Posts from — November 2009

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, and I for one am feeling a little celebratory. The importance of Darwin’s work cannot be understated. Last year, I took a couple of semesters worth of biology classes, and natural selection could be seen at work throughout those two very entertaining semesters, chapter after chapter, after chapter.

Evolution’s important shit, man!

That Darwin concluded what he did before modern genetics science existed, is a testament to his genius. That evolution can be called into question as “just a theory” by noted scholars such as George W. Bush, and that this stance is perceived as acceptable to any rationally thinking human being, is testament to the gullibility of the American Religious Confused.

And yet the Confused are organized, and powerful, and manipulative, and their members are looking for something to believe, so here we are, with fully 44% of Americans in a Gallup Poll indicating that they believe God created the Earth and everything on it about 10,000 years ago. Today, 44% of Americans believe this. This is the greatest advertising campaign ever. And like cigarettes, it’s a product the advertisers should be ashamed they are promoting. What I find ironic is that the creationists are borrowing heavily from Darwin’s work in the promotion of their agenda. Let me explain.

In evolutionary science, there is the concept of adaptation. This is both a process and a feature. Viewed long-term, adaptation is the process (over generations) where a species, uh, adapts to its environment in a way that increases its chances of continued survival. Viewed more in terms of output, an adaptation is a new or changed feature in a species — say, better eyesight, or faster-twitch muscle fibers, or changed color or markings on your fur, or any one of a billion changes that could randomly come about through genetic mutation, that somehow increases your fitness, your chances of surviving predation and passing on those genetic bits to the next generation.

Now, what’s happening over there, in church? Well, for a while the Book of Genesis worked, but this pesky “theory” of evolution started gaining traction because it was all sciency and stuff. One dude having an incredibly productive week just doesn’t stand up to the scientific method, and so we’re sorry, we simply will not teach that in public school (because, for starters, it is absolutely ridiculous). And so what has come along is a “scientific” alternative to evolution, so-called intelligent design, the whimsical notion that nature is so complex that there simply has to be a “designer” behind it all.

Intelligent design has been packaged as an alternative scientific reasoning, which of course is as oxymoronic as “military intelligence”. But you have to admit it’s clever marketing of a really dumb idea, so clever it appears as rigorously researched and defended science. Genesis was never gonna fly in a biology textbook, but ID just might, and that, my friends, is an adaptation!

So yes, even stupidity can evolve. This concept was brilliantly (and hysterically) extrapolated in the movie “Idiocracy”, and scarily is playing out in real-time right here in real-life, in 2009.

Our friends in the midst of a God delusion will never admit it, but the very formulation of ID is proof of Darwin’s work. Hopefully someday everyone will see the real truth and allow reason and rational thought to pervade everyday life, and relegate religion to the fiction aisle at the bookstore where it belongs. But appreciating the timescales involved in real evolutionary change, I know I won’t see it in my lifetime.

So today I’m going to resolve to enjoy the incredible evolutionary jackpot I was born into for as long as I can, and continue to be a Good Guy, and yes, smugly enjoy the fact that I don’t need a book or a congregation or a pile of dogma to tell me how to do that, or why I should.

Salut, Charles.

below is a photo I snapped while wandering atound MIT’s campus last month; apparently one of the greatest scientific institutions in the world feels old Chuck is engravement-worthy (I agree!).

To merely call my old college buddy a photographer is to understate things a bit. Jeff Bosie, the aforementioned buddy, is a real photographic artist. I had just been bragging about Jeff’s ability to a co-worker just last week, and oddly enough yesterday Jeff sent out a mass email yesterday announcing some updates to his website. So I took the opportunity to click on over and check out the newest additions as well as some of my old faves — three of which are hanging on the walls of my home.

It’s great stuff. I was glad to be able to attend a show of his in Perth Amboy, NJ back when Brenda & I still lived in Jersey. Brenda was so impressed with Jeff’s work that she put Jeff in touch with her bosses at the George Street Playhouse, who hosted a showing for Jeff during one of the performance runs at the Playhouse.

I really can’t say enough about Jeff’s work. To me, it’s inspiring; it’s the kind of photography I imagine myself striving to do, even if my own photos do not back that assertion up. If anything, my latest trip to Jeff’s website just fueled that passion to capture our world and tell a story, without saying a single word. Bravo, Jeff!

• Jeff Bosie Photography
• Jeff Bosie Photography - News Page

And be sure and check out his latest photo essay “Through the Cracks”, which, unfortunately, will break your heart.

Maureen Dowd’s Op-ed piece in the Times yesterday was just great.

As many Americans continue to struggle, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, banks that took government bailout money after throwing the entire world into crisis, have said they will dish out $30 billion in bonuses — up 60 percent from last year. The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it’s whatever happens, the bankers win.

This kind of stuff just pisses me off, and it’s the kind of stuff that needs to be constantly brought to the surface because, well, because it does. And I was invigorated with a fresh dose of skepticism and hatred for these people, thanks to Ms. Dowd. Dare I say, MoDo is filling the giant void left in my Op Ed life by the sad departure of Molly Ivins.

And then today, I read in the NYT OpEd section a letter from the National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, whining about Ms. Dowd’s piece. It stems from the final paragraph of her editorial:

And as far as doing God’s work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.

But, oh no!:

However unintentional, Ms. Dowd’s invoking the New Testament story to illustrate our current financial mess conjures up old prejudices against Jews. - Robert G. Sugarman

Jesus christ (invoked here as an expression of grief/disgust/rage, not asking for his help or anything (or trying to piss off any Jews)), this is the kind of shit that makes me crazy. Can we please keep our eyes on the ball, people? I realize Mr. Sugarman is just doing his job, but it irritates me that the Times ran the letter. On second thought, this seems a clear case of the Times’ Editorial Board just doing theirs, and, sadly, it’s not journalism. What does that say?

So, my last post was a little congratulatory quip to the New York Yankees, for winning their 27th World Series Championship. (Their 27th; I know, it’s a lot!) In the title of that post, I accidentally juxtaposed two characters in my haste to get the thing online, and I was quickly corrected by Yankee haters who likely enjoyed correcting me in the worldwide forum that is the Intertubes. Meow.

That same evening — you know, the one where the Yankees WON THE WORLD SERIES — I guess I also posted a little congratulatory quip on my Facebook status, which became a lightning rod for a discussion on the Yankees, baseball payrolls, unfairness, weah, weah weah.

Some great arguments from both sides of the aisle are contained in that thread, and it has had me thinking. Thanks everyone. Still, my overwhelming directive to everyone is to fucking get over it.

I guess my beef with the Yankee haters can be summed up thusly: Yankee haters categorize this whole thing as a problem with the Yankees (or they call them cheaters, or fags, or some other such juvenile nonsense); intelligent Yankee fans call it a problem with the rules (which it most certainly is, but don’t blame the Yankees for trying to win with any means allowed). Idiotic Yankee fans — which are a huge problem in American society, I agree — just say things like “Yankees number one, fuck you”, and this definitely gets in the way of clear discourse.

And that’s why I want to share two excellent pieces I read today that also try to address the Problem with Baseball, from both sides. First up, a pitch for the pinstripes, from none other than John Gruber, who, as a Macintosh zealot already knows a thing or two about making good points amidst a tidal wave of ignorance:

Daring Fireball - The Yankees

And next up, the flip side which makes all the points my frend Johnny Q makes on my Facebook page, but also throws out some real stretches. (This latter link comes to you by way of John Gruber’s website, BTW.)

Joe Posnanski - The Yankees Payroll

Enjoy. Spring training seems like a long ways off.

The title says it all. Congratulations to the New York Yankees!

We’ve been talking about doing this for months and months, and finally did it. We enrolled Hooper in a beginner’s dog agility class at the Boulder Humane Society, starting up in a couple weeks. Hoop spent half the morning running and jumping in the ballfield today, and we’ve long thought that Hooper would be a natural at agility trials. And even if he sucks at it, we figure he’ll have a good time trying to not suck at it. And so, on November 12th, Hooper will show up for class once again at the Boulder Humane Society and hopefully will ace his classes!

Wow, start actually blogging again, and you discover all these new things about your blogging software. WordPress, the software that has “powered” this blog for the last several years, is up to version 2.8.5 and a lot has changed for the better. Software updates are automated and work seamlessly, even for users running WP on other hosting sites (like me). Themes and plugins have similar auto install/update functionality.

Apparently there’s also a change to the database from latin1 to utf8 character sets, which is wreaking havoc on a few of my posts that have “smart quote” characters in them. Lots of solutions exist, but the “right” one seems to be a slightly involved conversion of my MySQL database and I’m not in the mood. I think I’ll manually change all the characters that need changing.

The upshot of all of this is that I’ve been spending the better part of the morning reading the WordPress Codex site and looking at new themes and plugins for my site. I guess I’m motivated again.