open letter to Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens, it states that, "Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance." In the short and worthwhile essay, he goes on to present what could be called a five-point guideline for arguing the cause of atheism. In brief:

"1- Anti-something movements by themselves will fail." He quotes Von Mises here, "People must fight for something they want to acheive, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be." (I chuckle a bit at this, as it proves that even Von Mises saw something with clarity.) Really, any parent who is paying attention will tell you that just saying "Stop it" will not get the results- more effective is the addendum, "do this instead."

"2- Positive assertions are necessary." How many times have I heard "Religion is just bad"? Too many. I don't really want to get into the defence of religion, but have to say, unless you can answer the question "Do you have anything better?" without the circular argument that it's better because of what it's not, you're not going to get far.

"3- Rational is as rational does." No schnitt there. Harris (here we go again) suggesting that we could ethically kill someone for holding an idea is rational how, again? Ignoring the tenets of a religion and choosing to see only the extreme elements in order to paint everyone of the beleif with the same inflamatory brush is rational how? That's not even good science, let alone good thinking. Ignore the evidence you do not like? Way to get the big picture. I'll stop now. Sagan is quoted in this; "You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it." Words to live by.

"4- The Golden Rule is Symentrical. In the words of the greatest consciousness raiser of the twentieth century, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., in his epic 'I have a Dream' speech: 'In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.' If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same." I think that says it all, and well.

"5- Promote freedom of belief and disbelief." Thinking, and the freedom to think must be guarded for everyone. MLK, again: "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realise that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realise that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom."

I Have a Dream speech entire. If you have never heard the whole thing, please do.

Coming out in paperback in October, of course

I find this out after I bought the hardcover of World War Z, by Max Brooks (son of Mel). Damn, this is a good book. Written in faux-documentary style (and subtitled "An Oral History of the Zombie War"), Max has wrought a nice piece of horror and social commentary. In vignets presented as if by various survivors of the war, we see an interesting picture of just how bad things can get if we continue on the paths we currently tread in re military unpreparedness, general unpreparedness, celebrity worship, and media deception.

I did not expect this, mind you- I expected a humourous and maybe scary bit o'fluff. I am in the middle of it, and very excited about it. That's not happened with a new fiction author in some time.

Here's a link- buy it.
Powells Books

---On the subject of links. I have decided to start linking to random (or maybe not so random) independent book stores which do business over the web. I may or may not go back and link for some other books as I feel like it. I will not link to a book I do not like, which means you'll have to do some work on your own in those cases.

World Without Us By Weisman

I read a review and exceprt of this in Scientific American recently, and was intrigued. Even more intriguing is the publicity this book has been getting- the author has appeared on The Daily Show, and any number of other places, and is well-spoken and calm in his presentation. So I have started reading it.

Though I am just in the first half of the book, one thing strikes me which I do not think was the author's intent. The amount of work needed to keep human society from falling into what we would call ruin (if we were still here) is astonishing. Most striking to me is the deconstruction of New York City. Were it not for the constant attention of underground crews, the subways would flood almost immediately. This would be followed by the literal undermining of the city itself, as the tunnels eroded and collapsed, and streets became rivers (some once again, in a return to their pre-Hudson conditions). I wonder if this will be brought up the next time contract negotiations come up. I hope so.

I am not saying that the author is anti-worker, just that this is not the main thrust of his work here. The main thrust is that nature can in many respects- the majority of respects, really- take back what we have been using. And that it would not take all that long.

While reading the description of what (and how) would happen to most modern houses, I was reminded of my trip through some of Detroit's harder-hit areas earlier this year. The houses I saw in a state of decay (with people still living in them) were built using older methods, which is probably what has kept them going even this long. Contrasting these houses, even in their crumbling states, to the newly-built apartment complexes in the area, it was easy to see that the newer buildings would not, even with the best of upkeep, fare as well as the former buildings.

Really, we are seldom building things to last for one human lifetime anymore, let alone something which could stand through the ages.

Anyhoo- I am in the middle of it (well, the early middle).

Random. Warning- swear word flippantly used

A few years back I had thyroid cancer- which was operated on, the right thyroid taken out, and I have a small scar which is fine by me because I am alive. This is a preface for:

I want to slap Norah Ephron every time I see her "I Feel Bad About My Neck" book. "Fuck you", I want to say, "your neck sags, it's not trying to kill you."

Not actually a miracle, though it might look like one to some

So, Sam Harris has a letter in Nature.

The letter:
Scientists should unite against threat from religion

Sam Harris
Sir

It was genuinely alarming to encounter Ziauddin Sardar's whitewash of Islam in the pages of your journal ('Beyond the troubled relationship' Nature 448, 131–133; 2007). Here, as elsewhere, Nature's coverage of religion has been unfailingly tactful — to the point of obscurantism.

In his Commentary, Sardar seems to accept, at face value, the claim that Islam constitutes an "intrinsically rational world view". Perhaps there are occasions where public intellectuals must proclaim the teachings of Islam to be perfectly in harmony with scientific naturalism. But let us not do so, just yet, in the world's foremost scientific journal.

Under the basic teachings of Islam, the Koran cannot be challenged or contradicted, being the perfect word of the creator of the Universe. To speak of the compatibility of science and Islam in 2007 is rather like speaking of the compatibility of science and Christianity in the year 1633, just as Galileo was being forced, under threat of death, to recant his understanding of the Earth's motion.

An Editorial announcing the publication of Francis Collins's book, The Language of God ('Building bridges' Nature 442) represents another instance of high-minded squeamishness in addressing the incompatibility of faith and reason. Nature praises Collins, a devout Christian, for engaging "with people of faith to explore how science — both in its mode of thought and its results — is consistent with their religious beliefs".

But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains... the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance. As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over. The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ."

What does the "mode of thought" displayed by Collins have in common with science? The Language of God should have sparked gasping outrage from the editors at Nature. Instead, they deemed Collins's efforts "moving" and "laudable", commending him for building a "bridge across the social and intellectual divide that exists between most of US academia and the so-called heartlands."

At a time when Muslim doctors and engineers stand accused of attempting atrocities in the expectation of supernatural reward, when the Catholic Church still preaches the sinfulness of condom use in villages devastated by AIDS, when the president of the United States repeatedly vetoes the most promising medical research for religious reasons, much depends on the scientific community presenting a united front against the forces of unreason.

There are bridges and there are gangplanks, and it is the business of journals such as Nature to know the difference.

The Link:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7156/full/448864a.html

Now me:

Well, this is not meant to make anyone suddenly think there is a god, but I actually agree with Harris' letter here. In a science magazine or publication of any kind, SCIENCE needs to be foremost. Science arenas need to be bastions of rational thought, of evidence-gathering, not throwing up your hands and saying "God did it", which is the very antithesis of inquiry.

The question of whether science should investigate or comment of religion is a valid one, but I think it has been framed as being "don't question people's beliefs", rather than "what *is* belief and why" in most cases. A proper scientific investigation into the mechanical aspects of belief (what happens to your brain waves under the influence of religion, what actually caused the burning bush, the ins and outs of visions, etc) would be more than fair game. Where the intersection of science and religion gets dangerous (or deadly in some cases) is where it is said "Do Not Look". Kills science right there, and people actually do die of self-imposed ignorance. I agree with Harris that there has been too much willfull blindness.

Add to this- why is it that we so seldom hear about someone coming upon a sight of extreme beauty and being overwhelmed by the love of nature? Here:

When I lived in Utah I was surrounded by some rather unpleasant people (of many religious stripes, lest you think I'm about to go off on an anti-LDS tangent). But I was surrounded by some really beautiful scenery. This is where we keep the Purple Mountains Majesty, after all.

The Wasatch would almost glow at sunset, and the sun in the high desert would cast golden rays as it went down- if its rays hit me, my own skin would take on the hue of antique 18 carat and I would feel beautiful, too. These were times which brought me into a realization of my own existence in the universe as a whole- reminded me of the entirety of the solar system and our collective fate and history going back to the very first moment in time. Such times *included* me, included everyone, as part of this all, not as some specially created creatures here to do the bidding of some Other.

The beauty of which we are a part is so much better than a beauty over which we are supposedly given dominance. The potential for knowledge is so much wider than the fetters of various religions would have us realise. The more we know, the more we discover, the more we look, the easier that is to see.

Email forward

My mom, whom I love, sent me this very long email (mostly made up of the addresses to which it had been forwarded before it reached me).
______
PHOTOS TOO GRAPHIC FOR ABC, CBS, CNN AND NBC
Pictures From Iraq That Are Too Shocking & Graphic for The Mainstream Media
Photos that will never make the news....

Please pass the pictures on. Sometimes in our everyday lives we tend to forget what's going on elsewhere in the world and that the brave men and women of the service are just like you and I. They have the family and friends back home who love them very much and are praying for their safe return.


PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING EVEN IF YOU HAVE PASSED IT ON BEFORE

When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops (land, air, and sea) in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, and around the world. There is nothing attached....... This can be very powerful...... Just send this to people in your address book. Do not stop the wheel, please....

Of all the gifts you could give the US Military, Prayer is the very best one.....

_______
The photo's, schocking photo's, are of US soldiers playing with kids, a kitten, Iraqis holding up signs saying "Thank you, Mr Bush", and such. Also a prayer huddle.

My reply:

Mom,

The best gift you could give our troops is to bring them home and give them the mental and physical care they need.

There is a lady on one of our baby boards who posted these some months ago. She is a military wife and at the time I was given the impression that one of the people is her husband. I am not so sure.

While the pictures surely do depict something different from what we see on the news, they in no way negate the carnage that people - even the ones so gently treating folks in these photo's- are bringing to that country. In fact, seeing that these men are so capable of kindness compounds the horror. What are *they* being turned into by being required to follow orders and kill?

-----------
Thousands, I am sure, of blogs have been dedicated to email forwards. How annoying and etc. I wonder if many have been dedicated to the uses of email as spreader of propaganda.

Bad Poet

Stan Rice. He was the husband of Ann Rice, now he's dead. He was the head of the creative writing department at San Francisco State University, and published before she did, so it was not a matter of coat-tails-riding.

Some of his poetry is so close to really good, then he'll throw in a line like :

The Zodiac in Haemoraging.

Or he'll write something like:

In Heaven
the roach
is a jewel....

...Which is almost good. But not quite. I have bought every one of his books. Partly to make myself feel better, partly to make myself mad. Mostly to write counter-poems in the margins.

Short and snide

Yahoo headline:
Bush Warns He'll Veto Runaway Government Spending


Like $100 Billion for the Iraq war?

Yah.....

Ahhh, well. ...In Memoriam of Little Dog Curly

There are times when you are reading exactly the right book at exactly the right time.

The passages by Julia Sweeney from Parenting Beyond Belief have, unfortunately, come in handy recently, as we lost our little dog. I basically cribbed from her in explaining it all to the boy (3 1/2).

So, what I said to him was a re-phrase of what she said (about the death of Julia's dad)- that when we die it means we are not there any more- we can't eat, or play, or even think. We become part of the earth again if we're buried (which is what we did), or the sea or just ashes if we are cremated. Every day our body is a little bit less and a little bit less as it breaks down into its molecules and the molecules go into the ground and some become parts of other things. But that we still have our memories of Curly, and that we still do some things because of having known Curly, like we think of Scooby Snacks, or of dropping just a little food for her to find at dinner, or other things. That when he's being Waggy The Dog, it's because Curly showed him what a dog does.

So far he's at times intrigued, and at times sad, but asking a lot of questions, so we're just answering the questions, and being sad, too.

The question of "will she come back as something else" was answered with "we don't really know, but she will not be recognizable as Curly if she does, because then she'd be too involved being whatever it was, like a bunny (his suggestion). Unfortunately, we will not have our Curly any more, and we'll miss her. But we still have our love for her."

We have also been checking out other books on the subject- Judith Viorst's The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, which is about a cat dying and being buried, and which is one of the few non-heaven-based kids' books on the subject. There's even an argument between the child who has lost his cat and his neighbour friend about it in which the final word is "we don't know".

It is good to see someone say "we don't know" sometimes- especially when we just don't. So much better than the Certain Lie which is often offered.

I think it is this aspect of religion which bothers me perhaps the most- the denial of feelings (particularly sadness). "Don't be sad, s/he's with God now" is cruel even if one does believe- s/he's not with *me* now, so I have lost someone, and so I am sad. It also does not reflect well on God that It's needs or wants would always trump the human's. Greedy greedy God. This would be, I think, especially harmfull if one were trying to teach one's kids to "be like god". Yikes. As if we don't have enough trouble at bedtime.

In any event, our house is down one dog, and we are sad about it. Boy keeps asking if I am still sad even with No Tears Right Now. I say, "Yes, I probably will be for a while." He says he is, too. Inwardly, though, I also thank Ms Sweeney for the comforting, true, words.

Cindy Sheehan

Well, I sometimes read the websites, and today was an interesting one. Cindy Sheehan, considered the "face of the anti-war movement", has resigned from the Democratic Party. Funny things, she seems, along with many other people, to think that the Party should act as though they had been voted into the majority because the people wanted an end to the war. I don't know why she or anyone would thing such a thing- unless it was because that was what happened after they campaigned as the Only Solution To This Mess.

Certainly, it was not based on their record. Let us review a few "high" points:

Voted to give Bush War Powers.
Repeatedly voted to fund the war despite not having an accounting of where the last enormous sums of money went.
Some sat on the secret panel overseeing the NSA wiretapping of citizens.
Ran Kerry as a hawkish presidential candidate.
Voted overwhelmingly for the Millitary Commissions Act of 2006.
Non-binding resolution.
Maleable "conditions" attached to the budget.
Dropping any timetables.

This brings us up to date. I skipped a lot here- this is all just top-of-the-head stuff.

So, Ms Sheehan got fed up. Now she is being villified as an "attention whore", among other slurs, by the very people who counted on her presence to bring attention to their cause. Only their cause was not her cause, and she finally caught on to that. Her cause is justice- though she, as many, looked to the wrong Party to gain any of that. Their cause is The Party- a capitalist party to the war. Their idea of goals? Making sure Iraqi oil fields are opened to US companies for exploitation. Her idea of goals? Stopping this war.

One mother who wanted answers- Why did my son die?

A worthy question. Deserving of an answer.

Haiku of frustration

The pain in my ass.....
Why do I talk to these dense
Libertarians?

Seriously. I know it's good to get out and encounter different views- in some cases so as to refine your own views, in some cases in the interest of "know thine enemy", in some cases just for the sake of getting out for human contact. But, really, now. I have to wonder why I do this to myself, this trying to engage in reasoned argument or debate with some people is truly futile. Possibly they work for the aspirin company and are paid a hefty wage as Headache Farmers.

Brief History of Disbelief (2004)

I watched the three-part series by Jonathan Miller recently. Most of it was enjoyable, all of it made me realise I still have a lot of reading to do. (Hobbes, many of the Greek philosophers, etc.)Excitement built as he neared the atheism of the Russian Revolution, only to be deflated as all of three minutes (if that) was spent in (again, as usual) perpetuating the lie that Stalinism equated with communism (which is, of course, taken as an equation with socialism). I do not suppose I should have expected much, but given the intelligence and diligence of the rest of the programme, I did. This was, though a rather large letdown, the only one.

Setting that aside, the series was quite good, including brief interviews with such people as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Arthur Miller, and many others- philosophers, scientists, and lay people. Jonathan Miller traced atheistic thought back to the afore-mentioned ancient Greek philosophers (Epicure among them), and did a good job of parelleling the history of disbelief with that of belief, as well as the story of his own atheism. It seems that throughout the ages, philosophers of various bents have recognised religion for what it is- (wait for it) the opium of the masses.

Speaking of which, the actor (Bernard Hill) they had voicing the quotes of such luminaries as Homer, Freud, and Thomas Paine, did an excellent reading of the entire paragraph wherein "the opium of the masses" first appeared.

This is a flawed piece, but it is a good start on the subject.

How things sneek into books and some other stuff

I was delighted a few years back to be reading one of the Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket and coming across a section wherein the pre-verbal Baudelaire child, Sunny, is heard to exclaim "Bushcheney", which is interpreted as "a person who is very bad and intentionally so" (to paraphrase, as the book is packed away). Last night I finished Peter Corris' The Coast Road, in which private investigator Cliff Hardy muses on the war in Iraq and the lies which brought it about (while being shot at, clubbed a few times, and otherwise endangered. He's a man's man, you know, but also a thinking man's man).

Evidence of thinking is very encouraging sometimes.

Speaking of thinking- I was nominated by Edie of Annotated Life for a Thinking Blog Award. Thanks, eh?!

So- here are the rules,

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to *****5 blogs***** that make you think,
2. Link to The Thinking Blog explanation so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.


I have to say that I don't read a lot of blogs, still being new, and all, but the ones I do are:

Lloyd of DaddyLloyd . This is his "serious" blog. His other blog, which I also like, is not as serious, and downright funny. This one, though, is very personal. He's a Canadian stay at home dad, and has been amusing me for years in other places around the web (Canadian World Domination, rest in peace!). Admirable, stand-up fellow (who also does stand-up).

I am going to have to send this one back in Edie's direction- to Annotated Life. She's the one who got me into this whole blogging thing. Why? Because I could see that intelligent thought existed, and was wonderfully articulated. Thanks for the encouragement, thanks for the shedding of the light on Socialist Subjects.

Let us call her "Itty". She makes me think. Returning to art school post-baby-bearing, and showing excellent progress. A frustrated artist reloaded. We seldom agree on anything, but darn it, the woman can draw.

So....The next is a repeat from Edie's list, really, as I am travelling in similar circles.... Which may or may not remove me from the actual awarding, but hey, it was an honour to be nominated.

Pictures, Analysis, and Art, by Scott. He knows when to caption, how much, and when not to. Not an easy line, but he's always on the best side of it. I was very happy to finally find his spot.

TEXT And here we have a blank space...I will claim my award when I actually have read enough of a fifth blog to qualify. I mean no disrespect, I just need to stay in more with the computer, right?

------
I watched the first part of A Brief History of Disbelief today. It reminds me that I have to read a lot more books. But it was also comforting. Eventualy I'll write out my own story of coming to atheism. The word, "atheism", is one about which I agree with the presenter of the show in that it is an inadequate word for the state of disbelief or godlessness. It defines in a negative, when I feel quite complete without believing in god, and felt weird while trying to believe. We need a new word here.

The most comforting parts of it were the snippetts of "man on the street" interviews with people who said (presumably in answer to the question, "Do you believe in God?") "No." I paraphrase, of course and again- the variety of reasons given were straightforward, though. I am thinking that the reason this was the most comforting part is that, no matter how many Wise Men and Women of History share your view, it's always nice to know that you are not alone in the general populace right now.

Being an atheist and non-famous is a bit more difficult than being a famous atheist- you have no fame to fall back on when people suddenly do not love you because of your Heathen Ways. You are not insulated from the effects of real life coming down on you because you lose your job or have been beaten up for your "lack" of faith. Your voice does not carry the Authority of Fame- "What do you know? What have *you* ever done?" I suppose, in more extreme times and places, your disappearance would not be as noticed as, say, John Lennon's, or Richard Dawkins'. It can be lonely and a bit frightening- should I tell *this* person? What about *them*? It's ridiculous to have to weigh such things so seriously, yet here we are.

So, anonymous atheists on the street of all ages, we are not alone. Of *that* much we have proof. More than (ahem) some people can say.

Prayer Surge Part Two

I do not only blog, o, no, I also take part in a variety of forums (by variety, I mean three). I posted the article about the Prayer Surge at two of them, and the replies were largely positive. To the idea of praying, that is. Well, a lot of people pray, we all know that, but I wondered for a couple of days if I was just a weirdo for being annoyed/angered by the very idea. I held off of posting about it on one particular forum for a while, but finally could not stand it any more and so....

I am trying to decide what bothers me most about this so as to compose a coherent reply to the majority (overwhelming) saying that "It couldn't hurt" and "Well, obviously humans are doing a *great* job solving the problem". I think that the very idea is just absurd, of course, but I should be used to the absurd, so why am I so angry about it this time? I mean, really, roll-my-eyes-and-gnash-my-teeth angry.

Maybe it has to do with people dying and the obscenity of praying for the safety of the very people these Praying Soldiers are there to bomb, shoot, and make disappear. Maybe it's the over 3,000 dead US soldiers and how young the vast majority of them were (most younger than me, most young enough to have been a child of mine) and how they were trained (badly) to shoot people before themselves being blown up or shot or however they died too young and for a lie.

Maybe it's the prayer itself and the blindness of people not seeing that when they say "Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech. . . . Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets," they could well be taliking about the wicked who lied and got us into this mess, them into this mess, that *they* are now the destructive forces at work in the city, and that further threats and lies are forthcoming every time I open the paper.

A combination? Is this just a straw too heavy on top of so many other bales?

------

So, that's what I wrote, and still there is the feeling that I am sort of alone on this one. Well, at least one person objected, let history show.

Prayer Surge- Some remarks

Oregonian 4/27/07

'Prayer patrol' for Baghdad pastor enlists others in a "prayer surge" to entreat God for peace in Iraq's troubled capital
Friday, April 27, 2007
NANCY HAUGHT
Wayne Dillard believes that one surge deserves another. President Bush ordered a surge in U.S. troops sent to Iraq, and now Dillard is calling for a surge in prayers on behalf of Baghdad, once known as "the city of peace."

Dillard, an ordained minister in the Vineyard Christian Fellowship and a founder of Prayercentral.net, has launched the Baghdad Prayer Patrol at www.prayercentral.net/baghdad. As of this week, he's enlisted about 300 people who have agreed to spend at least one minute a day praying for the city where death and violence are daily occurrences.

Each day, an e-mail goes out to subscribers, focusing on a particular need of U.S. troops, Iraqi leaders and police and the residents of the city. Each e-mail includes a Scripture passage and a recommended prayer. A satellite map highlights one of seven Baghdad neighborhoods identified by the U.S. military as a "hot spot," Dillard says.

"People have different ideas about whether we should be in Iraq or not, about bringing the troops home now, whatever," Dillard said in a telephone interview from Virginia Beach, Va.

"I'm not interested in those issues. We've got a conflict in Baghdad that needs a godly solution, a peaceful solution. That's not going to be fully accomplished through just military effort, or political effort or social effort," he said. "There are spiritual forces at work that need to be addressed."

Since the project began in March, prayers have been offered for Iraqi leaders, whose lives have been threatened; fathers who struggle to protect their families; and troops, who may need the gift of compassion, Dillard said.

Recently the prayer of the day quoted Psalm 55: "Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech. . . . Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets."

The heart of the prayer is this request: "Lord, with all my brothers and sisters praying this prayer today, I am asking you to break this stronghold of violence over the city of Baghdad and its people. Honor your word, Lord, and strip Baghdad from the hands of the violent and give it to those who love peace."

There is no cost to subscribe and no requests for donations, Dillard says. Though he asks for a six-month commitment, it's possible to unsubscribe at any time. Subscribers can post their own prayers and comments, too.

"All of Iraq needs prayer," Dillard says, "and people are praying for all of Iraq. But the military has identified Baghdad as an area that needs concerted effort right now. As the troops are surging, we need prayers to surge behind them."
-------

This was in yesterday's "Technology" section- presumably because they have a website.

There's a lot wrong with this, so pardon if I go a bit rambly in spots. Wait- better idea- allow me to parenthesize:

Wayne Dillard believes that one surge deserves another. President Bush ordered a surge in U.S. troops sent to Iraq, and now Dillard is calling for a surge in prayers on behalf of Baghdad, once known as "the city of peace." (A better idea, on behalf of Baghdad, would be to resist orders and not bring the violence to the people there. Earthly action for Earthly problems.)

Dillard, an ordained minister in the Vineyard Christian Fellowship and a founder of Prayercentral.net, has launched the Baghdad Prayer Patrol at www.prayercentral.net/baghdad. As of this week, he's enlisted about 300 people who have agreed to spend at least one minute a day praying for the city where death and violence are daily occurrences. (Or maybe that minute would be better spent writing to the Congressmen or the UN.)

Each day, an e-mail goes out to subscribers, focusing on a particular need of U.S. troops, Iraqi leaders and police and the residents of the city. Each e-mail includes a Scripture passage and a recommended prayer. A satellite map highlights one of seven Baghdad neighborhoods identified by the U.S. military as a "hot spot," Dillard says.

(Body armor is a particular need. As would be PTSD treatment, and a return home for the soldiers. The people would probably appreciate electricity and running water in what's left of their homes. A real miracle would be nice- say, the return to life of some 700,000 people. These have not made the list.)

"People have different ideas about whether we should be in Iraq or not, about bringing the troops home now, whatever," Dillard said in a telephone interview from Virginia Beach, Va. ("whatever.")

"I'm not interested in those issues. We've got a conflict in Baghdad that needs a godly solution, a peaceful solution. That's not going to be fully accomplished through just military effort, or political effort or social effort," he said. "There are spiritual forces at work that need to be addressed." (We have a man-made conflict for which we are passing off responsibility to a non-existant being sonce it has become clear that the Powers that be on Earth are going to do nothing to make it stop. In other words, we are traumatised and will hide our heads in fairy tales out of desperation.)


Since the project began in March, prayers have been offered for Iraqi leaders, whose lives have been threatened; fathers who struggle to protect their families; and troops, who may need the gift of compassion, Dillard said. (The gift of proper medical and mental health care would be better for the returning troops- come to that, a *return* would be better for the troops. Not having to worry about your family being blown to bits would be great for the fathers of Iraq.)

Recently the prayer of the day quoted Psalm 55: "Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech. . . . Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets." (The "wicked" are already confused. It is the destructive forces of their lies which got you into this situation in the first place.)

The heart of the prayer is this request: "Lord, with all my brothers and sisters praying this prayer today, I am asking you to break this stronghold of violence over the city of Baghdad and its people. Honor your word, Lord, and strip Baghdad from the hands of the violent and give it to those who love peace." (So, God, send the troops home so they will stop killing people?)

There is no cost to subscribe and no requests for donations, Dillard says. Though he asks for a six-month commitment, it's possible to unsubscribe at any time. Subscribers can post their own prayers and comments, too. (I disagree- the cost of self-delusion is pretty high. In thinking that you are *doing something* by praying, you are subtracting energy you could have given to actually doing something. You are also mentally absolving yourself from actually working toward a solution "It's in God's hands" is the biggest, worst cop-out we have going for us.)

"All of Iraq needs prayer," Dillard says, "and people are praying for all of Iraq. But the military has identified Baghdad as an area that needs concerted effort right now. As the troops are surging, we need prayers to surge behind them."
------

What Iraq needs is to not be subjected to bombings and the proposed usurping of their natural resources as a "benchmark". They need to be safe from no-knock raids, rapes, and shootings. They need to not be walled into their neighbourhoods, to be able to go outside in safety, to have their lives secure. They need to not be occupied by military forces representing the same government which installed their "evil dictator whom they should be glad we got rid of for them".

Finally, a word from Trotsky: Those who believe in another world are not capable of concentrating on changing this one.

Blackwater- a chapter and some thoughts

I picked up Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill (Nation Books, Hardcover, $26.95) yesterday at a new book store. Though I plan to read the whole thing, I skipped ahead to almost the last chapter, which deals with New Orleans and the use of mercenary military personel in that area.

The use of this, and other guns-for-hire companies, in New Orleans is certainly cause for alarm. These people are heavily armed, and not subject to the same regulations (such as knowledge of Constitutional law) as regular law enforcement. This is in itself a sign of trouble- that they are hired by private individuals as well as by the US government adds to the concern. Their guns will be pointed in whatever direction benefits the person paying them. And they do not hesitate to pull the triggers.

An aspect not touched on in this is the future of their recruiting patterns. Though made up primarily of former military veterans from many places, not just the US, they will have a growing pool of potential employees as people come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and attempt to re-enter an economy which is in decline. Given the increasing number of "moral waivers", and exeptions for psychiatric troubles now used by US military recruiters, questions of the stability of these future guards for hire need to be asked.

Associations, bad and good- more a ramble than a post

Not book related.

Since becoming involved with a party, I have lost a couple of friends. One in particular is tender and sad to think about.

My Lost Friend was a very good friend (typing "was" in terms of of talking about her is painful). She's involved with a group which requires a security clearance. Our last talk included this:

She:"I don't know what talking to you is doing for my security clearance." Sorta laugh.
Me:"Well, I don't know what talking to you is doing for my Socialist Street Cred." Sorta laugh.

Nothing since. My only hope, really, is that she's alive.




I kind of thought, maybe, that this sort of dis-association only happened in the movies. Naive, perhaps.

On the subject of Critical Thinking

I bought a book today for my boy- The Emperor's New Clothes, as retold by Marcus Sedgewick with illustrations by Alison Jay. It's a good story, well-known to most, but not yet to him. I remember it being a favourite when I was a child.

What I liked best then and like best now about the story are the lessons- first, Speak Up, and second, Emperors are not infallible. Now I sort of view it as a primary lesson in questioning authority and not believing everything you hear- trust your eyes and the evidence you gather. I am surprised the story is not banned more often, quite frankly.

It is my hope that this will be a sort of introduction to Critical Thinking skills.

This particular edition is charming- the tailors are weasles (not subtle, sure, but funny), the Emperor a lion, and the illustrations are lovely. The story os told in rhyme, which is generaly a dicey proposition, though this edition is lacking the forced feel that often comes from that form.



MY review of it is positive. We will find out tonight what HE thinks of it- which is the important part.

So far...

Parenting Beyond Belief is made up of a wide variety of views. The common thread is parenthood, with a mostly-common thread being atheism. So far my favourite essay is by Julia Sweeney (of SNL fame) about her daughter and their discussions on faith as it relates to Big Things like death. Her honesty with her daughter, and her frank writing style are warm and engaging. It is interesting to see not only what she says to her daughter ("what happens when we die?" "Frankly, darling, we decompose.") but how she follows this up in regular life. As she notes, some people look aghast at the idea of telling a child such a truth. ("Horrible truth" is the actual phrase used).

I wonder, though, about the horror voiced by people about telling kids the truth. While I agree that the truth should be put into terms the child can understand, I also think that many times the intelligence of children is underestimated. I am not saying "my child is a genius and so all children are", or anything of the sort. I do say, though, that they understand a lot more than we think. Their capabilities are often given short shrift.

Also given short shrift is the effect of "white lies" meant to comfort. Santa Claus, Heaven, and the Easter Bunny all spring to mind. Most of us have come to terms with the non-existance of Santa Claus. Many people remember the disappointment in finding out that no, indeed, there is no such person. I don't think anyone has totally lost faith in their parents on finding this out, but some sense of betrayal might well be there. We do get over it.

But what is the point in the first place? Why do we choose Santa Claus and Heaven to put forth as truth, and not, say, Sleeping Beauty?

The thing about Sweeney's presentation of the truth is not just the words she uses, it is also the attitude with which she speaks those words and the way she lives her life which will teach. A bird dies in their back yard, and they watch it for days, every day a little bit less of it remains. They talk about the breakdown of the material, what happens to the material. It is done without fear. It is presented as fact (and it is), but not as a warning, nor as a means of keeping the child in line.

Sweeney's father, who had been very close with the child, dies. Sweeney illustrates to her daughter how he lives on in their memory- in things they do either consciously remembering him, or as a result of his influence on their lives.

It is very clear in her writing, that Julia Sweeney loves her child, has an open and honest relationship with her, and thinks deeply about her welfare. It is her clarity which convinces.

Her atheism is presented without condemnation of religion (her family is religious, Catholic) or excoriation thereof. It is what it is. Clearly, she is at peace with letting go of god. This peace is transmitted to her child.

Here's hoping...

I have a new book- Parenting Beyond Belief- On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, edited by Dale McGowan (American Management Association, paperback, $17.95)


I ordered this book as soon as I heard it was to be released. Odd publisher, but I should not be too surprised that a smaller pub is more willing to put it out than, say, Random House. Contributors include Julia Sweeney (of SNL fame), Penn Jillette, and Richard Dawkins. Forward by Michael Shermer (hmm...that one should be interesting).

Like many parents of little to no faith, I have been a bit disappointed with the lack of non-god-based books on child-rearing vis a vis ethics. We read a lot in my house, and there are a lot of fantasy books in our collections (kid and grown-up), but anything on Why To Be Nice has seemed very Jesusy/Mosesy/Buddha-y. The books aimed at parents specifically have been quite Christian, going by the shelves at Powell's (where there is a huge section of Christian Parenting books). Supply and demand, I know, but my wee demand was left supply-less until this one. (I hope, anyway.)

This is this week's reading.

Detroit

I have, unfortunately, no pictures on this one.

We toured Detroit today (April 2). The level of poverty we saw almost defies despcription. Not two blocks from Grosse Pointe Farms, accross Alter street lay block after block of damaged, burned, and collapsing buildings. Many built between 1870 and the 1940’s, closely placed and run down, they lack paint, they lack electricity, and there was evidence of at least one which lacked indoor plumbing.

People were sparse, though a group of four or five young children played in front of one of the houses. Very thin, they looked at our vehicle (a large RAV4) with half-hearted wonder as we drove past. Many blocks had swaths of overgrown and garbage-strewn lots which had been bulldozed. The only businesses in view were churches. At least one house of worship could be seen for every two blocks. Also, run down, they offer only the false hope of a nonexistant god. A billboard which almost made me scream declared that “You can be saved by Jesus”.

The answer to the poverty brought into what had once been a working class neighbourhood does not lie in this direction. The decades-long decline- closings of factories and the ripple effects of local businesses shuttering as workers leave or run out of money will not be reversed by prayer, no matter how earnest.

Very near to downtown Detroit is a neighbourhood which in 1993 saw the deaths of seven children in a housefire which has become known as the Mack Avenue Fire. With officials originaly scapegoating the parents, it became clear due to a citizens’ commission that the children (the youngest one just 7months) were victims not of parental neglect, but of poverty and systemic neglect.

Their water had been turned off- unknown to the parents, as the utility company sent no word of the shut off- for non-payement of the bill. ($225 at that point). The father, who held an accounting degree, but who had most recently been employed in the peripheral construction business, went into the basement under the impression that the pipes had frozen. This was February, so it was not irrational to think so. His attempt to heat the pipe with a small flame of course did not bring water through to his family. It did, however, set the unpainted beams of the house smoldering. The fire broke out later that afternoon, when the parents were out scavenging metal to sell for scrap- their only source of income.

The tragedy was compounded by the lack of up-to-date equipment for the fire department- including equipment to remove window bars- a common fixture of the houses in the area.

In the course of the citizens’ inquiry, it beame clear that, far from unusual, this family’s story was too too common. The closings of the factories starting in the 1970’s removed the sources of income and hope for gaining other employment for broad layers of the working families in the area. Even a four-year degree did not help this father find a place to earn a wage.

Many people owned their houses, so leaving the area for work was difficult on the family members who would be left behind, and there was scant hope of selling a working class house in a time of economic decline.

Interestingly, the wealthy areas of Grosse Pointe and Grosse Pointe Farms, built during the same era, suffered not a whit. The houses there- a great number of them mansions, including one of Henry Ford’s houses, are as well-kept as ever. There are plenty of well-stocked stores, and a distinct lack of offers to Buy Your House Any Condition written on crude posters and plastered on poles and walls in the area. The yacht club remains undisturbed by the effects of mass unemployment.



Here is an article from December of 2000 about yet another house fire in the area which has some information on the Mack Fire, as well as on the cuts for firefighting in the area. I wish the article was no longer germaine. Sadly, the conditions not only persist, but have deepened in the area.

This is the last time I'm going to talk about Harris- unless he continues to write stuff down

A recent review on the wsws.org of Dawkins' new book- ( http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/dawk-m15.shtml ) prompted a deeper look into Harris, with whom Dawkins has been hanging about. The company you keep, and all that. It's unfortunate thet Dawkins has become such a champion of Harris, and, indeed, I have for some time wondered if they are not just so fast because Harris is, it seems, seen as the Voice Of American Atheism.


Rationalizing Neo Colonialism-
The End of Faith:Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris (ww norton, paperback 2004)

Sam Harris has gained much attention with the publication of his books, The End of Faith, and Letters to a Christian Nation, as well as a number of op-ed pieces in various mainstream publications. He has been hailed within many atheist and generally secular communities as something of a Rationalists’ Savior. On the surface, his arguments against the current violent trends in fundamentalist religions seem something with which most people would agree. Digging deeper, though, one cannot help but see a disturbing lack of reason in Harris’ own thinking.

It is important to remember, when reading The End Of Faith:Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (ww norton, paperback), that the book was started on September 12, 2001. As such, the entirety is coloured by what could be described as a sort of philosophical trauma endured by the author. Despite its title, this is not so much a call for reason as a justification for the current policies of aggressive war and neo-colonialist expansionism.

Certainly, the grip which religions have maintained on the minds of so many people needs to be called into question. Indeed, there is much which religions have to answer for- from the suicide bombings perpetrated by many sects from Buddhist Kamikaze pilots, Palestinian Christians, and Islamic Jihadist to the suppression of scientific development and exploration, and unscientific anti-Darwinism. Much damage has been done, physical as well as psychological and social by religion’s call for ignoring the realities of the world in favour of attributing the unknown to the Unknowable. This perpetuation of ignorance has had a terrible effect on humankind. Too many politicians have used the Appeal to the Ultimate Authority to justify the most horrific deeds- often with the complicity of the Earthly religious institutions.

There is no denying that religion has its uses, most famously as “the opiate of the masses”, and there is no doubt that in these time we are seeing a re-administration of this most potent and deadly drug.

Certainly, we do need a call to Reason. This call, though, must itself be reasonable. This is where Harris fails.

Harris' first book is rife with cherry-picked Koran passages and blatant misrepresentations of Islam in particular. The book starts off with an imagined bus ride in which a young man blows himself and others to smithereens. Though much of what we do not know about this person is pointed out, it is only to ask, "Why is it so easy...to guess the young man's religion?"

"Given the vicissitudes of Muslim history, however, I suspect that the starting point I have chosen for this book- that of a single suicide bomber following the consequences of his religious beliefs- is bound to exasperate many readers, since it ignores the painful history of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It ignores the collusion of the Western powers with corrupt dictatorships. It ignores the endemic poverty and lack of economic opportunity that now plague the Arab world. But I will argue that we can ignore all of these things- or treat them only to put them safely on the shelf- because the world is filled with poor, uneducated, and exploited people who do not commit acts of terrorism, indeed who would never commit acts acts of the sort which has become commonplace among Muslims; and the Muslim world has no shortage of educated and prosperous men and women, suffering little more than their infatuation with Koranic eschatology, who are eager to murder infidels for God's sake." (109)

Here we have the crux of Harris' argument; that in trying to find the root cause of the problems we now face and in determining our future course, we must ignore history and objective social forces in favour of the simple explanation that Islam is the sole source for all anti-western sentiment.

Throughout the book, he conflates Islam and "The Muslim World" with terror. While it is understandable as an immediate emotional reaction to the falling of the WTC, it has no place in a plea for rationality.

Misleading statements abound. One in particular, on page 123 Harris cites the following quote:
"Sayyid Qutb, one of the most influential thinkers in the Islamic world, and the father of modern Islamism among the Sunni, wrote, "The Koran points to another contemptible characteristic of the Jews: their craven desire to live, no matter at what price and regardless of quality, honor, and dignity." He comments, " This statement is really a miracle of concision. While it may seem nothing more than a casual fillip against the Jews, it is actually a powerful distillation of the Muslim world view."

This sounds pretty serious. But is it accurate? Even a little outside reading proves it not to be.

First, let us identify Sayyid Qutb. Born in 1906 in Egypt, he moved to Cairo as a teenager to further his education. Not particularly religious, he was known to not even observe the friday evening prayers. His two-year visit to the US in the late 1940’s exposed him to the rampant consumerism and comparatively "loose" behaviour of the post-war boom years. He returned to Egypt disgusted with what he saw and joined the Muslim Brotherhood- hardly a mainstream organization even then. He was jailed for activities with the MB when they openly opposed the government of Jamal Abdul Nasser.

His shaky knowledge of Islamic law, combined with his harsh prison experience gave birth to a radicalized splinter religion wherein traditional interpretation relying on looking at both other passages of the Koran and the Haadeeths gave way to Qutb’s proclamations.

Though his views and methods gained popularity in certain politically disillusioned circles, it is hardly representative of Wahabi or Sunni Islam, nor even of the majority of sects within. It is certainly not the predominant view of "the Muslim world." To claim otherwise is a serious distortion. One must ask why the distortion is there.

In addition to this kind of “mistake”, he adds deliberately provocative turns of phrase- for example, referring to the "twin terrors of Koranic literalism" (p. 34), an obvious reference to the World Trade Center. Another passage: "Yes, the Koran seems to say something that can be construed as a prohibition against suicide- 'Do not destroy yourselves' (4:29)- but it leaves many loopholes large enough to fly a 767 through..." (pg. 33, emphasis mine.)

There is also a 5-page (118-122) stretch of selected Koranic exhortations to do violence onto unbelievers of various sorts. While it makes for chilling reading, one could as easily cherry pick a comparable selection from the Bible (Old and New Testament) or just about any other holy book. That the Koran is over-represented in Harris' book there can be no argument. It could well be asked why the Bible is not so represented here. It is an easy game, to pick out atrocities from these holy books, but what is it meant to accomplish?

One has to question Harris's facile identification of “acts of terrorism” with the Arab masses. Those Islamic fundamentalists who pursue a reactionary policy of individual terrorism (mostly against innocents) and the justified struggle against the occupiers are not politically equal. Second, the “poor, uneducated, and exploited Muslims” did not commit “acts of terrorism” until recently. One then must wonder why the Arab/Muslims, whose countries have been occupied or dominated by one or another imperialist power for close to a century, chose this period to engage in such actions. Which then raises the question of the fragmenting of (and sometimes just plain exterminating of, as in Iraq in the 1970's) the socialist/progressive opposition within the Arab countries. Finally, “Collusion of Western powers with corrupt dictatorships” surely begs the question: where did both the Shah of Iran and Saddam originate from other than the machinations of the CIA? Whose military placed the Saud dynasty in power? For that matter, who funded bin Laden in Afghanistan?

Aside from the pervasive anti-Islamic-in-particular bent, some of what Harris writes is quite reasonable. Take for example, the following, found on page 35:

"We live in an age in which most people believe that mere words- "Jesus", "Allah", "Ram"- can mean the difference between eternal torment and bliss everlasting. Considering the stakes here, it is not surprising that many of us occasionally find it necessary to murder other human beings for using the wrong magic words, or the right ones for the wrong reasons. How can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books. How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because the books themselves say so. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the light from our world."

At one point (page 180) we find:
"I believe that [cultural] relativism and pragmatism have already done much to muddle our thinking on a variety of subjects, many of which have more than a passing relevance to the survival of civilisation.

"In philosophical terms, pragmatism can be directly opposed to realism. For the realist, our statements about the world will be "true" or false" not merely in virtue of how they function amid the welter of our other beliefs, or with reference to any culture-bound criteria, but because reality simply is a certain way, independent of our thoughts. Realists believe that there are truths about the world that may exceed our capacity to know them; *there are facts of the matter whether or not we can bring such facts into view.*"

By "realism" Harris it can be assumed to mean philosophical materialism. But why doesn't he use the world materialism? Harris is not a dialectical materialist but a vulgar materialist. As Engels showed in his pamphlet on Fuerbach, vulgar materialism inevitably leads back to idealism because it is unable to deal with the question of social man, real man living in class society. Society is not simply an amalgam of individual egos, but an organism with its own historical laws of development determining social consciousness.

Perhaps due to the trauma of 9/11/01, there seems, a *lack of willingness* on Harris' part to bring some facts into view.

Moving through a selective history of Christianity and Judaism (particularly the Inquisition and the Holocaust), Harris paints a bleak picture of the misuses of faith to suppress and subdue the general population. Along the way, however, a major assumption takes form- that religion itself is to blame for the woes wrought by those wielding it. There is no discussion on the forces outside of religion which bear on the beliefs or the people holding them. There is a distinct lack of historical perspective- only faith - in the form of religion- is to blame. While it can generally be agreed that religion has a lot to answer for, to view it as the be all and end all of motivating factors is to view history with a rather large blind spot.

He briefly decries the "political religions" represented by Stalinism and Maoism. Though it is certain that blind faith in any entity, real or imagined, is a danger it is interesting that he does not tackle more current personages. It is also interesting that these two, figures of the supposed left, are highlighted. Why, it must be asked, are not past fascists’, nor the present Bush Administrations uses of religion brought into question? Where is the examination of the neo-cons’ mobilization of the religious right to gain and keep power? An examination of the use of religion as driver of fear in the current climate would be very useful, indeed. This is, however, not Harris’ thesis, as we see.

While it is true that religion has been a method for the oppression of and promotion of backwardness within the masses within class society, the whys are herein largely ignored in favour of a surface examination of the what. Who benefits from the ignorance and obedience of the people in question? This question is not asked. It is also not answered beyond a brief mention that some of the property seized during the Inquisition made it into the hands of the Church and that rewards for turning in "witches" were sometimes offered to an impoverished peasantry. Not mentioned are the similar rewards offered for turning in “enemy combatants” in Afghanistan. The political motivations of the Holocaust are unexamined, though they are very briefly acknowledged ("Nazism evolved out of a variety of economic and political factors, of course, but it was held together by a belief in the racial purity and superiority of the German people" pg. 101).

While, on page 140, Harris states, "We have surely done some terrible things in the past. Undoubtedly we will do terrible things in the future. Nothing I have written in this book should be construed as a denial of these facts, or as a defense of of state practices which are manifestly abhorrent.", he makes no bones about the real source of evil in the world. Ultimately, it is religious faith alone which must be held accountable. It is only the reaction of Islamic Extremists which should be called into question, not the political and economic forces which have shaped the lives of so many in the Middle East and Africa. In Harris' view, the recent uptick in violent incidents can have nothing to do with being subject for so many years to the economic interests and military incursions by the Occidental powers.

His starting point is meant to frighten the Western Mind. The Man on the Bus is both alarming and unrepresentative. While religion has been used through the ages to justify the most atrocious acts, to dismiss out of hand the forces surrounding and shaping the beliefs in question is grossly irresponsible and only serves to incite fear. For what purpose?

Ignored also is the increasingly mid and upper-class makeup of the terrorist leadership in question. Osama himself (a follower of Qutb, no less) comes from the moneyed class and essentially bought his way to the top. How ignoring the facts of history can be called "reasonable" is beyond understanding. Confusing the uses of religion with religion itself will not lead to reasonable thought and action.

Religious tolerance is also given a smack by Harris- he states, partially correctly, that those who preach tolerance and soften the harsher aspects of their religions to better function on modern society do not do anyone any favours, as they serve to perpetuate religion itself and show too much leniency for the excesses of fundamentalism. Harris' views are all or nothing- either be a fundamentalist or get rid of your faith entirely. If you're a fundamentalist (particularly Islamic), get ready to die.

The End Of Faith paints a gloomy picture of reason's future. For Harris, the methods of dealing with extremism called for are the very same for which he decries the extremists. He states (on pages 52/3 of the paperback edition), "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live."

While it is true, as he avers early on, that "there is no talking to some people", his answer to the problem is still more reactionary killing. His methods of applying reason are as faulty, selective, dogmatic, and blind as he claims faith to be. This is not entirely surprising, as twisting history to suit one’s needs is a common occurrence when dealing with the ruling classes. It is alarming, however, coming from someone claiming to be a scientist (Harris, according to his bio, is currently working on a doctorate in neuroscience “studying the neurological basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.”), as it flagrantly disregards any observance of the scientific method.

A call for reason is indeed needed at this time- perhaps more than ever before- but this book is not that call. Rather, it serves to justify yet more oppression, less understanding, and further war in the name of defeating a religion which is grossly misrepresented both in practice and in population within these pages. It turns the use of religion as a means of oppression on its head in its call for the use of a Fear Of Religion as the new weapon.

In this Straussian bit of myth-making worthy of any neo-con, Harris helps to created an Enemy Worth Fighting for our age. His insistence that faith alone (ie religion) is to blame for the world's troubles is narrow and misleading. His focus on Islam as the Worst of the Worst is both facile and useful to the ruling classes in their current conflicts. While, as Engels points out, "we simply cannot get away from the fact that everything that sets men acting must find its way through their brains", Harris falls into the trap of assigning one and only one possible course of action to the Islamic faiths. He also displays willingness to believe that everything follows from religious faith without regard for forces political, social, or historical. To exclude from the analysis the economic and political elements involved begs the question of what master Mr. Harris is serving. Reason is betrayed by such obscurantism.

As socialists, we realize the long history of oppression wrought in the names of various religions. We absolutely reject the continuance of superstitious and backward thinking represented by religious faith. Just as strenuously, though, do we reject the reactionary calls to war- new crusades- supposedly in the defense of "reason" or “civilization”, which only serve to once again pit worker against worker, human against human, for the ultimate gain of the moneyed classes.
It is in the vital interest of the working class to shake off the controlling hand of religion- to be able to view the world rationally, reasonably, and clearly without appeal to “higher powers”. Such appeals serve only to keep ignorance and oppression well-fed.

It is likewise vital to recognize that the absence of religion does not always equal the presence of reason. Though those such as Harris would have you think otherwise, religion is not the only driver of actions.

Why Darwin Matters might not be the book for me

I'm still working on it, but there have been a couple of disturbing developments. The biggest one is the chapter "Why Christians and Conservatives Shouls Accept Evolution". In this chapter is a sub-chapter titled "Evolution and the Conservative Theory of Free Market Economics". In this sub-chapter is a comparison between Darwin's theory of natural selection and Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand-

"Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is precicely parallel to Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand. Darwin focused on showing how complex design and ecological balance were unintended consequences of individual competition among people. The natural economy mirrors the artificial economy. Conservatives embrace free market capitalism, and they are against excessive top-down governmental regulation of the economy; they understand that the most efficient economy emerges from the complex, bottom-up behaviours of individuals pursuing their own self-interest without awareness of the larger consequences of their actions."

Let's pause for a moment here.

Though conservatives may embrace this idea- is it true? Do the best systems evolve (if you will) in an arena of unencumbered self-interest? Further, the question must be asked- "Best for whom?" Society at large? Doubtful, if history is any example.

Anyhoo- still reading it....Well, more truthfully, still trying to find where the kid put it....

Salt Lake City Shootings and such

There was, when I was there in the mid-1990's, a growing Bosnian and Russian population. Most of the Bosnians (and some Sebs) were fleeing violence. Salt Lake being what it is- insular, homogenous, and isolated in spite of having an international airport- these populations kept pretty much to themselves. Most were not LDS, and this put them out of the mainstream. Muslims were "not even Christian", and so even further out of the main.

This past week saw a horrific shooting by a young man who was of the Bosinan community in Salt Lake.

Since this person had been a toddler, he had been subject to huge amounts of violence- direct threats to his existance which go far beyond the school tauntings often associated with these sudden outbursts of violence. He likely never got any kind of counseling for it, and living in Salt Lake, where there is a large, likewise scarred, Bosnian population served to both isolate and re-traumatise what was already a pretty shaky foundation. Being muslim in Salt Lake is no picnic, and being Muslim in Salt Lake with massive trauma and post 9/11 suspicion of Muslims is something I don't even like to think about.

Does any of this excuse what happened? No. Absolutely not. But it did not happen in a vacuum and maybe understanding what happened and why can prevent things like this from happening again.

The long-term effects of war are something we'd better learn to deal with, given both the number of returning war veterans and war survivors this world is going to have.

Given that we send people in to commit what was done to this young man, and that no re-conditioning is de rigure for returning combat vererans- given that seeking help of the psychological kind ias something which can endanger a military career, and given the number of people who are fleeing war, and often ending up here or in otherwise alien cultures, the isolation and trauma will only serve to create more situations such as the one in Salt Lake.

Why Darwin Matters and some other stuff

Why Darwin Matters, Michael Shermer, Times Books- hardback, $22.00 (eek!)
(Subtitle- The Case Against Intelligent Design)

I've just started this book, and have got through the prologue, and the first two chapters. The prologue makes a nice little dismissal of the continuing relavence of Marx, but I'm going to let that slide for now. It also goes into some interesting information about the author himself- he was at one time an evangelical, dinosaur-denying Christian. Education put a stop to that. He's now a regular columnist for Scientific American magazine as well as publisher of Skeptic magazine.

The first chapter is a darned good briefing on what evolution is- dispelling many of the myths used by the ID arguers, and giving a concise timeline and explanation of Darwin's discoveries and the implications thereof.

Chapter two- which I am going to re-read for further writing- is entitled "Why People Do Not Accept Evolution". In this chapter, Shermer brings up an interesting point when he says

"There is, however, a greater threat to the theory of evolution today: not from those who resist evolution, but from those who misunderstand it. Most people know very little about evolution, and this makes it easier for the people who do not accept evolution to encourage others to question the theory, even to the point of denial."

This is, I think, a very important point. For many, evolution is often accepted, sort of. Not understood, but taken for granted as what happened. One could argue that at least they acept it. I don't think that's enough, though. I will certainly admit that my own knowledge in this area is lacking, but, hopefully, growing.

Evolution is especiallly tricky, though, as so many other elements of scientific investigation and knowledge rest on this theory. Geology, biology, chemistry. It is also important to know what evolution is *not*. From defining the words involved (particularly "theory"), to the process of events, the lack of knowledge has given the proponents of anti-scientific modes of thought much leeway.

"If we decended from apes, why are there still apes?" "How come there are no transitional fossils?" Just two of the questions born of, and preying on, the lack of knowledge and understanding involved.

End of part one.

Charming picture pre-hairbrush:


Oh, yes, this reminds me- did you know that goosebumps are an evolutionary remnant of our "monkey days"? Indeed, just as other furry animals have the ability to puff up in anger or for size-maximizing appearance, goosebumps would, had we kept our hair, do the same for us. There, vesitges of our ancestors.