For a Yale graduate, our prexy seems to express important ideas paradoxically like a 14-year-old. Witness this comment from his press conference in Chicago this week:

“And it’s, kind of — you know, it’s kind of painful in a way for some to watch, because it takes a while to get people on the same page,” Bush said. “Not everybody thinks the exact same way we think. Different words mean different things to different people. And the diplomatic processes can be slow and cumbersome.”

Yup. That’s true, but could we have expressed it with somewhat more erudition?

July 8th, 2006 | Tags: The media | Category: Random rants | Leave a comment

Despite all the media frenzy about the risks to the crew, Discovery successfully made orbit Tuesday and docked with the International Space Station this morning. So far the mission of STS-121 is so routine as to be boring. And that’s good.

The big issue in media reports centered around the foam insulation surrounding the external fuel tank - the rusty-red cylinder carrying the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen “fuel” for the shuttle’s main engines. The insulation is necessary to keep the liquified gases cold.

It also has a tendency to fall off during launch. A large chunk of insulation hit the Shuttle Columbia on takeoff, damaging its protective, heat resistant tiles. The Columbia disintegrated on re-entry on Feb. 1,  2003, as a result of the damage. Atmospheric friction burned holes through the metal skin of the spaceplane, killing all on board.

NASA officials, not known for their eloquence, reported that inspection of Discovery’s external fuel tank had revealed some fracturing or loosening of the foam insulation, but that the faults would not endanger the mission.

They said nothing about endangering the crew, although it is probably what they meant. The media nearly went ape-shit, claiming NASA officials were more worried about making a return to space after a three-year hiatus than about ensuring the lives of the seven-person crew.

July 6th, 2006 | Tags: Science, Technology, The media | Category: Commentary | Comments (2)

After The Daily Kos and Unclaimed Territory jumped all over them, Stop the ACLU Coalition removed from its website the address of a Jewish family in the Indian River School District in Delaware.

The family was one of the plaintiffs in a suit against the school district, alleging the schools there were pushing a Christian agenda in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The family has since moved, but there is some debate whether they moved before or after the website published their address and phone.

The leftwing blogosphere condemned the STACLU tactic as a fascist tactic reminiscent of white supremacist groups targeting their enemies or presumed enemies.

STACLU, with its typical anti-left bluster, has since pulled the offensive post, saying it was on the advice of its attorneys. Like a schoolyard bully, it throws taunts at the left as it leaves the playground after being thrashed in a fight.

Regardless of its reasons, the whole affair demonstrates not only the power of the “pen,” but the self-correcting nature of the internet. STACLU went too far. Wiser minds prevailed.

July 6th, 2006 | Tags: The media | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

After threatening weather scrubbed Discovery’s July 1 takeoff, NASA postponed the first shuttle launch in months until (perhaps symbolically) July 4.

I’m planning a more detailed post once the shuttle (shown here on the launch pad) is actually safely in orbit.

July 3rd, 2006 | Tags: Technology | Category: Physics | Leave a comment

Apparently, the latest rightwing tactic in its battle for “truth, justice and the American way” is to intimidate private citizens.

Case 1. A Jewish family in Delaware has filed suit against the Indian River School District, alleging school officials of heavily pushing Christianity and alleging harassment of Jewish children. The Delaware ACLU has taken on the case, prompting a leading anti-ACLU group to post the family’s name, address and telephone number on its website. The family has since moved, fearing for its safety.

The Stop the ACLU Coalition advises its readers of the rules for this new “outing the plaintiffs” program:

1. If it’s a 10 Commandments, cross or religious symbols case, you may call only if you live in the jurisdiction. If the suit is against a county, you may call if you reside in that county. If the suit is against a city, you may call only if you live in that city.
2. If it’s a school that’s involved such as in this one, you may call if you live in the district or have a student attending the school there or if you have a family member working there.
3. If #s 1 and 2 do not apply, please only write a letter. We will also post e-mail addresses if they can be found.

July 3rd, 2006 | Tags: The media | Category: Random rants | Leave a comment

The latest development in the continuing battle between free speech and the Establishment clause is a lawsuit brought by a high school senior against her school in Everett, Wash.

Kathryn Nurre, 18, contends in a suit filed last Monday in U.S. District Court that the superintendent of her school district violated her free speech rights when he vetoed her wind ensemble’s graduation musical selection.

Nurre, a sax player, and the other 16 members of the ensemble had chosen an instrumental arrangement of Ave Maria. The Everett School District superintendent,  Dr. Carol Whitehead,  believed the selection had too overt a religious theme, despite having no lyrics. She changed the graduation piece to one by Gustav Holst.

Nurre claims she and her fellow musicians had no intention of making a religious statement. They chose the arrangement, which the ensemble had already performed in 2004, on its musical merits.

Ave Maria, for the Latin-challenged, is “Hail Mary,” the beginning of the annunciation in Luke 1, in which the Angel Gabriel informs Mary of her unique position among women. It is a traditional Catholic prayer, taken from the Latin Vulgate Bible. Scores of musicians have set the text to music since the early Renaissance.

Even assuming the audience at Nurre’s graduation was aware of the history behind the piece, the performance of an instrumental version is hardly a violation of the separation of church and state.  Merely playing music inspired by a composer’s faith does not constitute imposing a particular faith (Catholicism?) on the audience.

July 2nd, 2006 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary | Leave a comment

As we near the 230th “birthday” of the United States, or at least of the colonial resistance, I have been reflecting on whether I am proud of my country or ashamed of the direction it has taken these last several years. The United States of 2006 is not my image of a nation that I have lived in for a half century. Rather, USA-2006’s image merges with other, less palatable images of totalitarian countries and theocratic societies, both real and fictional. Today’s USA seem remote from the picture of the democratic, pluralistic nation the 18th century colonists worked so hard to create.

About a quarter of my ancestors were among those colonists, immigrants from the British Isles seeking freedom from a nation that was oppressive socially, economically and theologically. Biographical information about those ancestors are now lost in the dim mists of time, but from the available data I can paint a rough sketch of their motivations for risking a dangerous transatlantic voyage.

Undoubtedly they were mostly farmers. Some were whalers. Others sailors and fishermen. One branch consisted of Baptists, the other Quakers. We can assume that they came to the American colonies (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Long Island and western New Jersey) as (using modern terminology) economic and religious refugees. They came looking for the freedom to earn a decent living, free from excessive taxation and competition from those of higher station. They also wanted the freedom to worship as they wished, free from the State Church and the decades-long governmental oppression of the non-conformist churches.

July 2nd, 2006 | Category: Commentary, General stuff | Comments (5)

In the wake of the Nevada graduation speech  tempest, rightwing pundits, like Sean Hannity, are once again declaiming there is a “war on Christianity.”  It’s just a lot of hot air.

Christians run afoul of the Constitution and the legal system, not because they are some kind of special group, but because they are simply the loudest and most obtrusive group. In other words, it’s the squeaky wheel  that gets the oil.

Suppose we take a sample of 100 individuals representative of the US population. According to the statistics at this site, of that sample, there would be 84 Christians, two Jews, two Muslims and one Buddhist. The rest would presumably be “other,” Hindus, wiccans, pagans, atheists and what have you.

Of the Christians, we could expect 52 to be Protestant, 24 to be Catholic and 2 to be Mormons. I’m not sure where eastern Orthodox would fit in.

Now, let’s analyze this population sample. Of these 100 individuals, who would be most likely to proselytize, insist their religious practices should be public events, and demand their beliefs achieve primacy in US law and US schools.

The Buddhist? Nope. Buddhists are pretty mellow. Ditto Hindus, if you make the possible exception of the Hare Krishnas.

Muslims, with the exception of the Nation of Islam, do not typically proselytize among non-believers, at least in the US. Given current global politics, trying to win converts to Islam would be unwise, to say the least. Nor do they insist that their children’s public schools call off school lunches during Ramadan.

June 28th, 2006 | Tags: Professional skeptic, The media | Category: Random rants | Comments (2)

I’m going to add my comments here, rather than clutter up the previous post.

In reading over McComb’s speech a few times, I can see why the school officials cut her mike when they did. Right there in paragraph 6, McComb’s subject veers sharply from relatively generic “high-school-girl-grows-up” commentary right into Christian theology, by referring to the Crucifixion and quoting John 10:10. Until that point, her text was more generally about God and how accepting Him filled a gaping hole in her soul. Had she left out reference to Christ’s self-sacrifice, the other religious content — even the quote from Jeremiah — probably would have passed muster.

Well, it would have if I had been the one vetting her speech, anyway.

While I have my doubts whether McComb did the right thing by defying school officials after agreeing to their editorial control, in some ways she had a good point. The school officials were being overly sensitive in deleting most of the religious references. On the other hand, they probably exercised some good judgment in preventing McComb from espousing definitively Christian theology.
In my high school on Long Island, where there was (and probably still is) a sizable Jewish population, making specific reference to Christ dying on the cross for our sins would have alienated, and angered, a fair number of the students and their families at graduation. Our community was too pluralistic (Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Jews) for anyone in our class to even consider making such potentially offensive references in a public speech, anyway.
I can’t be sure, but judging from this site’s data, the populace of Henderson is primarily Christian. Presumably, most of the folks there would share McComb’s beliefs and would find nothing at all offensive in the reference to the Passion of Christ. She herself probably never gave a thought toward respecting other religious believers in the audience.

June 27th, 2006 | Tags: Education & schools | Category: Commentary | Comments (2)