Dave Easterly’s Bravo Sierra Blog

Thoughts for a Monday

September 26, 2005 on 9:18 am | In General, Political Musings |
This post is utterly devoid of comments. :(

Well, lots of things are going on in the world right now and I thought it only fitting that I throw out my unsolicited opinion on a few things. First, Evolution vs. “Intelligent Design.” In 1987 (give or take a year – memory isn’t what it used to be), the Supreme Court ruled that government funded public schools cannot teach Creationism because it violates the separation of Church and State. Let me explain what is going on here:

Supreme Court: “Teaching Creationism is equal to the government endorsing the Judeo-Christian religious mythology regarding the origin of life on this planet, and is therefore not permissible. In an unrelated note, the taking of a human life with premeditation should be referred to as First Degree Murder in the eyes of the law.”
Government: “OK.”

— 18 years later —

New NeoCon Government: “We want to teach kids in schools that the Universe is too complex and sophisticated a system to have simply come together as a result of the most desirable traits to be carried and passed on over thousands and thousands of generations while in that time traits that were not beneficial were eventually abandoned by Natural Selection.”
Supreme Court: “So if those changes were not eventually passed on or weeded out by Natural Selection, then how was it determined to keep some traits and discard others?”
New NeoCon Government: “Intelligence.”
Supreme Court: “Excuse me?”
New NeoCon Government: “An intelligent designer. This “Intelligent Designer,” over the course of many generations, decided what features were good or bad and then made intelligent design decisions about what to keep and what to discard.”
Supreme Court: “Who?”
New NeoCon Government: “Who what?”
Supreme Court: “Who is this “Intelligent Designer?”
New NeoCon Government: “I’m not sure I understand the question…”
Supreme Court: “This intelligence you describe as manipulating and managing the design of species… it would have to be someone of tremendous power to make these changes to species. They would have to possess almost Godlike powers. Who is it?”
New NeoCon Government: “We never said God.”
Supreme Court: “Then who?”
New NeoCon Government: “That’s not the point.”
Supreme Court: “But that’s exactly the point. We’ve already ruled on this almost 20 years ago. We can’t teach Creationism in schools because it’s a violation of the…”

— Just at this moment the Chief Justice dies and is quickly replaced by a NeoCon shill —

New NeoCon Supreme Court Chief Justice: “Intelligent Design and Creationism aren’t the same thing. Creationism explicitly defines God as the designer of the Universe. He is only vaguely alluded to in Intelligent Design without being explicity named. Intelligent Design is a theory, just like Evolution is just a theory. So children should be taught both theories… although it is the considered opinion of this Court that teaching Evolution carries with it certain risks such as our children turning into homosexuals, our daughters murdering their babies while still in the womb, and fewer tax breaks for the already ridiculously wealthy. It is with these wholly unacceptable risks in mind, that we must declare the teaching of Evolution as ‘Un-American,’ ‘Evil,’ and ‘Just Plain Naughty.’”
Thinking Intelligent Americans: “Huh? What just happened? I just woke up…”
Convicted Murderer: “Um… what I did wasn’t First Degree Murder. It was ‘Proactive Life Termination.’ That’s totally different.”
New NeoCon Supreme Court Chief Justice: “Was it a fetus?”
Convicted Murdered: “No! Absolutely not. It was a liberal douchebag who interfered with my right to acquire wealth off the backs of others!”
New NeoCon Supreme Court Chief Justice: “Oh, OK. You’re free to go then. That’s something completely different.”

— New NeoCon Supreme Court Chief Justice is then sued by members of Monty Python for copyright infringement. —

That’s where we’re headed, people.

“Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western
religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of
Western science.”
– Gary Zukav, “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”

In happier news, I got to see one of my former students play jazz yesterday at a local coffee house. It’s a young girl who is quickly on her way to becoming a great drummer. A link to her blog is on this site. You were awesome, Lael! Keep it up. Love ya, kiddo.

A cool thing happened yesterday…

September 21, 2005 on 11:18 pm | In General, Personal |
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I got back in touch with not one but TWO of my best old friends from Tennessee yesterday! One of them – actually my best friend throughout grade school and high school – was actually cool enough to offer to help me out with something I’ve wanted for ages. There is a chain of fast food restaurants in East Tennessee called Pal’s, and they must lace the food with some secret ingredient that makes it ridiculously addictive because ever since I left the South, I’ve had a continuous and raging craving for a stack of Pal’s Chili Cheese Burgers, Sauce Burgers with Cheese, and Chili Dogs… Not to mention a big, tall peanut butter shake! So we figured that if we get a styrofoam cooler, some dry ice, plastice wrap, and duct tape to seal it all up and the use an overnight shipper I might actually be able to get my much-needed Pal’s fix. So, needless to say, once we make sure FedEx will ship stuff on dry ice overnight from Tennessee to Idaho, I’ll be sending my old buddy Jerome some $$$ via Pay Pal.

I also reconnected with Rob, who is into all kinds of cool stuff. He teaches ShaoLin Kung Fu and guitar lessons, and is working on all kinds up uber-cool geeky vehicle projects. Rob was a technician at a computer store I worked at about 10 years ago, and gets credit for turning me into a Linux person and away the from the dark and unwholesome path of the Redmond Monstrosity. He also shared some of the music stuff he’s been doing, and I was suitably impressed.

It really meant a lot to me to reconnect with both of these dear old friends. Some days, life is just plain good.

The uphill battle continues…

September 20, 2005 on 12:24 am | In General, Personal |
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It’s been almost a week, and I’m having ups and downs in the struggle to quit smoking. I made it 3 days 100% smoke-free. The fourth day, I got some distressing news and fell off the wagon. I had a total of 3 cigarettes that day. Since then, I’ve managed to hold off the craving until very late at night shortly before going to sleep. The 2 nights since, I’ve only had 1 cigarette per day. So I haven’t kicked the habit, but I’ve beaten it down from 15 or 20 per day to just one. It’s progress, I suppose.

In other news, I just found out today why I hadn’t seen my friend Viking (link to his blog on this page) in so long. It turns out he’s seriously sick. So I really hope he gets better soon.

As for work, I’m feeling burned out again. I’ve put in a lot of late nights lately, I’ve got several things I’m trying to juggle, and I’m getting that “mushroom” feeling again. Mushroom, as in “kept in the dark and fed bullshit.” It’ll get better, though. It eventually has to.

I’m on the wagon…

September 16, 2005 on 10:52 am | In General, Personal |
This post is utterly devoid of comments. :(

I had a pretty ugly wake-up call a couple of days ago. I woke up because I could not breathe. At all. That was some scary, disconcerting business. My boss has been on my case to stop smoking for ages, and I used to joke that I’d stop smoking when my ashes cooled and were put into the urn. Now I’m not joking any more. I managed to stumble to the bathroom and finally dislodged the obstruction that was keeping me from breathing. It looked like a grey smurf someone had turned inside out and then run through a sausage grinder. It really scared the crap out of me. Whatever it was that I coughed up, it had so much blood in it, it looked like it had veins. I’ve spent the last couple of days coughing up similar stuff, but it’s less and less each time. I’m now on day three of being smoke-free. I hope I can stick with it. I have a feeling if I don’t, I won’t be writing these silly things too much longer. I’m not that scared of death, but I’m in no hurry either.

Wish me luck.