The Science of Stupidity

The Science of Stupidity

This morning I read of a school in Tacoma, Washington, right here in the US of A that has retracted its decision to show “An Inconvenient Truth”, the documentary by Al Gore about the effects of global warming and human-created climatic change, to its students as part of classwork. Apparently one student’s parent, not surprisingly a fundamentalist Christian who has kids ranging literally from 20 years of age to a few weeks (I am not making this up), has whined that they don’t want their child seeing the film because it is too “one-sided”, among other vitriolic excuses. Before I even get into the unbelievable pig-headed stupidity of that viewpoint, let’s first look at the selfish inanity and churlishness of this parent’s demand.

The man claims first of all he’s protecting his child from what I suppose he deems to be the “theories” of scientists, etc., etc. Now, whether or not his fears are well founded, let’s first discuss his motives:

• If he doesn’t feel his child should have to watch it, which I suppose is his right as a parent, then why doesn’t he:
  A. Arrange for his child to leave the classroom for the time that the movie is being shown and also have the teacher arrange for any test questions or other mandatory class activities pertaining to the content of the movie be replaced with other generally class-related materials. This is easily done.
  B. Arrange for his child to miss that day of school and, as above, be required to do some other kind of innocuous but reasonably comparable class work to make up for the time. During that time the parent is free to brainwash his child in any way he sees fit.
  C. Allow the child to watch the movie but, as a strong parent, ask the child about the film and have a discussion as to why he, as the parent, does not agree with certain (or all) of its points and “theories”. But this would smack of actual responsible parenting and he doesn’t want anything to do with that.
  
  
• Isn’t it obvious that this man is flat-out using his child to inflict his own backward and degenerate viewpoint on everyone else? Two HUGE flaws in his purported motivations are thus:
  A. He is not only trying to change the curriculum for his child, but changing it for ALL the other children by forcing his own standards on the entire class. This is, clearly, what he wants to do and I’d love to hear his answer as to how his forcing the rest of the class NOT to see the movie is any less oppressive than if his child were “forced” to watch it. In fact it is clearly far more oppressive because he is opposing the school’s choice on one person, his child, whereas his efforts will affect dozens of children at least.
  B. As I have mentioned above, it could easily be arranged that his child not be required to watch the film and, thus, problem solved.

Now, let’s address the mammoth stupidity of this man’s view. First off, isn’t it so typical that the more bird-brained and uninformed a person such as this fellow is, the louder his voice and the more vehemently he pushes his opinions? The more obstinately he defends his views no matter what sort of facts are thrown at them? In fact, all the more despite the facts? An example is the constant attack on science as ‘controversy’ or ‘theory’. These people believe in a god because a priest and a 4000-year old book told them to, but they don’t believe the facts that science has provided…they want more proof, apparently, but are never willing to accept ANY of the proof offered.

I know of lots of things of which I am not an expert. Let’s pick one: Physics. I know a few basic principles, but even those few I surely don’t understand the way that anyone who has studied them has. But what if I disagree with the little that I have heard? Should I just go crash the nearest physics class, steal the mic from the lecturer and start spouting a bunch of imbecile negativity dressed in righteous indignation? What kind of an ass would I be? Well, I’d be the precise sort of ass that this fellow in Tacoma, Washington has proven himself to be.

He doesn’t believe in science, he believes its all hooey deliberately and carefully constructed to attack his dearly-held principles and teachings from the Bible. Yea pal, the rest of the world’s got nothing better to do that spend billions of dollars and billions of man hours over the last several centuries in order to debunk religion for nothing else but the sake of being able to say “I told you so.”

You don’t believe in science? Fine, that’s your prerogative. In my opinion it’s foolish, but that’s just my opinion and I would expect no one to take it for gospel (thus displaying the difference between us). But he expects us to change our lives to suit his opinion. He expects the rest of the world to sit up and take note that he and his child are being oppressed by the evil scientists! Yes, the Christians suffer so much in this country, this country where their minority representation of only 80-plus percent of the entire population keeps them pinned down by the neck. Must be terrible for them. But, you wanna say that science is mularkey? That’s your decision, but if you want anyone to believe you, here’s what you must do:

• Get rid of the following: Your television, microwave, refrigerator, computer, DVD player, and hairdryer, your wife’s vibrator that she hides under the nightstand…your car, your cell phone and your land-line phone. That air purifier in your bedroom and the satellite dish out back next to your SUV. You gotta give that back too, it’s horseback for you my friend…or by foot. Wasn’t that how the Israelites traveled? Shouldn’t that be good enough for you? Give back all your medicine, even the ibuprofen and children’s Motrin. Take the air conditioner and the furnace (along with the thermostat), your kids’ Xbox and in fact just about everything in your house including lamps, alarm clocks, stereos and all of the plumbing and wiring. Not even a ceiling fan for you, my friend. That’s electromagnetic energy powering those blades…and can be considered ‘science’.
  What else is there to do? You want to attack science as a fallible and unreliable, godless source of wisdom, but you don’t mind taking advantage of it when it suits your creature comforts, now do you? I mean, I heard the way you took your gripe to the school board was via an e-mail. Now, last time I checked…that’s science.
  
  Some more:
  
  
• No more trips to the hospital for you. Treat your children at home, make up your own remedies or see if there are any in the bible. You could apply leeches and linseed oil for a fever, and if one of your kids breaks a leg falling out of a tree house you’d better just saw it off before septicemia sets in. See how long your family survives (the guy’s got seven kids and, presumably, a wife) without modern medicine.
• You can’t watch television anywhere for any practical purpose or pleasure. Ever. This includes weather reports and news, or even Christian television stations. Because there’s nothing quite as hypocritical as televised creationists attacking the evils of science on a national broadcast. This same principle applies to radio, too. Sorry.
• No airplanes or busses, automobiles, motorcycles or motorboats. This includes steam ships. If I remember correctly Samuel Clemens was derided by, among others, the Church for his silly experiments with “steam power”.
• Cook only with a wood-fired oven.
• No toothpaste, band-aids, or cleaning products other than hand-milled soap. In fact, you really can’t use ANYTHING made in a factory.

Anyway, I think even this guy would see my point here. Science, a word used as an umbrella term for any kind of study outside the teachings of the bible (which is, oddly enough, mostly witchcraft, fear-mongering and stern discipline), is a part of everyone’s life in good and bad ways. But like anything else we use, it is not the element which is to blame but the hand which wields it. Science was not, as was the bible, invented by humans, but rather something which humans have for millennia been trying to understand and harness, nothing more. Science is a constant search for understanding, whereas fundamentalist religion is the exact opposite: it is the teaching that understanding is not important, it teaches that in fact understanding is counter-productive and intrinsically sinful. That understanding is not what God wants us to do but rather that we are meant to be mindless sheep following tenets written down for us thousands of years ago. Even when those tenets tell us to hate each other. To kill and rape each other, and to devastate the wilderness….which brings me back to Al Gore’s “evil” documentary.

If that’s what you believe well, it’s your life. I won’t come in your house and tell you not to believe it. But don’t come into my house or anywhere else you’re uninvited and force your beliefs on anyone. I don’t want to hear any patriotic crap from you either, nothing about your “rights”, because they’re the same as my rights! America is not your land. It never was. “In God We Trust” was added in the 1950’s, it was not part of any of the original founding fathers’ documents. America was founded so people could be free from religious persecution or any other kind of persecution. To worship in their own way or, perhaps more importantly, not at all if that was their choice. Now you want to change what other people think because you’ve made up your mind, quite deliberately based on opposition to the facts, that your view is best.

Shame on you for pretending that you’re only trying to protect your child. That’s a naked lie and now you’ve brought your child into your lie. I hope your God will forgive you.

Performance Review for Mr. Bush?

Performance Review

So, tonight our fearless Leader will be delivering his State of the Union Address, and we can expect the same platitudes, lies and hackneyed inflections as we’ve always gotten from Mr. Bush. Personally, I’m not going to bother listening, I’ll just read through the recap tomorrow. I know that’s not very sporting of me but I just can’t listen to that man’s voice any more. It’s not like I have much of a choice anyway: The moment his droning tones begin my brain starts to liquify and my eyes glaze over…and I find myself truly thinking about nothing. This happens because his “Big Speech Thing” voice, which sounds like a bored 4th-grader reading a book he doesn’t understand, acts like a bucket of water thrown on the fuse box and none of my circuits work until it dries off. Let’s be fair and remember that there are so few inspiring or even interesting State of the Union speeches (unless you’re a Washington Post analyst) that we can actually list them on a cocktail napkin in 14pt font. But you add in Mr. Bush’s two-digit IQ and naked policy pandering to the ultra-wealthy, to religious fanatics and to the military-industrial complex, and it’s just unendurable.

I think we need a change in the format of the S.O.T.U. address. I think there need to be some stipulations, some requirements, which the President must adhere to.

First off, let’s remember a point so easily forgotten:

The President of the United States of America is meant to represent the wishes, needs and goals of the People of the United States of America. Period. He’s not there to do what he thinks is best all the time, but what the people tell him they want him to do. To do what THEY think is best.

So, I think the President, in his State of the Union, should answer to the major complaints made against him by the people. He should directly answer how he has either fixed or ignored the issues that have plagued his presidency and that the people have repeatedly drawn attention to. If he hasn’t fixed them, he should have to provide direct evidence, not vague statements that blur the focus, why he hasn’t been able to or even tried to fix the problem. More to the point, why has the President consistently failed to effectively bring about the issues at which even HE promised to succeed?

Example? Mr. Bush, at his second inaguaration, promised significant progress in these areas (among others):

* Better Education for Children
* Strong Defense
* Security for Retirement Savings
* Better & Less Expensive Health Care for ALL Americans

Umm, can anyone legitimately contend that he’s effectively addressed even ONE of those issues?

• School funding, on both a state and federal level has gone down nearly every year this man’s been in office. Sure, there has been some window dressing in highly-trumpeted spending bills, but as far as effective funding, just ask any principal or Regional Superintendant across the United States where the money's gone and you'll get the same blank stare that Mr Bush gives when asked what the hell he was doing during the Vietnam War.
• Strong defence? Please. All this means is the sluice is yanked out to let hundreds of bilions of state (tax) dollars into defense contractors' coffers and the like (Halliburton, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, anyone?). This country is FAR, FAR less safe than it was before he took office. It is that way simply because the Bush administration and his corporate cronies don’t care. It’s about the money and the power, pure and simple. We have made more enemies, killed more of our own people than perished on 9/11 and spent our country into an economic ice age since Mr. Bush took office.
• Security for Retirement Savings? Wages have gone down and the median home price has gone UP, which is one significant detractor from American familes being able to even establish a retirement savings, much less have one to protect. More companies send CEOs off with 300 million dollar severance packages while simultaneously firing huge percentages of their workforces and cutting back on 401k and other employee benefit financial programs. Social Security has been pushed closer to the precipice with Mr. Bush’s efforts to privatize the accounts themselves than it ever has been, and any alert member of American citizenry knows that it won’t be long now…
• Health care is in worse shape with every year that passes in this country. More families now live without a drop from the health care faucet than in 2000 (look it up). An overnight stay in most hospitals in America is more expensive than it was in 2000 and an astounding number of major employers in this country have either made their health care programs more expensive or in some cases cut them out entirely. And most of those lucky enough to still be able to afford the premiums have found the actual quality of the health care itself has plummeted. The medical industry is out of control, and all this administration has done is to willfully encourage this kind of patient-fleecing behavior to continue.

So, how many of my readers (all 3 of them) have ever had to sit through the yearly or bi-early Performance Review at their job? Sometimes it’s more than just worrying about getting a raise or not, there's genuine concern about keeping your job! Employers will be thoroughly prepared to hit you with tough questions about your failures and it will be up to you to deflect them (with facts if possible, not grandiose statements of intent and motivations read from those cheeseball posters on the breakroom walls) and sell your own genuine successes at the job.

Now why doesn’t our President have to do that? Why does he get to fail miserably at his job and, far worse than that, actually betray the people whom he is meant to represent! He has poisoned our homeland, murdered our people and hundreds of thousands abroad…earned us vicious and powerful enemies in fantatical religious groups as well as seriously threatening states. Mr. Bush has ignored his people repeatedly and flagrantly ignored or attacked the Constitution and the tattered remnants of the Bill of Rights.

Why does he still have a job?

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Will Someone PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!!??

“Will Someone Please Think About The Children!!!?” [Shriek, cry, whimper…]

Because god knows no one else is, right? I ask you this, dear reader: Is it just me or are we obsessed with ‘the children’ in this nation? At the cost of so much else –virtually all other stratum of society- we whine and cajole and legislate and spend, spend, spend to ‘protect’ our children (while ignoring our eldery). One would think, at first blush, that we are a nation who adore and treasure, as some in public office would put it, “Our Most Valuable Natural Resource”. Aww, that’s touching. Just think of the little apple-cheeked urchins with their dewy eyes and drool-coated chins glistening softly in the rosy hues of dawn’s first light. Coochy coochy coo!

Blecch!

First of all, that’s a crock. Anyone who believes that our government or our social culture is all about protecting and nurturing the health and the futures of our children needs smelling salts and a brain scan. Take a moment to review the ways we protect out children:

· Near-cataclysmic environmental future (our children’s future, and their children’s future, remember) being wrought by global warming and an all-encompassing poisoning of the earth.

· Growing crime rate due in large part to a failing school system (see below) and an widening gap between rich and poor, leaving well over 95% of our children in the latter category: Less money, unsafe neighborhoods, diminishing prospects of any education beyond 7^th or 8^th grade plus bottom-rung health care to boot!

· More foreign wars mean a higher likelihood that your son or daughter will be sent off to die or be mangled in a rich man’s staged slaughter fest.

· Shocking decline in the budget for our nation’s schools, including a reduction in number of teachers and materials, cutting of brain-enriching courses like art and music, and the forging of a overwhelming motivation for young people to drop out of high school altogether (because of a useless and stultifying school environment that falls well short of any genuine education). The function of the high schools is changing into little more than a place to keep kids busy until they’re old enough to work low-paying manufacturing and service industry jobs, providing nothing but the rudimentary education to do so.

· Complete disregard for the safety our children vis-à-vis gun laws. Read my last post, you’ll find some stomach-churning statistics (not invented by me, sorry NRA shit-wits) about the growing gun crime rates among children, teens and young adults. How many school shootings, featuring firearms and combat weaponry wielded by kids, have you heard of just in the last ten years or so?

· Automobile-dependent infrastructures not only contribute to the global warming and our air-poisoning crisis, but increase the chances that your child will be injured or killed in a car accident.

· Fatty foods and cigarettes, among other vices, are regularly marketed towards kids while parents and politicians alike turn a blind eye. Add this to 2/3 or more of our teenagers driving to get everywhere (again, a car-dominated infrastructure) and we’ve got a serious obesity crisis already manifest.

I could go on, but let’s keep this post moving. Here’s an exercise for you to do which will illustrate my point: While watching TV this week, keep count the number of commercials that clearly use children as a tool to pander their message. While sex is a more popular advertising tool, ‘the child’ is in a dead heat with Fear for second place (they’re the ones right between the bikini-girl infested beer ads and the Army recruitment commercials). Try to do this exercise during prime time if possible while watching shows that are ‘family-friendly’. Children are used to sell everything from cell phones to steel-belted radials…low-fat butter, minivans and SUVs, household alarm systems and Wal-Mart’s low-low prices.

Meanwhile what is overlooked is that we’re in effect doing nothing for our children. The quality of parenting, if the recent crop of kids is anything to judge by, is on a terrible slide and shows little sign of improvement. This is not to say that there aren’t millions of wonderful parents out there, and millions more who may not be the best but continue to try their best. The problems are deeper than that. We are fed lies and misinformation to worry about the wrong things:

Safe cars / Safe books / Be afraid of anyone who looks or sounds different than you / Safe political thoughts and cartoons free of the corrupting influence of those evil gays! Meanwhile our children are left completely adrift to develop the traits so necessary to a strong-minded and healthy human being. The ability to judge and decide situations for themselves, to have their eyes opened to the joys and real terrors of the world (which are not Arabs in masks) instead of so much being hidden from them until spoon-fed in a tightly controlled trickle of lukewarm middling. The chance to play music, learn another language, meet other kinds of people and receive an education that is both stimulating and challenging. Where are these things? The ability for parents to more effectively raise their children healthily and keep them active, challenged and even-tempered?

You’re on your own, parents. In this country we just like to look at kids, enjoy their cuteness, and feel righteous about them. Marcie thinks she’s the greatest person in the world because she got knocked up. Watch out everyone! Marcie’s coming through, propelling her stroller like a weapon and you better damn well get out of the way, you non-child-having scumbag!

Have you noticed this? That so many people with children think those of us who have none of our own and have no plans to “get pregnant” in the near future are somehow less worthwhile human beings. As though simply inseminating a fertile egg were the noblest act of which a person is capable. This thinly veiled disdain emanates like a vapor from a large percentage of child-ridden couples, many of whom had children for every reason except any genuine desire to bring up an honest, caring human being who’s going to make a contribution to this world (besides spitting out yet more babies). For instance:

· Children make the ideal accessory.

· Children will, in theory, be there to take care of you when you get old (even though you’ve probably already made plans to catapult your own parents into a home at the first opportunity). No guarantees, however.

· Your children will succeed everywhere that you have failed.

· Grandkids are fun.

· Tax breaks, tax breaks, tax breaks.

· You get to feel that at least you managed to create something lasting with your life, as everything else you've ever done will become dust once you have died.

· 24-7 feeling of self-righteous pride (I’ve have a child…what have YOU done?)

I mean, just bring to mind any time you’ve been in a moving crowd…airport, shopping mall, grocery store…how many times have you been nearly run over by some woman with a stroller the size of a Volkswagen whose mind is on everything except the ten feet of reality around her? She probably drives that way too, cell phone sandwiched between ear and shoulder, one hand on the wheel and the other cleaning up Gerber Strained Peach-flavored spittle from the leather seats of the 13 mpg Suburban while alternating between her conversation and sudden exasperated pleas towards the shrieking poop factory in the $275.00 child restraining device in the backseat…towards which at least 65% of her attention is turned while maintaining 70 miles per hour weaving back and forth between lanes. But don’t you DARE reproach her for it, heavens no! “What the hell do you know? Do you have kids? Didn’t think so, Buster! When you have kids and you experience how difficult it is to deal with them, then come complain to me.”

I’m sorry Ma’am. I didn’t realize your child was more important than my life. You're right, even though it’s your child, it should be more important to me than I am to myself. How silly of me!

Maybe they’re jealous, ya know? They’re jealous because those of us without children still possess our own lives, we can still do what we want. We haven’t handed over at least the next 18 years of our lives to someone else who will take as much as you have to give. Many all-too-fertile couples are probably thinking, deep within their subconscious, hidden beneath countless membranes of rationalization and denial…

“Why the hell did I have kids? No one was pointing a gun at my head…I didn’t have to do this!”

And then the panic starts, and the bile rises…until, depending on the inner strength of the afflicted person, at last the denial trumps once again and a flood of shallow, empty reasons, usually pawned off other parents or television shows or fundamentalist religious ideologies, comes to their aid like a soothing balm.

“No, it’s not me that made the mistake. I got to witness the miracle of childbirth*, it’s those poor confused souls without children who are really suffering!”

Followed by a condescending, sympathetic grin. Yea, I’m suffering all right. Sleeping soundly, spending my money on what I choose instead of diapers and formula and college funds and medical expenses and more food and more clothes and more crap, more and more crap…this sucks. Woo boy, this is awful.

*No one ever talks about the miracle of afterbirth, however...

Thing is, I actually have nothing against kids, once I get past my slight-taste-of-vomit reaction to their gag-inducing smell, shrill noises and saucer-eyed stupidity. After all, I was once drooling and stupid and pooping my pants (and it wasn’t college). That’s just kids, that’s how they start. I’m told that when it’s your kid, it’s much easier to see past all the hideousness, and I’m willing to believe that, to a point. I can hardly believe that the stench of sudden pools of lime-green fecal matter to clean up is ever a pleasant thing, but I think I get the gist of it. My problem is not the kids themselves, it’s what the parents turn into; it’s the society that treats those of us who dare to choose life for ourselves as outcasts, as second-tier citizens. It’s as though our race were dying out and we needed to keep churning out more babies. To hell with the ugly fact that overpopulation is far ahead of every other major world crisis in the race to make our planet uninhabitable.

But let’s keep turning out tire commercials whose message, without the least bit of subtlety, is that it’s not nearly as important if you kill someone unless that someone is a child. What are we saying? Are our lives forfeit after we turn 18? Or 25? Are we worth nothing more than growing up to become baby-factories? At least our tires will protect the children, because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Protecting the children?

Surely I know, as an adult, that if a 7500 lb SUV runs over me (because their tires weren’t good enough), I’m much more likely to survive it than my child is, right. Or do I matter?

But I haven't forgotten that if parents actually try to raise a child in a responsible and encouraging manner, to love and cherish that child and yet let him or her be who they want to be, and not try to mold them into a little version of themselves, then it can be a 'miracle', or at least as close as a godless bastard like me can envision.

If you're gonna be a parent, be a wonderful parent. You can make a brilliant addition to the world thereby, I truly believe that.

Otherwise, don't bother.

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