Can you imagine?

Can you imagine people rising up to protest any of the previous presidents speaking directly to school children by way of video or television?  It’s hard to imagine even Clinton taking heat for this sort of thing, and he took heat for almost everything.

The Right kept accusing us of trying to politicize criminal behavior, but they politicize EVERYTHING.  They politicized town hall debates on health care.  And now they’re politicizing a speech made by the duly elected President to school children about the value of education.

They’re whooping our asses.  They’re able to stay on message, go on the attack, and stay on attack, while we run around in a disorganized gaggle.  We can be formidable, but only in small groups–if cornered.  As a whole, we’re too easily fractured, and broken into our component groups.

Our elected representative go off message way too often, they don’t seem to communicate worth a damn with one another, and they act as though they spend their lives in a bubble untouched by the outside world.  This whole affair is appalling.  They’re protesting a perfectly legitimate public act by the President of the United States.  Out of nothing but spite and (quite possibly) overt racist tendencies.

It’s truly pathetic, and it’s truly pathetic that our leaders aren’t calling them out for the cowardly, stupid, and truly un-American crazies they are.  “Seriously, people, what are you afraid of?  That Obama’s going to hypnotize your children with his African voodoo gaze?”

Right Wingers–undeniable proof that America needs more psychological help than it’s getting.

I pledge alliegance to…

There’s currently a facebook poll on the Pledge, and whether or not we should bring it back to American schools.  There are three possible answers.

“Yes,” because they’re attending an American school (and what this has to do with anything, I don’t know)

“No,” because it’s offensive to what the kid(s) believe (referring to specific children, I imagine),

“Yes,” for those kids who want to do it.

Most people don’t know that the Pledge was originally written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist minister.  Interesting that most folks who’d like to see the pledge return would be scandalized if they did know this, and they would’ve fought it tooth and nail when it was originally introduced.

I love the smell of hypocrisy at midnight.

The original text:

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”  We can all remember the changes that have been instituted in time, the most questionable of which was the addition of “Under God” in 1954.

At various times, there was a lot of conflict with groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who saw it as idolatry.  From their perspective, they were probably right.  You know–stopped clock and all that.  American atheists, agnostics, and “Free Thinkers” found it particularly odorous after this last addition, yet most of us Gen X-ers would probably remember being forced to recite it as children ourselves.  Obviously, the objections of these groups were considered to be of little consequence.

I don’t like it.  Never have.  I regularly pledged my liver to an assortment of imaginary agencies as a child, and the few times I remember being asked to recite the vow as a teenager–well, it’s doubtful that I would’ve been given a pass had they heard what I was saying then.

From my perspective, a forced oath is meaningless.  A promise made under duress (and what greater duress could there be as an innocent child made to do so by authority figures appointed to educate them?) has no value.  In fact one might go so far as to say it’s offensive to anyone who has ever knowingly taken and kept an oath of his or her own volition.  It cheapens their sacrifice.

And forced oaths have no place in an allegedly free society.

I’m sure people will disagree with me.  It wouldn’t be the first time.   Don’t care.

It’s a free country.  Allegedly.

You keep using that word, “theory,”

but I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Okay, evolution deniers, I’ve had just about all of your willful blindness that I can take.  You say evolution’s only a theory, so it’s not really proven science.  A Theory is as “proven” as it gets.  Acting as though it means the same thing as some yutz–like, maybe, YOU, saying “I have a theory that we’re going to have ham for dinner tonight” shows a remarkable ignorance not only of science, but of critical thinking in general.

I had this conversation the other day.  With a coworker.  I mentioned “the kind of nuts who don’t believe in evolution” and then discovered that she, specifically, was that kind of nut.  I’ll admit, I felt like a bit of a jerk.  For all of five seconds.  I simply said “Huh” and went about my business.

So she asks me, “What does that mean, Huh?  You sound like you don’t approve.”  (Or something similar).  She was fishing for more than a single grunt in response.

So I reply “I’m just not sure I’ve ever met someone who didn’t believe in evolution.”  You skeptics and what not say what you will about pagans, at least they believe in science.  They just believe in other things BESIDES science.  I’m agnostic, but I have a lot of friends (and a wife) who are pagan.  One in particular I’d just love to see in a debate here, as a matter of fact.  I wouldn’t care who “won.”  I’d just like to see it.

But I digress.  After I say that, she’s silent for a little while, then started in about it “only being a theory.”  I sighed, and thought about how to counter this.  I paid some attention in High School science classes, but I don’t remember off-hand how they defined them.  If I remember correctly, “theory” means something that’s been proven.  It’s as “hard” as science gets sometimes, given that science, unlike superstition, allows for new information to change accepted assumptions.

I told her as much, saying that science isn’t the same as mathematics, where 2+2=4 and that’s it.  The term “theory” is science’s (and scientists’) way of saying “there are very few absolutes, but this is what looks to be the case.”  Our medical sciences are, to a great extent, based upon the theory of evolution–particularly germ theory.  We’re able to combat germs because we understand how it’s likely to react to certain stimuli–based on what we understand of how they evolve.  If evolution wasn’t a fact as well as a “theory,” we wouldn’t be able to manipulate them the way we do.

Closer to home, I pointed out, is the simple existence of dogs.  Man’s best friend and all that.  A creature we have been deliberately breeding (evolving) as WE chose for the better part of several thousand (who knows how many?)years.  All those remarkably different creatures are, in fact, nearly identical genetically.  And only a hand-span away from the wolves that spawned them.

Adaptation and Natural Selection are observable facts.  Our understanding of how it works may not be complete, but no credible scientist has any doubt that evolution occurs and is, in fact, occurring around us all the time.  I realize this flies in the face of the whole “God Created Man” thing, but, seriously, do you want your science to be based on faith and dogma rather than observable phenomenon?  Would you trust your safety to an airplane built like a cross with no consideration for lift and drag and other physical laws based on the idea that “faith” would help it fly?  Would you bet your faith against the laws of motion?  I don’t care HOW pious you are, you can’t evade the laws of physics.

So the way you deal with the seeming dichotomy between your “divinely inspired” book and real world science we use and depend on every day is to deny the science.  Because you know, deep down, which you should actually trust.  Science has no agenda and has built millions of tools that have shaped our world and continue to do so.  Religion and “faith” possess the agenda of whoever’s interpreting the documentation and has never once, by itself, added to the sum of human knowledge with regards to the physical laws of the universe.

You get on a plane and fly because science told them how to make a machine that could fly.  You pick up a phone and call your wife because science told them how to project information through the air in radio waves.  You climb in your car and motor down to church because science told them how to burn fossil fuels to create combustion and create the horseless carriage.

Science.  You can sit and pray to be instantly transported somewhere else for as long as you like.  Faith can’t do that.  Science, on the other hand, can tell you why it might and might not be possible.

Science doesn’t demand faith.  It demands critical thought.  It requires questioning previous assumptions.  Science grows and changes as our understanding of the universe expands.

Religion?  Not so much.

There’s a reason the Bible and other holy books don’t really describe the world, the solar system, the galaxy, atomic structure, or anything else that is actually observable.  Because the people that wrote them had no more information about the nature of the universe than anyone else did.  The idea that a omnipotent, omniscient deity had even the smallest input in any of them seems, well, ludicrous.

But people can believe anything they damn well please, as long as they don’t try to pass laws meant for the rest of us based on their narrow view of the world.

I have to add that my new-found annoyance about this subject was raised by the inanity of the following comment, made by a parent and a teacher in middle of the Missouri High School Band tee-shirt controversy.

“I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” She said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

Yeah–who’d want a high school associated with science, right?

Here’s the whole article, btw… http://www.sedaliademocrat.com/news/0px-18740-span-font.html

They are the 21st Century equivalent of flat-Earthers and are just too blind to notice.  So many fools, so little time.

Words at War

When they scream “No Socialism!” it’s not as though they have the faintest idea what it means, or how a government medical program would be in any way related to socialism. All they know is that they’ve been told “socialism bad” and they’ll parrot that ejaculation until the sun boils away the sky.

Okay, assholes… DEFINE Socialism. Yourself. No, stay away from Wikipedia and that hideous parody “conservafuckingstupidpedia” or whatever the hell it is. Define it in your own words.

Can’t do it, can you? You haven’t the FAINTEST FUCKING IDEA what it means.

One thing we do in this country that’s stupid as hell is our attempt to wage wars on ideas, on abstractions. The War on Drugs was bad enough (a war on drugs is a war on people, usually brown people, and don’t you forget it), but then we got the War on Terrorism. Or (rather) the “War on Middle Eastern brown people.”

As stupid as it is to fight a war against an idea–like the Right Wing assholes deciding to have a war on socialism (apparently to counter our so-called “War on Christmas) –that’s really not what’s going on here. The Generals might have declared a war on Socialism, but it’s being fought by people who don’t have a fucking clue. They’re not at war with an idea, they’re at war with a WORD.

The reason the “generals” want to fight “socialism” is because they think it’ll cost them money. That’s the only reason. They think that they’ll somehow stop being ultra-fucking rich and just end up plain ol’ filthy rich. They might have to forgo that gold plumbing and opt instead for the gold-plated plumbing. A fate worse than death.

But the rest of you? Seriously? A little “socialism” would make your lives a hundred times easier. A little sharing and caring, you know? You’re already shoveling money into the system as fast as it can take it, and what are you getting out of it? Not much. Your house catches on fire, you get fireman. Your drunken brother in law starts a fight, you can get a cop. But if you fall down and break your leg, you’d better hope you have a good job, because all that money you pay the government to help take care of you doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. And the money you and your employer has been feeding to the insurance company parasite? It might help some, but you’ll still have to pay some of the bill yourself. That’s despite having paid more in a single year to the company than the whole thing’s going to end up costing.

I know, I know. “Socialism.” Bad word. Scary.

I’d rather pay a little more in taxes and know that if I break my leg I’ll just have to go to the hospital (or my doctor) and say “fix me up” knowing that once it heals I’ll never have to think about it again. It’ll be over. There won’t be any doctor bills, no hospital testing fees, no x-ray costs, no extra bullshit my insurance company “forgot” to pay.

You’re at war with the word “socialism.”

Socialism surrenders, agrees to be called “Paying it Forward.”

Any objections?

Shut up, Rush. Have an oxy, a coke, and a smile and shut the fuck up. You’re a rich motherfucker who will never have to worry about paying your health care bill. You have accountants to pay accountants to pay your health care expenses. Hell, you have doctors who’ll falsify prescriptions for your fat, happy ass. You don’t deserve an opinion.

Asshole.

Home of the Knave

What price pride when that pride is misplaced, when those you revere are not what you imagine them to be? When they fight for themselves, and their privilege, and bend your ear to fight not for your rights, but for their privilege as well? Fight against “socialism,” when you don’t even know what it is, nor why you should fear it. You fight not against an idea, but only against a word. How stunningly stupid you are. And proudly so.

Willful ignorance is a crime against nature, a crime against humanity, for it is through this kind of ignorance that the worst injustices have been done. And to have modern Americans, people with access to all the knowledge gained in this world and all its history through war and peace, through famine and depredation, turn their backs on knowledge and fight to preserve ignorance is a slap in the face of the founding fathers you pretend to revere, a deliberate urination on the documents by which this nation was formed.

Our founding fathers, for all their faults, revered knowledge above all. They believed they fought so their children might not have to. They learned war-craft and tactics so their children might learn literature and mathematics.

And yet those who heed the clarion call to battle sent by those who claim to be defending the “spirit” of the original intent of this country (a lie as blatant as calling a cow an airplane) stand proud in your ignorance, hating what you are told to hate, fearing that which you are told to fear, with no personal knowledge of the issues on which to draw upon. You are pawns on the chessboard, moving to block and parry without any awareness of how or why.

If told to resist health care reform, you do so, though it is not your freedoms they rise to defend, but the freedom of your oppressors to continue their oppression. Like our forefathers studied war and diplomacy to free the next generation to study something else, we should give ourselves health care, so we may free the next generation to seek something else. But you meat puppets do your masters’ bidding and because of it the very discussion is drowned out by your white noise.

Freedom to be sick, to be denied health care, or to go into debt to procure it, is not freedom. It is merely another form of slavery. And you people welcome your chains, and cheer one another for your submission to them.

I say unto you then, stay stupid, and be proud in your stupidity. Hearken to the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck. While they decry your right to health care they sit in their million dollar homes, sipping champagne, or gobbling prescription pain meds like candy, laughing at you all the while.

You do their dirty work, and pat one another on the back for your folly. You are the anchors tied to our throats, dragging us under. America has long since lost its way thanks to people like you.

This has become the Home of the Knave.

(with thanks to the power metal band Falconer for the title of this post).

Buffy and Firefly vs. Dollhouse

Well, I watched the first season of the new Joss Whedon series religiously and, while I think it’s okay, I have to say it falls far short of what I expect from him.  It didn’t take me long to decide what was missing.

The characters aren’t nearly as engaging, either.  It’s a very serious show, with serious implications, which, in my view, should necessitate the addition of something to break up the drama.  Dollhouse doesn’t bring the funny, so the drama isn’t nearly as compelling.  The best shows, in my opinion, offer up both humor and drama in more or less equal parts.  I’m not thrilled with any show that doesn’t even attempt to do so.

Dollhouse doesn’t have the staying power of Buffy, or even the cult popularity of Firefly.  What it has is Eliza Dushku.  She’s attractive and talented enough, but she can’t carry a show that doesn’t have the elements to make it extraordinary.  Basically, in my opinion, Dollhouse is simply ordinary.  And that’s a shame.  Knowing that Joss wrote it, it could have been great.

Too bad.

The Joy of Trek

I grew up on Star Trek–you know, that early integrated starship crew traveling around the galaxy on a mission of exploration rather than expansion? I also grew up reading comic books like Spider-man and X-Men. I played a lot of D&D as a teenager. I read SF and Fantasy almost exclusively back then–everything from Heinlein to Robinson to Saberhagen to Norton. I LOVED Star Wars and the subsequent novels (though I despise everything about the prequel trilogy and the train wreck that is Clone Wars).

Someone asks “why do adults care about this stuff?”

As a geek from day one–I was reading comic books in Kindergarten–I have to say “Because we don’t have a stick up our asses.”

Just saw the Star Trek reboot yesterday and loved it, though I have to wonder how someone who doesn’t “get it” can look around and NOT see how it’s influenced the growth of our technology. Flip phones and PDAs, Voice Recognition software and GPS. These things were BORN of SF and integrated into our popular culture through Star Trek.

“You, Mr. Burton, were not put on this world to GET IT.”

I also grew up watching the old b/w movies of another era, the ones some people think epitomize the “golden age” of American entertainment. See, this was back before you could dependably see modern movies broadcast across all the networks at any given time, when the independent channels, such as they were, put on old movies during the day and late at night. But, honestly, I’m still not sure why anyone would prefer them to modern fare.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure. This is true in movies, books, and music more than anywhere else. I don’t expect everyone to love everything I love, or dislike what I dislike. If I say I think modern American rock music sucks, I’m sure I’ll find those who agree and those who do not. If I say American metal has gone to the dogs (almost literally, given the sounds most so-called vocalists make) there are those who’d get offended.

When one delves into the world of literature, things get even more contentious. You have “real” literature (the kind of the stuff that made my college Am Lit class something akin to mental torture–I never knew boredom could be so painful), and you have “trash” literature–like anything speculative. SF, Fantasy, and the like. MY cup of tea.

I know my own novels aren’t for everyone and that’s okay. A long time ago I accepted the advice to “write for yourself” because you can’t please anyone and, frankly, who wants to? I’m not looking to write “The Great American Novel,” whatever that is. My stuff is fast-past fantasy adventure with (hopefully) engaging characters. Entertainment with maybe a little social commentary thrown in from time to time. That’s good enough for me.

On one of my email groups someone asked recently, “so whatever happened to scary vampires?” My answer? Anne Rice humanized them, Buffy knocked them down to size, and Twilight made them household guests. The time of scary vamps is over. There will probably never be another “Salem’s Lot.”

Of course, there are those who revile anything to do with the restless undead, and that’s okay. Fangtasia isn’t for everyone. But it’s funny how many people are happy to get their hate on for anything Twilight related, almost in knee-jerk reaction to super hype. Don’t worry, folks, it’ll fade. That’s what hype does. But, in the meantime, millions of people are reading for pleasure who have never done so before. And that’s a win all around.

So, a message to my fellow geeks. When you’re sitting at a bar discussing the evolution of the Dark Knight, please be aware of the “normal” sitting alone at the bar behind you, soaking it all up and gaining nothing from it. NOT getting it at all. Let’s keep in mind, “Normals” are people too. Ostensibly.

It’s funny, considering that “Normals” are what the people in my future novels call those without altered DNA–the small subsection of humanity that hasn’t been changed by Loki’s metaviruses. In my world, people had to redefine what it meant to be “human.” Silly things like race and/or nationality become far less important when the guy next to you on the bus might be a vampire or lycanthrope.

And in the end that’s what all this geek stuff is about. Striving to understand OUR world better through the lens of a world that might be similar, but just different enough to give us all a new perspective on old assumptions. Star Trek and the comic book movies MIGHT seem like a waste of time, but they’ve managed to inspire whole generations and given many of us new things to think about. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re not going away. The 80 + millon dollar opening weekends make that a certainty.

I’d rather have a spider-man reading Trekker geek in the Oval Office than a misanthropic missing link. Call me weird, but that’s just how I see it. You think Obama isn’t going to “waste” the 126 minutes watching the new Trek? Given that he once flashed Leonard Nimoy (that’s the fellow who played Spock, to the uninitiated) the Vulcan hand-sign, I personally think that’s pretty damn unlikely.

Yeah, I’m a geek. And I don’t feel a moment of shame about it. May we ALL “Live Long and Prosper.”