POLITICS: The Intelligent Design Hoax

Daniel C. Dennett has an essay in The New York Times entitle “Show me the Science” and it is the best thing I have read so far on the debate. He effectively characterizes ID as what it is: a hoax. The thing to remember is that hoaxes aren’t just jokes, they are often used to hide something or to control power. This is just what ID proponents including the Bush administration and the religious right are doing.

One other thought: ID proponents want their “theory” taught in the high schools. If so, as a high school teacher, am I allowed to show 2001: A Space Odyssey and make the case that aliens, not a god, created life on Earth? My guess is that I’m not.

MUSIC: The Perfect Album

Plastic (a great site, by the by) recently discussed the perfect album. If for no one else, this will be fun for Chris and me. Here’s my list:

Steely Dan, Aja
Track for track it’s the best album I’ve ever heard, bar none.

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Okay, maybe it’s cliche, but it’s also great.

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Come on, other than “Song Bird” is there a song on here you wouldn’t want to listen to every day? The perfect summer album.

Pat Metheny, Secret Story
It’s tough to pick just one Metheny album, but this one is just magnificent.

Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out
Classic, classic, classic

REM, Automatic for the People
or Document or Life’s Rich Pageant or…

SOCIETY: Has anyone else noticed the price at the pump?

I’m just curious if anyone else has noticed the price of gasoline lately. Today I had the pleasure of paying $1.83 per gallon. I drive a very small car, stay off the road as much as possible, and have been turning off the air-conditioning. Still, every now and again, I have to put gas in the car. As I filled up today and saw the total charge, I would have screamed save for the film crew from the local news station taping people filling their tanks.

I don’t believe in the price of gas. It’s not real.

Right now the big time folks at the oil companies are making ridiculous amounts of money that are fully justified by everything in our economic system. We’re supposed to like it when people make lots of money, we’re supposed to look up to these people and want to be them. We’re supposed to believe that having all that money will make us happy.

I don’t believe in that either.

What I do believe is that we don’t have to support these ideas. How are you resisting the price of gas, the culture of wealth worship, and the inflation of other people’s wallets? Post your ideas in the comments section.

TECH: Five Reasons Not to Use Linux

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has a short and enjoyable piece “Five Reasons Not to Use Linux” about Linux and Windows. He makes five good points about why Linux makes more sense (the title is ironic) for users than Windows.

I keep thinking about things like this and, having tried out Ubuntu Linux and other versions, I’m finding that it’s just easier and much cheaper to be running Linux. I’m typing this inside of Linux and it is just great. I haven’t bought software in years, I haven’t had a crash in years, and when I want to upgrade software, it’s much easier than on Windows.

There’s no real point to this post other than that everyone should read the article and then go get Linux. Or maybe that everyone should read the article and then call Dell to ask when they will install Linux on their consumer machines. It’s time.

bgfay: My new Scion xA

SOCIETY: What we want and what we need

In REM’s “Finest Worksong” Michael Stipe says that “what we want and what we need has been confused.” That notion has been on my mind as of late. It occurs to me as we have been listening to the phone ring over the past few days.

While in Florida a week or two ago, someone told me that they couldn’t live without caller ID. Well, I said. But before I could go any farther, the person went on to how it was their life saver. I tried to change the subject to call waiting. I figure that caller ID, while far from necessary for life was at least not as annoying as call waiting. The person said that they needed that too. More than that, they needed it on their cell phone as well. How could you live without a cell phone?

Well, I said, but the fight wasn’t worth it.

Before long there was talk of digital video recorders, digital cable televsion, and more. I faded out of the conversation realizing that I was the odd one.

But don’t go thinking that I’m above all of this. After all, I’m typing at a computer (one of four that I own), and online. These are things I want very much. These are things I don’t want to live without.

Note that I want but don’t need them.

Consider that caller-ID costs about five dollars a month, call-waiting is the same, a cell phone averages at least fifty dollars (usually much more) each month and digital cable with a digital video is at least one-hundred dollars. Add to that something I would like but don’t need, high speed internet, and it’s another fifty dollars each month. All of this adds up to at least $210 each month or just over $2500 each year. And I’m low-balling these numbers.

My wife and I have decided that we need to raise our children and that to do this in the way we think they deserve, one of us must stay home and be with them. In our case, my wife has elected to stay home because she is better with the children and because my teaching job has better benefits. In order to do what we need to do, we have had to better understand what we want and what we need.

Do we need cable televison, call waiting, caller-ID, cell phone service, a luxury car, high speed internet, Nike shoes, assorted bling-bling, or the rest of the things that television and print advertisers are sure we need? The answer for us is a clear no. The answer for others depends on how they answer the question what do you want and what do you need? For that person in Florida, caller-ID is absolutely necessary.

Which brings me back to the fact that our phone has been ringing lately. Over the last two days, the phone has rung eight separate times and, when we have not answered it, the caller or callers have not left a message on our machine. If we had caller-ID, we would know who this person is. I can imagine that person from Florida saying that this is why we need caller-ID. And each time I imagine them saying it, I know how I would respond: if we really want to know who is calling, all we have to do is pick up the phone. But really, I don’t need to know. I don’t need it at all.

POLITICS: Can Democrats and Liberals Learn?

NPR is running this essay by David Greene about Cindy Sheehan, George Bush, and the movement of public opinion regarding the war in Iraq. In it, Greene talks about how Sheehan has masterfully taken the stage out from under President Bush. Whether or not this is a short- or long-term situation remains to be seen, but I wonder if Democrats in general and Liberals in specific can learn the lessons she has to teach.

Lesson One: Take the high road and demand everything.
Think back to Tom Daschle and the Democrats of 2001-2003. They failed to take a stand because they were afraid of the high ground. They sold the farm because polling said to get that stuff out of the way and then focus on the economy. If you wonder how well this worked, I think Daschle has some time on his hands ever since the last Senate elections and there’s a lot more room in Democratic meetings now that the Republicans have kindly taken their places. Cindy Sheehan has said that she will meet with President Bush and demand that he end the war he so wrongly started.

Lesson Two: Stay on message, your message, not theirs
The Bush Administration, Fox News, AM radio, and the Republican Party have shown themselves to be masters of the stage, the language, and the playing of heart-strings. Democrats have, since even before 9/11, been trying to catch up. We raise an idea (thought most of these are simply reactions to what the Republicans are doing–remember John Kerry’s campaign), but when that idea becomes lost, re-named, or otherwise co-opted, we throw it aside and give up. Cindy Sheehan has left Crawford only to be at her mother’s sick-bed. She hasn’t given up the fight at all. She hasn’t lost her message in the defense of it. She doesn’t spend her time saying, “those people are wrong,” when she knows it’s much more powerful to say, “you know I’m right.”

Lesson Three: Catch and hold the media’s attention
It feels as though Cindy Sheehan has been at that ranch for six months. It feels like she belongs there, as though it’s her place. She has told reporters a story so compelling that they can’t leave it alone. She has, seemingly single-handedly, brought the Bush Administration into a light they have been avoiding. She makes them look bad because there is no good response they can give her and still be able to continue their war.

Can we learn these things and the rest of the lessons from this summer? Can we tie them together with what Trippi taught us in the last election? Can we figure out how to run our own election as effectively as the Bush team has done in the last two? I don’t know. I would like to hope so. I would desperately like to hope so.

LETTER: Dear Dr. Frist

The New York Times among many others are reporting on Dr. Frist’s turn toward intelligent design. This decision deserves a letter and here is mine:

Dr. Frist:

I am writing in regard to your recent announcement of support for the teaching of something people have been calling intelligent design. I understand that you are a politician and that, as such, you have to do a certain amount to satisfy different groups of people. I do understand that most politicians are unwilling or unable to be true to themselves and the electorate. However, I fail to understand a Harvard trained doctor who would so blatantly sell out to a radical constituency of creationists. And that’s what we’re talking about here, Mr. Frist. You are backing creationism as science. You sir are working to take us back to the age of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Oh my.

I have addressed you as Doctor Frist rather than Senator Frist because, as a doctor, I am hoping that you will come to understand that creationism is at best a religious matter and has nothing to do with science. As a religious matter, I would expect that you will understand that public school teachers are not the people to be speaking of creationism. I have addressed you as doctor rather than senator because, with this move, you have fully announced yourself as a politician who will turn with the wind. The country is getting behind stem cell research and so you joined them. But the religious right is against stem cell research and so you have to throw them a creationism bone. I don’t respect these moves and I vote against them.

Finally, as a teacher, should I also turn with the wind? Should I throw away my curriculum and hand out bibles? I am trained for and qualified to teach English. I am not the person to teach dogma. If asked to teach creationism, I will teach it, but like the creationists, I will push my side of the argument. I will teach it as mythology, propaganda, and the foolish lark that it is. Do any of us really want that?

Dr. Frist, straighten up, decide who you are and who you want to be. Then come back and run for the Presidency. We don’t need someone catering only to poll numbers and powerful interest groups. We need a man or woman who is true to ideals, to the Constitution, and to all the people of the United States of America. Come back when you are that person.

Sincerely,

Brian G. Fay

POLITICS: Cindy Sheehan Petition

Go sign the petition demanding that Bush meet with Cindy Sheehan. The only way to work against this administration is to overwhelm them with bad press, truth, and the bright light of a spotlight. Sign the petition, please. I did.

bgfay: Taking a W-Moment

I’m on vacation in Florida typing this short entry while my wife does the dishes, the cat begs for food, and our children run around the house waiting for someone to dress them. I would help out with some of these things–they’re all important–but like George W. Bush, I have to carve out time for myself, time to type, nap, and take my walks. The dishes, my wife, the animals, and my children will have to wait. This is my W-moment and, let’s face it, I deserve it.

Maureen Dowd’s “Biking Toward Nowhere” (NY Times, registration required, damn it) helped me understand the importance of taking time off no matter the circumstances. Actually, it is our President who makes the case best. Thank you Mr. Bush for setting things straight and putting priorities in order.

I’ll be back to work soon enough. More than likely I’ll be at it before Mr. Bush, but then I’ve got very important things to do like write lesson plans, finish a bench for the backyard, and change the cats’ litter. Mr. Bush can take as much time as he needs. He’s only got an occupation to supervise, lies to cover up, a growing number of dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq, and gas prices going out past Pluto toward that new planet we’ve just heard about. So rest easy, Mr. Bush. Don’t let anything bother you. And be sure to get a nap each and every day. You owe it to yourself.

Time for my own nap. Keep it down out there. It’s sleepy time.