Month: December 2004

RIP

Actor Jerry Orbach, who played a sardonic, seen-it-all cop on TV’s “Law & Order,” and scored on Broadway as a song-and-dance man, has died of prostate cancer at 69, a representative of the show said today. Orbach died Tuesday night in Manhattan after several weeks of treatment, Audrey Davis of the public relations agency Lippin Group said. When his illness was diagnosed, he had begun production on NBC’s upcoming spinoff “Law & Order: Trial By Jury,” after 12 seasons playing Detective Lennie Briscoe in the original series. His return to the new show had been expected early next year. On Broadway, the Bronx-born Orbach starred in hit musicals including “Carnival,” “Promises, Promises,” (for which he won a Tony Award), “Chicago” and “42nd Street.”

Between my addiction to “Law & Order” and the dozens of times I watched “Dirty Dancing” growing up, I have probably seen this man on screen more than any other single actor. Somehow, he seemed immortal. I’ll miss him.

Barely narrower

The Ohio Recount has been completed, and it dropped Bush’s lead from 118,775 to 118,457 votes. Of course, as the Washington Post points out:

The completion of the recount will not bring an end to questions surrounding the vote in Ohio. A group of voters citing fraud have challenged the election results in the Ohio Supreme Court. The voters, supported by Jesse L. Jackson, have cited irregularities including long lines, a shortage of voting machines in minority precincts and problems with computer equipment.

My understanding is that Congress, or at least Rep Conyers, is still doing some investigation, but if there was election day fraud, I think it’s too late to uncover it.

Making way for something better?

No Thanks for the Memories

Dave Barry’s end-of-the-year recap was in yesterday’s Washington Post (and presumably other papers as well). His hypothesis is that 2004 could have been worse. You know, if an asteroid had hit the earth, or the Yankees had won the World Series. So if you’re thinking that between the presidential election, the country’s foreign policy, the country’s spending, the low carb craze, reality TV, and Cher, the year was pretty dismal, I recommend reading the column. It might not make you feel any better about the year, but at least it’ll make you smile.

Also, this is Dave Barry’s second to last column. I’m very sad.

More on Dover

Sidenote: My apologies if this is incoherent. I’m exhausted. I was going to use this space to tell you about why, but I think that’ll have to wait until after the holiday. In case I forget to post on Saturday, have a very Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and a very good just-another-day if you don’t. And now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast…

According to an attorney for the Dover Area School District, a restraining order is not necessary to prevent the teaching of Intelligent Design in biology classes next month. Of course, none of the articles I’ve found seem to offer any specifics about what’s being taught instead. While I suppose it’s unlikely that Dover biology teachers are the driving force behind this law, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that ID, in some form, was already being taught.

My sophomore 20th century US history class at Red Land High School included three days of lecture (well, argument, since I was in the class) on creationism and its merits, presented in the guise of “learning” about the Scopes Monkey Trial. The thing is, it doesn’t matter so much what the official policy is, or what’s Constitutional or not. For better or worse, teachers are going to manage to work their beliefs into the classroom.

In some ways, I think that’s good. It’s important to learn that people have different views. I also think it’s okay to point out that there are holes in Darwinism. I think, in a class about Christianity, it’d be good to point out that there are a lot of unaccounted for years in Christ’s life. I don’t think we should guard any one idea from criticism simply because we’re afraid of the current alternatives.

My tenth grade history teacher began his Scopes lecture by saying, “In order to believe in evolution, two things are necessary: you must have faith, and you must believe in the spontaneous creation of life.” My hand was in the air. “Uh, isn’t that what’s necessary to believe in creationism?” I got no satisfactory answer, of course, but that didn’t stop him from proceeding to tell us that this proved that creationism was a better model.

While there were elements of truth in his initial statement, holes in one theory are not sufficient evidence that another is true. It seems like this is the entire premise of the ID argument — there is no other science involved. In my mind, this should preclude it from being taught in a science class.

I think it would be cool to offer an Origin Theory class, examining Darwinism, ID, literal biblical creationism, and perhaps creation “theories” from other cultures and religions, too. Kind of a very focused comparative religion class. But not a science class.

As long as we have a government monopoly on education, I’d like to see a wider variety of subjects and perspectives being taught in public schools. The Supreme Court has said that the 14th Amendment gives parents the right to educate their children as they see fit. Provide opportunities for children to receive the right education for them, as they and their parents see it. Don’t force anything.

And especially not in a science class.

Mostly, I’m kicking myself for not raising a bigger stink about that 10th grade “history” teacher.

Prisoner abuse

The ACLU has obtained documents from the FBI relating to the “inhumane interrogation techniques” used on prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo.

Here’s the NYT article.

Here’s the ACLU press release.

I wanted to read the email myself, but it’s been trying to load for a while now and doesn’t seem to be making any progress. But I think it’s very interesting that the ACLU focuses on the possibility that the Prez himself may have authorized some questionable techniques, while the NYT doesn’t really mention that.

Beyond that, well, it’s all so hideous I don’t really have much to say.

Intelligent Design?

Pennsylvania’s School of Creationism

There’s a fine line.

I’m frustrated by my recent inner turmoil about whether or not to be offended by a Menorah at a public function, and then about whether or not to be offended by my own lack of offence. I’m frustrated that we are so PC that we are automatically offended by symbols of the majority holiday, but encouraging (in a vaguely patronizing way) of symbols of minority holidays.

I’m frustrated that we are so adamant about removing anything even vaguely related to religion (especially majority religion) from any institution even vaguely related to government. I dislike our society’s current trend toward “Scientism” over any and all ideas that cannot be explained in a laboratory.

Sometimes I even believe in something that could be described as “intelligent design”, although I doubt it’s something most Christians would recognize as such.

And yet…

In a town only ten miles from mine, they are mandating the teaching of Creationism in high school biology classes. Mostly, I’m appalled.

There’s a fine line. I don’t know where to draw it.

(And as a side note, perhaps this, along with the claim that “45 per cent of Americans believe that humans were created by God in their current form within the past 10,000 years”, could be indicative of an atmosphere in which it is secularists, rather than Christians, who are most eager to loosen restrictions on private schools and vouchers. A natural shift, if “liberal” has anything to do with “liberty”.)

Fundraiser

For those of you who live in the Harrisburg area — on December 17, 18, & 19, if you shop at the Borders on Jonestown Road and use the certificate below, they’ll donate 15% of your sale to The Circle School. I don’t normally post stuff like this, but I’ve been procrastinating on my holiday shopping and plan to do some of it at Borders. So if you’re in the same boat, print this out, and take it with you next weekend!

BordersCertificate.jpg

Rethinking roads

I thought I blogged this the last time I read about it, but if I did, I can’t find the post. But today Wired has an article about roads gone wild — an interesting new theory in traffic engineering.

The basic premise is that if there are no signs telling drivers where and how to drive, they’ll slow down and think about it themselves. In other words, “Build roads that seem dangerous, and they’ll be safer.” Wired says this is counterintuitive. I guess that depends on your mindset.

What I think is interesting are the possible implications not only for traffic patterns, but for changing societal patterns as well. Someone recently commented to me about how strange it is that we don’t look at each other as people when we’re in our cars. We’ve built huge parts of our lives around them, but they aren’t integrated, they’re separate, and they separate us.

I love my car, and, despite what the article says, it is a symbol of freedom for me. But more in a sunset-chasing, random-roadtrip-taking way, not so much in a day-to-day way. In a day-to-day way I hate traffic and how far away everything is. For that, I’d like to see communities similar to the idea apparently being encouraged in New Jersey mentioned at the end of the article.

Separation of church & state

NPR is running a four part special on Islam in Europe. Today’s report focuses on a French law banning headscarves in public schools, and the broader issue of whether or not France can integrate its large Muslim population. I heard only the first few minutes of the story, but I find it disturbing that any government is still grappling with issues like these — here and abroad.

I am not religious. I have spiritual leanings and even hold a belief in something greater, but organized religion holds little for me. I do, however, recognize that it is important to many people, and I recognize that organized religion can be a powerful force for good, both on an individual level and on a societal level. It can also be a powerful oppressor, and the need for a separation of church and state is certainly great.

Forcing anyone to practice something in which they do not believe is a recipe for violent conflict. But so is prohibiting those practices which do not interfere with others’ lives.

In America, we deal with these issues, too. Our Constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We are in the strange polarized position of prohibiting religion in some public institutions — like voluntary school prayer — and respecting it in others — like banning gay marriage. What we have done in some cases respects the establishment of religious beliefs so ingrained in our society that we have a hard time separating them, while in other cases we prohibit the peaceful and free expression of religion. We seem to be eliminating religion only where its influence is obvious, without regard for the effect of the practice.

Throughout history, religious conflicts have been fiercest when a religious group feels that its ability to practice is being oppressed. As we hear over and over, Islam is not a violent religion. As we hear less often, any religion, including Islam, may become violent if its members are not permitted to practice peacefully. Study the roots of militant Islam in nearly any country in which it exists to see that the results of governments becoming afraid of moderate Muslims and cracking down, causing those moderates to become radical and sometimes violent.

This is not an excuse for violence. There have been peaceful resistances to religious oppression, and such a resistance is always preferable.

It is frustrating, though, that after hundreds of years of the same patterns, so many of us are unable to recognize that our fear of Islam, or any other religion, will only serve to exacerbate the rift.

Permitting headscarves in public schools will not threaten France’s secularism; banning them will alienate a large portion of their population, and increase the likelihood of violent conflict.

Here at home we need to reevaluate our own attitudes about the relationship between religion and government. Let’s start by asking not how marriage should be defined, but whether or not it serves a legitimate secular purpose that couldn’t be better served in another way. Let’s ask if prohibiting all religion in state-funded schools is really in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, or if perhaps it respects the establishment of no religion over other belief systems. In our quest to keep church and state separate, the two have become inordinately tangled. The questions aren’t easy, but they don’t have to be this hard.