Choir Tour

Tomorrow morning I leave for Colorado, where the SC choir will be touring over the period of one week. I expect to be skiing, shopping, singing a lot, and generally having lots and lots of fun. I'll also be going over my lines for the one act I'm in this semester: Hard Candy. I don't think I've mentioned my involvement in the last play either, but a senior here at SC directed Arsenic and Old Lace, to much acclaim. I played Lt. Rooney, the deus ex machina. It's nice to be the role of the guy who assumes absolute control at the end.

A Long Way Gone

I finished Ishmael Beah's memoir earlier tonight. It's a very accessible book - very straightforward and written with much care and emotion. If you have even the least bit of humanitarian in you, I strongly encourage you to read this book. It certainly puts the condition of the African citizen in perspective.

A Long Way Gone: A

On the Biblical Mandate to Respect Authority

The SC choir chaplain brought up a passage in 1 Peter at the beginning of this week regarding submission to authority. It led to interesting conversation, and I'd like to reiterate part of that conversation here.

1) It is important to remember that the early churches who passed around these letters had a very practical use for them. The early church could have easily been stomped out had the early Christians been too anti-government. True, the church was persecuted. True, the church did get into trouble with the government. However, remember that the persecution happened for short bursts of time (historically speaking) and only in isolated areas. It was by no means universal persecution. Additionally, when you look at other early Christian documents, you see more injunctions to work with the rulers.

And why not? The early church needed all the support it could get, while not compromising, of course. If they were all outspoken government radicals, they would not have lasted long.

2) With that in mind, I'd like to state that I unequivocally support every man, woman, and child's right to not only speak out against the government, but to practice what Thoreau called Civil Disobedience.

Someone in class mentioned that it's okay to disagree with the government, as long as you don't disrespect the government. Not only is this modifying the passage to your own liking, it's near meaningless. What does it mean to "disagree with respect"? Is calling the president foolish disrespectful? Is calling the president a liar disrespectful? Is calling the president a crook, or a murderer, or immoral disrespectful? Because I know many world leaders who deserve to be called these things. In some cases, I firmly believe that the leader must be taken out of his or her leadership position, violently if necessary (e.g. Hussein).

The definition of respect is shaky, and Christians exploit this shakiness by using the 1 Peter passage to condemn certain protesters while at the same time justifying their own protests. Many Christians would have no problem calling Obama a baby-killer (I've heard it done here at SC) because of his abortion policies. On the same token, I've heard the same people bitch and moan whenever someone calls G.W. Bush a moron because all of a sudden that's violating the 1 Peter passage.

Now, let's put 1 and 2 together. Let's all agree that in our country, we can disagree with our leadership - make fun of, call names, label, whatever - just so we're all on the same playing field. Let's also agree that when a leader is exploiting the people, starving and killing and robbing, etc., that country's people has a right to overthrow the government.

Lastly, set's put some restrictions on our actions. Here are some things that I think we can all agree are unethical:

Slander: As defined by the free dictionary as "A false and malicious statement or report about someone." Keyword: False. No making up things about our presidents. No premature judging. Get your facts straight before exercising your freedom of speech, for crying out loud. It will do the whole country good.

Needless Violence: Violence may have its place, but very rarely. I'm talking Hussein-level baddies. Blatant exploitation and violence against the people on the part of the leader.

If you can think of any other exceptions, please tell me in the comments.

Some Things I Like

For those of you who are tech-savvy, I heartily recommend the following services, websites, and applications.

Want to learn a new language? Busuu is an excellent social-based language learning site that connects you with native speakers (only if you want).

I've started a regular work-out program at the Sterling Wellness Center. I've also been tinkering with my dietary habits, fitting in more whole grains, fibers, and protein. The web service Gyminee has helped out a lot. It tracks nutritional goals, workout patterns, and like Busuu, there is an optional social aspect to it, great if you need accountability.

If you're into reading, you should check out BookMooch, a book trading website. Basically, you earn points by giving away your books (you pay shipping costs) and use those points to request books from other users.

With Make Me Sustainable, you can track your personal carbon emissions and find out how to bring them down to zero.

Finally, if you're into science, art, literature, technology, or culture, check out the awesome collection of "TED talks" over at TED.

Science Class Frustrations

We watched An Inconvenient Truth in our Environmental Science lab this week, and took class today to discuss the documentary. This was the second time I had seen it, and I was expecting some people to scoff at the ideas presented. Still, I was disturbed in during the discussion, because some people simply did not want to believe him. Some said that they didn't believe the science because it traced earth's climate back to 600,000 years ago, and these students didn't believe the earth was that old. One student, as if thinking of the idea for the first time, said, "Well, we've had ice ages, so it only makes sense that we have warming periods as well. I wanted to shake him and say, "Did you even watch the fucking movie?!"

And here's what I've been thinking since that class today: Groups with agendas (political, religious, etc.) tend to approach scientific findings with a buffet mindset. If a finding disagrees with their stomach, they simply pass it by. When something seems tasty, they snatch it up. That's not how science works, folks.

Perhaps what most upsets me is when people hear of a scientific study - a cursory description - and immediately dismiss it. "Well, there's no way they can tell that." Somebody said something similar in class regarding the measurement of temperatures from the past by analyzing air bubbles trapped in ice core samples. I've seen this reaction to many scientific studies. It's as if they're thinking, "I'm a pretty smart Joe, but I don't understand this. Therefore, they must be making it up." Or, "Silly scientists. They overlook the most obvious things."

Listen people. These scientists have usually had more education than your entire family put together. Who the hell do you think you are picking apart their studies when you don't have even possess a fraction of their knowledge in their field?

"But Deric, who will criticize his arguments if not us?"

Oh, you're right... If only there were some kind of forum where other scientists could critique their peers... like if they could publish it in some kind of journal... golly gee, it's too bad no such thing exists...

But no. People are too lazy to read comments by actual scientists. They'd rather read popular science or Christianity Today to get their science updates. More often, they just rely of their own gut reactions to gauge the veracity of any scientific pronouncement.

Mind you, this isn't only directed at "global warming doesn't exist and if it does, we aren't responsible" crowd, but also toward the Greenpeace crowd. Both censor scientific findings that they don't like.

There, I've vented. Can we all grow up now and take science seriously?