Telling Fact from Fantasy, Volume 97...

... but, on Mars, it just doesn't seem that likely, whatever the Huffington Post's Buzz Feed column might say If you've seen the story already, then you won't need to be told: apparently, an image returned from the Opportunity rover includes something which looks like wood on the surface of Mars.

Like seeing Bigfoot on Mars back in January, it's a fairly safe bet, although for different reasons, to say that you are not seeing what you think you are seeing.

If it were a rock formation on Earth, most people would say: "yes, looks like a rock". If it were a piece of petrified wood on Earth, that would be explicable and understandable too. But because it's on Mars, and because some people are quite unable to separate fantasy from reality... well, it's got to be wood, apparently... and this has to subvert everything that we know about the mysterious Red Planet.

Let's just say this quickly, and be done with it: there's no wood on Mars. It's like finding life on Mars: sometimes, you have to wonder on which end of the telescope the intelligence is to be found.

If nothing else, the whole bigfoot / wood on Mars thing gives me the excuse to put up links to this episode of the Goodies (pick it up on DVD if you can...):

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Health News That I've Forgotten

In a recent study at the University of Reading (Berkshire, UK), researchers are once again suggesting that it is good for people to eat more in the fresh fruits and berries department, and less from the smarties and jelly babies column. Revolutionary and entirely unexpected news, indeed.

Specifically, the researchers have decided that consuming more blueberries can "reverse memory loss and may have implications in the treatment of diseases like Alzheimer's", according to a story on the BBC News site. Here, because sometimes it's just too bally much effort to click through, is the important bit:

"Dr Jeremy Spencer, from the department of food biosciences at the university, said: "Scientists have known of the potential health benefits of diets rich in fresh fruits for a long time.

""Our research provides scientific evidence to show that blueberries are good for you and supports the idea that a diet-based approach could potentially be used to increase memory capacity.

""We will be taking these findings to the next level by investigating the effects of diets rich in flavonoids on individuals suffering from cognitive impairment and possibly Alzheimer's disease."

-- BBC News

At this point, though, I just have to ask: would it not have been possible to come up with a better name for the natural secondary metabolites in some plants than flavonoids? For whatever reason, to me, this name has always sounded like something made up by a pharmaceutical company, and even reading about them now, I can't entirely get past the suspicion that someone, somewhere, is tugging very gently at my leg.

Mixed news for me specifically: I've always enjoyed blueberries and raspberries particularly, ever since I was a child. Perhaps I'm not getting enough, though, as I have the most shocking memory. Really. It's embarassing, the things that I forget.

Anecdotal results don't make studies, though: carefully thought-out and controlled studies are what is required for the rigours of scientific research. Deploying my sometimes ill-considered sense of humour doesn't necessarily help. And in the meantime, yes, I'm going to indulge in more of something that I already enjoy. Time to cut back on the jelly babies anyway. Sorry, Tom.

Standing on the Shoulders of Cheloniidae

While pondering all of the various things for which I am thankful this particular year, I started perusing the Internets to see what I might find for inspiration... I guess that I should add paleontology to the list, because this is really cool. The BBC and Scientific American are both reporting on a new discovery in the evolution of turtles, which sheds light on the development of the turtle's iconic shell.

Drawing on new fossil evidence from China, the description of the new species, Odontochelys semitestacea, shows that this particular turtle ancestor was an aquatic creature with a highly developed inferior (lower) shell, essentially an extension of the breastbone. This earliest known turtle ancestor, dating back some 220 million years, is a key in understanding where the turtle shell came from. It is suggested that this defensive mechanism would protect it from attack from beneath while swimming in search of food.

The shell development hypothesis is also corroborated in another way:

"The researchers say this idea is supported by evidence from the way modern turtle embryos develop. The breast plate grows before the shell covering their backs."

-- BBC News

In addition to the shell, this early turtle had teeth, rather than a hard palate, and probably inhabited shallow waters. A final quote:

"Dr Olivier Rieppel from Chicago's Field Museum also examined the fossil.

"This strongly suggests Odontochelys was a water dweller whose swimming exposed its underside to predators. Reptiles living on the land have their bellies close to the ground with little exposure to danger," he said.

The researchers say further evidence to support the idea that this species lived mainly in water comes from the structure and proportions of the fossil's forelimbs, which closely resemble those of modern turtles that live in similar conditions."

-- BBC News

In short, yet another mark in the evolutionary biology column, versus an unsurprising paucity over on the other side... who was it who asked something to the effect of: "with so much amazing stuff in science, why would you need to make anything else up?" Carl Sagan? Richard Dawkins? Willow Rosenberg?

You may now insert your own joke about it being "turtles all the way down" here.

Bad Creationist. No Biscuit.

If you were thinking smugly that by living in the State of Missouri (or other parts of the US, or the world, for that matter), you were avoiding the irrationality of Kansas when it comes to the anti-evolution crowd, you can think again. A case in point: now, Missouri's got them too. That's right, like the proverbial wolf at the door, there's apparently a creationist science teacher at large in Platte County, Missouri (on the edge of metropolitan Kansas City) - specifically, in the Park Hill School District.

This matter has already been brought up over at the Beagle Science Blog, and, as yet, there is no word on what the outcome may be. The purpose of my discussion here, though, is to review a few of things being said and once again express a few thoughts on the subject of what's wrong with teaching creationism and Intelligent Design to high school students.

In the spirit of fairness, I'm keeping all identities obscured for the time being. Unfortunately, this will give the entry something of a hearsay feeling, but I assure you that I've reported these events as I've heard them, with as great a degree of accuracy as possible, and I'll make corrections if and when they prove necessary. Now, to the matter at hand.

A student with whom I have spoken from a school in the Park Hill School District has reported that his teacher is using his science class' unit on biology and evolution to inject creationism into the curriculum. Some classic creationist / IDist arguments are being deployed by the teacher, and here are a few of the highlights:

• The teacher claims that dinosaurs and humans co-existed, based, it seems, on an entirely non-controversial ichnosite, or trackway, in Texas. The purported human track has been shown to actually be that of a therapod dinosaur (three toes versus five, completely different structure), as far back as the 1985 Horizon special, "The Blind Watchmaker", featuring none other than Richard Dawkins (see my previous entry here, it's Part I which discussed the ichnosites, but be sure to watch the whole documentary, it's fascinating).


• The teacher claims that the so-called Cambrian Explosion is in fact evidence for "special creation", and that all currently known phyla can trace their origins to the Cambrian. However, there is considerable difference between a phylum and an class - the latter is where the major differences between animal groups (arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) are to be found. In his 2001 magnum opus Genetics, Paleontology and Macroevolution, Jeffrey S. Levinton points out: "Only one readily preservable phylum, Bryozoa, still stubbornly refuses to be discovered in the Cambrian, but we can be sure that it is only a matter of time before it will be" (p. 443). Seven years after the publication of GP&E, that still appears to be the case (if someone can point me to research to the contrary, I'll be glad to put it up, I just haven't found any yet). So if the teacher claims that everything living now has living antecedants in the Cambrian, then according to current knowledge, he's wrong. If instead of phylum (Chordata, in this case) he meant class, then there are no fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals or birds in the Cambrian either. This is another instance of creationist / IDist none-too-dextrous verbal trompe l'oeil, for while what they say is true (bryozoans excepted), it still doesn't mean that you find, in JBS Haldane's immortally grumpy words, "rabbits in the pre-Cambrian". Because you don't. More discussion here.


• The teacher claims that the fossil record further supports the idea of created kinds, ie; that all animal life in its present form has existed since the advent of life on earth. So, for example, horses appeared, in their present form, in the fossil record, with no antecedents, only distant relatives which have subsequently died out. Unfortunately, horses have a really, really well-demonstrated lineage, and you don't find modern shire horses in the same strata as eohippus, for example. More on horse evolution here.


• The teacher claims that the use of embryological similarities as an indicator of common descent has been perniciously manufactured by evolutionary biologists and that it is a lie (this is the Haeckel's embryos question, which is played up by both Jonathan Wells (qv) and John West, it has also been refuted).

Let's just say this again, as Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975) originally said: "nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution". Why would Dobzhansky, both a biologist and a member of the Russian Orthodox Church (a body not necessarily known for its coddling of apostates) take such a position? Because he saw that science, and science alone, was possessed of the method and the rigour by which humans could understand the natural world. Faith, if you have it, is necessarily supernatural - outside the realm of nature, and therefore outside the realm of science.

It's also often said that teaching the creation / ID "side", as it were, just constitutes good old-fashioned, American-style fairness. Er... really? "Why not teach both sides?" demand a certain faction among the throng. There is a conception, in journalism and elsewhere, that presenting both sides of an issue is a fine and morally upstanding way to present problems on which there are two sides. More than that, getting two sides to a story is a core tenet of journalism. Indeed, many subjects, like politics, benefit greatly from having both sides of an issue discussed. We can see this best in cases in which there are two differing opinions on the same subject - like the policy of regulation in the financial markets. For years, the deregulationists have said that prosperity comes to us only through deregulation, while other voices suggested that allowing the money-hungry to write their own rules was a recipe for disaster. Our current economic climate indicates which side of this debate was probably right. As with many topics, issues to which there are two legitimate sides can be clarified by allowing both sides to have their say, and letting an informed electorate decide, based upon the results.

Science doesn't fall into this class. If astronomers say that they have discovered a new planet orbiting a distant star, it isn't necessary to present an opposition viewpoint (which is presumably "no, you didn't"), the story stands on its own. Consider the claim that science is "self-correcting", which is entirely true. A classic example of the self-correcting nature of science would be the Piltdown Man affair, in which a real forgery was discovered and discredited. Another would be the refinements in geochronology which have been made since the 1920s, leading to an increasingly accurate measure of the age of the earth (and, in conjunction with work in astrophysics, the universe). As developments are made and subsequently challenged, as theories are buttressed or overturned, science grows. And there are some scientific issues to which there are two sides - that of therapod dinosaurs evolving into birds debate, for instance. The point, though, is that science is self-checking and self-correcting.

So isn't Intelligent Design a legitimate challenge to the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy of modern evolutionary theory? No. Intelligent Design, in a nutshell, says that "anything that you can't explain, right here, right now - that was the Designer". And while they never identify the "Designer", we can more or less assume that it is the Judeo-Christian god. It is a god of the gaps argument writ large, with all holes in current knowledge filled by this magic man. Ultimately, Intelligent Design is all smoke and mirrors. It isn't predictive (a key test in science), it isn't reproducible, and it essentially shuts off debate, because if your magic man is in the gaps in theory, then why bother trying to fill that gap? Why bother doing more research? Well, there's no need, because the Designer got there first. Don't worry your fluffy little head about it. That is where ID would leave us.

The student involved in this little fracas, who has been mystified from the start as to how anyone claiming to be a science teacher could also be the purveyor of such un-scientific nonsense, had more to say, though. This individual happened to mention that, not only was the teacher doing all of the above, but that he was also employing the film version of the Jonathan Wells book, Icons of Evolution (just Google it, you'll find it quickly enough). To me, this speaks of intent, not simply of ignorance. Wells likes to try - unsuccessfully - to cultivate the image of a dangerous, lone-gunman type, single-handedly at war with the orthodoxy of "them dirty, no-count evilushunists" (spits in bucket). Just listen to his recent appearance on the ID: the Future (editorial hint: it has none) podcast (29 September 2008) if you'd like further support for that assertion: Wells recounts how nameless graduate students at major universities (whom he must hold anonymous, he claims, in order to protect them and their academic futures in the face of wrathful, vengeful Darwinist academics) are so fearful of meeting him in public that they must organise clandestine rendezvous well away from campus. Of course, without support, evidence, or testimony, this claim of persecution and of the illiberality of academe is just so much ghost light. Wells is a dishonest charlatan and a fraudulent purveyor of nonsense - that's the capsule opinion of practically anyone who has ever reviewed Icons. Surely, though, this image is appealing to a small subset of the population - specifically, it would seem, to creationist science teachers.

So, parents, why do you need to be concerned about this? Well, the simple answer is that your children are being taught nonsense that makes a mockery of biology, of scientific method, and of education overall, and your tax dollars are paying for it. America thrived in the 20th century because, in Ken Miller's words, "America is home to independent-minded individuals for whom a primary virtue is a disrespect for authority" (Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, p. 11). Miller goes on to say: "The willingness of Americans to reject established authority has played a major role in the way that local activists have managed to push ideas such as scientific creationism and intelligent design into local schools" (p. 12). Now, however, what are universities going to make of an incoming crop of students hoping to do degrees in science in order to further advance human knowledge and American technological and scientific prestige, yet who believe that the planet is less than ten thousand years old and that early humans rode around on Jebus horses (or dinosaurs, for those of you who aren't Ken Ham), before they were all killed in a great Flood? What do you think that they'll do? That's right, they'll pick someone far better qualified, from a country that knows how to keep its science and its religion in two different part of the egg carton.

Now we are in a fight to teach science in the correct way: that is, to enable good and constructive (or destructive, as the case may be) ideas and methods, without teaching young and vulnerable students complete tosh. Further, if I were asked if a teacher should be able to use materials from the Discovery Institute and elsewhere, with impunity, my answer would be "no". These are questions for a philosophy class - not a science class. And the teacher in question should be given three choices: (1) desist, and teach the curriculum as it is written in the standards, (2) transfer to teaching another subject, perhaps philosophy or literature, something in which such subjective analyses are legitimate, or (3) leave public education for another field. Those are the most reasonable options that I can see.

My dear GHR, who was a student in the Park Hill School District in the early 1990s, has been viewing the situation with growing dismay. "What does this guy think that he's doing?" she asked this morning. "If he doesn't want to teach the science, then why is he there? It's a shame, because when I was there, I had really good science teachers." When asked about her qualifications, she might modestly point out that she holds two Bachelor's degrees from Drake, in biology and philosophy, and that she has made her career by designing bio-informatics software. This leads me to wonder - with qualifications and grades being granted now by science teachers in the district, where are these latest graduates likely to gain their degrees? (I hear that Bob Jones University and Liberty University both have some prime openings in their Deniers and Finger-Waggers degree programme).

For more on the legalities of teaching creationism, the National Center for Science Education has a helpful guide to court decisions about the subject, dating back to 1968. Are you encountering creation / ID in your science classroom? Contact the NCSE, or refer to TalkOrigins, purchase the Counter-Creationism Handbook, or refer any of a number of other sources. First, talk to the school, though. If you know a school board member, or have the opportunity to meet with one, then discuss the subject with them. It's not just for the good of your child - really, it's for the good of everyone.

---

EDIT: RBH has kindly provided me with a link to his coverage of another creationist case, the John Freshwater affair. I include his link to Day 4 here, and from that you can work back through the first three. It makes for informative - and slightly chilling - reading.

The Blind Watchmaker

If you haven't read Richard Dawkins' 1985 book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, and you are interested in the whole evolution versus creationism debate, then let me take this time to heartily recommend it.

In the meantime, though, in preparation for a much longer post on the subject of teaching creationism / intelligent design in schools, you should take the time to watch this 1985 episode of the BBC's flagship science documentary programme, Horizon, of the same title: The Blind Watchmaker. Enjoy...

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

Forty-Five Years On

Every 23 November for a number of years now, I have taken a few minutes to enjoy an incredibly geeky tradition. I sit down and re-watch the very first episode of Doctor Who, which I've now upgraded to on DVD, after years of the video cassette version. Tragically, this is also the anniversary of the assassination of John F Kennedy, but a concatenation of happy and unfortunate anniversaries doesn't necessitate celebratory restraint.

Bearing in mind the origins of the show, its 2005 revival, and the recent release of some of creator Sydney Newman's original ideas for the show, it's a good time to enjoy, once again, An Unearthly Child:

Part I:

Parts II and III can be found by following the links to YouTube.

Enjoy.

Finding Copernicus

The body of Nicolaus Copernicus, the polymath Pole whose De Revolutionibus correctly established the heliocentric nature of the solar system has apparently been confirmed to be that of the 16th century scientist, according to a story published today by the BBC.

Heliocentrism was not, of course, a new idea - one of its earliest exponents was the Greek Aristarchus of Samos. But Copernicus, working from observation and hard mathematics, made the case convincing and ultimately beyond the shadow of doubt.

The remains of the father of modern astronomy, discovered at Frombork Cathedral on the Baltic Sea, where he worked for many years, had been the subject of some speculation, but recent DNA studies and facial reconstructions appear to indicate that this is indeed the body of Copernicus.

To me, it's interesting to stop and ponder, just for a moment, the humble "mortal remains" of this man. To think that everything that he ever was, all of the genius that he embodied, are now summed up in a few bones and strands of hair is somehow telling... and exhilarating. He is known to this day for books written four centuries ago, which, though certainly not often read, are well-understood. If that isn't a testament to the enduring power of human curiosity and intellect, then I am hard pressed to think of what else is.

The Rough Guide to Rock and Mineral Identification

As part of HMS Beagle's monthly science club presentations, I've been doing a basic presentation on "how to identify rocks and minerals" for children and young adults. Hopefully, I haven't been too dry and academic (otherwise known as "boring their little arses off"), as is my typical mode of communication.

The strange thing to find is that I am enjoying it. I have mixed feelings about mineralogy: on the one hand, it's something that I know pretty well, and can fill in the gaps fairly quickly, without much effort. On the other hand, it was something that I did as a child because it was an "approved" activity in a varyingly strict household, part of an indifferently successful attempt to seek parental approval. So there are mixed feelings bound up in it, to say the least.

But the minerals themselves are still interesting, and the more I learn about experimentation and the method behind figuring out what mineral is what, the more interesting I find it. And the best method is outlined in a book that was given to me by my long-deceased great uncle, an Arizona turquoise and jewelry dealer who I most likely met only a handful of times in my life. The book? Frederick Pough's A Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals, Second Edition. Part of the 1950s run of the Peterson Field Guide Series, this book has remained in print, as far as I can tell, continuously for about sixty years. If you ever want a good guide to identifying rocks and minerals, and especially some of the chemical tests that you can do, this is the book for you - especially Chapter Six.

The best part of the demonstration? The radioactive minerals. They're still low level, even my meta-torbernite specimen, but it's impressive enough when the concept of what radioactivity is gets an adequate explanation (I won't pretend that mine is expert, but hopefully it makes them curious enough to look farther). It's one thing to hear about radioactivity as a concept, it's quite another to show someone, by demonstration, what it is that you mean.

And what have I been doing with my morning, apart from doing my bit for science education? Would you believe... hanging up butterflies? We just got a new shipment in, beautiful, farm-raised specimens. I think some of them would go very well in our Victorian Eclecticism Room at home (what certain people insist on calling my "nest" whenever I got in there to work, despite the complete absence of twigs and down). Just as long as I don't get that creepy scene from Ghost Light stuck in my head... you know the one, with the policeman in the bottom drawer of the butterfly case...

Magic Cacti, Faerie Stories, and Belief in the Unreal

As a child, I was a huge Star Wars fan. It's easy enough to understand and excuse now - I was seven when I saw the film, and seven year-old boys are not known for their critical thinking skills. I loved the film, and all of the accoutrements that went with it: the action figures, the comics, and the cards... Oh yes, the cards.

I don't know what it was about those cards that obsessed me so. If I'd been just slightly more atheletic, or taken to more baseball games, I might have obsessively collected the great baseball cards of the day (I had some, but eventually traded them away to some nameless kid, a fact which I now regret). In the seventies, there was already the relentless commercialisation of childhood that there is today, only the packets were less shiny (mylar came later). Everything remotely popular had cards - televisions programmes, sports, films. But for me, more than anything, it was those Star Wars cards which lived in my dreams. I pored over them - unhealthily, no doubt - for hour upon hour. It was childhood, though. I was a smart, bright, if somewhat shy child, and I enjoyed it, so what was the real harm?

Feeding my interest, my father used to get a packet of the cards for my brother and myself, once or twice weekly. But rather than just give them to us directly, he would play a game with us. He used to be whimsical in that way, when we were still young. He would tell us that there was a magic cactus, which sat in a pot in the middle of a flower bed outside the door into the back garden, and that he would check it for buds, and that new packets of cards, complete with their crisp pink rectangles which masqueraded as chewing gum, would sprout from the cactus.

Every so often, he would call to us, and my brother and I would go outside to find that, sure enough, there were two packs of Star Wars cards leaning again the trunk of the cactus. I have one of those images of the scene so clear in my mind that it must have been filled in over time, because I doubt that my observations on any given day would have been so starkly real. It's a day in early September. The grass is brilliant green, the flowers (late zinnias and mums) are in a riotously colourful state of bloom, the bricks demarking the edges of the bed are a cool, dark terra cotta. Packets of yellow-wrapped cards lean against the belly of the short, spiny, pale green cactus with the warm sun still casting shadows overhead.

Children are unconcerned with the niceties, especially when it comes to getting what they want. We would take the packets, ritually thank the cactus, then rip the cards open, try to chew the gum, and see who got the coveted card of the week.

What our father didn't know - what he couldn't have known, as he was at work or away - was that we also examined the cactus during the week, trying to discern any of the "buds" that might lead to the formation of new packets of cards. Of course, we had seen that the cards were generally for sale in shops (they were everywhere, in those days - the grocery store, the chemists, the Seven-Elevens, dime stores, and corner shops). But we were convinced that here was a plant which subverted the natural order of things.

And, naturally, it wasn't true. Eventually, we caught him artfully leaning the packets against the cactus, and the game was over. And in a way, the end of the game was worse than anything else - because it was no longer as much fun. We knew that a trick had been played, and it hurt, as I remember it now, to realise that.

The danger of any game based upon a magical, unreal, or unsupportable premise is just that: when in the end you find out that it was a fiction, there is an emptiness in your life as a result. What is true of magic cacti is also true of Father Christmas, Easter Bunnies, Tooth Faeries, Great Pumpkins, angry sky gods and monsters in closets. Their absence leaves a scar. That scar is only healed with time, and with the realisation of the greater mysteries of the world and the cosmos at large, which are far more wonderful, beautiful, and intriguing than anything dreamt up by the marketing firms of the twentieth century, the saints of old, or by Bronze Age nomads three millennia ago.

Outbreak of Trolls

As an exercise in measuring how quickly they rear their heads, take a look at this posting over at the HMS Beagle Science Blog, where I occasionally do an entry or two... If you want the quick précis, here it is:

Several students (who understandably wish to remain anonymous for the time being) apparently report that a science teacher in the local school district had been espousing overtly creationist views during the teaching of a unit on evolution. The post on this subject, which includes the letter sent to this teacher, offering them something of a lifeline, has attracted - unsurprisingly - members of the Anonymous Troll Brigade.

You might want to drop in and take a look, before someone among the admins gets bored and shuts the whole thing down... (might well be me)...

More as events warrant.

Got My Favourite Blogging Pyjamas On

One of the things that I enjoy most in the world is a new series of BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz, and the current episodes, thanks to the "miracle" of podcasting, arrive hot and fresh for my podding device each Friday during these happy times. Naturally, they've been enjoying the spectacle of the American elections, and who can blame them? It's been quite a ride.

The beauty of being a kind of independent commenter on the affairs of the day is that I really don't have much to guide me, apart from my own lights, as it were. In that sense, I'm no different from more recognisable and better remunerated figures; I just don't have their street cred, and that's fine. Perhaps I will, one day. Probably not. I'm nothing if not a realist.

Like the commenters on TNQ, though, and like Jeremy Hardy in particular, I have views, and they come from the reading that I have done over the years. I suffer from a severe case of curiosity. It makes me do strange things, like looking for new information when I don't understand something. And while I didn't have a privileged education or upbringing, I learned enough scientific method and have a sufficient understanding of what constitutes evidence to know the difference between demagoguery and claims that are backed by evidence.

We saw a lot of both during the election campaign, and I have to admit that I'm as surprised as anyone could be that for once, playing to people's baser instincts seems to have failed. Everyone further seems to agree that Senator McCain appears to have sold his proverbial soul (or at least mortgaged it rather heavily) in his failed effort to win. This is unfortunate for both him and his reputation, but it was an inevitable result of the kind of campaign he elected to run. 'Man yells at tree to get off his lawn' has always been a better story than 'man makes a reasonable argument', granted, but appearing to be a confused and elderly man shouting out bellicose infelicities was never going to win you anything but a special corner all to yourself in the IHOP.

As to the fact that an attention-seeking cretin his former running mate, who is rapidly fading from the American national stage despite her best efforts, makes a ridiculous remarks about bloggers living in their parents' basements and writing in their pyjamas, what is there to say (especially that Rachel Maddow didn't already effectively lampoon on Tuesday)? This blogger, who lives in his own home and who until the beginning of this year had worked full-time for twenty years, doesn't recognise your authority on this matter, Mrs Governor. And yes, sometimes, I might be in my pyjamas when I write. The Bush / McCain economy saw to it that the company for which I had worked elected to start swinging the axe, and as a result, yes, sometimes, I'm up at odd hours, wearing some rather fetching sleep gear. But on the other hand, I've never opened the door to senior members of a national political campaign in a towel. Where does that leave us, comparatively?

Nevertheless, I resent the caricature attempted by someone who is, by definition and example, a caricature of both a human being and a political figure. I resent it on behalf of the people who exist in my world: people who work hard to try to keep home and family together, who struggle in this economy. I would also point this out: the current situation is self-inflicted. Nothing about the current state of the world was inevitable, and when we're portioning out the blame, guess where it goes? It doesn't take a media elite to figure that out. I'm certainly not an elitist, nor a member of any elite, by any definition. Is it elitist to be curious about the world, to read to learn more about it, and to form my views from seeking new information, rather than just pretending that I have all of the answers, that they were handed to me by some misguided deity or other? Is it elitist to find The News Quiz incredibly funny, and to be relieved by the refreshing perspective of the British on the woes wrought by America in the world? Well, then maybe I'm in an elite after all. Who would have thought?

Everyday I Write the Book (I Just Fail to Publish)

Once again, a blogging desert has encroached upon the lower slopes of Mount Improbable. I can't offer a good explanation - hell, I can't even offer a miserable, less-than-accurate one. The world is too much with me, perhaps, would be the best way to say it.

I've written a great deal in the past month, I just haven't been posting. The reason? It would be easy to say that most of it just doesn't come up to even my rather lacksadaisical standards, and that's probably the truest thing. I could say that I've been too busy to focus, but really, it's more a question of the fact that I just haven't been able to focus.

So while there's been a lot of exciting politics, science, and other news in recent days, I've been skipping it - not unaware, just skipping. Thinking back, I've always done this with any form of journal: I begin with boundless enthusiasm, but quickly move on to sporadic interest, and sporadic writing at best. I used to keep paper journals years ago, and happened on a system - so I wouldn't become discouraged - of simply numbering the entries by "days" (eg; Day 47, Day 48, and so on). This worked for a while, but had the unfortunate result of making the journal completely useless to me fifteen years later when I wondered what the hell I had been thinking.

But enough of the maundering. In the interest of making this blog a viable entity once more, we're up and running again. This time, I'm going to finish some thoughts, unformed or not, and we'll see how it goes. For now, off to put the kettle on, make a cup of tea, and think about leaving the house... (bonus points if you can identify the quote).

Vote

First... this is your public service announcement: America, please vote. It may take a while. It may be inconvenient. You still need to vote. It's your right, and your responsibility. (Preaching over now)

Today, first time for me to be voting since moving to our town, a small village of about six hundred on the edge of Liberty. Walked to our polling place at about ten past six. Queued for about five minutes. Voted on paper ballots, filled in in pencil, standing at a plastic table at the back of the room because there were only four "booths" (those plastic stand-up kiosks that I remember from the 70s) then fed the ballot into the machine and watched for the counter in increase - I was number 34. Done and dusted by 6.25, with time for breakfast before work.

Ours seems to have been an atypical experience, though, as while out at breakfast, my wife and I overheard voters from the Liberty area talking about waits of more than an hour, even for those who arrived at their polling places half an hour before opening time. Our question: how do we reform elections so that an expected turn-out of 75% is not only expected, but quickly and easily handled in the polling stations? Because otherwise, how do you encourage people to vote?

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That's it on that topic for now. Back to more normal topics soon, and sorry for the absence, to all six of you who regularly look in... my apologies. It's been a busy month, but more on that later too.