Monthly Archives: May 2007

NADA - New American Dark Ages

Bible Literalism is Voluntary Ignorance

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If you believe the universe is only a few thousand years old, you are wrong. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective. This is willful ignorance. This is choosing to be stupid. That is one’s choice, but unbearable to witness. mjh

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The Denver Post – Museum’s biblical take on “history”
Exhibit opens to public Monday
By Dylan T. Lovan, The Associated Press

Most scientists say there’s a gulf of millions of years between humans and the giant lizards, but according to the Creation Museum, they lived in harmony a few thousand years ago. It’s part of the literal interpretation of the Bible adopted by Ham and other creationists.

“People are just fascinated by dinosaurs, but they’ve sort of become synonymous with millions of years and evolution,” he said.

Evolution is derided at the 60,000- square-foot facility, packed with high-tech exhibits designed by an acclaimed theme-park artist, animatronic dinos and a huge wooden ark. In this Old Testament version of history, dinosaurs appeared on the same day God created other land animals.

A Colorado group offers a similar take on area museums. Littleton- based Biblically Correct Tours, founded in 1988, offers religious tours of secular sites, such as the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The Kentucky museum’s displays include fossils, hung in large glass cases. Ham said most fossils were created by the massive flood detailed in the book of Genesis.

“The Bible doesn’t talk about fossils, but it gives you a basis for understanding why there are fossils around the world,” he said. [mjh: what a curious equivocation, to take the Bible literally but then fill in gaps as needed. Why not just say there is no such thing as a fossil because the Bible doesn’t mention them?]

Ham said the stories of the Bible are supported by science, a notion that has drawn the ire of science educators across the country.

“They make such a point of trying to make it appear scientific,” said Lawrence Krauss, a physics professor, author and critic of the museum. “Instead of shying away from those things that clearly disprove what they’re trying to say, they use those things for deception.”

Uncategorized

Event Day Birth Happy Linnaeus Carolus

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The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

It’s the birthday of the man who gave us a system of classifying and naming all the living things on the planet, Carolus Linnaeus, born in Råshult, Sweden (1707). He was born at a time when human beings named plants and animals in a variety of ways, usually based on what they looked like: names like Queen Anne’s Lace, ghost orchid, and sword fish. But these names were always local. Even within a single country, like England, a plant could be called by half a dozen different names by different groups of people.

Linnaeus was a botanist, and it was his goal to help import new plants to Sweden to help improve the economy. In order to keep everything straight, he developed a naming system based in Latin, so that he and his students would always know what they were talking about. He put each specimen into a large group called a genus and a smaller subgroup called a species, and this became the binomial naming system, which he published in his book Systema Naturae (1758).

Biologists found his naming system extremely useful. His ideas made him famous around the world, and scientists as well as kings and queens sent him plants and animals as gifts for his garden and zoo. Catherine the Great of Russia sent him flower seeds. The crowned prince of Sweden gave him a North American raccoon.

But Linnaeus had little success importing new crops into Sweden. The tea plants his students sent home all died. Coffee did not make it. Neither did ginger or cardamom or cotton or coconuts. In fact, rhubarb was one of the only new plants that took hold. Late in his life, Linnaeus said that the introduction of rhubarb to Sweden was his proudest achievement.

But today, we remember Linnaeus for his contribution to taxonomy. His system of naming living things has been modified, but the basic idea behind it has endured for 250 years. When he published his first taxonomy of plants in 1758, Linnaeus listed the 4,400 species of plants known to science at that time. Today, his system has been used to name more than 1.5 million species. We have Linnaeus to thank for the idea behind all those names, including our own name: Homo sapiens.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/05/21/#wednesday

[mjh: species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom]

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Fifty-two

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Today I am 52 years old. There’s something odd about that even number. There are fifty two weeks in a year and fifty two cards in a deck (without the jokers). There are fifty two states, counting DC and Israel.

A Shadow of My Former SelfOn the day I was born in the rainy state of Hawai’i, the dry state of New Mexico experienced its greatest rainfall ever recorded (11.28 inches in 24 hours at Lake Maloya). That’s a good rain, even by Hawai’ian standards.

At sunset tonight, Venus sidles up to the moon, not quite close enough for a kiss (“Not ’till 2031”), but less than 1 degree apart.

Free Will Astrology : Taurus Horoscope (April 20-May 20)

It’s about time you got the chance to be knocked on your ass by a flood of positive surprises and good feelings. I hope you’re trusting enough to go with the tidal flow, even if it does temporarily render you a bit woozy. Naturally you’d like to know if this giddy surrender will land you in trouble. Is there any chance that you’ll have to endure some karmic adjustment at a later date because of the fun you’re having now? Here’s my prediction: absolutely not. If anything, your enthusiastic cooperation with the free-form dazzle will shield you from any negative repercussions.

How did the astrologer know about my concern for the righting of the karmic scale. I can’t promise surrender, but I will cooperate. mjh

To paraphrase the Beatles,

You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too–yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s my birthday
Happy birthday to me.

book

Cue David Bowie’s Fame

I returned from two days in Chaco (that’s another story) to find myself on the cover of the Albuquerque Journal’s Business Outlook. Cool! I knew Andrew Webb’s article was coming, but I never expected the big color photos by Greg Sorber (taken during an Advanced HTML class).

article by Andrew Webb; photos by Greg Sorber; published by abqjournalI am thrilled and honored, as one should be to see one’s name in the same sentence as wit sans nit. I’m humbled to be identified as a photographer, poet and prolific blogger — even if that is just a quote of mine. (For what it’s worth, it is much easier to be a photographer than a poet, and blogging is easier still. However, they all pay the same.)

I enjoyed my lively conversation with Andrew and I appreciate the generous article he has written well. Though I strive to be profoundly memorable and he took notes, I don’t expect any two people to recall a conversation exactly the same way. I’ve had students say to me the exact opposite of what I thought I just said — communication is a sloppy process, even between professional communicators like Andrew and me. Nothing that follows should be construed as criticism of Andrew’s article. Consider this compulsive tidying-up.

Originally, I was to be THE technical editor of the book, not one of several. The original author didn’t exactly back out — he failed to deliver on schedule. (I do not mean to rub his face in that.)

Although I had about five days to think about taking the job, that period was a bit more interesting. As TE, I wrote the DE (Development Editor) to inquire when I would begin to receive chapters. He told me there was a problem and if the author missed a critical deadline, Wiley would offer the book to “… wait for it — you” (quoting him quoting Barney). The five days — miserable days of doubt — were between that teaser and the actual offer. It was during that time I passed through the stages of grief/death, from elation to certainty that they had found someone else. When the EE (Executive Editor), Chris Webb (no relation to Andrew Webb), offered me the job, I waited overnight to accept. (My friend, Leah Kier, at UNM Continuing Education, once observed that when asked to do the extraordinary, I always say no and then come around to yes.)

Now, it is absolutely accurate that I wrote the first draft in barely 8 weeks — I inherited the original author’s deadline and none of his lead-time. Those were demanding, exhilarating days. In early October, 2006, I delivered the last chapter. Almost immediately, I began to receive edited chapters in return. The DE, John Sleeva, did a great job of coaxing more out of me. In fact, over the next month, I added 50% more material, including one or two new chapters. And that wasn’t the end (though I wish it had been, in some sense). Next came the PE, CE and proofreader — all striving to make this a better book.

I finished the last round of review on New Year’s Eve. Merri and I walked out the door on Valentine’s Day to find two cases of books waiting on the porch. At last, it was real.

At the moment, the book ranks #12,732 #9,885 on Amazon Books (rank has to be below 2,000 to penetrate the Best Selling Computer Books). Still no review. mjh

PS: If you want more, I blogged during the process. See the first entry (http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/book/the-book/) and follow links to “next in this category” at the bottom of each entry. There are 14 other entries. Or see http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/category/book/ for the same material organized newest to oldest, as is the blog-way. That’s not the best way to tell a story.

PPS: I’m wearing Marj Mullany. That’s to say, she created my beautiful tie, which Merri bought as a gift for me. The tie-clip was a gift from a stranger, but that, too, is another story.

NADA - New American Dark Ages

Speak Truth to Power

My favorite contemporary writer is Dan Neil. I think he pays his bills by writing car reviews for the LA Times, but that earns him the option to write a column labelled “Pop Culture.” Neil is literate; nearly every column includes some deliciously offbeat word that gives me pause.

While I enjoy almost everything Neil writes about contemporary culture, I especially appreciate his take on our war-culture. I’ll let him speak for himself here, but if this excerpt doesn’t impress you, seek him out — he’s worth reading. mjh

[mjh: In a column titled “Bomb Mots,” Neil writes about cable TV shows devoted to military weapons. I’ll resist the urge to highlight a few choice phrases. I think you’ll see them for yourself.]

Bomb Mots – Los Angeles Times

God knows I love to see things blow up. A proper gentleman’s education cannot be considered complete unless he has, at some point, shot a watermelon with a high-powered rifle. But I have a major problem with a lot of this programming, the first being its clinical and morally vacant fascination in killing. You know that familiar wing-camera footage of white-orange napalm blooming in the jungle canopy in Vietnam? There are people under there. At the other end of every smart bomb is some poor dumb bastard who is about to be blown to bits. When I hear some narrator crow about America’s precision bombing, I just cringe. There is nothing precise about a 1,000-pound bomb.

I had a similar reaction to media coverage of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Grand Challenge, DARPA’s annual open competition for autonomous ground vehicles. How many people registered that this was a program to develop robotic weapons? Did anybody even see “The Terminator”?

It’s not about the necessity of armed conflict, or morality of a particular weapon. All of that is, as they say in the military, above my pay grade. It’s about making glib entertainment out of mechanized death. You couldn’t blame a visitor from another country watching this program and concluding that Americans have slipped into a nutty late-Roman fascism.

[mjh: I cut from this Neil’s exchange with one of the hosts of such a show, but here’s the ending.]

Good propaganda fools the people who see it. Great propaganda fools the people who make it.

loco

Stupid Passtime

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KRQE News 13 – Paintball potshots end in arrest

An alleged drive-by shooter was arrested Sunday after an officer spotted him firing at pedestrians with a paintball gun, Albuquerque police reported. …

On Sunday morning, Ernest Jerry Molina is accused of taking those factors for granted while shooting at people from his truck at Central Avenue and Washington Street.

An officer reported witnessing the shooting. Molina was thrown in jail, charged with propulsion of missiles.

“The problem with this is the guns look very similar and almost exactly to a regular weapon,” Hoffman said.

Even up close a paintball gun does appear to be a deadly weapon, and it shoots like one.

That’s why it’s taken so seriously by paintball gamers and game centers. A paintball bullet can cause serious injury if hit hard enough and in a vulnerable place.

“If they’re shot in the eye, … it could take an eye out.” Conrad Morawski of Hinkle Family Fun Center said. “If they get shot in the head at 400 feet per second there’s a possibility for brain damage.”

In rare cases, death can even result. …

Molina, who reportedly admitted his actions, is out on bond and id expected in court Tuesday.

I’m not an ‘eye-for-an-eye’ guy, but Molina should know what a stupid and cruel thing he did. mjh

mjh’s blog — Photo of Paintball Wound

Photo of Paintball Wound

photo of paintball wound

other voices

Don’t let fear rule America

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor
Dems Put Us Back On Path to Defeat

SEN. HARRY REID, with the approval of his fellow Democrats, is this century’s Benedict Arnold and Neville Chamberlain, all in one. Arnold was a traitor who decided the Revolutionary War was lost and gave war plans to the British; Chamberlain told the world that “peace in (his) lifetime” was the result of the deal he made with Adolf Hitler.

Both of these men led others down a foolish path of defeat that led to great suffering, the path of today’s Democratic Party. History teaches us that both Arnold and Chamberlain were wrong. Today we have Reid, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, all joining the cut-and-run, don’t-offend-our-enemies crowd— just like Chamberlain. The unknown is whether the Democratic leaders are just naive fools or Benedict Arnolds. …

PHILIP HOWELL
Albuquerque

Thanks for the history lesson, Philip. You must be the new Paul Revere. But, according to your lesson, al Qaida is the equivalent of the British Empire and Nazi Germany — in strength, in numbers, in fire power. Funny, I thought they were originally a few dozen loonies with box cutters. Granted, thanks to our ineptitude, we have more enemies than ever, though some still live in caves and ride donkey carts. Don’t let fear rule America. mjh