Discussion on state education testing now online

My televised discussion/debate on education testing with several other figures in state education in Kentucky that took place last Monday, June 23 is now online at Kentucky Educational Television (KET). You can access it directly by clicking here. Guests on the show were:

• Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association
• Lu Young, superintendent of Jessamine County Schools
• Tim Decker, an art teacher at Russell Middle School
• Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst with The Family Foundation of Kentucky

Pew Forum: 21 percent of atheists believe in God

Okay. Now I've heard everything: According to a Pew Forum report 21 percent of atheists believe in God. Not only that, but, as the blog "Hot Air" has pointed out, the same report indicates that, in addition, 12 percent of atheists believe in heaven and 10 percent pray at least once a week.

I'm trying to imagine what an atheist prayer would sound like, but nothing is coming to me. Obviously these are not very good atheists, and are in need of some remedial atheist training, in Lesson 1 of which would be instruction on the concept that atheists don't believe in God and so it's probably not too terribly useful to pray to him.

Thanks to Polysemy, a great little blog, for spotting this. Here are the numbers from the Pew Forum:

Lenny Bruce is dead. Again.

On Bob Dylan's album "Shot of Love," there is a song called "Lenny Bruce is Dead":

Lenny Bruce is dead,
But his ghost lives on and on.
Never did get any Golden Globe award,
Never made it to Synanon.
He was an outlaw,
That's for sure,
More of an outlaw than you ever were.
Lenny Bruce is gone
But his spirit's livin' on and on.

George Carlin is gone now too, and his spirit's livin' on and on. It was, in fact, the same spirit as Lenny Bruce's. But it's hard to be Lenny Bruce, particularly when you're not actually him.

As John Wohlstetter points out, Carlin didn't start out channeling Bruce:

Carlin's childhood ambition was to become his generation's Danny Kaye. Anyone who saw his 60s routines could see the resemblance. Carlin was funny, expressive, creative and clean. "There'll be a massacre at the fort at 9 PM tonight; White Eagle will lead...." Carlin even satirized the counter-culture he later embraced ("This is Al Sleet, your hippy-dippy weatherman....").

But, as Time Magazine points out all of this changed when Carlin saw Bruce perform:

Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the early '60s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration if not their close friendship. "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

Despite Carlin's Brucian pose, there was a big difference between the two comics. For one thing, Bruce was more of an outlaw than Carlin ever was: Carlin didn't get any Golden Globe Award either, but he did win the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the American Comedy Awards. Bruce appeared on network television only six times, while Carlin ended up a familiar face on the tube. Like Bruce, Carlin employed obscenities in his act, but while Bruce attracted persecution for it, Carlin could only garner accolades. Bruce died young, of a drug overdose; Carlin lived to 71, on the wagon.

Carlin's attempt to take up Bruce's mantle as the revolutionary, underground, anti-establishment comic ultimately didn't work. As hard as he tried, Carlin just couldn't get in as much trouble as Bruce. Every attempt to be bad was met, not with outrage, but with applause. Carlin could never be Bruce because he arrived too late on the cultural scene.

Revolution only lasts about one generation, and then the next generation has to settle for wearing the t-shirts.

By the time Carlin came around, most of the barriers had been broken. He did his best to outrage people with the obscenities and the drug jokes and the atheism, but by that time no one was much interested in arresting people for such things--or even being outraged by them. We were too busy cheering them.

It was the very anti-establishment nature of Bruce that made him funny. But Carlin, like so many other modern comedians unable to distinguish themselves among the crowd of rebels, got less funny the more political and socially conscious he became. In an age when the heretics have the pulpit, it's hard for them to strike the heretical pose and still be funny: just look at Bill Maher and Al Franken.

It's too bad Carlin tried so hard to be Bruce. He could have just been Carlin and been just as funny, maybe even funnier.

Begging the Question: How can non-Christians condemn Christians for anything?

A poster by the name of "Mephistopholes" asks, on the Philosophy Forum, "How can Christians possibly rationalize these things?" whereupon he lists a litany of bad things found in the Bible, some of them either commanded by or apparently acquiesced to by God. But isn't it just as logical to ask, "How can nonChristians possibly condemn these things?"

Politically Correct school textbooks redefining "Jihad"

According to the American Textbook Council (ATC), school textbooks have redefined the word "Jihad" in a politically correct attempt not to offend anyone (except, of course, people who care about historical accuracy). According to the New York Examiner, Gilbert Sewall, director of the ATC:

complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation of violence. He cites Houghton Mifflin's popular middle school text, "Across the Centuries," which has been approved for use in Montgomery County Schools. It defines "jihad" as a struggle "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil."

Is opposition to the Louisiana Science Education act thinly disguised attempt to impose atheism?

The "Louisiana Coalition for Science" is calling on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to veto SB 733, the Louisiana Science Education Act, for being a "thinly disguised attempt" to bring creationism to the state's schools because, in addition to support for the bill from Intelligent Design advocates, some of its supporters are creationists. The bill calls for "critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning"

A terrible, terrible thing, I'm sure you will agree.

But if SB 733 is a "creationist" bill because some of its supporters are creationists, then wouldn't opposition to the bill have to be considered "atheist" if some of its supporters were atheists? Its the same argument, after all. So let's hear the Louisiana Coalition for Science explain why their logic doesn't extend to the fact that there are atheist organizations opposing the bill, and why the same conclusion about atheism doesn't follow from it.

Here are the Mississippi Atheists on why the bill should not be passed. Oh, and here's the Ethical Atheist declaiming on the evils of SB 733. In fact, aren't atheists quite well represented in the whole opposition to Intelligent Design? Let's see, there's Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris--all of whom are actively involved in opposition to it.

Looks like an atheist plot.

One more try...

Joshua Rosenau at the National Center for Science Education responds to my post asking the question, if the relationships of homosexuals are already stable then why do we need marriage to stabilize them in a recent post at his blog Thoughts from Kansas:

Martin Cothran, blogger for the Disco. Inst., opposes gay marriage, and wonders:

If their relationships are already stable, then why do they need to be stabilized?

Compelling logic. Clearly, marriage is useless.

Of course, evidence suggests that marriage actually does have a stabilizing effect on people. And gay people, it turns out, are people, too.

Which, of course, completely misses my point. I never said that marriage does not have a stabilizing affect on people. In fact, I assumed it in the point I was making. And the point I was making is that gays want to have it both ways in their PR campaigns: they first take umbrage if anyone tries to assert that they are overly promiscuous and then they turn around and argue that they need marriage in order to be less promiscuous.

Yes gay people are people too. So maybe we could restate the question for Rosenau and see if we can break through the logical firewall he seems to have set in his mental system settings: "If the relationships of gay people are already stable then why do we need marriage to stabilize them?"

We'll see what happens, but we're not hopeful

KHSAA: When those who make the rules are unfair

Wow. When I agree with two Herald-Leader editorials in one day, it forces me to do an opinion inventory on myself. But so it is. In addition to firing a shot across the bow of UK President Lee Todd, the Herald calls for something to be done about the Kentucky High School Athletics Association, whose decisions about students transferring from one school to another have become increasingly bizarre.

Maybe the KHSAA should try to find itself another mission in life than to be a protection racket for public school athletic programs--like maybe looking out for the best interests of students.

"Symbolism matters," says Lexington Herald about UK bonus for Todd

The Lexington Herald-Leader blasts University of Kentucky President Lee Todd over his bonus, asking why is isn't sharing the pain with everyone else.

Why do homosexual relationships need to be stabilized if they're already stable?

I didn't catch this when it was posted, but Richard John Neuhaus (Why, you ask, is he not on my list of Modern Wise Men, the answer to which is, "I have no idea) had an insightful comment on the California Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex "marriage".

In one part of the post, Neuhaus criticizes Father Thomas Reese, former editor of the Catholic magazine America, for floating the assertion that allowing homosexuals to "marry" would "stabilize" their relationships, a position Neuhaus mentions that Andrew Sullivan often espouses.

One thing Neuhaus doesn't mention is how totally inconsistent this view--of the desirability of marriage for stabilizing homosexual relationships--is with what homosexuals are always saying about their relationships. On the one hand, gay rights advocates frequently deny that their relationships are unstable (i.e., that they are inordinately promiscuous); on the hand, they say that allowing same-sex marriage would "stabilize" their relationships (i.e. reduce their penchant for promiscuity).

If their relationships are already stable, then why do they need to be stabilized?

Kangaroo Courts: How Canadian "human rights commissions" are clamping down on religious dissent over homosexuality

The conservative writer Mark Steyn has been hauled before a Canadian "human rights commission" for criticizing Islam, but, says John Leo, negative remarks about homosexuality are even more likely to get you hauled before a Canadian kangaroo court. Fortunately, the United States has the First Amendment, which prevents the increasingly intolerant left from restricting opinions here--at least as long as activist judges don't reinterpret it.

Darwinists: Objectivity is a creationist plot

Okay, I have now officially gone from merely disagreeing with the Darwinists to being concerned about their mental health. Here we were having this big debate over whether Intelligent Design met the criteria of science, and whether ID was appropriate to teach in public school classrooms, and whether ID was true at all, when all of a sudden, they went paranoid on us.

At first we were arguing over whether ID was objective, and whether it could withstand critical and logical analysis, and whether it could survive open and objective discussion. Now we are having to defend critical thinking, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion against the Darwinists who have apparently abandoned these things because they are all a part of a creationist conspiracy.

I'm sorry, let me rub my eyes one more time just to make sure I am seeing what I think I am seeing.

The Louisiana legislature passed the Science Education Act which merely calls for ""critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning"--and the response to this by the Darwinist establishment, upon seeing these things supported by people they disagree with, is to ... come out against them.

Can you say "cut off your nose to spite your face"?

They are so fearful of anyone who might question their theory that they are willing to jettison the very things they claim to be practicing and defending. So what are they going to do when they find out that Intelligent Design advocates walk upright? Stand on their heads? What is their response going to be when they discover that people who believe the world was not the produce of blind chance brush their teeth? Knock their own out?

If the ID forces are smart, their next move will be to come out in favor of Natural Selection--just so they can see the Darwinists reject it.