Yet more inconvenient truths

Some now say that variations in atmospheric dust levels affect the temperature of the Atlantic ocean far more than global warming. They are claiming that 70 per cent of the change in Atlantic temperature over recent decades has resulted from reduced dust, rather than climate change. What kind of Holocaust-denying, flat-Earth, anti-science right wingnuts are saying this?

"The new analysis comes from scientists in the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Wisconsin. They say that the Atlantic temperature trend has been warmer by approximately a quarter of a degree each decade since 1980: but that most of this is actually because more sunlight is reaching the sea due to reducing levels of dirt in the air above it.
"A lot of this upward trend in the long-term pattern can be explained just by dust storms and volcanoes," says Amato Evan of Wisconsin uni. "About 70 percent of it is just being forced by the combination of dust and volcanoes, and about a quarter of it is just from the dust storms themselves."... The researchers say that predicting what will happen to atmospheric dust levels in future is difficult, with volcanoes notoriously random and African dust storms poorly understood. Nonetheless, according to Amato, future ocean-warming models will need to make allowance for them somehow or their predictions will be well out of whack." (my emphasis)

The Register story here
The actual paper here (requires subscription)

Does Satan exist?

That was the subject of an interesting debate on Nightline, here in two parts.





I rather doubt that anyone reading this blog would say that Satan exists- but it is important to understand that a majority of our fellow Americans do, and to understand what that means to them.

A Quantum God?

I have speculated that god may exist in the quantum world. Now, according to this BBC story,
physicists are wondering the same thing.

Calling out the gay-basher

This doesn't mean homophobia has ended, any more than the election of President Obama means that racism has ended- but it does mean we've turned the corner. Keep up the pressure!

Find out your brainsex

British neuropsychologist Dr Anne Moir is at the front line of the struggle to try and make the boys in Britain's schools enthusiastic about learning. Body sex does not necessarily match brain sex so Dr Moir has devised a test to determine the gender of the brain.

I scored a six, which is decidedly male, with some feminine traits- fair enough. But I wonder, is it just that I fit certain stereotypes, or are they stereotypes because they're true? I'd be curious to see if transsexuals score as being in the wrong body, or if the body controls enough of the stereotypes to make the test indecisive?

Biblical morality

One question Christians frequently ask Pagans is how, absent the Bible, can you develop a moral sense and moral code? Evidently their fears are justified; I scored a zero on this test of Biblical morality

Are some Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression programs really another form of racism?

I have long thought so, and a recent news story reminded me of a lively blog discussion that touched on this. The blog discussion (here and here)concerned the definition of cultural racism used by a public school system:
Cultural Racism:Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

Cut to the news story that reminded me of these discussions: First Lady Michelle Obama Reflects on Talking 'Like a White Girl' . I was particularly struck by this exchange between Ms. Obama and a grade school student:"And when one student asked her, "How did you get to where you are now?" she credited, in part, her command of the language.
"I remember there were kids around my [Chicago] neighborhood who would say, 'Ooh, you talk funny. You talk like a white girl.' I heard that growing up my whole life. I was like, 'I don't even know what that means but I am still getting my A.'"

In other words, she got where she is by "...having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard,..." What if Barack and Michelle had grown up with more enlightened teachers who knew that defining one form of English as standard was racist, and encouraged them to keep it real with ebonics? What if Michelle had been told to conform to a more collective ideology with her peers, rather than adopting the white ambition for individual A's? What if they had been told that "a future time orientation"- things like punctuality and delayed gratification- were white concepts, and it was racist to expect it of them? While they are both so talented they'd have succeeded at something, there's no way in hell she'd have been a corporate executive, and he the President of the United States. How many minority children have been kept from being all that they can be anti-racism programs, using modern definitions of "racism", that result in the child being totally unprepared for real life after leaving the public schools? And isn't any program that results in real harm to minority children racist, regardless of intent?

Faust, Jabez Stone,

and Peter Tork rest easy- Californian judges have ruled that a contract written in blood is not legally enforceable.

I drove Ginger to work today

And as she works on the far North-east corner of the city, that involved a trip on I465. For those of you who don't know Indianapolis, that's the high speed Interstate loop around the city. Now, as anyone who lives in a major city with a three-digit loop knows, that can be quite an adventure at rush hour; either terrifying or exhilarating, depending upon your reaction to adrenaline. Over the years, I have developed a method of handling the traffic- I won't say it's the only way, but it at least has the virtue of being unique: I use signals. I have noticed commuters have three basic reactions to this:

Some will freeze behind the wheel in shock, like a deer caught in headlights. As they struggle for composure, their speed tends to bleed off a bit- if I time it right, it allows me to change lanes.

Others become confused- signals on the Interstate? Is he insane, or is this some new form of road rage? Either way, they want no part of it; they clear room around me until I look like a bit of penicillin mold on a Petrie dish.

A few- possibly resident aliens who learned to drive in Paris or Rome- have never seen a turn signal before, and rush up on you to see what's about to happen. Those are easily handled; just lightly touch the brake pedal enough to make the brake lights come on. Even a Roman taxi cab driver knows what those are, and respects them- at least when they're on the back of a pickup truck.

As I said, I have done this for a number of years now, and i think some other drivers may be copying my technique- I've seen other cars use signals twice now; once last October, and then again this morning. Who knows- maybe someone will put it on YouTube and it'll go viral! I hope they warn me first though, I'd like to wash the truck.

Police probe 'pagan' attacks on church

The congregation of a Grantown church has been alarmed by a year-long series of "pagan" attacks, according to a story in the Strathsprey & Badenoch Herald . The attacks have been in the form of messages, in red ink. Said Deacon Fishwick, "...He added: "The last one was a warning that we shouldn't bring in the authorities. It had a drawing of the all-seeing eye and said: 'We are always watching you'.
"It seems to be the work of a bit of a crackpot. They only ever pick out our church; none of the others have had this, but we don't know why.
"The notes are heathen quotations: things like 'Your days are numbered', 'Wrongs remain unrectified' and 'Judgement has been passed'."

The strangest thing about this story is that it comes from Scotland! Scotland? I mean, a psycho with an obsession about God's eye sending notes to a church for years about unrectified wrongs... that's just so Canadian!

Update
No, there's been no further news from Scotland that I'm aware of; this is an update about the post itself. I've received private comment about my oblique reference to Vancouver based church protester Kevin Annett - and now I'm told some other nutcase is claiming I was talking about him. It seems hard to credit- are there really people so starved for attention, with egos so vast that they claim any reference to a psycho must be aimed at them???

"In the midst of life...

...we are in death. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." says the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer. While in the "midst of life", we seldom realize how closely death brushes past us at any given moment. One such moment occurred this week as an asteroid- seen only two days before- passed within 48,800 miles of Earth. If that doesn't sound very close to you, remember that a slow meteor is traveling some 30,000 miles per hour!

The article referenced casually mentions that this asteroid was about the same size as the one that exploded over Siberia in 1908, leveling more than 800 square miles of forest. If you're unfamiliar with the Tunguska Event, the explosion was about 1,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. From the Wikipedia article: "The explosion registered on seismic stations across Eurasia. Although the Richter scale was not developed until 1935, in some places the shock wave would have been equivalent to an earthquake of 5.0 on the Richter scale. It also produced fluctuations in atmospheric pressure strong enough to be detected in Great Britain."

And for all our satellites and telescopes, we had less than 48 hours warning.

Just a thought to remember when you're getting all frazzled about projections of budgets ten years in the future, or worries about your personal future are driving you to despair... we are all living under the Sword of Damocles- you, me, the whole human race. No man knows when the stroke will fall. So do your duty for the day- including making plans for the future; that's today's duty- and then put it aside. Let it go, and enjoy the day... it's the only one you've got.

Folks, if you're going to propose...

Just say the words. Clever plans often go astray ...

Does UU have a mission?

This question began as thoughts from the discussions about UU chaplains and Transient and Permanent's question, Do Unitarian-Universalist Ministers Have a Calling? , and finally crystallized while rereading notes from a writing class. What made the penny drop was a lesson about "the story question". If you haven't had that class, it goes like this: your book can be broken down to a simple question and a simple answer- just two simple sentences... if it can't, it's too complicated to handle in a readable book. It struck me that this lesson- very difficult for a beginning writer, believe me- carries into life as well.

The simple question for a faith- NOT the religious organization, but the faith itself- is "what is your mission?" Most faiths, it seems to me, can answer with an equally simple sentence. For Christianity, it would be "To save your soul from eternal damnation." For Buddhism, it would be "To awaken you to the causes of your suffering." For many NeoPagans, "To reunite you with the natural world you have separated yourself from." Others might say things like "To achieve balance with the universe", "To connect with God".

What is the mission of Unitarian Universalism?

To our friends on the East coast

Hope your day started better than this guy's...

Worst. Idea. Ever.

People sometimes ask me why, see as I'm a Pagan with a greater than average concern for the environment, I prefer the older term "conservationist" to "environmentalist". It's to separate myself from the kind of people who think up things like reusable toilet wipes

Farewell to Riverworld

Goodbye , Phillip Jose Farmer. You gave me many happy hours, and will live in my memories until it is my turn.

Pentagon lifts media ban on coffin photos

"WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said he was lifting the ban against media photos of soldiers' coffins returning to the U.S. and will instead leave the decision up to families." About time. Read more at msnbc

Asking the wrong question

In his latest post in "UU A Way Of Life", David G. Markham asks, "Participation in war making seems antithetical to UU values. What is the role of a UU chaplain in supporting people engaged in immoral acitivity?" He is responding to an article by UU Navy Chaplain CYNTHIA KANE, in which she- in his words- "tries to explain and justify her chaplaincy in the military"

David seems unaware that his beliefs about war in general, and Iraq specifically, are not the legal, moral, or religious standards of everyone- not even all UUs. His views are not in doubt, referring to our armed forces as a "mercenary force", and equating the Iraq war with the Holocaust: "The "I was only following orders" excuse was rejected at the Nuremburg trials when German troops tried to use this as a defense of their actions in the Holocaust."

This is a complete misreading of both the Nuremburg trials and the Iraq war. In terms of the common service man or woman- the kind that Chaplain Kane ministers to- "I was following orders" was and is a defense for all actions conducted within the legal rules of engagement. The Nuremburg tribunal was prosecuting crimes completely outside the rules of war. The Holocaust was not part of the WWII the regular German soldier was fighting- it began before the war started, and was prosecuted by separate units, such as the SS, the Gestapo, the roving Mordgruppen. The crimes at Abu Ghraib can be compared to the Holocaust- and people were prosecuted for it, and I hope more will be in the future- but it is an insult to everyone in uniform to compare the whole of the war to that.

The vast majority of those in uniform do not believe that their purpose is "killing people and pre-emptively subjugating populations", nor do they believe that what they are doing is immoral. They are engaged in a legal war- whether or not you believe that the war should have ever been started does not change the fact that both the US Congress and the United Nations voted Bush the authority to start it, and neither body has ordered us to leave. They are conducting the war in a professional manner, risking their own lives to reduce civilian deaths, and conducting their own charities to improve the lives of the ordinary Iraqi- did you know that completely separate from official aid, the soldiers themselves have put together charities collecting things like shoes, clothing, toys, and glasses to distribute to the poor over there? They do not see themselves as murdering Storm troopers. Nor do I see them that way.

David calls their actions "immoral and even criminal", and asks, "What is the role of a UU chaplain in supporting people engaged in immoral activity?" This question presupposes that all war is immoral- something that has yet to have been voted on by the UUA. It presumes that all UUs must be pacifists- with the clear understanding that they are immoral if they are not. It assumes a creed that we have not adopted, and so is not the proper question.

The proper question is just seven words shorter than the one asked: "What is the role of a UU chaplain?" To minister to people who need human and spiritual comfort and are not being served by other faiths leaps to mind. The fact that this did not leap immediately to mind for David sounds a whole lot like the attitude Chaplain Kane refers to, quoting Rev. Dr. Lisa Presley: "although we say that we welcome all to our congregations, the perception is that there is a very solid wall keeping those with our values and who happen to choose to be in the military, out of our congregational life.” She continues, “No one will say it outright, but the sense that they have made a stupid choice, or that they are consorting with the enemy, comes through loud and clear in unconscious ways.”

We don't say those things outright... we simply say they need "solace and absolution for sinful activities". Good thing we're not judgmental, like those awful fundamentalists!

How can you respect silly beliefs?

MoxieLife has a pair of wonderful posts- starting
here and continuing here - confessing to a condescending attitude towards those who believe in God. "To make me feel better about rejecting the common belief system of our age (believing in God) I think those that do believe in God are either stupid, child-like or grasping."

I understand completely- for decades I believed that liberals were either hopeless ivory-tower naifs, or power hungry demagogues. But over the years I learned a few things about people. My conservatives beliefs are stronger than ever (economic and political conservatism, that is, not the Religious Right stuff that has somehow attached itself like a barnacle to the conservative ship), but I no longer question the intelligence or motives of liberals.

Why? Because I have learned that all human beings- even you, Mrs. Lovett, even I- believe some damned silly things. If you think you don't, it's only because you haven't had your nose rubbed in it yet; it's inherent to humanity, and no amount of intelligence or education is protection against it.

Take William Shockley: Nobel Prize winner in physics, co-inventor of the transistor, sole inventor of the junction transistor, the man who put the silicon in Silicon Valley- his research assistants founded Intel, National Semiconductor, and Advanced Micro Devices; one of the towering intellects of the last century... but he was also a proponent of Eugenics, and believed in the biological inferiority of blacks. No one is immune.

"Rationality" is a learned behavior, not a natural one, and we are not equipped to extend it to all our perceptions and beliefs. Look at the evolution of the brain... the brain was not redesigned with each advance up from the worm; new shells and layers were added each time instead, like a Microsoft operating system- and the human brain, for all it's surface sophistication, is as quirky as Vista. Our minds are the original legacy systems... our intellect is not who we are; it is a tool used by our true selves, our Ids, buried somewhere in the primitive layers. Thus, we all have our quirky bits, places where what we see as "the next logical step", others will see as "an unproven leap of faith".

Realizing this was a breakthrough. Today, when faced with "irrational" beliefs, I no longer see it as evidence of stupidity or villainy; I see it as proof of humanity. Instead of trying to convince the speaker of his or her stupidity, I look for the departure points where our beliefs differed, try to see what perceptions and perspectives caused them, and address those points directly. The differences may well be irreconcilable, but that merely means we must search for Modus Vivendi rather than agreement... and isn't that the highest expression of a liberal faith?

Living your faith, part 2

"The coach never considered any other option.It didn’t matter that his DeKalb, Ill., High School basketball team had ridden a bus two and a half hours to get to Milwaukee, then waited another hour past game time to play. Didn’t matter that the game was close, or that this was a chance to beat a big-city team. Something else was on Dave Rohlman’s mind when he asked for a volunteer to shoot two free throws awarded to his team on a technical foul in the second quarter. His senior captain raised his hand, ready to go to the line as he had many times before.

Only this time it was different.

“You realize you’re going to miss them, don’t you?” Rohlman said."

Read the rest of the true story by AP sportswriter
Tim Dahlberg .