This is quite amazing. A conspiracy theorist has now convinced astronaut Neil Armstrong that claims of moon landings are hoaxes. The Onion reports:
Apollo 11 mission commander and famed astronaut Neil Armstrong shocked reporters at a press conference Monday, announcing he had been convinced that his historic first step on the moon was part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the United States government.
A minor brouhaha erupted over a t-shirt in Sedalia Missouri. But this isn't about an uppity student. The band director designed an official band t-shirt to illustrate the evolution of brass music. What image did he choose to evoke the idea? Yep, a common ascent-of-man icon from the early 20th century. After some parents saw the shirt proudly worn at the Missouri State Fiar parade, they complained. From the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch:
"I was disappointed with the image on the shirt," said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. "I don't think evolution should be associated with our school."
What sort of science program do you think she had? What sort do you think she would vote for? The school quickly recalled the t-shirts, eating the cost of their production, and will be designing new shirts that don't offend by presenting an image that obliquely refers to actual science. Naturally, Pharyngula jumped on it. And in the Sedalia Democrat, they quote the assistant band director about pulling the shirts,"If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections' and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing," he said.
Apparently there is a strong belief that science is a religion that should not even be tangentially promoted over any other belief. And people wonder why I sometimes write that I live in the state of Misery.We just watched the last episode of John Adams. I got the DVD from the library and we went through it in one week, all seven installments. I have to admit, the last episode brought tears. The partnership between John and Abigail was well-portrayed and deeply moving. The older I get, the more I find the strongest story resonance with depictions of deep, deep friendships, especially those that exist between lovers, spouses, life partners. I cannot imagine losing Donna, who has become exactly that for me, in spite of the fact that I have friends of longer acquaintance, good friends, too. The casting was incredible, the make-up superb, the writing first class. What struck me most about this as well was the marvelously-nuanced dramatization of the fundamental differences in political philosophy between Adams and Jefferson. I can't help but think that when Adams declared that "the true history of our revolution is lost" he must have been thinking of the initial partnership and later dissolution of like-mindedness between himself and Thomas Jefferson, whom Joseph Ellis depicts an an American Sphinx. Adams is here portrayed as an idealist who cannot separate his philosophy from his pragmatism. In the first dozen years of the new republic, there was enormous public sentiment for France and when that country descended into the frenzy of its own revolution gone mad, that sentiment demanded that we support the revolutionaries. The irony that France supported us when it was still a monarchy and now those very people that had backed us (granted, as a move in their own war with England) were the victims of the mob ascendant was lost on most people, and apparently even Jefferson, who wanted us to embroil ourselves immediately and deeply in support of the revolutionaries. Washington---how lucky they were to have him---refused. He was a militaryman by training and he understood how to assess the chances of success and how to go about surviving a conflict in which you are outmatched. He had seen more than his share of defeat in a long career and knew well that ideology needed a strong hand to keep it in check, lest it carry you over the precipice. He refused to side with France, believing that neutrality was the only way for the United States to survive. Adams shared that belief.
My local alternative weekly newspaper, The Riverfront Times, just published a detailed article on James "The Amazing" Randi, professional magician and debunker of claims of the paranormal. I learned a lot. Here's an excerpt:
Randi has debunked more than 100 psychics and faith healers in a quest to rid the world of hucksters. It also makes him the subject of scorn among purveyors of the paranormal, true believers who say Randi has made himself rich, pulling in nearly $200,000 a year from his foundation, at the expense of others' careers.
Now, however, Randi's work may be in jeopardy. His foundation has been hemorrhaging money, and Randi, who has spent his career challenging the notion of an afterlife, now faces his own mortality. He has intestinal cancer and may not have long to live. Randi has been a commanding presence for four decades, but it's unclear who could fill his role as the face of the skeptic community.
G.O.P. Chairman Michael Steele made a few remarkably in-your-face comments recently about the health care debate. Here, in his own words, is pretty much where he thinks the nation is going, why it shouldn't go there, and what the Republican Party stands for. This morning on NPR he tangled with Steve Inskeep, in particular over this. One quote in particular caught my eye: " Simply put, we believe that health-care reform must be centered on patients, not government." When you listen to the NPR interview it's clear that we're hearing another in the now decades-long tirades against the government which has become the hallmark of Right Wing politics in this country. In this country, in theory, the government is supposed to be us, the people. We elect our representatives, we tell them how we want them to vote, we change our minds, we are supposed to be in charge. In theory. Obviously, the reality is far from that. For one, we are not a full-fledged democracy, we are a republic, and while we elect those who operate the machinery of the republic on our behalf, we do not have a direct say in the running. Nor could we, really. it is simply too complex. We send our representatives to the various points of departure---state capitols, Washington D.C., county seats, city halls---to do that for us because it is a big, complex, often indecipherable melange of conflicting goals, viewpoints, and problems. We do not have the time to pay the necessary attention to do that work ourselves, so we pay people to do it for us. So why do we distrust it so much? Well, because we distrust each other.