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Amused Muse

Inspiring dissent and debate and the love of dissonance

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Location: Surreality, Have Fun Will Travel, Past Midnight before a Workday

Master's Degree holder, telecommuting from the hot tub, proud Darwinian Dawkobot, and pirate librarian belly-dancer bohemian secret agent scribe on a mission to rescue bloggers from the wholesome clutches of the pious backstabbing girl fridays of the world.



Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Angry at Evolution

UPDATED: Hastert's office was notified two years ago about Rep. Foley's conduct. Reports are going back as far as 1995!
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UPDATED: Arrest this man--he replaced a glow-in-the-dark Jesus nighlight with a Nobel Prize! For shame!
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UPDATED: Attention Jesus freaks: city schools are often safer than suburban ones.

Also: "It is rare for mass school shootings to occur in cities, Newman says. Despite their safe image, rural communities can be an especially fertile breeding ground for revenge."

This from the Christian Science Monitor.

Oh, and we "need God in our schools," but not the Goddess! (Like Harry Potter is an accurate portrayal of Wicca, you twit!)
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Oh, please. Here it comes: a father who lost a son at Columbine blames the Amish school shootings on evolution.

It's being reported that the shooter was "angry at God."

It seems to me that this dude couldn hardly have been angry at God if he had "replaced God with evolution." I mean, duh! This makes no sense at all.

What is truly sickening is that anyone would put Mr. Rorbough in front of a camera to bather about something he has no clue about. He is an unfortunate victim who, like so many Americans today, want an easy scapegoat. And like so many Americans today who become instant media personalities, he is being exploited and allowing himself to be exploited for a political agenda hatched in a smoky room.

Too many Americans are forming what they think are personal relationships with those who appear on television. Television is replacing reality for too many people that I know. On the subject of television itself: I can’t tell you how painful it is to be constantly asked, “Do you watch this show?” or “Don’t you just love this commercial?” by people whom I have told, over and over and over, that I do not watch T.V.

(Certainly I have watched a lot of cable network news, but not shows—and that’s out of the picture right now, anyway).

And I’m sick of the peer pressure to watch television so that I have something to talk about with my relatives. Television, particularly shows aimed at women, gives me a fucking migraine!

Incidentally, I am a writer, actively seeking major publication. At this point I don’t know who takes that seriously besides me. Excuse me, but it’s bad enough that the people who should be supporting me in my endeavors are, by the fact of their not reading, contributing to the diminishment of a literate audience that writers in America desperately need. Do I have to contribute to my own demise, too? Someone asked me, when I said that I was studying cataloging in the College of St. Catherine’s Library and Information Science program, if I was going to learn “how to do the Sears catalog.” Holy shit.

Mr. Rorbough is not an expert. Neither is Mark Klaas. Frankly, it’s time for Mr. Klaas to hang up his hat, as he is losing all objectivity about the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, and frankly, he's not a profiler, just because he lost his daughter. I'm sorry that he lost Polly, but enough already. As for me, I think it’s time that the news focus on facts and stop trying to electronically introduce me to people that I don’t want to meet (like Dr. Phil) for a big smooch and a hug. Blech. I simply don't understand how anyone can dislike Richard Dawkins but love "Dr." Phil. And Oprah Winfrey doesn’t know good literature from her own ass.

There, I finally said it.

(Thanks to Pharyngula, which gets me through the day)

16 Comments:

Blogger PiGuy said...

I was home today and saw the news. UFB.

October 03, 2006 5:35 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Someone asked me, when I said that I was studying cataloging in the College of St. Catherine’s Library and Information Science program, if I was going to learn “how to do the Sears catalog.” Holy shit.

That's the very reason why I no longer introduce myself as a "musicologist." People don't know what that means. So I'm a music historian, instead. Nevertheless, the first question I get after that is still almost always "so what instrument do you play?"

Which is a bit like asking a war historian how many Rising Sun logos are painted on the side of their Spitfire.

October 03, 2006 6:12 PM  
Blogger Kristine said...

"so what instrument do you play?" OMnG. That is just unbelieveable.

I wonder what those people think a musician is?

There is such a profession as musical librarianship--maybe, just for fun, I'll tell people that I'm a music librarian. See what they say. ("Do you keep the pianos in a library?" Yeah.)

October 03, 2006 9:46 PM  
Blogger Rev. BigDumbChimp said...

piguy I just realized something quite disturbing.

Your avatar looks strangely like some "mathematician" we all know that works at the circus....


Is that intentional?

October 04, 2006 7:18 AM  
Blogger Rev. BigDumbChimp said...

Yeah when I tell people that I'm a network and systems manager for a 200 million dollar a year company, inevitably the first thing they say is....

Can you come work on my computer, it's running slow.

Or

My email isn't working...

or

can you install my printer for me....


ugh.

October 04, 2006 7:21 AM  
Blogger PiGuy said...

RevBDC:
No, not intentional (I guess that I don't know the clown that you're talking about - sorry). I'm just a geek and that pic struck my fancy. I don't wear glasses but I do have a t-shirt with pi on it ("pumpkin pi", actually.)

dan et al:
You want to see a blank look sometime, try telling people that you're a physicist. At least I don't tend to get those bizarre questions that you all have to field (*knock at front door* "We're all out of top quarks next door. Do you think that you we could borrow a few until next week?").

Although I have found it to be a hit with the ladies!

October 04, 2006 9:23 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

Can you come work on my computer

Hoo, boy. And I thought I was alone.

Just quote them your "rate," Rev.

$250 an hour, right? ;-)

That will at least motivate them to learn for themselves simple tasks that I, for pity's sakes, can do myself.

October 04, 2006 9:32 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

Your avatar looks strangely like some "mathematician" we all know that works at the circus....

I caught that, just didn’t say anything. PiGuy said earlier that it didn’t look like him so I figured that it was a deliberate jab at my favorite Martian. (I love to pick on Demb Ass.)

Hey! Let’s all crank-call Dembski and ask him, “You’re the intelligent design guy, right? Can you suggest a design for my bathroom?”

“Do you do landscape design? In a biblical theme?”

“I’m working on a paper about creationism and my teacher told me that if she hears anything more about the bacterial flagellum she is going to barf. Can you tell me about specific research that you are doing right now?”

And of course:

“Can you install my printer for me?”

October 04, 2006 9:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hah! I do technical support. Or, rather, I'm a "Sales/Support Engineer" (depending on who you talk to here). Thing is, I support a specific software product. I'm not some Dell guy in India or anything whose job it is to fix random computer problems.

I still get asked to fix random computer problems. For my boss.

(Incidentally, the "Engineer" tag is horribly misapplied to this position. It would bug me, except for the fact that I actually have an engineering degree. *shrug*)

October 04, 2006 3:33 PM  
Blogger Kristine said...

I sympathize, Joshua. I get asked to fix random computer problems (and other technical problems involving electronic media) all the time. I don't mind, but sometimes I wonder how it is that people who get paid less have to know how to do everything.

I'm a glorified secretary (well, database administrator also).

October 04, 2006 4:12 PM  
Blogger Kristine said...

*Rings door bell.*

BTW, PiGuy, do you ever have any surplus "charmed" quarks? Could I borrow some? ;-)

A hit with the ladies, that's cute. I do know a lot of women who love to talk about quantum mechanics, what's up with that?

October 04, 2006 5:01 PM  
Blogger PiGuy said...

Sure - I've got oodles of charm. Let me get you some. (And I'd sure like to know where those QM ladies are hiding. I've got some stories about anti-matter and parity that'll drive them crazy!)

Ah, that mathematician, that circus. Sorry for being so slow on the uptake. Yeah, I gues it does look a bit like Billy Boy. Again, completely unintentional. And I guess that I don't tend to think of him as a mathematician. When you read his writing the thought, "Here's a guy who's studied logic and knows how to form a valid or cogent argument" doesn't pop into your head right away.

And apparently there's no shortage of people who are technically challenged. I end up being the Help Desk guy in my half of the office - 12 or so of the greybeard-type science, math, ex-military guys, and the admin staff. The other (Dark) side of the office is composed primarily of programmers so they don't need me. Still, there's 6 or so people who think that I'm a computer whiz. I think that I'll just let them keep thinking that!

October 05, 2006 5:21 AM  
Blogger PiGuy said...

BTW, dan: musicology sounds like a very cool field.

I happen to think that being a neuroscientist who studies the impact of music on the brain and mind would be really intersting. Modern research indicates that music has more to do with what makes us human than divine providence. We aren't the chosen species. We just discovered - probably before fire, even - how to make music first.

October 05, 2006 5:37 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

We just discovered - probably before fire, even - how to make music first.

Oh, I don't know. Birds make music to pick up chicks, and guys are in bands, often to pick up, er chicks. ;-) I don't think it's so different, different species "making beautiful music!"

I couldn't resist.

October 05, 2006 9:07 AM  
Blogger PiGuy said...

You right about picking up chicks. That's why I started playing guitar. (okay - so I'm not really that good, actually, and never really got to the women-throwing-themselves-at-me stage but it provided some early motivation!)

As for music and the human cortex, there are a lot of things going on in the old coconut when we listen to and make music or dance. Music incorporates many regions of the brain and, if you buy into such things, the mind. Birds certainly make beautiful music but don't usually tap their foot or break into an air guitar solo!

I'm sure that you already know, my Muse friend, that in many languages the word for music and dance is actually the same even today. Only recently - maybe 400 to 500 years - have we culturally started to think of them as different, separate enitities. Too bad. At the Pi household, especially when the girls were younger, me picking up the guitar meant Dance Time. We started out years ago with Barney and Raffi songs but we've moved on to rock and country (Mrs. Pi and the the Pi-lings are pretty into country) stuff. Luckily for them, those girlies can move better than Dad!

October 05, 2006 10:32 AM  
Blogger Kristine said...

in many languages the word for music and dance is actually the same even today

Oh, yes. Once upon a time there was an art form that combined all art forms, and it was the Greek tragedies. Also ritual, especially in ancient Egypt, a misunderstood culture. People like Antonin Artaud wanted to get back to the idea of theatre as a total experience combining all forms of art.

When I lived in South Minneapolis, during the summer we would hear a pow-wow going on somewhere every Saturday—those drums become subliminal. John and I went to see the omnimax movie at the Science Museum tracing the Nile from its source, and the film included those underground churches in Ethiopia where the priests danced with colorful banners, and I just wanted to cry. I love ritual and ceremony, but not the doctrine that accompanies them. (Doctrine—what a killjoy!)

I can’t sit still when I heard good music, not even at the symphony. I try not to bounce in my seat too much.

October 06, 2006 9:26 AM  

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