Terahertz

It turns out that Mark Twain wrote an autobiography of his life but decided that it shouldn’t be published until 100 years after his death (which occurred in 1910). Newsweek has posted an excerpt, and it seems like it’s a well timed release.

About once a year some pious public library banishes Huck Finn from its children’s department, and on the same plea always—that Huck, the neglected and untaught son of a town drunkard, is given to lying, when in difficulty and hard pressed, and is therefore a bad example for young people, and a damager of their morals.

Two or three years ago I was near by when one of these banishments was decreed and advertised, and I went over and asked the librarian about it, and he said yes, Huck was banished for lying. I asked,

“Is there nothing else against him?”

“No, I think not.”

“Do you banish all books that are likely to defile young morals, or do you stop with Huck?”

“We do not discriminate; we banish all that are hurtful to young morals.”

I picked up a book, and said—

“I see several copies of this book lying around. Are the young forbidden to read it?”

“The Bible? Of course not.”

…

I can’t wait to do this with the book club (although in the end it will be 3 volumes and half-a-million words).

It’s a bit scary to me that ultra-nationalist, anti-immigration parties are soaring in popularity. The fact that a party that believes the Netherlands needs its own Guantanamo Bay or that wants to ban the Koran has placed third and will potentially grab a seat in a coalition is very worrisome.

While Muslim extremism is a threat, racist fascists are still not the answer.

Of course, similar wing-nuts are easily found much closer to home.

Apparently the easiest way to get out of a parking ticket in Toronto now is to claim you were with a religious group at a worship service.

I guess the best way to see if this law is truly discriminatory or not is for humanists meeting at the Centre For Inquiry Ontario (just blocks from the University of Toronto campus) is to try to get parking exemptions.

Parking fines either apply universally (people can walk/ride/transit to church) or they don’t apply to anyone.

What’s the point of a law if you just give exemptions left, right and centre?

(h/t Friendly Atheist)

It’s been a while since I did a blog carnival, but at request I submitted my piece on the point of continuing with Does God Exist debates, to the last Carnival of the Godless that was posted a week ago at No Forbidding Questions. Go check it out for lots of great, godless links.

It’s mothers day, but I guess that means that sometimes you have to sit in class bleeding if you have 2 mothers and a bigot for a teacher.

The story isn’t completely confirmed yet, but early reports seem to be that an 11-year-old in New Mexico tripped and cute her nose and loosened some teeth was denied access to the school nurse or a call home because her teacher thinks she should attend another school since she has married lesbian parents.

The Albuquerque Journal also reports that when the girl submitted an assignment about her summer vacation, where her parents got married, the teach ripped the page out and told her “this is gross, this is horrible, you need to write about something else.”

The family is rightfully filing a lawsuit for negligence and violations of her civil rights (this is a public school).

"We don’t send our kids to school in New Mexico to get hurt and to learn hatred and intolerance," Foster [the family’s attorney] said. He said his suit will aim to show a pattern of harassment.

I’ve been somewhat torn over the French (both France and Quebec) laws that are being moved in to ban Niqabs and Burqas in public settings.

On the one hand I think it’s a symbol of a repressive society and that no one should have to wear such clothing. But on the other hand, I support a free society where no one has the right to tell you what you can’t wear.

The Humanist Association of Ottawa comes down on the side that as an issue of secularism – “separation of church and state made clear and simple” – the Niqab ought to be banned from being worn on government property.

Now I have to part ways with the HAO author Ricky here, as a secular issue you can argue that no religious symbols ought to be promoted by the government, it is wrong to argue that (1) no religious symbols can be displayed, and (2) that private citizens who are at government buildings ought to be suppressed from displaying their symbols. And here’s why

1. My argument is that a secular state should not promote any one religion. This is best phrased in the First Amendment to the US Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While Canadian law is not directly equivalent, I believe most Canadian legal scholars would agree that we have, for all intents and purposes, a secular state. To argue that the government cannot display religious symbols would be to suggest that state sponsored museums, art galleries or zoos can’t deal with religion in any form. Imagine a museum exhibit on the middle ages that was prevented from displaying a cross – it’s absurd.
2. As a private citizen in a free country, I ought to be allowed to wear a cross, star-and-crescent, Star of David, or a scarlet A into a government building and still receive services.

So in the end, I have to side with the Muslim women. Many have chosen (whether coerced or not is another discussion) to wear a veil in public, despite public ridicule and discrimination, and no laws ought to control that clothing. As for government employees, I use similar reasoning goes to Christians pharmacists who want the right to refuse prescribing contraceptives in that you leave your faith at home or find a line of work that fits your worldview. Pacifists don’t sign up for the army and complain they have to carry guns.

I’ll add one note about the Sikh Kirpan ceremonial daggers – if we are going to exempt one segment of the population the right to carry weapons in public, we have no reason not to let everyone. My personal preference is for everyone to leave their knives at home, regardless of their value to you. Similar logic applies to most religious accommodations to our laws – our laws either apply to everyone equally or they are useful.

It seems to me that most of the arguments for selectively banning Muslim garments stem purely from the newest forms of racism and xenophobia.

PHD Comics latest comic repeats my recent observations and complaints with regards to the skyrocketing tuition at the University of Alberta. While this graph is for the US average, it aligns very closely with any of Brendan Taylor’s analysis of Canadian universities.

I don’t care how you see Rahim Jaffer’s $500 fee for speeding, drunk driving and cocaine possession (actually he got off scotch-free on the last two), but hoping that a large enough Facebook group can overturn the results of our justice system is asking for trouble.

We live under the rule of law, as soon as that rule can be overturned by majority (or sizable minority) opinion, minorities lose their protection, and our basis as a free democracy is threatened.

A few quick stories of note recently:

• A whooping cough outbreak is occurring in the BC West Kootenay region because woo-woo parents think vaccines are evil and now their children are at risk of dying. And some people ask what’s the harm in letting people believe in alternative medicine.
• Speaking of unfounded woo, NDP MP Denise Savoie has claimed that evil “toxins” are to blame for NDP Leader Jack Layton’s recently diagnosed prostate cancer. Throw out the fact she doesn’t state what specific toxins cause cancer and implies all chemicals are evil. Perhaps cancer is more frequent now because we’re living longer and are better at detecting it.
• Further to the Jack Layton story, it’s commendable to see everyone setting aside partisanship to wish him the best for a speedy recovery.
• The BC Civil Liberties Association is rightly backing the right of University of Victoria’s Your Protecting Youth pro-life student group. While I disagree with the groups stance, they do have a right to exist and organize and pushing them aside is the wrong thing to do. If the group crosses the lines of civil discourse and propagates falsehoods, then there may be a case for disbanding them, but the same ought to apply to any and all campus groups.
• The Kamloops Atheists report that the local “Daily News” paper refused to publish any atheist material in their religion page since “the rest of the paper was for atheist material.” They subsequently didn’t publish the request article anywhere in the paper. Further they note that the Kamloops Christian School is teaching Biblical Creationism with equal time to the “theory” of evolution.
• Finally, to end on a positive note, the Centre for Inquiry Vancouver has just hired Radio Freethinker co-host Ethan Clow as their new Executive Director, making him the third paid CFI employee in Canada. I look forward to see continued success for CFI and wish Ethan the best of luck. Further to that, I’ve accepted a position as CFI Canada’s Campus Outreach Director, and hope to continue the success of the dozens of student groups across the country.

A neocon tool who uses SFUs student newspaper, The Peak, to spout his views alerted me (and the 5 other readers of the Peak) that populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is blaming the Haitian earthquake on a secret US weapon test before they turn the weapon on Iran.

Not feeling like I can trust Van Maren’s fact-checking ability, I ran a source check to see how many news articles “chavez earthquake” returns. A mere 700 if you were wondering. And most of those are because Chavez is a president of a nearby country.

But what about “chavez earthquake weapon”? Now you only get 70 hits, with such great sources as “World Press Review,” “NowPublic,” and FOXNews.

Ah, FOXNews, what a reputable source. They of course jump on the chance to blast a socialist leader as a crazy wackaloon and state the following:

The United States apparently possesses an "earthquake weapon" that set off the catastrophic quake in Haiti and killed 200,000 innocents. Don’t believe it’s true? Just ask Hugo Chavez. [emphasis theirs]

They claim the story originated on “the Venezuelan strongman’s state mouthpiece ViVe TV” (does that make FOXNews the Republican party’s mouthpiece?) but was taken down recently. They try linking to the Google cached pages which aren’t all too damning.

The only other source for this story seems to be a YouTube channel called “RussiaToday” which has this video:

This is supposedly the YouTube arm of the Russian state run RT TV station. They quote Spanish Newspaper ABC, and you can find the translated article here. It quotes the Venezuelan TV station as well.

These claims fly on the heels of the substantiated reports that Chavez claimed that the US was “taking [military] advantage of the tragedy” and moving to occupy Haiti.

Here’s the facts:

• Chavez distrusts the USA and claimed they were invading Haiti
• FOXNews is not known for portraying Chavez (or any other socialists) in a positive light
• Someone (either ViVe TV or RT or FOXNews) published a story claiming the Haitian earthquake was caused by a secret US weapon test
• That story no longer exists (or never did) as a primary source
• People will believe most of the crap they read if it fits their agenda

Could Chavez had said crazy things? Probably. While I am more of a socialist than the average North American, I’m not going to march behind everything a socialist leader says (as blindly following generally ends badly), and I don’t think the USA is trying to invade Haiti (it makes no strategic sense, do they need more sweatshops in Haiti?).

But at the same time, FOXNews isn’t the bastion of unbiased press, hell there’s a whole freakin’ Wikipedia Page on FOXNews Controversies.

So perhaps this is one of those mystical reporting times when the truth actually does lie somewhere in the middle, with Chavez a bit crazy, and FOXNews a bit loose with their journalistic integrity.