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This news is either weird, or offensive, I’m not sure what. One of the local churches is holding some kind of bombastic special event — sturm und drang Christian style — at which they will hand out prizes. Examples include a TV, a vacation, … a car!
Need I say that the church is Pentecostal? Maybe it’s just me, but Pentecostal-style churches seem to borrow heavily from secular entertainment shows for their services. Now, they are adopting a game-show mentality to win people to the Lord. Visitors might now say, as they leave a service, “Well, I wanted to be born again, but I was really holding out for that convertible.”
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So, this evening we graduated 41 seniors, with none of the church-state drama some other Kentucky high schools are suffering through. In fact, our ceremony was, as usual, quite pleasant.
Being a small school helps, since reading only 30-40 names goes a lot quicker than 300-400 or more, but we have honed the ceremony down to the essentials.
Herewith is a summary of the evening’s festivities. Times are approximate, since I was not really keeping track of time.
At 5:45, students enter auditorium to precessional by brass quartet, followed by faculty.
Invocation, very non-denominational, by female Episcopal minister. (3 minutes)
Head of school offers welcoming remarks and addresses class. (About 10 minutes)
Alumni award is given to a member of class of ’84. (About 15 minutes)
Featured speaker is departing history teacher, who recalls his youthful optimism of the late ’60s and charges the seniors with the task of retaining theirs. Then he sings the Bob Dylan song, “Forever Young,” accompanied by one of the seniors on guitar. Who knew he could sing? [Last year, a math teacher danced during his speech. Don't ask.] (About 15 minutes)
Honors graduates are recognized, Commonwealth Diploma graduate recognized. (10 minutes)
Awards are given to five students. (20 minutes)
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But of the two, I’d rather keep Geena Davis/Mackenzie Allen around for a while.
OK, I admit it. I am a sucker for TV. I have given it up several times in the past, but always end up returning to suckle at “The Glass Teat,” to use SF author Harrison Harlan Ellison’s phrase.
ABC premiered Commander in Chief last fall, starring Davis as a female vice-president who ends up in the seat of power. She is a political independent, a former academic with three kids and an understanding, politically savvy husband. Her running mate, a Democrat, picked her to appeal to that demographic, but as he lies in his sickbed, makes it clear to her that she has to step aside to let the Speaker of the House (played by Donald Sutherland) take charge.
After some internal conflict, she refuses, taking the oath of office at the end of the first episode.
The second ep was also pretty good, as we get a glimpse of the problems Allen and her family face professionally and personally as she settles into office.
Later eps lost the initial lustre and viewers bailed out. There were apparently some problems between the creator/writer/producer Rob Luria and ABC, too. They sacked him, replacing him with veteran TV writer/producer Stephen Bochco of NYPD Blue fame.
Then CiC went on hiatus, which is thinly disguised TV biz shorthand for, “we’re not too sure what to do now. We don’t have enough episodes in the can to run while we figure it out. So we’ll pull it off the air, run some other drivel in its place, and try later.”
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My AP students put this on my board, apropos of nothing.
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There’s another questionnaire you can take online to determine where you stand on the left-right, authoritarian-libertarian plane. It’s like the Myers-Briggs personality test.
My score was:
Economic Left/Right: -5.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.74
This puts me in the left-wing, libertarian quadrant with Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi., according to PoliticalCompass.org. For comparison, George W. Bush is roughly 180 degrees from me in the right-wing, authoritarian quadrant. [See below. I added my coordinates manually.]
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You Belong in Paris
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You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris.You’re the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.
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The WSJ has a concise and balanced report about two recent discoveries that support evolutionary theory, or do not, depending on your viewpoint.
The first involves fossils of an ancient animal with features intermediate between water-dwelling fish and land-dwelling tetrapods. The fossils support the hypothesis that land-dwelling animals evolved from aquatic creatures. Creationists and intelligent design proponents are unconvinced, however.
The second involves the recreation of an ancient hormonal receptor, to test one of the hypotheses of intelligent design, that the many aspects of living organisms are too complex to have developed randomly. Receptors and hormones were believed to be co-dependent, begging the question of how they could evolve simultaneously. The conclusion is that the receptor developed first, and the hormone second, refuting the ID hypothesis.
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