Most believers in an afterlife think that after death, righteous souls end up in heaven and unrighteous ones in hell, which seems straightforward enough. However, there are apparently people who believe there's a third option: if you're consigned neither to heaven nor hell, you can stick around and drive the living up a tree.
At least that's the contention of a couple who live in a rented house in Coventry, England. They claim that their house is haunted by an annoying ghost who has broken crockery, thrown about silverware, moved blinds up and down, switched lights on and off, and, on one occasion, jammed a door, trapping the couple in the house and necessitating their escape through a window. They even suspect the ghost had a role in the death of their dog, who died of injuries from falling down the stairs.
A priest who visited the house allegedly advised the couple not to stay, but blessed the house and gave the couple each a crucifix to wear. And I thought: That's the best he can do? Say a quick prayer, hand out a crucifix, and hit the road? The priest in The Exorcist stuck around even while the little girl was puking up pea soup all over the place, which I thought was pretty brave of him. In his place, I think I'd have called it quits at that point. I have a strong stomach -- I can dissect a fetal pig with one hand and eat a ham sandwich with the other, and I have no squeamishness about blood -- but when someone throws up, I generally join them.
More interesting still, a medium, called in to investigate, said the house was a portal. "It's a bus stop for spirits," she said, after touring the house. Evidently the house acts like a gateway for ghosts to get into the world of the living. This brings up a question: if ghosts can get into our world through this house, could you contact any spirit you want just by making a trip to Coventry? If so, I'd like to go there and ask my mom for some advice about making pie crust. Hers were always awesome, and mine turn out like cardboard, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Anyhow, the couple aren't particularly excited about living in a haunted house. Me, I'd be elated. I've always wanted to go spend the night in a house that was claimed to have a ghost. You hear all these anecdotal reports, and people say things like, "When I was little we lived in this house where weird stuff kept happening! We heard noises! And cabinet doors we remembered shutting would be found open the next morning! And socks would disappear in the laundry! It must have been a ghost." Well, okay, that's one possibility. Me, I'd like to see for myself, and rule out more prosaic causes, like mice in the walls, people forgetting to shut cabinet doors, and Magical Sock Gnomes, which are definitely responsible for the sock losses amongst the members of our family.
I don't think the Coventry couple is taking in guests, however, which is kind of a shame. On the other hand, they say they have the next best thing to direct evidence: they have produced a video clip of the tricksy phantom doing his thing. The video clip, available here, shows a door swinging open, and a pink rolling chair sliding across the room. Firm proof, they claim, that the house is haunted.
Predictably, I'm skeptical. I see nothing in this clip that couldn't be done with fishing line. In fact, the chair moves more like someone pulling it with a string than it does like someone (or something) pushing it. Plus, in the clip you can distinctly hear someone clearing his throat, and I'm doubtful that ghosts would have any particular need for throat-clearing.
The whole thing, in fact, screams "hoax" to me, and my personal opinion is that the couple in the house are simply after their fifteen minutes of fame. Sad to say, but for those who believe in ghosts and were hoping for proof -- this ain't it. Aficionados of the afterlife will just have to keep looking. And I'll keep trying to get a photo of the Magical Sock Gnomes, because those things are freakin' annoying.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The North Carolina billboard campaign
My question of the day is: When it comes to discussions of religion (or lack thereof), should we be obliged to refrain from criticizing other belief systems? Is criticizing another person's religion always off limits?
The whole topic comes up because of an advertising campaign by the Triangle Freethought Society and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has put up a dozen billboards in Raleigh, North Carolina. These billboards have images of smiling individuals, with captions like, "I'm saved... from religion! -- Curtis Clayton, Raleigh, Truck Driver... Atheist." Another says, "Free thinking moves America forward! -- Robin, Parent... Nontheist." One with the face of Chris, a Raleigh artist: "Your faith feel wrong? It's OK to leave!" And Dale, a writer and agnostic: "I write fiction. I don't believe it."
For many people, criticizing another person's religion is verboten. You can tell someone her political beliefs are wrong; you can say a guy's way of running his business sucks; you can even tell someone he dresses funny. All are, depending on how they're phrased, considered acceptable behavior. But religion, somehow, is considered outside of the realm of criticism.
Well, sometimes. It seems like Muslims these days are fair targets for a lot of folks, and there are frequent posts detailing the bloodthirstier passages in the Quran (often authored by people who conveniently forget the equally bloodthirsty passages in the Old Testament). But other than that... it seems like you can say, do, or believe almost anything, and if you say, "It's my religion," you have an automatic Get Out Of Jail Free card.
Interesting, though, that lack of religion is not accorded the same respect. Although I have many times passed billboards with religious slogans (including some fairly threatening ones, of the "The Wages Of Sin Are Death!" variety), even fairly low-key atheist billboards have resulted in a whirlwind of angry response by believers. The billboard that showed up in New Jersey last December that said, "You know it's a myth. This season, celebrate reason" was greeted by howls of anger.
Atheism, it seems, is considered critical of religion by default; which, I suppose, it is. As such, it is automatically relegated to being offensive simply by virtue of its existence. In polls, atheists rank consistently lower than other groups often targeted by discrimination -- gays, Muslims, minorities -- and in fact, in one particularly telling poll, responders said they'd vote for a convicted felon for public office before they'd vote for an atheist.
In response, most atheists are pretty quiet about it. There are exceptions -- Dawkins and Hitchens inevitably come to mind -- but most of us try to fly under the radar. I'm of the medium-loud variety -- I don't go to especial pains to hide my views, but I see no particular need to flaunt them, either. Being that I live in a small village, I expect most people figure out what I think eventually.
Some take a while, though. I was once asked, in my Critical Thinking class, what my religious views were. This was fairly late in the semester, and although I was a little surprised that my reputation hadn't preceded me, I was delighted that some of the students still hadn't figured out where I stand. My goal, in that class especially, is for students to leave without really being sure what my political and religious beliefs are, with the feeling that I prodded and questioned and needled everyone to refine their thinking.
My first question was, "Why is that relevant?" The student responded that she was simply curious and interested. I said, "I'm an atheist." And another student said, "Are you allowed to say that in school?"
At first, I though he was somehow under the impression that because we're not allowed to preach to students, or try to convert them, that we couldn't mention religion at all. But no, upon being asked to clarify, he meant atheism in particular. "Isn't that saying that other religions are wrong?" he asked.
"If you don't mind my asking," I responded to him, "what are your religious views? You don't have to answer if you would prefer not to."
He shrugged and said, "I don't mind. I'm a Methodist."
I said, "Isn't that saying that other religions are wrong?"
Then he got it.
The whole topic comes up because of an advertising campaign by the Triangle Freethought Society and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has put up a dozen billboards in Raleigh, North Carolina. These billboards have images of smiling individuals, with captions like, "I'm saved... from religion! -- Curtis Clayton, Raleigh, Truck Driver... Atheist." Another says, "Free thinking moves America forward! -- Robin, Parent... Nontheist." One with the face of Chris, a Raleigh artist: "Your faith feel wrong? It's OK to leave!" And Dale, a writer and agnostic: "I write fiction. I don't believe it."
For many people, criticizing another person's religion is verboten. You can tell someone her political beliefs are wrong; you can say a guy's way of running his business sucks; you can even tell someone he dresses funny. All are, depending on how they're phrased, considered acceptable behavior. But religion, somehow, is considered outside of the realm of criticism.
Well, sometimes. It seems like Muslims these days are fair targets for a lot of folks, and there are frequent posts detailing the bloodthirstier passages in the Quran (often authored by people who conveniently forget the equally bloodthirsty passages in the Old Testament). But other than that... it seems like you can say, do, or believe almost anything, and if you say, "It's my religion," you have an automatic Get Out Of Jail Free card.
Interesting, though, that lack of religion is not accorded the same respect. Although I have many times passed billboards with religious slogans (including some fairly threatening ones, of the "The Wages Of Sin Are Death!" variety), even fairly low-key atheist billboards have resulted in a whirlwind of angry response by believers. The billboard that showed up in New Jersey last December that said, "You know it's a myth. This season, celebrate reason" was greeted by howls of anger.
Atheism, it seems, is considered critical of religion by default; which, I suppose, it is. As such, it is automatically relegated to being offensive simply by virtue of its existence. In polls, atheists rank consistently lower than other groups often targeted by discrimination -- gays, Muslims, minorities -- and in fact, in one particularly telling poll, responders said they'd vote for a convicted felon for public office before they'd vote for an atheist.
In response, most atheists are pretty quiet about it. There are exceptions -- Dawkins and Hitchens inevitably come to mind -- but most of us try to fly under the radar. I'm of the medium-loud variety -- I don't go to especial pains to hide my views, but I see no particular need to flaunt them, either. Being that I live in a small village, I expect most people figure out what I think eventually.
Some take a while, though. I was once asked, in my Critical Thinking class, what my religious views were. This was fairly late in the semester, and although I was a little surprised that my reputation hadn't preceded me, I was delighted that some of the students still hadn't figured out where I stand. My goal, in that class especially, is for students to leave without really being sure what my political and religious beliefs are, with the feeling that I prodded and questioned and needled everyone to refine their thinking.
My first question was, "Why is that relevant?" The student responded that she was simply curious and interested. I said, "I'm an atheist." And another student said, "Are you allowed to say that in school?"
At first, I though he was somehow under the impression that because we're not allowed to preach to students, or try to convert them, that we couldn't mention religion at all. But no, upon being asked to clarify, he meant atheism in particular. "Isn't that saying that other religions are wrong?" he asked.
"If you don't mind my asking," I responded to him, "what are your religious views? You don't have to answer if you would prefer not to."
He shrugged and said, "I don't mind. I'm a Methodist."
I said, "Isn't that saying that other religions are wrong?"
Then he got it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Threatening skeptics with crystal vibrational energy
As a further exploration of yesterday's topic (hell), I'd like to ask a question.
Let's say you have two people arguing. One (let's call him Sam) believes in god, divine retribution, the devil, angels, and the whole shebang. The other (Joe) believes in none of the above. In the course of the argument, Sam gets frustrated with Joe's lack of piety and tells him, "You are so going to hell. Satan has a whole room full of Inquisition-style torture equipment ready, with your name on it."
My question is: why would Sam think this is an effective means of persuasion?
Threatening Joe with a retribution by Satan in the afterlife, when Joe himself believes in neither, kind of sucks as a strategy. That notwithstanding, it seems like the most common approach. And the whole thing isn't limited to members of traditional religions.
In fact, the subject comes up because of last weekend's New Age Expo, "Body, Soul, and Spirit," which was held in Toronto. Amongst the workshop offerings were ones on "Crystal Healing," "Raising Your Vibration for Improved Health," a workshop whose description implies that quantum physics proves the oneness of the body and mind, and a "demonstration of mediumship" in which a gent named Vincent Pace "will connect to loved ones, guides, or Angels from the Spirit world, & deliver their message for audience members randomly!"
Those of you who know me well can just imagine how much I'd enjoy attending such an event. And evidently some other skeptics felt the same way, because some members of the Canadian group Centre for Inquiry (whose website is a must-see) approached the leaders of the Expo, described their stance on the whole thing, and asked to be admitted as unbiased observers.
I have to admit, it was mighty sporting of the Centre for Inquiry folks to clue the Expo leaders in on their intentions, but they must have realized that it was unlikely that they'd be welcomed with open arms. In fact, they were categorically denied entrance to the Expo. The take-home lesson, here, is that believers don't like skeptics, so the direct frontal approach in such situations is unlikely to succeed.
Myself, I'd have used the stealth approach. I'd have been the Ninja Warrior of Skeptics, dressed all in black, scaling the wall and slipping undetected into the workshops, and recording the whole thing on my tiny digital recording device. Then I'd vanish like the wind and return to my secret headquarters. They'd never know I was there, until a scathing exposé hit Skeptophilia the following day, and then they would retreat in complete disarray.
Okay, I have to admit, that's probably not what would have happened. Scaling walls is kind of out of the question for me lately. Some days, walking is almost out of the question. What I'd probably really have done is that I'd have simply bought a ticket, and probably would have ultimately been escorted out by the police after guffawing directly in the so-called medium's face. And since I doubt anyone who would attend a "Body, Soul and Spirit" convention reads Skeptophilia, "retreating in complete disarray" might be a bit of an overstatement.
But I digress.
So anyway, the Centre folks were denied entrance. What is even more interesting, however, is that the Expo leaders threatened the skeptics... with "bad karma." The response said, in part: "If you were really sincere, your company would focus on exposing the corruption in government, banking, medical, etc. So get honest with yourself or karma will teach you in ways your ego would not like."
Whoooo. That is one scary threat, there. Doesn't it occur to them that, just like the fictional Sam and Joe from the earlier example, you can't effectively threaten someone with something that they believe is nonexistent? I've never been told I'm going to have bad karma, although I have been told I'm headed for hell more than once; but it's hard to see how either one would change my behavior. You have to believe in something before it has any emotional pull on you.
Now, if the Expo leaders had said, "If you people show up here, we're getting out the baseball bats," that would be a threat I could respect. I believe in baseball bats. They do damage that even crystal vibration healing would have a hard time dealing with. But maybe the Expo leaders think that that hitting skeptics with baseball bats would be bad for their own karma. I dunno.
So, anyway, the skeptics didn't get to go to the Body, Soul, and Spirit Expo, which is kind of a disappointment. Next time, they should take my suggestion and try the stealth approach. I'm happy to come along. I've got my black Skeptical Ninja-suit all laid out.
Let's say you have two people arguing. One (let's call him Sam) believes in god, divine retribution, the devil, angels, and the whole shebang. The other (Joe) believes in none of the above. In the course of the argument, Sam gets frustrated with Joe's lack of piety and tells him, "You are so going to hell. Satan has a whole room full of Inquisition-style torture equipment ready, with your name on it."
My question is: why would Sam think this is an effective means of persuasion?
Threatening Joe with a retribution by Satan in the afterlife, when Joe himself believes in neither, kind of sucks as a strategy. That notwithstanding, it seems like the most common approach. And the whole thing isn't limited to members of traditional religions.
In fact, the subject comes up because of last weekend's New Age Expo, "Body, Soul, and Spirit," which was held in Toronto. Amongst the workshop offerings were ones on "Crystal Healing," "Raising Your Vibration for Improved Health," a workshop whose description implies that quantum physics proves the oneness of the body and mind, and a "demonstration of mediumship" in which a gent named Vincent Pace "will connect to loved ones, guides, or Angels from the Spirit world, & deliver their message for audience members randomly!"
Those of you who know me well can just imagine how much I'd enjoy attending such an event. And evidently some other skeptics felt the same way, because some members of the Canadian group Centre for Inquiry (whose website is a must-see) approached the leaders of the Expo, described their stance on the whole thing, and asked to be admitted as unbiased observers.
I have to admit, it was mighty sporting of the Centre for Inquiry folks to clue the Expo leaders in on their intentions, but they must have realized that it was unlikely that they'd be welcomed with open arms. In fact, they were categorically denied entrance to the Expo. The take-home lesson, here, is that believers don't like skeptics, so the direct frontal approach in such situations is unlikely to succeed.
Myself, I'd have used the stealth approach. I'd have been the Ninja Warrior of Skeptics, dressed all in black, scaling the wall and slipping undetected into the workshops, and recording the whole thing on my tiny digital recording device. Then I'd vanish like the wind and return to my secret headquarters. They'd never know I was there, until a scathing exposé hit Skeptophilia the following day, and then they would retreat in complete disarray.
Okay, I have to admit, that's probably not what would have happened. Scaling walls is kind of out of the question for me lately. Some days, walking is almost out of the question. What I'd probably really have done is that I'd have simply bought a ticket, and probably would have ultimately been escorted out by the police after guffawing directly in the so-called medium's face. And since I doubt anyone who would attend a "Body, Soul and Spirit" convention reads Skeptophilia, "retreating in complete disarray" might be a bit of an overstatement.
But I digress.
So anyway, the Centre folks were denied entrance. What is even more interesting, however, is that the Expo leaders threatened the skeptics... with "bad karma." The response said, in part: "If you were really sincere, your company would focus on exposing the corruption in government, banking, medical, etc. So get honest with yourself or karma will teach you in ways your ego would not like."
Whoooo. That is one scary threat, there. Doesn't it occur to them that, just like the fictional Sam and Joe from the earlier example, you can't effectively threaten someone with something that they believe is nonexistent? I've never been told I'm going to have bad karma, although I have been told I'm headed for hell more than once; but it's hard to see how either one would change my behavior. You have to believe in something before it has any emotional pull on you.
Now, if the Expo leaders had said, "If you people show up here, we're getting out the baseball bats," that would be a threat I could respect. I believe in baseball bats. They do damage that even crystal vibration healing would have a hard time dealing with. But maybe the Expo leaders think that that hitting skeptics with baseball bats would be bad for their own karma. I dunno.
So, anyway, the skeptics didn't get to go to the Body, Soul, and Spirit Expo, which is kind of a disappointment. Next time, they should take my suggestion and try the stealth approach. I'm happy to come along. I've got my black Skeptical Ninja-suit all laid out.
Monday, March 28, 2011
What the hell?
Apparently, there is a new controversy brewing amongst traditional Christians, centering around a new book by evangelical pastor Rob Bell called Love Wins, in which he describes what hell is like.
Me, I'd think it'd be the world's shortest book. Page one: "Beats the hell out of me. The End." You'd think that the thesis, and the resulting argument, both being based upon no hard facts whatsoever, would devolve into a lot of shrugging of shoulders and moving on to other, more pressing issues.
You'd be wrong.
Apparently his contentions have ignited a firestorm of controversy. Bell has been labeled a heretic; one prominent pastor commented, "Satan is having a field day with this." Another pastor, who espoused Bell's ideas, has been fired. The whole thing is still being hotly debated, and probably will continue to be for some time to come.
Bell's central point is that god's love can triumph even over sins that many think would doom a person to hell, and that therefore saying that this or that act is certain to condemn someone is wrong. Of course, a lot of people don't like that idea. From the touchy-feely end of the spectrum, you have the people who don't like the idea of hell in the first place, and are uncomfortable that there might be a final judgment; for them, Bell's book is too harsh. On the other end, there are the folks who really love the ideas of the unbelievers cooking eternally on Satan's George Foreman Grill, and for them, Bell is too easygoing, too admitting of wiggle-room.
I remember a girl I knew in college, who was honestly upset that I wasn't "saved," because she thought I was nice and didn't want me to spend eternity getting tortured. Which was kind enough of her, I suppose. But I recall her saying, "Being saved from hell isn't about being nice. Being saved from hell is about accepting Jesus. You can be all the nice you want, but if you haven't accepted Jesus, you're going to hell for all eternity."
A lot of the more liberal Christians have a kneejerk reaction against this -- it just seems unfair, somehow. What about observant Jews? Or Hindus? Or Muslims? Or Buddhists? Or all the millions of people who lived and died and never even heard about Christianity? It brings to mind the thing that went around the email circles a while back -- you may have seen it. "Q: What do Socrates, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi, Anne Frank, Lao Tse, and Chief Joseph all have in common? A: According to the fundamentalists, they're all in hell."
What's interesting is that even the bible itself isn't consistent in what it says. The Old Testament instances of the word that is often translated as "hell" is the Hebrew word sheol, which as far as I can understand from my Jewish friends, just kind of means a dreary, depressing place where everyone ultimately goes, a "place of nothingness." Sort of a New Jersey for the Spirit World. The concept of a place of torment seems limited to the New Testament, the "fiery furnace" where there'll be "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth." In fact, several instances of that concept correspond to the New Testament writers' use of the Greek word tartaros, which makes me wonder if they borrowed the whole thing from Greek mythology. (You remember, Sisyphus and the Rock, Tantalus and the Water, etc.)
Anyhow, the whole thing comes across as rather silly to me -- to argue vehemently about the characteristics of a place that no one has any direct information about, and about which even the one source they're accepting isn't clear. Of course, it isn't the first time I've been mystified by the behavior of religious folks, and probably won't be the last; but to be fair, they probably find my lack of belief equally mystifying.
Me, I'd think it'd be the world's shortest book. Page one: "Beats the hell out of me. The End." You'd think that the thesis, and the resulting argument, both being based upon no hard facts whatsoever, would devolve into a lot of shrugging of shoulders and moving on to other, more pressing issues.
You'd be wrong.
Apparently his contentions have ignited a firestorm of controversy. Bell has been labeled a heretic; one prominent pastor commented, "Satan is having a field day with this." Another pastor, who espoused Bell's ideas, has been fired. The whole thing is still being hotly debated, and probably will continue to be for some time to come.
Bell's central point is that god's love can triumph even over sins that many think would doom a person to hell, and that therefore saying that this or that act is certain to condemn someone is wrong. Of course, a lot of people don't like that idea. From the touchy-feely end of the spectrum, you have the people who don't like the idea of hell in the first place, and are uncomfortable that there might be a final judgment; for them, Bell's book is too harsh. On the other end, there are the folks who really love the ideas of the unbelievers cooking eternally on Satan's George Foreman Grill, and for them, Bell is too easygoing, too admitting of wiggle-room.
I remember a girl I knew in college, who was honestly upset that I wasn't "saved," because she thought I was nice and didn't want me to spend eternity getting tortured. Which was kind enough of her, I suppose. But I recall her saying, "Being saved from hell isn't about being nice. Being saved from hell is about accepting Jesus. You can be all the nice you want, but if you haven't accepted Jesus, you're going to hell for all eternity."
A lot of the more liberal Christians have a kneejerk reaction against this -- it just seems unfair, somehow. What about observant Jews? Or Hindus? Or Muslims? Or Buddhists? Or all the millions of people who lived and died and never even heard about Christianity? It brings to mind the thing that went around the email circles a while back -- you may have seen it. "Q: What do Socrates, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi, Anne Frank, Lao Tse, and Chief Joseph all have in common? A: According to the fundamentalists, they're all in hell."
What's interesting is that even the bible itself isn't consistent in what it says. The Old Testament instances of the word that is often translated as "hell" is the Hebrew word sheol, which as far as I can understand from my Jewish friends, just kind of means a dreary, depressing place where everyone ultimately goes, a "place of nothingness." Sort of a New Jersey for the Spirit World. The concept of a place of torment seems limited to the New Testament, the "fiery furnace" where there'll be "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth." In fact, several instances of that concept correspond to the New Testament writers' use of the Greek word tartaros, which makes me wonder if they borrowed the whole thing from Greek mythology. (You remember, Sisyphus and the Rock, Tantalus and the Water, etc.)
Anyhow, the whole thing comes across as rather silly to me -- to argue vehemently about the characteristics of a place that no one has any direct information about, and about which even the one source they're accepting isn't clear. Of course, it isn't the first time I've been mystified by the behavior of religious folks, and probably won't be the last; but to be fair, they probably find my lack of belief equally mystifying.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Fact check
I wasn't going to write a post about Michele Bachmann. I told myself, "stay out of politics. Blog on something safe and non-controversial, like evolution." And I thought, "You're not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced, so what's the point?"
Then, this morning, while perusing the news, I happened upon a story about Michele Bachmann's recent gaffe in which she identified Lexington and Concord and "The Shot Heard Around the World" as being in New Hampshire, and one of the comments posted after the story was the following:
"Sure, Bachmann has had here [sic] gaffes, like anyone that appears regularly on TV, radio, etc. But she's on the right side of the issues which, last I checked, is a great deal of what matters."
No, I'm sorry. You're wrong. Facts matter.
Bachmann, the oft-proclaimed "darling of the Tea Party," is becoming notorious for misspeaking. She called the Smoot-Hawley Act the "Hoot-Smawley Act," and said it was signed into law by a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is therefore directly responsible for the Great Depression. (It was signed by Herbert Hoover, a Republican, in 1930, three years before FDR was inaugurated, and may have contributed to the Depression, but was hardly its cause as most historians date the Depression as beginning in 1929.) She even seems to think that epidemics are the Democrats' fault, as she blamed the 1976 swine flu outbreak on Jimmy Carter, even though Gerald Ford was president at the time.
This woman makes so many mistakes that you have to wonder if the Republicans have hired her to make Sarah Palin look intelligent by comparison.
Facts matter. Yes, anyone who is a public speaker can misspeak; as a teacher, I've done it, more than once. But you have to be careful -- one slip, or even two, can be laughed off as simply being a fallible human being, making a faux pas when under pressure. At some point, however, you cross the line, and people start thinking, "what a moron." And they stop giving what you say any credence.
Well, sometimes. It appears that with Palin and Bachmann, all it's done is made their defenders more defensive, and propelled them even further into the spotlight. Every day, I expect to hear that the Republicans have finally said, as a party, "these two have the IQ of road salt," and to see Palin and Bachmann dwindling back into well-deserved obscurity. But somehow, their ineptness, their seeming inability to hire a fact-checker before they speak, makes them seem all the more "folksy" and like "regular people," and does nothing but increase their appeal.
Why is it that people want a leader who is "just one of us folks?" Me, I want a president who is smarter than I am. Way smarter. I know I'm not intelligent enough for that job, not by a longshot. But somehow, candidates who can tap into the image of being "average" have a strong appeal. Is it because we are trying desperately to hang on to the myth that "anyone can become president?" Are we falling for that perversion of the democratic ideal that because we all should have equal rights, somehow we all should be treated as if we have equal abilities? Is it that we distrust the intelligentsia because of the negative portrayal of smart people in the media?
Or are the majority of Americans simply nitwits themselves?
And since I've probably already pasted a target on my own chest by publicly posting the foregoing, I may as well cock the pistol by adding that the whole belief that "facts matter less than opinions" is why 40% of Americans are still young-earth creationists.
The whole thing is exasperating. At a time when we're in deep economic distress, and the world is facing uprisings, rebellions, and terrorism, we need a leader who has both breadth and depth of knowledge, and an ability to think critically about the problems we face. What we don't need is someone who talks, and apparently thinks, in folksy sound-bites, and can't even get things straight in those.
Simply put, whatever his/her stance is on the issues, I don't trust any candidate for president who apparently has a poorer knowledge of American history than my 11th grade students. But I fear that I am in the minority. And I think the specter of a Palin/Bachmann GOP ticket is all too possible.
Then, this morning, while perusing the news, I happened upon a story about Michele Bachmann's recent gaffe in which she identified Lexington and Concord and "The Shot Heard Around the World" as being in New Hampshire, and one of the comments posted after the story was the following:
"Sure, Bachmann has had here [sic] gaffes, like anyone that appears regularly on TV, radio, etc. But she's on the right side of the issues which, last I checked, is a great deal of what matters."
No, I'm sorry. You're wrong. Facts matter.
Bachmann, the oft-proclaimed "darling of the Tea Party," is becoming notorious for misspeaking. She called the Smoot-Hawley Act the "Hoot-Smawley Act," and said it was signed into law by a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is therefore directly responsible for the Great Depression. (It was signed by Herbert Hoover, a Republican, in 1930, three years before FDR was inaugurated, and may have contributed to the Depression, but was hardly its cause as most historians date the Depression as beginning in 1929.) She even seems to think that epidemics are the Democrats' fault, as she blamed the 1976 swine flu outbreak on Jimmy Carter, even though Gerald Ford was president at the time.
This woman makes so many mistakes that you have to wonder if the Republicans have hired her to make Sarah Palin look intelligent by comparison.
Facts matter. Yes, anyone who is a public speaker can misspeak; as a teacher, I've done it, more than once. But you have to be careful -- one slip, or even two, can be laughed off as simply being a fallible human being, making a faux pas when under pressure. At some point, however, you cross the line, and people start thinking, "what a moron." And they stop giving what you say any credence.
Well, sometimes. It appears that with Palin and Bachmann, all it's done is made their defenders more defensive, and propelled them even further into the spotlight. Every day, I expect to hear that the Republicans have finally said, as a party, "these two have the IQ of road salt," and to see Palin and Bachmann dwindling back into well-deserved obscurity. But somehow, their ineptness, their seeming inability to hire a fact-checker before they speak, makes them seem all the more "folksy" and like "regular people," and does nothing but increase their appeal.
Why is it that people want a leader who is "just one of us folks?" Me, I want a president who is smarter than I am. Way smarter. I know I'm not intelligent enough for that job, not by a longshot. But somehow, candidates who can tap into the image of being "average" have a strong appeal. Is it because we are trying desperately to hang on to the myth that "anyone can become president?" Are we falling for that perversion of the democratic ideal that because we all should have equal rights, somehow we all should be treated as if we have equal abilities? Is it that we distrust the intelligentsia because of the negative portrayal of smart people in the media?
Or are the majority of Americans simply nitwits themselves?
And since I've probably already pasted a target on my own chest by publicly posting the foregoing, I may as well cock the pistol by adding that the whole belief that "facts matter less than opinions" is why 40% of Americans are still young-earth creationists.
The whole thing is exasperating. At a time when we're in deep economic distress, and the world is facing uprisings, rebellions, and terrorism, we need a leader who has both breadth and depth of knowledge, and an ability to think critically about the problems we face. What we don't need is someone who talks, and apparently thinks, in folksy sound-bites, and can't even get things straight in those.
Simply put, whatever his/her stance is on the issues, I don't trust any candidate for president who apparently has a poorer knowledge of American history than my 11th grade students. But I fear that I am in the minority. And I think the specter of a Palin/Bachmann GOP ticket is all too possible.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Open season on Snorky
I know that there are many important things in the world I could be blogging about today. I could be devoting my writing to the relief effort in Japan. I could be posting about the current military operation in Libya, Operation Odyssey Dawn (the name of which made me wonder if the powers-that-be have actually read The Odyssey -- naming our actions in Libya after a book in which the hero wanders around the Mediterranean for ten years looking for friends, and all of the soldiers he brought along with him end up dying, seems like asking for trouble).
But no. My topic for the day is: why the hell do I have the theme song from The Banana Splits stuck in my head?
For those of you who are too young to remember the 60s, or who were, shall we say, otherwise occupied at the time, The Banana Splits was a short-lived and rather ill-conceived Saturday morning cartoon. It ran, insofar as I can remember, on the variety-show model, with a number of short clips (both animated and live-action), music, and so forth. It was hosted by a foursome of actors in animal suits (the eponymous "Banana Splits") -- Fleegle the dog, Snorky the elephant, Bingo the gorilla, and Drooper the lion. It was, in a word, weird. It is second only to "H. R. Pufnstuf" as being the trippiest Saturday morning cartoon ever aired. (And for those of you who haven't heard of this amazingly freaky cartoon, the only way I can give you a flavor for it is to imagine what would happen if J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a script for an episode of Barney and Friends while on LSD. You think I'm kidding? Ask anyone over 50. Or check out the Wikipedia entry, which gives an interesting take on the series, as well as many links to related sites.)
But I digress.
Anyhow, the theme song of The Banana Splits -- whose lyrics I kindly won't share, partly out of consideration for my readers and partly because the bit of it that is currently whirling around in my brain consists mostly of "la la la" -- is one of the worst earworms in the world. An earworm, as defined by psychologist James Kellaris, is a song, jingle, or fragment thereof, which gets lodged inside your skull and will never ever ever leave, even if you try to remove it using an electric drill and a shop-vac, until finally you go completely and totally MAD AND BEGIN TO FROTH AT THE MOUTH AND START CALLING ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS WHO ARE HUNTERS AND ASKING THEM IF THEY WOULD HAVE AN ETHICAL PROBLEM WITH KILLING AN ELEPHANT NAMED "SNORKY" EVEN THOUGH ELEPHANTS ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES.
Whoa, sorry, got a little carried away, there. And perhaps I exaggerate a tad. Even the most annoying earworm will eventually leave, but often only because it's been supplanted by an even worse one. So once I have the theme song from The Banana Splits out of my head, who knows what musical adventures I have to look forward to? Maybe "Copacabana." Or "Benny and the Jets." Or the "Kit-Kat" jingle ("Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.") There are so many my brain can choose from! I can hardly wait!
The worst of it is considering what a waste of mental energy this must be. When I think of the amount of brain space I'm currently devoting to keeping "la la la, la-la la la, la la la, la-la la la" ricocheting off the inside of my skull, it just makes me depressed. I could be writing a symphony, coming up with a Grand Unified Field Theory, solving world hunger, or figuring out why President Obama has suddenly turned into Dubya Lite. But no. I'm sitting here, going "la la la." And worse yet, writing about it.
Good lord, I just realized something. Now I've infected all of you. I'm really sorry about that, truly I am. And if all of you go out and infect others, it'll be... it'll be.. a pandemic! Bananasplitsitis! US productivity will grind to a halt! (The Russians and Chinese are immune, because during the 60s they were too busy having Cultural Revolutions and Great Leaps Forward and Sputniks and Missile Crises to come up with pointless, psychedelic cartoons.) World markets will collapse. Pandemonium will ensue. And it will all be my fault.
Wow. I feel just awful about this. I think I need to lay low this morning, just to recover from the guilt feelings. Find something to take my mind off all the trouble I've caused. Maybe relax, daydream a little. Daydream about... about a magic land... where everything is alive! Filled with whimsy and weirdness! Where the mayor is a brightly-colored dinosaur!
Ahem... "H. R. Pufnstuf, where'd'ya go when things get rough, H. R. Pufnstuf, you can't do a little 'cause you can't do enough..."
But no. My topic for the day is: why the hell do I have the theme song from The Banana Splits stuck in my head?
For those of you who are too young to remember the 60s, or who were, shall we say, otherwise occupied at the time, The Banana Splits was a short-lived and rather ill-conceived Saturday morning cartoon. It ran, insofar as I can remember, on the variety-show model, with a number of short clips (both animated and live-action), music, and so forth. It was hosted by a foursome of actors in animal suits (the eponymous "Banana Splits") -- Fleegle the dog, Snorky the elephant, Bingo the gorilla, and Drooper the lion. It was, in a word, weird. It is second only to "H. R. Pufnstuf" as being the trippiest Saturday morning cartoon ever aired. (And for those of you who haven't heard of this amazingly freaky cartoon, the only way I can give you a flavor for it is to imagine what would happen if J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a script for an episode of Barney and Friends while on LSD. You think I'm kidding? Ask anyone over 50. Or check out the Wikipedia entry, which gives an interesting take on the series, as well as many links to related sites.)
But I digress.
Anyhow, the theme song of The Banana Splits -- whose lyrics I kindly won't share, partly out of consideration for my readers and partly because the bit of it that is currently whirling around in my brain consists mostly of "la la la" -- is one of the worst earworms in the world. An earworm, as defined by psychologist James Kellaris, is a song, jingle, or fragment thereof, which gets lodged inside your skull and will never ever ever leave, even if you try to remove it using an electric drill and a shop-vac, until finally you go completely and totally MAD AND BEGIN TO FROTH AT THE MOUTH AND START CALLING ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS WHO ARE HUNTERS AND ASKING THEM IF THEY WOULD HAVE AN ETHICAL PROBLEM WITH KILLING AN ELEPHANT NAMED "SNORKY" EVEN THOUGH ELEPHANTS ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES.
Whoa, sorry, got a little carried away, there. And perhaps I exaggerate a tad. Even the most annoying earworm will eventually leave, but often only because it's been supplanted by an even worse one. So once I have the theme song from The Banana Splits out of my head, who knows what musical adventures I have to look forward to? Maybe "Copacabana." Or "Benny and the Jets." Or the "Kit-Kat" jingle ("Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.") There are so many my brain can choose from! I can hardly wait!
The worst of it is considering what a waste of mental energy this must be. When I think of the amount of brain space I'm currently devoting to keeping "la la la, la-la la la, la la la, la-la la la" ricocheting off the inside of my skull, it just makes me depressed. I could be writing a symphony, coming up with a Grand Unified Field Theory, solving world hunger, or figuring out why President Obama has suddenly turned into Dubya Lite. But no. I'm sitting here, going "la la la." And worse yet, writing about it.
Good lord, I just realized something. Now I've infected all of you. I'm really sorry about that, truly I am. And if all of you go out and infect others, it'll be... it'll be.. a pandemic! Bananasplitsitis! US productivity will grind to a halt! (The Russians and Chinese are immune, because during the 60s they were too busy having Cultural Revolutions and Great Leaps Forward and Sputniks and Missile Crises to come up with pointless, psychedelic cartoons.) World markets will collapse. Pandemonium will ensue. And it will all be my fault.
Wow. I feel just awful about this. I think I need to lay low this morning, just to recover from the guilt feelings. Find something to take my mind off all the trouble I've caused. Maybe relax, daydream a little. Daydream about... about a magic land... where everything is alive! Filled with whimsy and weirdness! Where the mayor is a brightly-colored dinosaur!
Ahem... "H. R. Pufnstuf, where'd'ya go when things get rough, H. R. Pufnstuf, you can't do a little 'cause you can't do enough..."
Thursday, March 24, 2011
It's just a sad song that pulls you along...
A student who took my Brain & Senses class last year just sent me a link to a Tufts University study, with the note, "I think you'll find this interesting." I'd say that was an understatement. But before I tell you about the study, a brief bit of background.
I have been fascinated ever since I can remember with music's capacity for evoking emotion, and in particular, the universality of the phenomenon. What is it about minor keys that conveys sadness, and major keys that conveys happiness? It's a consistent pattern throughout western cultures and genres. If you really want to make people reach for the kleenex box, whether you're writing rock, country, Celtic, French lounge music, or Bulgarian love songs, put your music in a minor key.
This has a huge effect on choices in background music in movies and television. Two students from my AP Biology class two years ago used this as the inspiration for their final lab project. They took the same video clip -- some guys crawling across a field on their hands and knees -- and showed it to three groups of students. In the first group, the clip had no background music. In the second, the music was dark, minor key. In the third, it was upbeat, bouncy, and major key. They then asked the students questions such as, "why were the guys in the clip crawling in the field?", "who were the guys?", and "what emotion was evoked by the clip?" They were also asked to note anything else about the clip they noticed.
The results were fascinating, if not surprising. In the first group, the students largely expressed puzzlement about what was going on in the clip, and why. Most of the second group believed the guys were soldiers in war time, commando-crawling across a field to keep from getting killed. The third group thought the guys were playing a game -- manhunt, perhaps -- just "fooling around." Intriguingly, there were members of the second group who thought the clip was slowed down -- and the third group thought it was sped up! To me, however, the most interesting thing was the bafflement of the first group, who watched the clip without music, and couldn't figure out what was going on. It's as if the background music doesn't just set a mood, it actually conveys information about what we're experiencing.
All of which is just meant as a setup for telling you about the Tufts study. The lead researcher, Meagan Curtis, has found something intriguing -- that music's ability to communicate meaning applies not only to actual music, but to spoken language, as well.
Curtis' group used sound recordings of two-syllable words or phrases like "all right," "okay," and "let's go," and determined the pitch interval between the two syllables. They then played the recordings for test subjects, and asked the subjects to evaluate the utterances for emotional content. (You can listen to some of the recordings here.)
Curtis found that descending minor thirds and minor seconds were associated with sadness; ascending minor seconds and either ascending or descending diminished fifths with anger; and either ascending or descending major seconds, perfect fourths, and perfect fifths as conveying positive emotions such as happiness or pleasure.
What I find most astonishing about this is how consistent these findings are. The ethnic origin of the test subject didn't seem to matter; nor did age, gender, or any other obvious demographic. There is something about musical intervals that conveys meaning, and it works across just about every group -- leading me to wonder if it might not be hard-wired into the brain. But how? And why? It's certain that picking up social cues in language is pretty critical, and having it encoded this way -- through musical intervals rather than actual phonetic content -- is a much less language-specific, and thus more potentially universal, way to do it. But how on earth could such a thing be wired into the human brain?
I wonder how this perception affects the use of tonality in tonal languages, such as Mandarin and Thai, in which pitch changes within a word communicate meaning. Do they use minor-key tonal intervals for negative words, and major-key intervals for positive words? I know almost nothing about Asian languages, so it really is just an idle speculation -- but it would be an interesting thing to look into.
Of course, it then brings up a deeper question, of the chicken-and-egg variety; which came first, our perception of minor key music as sad, or our perception of a minor interval in spoken language as conveying negative emotions? Given Curtis' study, I would strongly suspect the latter. We know for certain that music is a very, very old phenomenon, confirmed by the recent discovery of a flute made out of bone that dates from the time of the Neanderthals. It appears that the capacity for using music to evoke emotion is something that is so fundamental that it not only has driven every known culture to make music -- it directs how we communicate emotion even in our spoken language.
I have been fascinated ever since I can remember with music's capacity for evoking emotion, and in particular, the universality of the phenomenon. What is it about minor keys that conveys sadness, and major keys that conveys happiness? It's a consistent pattern throughout western cultures and genres. If you really want to make people reach for the kleenex box, whether you're writing rock, country, Celtic, French lounge music, or Bulgarian love songs, put your music in a minor key.
This has a huge effect on choices in background music in movies and television. Two students from my AP Biology class two years ago used this as the inspiration for their final lab project. They took the same video clip -- some guys crawling across a field on their hands and knees -- and showed it to three groups of students. In the first group, the clip had no background music. In the second, the music was dark, minor key. In the third, it was upbeat, bouncy, and major key. They then asked the students questions such as, "why were the guys in the clip crawling in the field?", "who were the guys?", and "what emotion was evoked by the clip?" They were also asked to note anything else about the clip they noticed.
The results were fascinating, if not surprising. In the first group, the students largely expressed puzzlement about what was going on in the clip, and why. Most of the second group believed the guys were soldiers in war time, commando-crawling across a field to keep from getting killed. The third group thought the guys were playing a game -- manhunt, perhaps -- just "fooling around." Intriguingly, there were members of the second group who thought the clip was slowed down -- and the third group thought it was sped up! To me, however, the most interesting thing was the bafflement of the first group, who watched the clip without music, and couldn't figure out what was going on. It's as if the background music doesn't just set a mood, it actually conveys information about what we're experiencing.
All of which is just meant as a setup for telling you about the Tufts study. The lead researcher, Meagan Curtis, has found something intriguing -- that music's ability to communicate meaning applies not only to actual music, but to spoken language, as well.
Curtis' group used sound recordings of two-syllable words or phrases like "all right," "okay," and "let's go," and determined the pitch interval between the two syllables. They then played the recordings for test subjects, and asked the subjects to evaluate the utterances for emotional content. (You can listen to some of the recordings here.)
Curtis found that descending minor thirds and minor seconds were associated with sadness; ascending minor seconds and either ascending or descending diminished fifths with anger; and either ascending or descending major seconds, perfect fourths, and perfect fifths as conveying positive emotions such as happiness or pleasure.
What I find most astonishing about this is how consistent these findings are. The ethnic origin of the test subject didn't seem to matter; nor did age, gender, or any other obvious demographic. There is something about musical intervals that conveys meaning, and it works across just about every group -- leading me to wonder if it might not be hard-wired into the brain. But how? And why? It's certain that picking up social cues in language is pretty critical, and having it encoded this way -- through musical intervals rather than actual phonetic content -- is a much less language-specific, and thus more potentially universal, way to do it. But how on earth could such a thing be wired into the human brain?
I wonder how this perception affects the use of tonality in tonal languages, such as Mandarin and Thai, in which pitch changes within a word communicate meaning. Do they use minor-key tonal intervals for negative words, and major-key intervals for positive words? I know almost nothing about Asian languages, so it really is just an idle speculation -- but it would be an interesting thing to look into.
Of course, it then brings up a deeper question, of the chicken-and-egg variety; which came first, our perception of minor key music as sad, or our perception of a minor interval in spoken language as conveying negative emotions? Given Curtis' study, I would strongly suspect the latter. We know for certain that music is a very, very old phenomenon, confirmed by the recent discovery of a flute made out of bone that dates from the time of the Neanderthals. It appears that the capacity for using music to evoke emotion is something that is so fundamental that it not only has driven every known culture to make music -- it directs how we communicate emotion even in our spoken language.
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