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I’ve said from time to time that when once asked why he climbed Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary quipped “Because it’s there”. As it turns out, I happened across the actual person to whom the quote is attributed: George Mallory.
Unfortunately for both Mallory and the power of the quote, Mallory’s body currently resides on Everest.
Filed under: Hiking | Tagged: Because it's there, Everest, George Mallory | 1 Comment »
Today will be a good day to do “business”. But beware, if you forget to bring the newspaper with you, boredom may ensue.
Filed under: Humor | Tagged: Astrology, Business, Horoscope, Kilimanjaro, Poop shack, Shira Plateau | Leave a comment »
Charles Darwin discovered the most important fact of life.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: charles darwin, Thought of the day | 4 Comments »
A new poll is out on the race for Maine governor.
The Maine Poll, conducted for MaineToday Media by Critical Insights, had 30 percent of likely voters supporting Mitchell, compared to LePage at 29 percent. This represents a significant change in a race where LePage has consistently led polls by 12 or more percentage points. In Critical Insights’ last poll, released Sept. 19, LePage had 38 percent voter support and Mitchell had 25 percent.
The 405 registered voters, all of whom said they were likely to vote in November, were surveyed on Monday. The poll has a margin of error of 4.9 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. That means that if the poll were repeated 100 times, in 95 cases the results would be within 4 percentage points of those reported.
Perhaps voters are starting to realize that – aside from his horrible ideas of teaching creationism and giving away college degrees to high school students – Maine probably doesn’t want the Rage of LePage at the helm.
This isn’t California or Florida. Maine prefers rational candidates.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Critical Insights, Governor, Libby Mitchell, Maine, MaineToday Media, Paul LePage, Poll | 5 Comments »
Creationist Paul LePage doesn’t seem to much understand how this whole darn politics thing works.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Creationism, Maine governor, Paul LePage | Leave a comment »
I’ve written about rule internalization in the past. It’s when people care more about a rule itself than the reason for the rule. It’s a good mark of someone who isn’t doing much thinking.
I’ve also written about a lot of discrimination. I’ll spare myself the tediousness of linking back to a number of stories and just point out one particularly relevant to the rest of this post: when Constance McMillen was denied the right to wear a tux to her senior prom. A gay female student wanted to attend prom with her girlfriend while wearing something besides a dress. The school acted out of bigotry and denied her that right. (And then got sued and lost, but continued its campaign to alienate Constance anyway.)
Now there’s the case of Oakleigh “Oak” Reed at Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Michigan. Oak is a transgendered student at his school and, by all accounts, seems to be well accepted by his classmates and teachers. Even the administration has made some correct decisions with him.
Teachers use him, his, and he when referring to Oakleigh in class. The school has allowed him to wear a tuxedo when marching with the band at football games and he has been given permission to wear the male robe and cap at graduation.
But then Oak decided to run for homecoming king. Like 500 million other people, he turned to the Internet.
[Oak] let the school community know he was running for homecoming king on Facebook.
The honors student quickly became the leading candidate.
He even won. Oakleigh Reed is the 2010 homecoming king at Mona Shores High School.
Except the administration doesn’t see this fact.
“They told me that they took me off because they had to invalidate all of my votes because I’m enrolled at Mona Shores as a female,” Oakleigh told Wood TV.
…
Assistant Superintendent Todd Geerlings told Wood TV, “The ballots gave two choices — vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen.”
This is rule internalization at its worst. So the hell what if the ballot is black and white? There is no rational justification in what Geerlings is doing. (But is that much of a surprise coming from someone who has chosen to spend his life in high school?) The reason the ballot only gives two choices is because it would be unwieldy and silly to have it say “Vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen. And, oh, vote for transgendered students based upon official school records.”
This is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario. If Oak wants any shot at being voted homecoming royalty, he must run as a girl and be crowned a queen – something which would make him a liar to himself and his identity. It’s ridiculous that Geerlings desires that such a thing happen. But giving it an honest shot means Oak can’t be crowned – even though he actually is the 2010 Mona Shores High School homecoming king.
Congratulations to Oak for winning. Shame on Geerlings and co. for acting shamefully and internalizing rules.
But I’m not directly addressing what matters; maybe I could just sum up this entire post in one line: Don’t treat people like shit.
Filed under: News, Rights | Tagged: Constance McMillen, Michigan, Mona Shores High School, Muskegon, Oak, Oakleigh Reed, Rule Internalization, Todd Geerlings | 27 Comments »
Okay, maybe this isn’t the story of my Kilimanjaro trip, but it is a damn fine story and I was on Kilimanjaro. It’s just told from the point of view of story-teller, group member, bicycle- and font-enthusiast, not-Schwarzenegger look-a-like, writer Jim Hodgson. Take a look.
Not for the first or last time, I reflected on how lucky Mike and I were to get the group of companions that we did.
That refers to a different Michael, but the sentiment is true for me as well.
Filed under: Hiking | Tagged: Jim Hodgson, Kilimanjaro | 1 Comment »
Pew has a new and unsurprising poll about what Americans know about religion.
On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.
Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences.
“Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew.
One head of an atheist organization has an idea why we’re seeing these results.
That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
“I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Mr. Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge. I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.”
And for some, I suspect, the deep conflict between science and religion helps to inform people about the religions of the world. People see the truth of what science has to tell us, then they hear the lies of religion (miracles, for example), and they look into both more deeply. I lend much more weight to Silverman’s more straight-forward explanation, but I think there’s something to be said of my suggestion; people want to know what’s true and religion hasn’t a single answer.
Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, News | Tagged: American Atheists, atheists, Dave Silverman, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Pew, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Science | 6 Comments »
A lot of Americans are hostile towards science. With political parties like the Republicans and Teabaggers, it isn’t any surprise. (Of course, the Republicans are a contributor to the hostility; the Teabaggers are a result.) But at the root of these ugly movements is, naturally, religion. It’s fair to place a lot of the blame on religion because, for starters, it teaches that faith is a virtue. Of course, faith most certainly isn’t a virtue and it has only been made into one by the religious out of necessity, but the idea that it’s good to believe without evidence is ingrained into many American minds via religious rhetoric.
We’ve always been a religious nation, but there were times when we managed to lead in science and math. We can attribute a lot of that to economic superiority or importing scientists from elsewhere or, especially during the Cold War, nationalism. But I think we can also attribute a lot of it to the fact that historically it hasn’t been obvious to a great many people that there is a deep conflict between science and religion. Without people being widely aware that God is not only not evident but also not needed for the Universe and for life, there’s little reason to view science with any great hostility. Unfortunately, while science has been the tool man has used to make the greatest achievements ever seen on Earth, it has also revealed that a lot of people are just plain stubborn. People will favor their long-held beliefs over accepting a conflicting fact from science. (In fact, it’s 64% that will do that in America.) That’s why we have religion to blame for results like these.
Stagnant scientific education imperils U.S. economic leadership, says a report by leading business and science figures.
Released Thursday at a congressional briefing attended by senators and congressmen of both parties, the report updates a 2005 science education report that led to moves to double federal research funding.
Nevertheless, the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” review finds little improvement in U.S. elementary and secondary technical education since then.
“Our nation’s outlook has worsened,” concludes the report panel headed by former Lockheed Martin chief Norman Augustine. The report “paints a daunting outlook for America if it were to continue on the perilous path it has been following”:
•U.S. mathematics and science K-12 education ranks 48th worldwide.
•49% of U.S. adults don’t know how long it takes for the Earth to circle the sun.
•China has replaced the United States as the world’s top high-technology exporter.
One of the most interesting facts in the research, though a bit of an outdated one, is that in 1999, 69% of 5-8th graders received instruction in the physical sciences from teachers lacking a major or certification in any physical science. It makes me wonder how many high school students are also receiving their education from un- or low-qualified teachers. We know they’re out there (which is one reason D.C. fired a bunch of them recently), but I’m not sure on the stats. I think there would be interesting implications for Paul LePage’s plan to give away degrees.
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Governor, Lockheed Martin, Maine, Math, Norman Augustine, Paul LePage, Rank, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Science, U.S. Education | 9 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 