Stoned Design?

Latest Newspaper Column:

The 21st-century equivalent of the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” is going on in Pennsylvania.

A group of parents, backed by the ACLU, are taking the Dover, Pa., School District to court because the district had mandated the teaching of the theory of “Intelligent Design.” Intelligent Design, or ID as it’s known for short, basically states that life is too complex for it to be the product of either random mutation or natural selection. Something, the theory goes, has to be behind all of this.

As one ID supporter put it, “if I find something as complex as a watch in the middle of the road, logic tells me that there must be a watchmaker.”

Parents have objected that this is, at its core, a religious belief, and that mandating its teaching in state-run schools violates the separation of church and state. ID, they say, is just creationism in disguise.

ID proponents defend the school board’s decision, saying, in effect, that since ID doesn’t stipulate what the force behind creation might be, then it’s not a religion. In other words, what’s driving creation may be a super-powerful, super-intelligent invisible being, but it’s not necessarily God.

Seriously. This is their argument.

Of course this argument is weakened even further by the statements of board member Bill Buckingham, who ramrodded the ID mandate into school board policy while wearing a red, white and blue crucifix on his lapel and declaiming that “this country was founded on Christianity, and our students should be taught as such.”

Nope, no religious ideology here, not us.

I have to confess to some mixed emotions here, because ID is actually very close to what I personally believe. For some time now, I’ve felt that evolution is God’s lathe, and that all life is being constantly created (and hopefully improved) on it. The first time I finally understood how DNA replicates itself, I exclaimed out loud, “No way did that happen randomly!”

This really annoyed the guy in the desk next to me, who I apparently awakened out of a really cool dream involving a waterbed filled with Jell-O, “Wonder Woman” Lynda Carter and Catherine Bach from the original “Dukes of Hazzard.” I can’t say as I blame him. I’d have been mad, too. I mean, talk about your intelligent design. But I digress.

Anyway, here’s the thing. While ID is close to my own belief, I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s essentially a religious belief, and that for me to mandate that as the truth that has to be taught to everyone else’s children would be the height of arrogance. Not that I’m not arrogant, mind you, but even I have my limits.

But let me suggest a compromise. Proponents of creationism want, at the very least, for schools to teach a “critical analysis” of evolution theory. They want students to ask certain questions, such as “If we descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” And “Why are there gaps in the fossil record?”

Actually, I know the answer to those questions: “Evolution doesn’t say we descended from monkeys, it says we and monkeys share common ancestors” and “We haven’t dug up all the fossils yet, have we?” (I often add “you doofus” to the beginning or end of these sentences, for extra spice).

All that said, there’s certainly nothing wrong with teaching our youth to think critically about any theory, whether that theory be evolution, creationism or ID. It’s only fair then, that the kids hear about some things that call the alleged intelligence of the alleged Designer into question, such as:

— The human appendix: This little dead-end side street branches off of the main drag of the large intestine, aka Colon Boulevard. It’s a useless pouch of flesh that’ s not good for anything much except getting infected and providing dramatic medical emergencies on bad TV shows.

— The human reproductive system: Ladies, can I get an “Amen” on this one? Childbirth isn’t killing nearly as many of you as it used to, but that’s because humanity has developed various workarounds for the system of baby delivery. But let’s face it: If the design of the way humans give birth had been developed by a corporation, that design would have resulted in more product liability and wrongful death lawsuits than breast implants made out of asbestos, coated with Vioxx, and implanted via Lawn Dart.

— And last but not least, I give you the duck-billed platypus. It’s a mammal! But it lays eggs! And did you know that the female platypus has two ovaries — but only the left one works? I mean, what is up with this critter?

Robin Williams once did a routine in which God was designing the platypus as a goof while stoned. Hmmm. Maybe Robin has something there. Maybe Stoned Design should be taught in schools as well.

After all, it fits the available data — and it’s equally unprovable.

Sin City

Everyone I know has been telling me for months I needed to see this film. They were right. This is the movie for people who didn't think Kill Bill was over the top enough. Hyper-dark, hyper-violent, hyper-sexual. Whaddya want? It's a comic book...sorry, graphic novel...brought to life.

I'll See You In Hell

Duane Swierczynski first turned me on to this 50's pulp classic via his blog. Then he solidified his position as one of the Princes of Cool by mailing his copy to me when I expressed an interest. (This is particularly impressive because the paperback's in that dry-leaf, just-about-to fall-apart-at-the-spine condition that made me reluctant to leave it on the kitchen counter, much less abandon it to the tender mercies of the USPS. (Not to worry, Duane; I treated it with the reverence it deserves).

I just finished it, and the verdict is: this book rocks. It's got a tough, honorable hero, beautiful and highly treacherous dames, and a sadistic psycho sheriff who has to be one of the great villains of all time. He's so compelling, in fact, that, like Satan in Paradise Lost, he almost overshadows the hero. There's also a twist ending that rivals The Maltese Falcon in its irony. I'll See You In Hell could serve as the prototype for redneck noir. Thanks, Duane, for the inspiration.

ARRRRH!

Once again, Talk Like A Pirate Day is upon us. Scurvy dogs and lusty wenches are invited to participate. Landlubbers needs not apply.

Arrrrh! Where's me rum?!

Find your pirate name here.

I be named Drakken the Awful, do yer wants to fight about it!?

Republicans Look for a Katrina Corpse to Politicize

Outrageous.

Sluice Tundra: The Case of the Missing President

Latest Newspaper Column . For those of you unfamiliar with my hardboiled sleuth Sluice Tundra, other columns featuring him are available here, here, and here.

Outside the window, a heavy rain was falling. I took another sip from the bottle of Old Overshoe I keep in my desk for medicinal purposes and looked out the window, watching the rain.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I called out.

There were three of them, dressed in suits and ties. They were classier than the usual run of client that came through my door. Older, better dressed. “Are you Mr. Tundra?” one of them asked. He looked to be the oldest.

“Could be,” I said, “depending on who wants to know.”

“We’re clients,” the old guy said. “Paying ones.”

“Then I’m Sluice Tundra, Private Eye,” I replied quickly. “An honest gumshoe, out there on the mean streets, where the hot lead flies and justice is dispensed at the end of a fist …” I trailed off. They were looking at me expectantly. “Yes?” the old guy said.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “Most people don’t let me get that far. I don’t really have an ending to it.”

“Yes. Well.” The old guy said, “My friends and I have a job for you. We want you to find out what happened to this man.” He placed a photograph face up on my battered desktop. I picked up the photo and wiped the batter off.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “This is George W. Bush.”

“That’s right.”

“The president of the United States.”

“Exactly.”

“Well … have you looked in the White House?”

“Mr. Tundra,” the old guy said heavily, “that man in the White House is not the man we voted for.”

“What do you mean?”

“We voted for a man who would be a strong and decisive leader in times of crisis. We voted for the man who we thought would keep us safer. The man in the White House dithered around for days on his vacation, eating cake with John McCain, pushing his Medicare plan, and playing a guitar some country singer gave him, all while a massive hurricane trashed the Southern U.S. The man we voted for was honest and forthright. This man in the White House let his people claim that the delayed disaster response was because the governor of Louisiana never asked for help until it was too late.”

“Which as it turns out,” I said helpfully, “was a total lie, according to the Congressional Research Service.”

The old guy didn’t seem to hear me. “The man we voted for,” he went on, “was going to be a wartime president who would lead us to victory over terrorism. The man in the White House has us bogged down in a seemingly endless operation that keeps producing more casualties and creating more terrorists.

“We voted for a man who had a clear vision. The man in the White House keeps telling us to ‘stay the course,’ but he won’t tell us what the course is, or when we can say we’ve arrived. We voted for a Republican, because the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility. The man in the White House spends money like a drunken sailor in a Bangkok brothel and keeps running up huge deficits while cutting taxes.” He slammed his hand down on the desk. “This can only mean one thing.”

“You were duped by the most shameless con man since P.T. Barnum?”

“No. The man claiming to be the president of the United States is not the man we voted for. Somewhere after the re-election, he was replaced by an imposter.”

“Sorry, pops,” I said. I turned back to the window and took another long drink of whiskey. “I can’t help you. Some of us tried to tell you all through the last election that the Emperor George had no clothes, that he was a mean-spirited hack whose only real agenda was creating power for himself and his party. The guy sitting in the White House is exactly the guy you voted for, because you thought it was funny to wear fake purple band-aids to mock John Kerry for not being wounded badly enough in Vietnam.”

I stopped. The three men couldn’t hear me. They had put their hands over their ears and were chanting, “Liberal. Jane Fonda. Michael Moore. Liberal. Jane Fonda. Michael Moore.” As one, they turned and began marching out. I sighed and turned back to the window. After a moment, however, I heard the door open again. It was the youngest of the three guys who had just left.

“So…” he said hesitantly, “what can we do?”

I shrugged. “There’s an election next year,” I said. “You can elect people who’ll stand up to him, who won’t rubber stamp everything just because it’s demanded by King George.”

He thought about that for a moment, then his face brightened. “Thanks!” he said.

“No thanks necessary,” I said, “I’m just Sluice Tundra, an honest gumshoe, out here on the…”

But he had already left. It was just as well. Some day, I’m really going to have to figure out an end to that bit.