There wasn’t any holding back here.  Here’s an excerpt from Mayor Rocky Anderson’s speech:

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.

That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience – a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular. And, I suspect, that person is afraid – afraid we are right, afraid of the truth (even to the point of denying it), afraid he or she has put in with an oppressive, inhumane, regime that does not respect the laws and traditions of our country, and that history will rank as the worst presidency our nation has ever had to endure.

The Mayor’s own website states this about the speech:

Mayor Anderson speaks at massive rally on the occasion of a visit by President Bush, Secretary Rice, and Secretary Rumsfeld to Salt Lake City.

Here’s how the Salt Lake City Tribune described the Mayor’s speech and the other protests during the president’s visit.

Here’s the full text of Mayor Anderson’s speech: Rocky Anderson Speech - Aug 06.doc

Christians who declare their belief in Biblical creationism leave all sorts of unanswered questions in their wake.  Here are a few.

Question 1:  Why are there so many near-human animals?

Let’s say Darwinian evolution is “just a theory” and that one of the Bible’s two creation stories (yes, there are two in Genesis) correctly explains the origin of life on earth.  Why, then, do apes and monkeys exist?  Why did God create animals — especially chimps and bonobos — that are almost genetically identical to humans?  If God created us in his image, wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense for no other animal on earth to be even remotely similar to us?  Why would God create so many other primates — ANIMALS — that share over 95% of our DNA?  Moreover, why would God give them social behaviors nearly the same as ours; language skills nearly the same as ours; emotions, the ability to use tools, even bipedalism, compassion and self-awareness all nearly the same as ours?  Indeed, if we look at virtually any metric of mental ability, the average rhesus monkey behaves more human-like than did the brain damaged Terri Schiavo, whom President Bush and many Republican Members of Congress rushed to “save” because they believed she displayed human consciousness.  Assuming that no species on our planet arose from evolution, but from instantaneous creation by God, why are there so many near-human animals?  Why would God do this? (more…)

63% of Americans say that the Bible is literally true.   Those who rely on the Bible to condemn and harass gays often point to the book of Leviticus.  If that is a worthy strategy, let’s follow everything the Bible teaches us, including everything from Leviticus, right? 

The following excerpts are from a list that is commonly posted on the internet.  According to this site, the writer addressed his letter to conservative radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger after Schlessinger relied to justify her disparagement of gays.  I double-checked each of these citations to the Bible before posting this.  The writer is right on the money with his comments:

• I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
• Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
• I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. The passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
• A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?
• Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? [Dwarfs and people with bad backs are also forbidden to approach.]
• Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die? [also forbidden: marring the corners of one's beard]

Again, for the complete letter, click here.

To optimize next-generation action-items, it is important to enable leading-edge models to enable one-to-one solutions thereby facilitating aggregate robust portals.  Of course, to benchmark front-end paradigms and thereby embrace user-centric architectures is probably a better way to engineer leading-edge metrics.

If you’re wincing at the above paragraph, please forgive me.  I’m just having a bit of fun, thanks to a site called “Web economy bullshit generator.”  Whenever you press the “make bullshit” button, the site gives you an impressive sounding phrase. This site has many “uses.”  For instance, see the comments to the site:

The Web Bullshit Generator is phenomenal…my resume never looked so good!
—Cory L.

This is a great job interview prep tool and provides fodder to use on chicks at the bar. I’m also going to use this in preparation for my high school reunion.
—Ryan F.

No one could ever fall for such stilted, meaningless and concocted gibberish, right?  Not so fast!  Using big words and proper syntax goes a long way to making something appear meaningful.  For example, the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of Social Text, a leading journal of cultural studies contained an article titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” The author was Alan Sokal, a real life physicist at New York University.  As indicated here, in an article by the Skeptical Inquirer’s Martin Gardner:

[Sokal’s] paper included thirteen pages of impressive endnotes and nine pages of references.”  But Sokal had actually submitted these 13 pages of deliberately concocted gibberish to see whether the journal would publish it.  (more…)

As reported by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, conservatives got together for a large rally in St. Louis this week.  One of the speakers, Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke, argued that it was “the legalized destruction of human life.”  A radio executive chimed in: “Have you ever noticed that when the devil tries to sell you an evil idea, he usually wraps it in a lie?”

To what were they referring?  The killing of “babies,” they argued.  The speakers were arguing that a research procedure called “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT) was literally killing babies.

Never mind that the 5-day old babies they were talking about are microscopic clumps of cells (containing valuable stem cells).  Never mind that they can’t really be considered individuals; they could still split into more than one baby (until 12 days of age) or they might not grow into any baby at all (“God” himself spontaneously aborts hundreds of thousands of these babies every year).

Donn Rubin, the chairman of the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, the group promoting a ballot proposal promoting stem cell research in Missouri, condemned the conservative rally.  The Coalition’s website describes the Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative in detail.  For another description, see also here.  Rubin reminded the crowd that the ballot proposal has the support of more than 100 groups, including research centers, health care groups and patient groups. 

What is SCNT?  Is it really killing babies? According to the International Society for Stem Cell Research,

Somatic cell nuclear transfer, also called SCNT, is a technique in which the nucleus of a somatic cell (any cell of the body except sperm cells and egg cells) is injected, or transplanted, into an egg, that has had its nucleus removed. If the new egg is then implanted into the womb of an animal, an individual will be born that is a clone. The clone has the identical genetic material as the somatic cell that was transplanted because the nucleus that carries the genetic material.

This procedure is very inefficient and was first developed for agricultural purposes. However, in human medicine, this technique can be used to isolate embryonic stem cells from eggs that undergo nuclear transplantation. When the somatic cell is supplied from the cells of a person, the stem cells isolated from the developing eggs can be used to make a tissue that will not be rejected by that person, because they have the same genetic material. In this way, ‘customized’ embryonic stem cells could be made for everyone who needed them.

The Coalition provides additional information on SCNT:  (more…)

If you want to know what our government approving as sex-ed these days, go ahead and take this simple 10-question test published by Naral.  It only takes a couple of minutes.

Your answers will be scored and explained and you’ll probably be shaking your head even if you’ve been keeping up with neo-con sex-ed news.

I really didn’t want to revisit all the disturbing events and revelations, but I made myself do so.   Think Progress has put together this comprehensive Iraq timeline, including ample links.

Here are the most recent three events on the timeline:

AUGUST 7, 2006: The top U.S. military official in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, says that civil war in Iraq is “certainly possible,” calling it “the most significant threat right now” in the country.

AUGUST 15, 2006: 3,438 Iraq civilians died in July, “the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians.”

AUGUST 16, 2006: 1,666 bombs exploded in Iraq in July, “the highest monthly total of the war.”

How would you like to quickly access any of 547 newspaper front pages from 46 countries?  You can do it right here, at a website called Today’s Front Pages.  Quite impressive!

Click on “Read Today’s Recap” for a short recap of some of the headlines.

Check out the map below.  It is a map of the Linguistic Geography of the Mainland United States (a higher resolution version is available here):

Imagine that there is some loony person who would argue that the dialect he speaks is the one true, objectively superior dialect and that all other dialects are inferior and actually not true. To dispell that notion, we would merely point out that the dialects tend to dominate geographical regions because people of particular regions tend to learn that dialect from each other as well as passing that dialect on to their children.  It’s not because people carefully considered which dialect to speak before speaking.

Now consider one more map:

You can find a higher resolution of this map here.  This is a map of the predominant types of religions found in various regions of the U.S.  As you can see, this map demonstrates that certain religions dominate certain geographic regions (I’m not claiming that religions line up with the dialects, though there are some similarities). Just as with languages, most people don’t usually compare a variety of religions before choosing their own religion (certainly, they don’t do any such shopping while they are children). 

If people did tend to choose their religions based on careful comparison shopping, we wouldn’t see particular religions dominating geographic regions.  Instead, we’d see a single blended color running from sea to shining sea. 

I would conclude that most people (don’t) choose their region’s religion the same way they (don’t) choose their region’s dialect.  Instead, they “choose” the one they were taught while they sat on their parents’ laps.  This “geography of religions” is something to keep in mind whenever you hear a claim that any particular religion is the one true, holy, apostolic, infallible, objectively correct, ideal, unerring, authentic and undeniably true religion.  In these modern times, where ideas travel at the speed of light, the geographic clumping of religions is not consistent with a widespread deliberate choice of religion based upon a perceived superiority of a particular doctrine.

If someone asked you how deeply you subscribe to biases- based on race, age, sex, sexual orientation, or religion- what would you say? The more open-minded of us usually try to avoid prejudice at all costs, to the extent that we reject our natural tendency to generalize. But even if we don’t accept it, society exposes us to a barrage of prejudiced perspectives on a daily basis.

How many times do you see a black criminal at large on the local news? How often do household cleaning product commercials center on women? How does the teenage character behave on prime-time sitcoms? These small, frequent examples spread a variety of stereotypes, and impact the way we perceive others, even if we feel loath to recognize such bias.

Since most people don’t want to admit upholding prejudice, Harvard psychologists devised the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT tests whether an individual has a preference for certain ideals of gender, race, and other categories, all of which indicate bias. The test works like this:

Below I’ve provided a list of words, and four categories. The IAT asks you to group the words provided into one of two columns. Each column represents two categories- in this case, Male & Career, and Women & Family. Go down the list and tap the appropriate column on your screen for each word as quickly as you can without making any mistakes:

You probably found that test fairly simple. Now try it with two of the categories switched (remember to go as quickly as possible):

(more…)

Providing jobs for homeless people.  We’d pretty much all agree that it is a fine thing to do. It hadn’t occurred to me before to complain about the jobs that might be offered, although I have complained that pay and benefits for many jobs are inadequate.  A recent “news story” made me take notice.  The story is here but you have to register to look at it.  I’ve reprinted it below so you won’t need to: 

Homeless Shelter Residents get Jobs at Collection Agency

August 28, 2006 - by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

A Washington state-based collection agency owner is pairing up with a faith-based homeless shelter to provide jobs for homeless people in the area.

Wayne Garlington is the owner of Accounts Receivable Inc., and sits on the board of Open House Ministries – both based in Vancouver, WA. He is currently employing five women to work as collection agents.

Garlington said he has been pleased with their performance. “They’re not being handed something,” he told the the Columbian News. “They really want to work.”

The jobs not only give the women benefits, they also allow for them to increase their income through bonuses. The company collects on overdue accounts for the city of Vancouver and Clark Public Utilities, among others.

Garlington decided to try out the idea after hearing about a similar plan being carried out by a collection agency on the East Coast.

A ‘faith-based’ homeless shelter, why isn’t that an oxymoron?  If you really had faith, would you still be homeless? Or maybe you are homeless because God wants you to learn from adversity?  Or maybe it is just that the people who must rely on such a shelter haven’t been converted yet.  I guess the homeless shelter hasn’t done quite enough of the trades where the homeless person gets a meal or a cot if they listen to a sermon first.  The shelter in this article has found a way to provide jobs, and interestingly enough, the jobs are for one of the shelter’s board members.  Having seen what I consider to be some of the worst consumer abuses coming out of churches, I’m suspicious.  I think there is an ulterior motive there, and more than just converting the homeless to their particular brand of religion.

The example I gave in my earlier post,  “Love of Money,” was of a $15,000 condemned property selling without significant improvement for $120,000.  Actually, I minimized the facts.  The true story:  the $15,000 house was sold to by a church member to another church member for $135,000.  The victim spoke to a person in authority in the church, and learned this wasn’t the first complaint made about this particular person, and was further told the church didn’t want to cause division, or “play favorites” so the church refused to get involved.  To my knowledge, the property flipper’s business card is still on the church bulletin board.  No favorites there, right?

It also seems that the very worst of the worst are in Spanish speaking churches, where the abused consumers are more likely to be undocumented, and therefore much less likely to complain of poor treatment.  I assume the same would be true of any other congregation of noncitizen, undocumented people, although I have had little personal experience with those.  Call me cynical, but I have no reason to doubt it would be the same.  A word of advice:  if you know a church member using their church to drum up business, run away.

If I told you that I could get 10 homeless women jobs selling themselves for sex, and I got a cut of all they brought in, you wouldn’t think very highly of me.  I consider debt collecting to be almost that bad. (more…)

I can’t think of a dumber investment policy than to have our states spend three times more on average per prisoner than per pupil…  We don’t really have a money problem in America, but a profound values problem and a profound priorities problem.

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, during her lecture “Stand Up for Children Now,” on April 19, 2006 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Americans spend $60 billion a year to imprison 2.2 million people. This statistic compelled me to pull out my calculator.  The result was shocking.  In the United States we spend more than $27,000 per prisoner per year.  Is this effective?  Other than the violence, crowding, beatings by “goon squads,” rapes, riots, and high rates of recidivism, that is, is it effective?  There are many reasons to be concerned.  Here’s the main reason indicated by the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons:

What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons. We must create safe and productive conditions of confinement not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it influences the safety, health, and prosperity of us all.

What might be more effective method of using our limited social resources than putting millions of people in prison?  How about investing more in the training and education of disadvantaged children?  This is not just an idealistic platitude.  In the June 30, 2006 issue of Science (www.sciencemag.org – article available only to subscribers online), James Heckman conducted an analysis that is well worth reading; his article is called “Skill Formation and the Economics of Investing in Disadvantaged Children.  Here are some of Heckman’s conclusions:

I. Skill formation is built on foundations that are laid down earlier in life.  Therefore, “cognitive, linguistic, social, and emotional competencies are interdependent; all are shaped powerfully by the experiences of the developing child and all contribute to success in the society at large.”

II. Early learning is a foundation for later learning; learning is self reinforcing.  Learning skills at earlier ages makes it much more likely that learning will continue. “A child who falls behind may never catch up.”  See the following graph (from the Heckman article), which illustrates the fact that, economically speaking, we massively over-invest in later-schooling and post-schooling programs, while we under-invest in providing enriched schooling for disadvantaged children.

III. Dysfunctional early environments (those that don’t stimulate children) place children “at an early disadvantage.”  This has more to do with the lack of stimulation than with the lack of financial resources.

IV. We should not evaluate education programs solely on academic success.  Many people argue that Head Start is a failure because it failed to raise the IQ of participants compared to non-participants.  According to Heckman, this assessment misses something critical.  (more…)

Erich and I have previously mentioned Christian selection bias — the practice of crediting “God” with prayers that are “answered” while ignoring the many examples of prayers that are not (also known as confirmation bias) — but today I saw, for the first time, an explicit call for this bias among Christians.  A televangelist on one of the Christian channels was ridiculing Christians for mentioning the many times their prayers are not answered.  He admonished his flock, “Don’t honor the Devil or your own lack of faith by complaining when things you pray for don’t happen, you should only honor God when your prayers are answered” (emphasis added).

See, that’s how it works.  If you pray for something that comes true, then you should immediately spread the word about the power of God to answer your prayers.  But if you pray for things that don’t happen, then you should just shut up and sit down, because it’s your own fault.  If God doesn’t answer your prayers, it’s because your own lack of faith has allowed the Devil to run your life.  You are explicitly told to behave this way, or risk being publicly ridiculed — a classic form of social manipulation.

God sure has great PR.  Heck, with PR like his, anyone could be God.  In fact, here’s how you, too, can be God: 

Find a bunch of followers who will observe two simple rules:

(1) they must fervently believe you can answer their prayers, so you can gain the placebo effect that God enjoys; and

(2) they must ignore all instances when you fail to answer their prayers, and credit you (and only you) whenever you appear to answer them, so you can gain the marvelous selection bias that God enjoys.

If your followers do these two things, they will be unable to distinguish your prayer-answering ability from God’s.  Indeed, this is how pagan faith healers (e.g., shamans) also operate, and for good reason:  because it works.

For more discussions about prayer and Christian selection bias, read here and here.

I was out at a city park today to play some racquetball.  While taking a break, I noticed four guys playing handball nearby.  They were playing a hard-fought game. 

But wait a minute!  What is that tobacco-y smell?  Why, it’s tobacco!  Two of the handball players were smoking cigarettes (the coffin nails were actually in their mouths) while they were in the process of playing the grueling game! 

This certainly gives a new meaning to smoking on the court.  Or is this a new form of handicapping one of the teams?  Whatever . . . I thought it deserved a photo and some sort of award.

The Republican Party may have its share of PR problems, but common knowledge and polling data agree that the party still holds the upper hand on the issues of terrorism and national security. Polls also suggest that national security has a place close to the average American’s heart, especially after recent close-calls on national airlines.

But, as with so many other matters of partisan policy, the Republicans don’t really have any advantage over their political adversaries at all. Again, the Democrats seem to desperately struggle not with positions, but with effective marketing.

Take for example the 9/11 Commission’s report card, issued back in December of 2005. The report card reviewed the Bush Administration’s response to the bipartisan Commission’s list of well-researched recommendations, and it gave fairly dismal scores. I think the report card bears repeating, even some eight months later:

(more…)

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a
Cheshire cat in a tree.
‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then,’ said the cat,’ it doesn’t matter.’ 

Lewis Carrol: Alice in Wonderland

One thing fundamentalists have that many of us lack is a well-practiced response to why they exist and what life is all about.  Their response goes something like this: “I am here to serve Jesus Christ so that I can join Him in heaven. How do I serve him?  I follow these Ten Commandments.” 

Pretty slick, eh?  The entire purpose of a human life boiled down to ten seconds.

What about the rest of us? What would we say if someone asked us for our “purpose”? Would we even claim to have “a purpose.”  If forced to answer, many of us might say that we’re “trying to get by” or that we’re simply “doing the best we can” or that we try to follow the golden rule.  But most of us don’t have anything resembling the simplistic formula of fundamentalists.  At first glance, that fundamentalist formula makes fundamentalists look decisive, strong and admirable.  This succinct certitude probably gains lots of converts among the many people who join up.  In reality, though, such a simple statement of purpose serves only as a mere placeholder that raises (or should raise) hundreds of questions among honest and thoughtful people. 

I haven’t worked out any succinct statement regarding my “purpose” in life [not that I haven’t tried—here’s one tongue in cheek attempt - my "new improved" version of the Ten Commandments).  Is it a problem whereever one has not worked out one’s purpose in the form of a short string of words?  At the gut level, I am inclined to say yes. I'd like to be able to say something to look strong and decisive (like those fundamentalists).  I’d like to display that same smug self-satisfaction that the fundies display.  Intellectually, though, I am skeptical that any such statement could be concocted or, if concocted, that it could be put to any meaningful use. 

But it would be nice to have something that look presentable.  Then when someone wanted to know who you were, you could say:  “My name is X and my purpose is Y.” 

How else could such a statement of purpose be useful?  Seven years ago I became a parent. To prepare, I read several books on how to raise children.  The advice given by the various books often conflicted to the point of absurdity.  For instance, one prominent author wrote that you should never tell your child "no."  The rationale given was that saying "no" would damage the child's self-esteem.  Another author stated that children need a daily dose of "vitamin N" (no).  He reasoned that, as adults, we tell ourselves "no" all day long and it's good for us.  Therefore, it's also good for children to get used hearing the word "no."

Amidst the confusion generated by all of those child care "expert" authors, one child-raising book stood out to me [The Manipulative Child: How to Regain Control and Raise Resilient, Resourceful and Independent kids, by E.W. Swihart and Patrick Cotter].  The authors suggest that parents should take the time to write down their statements of personal values.  Parents often haven’t seriously thought about what they believe or the conflicts inherent in their belief systems.  In other words, the authors recommended that parents draft a statement of what they are tying to accomplish when they parent their children.

Fair enough. Certainly, the challenges of parenthood include many moments when one faces conflicting goals and (therefore) conflicting solutions.  It can be helpful to have some articulated ideas ready to guide you in those moments.  But it’s not enough to simply say “I will try to be a good parent.” As much as this sort of statement resonates in the abstract, it doesn’t really give a parent any real guidance regarding any real-life dilemma. (more…)

The mainstream media missed another big story recently: The President has been screwing around with our Constitution and the nation’s largest association of lawyers has called him on it. 

On August 8, 2006, American Bar Association, a national association of 410,000 lawyers, condemned President Bush’s widespread practice of writing exceptions to legislation he signs into law.  For a report by Law.com, see here.

According to the Sept 2006 issue of the St. Louis Journalism Review (the article isn’t yet available on-line),  the ABA delegates reported that the vote was across the board, with no distinctions between red states and blue states.  The resolution itself can be found here.

The ABA press release elaborates on Bush’s impropriety:

Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush’s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers . . . 

The task force report states, “From the inception of the Republic until 2000, Presidents produced fewer than 600 signing statements taking issue with the bills they signed. According to the most recent update, in his one-and-a-half terms so far, President George Walker Bush … has produced more than 800.”

The report found that President Bush’s signing statements are “ritualistic, mechanical and generally carry no citation of authority or detailed explanation.” . . . This . . . raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy,” said Greco. “If left unchecked, the president’s practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances, that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries. Immediate action is required to address this threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law in our country.

In sum, President Bush has been using these numerous signing statements to quietly change the laws presented to him.  This practice also allows Bush to avoid use of the presidential veto.  Last month, Bush used his first presidential veto in 5 ½ years.  That veto resisted Congressional legislation to allow further federal funding for stem cell research.

As reported by The Jurist, Bush’s technique is dishonest:

“The constitution says the president has two choices: either sign the bill or veto it. And if you sign it, you can’t have your hand behind your back with your fingers crossed,” said Michael Greco, the ABA’s outgoing president.

OK, so ten years ago I had this idea of writing a short story about a high school attended by praying mantises.   The prom was coming up and many of the boy mantises were nervous.  Actually all of them except for a reticent bespectacled boy mantis named George who had defiantly announced that he wasn’t going to the prom, no matter what anyone said about it.

But most of the boy mantises were nervous. Why? Because they were worried that the girl praying mantis they asked out would turn them down? 

No.  Actually, it was because the girl mantis might accept.   It had become somewhat of a tradition at praying mantis high schools (unlike at fundamentalist schools) that going out with any girl might actually lead to something sexual.  Rumors were flying that, at the previous years’ prom, many of the mantis girls were eating the mantis boys.  No, I’m not talking about that.  Here . . . I’ll show you a lurid photo (from The Dance of Life, by Mark Walters (1988):

As you can see from the text, it can get really crazy for praying mantis “boys.”  As Walters writes, a female might take the lead.  She might even eat the male’s head before he has mounted her.   “Mommy, tell me about the night that I was conceived . . . please.” 

“Aw, gosh,” the mommy mantis might think.  “When that little mantis looks at me with those cute little mantis eyes, I just can’t resist telling that story.”   Well, actually, maybe I’ll let Walters tell it in his own words:

[Even though she has bit his head off before he has mounted her], the pre-programmed movement of his legs will carry his body in a circular path until it rests against her.  The headless, thoroughly uninhibited insect then climbs onto the female’s back and copulates.  Not only may the loss of the male’s head greatly increase his chances of impregnating the female by relieving him of his inhibitions, it may increase the survival rate of the offspring by providing the female with a good meal . . .”

I’ll resist asking the fundamentalists who might read this whether it is moral for a female praying mantis to do this or whether this kind of sex proves the existence of an intelligent designer.   I just don’t know the answers to these questions.  Some things just are, it seems.  Sometimes I think this about many human activities that all too many people all too readily judge.  Many things just are.

I don’t really have a point to this post.  Perhaps mantis sex can serve as a metaphor for something.  Perhaps I’ll blame Grumpy posting on war versus sex a few minutes ago.  For some reason, that post reminded me of sex and violence.  Whatever.  Mantis sex is something that’s long fascinated me.  No, I don’t subscribe to Playmantis and I don’t hang around those mantis sex chatrooms.  Really.  Really.

I don’t know how things turned out at the prom at the Praying Mantis Central High School.  I never did write that story.  Maybe I should.  How would it look on the big screen?

We all know about war:  male-dominated animal species — from humans to bighorn sheep — settle their disputes with combat.  But bonobos — a matriarchal primate species  — settle their disputes with sex.  Of course, humans sometimes do this too — it’s called make-up sex — but bonobos use it for everything.  They use sex the way humans use apologies.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think this makes a good case for supporting a change in the human social hierarchy.

Of course, Christian conservatives wouldn’t like it.  A female-dominated society that settles disputes with sex would send evangelicals into paroxysmal fits.

Still, using sex to settle disputes would seem to have many benefits.  It would certainly be a lot cheaper than the military system we have now — just think of all the useful social programs that could be funded instead (or tax cuts, if you’re a Republican).  Plus, the Pentagon would always have plenty of volunteers.

Scientists studying honeybees have learned a lot about how a swarm decides where to locate its hive.  The decision is critical, because a wrong decision can leave the hive exposed to deadly winter weather; therefore, bees need an effective voting system that reliably and efficiently yields their optimal hive location.  Fortunately for bees, millions of years of evolution have given them one.  In fact, their voting system is better than the voting system Americans use to elect their public officials.

It’s called range voting, and it’s very simple:  instead of choosing one candidate, voters give each candidate a numerical score (e.g., 0-9).  That’s it.  After everyone has voted, the candidate with the highest average score wins.

Turns out, this simple change makes a big difference.  In computer simulations, range voting greatly reduced many of the well-known problems with America’s two-party system.  Problems such as gerrymandering and the silencing of third-party views, for example. 

This website explains how range voting works and this website describes how bees do it.

In my day-to-day life, the people I encounter (friends, neighbors, co-workers, students) all generally seem to be good; they want the best for themselves and the world they live in, they do not wish to do harm, and they are concerned about global warming, the wars, and biological threats. They want to be happy, and they want the people around them to be happy. Many of them are actively engaged with projects and endeavors that benefit others; they are motivated by a sincere desire to change the world in which they live.

I started thinking about this the day after attending a performance by a troupe called “Bench Press Burlesque.”  Four of the members of the group take yoga classes with me and I wanted to support them. I had seen them perform previously and was delighted with the wit, intelligence, and cutting-edge weirdness with which they deal with current issues and culture. Their most recent production, “Bad Jokes and Tight Ropes” did not fail to deliver, in my opinion. Perhaps I am a bit prejudiced (I know them and I love them!) but I was again tickled and pleased to see them as they took on President Bush, Technology, Corporate Environmental Rape, Bad Parenting, Gender Mis-identification, and the Catholic Church in their unique, campy, low-budget, sexy and freaky style. There was a decent performance of a West African dance that had the audience clapping and stomping, a puppet show on Sex Education and musical interludes by the house band The Tin Lizzies, consisting of vocals, accordion, violin, guitar, clarinet, and percussion.

The event took place in a refurbished school/church in a city neighbor-hood which is undergoing some face-lifting, and it was a sliding-scale admission ($5 got me half a generous chair on which I did not have to share overly intimate gluteal contact with friends). The audience was primarily white and young, and a generous mix of genders. The “Bad Jokes” were sometimes off-color and didn’t spare any camp, but they were in my opinion non-offensive and were of the “How many (fill in the blank) does it take to change a light bulb? variety.

The jokes immediately established a contact between audience and performers; the question was asked, the audience yelled back “How many?”  What struck me about this classic burlesque was the thin line between audience and performers that got thinner as the night went on. I loved it. There was a feeling of unity and “we’re all in this together” that was uplifting and empowering. During the intermission I was chatting with one of the troupe and I asked her (since it seemed to be a capacity crowd) if they made any money at this. With a big smile on her face she told me that yes indeed they did make money, and they spent some of it on costumes and props (props are hand-made signs, milk crates, and other items you can find in an alley, costumes are of the thrift-store ilk), and the all the rest was donated.

So there you go. They have fun, they are talented musicians and performers, and they obviously work hard at making their low-budget performances a success. I had no idea they donated the proceeds until I asked; it is not mentioned or advertised. Perhaps they are preaching to the choir as far the messages of their performances go; (folks who attend are probably of a particular mindset not likely to be shocked or outraged by the material), but my point is that they “do good” and “change the world” both by the messages they send and the fact that they donate money to worthy causes. If the audience is pretty much of a similar mindset as the performers, and judging by the degree of audience participation they are, then there are lots and lots of folks who want to do good works and change their world for the better.

I believe that even the President and the legislative, judicial, and executive officials we elect are basically good people. What then, goes so terribly wrong? (more…)

About 20 years ago, I became frustrated that, because of long hours spent at the office, I was not able to read as much as I would like. After all, there were thousands of good books out there that I had never read.  To add insult to injury, my memory recall was poor regarding many of the classic books I had previously read.  For instance, I had read The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye, but could I intelligently describe the plots and characters of these books?  Not without rereading them.

It occurred to me that I was reading books at the rate of only about one book every three months.  If I lived 50 more years, reading four books per year, I would be dead after reading only 200 more books.  That seemed to be an exceedingly gloomy prospect given that the culture I inhabit is continually bursting with new and interesting information. 

No, I wasn’t under the delusion that I would ever be able to know everything.  I realized that it would be impossible for any one person (probably for any group of 1000 people) to to have detailed knowledge rivaling that contained in any large library.  Rather, I was seeking a basic working knowledge of many of the basic fields of study taught in most universities. I didn’t want to embarass myself in a group that started discussing well-known literature and basic principles from scientific fields such as biology, physics and anthropology. I felt that I needed to fill my head with more information in order to be a decent writer, much less a responsible voter.

I sought out a philosophy professor from my undergrad days.  He listened closely as I explained my frustration.  He then told me it did not matter what we read, as long as we choose quality reading material.  He explained that all good writers touch the same common deep issues.  He encouraged me to quit worrying about quantity and to focus on quality.  His advice was to make sure that every bit of reading I picked up “touched bottom.”

My professor’s advice was reassuring at the time, but I am not certain that it was accurate.  It is true that many of the same deep issues are addressed by many disparate fields of study.  It is my belief, however, that the various fields of study fail to overlap more often than they do overlap. 

For the past 10 years, I have spent much time auditing graduate-level courses at Washington University in St. Louis (I am very grateful that they offer this opportunity to members of the community). Many of those courses were in the area of cognitive science.  Jumping into this new field, however, was like trying to take a drink out of a fire hydrant.  It was not reassuring to be exposed, week after week, to ever more material that was almost entirely new to me.  There was so incredibly much to learn–this remains the case for me today.

Simply stressing quality over quantity, then, does not a total solution to having a working knowledge of the many basic fields of study. Rather, it’s necessary to consciously visit quality works from a wide variety of fields.  No matter how much you read traditional philosophy, for example, you will never encounter anything equivalent to the wonderful insights of modern era cognitive science writers such as Paul Churchland, Mark Johnson or Andy Clark. 

Then again, my philosophy professor’s suggestion was still helpful. Whatever you read, choose carefully, because there really is an avalanche of information out there. In sum, my professor was overconfident that any individual could keep up with the constant outpouring of new information from all fields.  On the other hand, whatever chance anyone has a being “well read,” that chance disappears once one stops being a selective chooser of reading material. 

I recently picked up a book that provided some good statistics regarding the amount of new information introduced into the world every day.  (more…)

The Pew Internet & American Life Project survey on blogging, published July 19, 2006 contains lots of good data on who all of those bloggers are.  The survey contains lots of statistics, charts and commentary.  Here’s the summary.

The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism.

Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37% of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11% of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog.

Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7% of bloggers, followed by sports (6%), general news and current events (5%), business (5%), technology (4%), religion, spirituality or faith (2%), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1% of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations. 

I just happened upon this 1999 George Carlin comedy routine – a slick, pointed and . . . well, Carlinesque . . . critique of religion.

I found the Carlin video on a sassy site populated by lots of non-believers: “God is for Suckers,” a site that makes Dangerous Intersection’s presentation look rather tame by comparison.  Recent posts also include crusader pajamas for sale, for example.  

The site is not all fun and games, though.  The authors also crank out lots of in-your-face cultural commentary.  For example, a recent post discussed a 2005 study by Gregory Paul (in the Journal of Religion and Society) finding that “secular societies have lower rates of violence and teenage pregnancy than societies where many people profess belief in God.” 

The conservative right loves to use the term “family values” as a token cover for their backward bigotry. Used in opposition to abortion, gay rights, or even the increase of women in the workplace, “family values” summons a particular image of the conservatives’ imaginary era of perfection and bliss.

Many people refer to this image as a real time, probably somewhere in the 1950’s; “the good old days” when men worked to support their families, women stayed happily in the home with the children, no one divorced, and no children ran off to live renegade alternative lifestyles tainted with wanton sodomy, teen pregnancy, or drug abuse.

We may have even heard older people reminisce about “the good old days” in terms that make the time seem authentically wonderful: “no one locked their doors”; “neighbors looked after each other”; “marriage meant something back then”; “it was a simpler time”, and so on.

Even if we don’t buy into the conservative agenda against basic equal rights, we may concede that the world has become a much more frightening, complicated place, and that a time period such as the allusive 1950’s seems preferable, even tantalizing.

Unfortunately, no amount of regressive activism on the part of Republicans can return us to a grander time, because those “good old days” simply never existed. I like comedian Lewis Black’s take on the shiny 1950’s ideal:

“It was called the ‘50s. The wife cooked and raised the kids and sent the husband off to work, where he sat every day behind that desk, day in and day out, his soul being sucked from his body; while his wife, stuck at home and so sick of her daily chores that she slowly became addicted to primitive antidepressants, sat hoping against hope Jim wasn’t drunk again when he came home. It almost seems too good to be true.[italics added]”

Of course, the rantings of a comedian hardly prove my point. But as sociologist Stephanie Coontz writes in her book, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, Black has fairly accurate assertions.

Let’s begin with the notion that marriage had sanctity in the 1950’s. Coontz writes that the percentage of women over 18 who find themselves not currently married hovers around 20%, a percentage which has held since 1900. In truth, single parenthood has increased, but this hasn’t led to generations of renegade youth that engage in unsafe sex, drugs, and crime: teen pregnancies and violent crime have both dropped to the lowest records since the Justice Department began keeping tabs on such figures in the early 1970’s. (more…)