Yes, none other than Sarah Palin.

Two years after she first achieved national recognition as John McCain's perplexing choice of running-mate, Palin still manages to keep her name in the news.

I remain puzzled.

PalinWorld is just weird.

On one hand, there is the whole circus side-show vibe that follows Sarah's ex-future(x2) son-in-law, Levi Johnston.

What a Tool...

It's not enough that he did the whole Playgirl thing, but now he's running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.  Wasilla, of course, is where Sarah started out her illustrious political career.  Yeah, OK, Levi.  Hope that works out for ya.

On the other hand, you've got daughter Bristol landing a spot on Dancing With the Stars, which I guess is OK, but it's kind of surreal.  I have a hard time deciding what I think of Bristol.  At one point, I thought she might be the only person in the whole Palin-palooza circus that had any sense about her, but her brief re-engagement to Johnston, discussions of a reality TV show, and apparent desire to remain in the public eye have me questioning that.

And finally, on the other other hand, you've got Sarah, the matriarch of the clan, and the subject of the article I linked to above.

The Vanity Fair piece is sourced from a lot of people who didn't want to be identified for fear of reprisal, and it's got something of a hit-piece feel to it, but nevertheless it has an internal consistency that lends it some credibility.

The thrust of the article is that the well-maintained public image of Palin that we saw in the '08 campaign and that we see now is little more than a distorted reflection of the reality.  According to the sources of the article, most of what we think we know about Sarah Palin, from her family relationships to her public piety is fabricated.

I wasn't particularly surprised to read that she's got a vindictive streak to her, or that she and her husband fight a lot, but I was surprised to read that she may have accepted the VP nomination without much (if any) discussion with her family.

There's also some discussion that suggests that she may not be as religiously conservative as she seems, although I'm not really convinced of that - she speaks the language of ultra-conservative Christianity far too fluently to be putting on a facade.

Anyway, it's an article worth reading whether you think that Sarah Palin is a genius or a vapid twit.  Check it out.

-Jay

Chick tracts, for those who don't know, are the little comic-book-like religious pamphlets that you sometimes find left in public places.¹

His work is notable for its total lack of nuance or subtlety.  Chick's theology is based on the notion that anyone who doesn't believe precisely as he does (including his KJV-only stance on the Bible, which is just weird) is going straight to hell.  I think he has a real hell fetish, since in many of his tracts the most detailed artwork is in the panels showing people getting tossed off a cliff into the flames.  He also has it in for Catholics, Muslims, Jews,² non-whites, women, gays, straights who don't hate gays, and pretty much anyone who isn't Jack Chick.

His latest is a little number called Things to Come? What struck me about this one is it's subtle³ juxtaposition of anti-Catholic sentiment⁴ with Rapture theology.⁵

The main narrative of this tract is that a (Catholic) fortune-teller (Delores)  isn't being very successful telling fortunes (I'll throw Chick a bone here and grant that he got this part right...), and is confronted by her housemate (I think we're supposed to infer that the two women are lesbians, but it's somewhat ambiguous) about the failures.  The housemate, Maria, mentions a Mr. Rogers who tells the future from "an ancient black book."  Maria mentions that their priest, Father Dowling, doesn't want people going to Mr. Rogers.  (Message for Mr. Chick - Catholics know full well what the Bible is, and have produced some fairly highly regarded scholarship about it, such as the work of the late Raymond E. Brown.)

Dolores goes to see Mr. Rogers, who tells her about Jesus and the rapture.  We get a typical Chick-scene of people getting burned:

Chick loves burning people, and apparently fails to see the inherent contradictions between the concept of an all-loving, merciful God and a God who gleefully tosses large numbers of people into the fire.  Conversion by coercion.  Gotta love it.

Anyhow, the tract moves on to some of the most egregious anti-Catholic bile that I've ever seen in comic form:

Chick seems to have formed his opinions of Catholics without ever having bothered to, I don't know, learn anything about Catholic doctrine, or attend a Catholic Mass, or even talk to a real live Catholic.

So the "fake" Jesus sets himself up as Pope, but is actually the Antichrist, and Russia and the Muslims (neither of which even existed when the Biblical books were written) are going to attack modern Israel,  which is rather different from Biblical Israel.

Now, after Mr. Rogers regales Delores with his scare stories and bizarre vitriolic propaganda, he poofs away, leaving a very shocked Delores sitting opposite a chair full of seedy clothes:

Goodness.

The basic premise at work here (besides "Catholics are evil") is that if you believe the way Jack Chick thinks you should, you'll be rewarded, and if you believe anything else at all, God is going to pitch you into the flames forever.

It's worth looking at this another way:  God, according to Jack Chick Theology, is really vindictive and petty - he's just itching to toss people into the fire for just about anything.  This stands at odds with any notion of a kind and merciful God, unless you perform some serious verbal and logical contortions.   Chick also can't decide whether accepting Jesus is sufficient or whether one has to do good works (contrast his use of Acts 16:31 and his use of 1 Corinthians 3:11-15), so it's really not clear what one would have to do to be saved, other than spend most of one's time cowering in fear and not asking too many questions.  And let's not forget the hate speech.

I'd be tempted to write Jack Chick off as just another kook on the fringes of ultra-conservative Christianity, except for the fact that his tracts turn up frequently enough that he must have a fairly significant following.  I've personally found them in hospitals (see footnote 1, below), on the table at McDonald's, in hotel rooms, in airplane seatbacks, and in public restrooms at colleges, airports, sporting venues, and highway rest areas.  His ubiquity makes him dangerous - his simplistic us vs. them theology is distressingly easy to understand, and his manipulative scare tactics can be very effective on people who haven't developed critical thinking skills.

My questions to the folks who are out distributing these things, or who might be inclined to use them are simple:

1. Do Chick's portrayals of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, gays, and so on match anyone you actually know?
2. Is Chick's characterization of God as a sadistic tyrant who relishes pitching people into the flames one that you agree with?
3. Do you think that attempting to convert people by terrifying them is a good thing?

My hope is that people who actually give the matter some thought will reject Chick's extreme views as the poisonous concepts they are.

-Jay

¹Personal digression: last fall when my dad went in for open-heart surgery, one of my brothers found a stack of Chick's Heart Trouble? screed that some assclown had left sitting in the open-heart waiting room. Heart Trouble? is a more heavy-handed version of Ray Comfort's Are You a Good Person? schtick, framed as a conversation between a physician and a heart patient.  I'm of the opinion that attempting to win converts by trying to scare people into accepting Jesus (or any other belief system, for that matter) by insinuating that they and/or their sick loved ones are going to burn for eternity if they don't follow a specific subset of beliefs is nothing short of emotional battery, and shouldn't be tolerated.  We binned the tracts.

²He's kinda schizophrenic about Jews. On the one hand, Chick's eschatology requires that Israel play a big role, but in the end the only Jews that are worth talking about are the ones who become Christians.

³In the same way that getting hit in the head with an anvil is subtle...

⁴I'll go ahead and point out that the Catholic Church has a lot of grave institutional problems - most notably its atrocious handling (at all levels, all the way up to the top) of child rape by members of the clergy.  That said, Chick's anti-Catholic vitriol doesn't have anything to do with real flaws and problems in the Church, and instead grows out of his distorted and hate-filled theology.

⁵Nutshell history of Rapture theology: John Nelson Darby basically made it up in the 1830s, Cyrus Scofield popularized it in his 1909 version of the Bible, and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins spun it into the dreadful Left Behind books starting in 1995.  As well-known as it is, Rapture theology is flat-out rejected by much of mainline Christianity, including the Catholic church.  At it's heart, it contends that the Book of Revelation really was written as a prediction of events far in the future, rather than the obvious and much more well-supported interpretation that it was written to a contemporary audience about events that were occurring then, and that when predicted events didn't come to pass, it simply meant that the author was wrong, not that he was writing about things thousands of years in the future.  As long as something hasn't happened, you can claim it will, but that's a pretty thin argument to build a worldview around.  An interesting survey of end-of-the-world beliefs down through history can be found in Sharan Newman's The Real History of the End of the World: Apocalyptic Predictions from Revelation and Nostradamus to Y2K and 2012.

The previously mentioned job change occurred a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't adapted to the new schedule as quickly as I'd hoped.

Anyhow, I've got a couple of articles queued up that I should be able to finish this weekend, and will hopefully get back into a regular pattern of writing.

-Jay

I bolted home from the bus stop, because I knew that waiting for me at home was The Most Awesome Video Game Experience Ever!  

The object of my obsession was a new offering for the Atari 2600 console, Haunted House.  

Haunted House could be thought of as Resident Evil -20.  The graphics, though looking a bit dated today, were pretty damn stunning at the time.  Since I no longer have access to a functioning Atari 2600 console, I'm unable to get my own screenshots, but I found one that I think beautifully captures the graphic artistry that was possible in home video games circa 1982.  

And Kids These Days Complain Their PS3 Isn't Realistic Enough...

Haunted House put the player, as represented by a pair of googly Cookie Monster eyes, in a, well, haunted house looking for pieces of an urn. Why an urn? I don't know. When I hear the word "urn", the first thing I think of is "ashes", as in "Don't knock over that urn! Uncle Bill is in there!" 

The map, such as it was, consisted of several dark floors that the player could illuminate with a match by pressing the button. 

Yes, Kids, In 1982 Video Game Controllers Only Had One Button. And We Liked It.

In easier modes of the game, the walls were visible, but in most variations they weren't so your gaming experience was pretty much just what you see in the first picture. Until the creepy things came.To give the player something to do other than stumble around bumping into things, the designers included some foes - an upside-down letter "V", a giant sperm, and a lump of steel wool. In the game they were called a bat, a ghost, and a spider, but, well, yeah: 

A Bat? A Ghost? A Spider? Maybe If I Squint...

These things would roam the house, and were accompanied by gusts of wind that would extinguish your match if they came into the room.  If they touched you, you'd lose a life, and I think you'd drop any pieces of the urn that you had accumulated up to that point.  

As simple as the game was, I played it a lot.  In most modes, it was just a matter of memorizing where the walls and locked doors between rooms were so you could run quickly through the house.  I believe on the hardest mode that the locked doors were randomized, but there still weren't that many possible layouts, but even so I can remember getting nervous when the wind in the game picked up and my blocky pool of match light vanished. 

It turns out that Atari has updated Haunted House for the Nintendo Wii, which might be kind of fun.  For $20, it's probably worth a look. 

-Jay

Apparently Eric Roberts hasn't had much to do lately.  My  best info is that Sharktopus will grace our screens in September.  I know I'll be watching.

Now, as if this wasn't enough, SyFy has also seen fit to give us Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.   Here's a preview:

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, based on the preview, seems like not much more than an opportunity to get 80's singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany onto the screen at the same time.  (Gibson, if you recall, was the female lead in Mega Shark.)  If they can find a way to get a cameo by Kylie Minogue, they'd have a trifecta.

I'll probably watch this, too - I'm particularly impressed by its sharply written dialogue.

It's apparently going to grace us with its presence in 2011.

So many bad movies.  So little time...

-Jay

Fred Phelps

This is Fred Phelps.  There's a special little corner of hell reserved for him.

Fred is the leader of a vile, hate-based organization known as Westboro Baptist Church.  Westboro has made a name for itself by staging protests at things like the funerals of soldiers, the funerals of hate-crime victims, other Christian groups that they don't like, and, recently, the San Diego Comic-Con.

Fred, and his congregants (which are mostly members of his extended family) hate pretty much anyone that isn't them - gays, Catholics, most mainline Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus - and aren't afraid to say so.

The Westboro theology (one can almost freely interchange Westboro the organization and Phelps the person) is built on the premise that they're right and everyone else is wrong, and woe be unto those who might question anything that the church teaches.

This is brought out in stark clarity in this video of an ABC news segment about a young woman named Lauren Drain.  Ms. Drain is the daughter of two Westboro members who was thrown out of the church for having the temerity to raise questions about hypocrisies that she saw within the group. (From Yes But However, via Skippy.)

Ms. Drain has found herself completely cut off from her parents and younger siblings over her criticisms of Westboro.  Her young sister has rejected her, and her parents speak of her expulsion in much the same way as you might talk about throwing a spider out of the house.  "That's the Lord" is how Ms. Drain's mother responds when the question is raised about kicking out other children questioning Westboro.  No remorse.  No hesitation.  No thought.

One might be tempted to dismiss Westboro as an irrelevant fringe group, and indeed mainline Christian groups generally distance themselves from WBC.  I think that's a mistake.  The ease with which parents can cut themselves off from their children and siblings can disengage from siblings is chilling.  The degree of venomous, hateful indoctrination received by the children within the group is alarming.  No preschooler should ever be singing "God hates the world".  That's sick.  That's evil.

Westboro is a shining example of what unquestioning faith and obeisance to an ideology can lead to.  The way to combat such an ideology is to drag it into the harsh light of day and confront it.

-Jay

The article and video hit a number of frequent objections to evolution.  Actually, it would be more correct to say that the article and video address a number of objections to a strawman caricature of evolution.

The distinction is important because more often than not, the vocal evolution deniers out there will start their sales pitch by claiming that "evolution says <something>", and typically that <something> is either something that evolution doesn't "say" at all, or else "says" quite a bit differently than the denier suggests.  Some examples:

• Have you ever seen a dog give birth to a cat?
• Evolution says that man came from monkeys, so why are there still monkeys?
• DNA evidence proves that all humans came from one woman!
• Most mutations are harmful and would kill an organism!

The first two, of course, are the same concept phrased slightly differently, and reflect at least three misunderstandings - that individual organisms evolve directly into other individual organisms like some sort of Pokémon,  that one species will cease to exist once it gives rise to a new species, and that humans are descended from monkeys.  (There's a part in the video starting at 5:33 that covers these with a nice little graphic.)

The third one is a distortion of the concept of the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). We commonly see the term applied to the unfortunately named idea of a Mitochondrial Eve - the most recent common female ancestor of all living humans.¹

The reason that it's a distortion is that the MRCA depends on what group you're looking at.  The MRCA of all living humans is not required to be the MRCA of all humans that have ever lived:

(From Wikipedia)

The MRCA of everyone alive today could thus have co-existed with a large human population, most of whom either have no living descendants today or else are ancestors of a subset of people alive today. The existence of an MRCA does therefore not imply the existence of a population bottleneck or first couple.

At this point, some alert individual might assert that even if you expand the pool to all humans that have ever lived, you still necessarily end up back at a first couple, but you'd be wrong because there isn't a requirement that the female MRCA and the male MRCA live at the same time.  Think about it.  If our notional female MRCA had children by two different men, and descendants of all of those children survived to the present day, then neither of her partners would be the male MRCA - her father would be.  (There's also the little matter of identifying exactly where you draw the line between human and non-human.  For a very relevant graphical demonstration, see here.)

The last point is simply untrue.  Most mutations aren't fatal.  Most are neutral.  The fatal ones tend to get removed from the population pretty quickly for obvious reasons.  Neutral ones can just sort of drift around in the gene pool without any particular consequences.  Beneficial ones tend to increase in frequency.²

We could go on with this, and we'd see the same thing over and over again.  That suggests to me that the evolution deniers out there aren't at all interested in addressing the subject on the basis of facts and evidence, but rather seek to turn it into an exercise in emotional manipulation.³

The lesson here, as always, is to do some fact checking when you run across references to cats birthing dogs and such.  If nothing else, ask yourself  "if this is such a simple and obvious flaw in evolution, then why on Earth does anyone still accept it?"   Your answer should be "maybe this supposed flaw has already been addressed, or maybe whoever proposed it doesn't understand evolution very well."

-Jay

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¹So named because mitochondria within cells come from the mother - sperm lack mitochondria. Similarly, we can talk about a Y-chromosomal Adam.

²But remember that beneficial depends on the environment, and may be a tradeoff.  Conspicuous physical displays may increase the chances of finding a mate, but may also increase the chances of getting eaten.

³Ken Ham is perhaps the current master of this approach. What the man actually knows about evolution is unlikely to fill a thimble, so he takes the fear-mongering approach of linking evolution to everything that is bad in the world. Ham also attracts attention for his horribly distorted theology. James McGrath recently had a post up summarizing some of the criticism Ham has been receiving from within the evangelical community of late.

I'm looking forward to this show - I haven't been terribly impressed with the Discovery Channel for several years now, but I've read enough of Phil's work to know that he"ll do this right, and it will be fun.

If, by some chance, you're not familiar with Phil, click over to his blog at the link above and browse around. 

-Jay

The main idea here is that ideas interact with each other to produce new ideas, and those new ideas drive progress. 

Enjoy.

-Jay

The written word can also be dangerous.  When used as a tool of propaganda, it can serve to control and subjugate.  It can challenge authority and can lead to wars. 

The written word can be many things, including strange and vaguely frightening. 

And the written word can be used to make points quite the opposite of what it looks like at first glance. 

The following letter to the editor appeared in the 2 July 2010 Louisville Courier-Journal.  (I'm reproducing it because the CJ eventually archives such things and they become difficult to ferret out.  The letter in question is on page 3.) 

Going Gaga

Lady Gaga is a repulsive image that all people of goodwill should strive to avoid. Her most recent pornographic music video, which features highly sexualized images coupled with Catholic religious symbols, betrays her as nothing more than a mediocre Madonna-wannabe. In the video, she squirms around half-naked with half-naked guys while abusing Catholic symbols. It is clear the singer has now become the new poster girl for American decadence and Catholic bashing, which she perversely fobs off to the world as "creative art." 

When asked in a recent interview by Larry King if she was considering having children some day, she answered "not right now because it would destroy my creativeness." She seems oblivious to the fact that there is nothing more creative for a woman than to have a child. Sadly, fame, fortune and false idolatry have become the heartbeat of American culture. These things seem more important to the masses than life itself. But in the end, they are all only illusions that will wither and fade. In the end, "the first will be last and the last will be first." 

Now, the video in question (here, in case anyone cares to look) is pretty damn tacky - it plays out like some sort of weird sexual nightmare.  Is it offensive?  Probably to many - although I would describe it more as stupid and pretentious more than I would offensive.¹ 

Good Lord! What is That Thing Eating Her Head!?!

It isn't clear why the letter writer chooses interpret Lady Gaga's video as being anything other than a ploy to generate attention (much like her propensity for ghastly and outrageous outfits).  I can envision a conversation between Lady Gaga and her production designers: 

Designers: But Gaga, this video is really pushing the boundaries of good taste.  People are going to go ballistic over the content! 

Gaga: Yes, and for every blog or article criticizing me, a bunch of people will find the video and watch it, and some of those will buy my albums.   I can't lose! 

Designers: But that's just callous manipulation of people's prejudices and sensitivities for personal profit! 

Gaga: And you have a problem with that?  I'm an entertainer.  That's what I do.  It doesn't matter whether people listen to me because they're inspired by my music, or impressed by my dance moves, or want to see me on stage with machine guns attached to my bra. 

Designer:  Sooooo.  Any ideas for your next video? 

The bottom line is that controversy = publicity, and if you're a singer, publicity = revenue.² 

The second part of the letter is more touchy.  The letter writer, who was female, appears dangerously close to defining women in terms of the productiveness of their uteri, and her comment is a direct affront to women who cannot or chose not to have children.  Moreover, it's not clear how Lady Gaga's expressed choice to not have children in any way impacts anyone else's choice.  Gaga has every right to make that choice.  It's also true that the letter writer has a right to her opinion, and a right to express it.   And I have a right to say that I think the letter writer's opinion is just plain wrong and myopic because it makes the presupposition that women are no more than baby factories.³ 

The bottom line is that the letter writer finds Lady Gaga to be a poor role model.  Fine.  Don't listen to her music or watch her videos or read articles about her.  But don't expect everyone else to follow your lead. 

We get to go down a different path entirely with the 11 July 2010 response to the original letter (The letter in question is on page 2.): 

Double-barreled irony

In regard to a letter printed in last Friday's Courier-Journal , I, too, would like to lend my voice to those offended by Lady Gaga's outrageous behavior. While I haven't seen the video in question, I have seen her scantily clad image on the cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone. It is shocking enough that this so-called "Lady" is wearing next to nothing. But the fact she sports a bra bearing two assault weapons is a double-barreled attack against basic American values. More than our flag, the cross or holy scripture, the gun is unquestionably the greatest object of reverence in this great land of ours. Would Ms. Gaga's brazen behavior be tolerated if Dubya and "Dead Eye" Dick Cheney still called the shots? I think not. Thank God and baby Jesus we still have strong conservative role models like Sarah Palin, a lifelong member of the NRA. We can rest assured that her values are just as conservative as her undergarments. 

On first glance, this letter (submitted  by a male)  seems to be the product of a somewhat disturbed individual.  One can almost imagine him muttering out loud to himself as he composed his missive. 

But I don't think the letter is the product of a disturbed individual.  I think it's the product of someone who read the first letter and thought "It's pretty silly to get spun up over a music video and a throwaway comment on Larry King, and it's pretty silly for the newspaper to give a letter about those things any column space.  I wonder if I can get something even more over-the-top published..." 

This, I believe, is a classic example of what has become known in internet circles as Poe's Law.  To wit: 

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing. 

Nathan Poe, circa 2005 

(In point of fact, I think that Poe's Law generalizes well beyond religion and can be applied to parodies of any extreme position. Politics is an obvious example, as suggested by the Sarah Palin reference,⁴ and extreme positions on climate change and anti-vaccination come to mind as other applicable subjects.⁵) 

In other words, the letter writer has successfully foisted himself off as an outlandishly conservative Christian when, in fact, he probably isn't,  but you certainly can't tell that from the writing. 

Why might he have wanted to do this?  To me, the most obvious reason is to make the point that there are more important issues to worry about than the crass behavior of a pop singer. 

 Maybe the writer really was put off by a gun-festooned sports bra.  Maybe he really does think that Sarah Palin is a superb conservative role model and not merely a publicity hungry twit.  It's possible, but I don't think so. 

-Jay 

---------- 

¹"Offensive" is a very ambiguous term, anyway. I find it interesting that when people talk about how a music video, or a movie, or a book is offensive, they're often very detailed in talking about precisely which aspects of the material are offensive.  This suggests that they watched or read it very closely.  And some people seem to be offended a lot.  It's not like anyone is forcing someone to watch Lady Gaga videos against their will.  Personally, on the few occasions I find something to be that offensive, I just find something different to watch or read. 

²Personally, I kinda like some of her songs, but her bizarre costumes and such don't really do much for me. 

³In the last few years, it's somehow come to be fashionable to claim that everyone's opinions are equally valid.  Perhaps nowhere is this so prevalent as in the evolution/creationism debates in school systems around the country where "teach the controversy" or "teach the alternatives" are rallying cries.  The problem is that all opinions aren't equally valid - many are just flat wrong, sometimes dangerously so. 

⁴It is very difficult to separate Sarah Palin's political views from her religious views.  Talk to Action has a number of articles analyzing Palin's religious views and their implications on her politics, if anyone is interested. 

⁵I have an issue with the use of the term fundamentalist. It tends to be used pejoratively, and it isn't as well-defined as many might think. The term evangelical is somewhat less pejorative but is also poorly defined - an acquaintance of mine self-describes as evangelical, but falls towards the extremely liberal end of the Christian spectrum, and has been accused by some of not being Christian enough, whatever that actually means. Even terms like extremely conservative Christian are imprecise enough to be confusing. Nevertheless, given the lack of better, succinct terminology, I'll use these those terms with the caveat that they are broader than I would prefer and inevitably sweep people in which they shouldn't.