 |
too much and too little |
| heyheyhey |
|
Happy New Year
THIS is the time of year to count our blessings … and think back on what a horrible twelve months it has been. Disaster after disaster have plagued us; when not, then the predictions and warnings of impending disaster. It's all quite enough to make one cower, wondering when the sky will finally fall. Let's start with the tsunami. While it was on Boxing Day last year when it swept up the coasts of the Indian Ocean, its ripples were mostly felt in the weeks after, long after the waves had receded. Then in February, an earthquake struck Iran, killing 612. In August, Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans. Two months later, an earthquake in Kashmir left 87,000 people dead and millions homeless. Nature herself was not the only cause for grief. Iraq is still a quagmire nobody can make sense of, except by death tolls and shambolic elections. In Afghanistan, the poppy and the Taliban are making a comeback. The word Africa remains a symbol of an entire continent suffering, of Aids, of slavery, of famine, of genocide. This was a year of explosions: bombs in London, in Delhi, in Beirut, in Bangladesh, in Bali. Paris burned. Then there's the winged spectre of the bird flu, waiting in the shadows, always threatening to take flight. In comparison, our own mundane difficulties seem inconsequential, even embarassing. Constantly bombarded with the world's woe, we find it difficult to remember that most suffering is banal. The language of catastrophe is so loud, there seems no other means of articulating the world. Except in our own heads. Our own tribulations always ring loudest. Like many of my generation, I have faced no crisis in my life. Angst is a misplaced handphone, a gaming defeat, taking the bus, a National Service call-up. It is also something more. I am 25, I live with my parents. I have a girlfriend whom I love. Like thousands of others, I am a new graduate, in my first "real'' job. I have no reason to complain, but I do so anyway. The transformation from student to worker is a strange one. A life of plenty suddenly turned into a life of neverending want, though I am, by all accounts, richer, more independent. Suddenly I am constantly reminded of how frail human life is. What happens if I lose my job? What if I fall sick? Who will look after my future children if I die? As if we needed more help, entire industries have grown around pounding the fear of being alive into you. On one end there is religion. On the other there is insurance. It seems unwise to ignore both. But it is the only thing to do.
Thank God
Pennsylvania Judge's Concluding Statement Ruling That Teaching Intelligent Design Is Unconstitutional The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents. Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator. To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions. The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy. With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources. To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID. We will also issue a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs' rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have been violated by Defendants' actions. Defendants' actions in violation of Plaintiffs' civil rights as guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 subject Defendants to liability with respect to injunctive and declaratory relief, but also for nominal damages and the reasonable value of Plaintiffs' attorneys' services and costs incurred in vindicating Plaintiffs' constitutional rights. (BOLD IS MINE.)
Commodum habitus es
The despotism of newswriting makes it impossible for me to write anything remotely like a report in my free time. I could not tell anyone plainly what I see, because that's all I do. I prefer to be secretive and vague and using words plucked from an outdated thesaurus, which last saw use in 1902. Fortunately for everyone, I have no such tome. You know the old saying that one should never marry an obstetrician? Seeing and doing the same thing can become old, given enough repetition. If you had to write plainly all the day, scribbling jargon-laced, long-winded bullshit would seem pleasant to you too. Not that I am quite capable of that -- yet. Prolixity is a wonderful skill without which lawyers would cease to exist. It would be slovenly of me not to cultivate a propensity for wordiness. See? I'm getting better at it already. (Unfortunately, I also suck at being brief.)
Tyranny of virtue
I dislike people, and I dislike systems of belief. Some more than others, but whoever dislikes equitably? With each passing day, I find myself growing in my adoration of the solitude of self. It is good to stray away from the pack, though I'm too cowardly to admit it, or to exhibit it physically. This disgust for peoples and systems is relentless. I could not stop it even if I wanted to. It is reaching levels of misanthropy. It is not mere disaffection. Each time it is an active act of resentment. This was perhaps brought on by my straying into the mainstream world of blogs, which I had to read for research. It is a noisy place, filled by an orchestra where nobody knows how to play their instruments,and by the clang and clatter of brassy self-importance. And everyone, every single one, is convinced of his monopoly on truth, when truth is silent.
|
