Fine.
Evolution doesn't believe in you. Doesn't matter. It's still happening. Even to you, hard as that may be to believe, given that you don't believe in evolution, which says something about your evolution. Your lack of belief in facts is probably a result of evolution as well, which is another point against the "idea" of intelligent design.
My only caveat is that you keep your disbelief out of the public schools and out of public life in general. It has no business there. If you want to live out a pre-Darwin existence, have at it. I suggest you also disbelieve in airplanes, computers, women's suffrage, The Emancipation Proclamation, and the world-wide-web.*
*(Unfortunately, if you don't believe in evolution, you may already be half-way to not believing in two of these things.)
Monday, October 10, 2011
Bravo, Mr. President
"You wanna be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States even when it's not politically convenient." --President Barack Obama at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, regarding the boo-ing of a US soldier during a GOP presidential debate
Monday, October 3, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Please don't let it be an atheist, please don't let it be an atheist*
Religion-hating anarchist vandalized 7 Edina churches.
Everything I hear something like this, I think, "Oh crap." Now, the gentleman in question does not seem to have identified himself as an atheist, but I bet many in the public will assume that he is an atheist because everyone knows that atheists are religion-hating anarchists. Every. Last. One of us.
Every time someone from a marginalized group does something untoward, everyone else in the marginalized group is asked to explain, atone, and take responsibility. This never happens when, say, a white dude commits a crime. All white dudes don't go around hanging their heads in shame or feeling defensive, thinking, "Man, you're making us look bad!"**
*the above is not a supplication to any sort of supernatural sky-daddy.
**Perhaps this is different when a white congressman sends sketchy texts, but even then, he makes only his party look bad, not all white men, and the party is supposed to answer for it and shun the rogue individual.
Everything I hear something like this, I think, "Oh crap." Now, the gentleman in question does not seem to have identified himself as an atheist, but I bet many in the public will assume that he is an atheist because everyone knows that atheists are religion-hating anarchists. Every. Last. One of us.
Every time someone from a marginalized group does something untoward, everyone else in the marginalized group is asked to explain, atone, and take responsibility. This never happens when, say, a white dude commits a crime. All white dudes don't go around hanging their heads in shame or feeling defensive, thinking, "Man, you're making us look bad!"**
*the above is not a supplication to any sort of supernatural sky-daddy.
**Perhaps this is different when a white congressman sends sketchy texts, but even then, he makes only his party look bad, not all white men, and the party is supposed to answer for it and shun the rogue individual.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
A job is a job is a job
Unless the word "blow" comes before it.
Or it is in the public sector.
At least, this is how I feel when I read or hear the news everyday.
I work in a public institution--a land-grant university, made possible by the Morrill Grant of 1862, and we receive a substantial amount of money from the state government for our operations. As with most large organizations, however, we have a diversified funding base, and we also receive a substantial amount of funding from students and parents, private donors, foundations, grantmakers, nonprofits, and other private sources. We also receive funding from the generation of products, services, and knowledge. We are accountable to all those sources for the allocation of all those dollars.
Lately, I have been feeling like my job doesn't count, and the only jobs that do are in the private sector. And specifically, in the for-profit private sector. Or, if they are nonprofit jobs, then they must be at large nonprofits such as health maintenance organizations or hospitals. Jobs at any government level, public universities, or "heinous organizations" such as Planned Parenthood (yes, a large nonprofit, but clearly one that does not count in the jobs discussion, only in the "declining liberal morals" discussion) are simply not jobby enough to be considered important.
This is what I hear as the Minnesota Legislature and Governor "negotiate" regarding the budget. This is what I hear when Planned Parenthood has to close six out-state clinics because of funding cuts. This is what I hear when a Regent of the University of Minnesota says "I don't think we're doing enough, folks" when it comes to pensions and employees. This is what I hear when, all around the country, people are saying we need to cut government, cut administration, cut, cut, cut.
They use abstract nouns like "government" and "administration," and they don't say "cut education" because that would prove unpopular, but they paint the teacher, the public worker, the civil servant as part of the problem. Overpaid layabouts who are part of an unnecessarily bloated bureaucracy.
It's not up to government, they say, to create jobs. That is the business of the private sector.
OK.
Why?
And, then, why isn't the private sector creating more jobs?
That's apparently the government's fault, too, because of the tax code and regulations that supposedly hamper hiring.
The women and men in those Planned Parenthood clinics are now jobless. Women and men in state and local governments all over the country are now out of jobs. Cutting budgets means cutting jobs. Doing "enough about pensions and employees" means cutting jobs. If I lose my job because of funding, I have lost my job. It counts. If I lose my job because of funding, I take my son out of day care, and my day care providers lose funding, and they perhaps cut a job; I cut back on expenses, cutting back on funding for the many businesses I patronize. I join all the other people who are out of a job because of budget cuts.
It matters. It adds up.
Or it is in the public sector.
At least, this is how I feel when I read or hear the news everyday.
I work in a public institution--a land-grant university, made possible by the Morrill Grant of 1862, and we receive a substantial amount of money from the state government for our operations. As with most large organizations, however, we have a diversified funding base, and we also receive a substantial amount of funding from students and parents, private donors, foundations, grantmakers, nonprofits, and other private sources. We also receive funding from the generation of products, services, and knowledge. We are accountable to all those sources for the allocation of all those dollars.
Lately, I have been feeling like my job doesn't count, and the only jobs that do are in the private sector. And specifically, in the for-profit private sector. Or, if they are nonprofit jobs, then they must be at large nonprofits such as health maintenance organizations or hospitals. Jobs at any government level, public universities, or "heinous organizations" such as Planned Parenthood (yes, a large nonprofit, but clearly one that does not count in the jobs discussion, only in the "declining liberal morals" discussion) are simply not jobby enough to be considered important.
This is what I hear as the Minnesota Legislature and Governor "negotiate" regarding the budget. This is what I hear when Planned Parenthood has to close six out-state clinics because of funding cuts. This is what I hear when a Regent of the University of Minnesota says "I don't think we're doing enough, folks" when it comes to pensions and employees. This is what I hear when, all around the country, people are saying we need to cut government, cut administration, cut, cut, cut.
They use abstract nouns like "government" and "administration," and they don't say "cut education" because that would prove unpopular, but they paint the teacher, the public worker, the civil servant as part of the problem. Overpaid layabouts who are part of an unnecessarily bloated bureaucracy.
It's not up to government, they say, to create jobs. That is the business of the private sector.
OK.
Why?
And, then, why isn't the private sector creating more jobs?
That's apparently the government's fault, too, because of the tax code and regulations that supposedly hamper hiring.
The women and men in those Planned Parenthood clinics are now jobless. Women and men in state and local governments all over the country are now out of jobs. Cutting budgets means cutting jobs. Doing "enough about pensions and employees" means cutting jobs. If I lose my job because of funding, I have lost my job. It counts. If I lose my job because of funding, I take my son out of day care, and my day care providers lose funding, and they perhaps cut a job; I cut back on expenses, cutting back on funding for the many businesses I patronize. I join all the other people who are out of a job because of budget cuts.
It matters. It adds up.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Ignorance is not Skepticism
I am getting a little tired of hearing evolution deniers and climate change deniers calling themselves "skeptics." And I dislike it even more when the media does it.
This is misinformed behavior at best, but really, it's just plain old ignorance. Doubting evolution does not make you a brave warrior for the truth, it makes you a superstitious, medieval serf. Or a republican. Disregarding the overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming does not make you a maverick, it makes you a scientifically illiterate oaf. Or a republican.
I don't know why the republican party is so dedicated to belief-based policies, but its anti-science stance is horrifying. Looking at the two GOP front-runners for office, Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, I am not sure who is more off-base, but they are an alarming trend in modern American politics, wearing their theology on their sleeves and spouting paragraphs of nonsense rife with the possibility of dangerous policy outcomes.
This is misinformed behavior at best, but really, it's just plain old ignorance. Doubting evolution does not make you a brave warrior for the truth, it makes you a superstitious, medieval serf. Or a republican. Disregarding the overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming does not make you a maverick, it makes you a scientifically illiterate oaf. Or a republican.
I don't know why the republican party is so dedicated to belief-based policies, but its anti-science stance is horrifying. Looking at the two GOP front-runners for office, Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, I am not sure who is more off-base, but they are an alarming trend in modern American politics, wearing their theology on their sleeves and spouting paragraphs of nonsense rife with the possibility of dangerous policy outcomes.
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