Putting Christ back in... Halloween?

In a recent post, I described how Pat Robertson and other evangelicals are stepping up the pressure on Christians to discourage them and their children from participating in Halloween, an event that they see as celebrating Satan.  Some of the devout even believe that demonic curses can be transmitted via Halloween candy.  This has made the candy manufacturers sit back, in the fashion of Jabba the Hutt, and say, "Your fundamentalist mind-tricks will not work on us.  Bo shuda."  And then they take a shot of insulin.

Most of the rest of us just seem to find the whole thing unintentionally hilarious.

All this hoopla has resulted in the evangelicals fighting back, and their response, which I am not making up, is called "JesusWeen."  At first I thought, especially given the, um, awkward-sounding name, that this was some sort of parody site meant to ridicule the fear-mongering, but it seems to be entirely serious.  Meant to encourage Christians to do something more than hiding inside and locking the doors on Halloween, JesusWeen suggests some bold and pro-active steps, to wit:

• handing out bibles, scripture verses, or Christian teaching CDs instead of candy;
• putting up signs in your town, encouraging people to give up participating in Halloween;
• having prayer circles with neighborhood children instead of joining in trick-or-treating;
• and going door-to-door on Halloween night, evangelizing and trying to get the demonic-candy purveyors to see the error of their ways.

All of which seems like a good way to have people lock their doors when they see you coming.

However medieval their beliefs seem to be, no one can accuse these folks of being in the Dark Ages with respect to electronic networking.  They have a JesusWeen chat, are on Twitter (@JesusWeen), have several videos on YouTube, and have a Facebook page (here).  They seem quite optimistic -- their Facebook message says, "Jesus Ween (Oct 31st) is expected to become the most effective Christian outreach day ever and that's why we also call it 'World Evangelism JesusWeen Venue: In Every Country, Every City, Every Street, Every Home.'"

I dunno.  That seems kind of like wishful thinking to me.  I'm doubting that Christian teaching CDs are ever going to be the draw for kids that candy is.  My guess is that no one who wasn't already a believer is going to have some kind of epiphany because of JesusWeen, and once you get a reputation for inviting trick-or-treating kids into your house for a prayer circle, you probably won't be getting many visitors on Halloween night, except maybe the police.

So, that's the news from the evangelical movement.  Like I said in my previous post, you gotta admire these people for their consistency -- once they decide something, they follow through.  I almost hope that we have some show up at our door on Halloween night, just for the amusement value.  Maybe I'll hand out Richard Dawkins books.

The troubles of Psychic Sally

In what is certain to draw the attention of both skeptics and paranormal enthusiasts worldwide, "Psychic Sally" Morgan has announced that she is suing the journalist who released that story that she had cheated in a Dublin "reading" by having an earpiece through which she was being fed information by accomplices.

This, to me, seems like thin ice for Morgan.  A libel suit, as far as I understand it, can only succeed if it can be established that a false claim was made in print, which was intended to make the victim look bad.  For example, if someone wrote, "Gordon Bonnet is a complete moron about mechanical devices.  It is surprising he knows which end of the key to stick into the ignition of his car," I would be unlikely to win a libel suit, because I am in fact a moron with respect to machines.  I'm the one who called in our Technical Support guy at school to fix my document projector, because the lights mysteriously wouldn't turn on, and the mystery was cleared up when the Technical Support guy pointed out that this is typical when the switch that says "Lights" is set to the "Off" position.

Be that as it may, it would seem to me that in order for Psychic Sally to win, she would have to establish that she is actually capable of doing a "psychic reading" without assistance, and that could make for some interesting court proceedings.  Since the word that was bandied about in this case was "fraud," it looks like she might be called upon to prove that she's not one.  I wonder how that would work?

Attorney for the journalists:  "Ms. Morgan, can you answer the question that I'm thinking right now?"

Psychic Sally's attorney:  "Objection, your honor."

Judge:  "On what grounds?"

Psychic Sally's attorney:  "The hostile atmosphere in this courtroom is interfering with the psychic energy fields, and preventing my client from achieving interconnectedness in the spirit world.  I request that all further questions be asked aloud."

Judge:  "Sustained."

In any case, it should be interesting to watch.  I think, however, that the one who has the most to lose by this move is Psychic Sally herself; it's not like most people who go to psychic readings are all that concerned about hard evidence anyhow, because if they were they wouldn't be there in the first place.  If she'd just ignored the accusations of fraud, I bet that after a short downswing, Psychic Sally would be right back in business, drawing in the crowds, and the whole thing would have blown over.

Now, though, she's drawing more attention to the claims, and you have to wonder if it might not backfire on her.  She might want to recall the tragic example of Oscar Wilde, who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for defamation after Queensberry claimed that Wilde was gay.  The resulting trial unearthed conclusive evidence that Wilde was, in fact, gay, and this resulted in Wilde himself being arrested for "gross indecency." 

So Morgan might want to tread lightly, here.  In her position, I think that I'd probably lay low, given the public ridicule that could follow an unsuccessful libel suit.  But that's just me.  Maybe "Psychic Sally" already knows that she'll win, or something, or is planning on using telepathy to influence the judge.  In any case, it should be interesting, and I plan on keeping you updated on further developments as they occur.

The attack of the sky jellyfish

After recent posts about the state of education in the United States, the role of religion in politics, and the validity of non-Western approaches to medicine, it's high time we turn our eyes to more serious and pressing topics, namely:  giant invisible sky monsters terrorizing Japan.

Enter Brent Swancer, writer for the site Cryptomundo.  Cryptomundo is not only one of the world's leading sources for breaking news regarding creatures that probably don't exist, it is also one of the only places where you can buy a Sasqwatch, which is a wristwatch with a band shaped like a huge, hairy foot, and has a Bigfoot on the dial whose arms move to tell you the time.  I must point out at this juncture that my birthday is coming up soon, and I don't currently own a Sasqwatch.  So if you're looking for ideas, you might want to take that into consideration.

Be that as it may, Swancer has written an exposé regarding recent events in Japan, and it makes quite a story.  His article (which you can read in its entirety here) describes the upswing in weird events following the Japanese tsunami.  These include "strange flying anomalies" of various shapes.  Swancer looks first at the idea that these might be alien spacecraft, but then dismisses that notion; just because you see something odd in the sky, he says, you shouldn't jump to the conclusion that they're aliens.  No, you should jump to an entirely different conclusion: that they're giant flying monsters.

Wait, you may be saying; why, if there are giant flying monsters up there in the air, don't we see them more often?  Well, first, they fly so high that they usually can't be seen from the ground.  Second, they can "adjust their density from almost immaterial and invisible to more solid, depending on as yet unknown factors."  As proof, he then shows a series of photographs, some of which are oddly-shaped clouds, and the rest of which even I, with my limited technical expertise, could create from a photograph of the sky given five minutes of playing around with the "Distort" function on PhotoShop.  Here is an example:

He says this is, quote, "Some sort of sky jellyfish."

Swancer then speculates that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami caused a "release of highly-charged particles" that may have disrupted the navigation systems used by the giant atmospheric creatures, causing them to become confused and making them fly at lower altitudes, or possibly making them forget to turn on their cloaking devices.

You might be asking yourself, how do we know these creatures exist?  Well, Swancer says, we don't.  This is "all speculation," he states, but goes on to say that there are lots of other things that biologists have discovered that are so strange that we wouldn't have believed them without evidence, so if this is so strange that we don't believe it, it must be true, as well.  As further proof, he concludes with a final image:

Which, after a small amount of research, I was able to identify as a "Dogora Cloud Beast" from a Pokémon card (see the original card design here).

So, in any case, I think we can conclude from this that we are reasonably safe, for the time being, from having our hometowns attacked by giant flying squid.  Watch out for the enormous sky jellyfish, however.  I hear those things pack a nasty sting.

Getting the point

In a move that may well cost me my Skeptic's Card, I've made an appointment to see an acupuncturist.

No, wait, let me 'splain!

For about two years, I have shown many of the symptoms of early rheumatoid arthritis.  I have joint pain (particularly my neck, knees, hips, and occasionally fingers and shoulders), and prior to a bad episode I get a tingly, sensitive feeling in the skin over the joint that's about to get hit.  Often during those pre-pain periods, I'm unusually tired.  Plus, I have a family history of it - my mother and a great aunt both had rheumatoid arthritis, and I recall my mom describing exactly those symptoms, and at about the same age as I am now.

Despite this, my doctor doesn't believe that I'm developing RA, because a blood test came up negative for the antibodies.  (Never mind that I found out that many RA cases are negative for the antibodies in the first five years.)  Despite my symptoms and my family history, she wouldn't give me a referral to the only rheumatologist in the area, and my last two checkups have come with questions about how my joints are doing, followed with a patronizing, "Yeah, it sucks getting old, doesn't it?" when I tell her they hurt like hell sometimes.

Anyhow, given that my doctor has been less than sympathetic, I'm fishing around for other options.  Up till now, mainly what I did is limp around, act irritable, and swear a lot, which caused more than one of my students to compare me with Dr. House.  But I figured that this isn't a long-term solution, so I've begun to think of alternate approaches.

I've had five different people recommend acupuncture to me.  Now, allow me to point out that we're not talking about credulous woo-woos here -- they include three teachers (two of them science teachers) and a friend of mine who is one of the smartest people I know.  All of them prefaced their recommendations with, "I know this sounds crazy, but..." and went on to describe their own experiences with acupuncture, which were overwhelmingly positive.

I know, I know.  I don't believe in qi, energy meridians, chakras, or all the rest.  No, I have no idea how it could possibly work.  In researching the topic, both for this post and for more personal reasons, I found that most of the peer-reviewed studies on acupuncture have generated results that are described as "equivocal" -- which at least is better than nonsense like homeopathy, which has never generated anything but negative results, every time it's been researched.  I was actively looking for confirmation bias in the papers I read -- and it seemed like the researchers did everything right.  Even "equivocal" results for something as weird as acupuncture is pretty amazing.

So, anyhow, I decided to try it.  There's a well-recommended acupuncturist in Ithaca, and I thought, "what do I have to lose?"  Other than some money, that is, and possibly the respect of my readers.  But then, I thought, "Hey, I'm a skeptic, and that means an open mind.  Let's approach this in an experimental fashion.  Go in with no expectations one way or the other, and see what happens.  I could even report the results in Skeptophilia.  It could be interesting."

After all, what's the worst that could happen?  Besides the fact that my skin will be full of holes, that is.  I doubt that it could make my arthritis any worse, and there's a chance I may have a less-equivocal positive result -- and wouldn't that be nice?  I would sure like not to hobble around any more, and to do something about my neck, which often sounds like Rice Krispies when I turn my head.  I'd have to reconsider my Halloween costume -- I was simply going to stop shaving for a few days, mess my hair up, wear my lab coat with a pill bottle in the front pocket, and hang a stethoscope around my neck.  Then I was going to be obnoxiously sarcastic to everyone.  It won't be quite as awesome if I don't have the game leg, but I might still be able to make it work.

Piety, hypocrisy, and politics

We have been for some months in the midst of the part circus, part boxing match, part popularity contest that we here in the US call the “2012 presidential election.”   Recently, the top candidates from both sides of the aisle have been trampling each other to claim primacy in being Jesus’s bestest best friend ever, and to establish that although their own faiths are the result of years of prayer, careful consideration, and rational thought, their rivals’ faiths are degenerate superstitions that will at the very least result in laws being passed requiring the daily sacrifice of fluffy bunnies on the altar of Ba’al.

The latest include the efforts by Mitt Romney to appear like a regular ol' Christian, which were ostensibly intended both to placate the Religious Right and to calm down the Agnostic Left, convincing both simultaneously that Mitt is all about Christian Family Values but won’t attempt to recreate the United States based upon the ideals of Brigham Young.  It has been compared to JFK’s speech that was targeted at the Protestant Establishment to encourage them to believe (and apparently it was successful) that Washington wasn’t going to get transformed into Vatican West.

And despite the Rush to Faith by the candidates, all of them are also taking great pains to establish that they won’t try to impose their religious views on the public at large or use them as a basis for legislature.  My immediate question on hearing this was, “how can they not?”

Rick Perry, despite his disingenuous dodging of the issue, is a young-earth creationist.  He is also an Evangelical who was the prime mover behind a statewide "Day of Prayer" in Texas.  Put yourself in his shoes; as president, how could he possibly avoid using his opinions to frame policy?  If you honestly, truly, and sincerely believed that the earth is 7,000 years old, that destruction of a fertilized egg is murder because it already has an immortal soul, and that homosexuality is an abomination in god’s eyes, how could that not influence your policymaking?  Michele Bachmann, at least, is up front about her Dominionist views, bringing up god in political speeches with amazing frequency.  Witness this direct quote, from a 2004 rally in which she was exhorting a Minnesota crowd to vote for a same-sex marriage ban amendment:

Listeners should rejoice right now, because there are believers all across your listening area that are praying now. And I would say that if you can’t attend the rally, you can pray. And God calls us to fall on our faces and our knees and cry out to Him and confess our sins. And I would just ask your listeners to do that now. Cry out to a Holy God. He wants to hear us, He will hear us if we will confess our sins and cry out to Him. Our children are worth it and obedience to God demands it.

While I (obviously) disagree with her views, maybe she's less hypocritical than the rest of them -- at least she's clear about what she believes, and unafraid to admit it in front of a crowd.  (You have to wonder if that's also why even the conservatives have been distancing themselves from her lately.)

Putting candidates in the position of having to assure potential voters that they won’t use their faith to steer their decisions is basically encouraging them to be out-and-out hypocrites.   I can respect Romney’s stance at least from the standpoint of appreciating his commitment not to try to convert the whole populace of the US to Mormonism, but when he says, “No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith, for if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths," he is really voicing a pious impossibility.

The checks-and-balances in the government are there to keep one person, or one branch of government, from placing an indelible stamp on the course the country is taking, but there is no way that the president’s faith (or lack thereof) will not influence legislation, despite his or her voiced commitment to keep religion out of politics.   We must all be on our guard, listen and read closely what the candidates say, and in the end, caveat emptor.

Another rant about education

Tomorrow, our school district will have what is called a "Superintendent's Conference Day."  What this means is that students don't have to be here (which generated much rejoicing amongst the student body), and the teachers and support staff will spend the entire day in meetings.  This year, the meetings will revolve around implementing the state standards for education.

This has also been the topic of probably half of the superintendent's conference days I've attended in my 25 year career.

The "state standards" are outlines describing what information and skills students should be able to master in each class and at each grade level.  They're amazingly vague.  For example, one of the high school standards in biology (they changed the name of the subject ten years ago to "Living Environment," but I steadfastly refuse to comply):

• explain the basic biochemical processes in living organisms and their importance in maintaining dynamic equilibrium.

What does this mean?  That a student could be tested on the mechanisms of serotonin synthesis in the synaptic terminals of brain cells?  No, of course not.   That would take actual knowledge.  The test is much more likely to have a question like the following:

Question:  Why do living organisms have basic biochemical processes?
Correct answer:  Because they are important in maintaining dynamic equilibrium.

If this was a multiple choice question, it would be accompanied by obviously ridiculous wrong answers, such as "So they can have an unlimited life span."  Note as well that you don't have to have any specific mastery of content in order to get this question right; in order to finesse this test, all you have to do recognize jargon.  Last year I did not have a single student fail the state exam in biology, and this includes the student who while labeling a diagram of a human body incorrectly indicated that the anus was located on the left arm.

I wish I were making this up.

Increasingly, the standards are becoming vaguer, while simultaneously the notion of "progress" is becoming more data-driven.  We're trying to turn everything into numbers.  Just yesterday, we had the first of seven faculty meetings this year, the thrust of which will be to consider the topic of grading.  This isn't just in our school; statewide, the professional b-b stackers at the State Education Department in Albany are assigning numbers to all of us, and that includes the teachers and school administrators.  Yes, I will receive a grade at the end of the year.  No, I don't particularly give a damn what grade I get, because honestly, it's meaningless.  We go on and on about how "feedback needs to provide information to students about what they did incorrectly, and how to improve" -- and the people at State Ed are going to take my entire year and collapse it into:  "86."  If I get an 84 next year, am I regressing?

More and more, I'm convinced that the upper-level administration in state departments of education, and the federal Department of Education, have no idea what they're doing.  We write new standards, rename courses, come up with new formulas for grading, scoring exams, and scoring teachers, and it hasn't made one grain of difference to how well the actual act of educating children is conducted in classrooms on a day-to-day basis.  Most of us get jaded; we go to the meetings and conference days, write stuff on sheets of butcher paper with brightly colored sharpie markers, discuss the results at our tables, and then go back to school the following day without a single thing being changed -- except that the powers-that-be, most of whom haven't seen the inside of a classroom in twenty years, think that they've actually accomplished something.

So, tomorrow, I'll probably be a good boy and go to all the meetings and try to do what they want me to do.  Just once before I retire, however, I'd like to actually do what I've been wanting to do for years -- to stand up in one of those meetings and ask the presenter, "How, precisely, is this supposed to benefit my students?  I want specifics -- not some airy-fairy 'Refining the standards helps you to frame curriculum development in the context of measurable outcomes.'  And if you can't answer that question, get the hell out of here and stop wasting my time and our school district's money."

Beasts in the east

For any of my readers who happen to live in Russia, you should consider attending the International Yeti Festival that is occurring this week in Tashtagol.

The whole thing is being organized by Igor Burtsev, who runs the "Yeti Institute" at Kemerovo State University.  I didn't know that some universities had departments of yetiology, did you?  Seems like they wouldn't have much to do, given that the object of their study has never left behind any actual evidence other than a few footprints and some fuzzy film footage.  But somehow, Burtsev is being taken seriously enough that investigators from six countries are gathering to share their evidence at the International Centre for Hominology in Tashtagol.  Maybe he garners a little extra credibility because he looks a great deal like Papa Lenin:

Be that as it may, Burtsev is understandably excited, because he claims that his home of Kemerovo is a hotbed of Yeti activity.  He believes that there's a tribe of thirty or so Yetis in the area.  (What do you call a group of Yetis?  A shriek of Yetis?  A lope of Yetis?  A squatch of Yetis?)  They are, Burtsev says, the surviving remnants of the Neanderthals, and are notorious for sneaking onto people's farms and stealing sheep and chickens.

This isn't the only recent attempt to track down the Russian answer to Bigfoot.  A couple of months ago, Russian heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuyev led a much-publicized expedition into the wilds of central Russia.  After stomping around the place for several days with a camera crew, all they found as evidence were "some broken branches" and "a few enormous footprints."  Valuyev wasn't discouraged by the fact that he didn't find the Yeti, however; he's still sure they're out there.

At this point, perhaps I should show you a photograph of Valuyev.

He may have a somewhat personal reason for wanting to find the Yetis, if you get my drift.  The guy is seven-foot-two, and his nickname is "The Beast from the East."

In any case, the Yeti Conference should prove interesting.  It is, the news release said, the first conference of its kind since 1958, and will result in sharing all sorts of secret documents from the Cold War.  Me, I thought the Soviets had better things to do during the Cold War than amass information on Yetis, but what do I know?  The more time they spent wandering around looking for "enormous footprints," the less time they had to spy on us.

Anyhow, here's another thing that I'd definitely attend, if I could -- along with the ghosthunting classes in England and the workshop where you learn how to be a shapeshifter in Costa Rica.  So much to do, so little time.