Best of the Web Today - August 31, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Darwin's Poor Publicists
"A poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools," the New York Times reports:
In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism. . . .
John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said he was surprised to see that teaching both evolution and creationism was favored not only by conservative Christians, but also by majorities of secular respondents, liberal Democrats and those who accept the theory of natural selection. Mr. Green called it a reflection of "American pragmatism."
"It's like they're saying, 'Some people see it this way, some see it that way, so just teach it all and let the kids figure it out.' It seems like a nice compromise, but it infuriates both the creationists and the scientists," said Mr. Green, who is also a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio.
The poll results are here.
This column disagrees with most Americans. Neither the biblical story of creation nor the idea of "intelligent design" is a scientific theory (despite the latter's pretensions), and thus neither belongs in science class, as opposed to courses in history, religion and philosophy.
At the same time, we are mystified by the strong emotions this issue stirs up on the pro-evolution side. Here's columnist Harold Meyerson in today's Washington Post:
Now that the president himself has said that intelligent design should be part of the curriculum, too (which gives a whole new, afterlife-specific meaning to the notion of No Child Left Behind), such school board creationism probably will expand exponentially. . . .
I'm going to assume--a clear leap of faith on my part--that none of the Republican presidential hopefuls in 2008, with the possible exception of Rick Santorum, actually believes this stuff. . . .
So let the first presidential primary of the Dark Ages begin! I want to know if George Allen believes in the Rapture, and whether he thinks such likely primary rivals as Rudy Giuliani will be left behind. I want to know if that well-known dinosaurphile, Newt Gingrich, is dangerously geologistic, if he really believes that the big lizards have been extinct for millions of years. I'm waiting for Bill Frist to deny, if pressed by an indignant Iowan, that blood circulates. And I wonder if John McCain believes Rick Santorum is descended from apes. And if yes, how far?
Republicans often gloat about Democratic voters driving their presidential hopefuls to the left during primary season. But at this point in American politics, it's the Republican base that is galloping both rightward and dumbward simultaneously. It could make for an interesting--make that, Menckenian--primary process. And a dimmer, diminished United States.
Meyerson comes across as dogmatic, closed-minded and contemptuous of those who disagree with him--the attitude of a fanatic, not a scientist. If even Americans who don't believe in creationism favor teaching it alongside evolution, perhaps people like Meyerson should ask if their obnoxious style of argument is part of the reason.
Shiite Stampede
The Associated Press brings us horrific news from Baghdad:
Trampled, crushed against barricades or plunging into the Tigris River, more than 700 Shiite pilgrims died Wednesday when a procession across a Baghdad bridge was engulfed in panic over rumors that a suicide bomber was at large.
Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
For some reason, the AP doesn't mention what the biggest loss of life in Iraq before the invasion was.
Give Peace a Chance or I'll Kill You!
From London's Times, a story of America's pop-cultural figures providing moral leadership:
Green Day, the anti-war punk rockers, swept the MTV Video Music Awards in a sign that American popular culture is turning against US presence in Iraq. . . .
The annual MTV extravaganza was overshadowed by violence. Saturday night's shooting of Marion "Suge" Knight at a party in a Miami nightclub was feared by many to be a renewal of the East Coast-West Coast rap wars of the 1990s.
The awards ceremony was presented by Sean Combs, now calling himself Diddy. Lil' Kim arrived in a Rolls-Royce for one of her last outings before she begins a year-long sentence for perjury for lying about a shooting in New York.
Perhaps the strangest moment came when R. Kelly, who is soon to go on trial on child pornography charges, lip-synched to his song Trapped in The Closet about a cheating wife, a cheating husband and his boyfriend.
Hey, why wage wars overseas when there are plenty of people who need to be killed right here at home?
A Girl's Entitled to Change Her Mind
Remember Cindy Sheehan? She's the Vacaville, Calif., woman who, angry that her son died bringing freedom to Iraq, staged a protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch demanding that the president meet with her a second time. Now, however, she's changed her tune, the Associated Press reports:
"I look back on it, and I am very, very, very grateful he did not meet with me, because we have sparked and galvanized the peace movement," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "If he'd met with me, then I would have gone home, and it would have ended there."
Instead, according to another AP dispatch, she's going to Brunswick, Maine, where she "will protest a Blue Angels air show" next month.
'George, This Is Barbara'
"Majority Says President, Mother Should Meet, Poll Suggests"--headline, Boston Globe, Aug. 31
But We'll Do It Anyway
"This seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation."--editorial, New York Times, Aug. 31
What Would We Do Without Editorials?
"Editorial: Katrina's Reign and Chaos Not Welcome"--headline, Times-Picayune (New Orleans), Aug. 31
Scenes From the Class Struggle
Yesterday's old joke is today's grim reality: "Poorest Hit Hardest by Hurricane Katrina" reads an ABCNews.com headline. The New York Times elaborates:
The poorest areas are expected to be hit hardest. Experience has shown, Dr. [Irwin] Redlener [of the Columbia School of Public Health] said, that "the more underserved and more economically fragile a community is pre-disaster, the more we expect to see severe consequences after a disaster."
On the Angry Left Daily Kos Web site, meanwhile, one "Flip Floss" puts the whole thing in racial terms:
What I am going to say now is that there are thousands who are dying and dead. They [sic] will be scandal and rioting and rightly so in my opinion as the "Negroes" of New Orleans and tourists were left to drown. . . . If you can't see that the poor people were herded into the unsafe Superdome because no one cares about them then that is not a problem I can address. . . .
There are people who are trying to survive the flood waters who are still trapped inside their homes and very little is being done to save them because they are black. . . .
I am very angry at what's happening in New Orleans. This event, I believe is only beginning to unfold not just in terms of the deaths but also of the social destruction of the Black population that is now being blamed for looting. I'd loot too! It's quite insane there is no food, water, electricity or housing. I would take whatever is available to survive and make myself comfortable and not worry about paying for it.
I don't think people are stealing TV sets.
Where the hell is Bush. He should be there right now. The entire city of New Orleans is largely destroyed. That's reason enough for a President to appear.
Actually, a Bush visit to New Orleans sounds like an excellent idea to us. Over at DemocraticUnderground, they're holding a debate over whether it is acceptable for a looter to shoot a policeman in the head. You'll be relieved to learn that even the DU denizens mostly think it isn't, but there are some notable exceptions.
"I think before we start judging the shooter, we need to consider that he/she could very well be in shock," writes "huskerlaw." "None of us know what the circumstances were." And "MrsGrumpy" doesn't believe looting is going on: "I just find it funny all of a sudden how we all believe the mainstream media and these 'looting' stories when people are missing or lost. And, I've been feeling. Go ahead and slam me. We are all in this together, with the exception of the ass in the oval office."
Good Thing the President Is Fit to Command
"The Navy is sending in [to Louisiana] five ships and more than a dozen rescue teams including swift boat units from California."--WABC-TV Web site (New York), Aug. 31
The Fake Weather
In yesterday's item on hurricane Katrina and "global warming" alarmism, we didn't scrutinize as closely as we might have the claims of Ross Gelbspan, whose Boston Globe op-ed we deservedly mocked. Gelbspan claimed that "the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles"--something several L.A. readers assure us is not true and that, as a onetime resident of the Los Angeles area, we find wholly implausible. There was a big storm just after Christmas, but it dumped only rain on Los Angeles. It did snow in the mountains, but then it always does.
Gelbspan also claims that the winter in Boston was "unusually short," and that "the beginning of 2005, a deadly ice storm . . . dropped a record-setting 42.2 inches of snow on Boston." In fact, according to reader Steve Tefft, "last winter was unusually long. On the Cape, where I live, we had snow on the ground well into April." And a reader known only as Gerald adds:
Someone should tell Mr. Gelbspan that an ice storm doesn't drop snow, or they wouldn't call it an ice storm. An ice storm is comprised of freezing rain or supercooled rain that freezes upon impact. Thus an ice storm produces rain and ice but no snow. So how does he come up with 42.2 inches of snow dropped on Boston during this ice storm at the beginning of January 2005?
As it turns out there was no early January 2005 storm that dropped anything near 42.2 inches of snow on Boston.
According to the National Weather Service office in Taunton, Mass., the January 2005 snowfall for Boston included back-to-back days (Jan. 21 and 22) of record snowfall for Boston. Those records were 9.1 inches for Jan. 21 and 13.4 inches on Jan. 22, for a two-day total of 22.5 inches.
As of Jan. 27, 43.1 inches of snow had fallen on Boston in 2005. Subtract the previously mentioned two-day total of 22.5 inches, and you end up with 20.6 inches of snow on Boston for all other January 2005 snowstorms. I hope that Mr. Gelbspan's research for his two books was done more carefully than his research for this early January 2005 Boston ice storm.
But reader Eric Free of Oceanside, Colo., has a different perspective:
You are way too cynical and know-nothing in your mockery of RFK2 et al. The flood in Genesis was caused by Global Warming. So was the Johnstown Flood. So was Curt Flood. So were the Ten Plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea.
The Chicago Fire of 1871 was caused by Global Warming. So was the Panic of 1873. So was the Panic of 1837. The bubonic plague too was caused by Global Warming (how could you forget this?). So was the fall of Constantinople (note the parallel with the war in Iraq). And the Red Chinese onslaught across the Yalu River in the Korean War was caused by Global Warming. So was the Normandy Invasion in World War II. So was the Norman Invasion of 1066. And the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and Haley's Comet. And for that matter the Hale-Bopp Comet.
The title weather in "Bartholomew and the Oobleck" was clearly caused by Global Warming. So was the pink snow in "The Cat in the Hat." So was Andersonville Prison during the Civil War. So was the entire Civil War. So was the Amityville Horror. So was the Dunwich Horror. So was the failure of the Colorado Rockies to make it to the World Series every single year that they've been a Major League franchise. So was the failure of any of the three "Matrix" movies starring Keanu Reeves to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
AND GEORGE W'S ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY IN 2000 WAS CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING!!! (Why do you think he opposes an end to it, after all?)
We must admit, we never thought of it quite that way.
Life Imitates the Simpsons
From "$pringfield," an episode of "The Simpsons," which originally aired Dec. 16, 1993:
Principal Skinner: Now, I, uh, hesitate to bring this up, but a number of cities have rejuvenated their economies with, er, legalized gambling. There is an added bonus: some of the revenue can go to help our underfunded public schools. . . .
Ned Flanders: What do you think, reverend?
Rev. Lovejoy: Once something has been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
From the Daily Reflector of Greenville, N.C., Aug. 31, 2005:
School board member Ralph Love, a minister, said while he doesn't like gambling, he is glad to know more financial resources are on the way to local schools.
"As a pastor, I don't believe in gambling, but as a citizen, whatever the school system needs . . . then you know, I don't have a problem with it."
The Hagel Campaign Gets Under Way
"Neb. Residents Plagued by Gibberish Calls"--headline Associated Press, Aug. 30
Oh, How Smashing!
"Picasso Pottery to Go Under Hammer at London Auction in October"--headline, Agence France-Presse, Aug. 30
What Would School Kids Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say It's Important for School Kids to Eat Healthy"--headline, NY1 Web site (New York), Aug. 29
Offensive to Allergy Sufferers!
"A Barclays commercial showing a man suffering a bee sting reaction was banned by telly watchdogs yesterday," reports London's Sun:
Nearly 300 people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the bank ad.
It showed the victim fall into a lake then get arrested by cops.
But the ASA ruled it was offensive to allergy sufferers.
It turns out this isn't the first such adverse reaction from allergy sufferers. Here's a May 10 press release from the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network:
Brought to life on the big screen in the newly-released movie, Monster-in-Law, is an insensitive and vindictive portrayal towards individuals with food allergies. Ironically, the movie debuts during Food Allergy Awareness Week, May 8-14, which brings attention to the serious nature of food allergies through a national grass-roots campaign.
A "grass-roots" campaign? As a sufferer of allergic rhinitis, we take offense! |
