Radical Transparency

The conversation started with ionized water.

It moved to fully absorbing the passion of a cause, NEEDING to change the world in the ONE way you KNOW it needs changing, committing, for good, for life, to a model or project or technology or religion.

And then we got specific. A dude that loved blue glass, thought it healed him, thought it could, should, and would heal everyone. Because he'd experienced it. Because he knew it worked.

And we remembered the Placebo Effect, remembered everything we don't know about how the body heals itself, remembered layers and layers of science, remembered how silly we are to imagine that we've peeled away all the mystery.

We weren't listening to this song. But we can pretend we were.

Soap Box Preacher is track 4 on Storyville.

Click here to download:

Soap Box Preacher.mp3 (5002 KB)

A few days ago, the Texas Board of Education met to discuss the possibility of repealing a rule that requires that the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories be taught.

At the center of the debate is evolution. 

Creationists love the rule because it gives them opportunities to get weird in classrooms. 

People afraid of fundamentalist religious lunatics love the proposed repeal because it would eliminate some opportunities for creationists to get weird.  In state sponsored schools.  In front of children.

Here's an excerpt from an article about the lead up to that meeting:

Protesters and activists gathered nearby, fervently arguing their sides of the debate.

"My grandfather was not a monkey!" one woman shouted at a crowd before the meeting began.

I think I need to talk to the reporter.  Fervently arguing one side of the debate?  Pointing out that her grandfather was not a monkey is fervently arguing her side of the debate?  The woman clearly thinks so, and fair enough to acknowledge that.  But.  I think the words argue and debate might be feeling a little taken-advantage-of, no?

This article is from 2000, which, on the internet, seems like a ridiculously long time ago, but my guess is that scientific fart research moves pretty slowly, so I think we're safe to assume that most of this info is pretty up to date.

Here are some informative and/or thought-provoking excerpts:

-While Levitt [the world's leading authority on flatulence...in 2000, anyway] says he has never treated someone who held a fart in too long, there are dangerous side effects (including dizziness and headaches).

-Pumpernickel, the dark-grain bread, means "goblin that breaks wind" in Old German.

-"Noisy farts can smell just as bad as silent ones," he says. "That's another myth that needs to be put to rest."

-It's a strange thing, though, farts. Take, for example, the expression "old fart." It's a term of insult when spoken in the third person, but one of pride when spoken about oneself.

That last observation's a little suspect if you ask me, but, then again, my dad and his siblings used to refer to their dad and his third wife as the Old Fart and the Fartress, and when you make it a title and capitalize it all fancy, yeah, sure, I can see people getting excited about it.

My grandfather took a bunch of us relatives to dinner tonight.  Hibachi-style Japanese.  The shrimp the dude threw to Hal (the grandfather) hit him in the forehead.

They give you heaps of food at those places.  Hal couldn't eat all his.  Or drink more than three sips of his non-alcoholic (or, as he calls it "decaffeinated") beer.

So I took his leftovers home (because I don't like wasting food) for the animals (because I don't eat meat).  Food leftovers, not beer leftovers.

He had ordered the beef chicken shrimp combo and left pieces of all three meats.

Noticing this fact, I decided to conduct a very important science experiment...

I put a piece of shrimp, a piece of chicken, and a piece of beef in front of Beans the kittencat (almost a year old: maybe still a kitten; maybe a cat now; unclear).

He licked the shrimp first, kinda bit at it, moved on to the beef, ate it, ate the chicken, and then ate the shrimp.

Then I gave him just beef and chicken (because that was clearly the next logical step in the scientific process).

He ate the chicken and then walked away from the beef.*

As you can tell, the results of the experiment were inconclusive.

But Beans definitely knows that I love him.

*Note: The dog was very happy about this.

Sarah Palin doesn't like fruit flies.  Do we know why?

Does she think they are tiny and silly and dirty and thus obviously totally scientifically useless?

Or does she worry about the implications of research that deals with genes and genetics?  Might she think fruit fly research lies on a slippery slope toward acknowledging truth in evolution?

Thank you GOOD Blog for making me wonder about this.  But why, GOOD Blog, did you react to my submitted comment so coldly?  You didn't post it.  You didn't tell me it was awaiting moderation.  You didn't tell me something technical had gone wrong.  I'm confused.  So I resort to blogging.