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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Thursday, May 05, 2005

THANK GOD FOR KANSAS

...any time I begin to feeling somewhat concerned about the quality or effectiveness of my children's' public school education, I always know that I can feel better by turning my attention to Kansas. In 1999, when the Kansas Board of Education banned the inclusion of questions of evolution on state standardized tests, it was a great day. With that one fundy wingnut move, the Kansas Board made it possible for my children to gain a competitive advantage over every student in Kansas without even having to get out of bed. 'One down, 48 to go', I rejoiced. Sadly, more rational if not cooler heads prevailed, most the wack-nuts were driven from office, and it became once again OK to test students on evolutionary subjects. Ah, but not all the wack-nuts were chased away, and so now it's time for "intelligent design"...

...conceptually, the idea of some guiding hand providing a certain order to the evolutionary process isn't, or at least shouldn't be, an uncomfortable idea for 'people of faith' who believe that evolutional processes have brought us to this point on the biological calendar nor, in and of itself, should it interfere with the study of evolutionary processes, for a variety of reasons that I just don't have the time to explore at sufficient depth right now....but that's not what this Kansas thing is all about anyway. The Kansas deal is all about easing Darwinian concepts of evolution out the door to make the room safe for the exclusive preeminence of religious-based views of where the world we live in came from. All the coy innocence in the world can't disguise that simple fact; scientists understand this as well as - if not better than - anybody, and that is why none of them have the slightest inclination to be railroaded into a four-day abridged remake of the Scopes Monkey Trial without a Clarence Darrow of their very own to help them stand their ground...

...it would be cheap sport to make fun of Kansas, speculating that all the radios in their John Deere's must have broken at about the same time so now they have to spend all those long hours in the seat thinking about stuff, which can be a bad thing. Problem is, the same sort of discussion is happening or will happen soon in about 20 other states, which indicates the diligence - if not the strength - of the anti-evolution movement. Still, for us here in Oregon, it's good to have the likes of Kansas around to get Doonesbury and the universe of flesh and blood pundits off our collective back over our inability to even adequately fund schools, much less debate curriculum. We're not on the list yet; maybe all of our legislative struggles over civil unions and parental notification will use up all the excess oxygen until this particular fad runs its course and floats away...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:31 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

WHERE HAVE ALL THE SALMON GONE...LONG TIME PA-A-SSING

...federal fisheries managers in the Pacific Northwest are usually the sorts of folks who seem as though they are wasting their time predicting fish runs and should instead be hanging out in smokey fetid gaming rooms winning next month's Beemer payment counting the cards in ongoing blackjack games. Instead, they can be found hunched over federal computer screens using every available statistical tool from past years' downstream migration numbers to the subtle positioning of sheep's entrails to predict how many adult salmon of the various species and runs will come swimming upstream during a particular time of the year. It matters far more greatly than you might suspect to a whole lot of people. Commercial fishermen and sports fishing guides on the Columbia River bet their homes and families' security on these numbers, sports fishermen schedule their weekends around these predictions of various runs, and local tribes rely for both religious and substistence reasons on the predicted numbers of these returning anadromous salmonids. Most years, for most runs of salmon and steelhead, these federal prognosticators are pretty close to the eventual mark, and little consideration is given to their work and its impact. This spring, however, things are dramatically different, and nobody knows why...

...although the numbers are trending upwards somewhat, the number of spring Chinook salmon that have been counted swimming upstream through the fishladders at Bonneville Dam (where somebody sits, 24 hours a day, clicking off each and every one of those filthy buggers that wiggle from left to right past that lousy window, fish by fish, minute by minute, hour after mind-rippingly boring hour) has been a shockingly small proportion of the predicted run. All those sorts of uncredentialed experts who tend to flock to natural resource discussions with a vigor and certainty far beyond any meaningful expertise have begun circling around, offering all of their considered opinions about this stunning lack of salmon. It's global warming; it's the degradation of habitat; it's that incredible herd of sea lions who have journeyed 100 miles up-stream from their coastal habitat to feast around the mouth of the fish ladder; it's out of control offshore fishermen just simply wearing out these salmon populations during that part of their life cycle spent in the Pacific Ocean; it's killer whales; it's el Nino; it's low spring runoff because of this year's drought; it's the undue pressure of the newest seafood restaurent's latest offering. This is such an amazing blow by the fish predicters that any reason, rationale, or excuse is fair game in the collective mind of the fishing public and any one of them is as good as any other. While obviously attractive culprits present themselves, the fact remains that nobody has any clue why the hell at least 60% of the predicted run hasn't materialized. The whole thing is nervewracking because we have become so comfortable with understanding that returning salmon runs are a bellweather of environmental health, our own aquatic canary in the mine shaft, as it were. All other considerations nonwithstanding, it's going to be fascinating to see if someone can figure on what is going on up here in the Pacific Northwest....
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:32 PM 0 comments

Sunday, May 01, 2005

PATRIOTISM AND OREGON DUCKS

...apparently anxious to prove that they care as much about the welfare of Oregon's children as they do about duck's livers, the Republican-led Oregon House of Representatives has passed a bill that would mandate the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, replacing the current Oregon practice of once-weekly statement of the Pledge. The Republican legislators who backed this bill say that it would be an important way for our children to become imbued with that robust fearless sort of patriotism that made this country great (presumably in the same way that naturally- harvested duck livers would)...

...no, really, that's what they said...
"It will be a fundamental, patriotic moment each day to acknowledge all that our nation has been through," said Rep. Linda Flores of Clackamas.

...apparently Jehovah's Witnesses need not apply. I say this because I had a good friend in my scholastic youth whose family devoutly adhered to the beliefs of that denomination, which included not pledging allegiance to anything but God. As a result, he stood there - silently and at an uncomfortable parade rest - every single day as we recited the Pledge. And that's only a starting place for the problems...

...there are a host of issues that this little bit of political theater raises, not least the question of whether the Republican majority in the Oregon House is hoping to inflame the passions of patriotism in public school students to the degree that large numbers of them will leave school early, lying about their ages if necessary, and enlist in the military, thereby relieving to a certain extent the brutal and chronic underfunding of Oregon's schools for which they and their supporters are primarily responsible. The major question, acknowledging an understanding of the mind and emotion of school-aged children apparently beyond the grasp of these folks is just exactly how the rote mumbling of a collection of words on a daily rather than weekly basis will somehow stir the passions of patriotism. Kids don't think the way that adult Republicans do, despite the remarkable intellectual similarities. To kids (speaking as a kid who recited the Pledge daily for years and years) it's just one more thing to do. It would probably be more meaningful on a once-weekly basis than as an everyday thing, but that's just simply not what the Republican House majority wants...

...naturally we can count on somebody showing up to argue against this initiative for reasons that serve no useful purpose but does liven up the discussion unnecessarily. Say HELLO to the ACLU. They want to contest this bill because the phrase "under God" violates church/state separation and violates the Oregon Constitution. This is the wrong argument at the wrong time in the wrong discussion. The subject isn't whether the Pledge somehow violates one Constitution or another; the subject is whether anything beyond cheap symbolism that allows Republicans to sleep at night is at play in this silly legislation. The ACLU challenge is at best misguided and at worst just the sort of confused nonsense that sends meaningful discussions spiralling off in some bizarre unimportant direction. The bottom line is simple: will the daily recitation of the Pledge build feelings of patriotism amongst our children? Or, put another way, do pigs fly with sufficient frequency to interfere with commercial air traffic. The Republican-backed legislation is simply the making of a statement, intended more to score political points that to actually have some impact on their (and our)children's societal sense of self. The ACLU response is called, in fishing circles, "swallowing the bait". This interchange allows the debate to roar off in all sorts of ugly directions having nothing to do with the fundamental question of how many pledging's per week actually constitutes the development of a sense of patriotism...

...this Republican initiative is just simple silliness that is only granted legs because of the compounding silliness of the ACLU. A host of conservative intitiatives have led to the funding-based reduction of the school year and supplies and infrastructure supporting my children's education, and all the Pledges of Allegiance in the world won't make that better. Given the shortening of the school year, it would seem that every available minute of the school day has garnered increased importance such that maybe wasting time every day to see if all the kiddies have adequately memorized the Pledge misses the mark and clouds the subjects that really matter to patriotic Americans, such as having the best educated children in the world. Cheap politics rather than meaningful solutions is the hallmark of the Oregon Republican party, but in this case we should let them and the anti-"under God" crowd duke it out behind the duck liver barn so the rest of us can try to come up with some meaningful solutions to address the problems our schools really do face....
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:14 PM 0 comments

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