The next leap into space
The Ares I-X orbital vehicle is sitting on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral this morning, waiting for its first flight test. America’s next leap into space is about to take first steps.
Here is a great page for showing your children where their future is going.
Mr. Crumb, of underground comic fame, has released an illustrated Book of Genesis. (I should have bought it at the local comic con earlier this month.)
Lot, post-Sodom and Gomorrah
I must have dozed off in Sunday School when they covered the above-illustrated story about Lot’s daughters having sex with him (“to maintain his line”) (Genesis 19). This was after Lot had offered the samesaid daughters to a gang of rowdies for a group shagging, just so the gang would leave Lot and his guests (the pair of angels that had come to warn him of Sodom and Gomorrah’s imminent destruction) alone.
I must have been on vacation when they discussed the business of Elijah asking God to send she-bears to rip apart the children that had made fun of Elijah’s bald head (2 Kings 2).
And we’re not going to get anywhere near that psilocybin trip that is Revelations.
So…if you absolutely insist that faith-based concepts like “intelligent design” and “creationism” (the same thing) be excluded from a class teaching science (a rational system not based upon faith), you are indulging in fascism.
(pause)
I’m waiting for them to pull the other finger.
William Safire
Former New York Times columnist William Safire died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday.
Safire spent 30 years writing material dealing with words–their usages, their meanings, and their evolution. His work was fun to read, intelligent, and very informative.
It’s not often that a newspaper column consistently performs as an educational experience. I fondly remember finding and reading his column first when I would pick up a copy of the Times.
I’ve missed his regular column since he retired, and I will miss him as well.
(from an anonymous source on the web)
His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran toward the cry. He found a terrified boy mired to his waist in black muck, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.
‘I want to repay you,’ said the nobleman. ‘You saved my son’s life.’
‘No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,’ the Scottish farmer replied.
At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel. ‘Is that your son?’ the nobleman asked.
‘Yes,’ the farmer replied proudly.
‘I’ll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.’ The farmer agreed.
Fleming’s son attended the very best schools, and in time graduated from St. Ma
ry’s Hospital Medical School in London, He went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of the antibiotic penicillin.
Years afterward, the same nobleman’s son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia. It was penicillin that saved his life.
The name of the nobleman had been Lord Randolph Churchill.
The first name of the boy who was rescued was Winston.
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…and if this sounds like an incredible story, it is indeed an incredible story. It’s also not true. None of it. As a boy Churchill never vacationed in an incredibly remote corner of highlands Scotland. Fleming didn’t rush into a highly successful medical career, and Churchill was treated with sulfa and digitalis, not penicillin, when he came down with pneumonia.
Lesson? Always, always confirm what you proclaim beforehand.
Oh, glurge? Google is your friend.
(thanks to Snopes for a little background research)
There is an interesting article by Margaret Talbot in this week’s online New Yorker entitled “Red Sex, Blue Sex”, and subtitled “Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?”
There are several interesting bullet points here that bear mention:
1. What are the names of your child’s best friends at school? Have you met their parents?
2. What is the name of your child’s teacher, the teacher’s office phone number, and the teacher’s qualifications to teach?
3. What are the qualifications of the school principal?
4. Have you read your child’s textbooks? checked them for factual content?
5. Do you have regular meetings/chats/email with your child’s teacher?
6. Do you speak up at school board meetings?
7. Do you regularly discuss and participate in your child’s homework?
8. Do you study proposals to modify school funding in your area, and vote accordingly?
If so, excellent!
If not, why the hell not? Don’t you care about the quality of education your child is receiving?
You don’t like the quality of your child’s education? Fine. Look into private schools, or homeschooling, or at least get more involved in what you do have.
A lovely breath of 