(no subject)

ValleyMetro, our local transit authority, is cashing in on the American Idol fad.

"Science" with finger quotes.

If creationism is being taught in schools in the South, and only men can bake cookies in textbooks nationwide, then perhaps we should start a campaign to get schools to start teaching parallel chemistry curricula.

Right now, our children are being taught that in combustion, material combines with oxygen in the air. But, in the name of fairness, should we not also propose the alternate theory of combustion, that phlogiston is released from flammable objects into the air? And, of course, tell the children to use their own critical thinking facilities to decide for themselves which is true.

Hell, I'm not putting any kids into this system, so why the hell not? But if you are, maybe you should read the book whose review I just linked to.

(no subject)

In a speech titled "Is that a burqa on the bedroom floor?", Sarah Fitz-Claridge writes:

"In the early nineteenth century, when India was a British colony, a new incoming governor was once shocked to find out about wife burning, so he banned it. The entire Hindu community was outraged and hurt. The previous governor had always respected their local customs. He had believed in freedom of religion, and in minimal government and the non-intervention principle – rather like Star Trek's Prime Directive – which a friend of mine calls the ‘Crime Directive’, because it seems to entail nothing but evil, and siding with evil."

Anyway, the Hindus sent the new governor a polite but anguished deputation. They said that they'd never done him any harm. Didn't he realise that he was initiating an attack on something that was very deep in their culture and that they were not harming anyone else, and all they wanted was to be left alone. They appealed to the Governor to respect the customs of their country, as they respected his. “But in my country, we have a custom too,” the governor replied. “When a man sets fire to his wife, we hang him.”

Taking the Star Trek tangent, I'd like to talk about the Prime Directive and cultural non-interference. ( Read more... )