Curiosity Killed This Christian

Marvelous new post on the Misogynistic Myth of Exalting Ignorance, in pretty much every culture’s Power of Story, see Dale McGowan’s latest:

And since the story includes three things powerfully reviled by most religious traditions (curiosity, disobedience, and women), it’s not surprising to find them conveniently bundled into a single high-speed cable running straight to our cultural hearts.

It was my seventh grade Latin class from the (seemingly ancient herself) Mrs. Hodges, that introduced me to Pandora as my first recognized Eve parallel, and prompted me to resent both as demeaning mythic crap I consciously, furiously refused to buy into.

I didn’t know it then but no church for true believers had much chance with me from that day on.

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Step Away From the Cow, Son

Police behaving “stupidly” or doing their duty (a la Henry Gates in either case)? Too good not to share, from Don Troop’s TWEED for the Chronicle of Higher Education:

April 27, 2010
Drop Your Camera and Step Away From the Cow, Son

Alex Kotran, a photographer for the Ohio State University Lantern, was handcuffed and charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass after he took pictures of workers trying to corral two cows that got loose on the campus last week, the student newspaper reports.

Employees from the School of Agriculture and two grounds keepers tried to prevent Mr. Kotran from taking photos before the police eventually handcuffed him and tranquilized one of the cows, the newspaper reports.

The photographer was released after about 10 minutes, and Police Chief Paul Denton says the department is investigating the incident.

The cows are still being held. —Don Troop

The campus newspaper reports that their photographer was undoubtedly easier to apprehend than the two cows (were they REALLY cows, as in female?):

OSU Police and university officials used at least seven police cars, a university tractor, a cattle prod and tranquilizers to corral the cattle.

Check the student paper’s link for art and video.

My personal favorite part of this story though, is the reader poll beside it, which is either great satire or wholly idiotic, not sure which and that ambiguity is the cherry on top:

Cows on campus
Are you afraid of another cow attack?
Yes
No

What Adults Can Learn From Kids: TED Talk

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids’ big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups’ willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.

Sarah Palin Again: THIS is News?

Sarah Palin criticized President Barack Obama on Saturday . . .

Not news to me! And certainly this fact about Sarah Palin herself isn’t news, except maybe that she is so freely admitting it?

“I don’t understand. . .”

So this next part can’t be news to anyone!

The Republican criticized Obama throughout her speech –

Btw it also is not news that the other Big O in Palin’s newfound fame, you know, Oprah, famously intones: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Back on the first of August 2008, when everything about this fascinating new political persona really was news and we couldn’t get enough about her, JJ wrote:

“I never heard the woman’s name until this morning, so I looked around for clues to her character. Is she indeed Saint Sarah, fresh-faced military mom and public corruption crusader? One thing’s clear, she’s working class and no elite intellectual. . .
[And] never mind what happened to the actual men whose careers were damaged by Palin’s self-justifying actions. Winning is the only thing that counts, right?

She showed us the same thing this week, in this story:

Palin said she hopes the November elections will produce winners

John McCain has showed so many different selves as authentic that I can’t believe any of them any more — except that he’s come full circle now, once again pretty compelling as desperate prisoner feeling the pain who will say anything to save himself — and Palin has been showing us exactly who she is from Day One, so it shouldn’t be any news that I believe that’s who she really is.

But I guess it might be news that even some smart conservative kids are seeing who she is, and believing. And criticizing her publicly for it and cashing in, with or without bendy straws.

Ahem — FavD Has Some Awesome Friends

Guess what the girlfriend she went to Europe with last summer has been up to since they got home, right here in town?

Oh, nothing much, just winning the Goldwater Scholarship as a sophomore for her biochemistry cancer research . . .

In that moment, our eyes met, cultures overlapped, and a friendship was formed, one that I feel truly privileged to be a part of.

Socialization. So there. 😉

Latest Scottish Outing for Young Son

Living Upside Down, Inside Out

We’re still struggling to manage every single thing we’ve accumulated and inherited through a half-century, trying to make new sense of it, creating fresh combinations that suit our family now, rushing to beat the heat, humidity, pollen, bugs and reptiles — a Florida garage is not secure for humans or belongings against any of those — and I fear we are losing.

I notice it’s like the vanishing return of radioactive half-life. The first week you work so hard and reduce the mounds by half but for the second week’s same effort, you get only half as much reduction, and so on, and so on as the payoff for time spent shrinks exponentially, and I’m to that point where I realize this is my new endless reality, but then again, at least it’s better than Sisyphus (do fundamentalists believe that religious story was literally true too, I wonder?) because at least the WHOLE rock and the WHOLE mountain don’t face me anew every damn morning.

What we’ve already brought inside and unpacked onto the new floors in the changed room use plan is all wonderful and beautiful, but it’s disconcertingly odd and I don’t have comfy routines set up to make anything easy yet. Answering the phone, where IS it?? The only refrigerator is still in the garage, and our kitchen cabinets were stuffed with breakables we chose not to wrap and pack, so nothing is in the right place for everyday marketing and cooking and snacks. In other words, it’s all upside down and inside out, still, and this is going into the third month of living like this. I am “home” but most of my waking hours are being spent outside working away to seemingly little effect, in the chaotic, dust-and-pollen saturated, southwestern-exposed garage.

How many more hundreds of books can I possibly bear to part with?

Talk about being punished by rewards. I’m developing a whole new appreciation for that concept! :-0