One benefit to being alone for a few hours in the chez, after one tends to the feline invalids (or, I guess, the felinvalids), is being able to find the time to record a Nostrum, which I did last night. I pointed out to Jules that he was getting a lot of the information wrong, changing the names of things all over the place, and he finally admitted that maybe he and the Mite weren’t exactly concentrating as much on Series 2 as they had on Series 1. Not that anybody actually pays all that much attention, but it would help me, at least, as the one person who has no choice but to pay attention. But what can I do? They’ll both be at Bump, so maybe then I can sit them down and drill some sense into them. Although back in the day when they were on the team that never worked, so why I think it would work now is a mystery. Then again, what isn’t?
I noticed that somebody in one of my debate feeds was launching a series of debates on the November PF topic, in aid of the belief that issues like these are exactly what students ought to be discussing. It’s interesting how this one won’t die, and how people either think it’s an actual issue with two sides or an absolute travesty of an issue that is beyond sides. The VCA knows my opinion on this by now. Just because people in the world are arguing something stupid doesn’t raise the level of their argument beyond its native stupidity. Granted that turning the volume up on crap makes it noisier, but it doesn’t make it any less crappy. It was George W. Bush who thought that there ought to be public debates over whether evolution was a scientific fact in order to air “the controversy.” But it’s not a controversy. Scientists do not argue the fact of evolution. If they did, that would mean that it is controversial and, presumably, unproven, otherwise they wouldn’t bother arguing about it, the nature of science being what it is. The so-called Bushian controversy would pit people who don’t believe in science against people who don’t hold whatever religious belief is guiding those people who don’t believe in science. Where’s the debate in that? Similarly, where’s the debate in people who believe in the free practice of religion in this country against those who don’t? (If you call visiting a cultural center practicing your religion, but I’ll grant you this one.) I guess you could argue that for whatever reason we shouldn’t allow certain religions to exist or to practice their faiths, but I vaguely recollect that this country was built on the ideal, among others, of the free practice of religion. At the point where it’s the free practice of some religions, the ideal becomes a little tarnished. Not to cheapen the so-called debate over the November topic, but as I think I’ve asked before, how far away is the nearest sushi joint from the Pearl Harbor memorial? Shouldn’t we ban Germans from visiting Normandy Beach? And then, hell, the Jews killed Jesus, so we ought to be doing something about limiting them… As I say, the VCA knows my opinion on this by now. If adults want to waste their breath arguing this, let them. I can turn it off, and it’s not as if my entire life there haven’t been people in this country whose beliefs deeply disturbed me. (Notice, by the way, that I haven’t tried to shut them up, I’ve just turned them off personally.) Students we’re trying to educate? With them, I think we should be making the points I’m making here, explaining to them why this is not a good debate, rather than making them debate it.
Aaarrrghhhh!
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