Isn’t it NEWS when the daily newspaper fires one of its prominent columnists?

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently fired one of its prominent columnists, Sylvester Brown. Why? Here's all you'll find even if you carefully scour the Post-Dispatch: A one-paragraph "Note" that Sylvester Brown acted unethically and that he deserved to be gone. But isn't it a big news story whenever the only daily newspaper serving a major metropolitan area fires one of its columnists for a purported isolated ethics infraction? Doesn't it deserve more coverage than a one-paragraph "Note to Readers"? Isn't this story news? What about when the columnist (who wrote three full columns per week) disputes the Post-Dispatch version of the facts? Isn't that news? You won't read about both sides of this dispute in the Post-Dispatch (though you can read about it here). What about the fact that Brown often criticized the Mayor of St. Louis coupled with the fact that the Mayor is on the paper's "Advisory Board?" Isn't that news? Should a newspaper ever have politicians on its "Advisory Board"? Isn't that issue big news? I decided to put out my own "edition" of the St. Louis Daily newspaper. I called it the St. Louis Post-Disgrace. Click on it to see the "paper" full screen." It contains the headlines that illustrate various aspects of the Sylvester Brown story that the Post-Dispatch failed to cover. I'll be waiting and watching to see whether the Post-Dispatch ever advises its readers any of these issues.

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Continue ReadingIsn’t it NEWS when the daily newspaper fires one of its prominent columnists?

Assisted suicide under the microscope

I'm a lot different than Jerry, a former co-worker. About twelve years ago, Jerry told me that he had a collection of guns and ammunition for when times got bad. He foresaw that all decent society might collapse someday. At that point, large numbers of people would become violent, running around in every neighborhood breaking into each others' houses and shooting each other in order to steal each others' stuff. If this ever happened, he assumed that he would be spending considerable time sitting on his front porch defending his family with his guns. Jerry asked me what I would do if that day happened. I told him that I had already purchased a copy of a book called "Final Exit." If society got that bad--so bad that I'd need to sit on my front porch shooting my neighbors in order to survive--I'd rather check out. Jerry, a conservative and religious man, had never heard of Final Exit. I explained that it is a book written by the founder of the group formerly known as the Hemlock Society. The book explains a relatively painless method of killing one's self. The author was largely motivated by the fact that so many people in great and unrelenting physical pain longer wanted to live, yet they had no socially acceptable way of ending their lives. After I explained this, Jerry was aghast. You'd kill yourself? At that time I had no children. I figured that it was my wife's choice whether she wanted to sit on the porch and shoot the neighbors. Now that I do have children, the decision of what to do, assuming society-wide pandemonium from which there is no physical escape, would be all the more wrenching. I don't know what I'd do. It would depend on how bad things actually got. I am utterly repulsed by the thought of shooting my neighbors. My conversation with Jerry recurred to me as I read "Death Watch: Final Exit's clandestine ways have put the assisted-suicide network on life support," by Aimee Levitt, published 4/8/09 by the Riverfront Times, a free alternative newspaper in St. Louis. Levitt dug deeply into the facts, carefully considering the divergent perspectives on the moral/emotional/legal issues generated by the actions of a group that calls itself, "Final Exit," a group that assist its "clients" to commit suicide. The right to kill one's self always seems to be a simple issue in my mind, at least at first glance: My body, my choice.

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Refusing to shuffle quietly out the door, one local journalist stands tall –

Post-2008-election, I felt as though our country was finally regaining consciousness. I felt hope and optimism rise and my cynicism roll back ever-so-slightly, breezes of fresh thought dispersing the haze. As my vision returned, I could once again engage in conversations that did not fizzle into frustrated non-verbal noise. I began to see glimpses of a cultural evolution of thought through the wider population. Just glimpses, but they were there, I know it. I felt the whoosh of tired air as egos fat with imaginary power based on non-existent wealth were deflated by the reality of financial correction. I smiled as the facade of organized evangelical religion cracked under self-made storms of condescending hypocrisy. I grinned with sincere joy every time I heard new dialogue about race and culture in the wake of electing our first minority president. All in all, I saw daily reminders that people, all of us, are truly equal underneath all the cultural trappings. Eye contact became pleasant again. The obvious human connections we share - that we all love and laugh and hurt and seethe and wonder and sigh and ache and even hate - I could see those commonalities beginning to connect us again. We argue and bicker, we debate and discuss, we learn, we teach, we manage, we create, we err and we try. We help, we care, sometimes we dismiss. We each react to information and situations from our own perspectives, wrought upon our own personalities by our own life stories. But we seemed to be listening to each other again. I hoped anew that as a culture, we were learning that all of those life stories matter. That each one of us brings a unique self to the cultural table and that even when we strenuously disagree, we do not dismiss each other simply because of it. Silly me. Last week, a friend of mine was fired. Not a big deal, you might think, as people have been laid off in record numbers (including myself) over the past months of economic strife. Sure, a big deal for him, maybe. But, well, welcome to the masses. Except that this friend represented something we cannot afford to lose, and his firing rips further into the frayed fiber of our local democracy. Sadly, too many will dismiss the loss as no big deal - for the exact reason we so desperately needed Sylvester Brown to stay.

Continue ReadingRefusing to shuffle quietly out the door, one local journalist stands tall –

Have you been teabagged by a republican, today?

I saw this at the gym last night, and almost fell off the treadmill! So many opportunities for double entendres - it's classic! Finally, something to thank our republican friends for! Although I refuse to imagine being teabagged by the likes of Armey, Beck or Cavuto! nuff said. Here's the video! (© MSNBC.com, posted by ThinkProgress)

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Kenneth Miller’s unrelenting attack on creationism

Kenneth Miller is a professor of biology at Brown University. He is also a widely published author (co-author of high school and college biology textbooks used by millions of students). He is also a practicing Roman Catholic who has served as an expert in several court cases concerning creationist school boards that have tried to muzzle classroom science. In his most recent book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, Miller makes an unrelentingly strong case against creationists of all stripes, including those who advocate "intelligent design." I did not realize the strength of the scientific case based upon the analysis of the genomes of human beings and other animals. How strong is it? It is at least as strong as the fossil record, arguably much stronger. I already knew a few things about the arguments based on genome analyses. For instance, I had often read that the genomes of chimpanzees and humans were 99% the same (or, at least, 96% the same). I also knew that all animals possessed Hox genes, essentially "toolkits for generating body form." Miller reminds us that "it is the same kit whether that animal is a honey bee, a fish or an elephant." The Hox genes prove "deep connections between animal groups." Miller points out that these similarities are even much more striking than Haeckel's (admittedly exaggerated) embryonic drawings. In fact, Haeckel "actually understated the evolutionary case each of these embryos possesses the same developmental toolkit, revealing both are common ancestry and the similarity of form and function produced by the workings of the evolutionary process." These profound Evo-Devo findings (the combination of development and the study of evolution) show that we "no longer need to make a distinction between the two types of change known as macro evolution and micro evolution. We don't need to attribute special mechanisms for large-scale changes. Evo-devo "reveals that macro evolution is the product of microevolution writ large." According to Miller, these should be "chilling words" to the ID crowd.

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