Regarding Diversity

A right-wing blog sponsored by the Spokesman-Review posed the following question: "With students forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money for tuition and books to obtain a sheepskin, should [universities] basic requirements for graduation include a course in diversity?"

There's a decided lack of symmetry in the responses. Make your

You can imagine my response [a minority opinion]:

"College is a little late to try and teach cultural sensitivity."

Right, which is why we should be teaching about other cultures from Kindergarten on. I went to high school in North Spokane County, where indians were called prairie niggers, black dolls could be found hanging from lockers and my brother, adopted from Veracruz, Mexico--an American since 3 months--was regularly accosted.

Hate stems from ignorance, so to combat hate we must first combat ignorance. This should begin in the cradle. Sadly, often it does not. But if not, and we are a nation committed to equal rights and respect for all our nation's inhabitants, we must begin the education in Kindergarten, from day one.

But since education is so woefully underfunded, and we can barely teach our children the multiplication tables, let alone the similarities between Chrisitianity and Islam, then I pray to God that someone, SOMEWHERE, will take the time to get people to learn about something other than their own culture.

We decry the Islamic Madras schools for teaching falsehoods about America, but we allow falsehoods about Islam to penetrate the popular culture without seeking to correct it with education.

I went to Gonzaga, where I had to take two classes in diversity. One was taught by a Native American, the other by a Native Chinese. In them I learned about 6 thousand years of culture, art and philosophy I had never even heard mentioned anywhere before. It was stunning the differences I saw in these cultures, but even more stunning were the similarities.

I learned things about people I honestly wouldn't have taken the time to learn on my own. My life is greatly enriched for it and I was never once chastized for being white.

At the same time I had the courage to admit that Europeans and their decendents haven't been perfect.

Diversity, at its best, isn't about placing blame or glorifying one culture above the other, it is about understanding that, in a world full of so many imperfect people of so many different colors and beliefs, the only way to survive is to understand and respect one another.

Hegemon of the Rings

UNUSED AUDIO COMMENTARY BY HOWARD ZINN AND NOAM CHOMSKY, RECORDED FOR THE RETURN OF THE KING (PLATINUM SERIES EXTENDED EDITION) DVD

CHOMSKY: "Let us together rebuild this world," Aragorn says. And bury all the Orc carcasses before any tribunals can be established. Look at his outfit. It probably took 50 Haradrim orphans six months to assemble.

ZINN: I bet it still couldn't repel a good Orcish arrow.

CHOMSKY: The so-called Fourth Age of Middle Earth begins. Gandalf's plot is complete. Elvish rule is absolute.

ZINN: And no one, of course, is talking about the single greatest instance of Orcicide in the history of Middle Earth, nor the countless numbers of endangered triceratops and oliphants slaughtered on the battlefield.

CHOMSKY: Strange how all the ringleaders head immediately to the Grey Havens.

ZINN: No extradition laws there, I'm sure. And those who remain in Middle Earth won't have any Orcs to bother them with talk of independence. "Stability" is established, and the foolish Hobbits can return to their homeland.

CHOMSKY: With all the invisibility cloaks and illegal drugs they need. "It's good to be home." Samwise says this.

ZINN: Sam doesn't really understand the legal consequences of what they've done.

CHOMSKY: He's just a murdering, ill-tempered fool, a patsy.

ZINN: Yes, what Sam doesn't know is that the small, hirsute hand of some bravely independent Hobbit in Bree or South Farthing is dutifully investigating his war crimes, and will soon be knocking on his circular door.

CHOMSKY: But not before Frodo leaves him the very chronicle of their crimes—with a blank page at the end! As if to say, "Wrap this up, Sam. See if you can put a nice gloss on it." So concludes The Lord of the Rings.

ZINN: Just disgusting.

CHOMSKY: I know. I feel wonderful.

Punishing good fundamentals

Dept. of Education Weakens Title IX Compliance Standards for College Athletics

With this, amateur basketball will fall to the hulking, brutish, dunk-heavy [fan-friendly, fast-paced, exciting] style of play for keeps. As with all things, it was forseen in cartoons:

Kug: We no can dunk, but good fundamentals.
Ornik: That more fun to watch.
[Zapp, Fry and Bender laugh.]

. . .

Femputer: Hmm. Perhaps men are not as evil as Femputer thinks.
Thog: But they make fun women's basketball.
Femputer: What?! Did you explain how the women's good fundamentals make up for their inability to dunk?
Ornik: Yes. They still laugh.
Femputer: The men must die.

Thank you, Neutral Planet.

White guy explains all . . .

Watch a honkey explain Dr. Dre's success as a rapper and producer [hiphop's most reliable kingmaker] using such boring principles as quality control and supply and demand.

It takes all the fun out, certainly, but it's more likely than the alternative: "ask The Game, and he'll certainly credit his own lyrical genius"

That's just stupid.

IDF has +10 to intollerance

Counter-intuitively, being a level 20 half-elf rogue won't help you get into Israel's elite military forces. Just the opposite:

18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the [Dungeons and Dragons] are automatically given low security clearance.

“They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence,” the army says.

Their loss, I have Enchanted Boots of the Rabbit, which confer a +4 to all saving throws.

Ynetnews via Fark

Multilateral drinking game

In the coming days, every time a White House staffer uses the word multilateralism, in stark contrast to 4 years of actual administration policy, take a drink.

``The president and I have asked John to do this work because he knows how to get things done,'' Rice said at a State Department news conference. ``He is a tough-minded diplomat, he has a strong record of success, and he has a proven track record of effective multilateralism.''

Bolton promised to work closely with members of Congress to advance Bush's policies and said his record demonstrates ``clear support for effective multilateral diplomacy.''

``The United Nations affords us the opportunity to move our policies forward,'' said Bolton, who acknowledged that in the past he has written critically about the world body.

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan, while not mentioning Bolton by name, told reporters: ``The person he (Bush) has selected to nominate to the position of ambassador to the United Nations is someone who shares the president's strong commitment to making sure multilateral organizations are effective.''

Then, if what you're reading/hearing doesn't sound quite sound like actual multilateralism, take two more.

Also: Mr. McClelland, UN ambassador, will not be permitted to mention his hardline stance on arms control within the contiguous United States or her principalities. Certainly nowhere near Waples Mill Road, Fairfax Virginia.

The "predator" morph

Real life beats video games again. This is amazing. Apparently all it takes to turn a mild-mannered salamander into a deadly killing beast of fatal proportions is the right harmonic frequency. TIGHT!

THE right vibrations transform a meek salamander larva into a killing machine. The "predator" morph, with its larger head and aggressive attitude, is better adapted to grabbing larger prey.

Visual, chemical or sound signals can trigger striking morphological changes in a range of aquatic animals and amphibians. For example, in the presence of the salamander Hynobius retardatus, tadpoles of the frog Rana pirica transform into fatter forms that are too big for the predator to grab.

And, in freakily similar news:

radio-collars used to track water voles have had a drastic effect on the sex ratio of their offspring, skewing it towards males. Previous studies have found that tagging penguin wings and clipping amphibians' toes to identify individuals harm the animals' survival chances (New Scientist, 7 August 2004, p 15).

. . . In the first two years they laid traps for the animals, but in the third they switched to radio tracking at one of their sites. . .

Females fitted with the collar produced nearly five times as many male offspring as female, they found. By contrast, the sex ratio of offspring in trapped animals was even (Journal of Applied Ecology, vol 42, p 91)

Did I ever tell anyone that I love NewScientist.com?

No, congressman, that's a pine

How, back from the grave, Sonny Bono is depriving America of Marcel Proust until at least 2018 [unless you like go to amazon.co.uk or something]. Less books in print means more obstacles on ski slopes

Regarding biblical interpretation

Rodney Anonymous, who knows more languages than I, on the topic of Ten Commandments in federal buildings, gives a breakdown of not only biblical interpretation, but the vagaries and latitude translators must take to get a readable translation. This is perfect. I mentioned the varieties of interpretation next door like ten minutes ago, and now I've found this:

Jews, for example, translate the Fist Commandment as "I am the Lord thy
God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery" while Catholics read it as "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not
have strange gods before me" (Normal Gods, sure; but no strange ones!),
and the Protestants come up with "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
(Strange or otherwise).

Well, this is what you get when you translate something from Hebrew ("The
Ten Utterances" עשרת הדברות) into Greek ("Decalogue" δέκα λόγοι), then into
Latin and, finally, into English. Now you see why I encourage all of you to
learn Greek and Latin (I'm assuming that either you're all Jewish and
already know Hebrew or, failing that, at least know a Hebrew)?

Hell, even the placement of commas (non existent in Hebrew, Greek, and
early Latin) can cause an irreparable schism. Check out how the
Protestants punctuate the following sentence:

Verily, I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.

In other words, the thief on Jesus' left (or right? If you know; email me)
will be playing Yatzee with the Big J.C. in Heaven before midnight.

Here's how the Papists precariously punctuate:

Verily I say unto thee this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.

Translation: "Someday, and I'm not being specific as to when, you and I
will do lunch at the Paradise Café." This version leaves room for the
concept of Purgatory which, coincidently, Protestants don't believe in.

Now you see why I encourage all of you to be Atheists?

Rodney Anonymous Tells You How To Live

Jester in the court

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia got a little silly today:

"Ninety-nine percent of people believe in the Ten Commandments," Scalia said. "Eighty-five percent couldn't tell you what they are," he added to widespread laughter.

Charts and graphs: Plutocracy

Is America a Post-democratic Society? How to Preserve Our Republic by Paul Kurtz was emailed to me in response to Monday's blog. It's a Humanist State of the Union, and the prognosis isn't good.

For democracy to function fully, not merely formally but in actuality, it is essential that at least four other basic preconditions be fulfilled:

First, economic democracy: (a) a large middle-class with rising expectations of improved living standards; (b) some measure of equality of opportunity for the sons and daughters of the disadvantaged—their ability to rise to the top, creating a meritocracy, not a plutocracy based on wealth or conditions of birth; (c) some fairness in the distribution of income for the fruits of one’s labor; and (d) the ability of ordinary people to accumulate savings and own property.

Second, social democracy: (a) nondiscrimination based on class, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, or age; (b) the nonexclusion of anyone from public facilities and amenities; (c) educational opportunity for all children and adults and broad access to cultural enrichment in the arts and sciences; (d) the right to leisure, rest, and relaxation; and (e) a peaceful and harmonious society without excessive fear, intimidation, or coercion.

It goes on from there. How many of those things are missing? How many are missed? Read it if you want to get unbelievably angry. Rights is bein' eroded; people's bein' trod on. I was only able to skim because such things, especially when backed up with data and graphics, make my blood boil. I nearly made it to the end, but then Kurtz mentioned Tim Lahaye and I almost bit through my tongue.

Courtesy of [Sausage]

Candidate XX beats XY

A poll out recently shows that people, when speculating with nothing on the line, theoretically like the concept of a female president. This vaguely earth-shattering assertion comes to you courtesy of Newsday, via the Feminist Majority Foundation.

“Overwhelmingly, American voters think that a woman president would be better on domestic issues than a man president,” Lonnstrom said in the institute’s press release. “But even more interesting is that more people think that a woman would be better than a man on foreign policy issues and by only a very small margin do voters think that a male president would be better than a female as commander-in-chief.”

But, come election time, will they pull the trigger?

First causes

See that big, dumb screed there, on the left? Got the idea here, after reading this blog. I've been reading Rodney Anonymous, formerly of the Dead Milkmen, for a while now. I see some deep, artesian brilliance in it, the same kind of thing I see in Ben's writing, but from different [shifting] points on the ideological spectrum. Problem was finding a post that suitably demonstrated his genius for hilariously [if simplistically] synthesizing history. Found it.

I like Modern Art for the best of all possible reasons: because both the Nazis and the Communists hated it.

The Nazis' hatred of Modern Art no doubt stemmed from the fact that many Cubists, Surrealists, and employees of Pottery Barn drew inspiration from the ideas of Freud, Einstein and Marx (Jew, Jew, semi-Jew). The Nazis even went so far as to organize an exhibit of "degenerate" art; which leaves me with the mental image of an SS officer filing past a Picasso and mumbling,
"Gott in Himmel. Meine kliene Otto could paint that. Vie ist diss guy considered such hot schnitzel, aber Der Fuhrer could never sell one of his wunderbar landscapes? Ich just don't get est."

One of the many ironies of the Third Reich (like the fact that they were all gayer than the nominees for Best Costume Design), is that the Nazis considered Modern Art to not only be "degenerate", but "Bolshevik" to (Das) boot. You see, the Communist had banned Modern Art. Why? Because, according to the higher-ups in the Party, the workers "just didn't get it." Sorry
Yuri, but that Pollack reproduction has been deemed to be counter-revolutionary as well as pretentious.

Someone else who "just didn't get it" was US Congressman George A. Dondero who, like the Nazis, attempted to link Modern Art to Communism (Much in the same way the folks at Discover the Network have attempted to link the late Fred "Mr." Rogers to Hezbollah) and strove to "protect and preserve legitimate art as we have always known it in the United States."