Oops, we said what we meant

A brave pastor speaks out about an impending atheist billboard in his neighborhood:

"It does concern me," said the Rev. Armand Egnew, pastor of Crosswalk Community Church, an Assemblies of God congregation in Fleming Island.

"It throws confusion out to people ... who are not solidly grounded" in their faith.

Which translates into Honestese as: "I'm scared. We lose control if we can't monopolize speech."

Then he adds, "The church needs to step up and show these people there is a God." To which I add, "If you can."


Via Friendly Atheist

How an open-minded museum behaves

A couple years ago, I shared a class with a student who was working at the UM's Museum of Natural History. I took the opportunity to express the shock I had felt when I encountered a set of dioramas depicting Indians in villages, doing Indian things and whatnot. An anthropology museum, sure, but natural history? As if Indians weren't humans?

The student explained to me that the dioramas were some 50 years old, that many older patrons had cherished memories of them, and the museum staff found it all a terrible dilemma. They fully understood the problem with them, but just doing away with the exhibit was not so easy to do.

A few weeks went by and one day this same student turned to me and said, "I have to tell you what happened at the museum the other day!" It seemed a handful of undergraduates, goaded by their instructor into making some exhibitionist stand against the dominant imperialist culture, had stormed the museum and loudly protested the dioramas. It was, to put it mildly, disruptive; it was meant to be disruptive (you can read part of the story here, but unfortunately the second page of the article isn't archived). Allowing themselves to be ignored would have defeated the entire operation.

What did the museum staff do? Not much, other than explain to the other visitors what was going on and why. They didn't call the police, nor did they have guards with guns and tasers hauling out these kids who were interfering with the other patrons' experience. No, they seized the educational opportunity and explained what the controversy was about.

So keep that in mind while you read Ken Ham's self-congratulatory tale of how his armed guards only threw two atheists out of the Creation Museum (one of them for the intolerable crime of wearing a t-shirt with a slogan the other visitors didn't agree with, the other for trying to film the removal). Mind you, this is his own account, pimped to show you how unbelievably tolerant he is. And compare it to what a real museum does when faced with dissenting views.

Protesting is terrorism

If you go to work for the Department of Defense, you will be taught that protests are an act of terrorism:

The written exam, given as part of Department of Defense employees’ routine training, includes a multiple-choice question that asks:

“Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?”

— Attacking the Pentagon
— IEDs
— Hate crimes against racial groups
— Protests

The correct answer, according to the exam, is "Protests."

Isn't that comforting, coming from the people who claim to be defending "freedom?" Even more interesting is the fact that I was tipped off to the story by the good loons at Worldview Weekend. Of course, they're still in a dudgeon over that report about potential right-wing extremists, but I find it notable that they link to this story without extraneous comment. The article mentions mostly anti-war protesters and quotes the ACLU, but WvW doesn't bother to mention that they usually see these folks as enemies. I know this isn't any sort of turning point in left-right relations, but it's still a nice little moment.

The day after the election, my Facebook status update said something to the effect that I was glad conservatives would start worrying about government overreach again, now that they were out of power. I'm feeling vindicated.

No long names, please

Via foreignpolicy.com and NYT, we learn that libertarian dystopia Germany has a law against people combining already-hyphenated surnames:

In a split decision on Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld a ban on married people combining already-hyphenated names, forbidding last names of three parts or more.

Which is just hilarious, coming from a people who refer to speeding as Geschwindigkeitsüberschreitung.

Silly lawsuits

Judge to rule on political T-shirts at Michigan polls

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" I have to take off my campaign buttons while I vote and can't put them back on again until I'm halfway down the block!


Update: Judge: Political T-shirts banned at Michigan polls

Earning the Jesus points

So I come in to work this afternoon and notice a crowd outside the library. "Probably kids preaching the Columbus Day anti-gospel," is my guess, but I'm wrong. It's an honest-to-You-Know-Who, fire-and-brimstone threatening, preacher out of the Jonathan Edwards mold. In fact, I'm sure it's the same guy I saw at Hell, Michigan, for their nationally-famous 666 celebration in June of 2006. Apparently, out little university is presumed to keep good company in the vice department.

Apparently, some folks have complained and one good librarian here actually seems to believe that the campus is failing to keep its students safe by allowing someone to rant hatefully, even if there is no violence and little likelihood of any occurring. Free speech, baby, free speech. As for me, I'm just offended that he's lumping me in with all the (wrong) religion folk. Now them's fightin' words ....


This guy is such a Weebel

National Security Letters

[Note: an earlier version of this post was accidentally zapped out of existence]

Via Library Juice, Mother Jones magazine on the Connecticut librarians' resistance to national security letters. My favorite part:

The Supreme Court subsequently ordered the Justice Department to unseal the court documents in the case. Among the evidence the government had tried to keep secret were quotes from previous Supreme Court cases; copies of New York Times articles; and the text of the Connecticut law that guarantees the confidentiality of library records. The Justice Department had also sealed arguments made by the ACLU attorneys, including this passage: "Now that John Doe's identity has been widely disseminated, the government's sole basis for the gag has wholly evaporated."

Omigod, i would have slept so much better not knowing that ....

UM Press caves to criticism

U-M shelves connection to publisher

When the controversy flared last summer, the executive board of the U-M Press defended its relationship with Pluto, saying reservations about the content of a single book shouldn't interfere with an existing business relationship, and that stopping the book's distribution would be a blow to academic freedom and free speech.

Yep.

Peggy McCracken, an associate dean at Michigan who is chair of the executive board of the press, said that politics wasn’t the issue. She said that because Pluto doesn’t have peer review on the Michigan model, it would be inappropriate to keep the ties. “The issue is review procedures,” she said.

... yeah.

More at Michigan Severs Ties to Controversial Publisher

McCain=Bush

More evidence that this country desperately needs a program of debushification and isn't going to get it:

Woman Arrested at McCain Event for "McCain=Bush" Sign

I have to object a little, however, to the assumption that a 61-year-old librarian is the acme of harmlessness. The Party knows better.

[via Library Juice]

Popline, continued

More on the Popline case, where administrators at Johns Hopkins blocked searches on "abortion" and related terms. USAID claims that they never asked for this action and Popline overreacted to some complaints about specific articles. This is probably true, but I don't consider it an innocent mistake. It's an indication of how far the expectation of censorship has gone in this country, when people begin to censor themselves even more than the government demands of them.

Caving to those who want to hide information

I wasn't familiar with POPLINE, "the world's largest database on reproductive health," until now. It's maintained by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. (USAID). Now, the folks running USAID are strongly anti-abortion, and apparently the folks at the INFO Project would rather play ball than search for other funding.

I especially like the "I hope this helps" at the end of the reply. No, denying access to health information never helps. Not a bit.

And no, it's not an April Fool's joke at all. You really can't find a single article at POPLINE if you search on "abortion."

Civil disobedience

A couple of protesters from the Buffalo Field Campaign got themselves arrested in the Mammoth visitor center. I've always thought the BFC to be unnecessarily shrill, even though I also find the brucellosis-control measures distasteful.


What jumped out at me in this report was the Park spokesman actually using the words civil disobedience. That's not a phrase I usually hear from the authorities (or even news reporters). I have to respect someone who can be inconvenienced, but still maintain perspective like that.

Those religionists again ....

The Director of Michigan Atheists is in a lather about a bill in Congress to designate the first week of May as "American Religious History Week."

This heinous resolution is designed to establish a Christian theocracy in America. It is preceded by seventy-five
whereas's, many of which overtly distort American history or are obvious lies. To get the full story please see
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:H.RES.888

This all sounded rather over-the-top, so I decided I did want to read those 75 "whereases" to get a proper perspective. As a result, here is the letter I am sending to the Honorable John D. Dingell, my representative in the House:

I have just read through H. RES. 888, establishing a religious history week, and there’s something a little strange about it. The stated goal is to “affirm the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day.” A laudable goal, but that word diverse seems dreadfully out of place here. You see, that interminable list of justifications preceding the resolution points solely at the Christian god and doesn’t include a single statement that reflects any but an evangelical Protestant’s point of view. Not one.

So I have to suspect one of two things: either this is yet another Trojan horse by the religious right to justify their claim to special status (contrary to Article VI), or the authors of this bill are just pig-ignorant of US History (three attempts to claim that Thomas Jefferson believed in mixing church and state? Oh my). Either way, I hope you will be too properly embarrassed by this tawdry scrap of nonsense to vote for it, unless it undergoes extensive revision so as to support a more honest description of America’s diverse religious history.

Scott Hanley
Ypsilanti, MI

Of course, I actually suspect both of those two things, although with religionists, it's so hard to tell when ignorance leaves off and sheer dishonesty takes over.

Internet control, cont.

A reversal of the ruling to shut down Wikileaks.org. Free speech and privacy are not necessarily amicable companions.