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Tuesday, August 20, 2002 |
Did I say Religion?
Did I Say Religion? I Meant My Religion, Not Your Religion.
This week is religion in politics--where when people say they want to make space for religion in the "public square," what they really mean is space only for their particular brand of religion, expressed only in their particular way.
That's the jist of a nice essay from the East Valley Tribune, reprinted on Liberaldesert about the hideous flap in North Carolina regarding using the Quran in a college class. A particularly vile guberantorial candidate tried to make political hay of this:
The University of North Carolina drew flak by asking students to read portions of a translation of the Quran. Students then would write a 300-word essay, either about the excerpt or why they declined to read it. The Family Policy Network sued to stop this effort at bringing religion into education.
This summer gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon appeared on Christian television to say he wanted to “reclaim government in the name of G-d.” In interviews, he attacks “liberal judges” he claims want to expel religion from civic life: “[T]here has been an effort underfoot for many years to try to take G-d off our money and out of our national motto,” Salmon said.
But as the editorial points out, what this guy is trying to do is not increase religion in civic, but make it more narrow. It's OK to discuss religion, as long as it's his religion, or the majority's religion. Odd that he's a Mormon, a member of a sect which has suffered no small amount of bigotry on the part of the majority religion.
9:37:38 PM Permalink
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Shame, Shame!
In the state I grew up in, a bunch of brainiacs think it's too expensive to have libraries! And are actually trying to cut their funding.
"With all the property I own, I'm probably paying up to $500 in taxes for the library, and that's just $500 wasted on something we don't need," said one supporter of the measure, Dave Sitler, a real estate agent.
Mr. Sitler, a member of the American Heritage Party, which calls for an end to all property taxes and for a government based on biblical tenets, also complains that the head librarian's annual salary of $51,000 is too high. "The salaries they pay those librarians, with health benefits and all that, it adds up," he said.
Strange, but a friend of my youth was commenting about our town library the other day. Growing up pretty much in the middle of nowhere in Washington, we were blessed with a good library system. The town was small, and so was the library, but the books that it had opened the eyes of a lot of us to a bigger world. A bookmobile came around regularly, and when I was in high school I was able to check books out via the mail from a regional library 65 miles away.
But I guess that's part of the plan. A bunch with a name like the "American Heritage Party" probably looks at a guy like me and figures that them books were what set me wrong anyway. But the thing is, books contain all kinds of ideas, not just the ones I like, and that's the point.
If a moderately (at best) educated citizenship is expensive, just imagine how expensive a totally ignorant citizenship will be!
8:31:37 PM Permalink
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Global warming causing an ice age?
From John Robb, this story on Woods Hole's site about how global warming may trigger an ice age. Fascinating stuff, and worth a close reading. You know, as this occurs, that there are going to be plenty who use it as proof that global warning is not occurring. But it's often true that evidence is contrary to what seems logical.
When I say “dramatic,” I mean: Average winter temperatures could drop by 5 degrees Fahrenheit over much of the United States, and by 10 degrees in the northeastern United States and in Europe. That’s enough to send mountain glaciers advancing down from the Alps. To freeze rivers and harbors and bind North Atlantic shipping lanes in ice. To disrupt the operation of ground and air transportation. To cause energy needs to soar exponentially. To force wholesale changes in agricultural practices and fisheries. To change the way we feed our populations. In short, the world, and the world economy, would be drastically different.
4:23:02 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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