jlynch | October 28, 2006Since everyone is talking about the sequencing of the honeybee genome*, it seems appropriate (isn't it always?) to post some Monty Python. Ladies & gentlemen, I present, "Eric The Half A Bee":
(Speaks)
Half a bee, philosophically,Must, ipso facto, half not be.But half the bee has got to beVis a vis, its entity. D'you see?
But can a bee be said to beOr not to be an entire beeWhen half the bee is not a beeDue to some ancient injury?
(Sings)
La dee dee, one two three,Eric the half a bee.A B C D E F G,Eric the half a bee.
Is this wretched demi-bee,Half-asleep upon my knee,Some freak from a…
jlynch | October 27, 2006Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin write:
As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay in the London Review of Books, that American liberals -- without distinction -- have "acquiesced in President Bush's catastrophic foreign policy." Both claims are nonsense on stilts.
Clearly this is a moment for liberals to define ourselves. The important truth is that most liberals, including the undersigned, have stayed our course throughout these grim five years. We have consistently and publicly repudiated the…
jlynch | October 27, 2006NBC is refusing to show ads for the Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up and Sing because they feel the the ads are "disparaging to President Bush." Apparently criticizing the President is un-American especially running up to the mid-term elections. Ironic, considering this is a film about censorship. This, of course, is the same NBC that has no problem running Republican smear ads to local markets.
Harvey Weinstein - the distributor - has the following to say:
It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted…
jlynch | October 27, 2006I was browsing the search terms that brought people to this site and discovered the following regarding the psyche of my readers:
"I apologize""catfish that swims into penis?""Will someone please kill me"
Somewhat disturbing are the following:
asu glory holes"lobster love"drunk hand spankingneeds spanking
Most disturbing is:
"beheaded girl"
jlynch | October 27, 2006How come we tax-payers have to pay for the President to fly around and stump for Republican candidates (and get their name wrong)? After all, the cost of security and Air Force One (five gallons of fuel a mile) are fairly substantial.
I'm conflicted - I want to imagine that Bush has real work to do, yet at the same time am happy that they are keeping him away from grown-up activities.
jlynch | October 27, 2006On a Wedding AnniversaryDylan Thomas
The sky is torn acrossThis ragged anniversary of twoWho moved for three years in tuneDown the long walks of their vows.
Now their love lies a lossAnd Love and his patients roar on a chain;From every tune or craterCarrying cloud, Death strikes their house.
Too late in the wrong rainThey come together whom their love parted:The windows pour into their heartAnd the doors burn in their brain.
---
Thomas was born today in 1914.
jlynch | October 25, 2006A few days back I mentioned the anatomically correct statues of lions that have created a bit of a stir here in Arizona. Remember? "[T]he lions are depicted raising their bottoms in the air, each with a ram trapped under it in what some perceive as a sexually suggestive pose." Well inquiring minds want to know, so here's the best picture I can find:
Yup, this is what people in Arizona have time to grouse about. Apparently they are being actioned off for charity.
They are not Detroit Lions for a very simple reason ... they'd probably win more games.
jlynch | October 23, 2006Wilkins has posted a poem about churches and mentioned that he goes into churches when he travels ... as do I. My favorite poem about such - if you can count a Nick Cave lyric - is "Brompton Oratory":
Up those stone steps I climbHail this joyful day's returnInto its great shadowed vault I goHail the Pentecostal mornThe reading is from Luke 24Where Christ returns to his loved onesI look at the stone apostlesThink that it's alright for someAnd I wish that I was made of stoneSo that I would not have to seeA beauty impossible to defineA beauty impossible to believeA beauty impossible to endureThe…
jlynch | October 23, 2006
This man, if you didn't already know, is a musical genius, and in just under a month he releases Orphans, a three disk compilation of unreleased material. Already available online is the seven minute ditty "Road to Peace," Waits' take on the Middle East and the current administration.
jlynch | October 22, 2006The C.S. Lewis Society is sponsoring the Evidence of Design conference upcoming in Florida (Nov 3rd + 4th) and featuring Walter Bradley, Paul Nelson and Tom Woodward. The goal?
[To] thoroughly equip church members and leaders with generally non-technical, cutting-edge information. It will demonstrate practical steps to use design-evidence as a thoughtful bridge to skeptics who have been taught through Darwinian evolution that God is a myth. This conference will enable Christians and others to use simple evidence to demonstrate there is in fact a designer of life and that he is Jesus Christ…
jlynch | October 22, 2006I'm no fan of pro football and only really watch the odd Monday night game (while relaxing after work) and the Super Bowl (if family are over). Last Monday I watched the Arizona Cardinals choke big-time against Chicago, the only Cardinals game I've watched in nearly thirteen years of living in Arizona.
Today the 1-5 Cardinals took on the 0-5 Raiders ... and lost 22-9. Wow. The coach, Denny Green, makes $2,500,000 a year for "coaching" this "team" to a 12-27 record. Nice money if you can get it ... approximately $62,000 per win, more that I get paid a year.
If only 31% of my students succeeded…
jlynch | October 22, 2006
Benedict is at it again:
"Contemporary life gives pride of place to an artificial intelligence ever more enslaved to experimental tecnhiques [sic], thereby forgetting that all science should safeguard mankind and promote his tendency to authentic goodness."
"Letting yourself be seduced by discovery without paying attention to the criteria of a deeper vision could lead to the drama the myth [of Icarus] speaks of." (source)
I guess he's trying to tell us that ignoring the "deeper vision" leads your wax wings to melt and you'll never get to "authentic goodness." Crystal clear, that is.
Funny…
jlynch | October 21, 2006As some of you may know, in 1650, the Irish archbishop, James Ussher dated the beginning of the universe using the Book of Genesis and calculated the date of creation to be October 22, 4004 BC. That would make the universe 6002 6009 years old today.
jlynch | October 21, 2006Over at Fark.com there's an interesting thread asking for answers to the following:
If you could go back in time and tell your 12-year old self one thing, what would it be?
I was twelve in 1980. It seems so long ago ... maybe because it is. I guess I'd go with:
You're not going to be able to control everything, especially other people. So don't try, it will only make you hurt. Badly.
Sometime detachment is the best policy. But not always. Trust me.
jlynch | October 21, 2006It is Homecoming here in Tempe and ASU (3-3) are playing the only team in the PAC-10 with a worse record than their own - the 0-7 Stanford Cardinal.
This - and the next two ASU games - wont be televised and as I hate listening to football on the radio, I wont have much to say beyond end-of-game summary.
Update: ASU win 38-3. It could have been the first shutout under Koetter if it wasn't for a 58 yard kickoff return that lead to Stanford's only score with 4:45 left in the third. Rudy Carpenter played a little over three quarters and went 14 of 15 for 158 yards and one TD; he also rushed…
jlynch | October 21, 2006AC Grayling over at The Guardian:
It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's many religions.
And as this last point implies, it is time to demand and apply a right for the rest of us to non-interference by religious…