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Last week, I spent most of my evening hours lying in bed. With three concerts and the final performance of Hedwig approaching, I knew the weekend was going to be hellacious (P.S. I was right), so I guess I was trying to store up some energy. Or maybe I’m just getting old and fat and lazy. Who can say?

Anyway, lying there cuddled up with J-no and the hounds, I got to watch most of the PBS series Evolution. Eight hours later, I can truth fully say that the series didn’t live up to its trailer–but of course, how many features do? It was good, yes; great, nyet. It was all pitched a little low, I think. I’d heard most of that back in high school.

The one exception to this intellectual mediocrity was the segment devoted to faith and science. As a product of PBS, I’d have expected the series to come down pretty heavily on the “evolution” side of the argument. Interestingly enough, though, the bulk of the piece was devoted to Christians–particularly young, intelligent, devoutly Christian college students attempting to reconcile their studies in geology, biology, and anthropology with creationism and their own belief systems. The producers really seemed to identify with these academics, searching for a place to put their faith in a world filled with godless material facts.

Admittedly, this made me uneasy. Like a couple of you out there, I was raised Southern Baptist. Luckily, my family belonged to a pretty liberal congregation (no, that’s not a contradiction in terms), so I didn’t suffer quite as many scars as I could’ve, had I been raised in a church full of bible-thumpers. That’s not to say my relationship with Christianity was an easy one, though: to this day, the whole concept of organized religion makes me kinda queasy, and fundamentalists–with their literal interpretations of the King James Version of the bible, itself a translation many, many times over–drive me straight up the wall. So as I’m watching this segment of Evolution, these people filled with both scientific knowledge and blind faith, I notice my body tensing up: my fingers are curled into fists, my shoulders are flexed, my jaw is clenched. I like to think I can handle anything, but apparently, some things hit a little too close to home.

I like that, though. Although watching the piece made me uncomfortable, it was a pretty nifty experience–as I said, about the only one worth remembering. It put me on the defensive, made me think. In a good way.

So it was with interest that I clicked on a banner this morning, placed on the New York Times website. It read: A Critique of PBS’s Evolution. Little did I know, the sponsoring organization–The Discovery Institute–is in no way related to the much-revered, science-oriented Discovery Channel. No, the Institute is essentially a conservative Christian scientific think-tank (there’s your contradiction, Mary), and their criticisms, while technically grounded in science, belie a pronounced anxiety toward Darwin. Frankly, these folks can’t even acknowledge the rationale behind evolution–a sure sign that they’re fishing for a counter-theory that might or might not have any grounding in material fact.

Now, I’m sure lots of people–Christians and Hindus and atheists alike–had issues with the series. And although PBS is commonly seen as a media “good guy,” I know that like any corporate entity, it’s faulty. But these guys at the The Discovery Institute… They’re just plain creepy. Propaganda disguised as science.

Of course, that’s what the Christian Right says about evolutionism.

Lucky for us, there are more than a few folks out there ready to do battle with ’em.

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Three Things

1. Jonno is currently en route to Manhattan. So far as I know, he’ll be staying with the minx, so he’ll have access to email and stuff. I’m sure he’ll want to see each and every one of you New Yorkers while he’s there. Why not drop him a line and take him out for a drinkie-poo?

2. Politically, I find myself bouncing between the Left and the Right, depending on the situation I’m in. For example, at the gym the other day these two “hey-bruhs” were talking about the goings-on in the Middle East and the people dancing in the streets of Lebanon after Tuesday’s events, and in the process they made more references to falafel vendors and nuclear weapons than I could count. Not only was I offended by their thoroughly racist, ludicrously facile politics, but part of me–the newly discovered Lebanese part of me–also took it as a kind of personal attack. Not that I was raised with a sense of Lebanese identity or anything, not that I’ve even met my biological father, it was just…what if I had? They just presumed their conversation wouldn’t offend me ’cause I’m a white boy.

The very next day, I’m working out, and these two quasi-liberal homos are in the room, ragging on Bush and the fiercely militaristic, nearly autocratic stance he’s adopted the past week, and I’m offended again. I mean, yes, Bush has been whiny, and he should probably can most of his speech-writing staff, but did anyone really expect him to behave differently? He’s doing what he’s go to do. Giuliani, on the other hand: now there‘s a pleasant surprise.

3. On a completely different note, I got a call from the adoption agency yesterday. Contact looms near.

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Hmm. It seems the Bush administration–that is, W’s administration, the one shrieking at Afghanistan as we speak–recently gave the Taliban $43 million. Apparently, W was trying to keep alive Ron and Nancy’s ill-conceived “war on drugs,” and forked over the cash in exchange for the Taliban’s declaration that opium growing is “against the will of God.” Bush et al. somehow felt such a statement would immediately stem the tide of smack flowing from the Hindu Kush into the veins of America’s rosy-cheeked rock stars. Ironically, that gift made the US one of the Taliban’s biggest financial backers.

The really funny part? The thought of W and his staffers flipping furiously through bank statements to see if the check’s been cashed…

Link via Nathan.

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Maybe I’m just a cynic, or maybe my job has made me too aware of the workings of the American political machine, but honestly: people who think it’s possible for the US to avoid some kind of war or military attack somewhere in the world–likely Afghanistan at this point–strike me as patently naive. To be sure, in large part I agree with the level-headed and indisputably wise reactions some folks have had to these events, and I think lots of Americans see things similarly; I think the majority would rather see some sort of surgical strike to take out particular individuals rather than a full-scale war on an entire nation that, in theory, had nothing directly to do with this week’s events. I mean, even my family–the bulk of whom are gun-toting Republicans from Mississippi, and therefore, my sounding board when I want to get a sense of popular American sentiment–understand it’s a difficult situation we’re in, with massively complex political ramifications. There are no simple solutions, and no matter what sort of military action we take, it can never begin to get to the root of the problem of anti-American sentiment abroad.

Nevertheless, we all know something will have to be done. It won’t be done simply as an act of vengeance–though that’s in there, too–but more importantly, as a political gesture. To save face with the world and with constituents across the country (note the single voice of dissent in Congress’ overwhelmingly multi-partisan decision to authorize the use of force—a vote, essentially, of 518-to-1), our nation’s leaders have to retaliate. Let’s just hope they do it quickly, effectively, and with the full cooperation of the international community.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty cynical about that, too.

I wonder what Al Gore’s thinking right about now.

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More interesting than Falwell/Robertson’s casual theological discussion of Tuesday’s events and their implications is the superficially more reasoned text of bin Laden’s fatwah urging jihad against Americans. …Interesting and yet, completely bizarre.

In the end, no matter how measured, how rational either of these arguments presume to be, both are full of rhetorical acrobatics I can’t seem to follow. But then, maybe if I possessed a degree of religious zeal, I wouldn’t have this problem.

Link via megnut.

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I can’t believe what I’m reading. Oh, wait, I was raised Southern Baptist. Maybe I can.

What’s truly amazing here is not their conception of goddess, nor is it the vast jumps in logic and rhetoric it takes to make such an argument. No, what’s truly amazing is that two religious pundits who are so very politically active could be so completely myopic as to make such a decidedly un-savvy statement. Of course, wasn’t it Falwell who preached against the Tinky-Winky Conspiracy? So again, why am I surprised? …With any luck, this’ll be just one more nail in their political coffins.

Thanks for the link, JB.