No shout out for Jes at that speech

Obama is going to rouse the ire of the religious right yet further: he wisely opted not to endorse Jesus while giving a speech on economics by having a Christian symbol on the lectern covered up while he spoke. Good move, I think — let’s not get secular economic decision making all muddled up with Catholicism.

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week — Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold “IHS” monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

As even us Lutherans learned, once upon a time, IHS is just the transliterated first three letters of Jesus’ name — IHΣOYΣ — which always struck me as weirdly informal. They call their god “Jes”? Can we get really casual and call him “Jezzy baby”, too?

Anyway, of course there is a poll, and of course the irate believers are peeved that our president didn’t stand up behind good ol’ Jes and talk about the bailout. Maybe some other real Americans should also make their voices heard…

Do you support Georgetown’s decision to agree to cover up religious symbols at President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday?

28%
Yes
72%
No

Thinking outside the traditional box

This is an entirely sensible ad promoting safe sex from Botswana. How do you think it would be received in the US?

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We already know. Remember Jocelyn Elders, fired from her position as Surgeon General because she said of masturbation that “I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught”? One brief sentence on this taboo subject led to her dismissal. Amusingly, the president who fired her was that dismal old prude and paragon of propriety, Bill Clinton. I guess that’s an indication of just how narrow and strait-laced this country is.

Say…isn’t this called treason?

The governor of Texas is ranting about seceding from the United States.

Speaking to an energetic and angry tea party crowd in Austin Wednesday evening, the Lone Star State governor suggested secession may happen in the future should the federal government not change its fiscal polices.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

I seem to recall from my history books that some states tried that, once upon a time, long, long ago. How did that work out?

I also seem to recall from not too long ago that Republicans were rather free in slinging accusations of treason at Democrats (Ann Coulter wrote a book about it, and Jonah Goldberg tried to imply it), yet here is a governor actively inciting mobs with the idea of secession, which is a rather blatantly anti-patriotic act. Funny how their attitudes change.

Oh, and for comic relief: Chuck Norris offers to run for president of the independent nation of Texas. I’m almost tempted to agree that they should leave the union, just for the hilarious spectacle.

A simple suggestion for improving the popularity of Catholic iconography

As I’m sure many of you are aware, one of the more superficially off-putting elements of the Catholic church is to walk into one of their buildings and see it decorated with images of writhing, tortured men in loin cloths — it’s like stepping into a S&M fantasy, and I’m really not into that (not that there’s anything wrong with it, of course, if that’s your thing…). If the walls were draped with these, though, my reflexive rejection of the whole idea of church attendance might be softened.

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I still wouldn’t pay any attention to the liturgy or the sermon or the hymns, though.

Somehow, I was also able to watch the whole movie that young lady was in without once grumbling about the banality of the plot or the ludicrous absurdity of mixing dinosaurs and cavemen, so she has proven powers in generating a willing suspension of disbelief, so I’m sure she’d be a perfect symbol for a religion.

We are but a crude mob

Pleasant as it is to be acknowledged for our poll-smashing abilities, we really are a brutish, blunt instrument. The true masters of the poll hack are the denizens of 4chan (a name I mention with hesitation; it’s like invoking Hassan-i Sabbah, and you really don’t want to encourage these people to even look at you), who are able to shift even the biggest online polls at will. It shows how meaningless these polls really are when your position in them may be dictated by the happenstance of the first letter of your first name.

Article up in the Guardian

My first column is up on the Guardian web site: it’s a brief introduction to asymmetries in snails, an abbreviated version of the post that I fleshed out with a little more detail.

I have to complain a little, though: the title says the observation of shared molecules between molluscs and humans “proves” we’re related. I really don’t like the use of the word “proof”, because it doesn’t — it is compatible with the hypothesis, or it supports the idea, but biologists don’t dabble in proofs.

There’s also an error on my part: I somehow transposed the stomach and liver. I know where these organs are, seriously — I teach part of an A&P course — so I blame my too-fast typing. Now no one is ever going to let me take a scalpel to their abdomen, ever.

Cleaning out the mythological clutter

Here’s a fine idea to benefit the public: an exchange progrram called Fiction for Fiction in which people can trade in their tired old religious texts for novels. It seems a little unfair, though: they’re offering great novels in exchange. Wouldn’t it be better to trade them some tatty old cheap pulp for the Bible? I think exchanging Gor novels for the Bible would be thematically appropriate. (Trading porn for bibles is also a good idea). The one big problem with these schemes, though, is that the organizers are going to end up with a big stack of even more crappy books than they started with.

An idea that doesn’t involve accumulating bad books is this one: debaptism. A fellow actually got a church to accept a debaptism certificate — he argued that because the original baptism was done against his will and without his consent, it was invalid and the church records needed to be amended. Of course, this was an Anglican church, and we all know how easy they are…I’d like to see this done with the Catholics or Mormons.

Anyway, all you have to do is a) buy the certificate of debaptism (£3), and b) live in the UK. Isn’t it just peachy that those of us who need it most live in places where we can’t get it? Some American group ought to run with this idea.

No teabagging for me

It’s a question that makes it hard to suppress a giggle: how many of you are going to be teabagging today?

I think it’s awesome that this last desperate gasp of the far right wing to achieve political relevance got tagged with such an appropriately ridiculous moniker. The demented duo of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have made me laugh for the first and probably only time.

It is getting a little old watching the more culturally conscious members of the media making fun of the clueless wingnuts, though. This is just too easy.

(via Sullivan)