Howdy!

Beginning when we are children, we all take pledges. The earliest pledge for most of us is when we pledge allegiance to the flag. Most of us earnestly do this before we know what “pledge” or “allegiance” mean. All I knew was that it involved “the Republic for which it stands” which I assumed was all one word (“Forwhichistan“) and was probably near some of the smaller, similarly named countries in Soviet Siberia.

As I grew older I learned there are other pledges people take, almost all of which are bad ideas. For example, some people take a “Pledge of Chastity,” which, if the statistics are any indication, is tantamount to a pledge to get pregnant, immediately.

Then there are the loyalty pledges we made people sign during our dark, McCarthy period (I refer to Senator Joseph McCarthy, not Charlie McCarthy, the ventriloquist’s dummy, whose view of anti-communist purges is more ambiguous). Turns out, that people who are disloyal, have absolutely no problem signing loyalty pledges. Go Figure.

I remember taking the Boy Scout pledge. I don’t remember all of it, but part of it was me swearing to be “brave, clean and reverent.” But as a 15 year old, I was a scrungy, blasphemous coward, so clearly that pledge needed some tweaking.

Then there was the “Pledge Pin” where a young man would insert his fraternity pin directly into the pectoral muscles of his best gal. At least that’s what I did. Maybe that’s why I never got second dates. And then some pledge their “troth,” and who the hell knows what a “troth” is?


The point is that most pledges are a bad idea. They usually involve promises to do things that you know won’t feel right or won’t be right in days to come. That’s why you take the pledge now. You are saying:

“No matter what happens in the future, no matter what facts change, or what circumstances change, or how I change, I am pledging to this bone-headed thing, no matter what. So help me God.”


Let me give you an example. suppose I take the “No Right Turn Pledge,” which says as follows

I ____________, am of reasonable intelligence. This means I am not as dumb as a __________, nor is my name _______W. _____. I hereby pledge, when driving on the streets of Pennsylvania, that I verily, and with utmost rectitude, will never, under any circumstances, make a “right turn,” or “right hand turn” as people who need extra help call it.

I shall refrain from turning right even if I am driving straight and my destination is on the right. Or, if I am heading towards a brick wall and my breaks fail, and there’s a huge cliff on the left. Or, lets say I see a big sign that says “Lots of Money ahead, on right!!!” Nope not even then.

By my Hand ___________________

Seems kind of silly, huh? Well, our governor has signed a pledge which makes the “No Right Turn” thing seem like pure genius. I refer to the “The Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”


This is a pledge written by a man named Grover Norquist, who has, to my knowledge, never even been to Pennsylvania (he may have taken a pledge not to), but who nonetheless appears to be running the state.

Mr. Norquist’s pledge requires the signer to never, ever vote to create a new tax or increase an existing one. It does not matter how low the existing tax rate is, what kind of tax would be raised, what it would go for, how dire the state’s fiscal situation is or how tiny the increase would be.

So even if the rapture did happen on May 21 (and I’m quite sure the guy is right about the new date) and we needed a small tax on…say…cigars to help deal with all of the unexpected rivers of molten lava and swarms of locusts, that would be unacceptable to Grover.

This pledge applies under absolutely all circumstances. If it only applied when it made sense, you wouldn’t need a pledge. That would be a no-brainer and not require the services of Mr. Norquist.


Recently, some in the legislature suggested that we charge the Marcellus Shale drilling industry a “local impact fee” to help defray the costs of the damage they do to the communities where they drill. The supporters of this proposal made it very clear that this was NOT a “tax.” It was a “fee.” You can tell because “tax” and “fee” aren’t even spelled the same. Plus, the money raised would not go to educating kids or giving medicine to sick people, or any other part of the radical, Kenyan Socialist agenda. Surely, Grover Norquist would smile on this.


But alas unicorns, it was not to be. Grover, communing with the Spirit of Jack Kemp, as well as the spirits of the Koch Brothers, who while not actually dead, are too rich to require physical bodies, issued his edict. This fee was really a tax, and would be a violation of THE PLEDGE.


So apparently, because the govenor signed this ridiculous pledge to ignore all facts forever, our hands are tied. Grover Norquist rules the day, despite the fact that this does great damage to our state, despite the fact that he was never elected to anything in Pennsylvania, and despite the fact that his name is Grover.

I have an idea for a pledge. It goes something like this…

“I, ________ hereby pledge that I will address every public policy question with an open mind, and that I will consider all the facts and do my best to do what’s right for the people of Pennsylvania, without regard to rigid ideologies, or bone-headed pledges written by dudes I’ve never met named “Grover.”

In the name of Zeus ______________

Done. Now I’m off to put my troth on EBay.

Daylin

Typically, if you are in politics, 6-8 weeks before an election you become reluctant to open your mailbox, and not just because you fear there may be bills, or copies of Oprah Magazine inside. You know that your political opponents (or your ex spouse) will be sending ugly negative mail about you.
Ya know how you might have voted to raise taxes in the past, or gotten arrested for DUI, or went to a football game nude? Well forget all of that. Its not nearly salacious enough. Negative mail usually kicks it up a notch.

Your DUI will morph into your shameful involvement in the OJ murders. You’re having a strange name will tranlate into you having been born in Kenya (lots of Daylins there apparently) and your going to a football game nude will become…actually, that one is pretty good on its own.

The good news is the hate-mail usually stops shortly after you’ve won the election. If you have a 4 year term, you can go commando to all the sporting events you want for at least 3 and a half years. Then, as re-election gets closer, buy a pair of Jordache Jeans just to get through the next cycle.

However, that general rule of people leaving you alone between elections did not apply to me recently. The back story is that I’ve been fighting an awful bill that would create vouchers to give to a few public school kids to go to religious schools, and pay for them by taking the money from the poorest kids in the state.

Famous bank-robber Willie Sutton once said “I rob banks because that’s where the money is”. The voucher bill is sort of a new take on that in that its going where the money isn’t. Because where the money is, they don’t want to give it up.

A pro-voucher group called Students First PAC doesn’t appreciate my efforts. I should note that this group is funded by a group of extremely rich billionaires (unlike the poor kind).
There is an old expression in the context of newspapers, that says you shouldn’t pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. Apparently you also shouldn’t pick a fight with people who fill their swimming pools with molten gold, which is tough to swim in, but does make a point.

Parenthetically, I would note that extreme groups often name themselves after the opposite of what they actually stand for. So if you, for example, believe that it would be great if Celine Dion were eaten by bears, you might name your organization “Celine In Tact” or “Hungry Bear Inc.” Similarly, Students First has an agenda which would pretty much end education for millions of students, hence the catchy name.


In any event, Students First sent a mailing to my constituents which you can find HERE. As you can see, “Daylin Leach Refuses to Help Kids Trapped in Violent Schools. Why?” Well duh!! When they ask “Why” do they mean “aside from the obvious reasons”?

I would note as fair warning, I not only refuse to help kids trapped in violent schools, I also refuse to help kids trapped in burning buildings. If a kitten is trapped up a tree, you won’t find me running for the Jaws of Life, which probably wouldn’t help anyway. And when a little old lady is crossing the street, I like to point off in the distance and yell “Look, Kangaroo!!” as a truck bears down on them. I will however make sure that their assets get to their next of kin, assume their “next of kin” is me.

The mailing then speculates that I take this position because I’ve received some contributions from teachers in my political career. For unknown reasons they completely ignore the fact that I may just be utterly psychotic!

Oh, and there is one other possibility, which is that SB 1, the bill they are pushing is an awful bill which would condemn millions of poor kids who can’t get into posh private schools to a third-world level education. I think that Students First should explore both the “bad bill” thing and “me being psychotic” thing a little more deeply.

I would also mention that Students First saying that I should ignore the “big contributions” teachers have given me (if only!) shows that they have a very poorly developed sense of irony. This is the same group that has given 7 Million Dollars in campaign contributions to Pennsylvania politicians in the past year alone. Maybe, if SF really wanted politicians to ignore political contributions when making policy decisions, they’d stop using a crop-duster to shower money on politicians themselves.

(To read more about the contributors to Students First, please read Rachel Tabachnick’s Talk2Action blog article titled “Voucher Advocate Betsy DeVos, Right-Wing Think Tanks Behind Koch-Style Attack on PA Public Schools” here.)


The same group also paid for a “poll” in my district so they could say I disagreed with my constituents on this issue. This was always going to be tough in that about 80% of people in my district are against vouchers. But you see, if you have no scruples or intellectual honesty, you can word a “poll” to get whatever result you want. In this case, they worded the poll as follows:

“Would you favor saving children from violent public schools if you knew that it would not raise your taxes or affect your schools in any way”

They then issued a press release saying that 67% of the people in my district did indeed favor that. The obvious question is, who are these other 33%? I actually think they could have gotten better numbers if they just took the question a little further. For example:

“Ok, now let’s say you not only get to rescue the kids from violence, and no taxes, and no affect on your school, but you also get a 2012 Nissan Rogue!
That would have probably brought it up over 70%. If they promised a cure for baldness, it would have hit 80%.
It’s unclear why Students First sent this to my district. If it was to get me to shut up, well, clearly that didn’t work. It seems to me that they are just bullies with a lot of money, and their misleading mailing and polling suggest that they think the people of Pennsylvania are stupid. And come to think of it, if vouchers pass, they will be.

Daylin

I depart from my usual witty repartee to share with you my views on Senate Bill 1:


Recently, there has been a lot of attention paid to Senate Bill 1, which would for the first time create a system of taxpayer-funded vouchers which parents could allegedly use to "choose" what school their child can go to if their current school is inadequate. This is certainly a bold idea. It creates a very expensive, new entitlement program in the midst of an unprecedented budget crisis. Given that, as a member of the Senate Education Committee, I feel it is important to subject this legislation to the scrutiny that any proposal this far-reaching deserves.



SB 1 proposes to give each eligible student an average of $9,000 to use at any other public or private school that is willing to take them. Over the course of the first 3 years of the program, this will cost the state several hundred million dollars. The first obvious question is where all of that money is going to come from. "School-choice" advocates say it will follow the child from the old school to the new.


The problem with that is that the old school will not save $9,000 when the student leaves. Most of the costs of running a public school are fixed. If a child leaves, you still need the same teachers, you still need to heat the building, pay the nurse, hire a security guard, etc. So if more money is taken from the school than is saved by the child leaving, the old school is left worse off than before: poorer, and with fewer resources per child for those left behind. This is particularly important because the bill creates a structure where the overwhelming majority of children won't actually get to "choose" anything and will instead remain at their current school.


The bill says a student can use the voucher at either another public school or a private one. But no school is required to accept any child. Both public and private schools are not only free to set their own criteria for admission; they are free to not accept vouchers at all.



In the case of private schools, most charge far more than $9,000 per year. Supporters of SB 1 do not explain how the "low-income" people eligible for vouchers would come up with the additional thousands of dollars they would need to "choose" to go to their favorite private school. Further, it is highly unlikely that those private schools with strict academic or performance standards will alter those in order to participate in a voucher program. So even if such schools do participate, only the top students of any given school are likely to be accepted, leaving the rest of the students exactly where they were.



Similarly, public schools are also likely to accept few, if any, children with vouchers. We are facing dramatic cuts in state aid to public education. In this climate, "better" public schools are unlikely to subsidize the education of many students from outside of their districts. Who will pay the difference between the $9,000 voucher and the $20,000 or more that most of the better public schools spend per child now? Absent a source of those additional funds, most public schools will, quite reasonably, use their resources to educate the children of their own taxpayers.



The tuition at some (but certainly not all) religious schools is low enough that the proposed voucher would cover it. But putting aside the constitutionality or wisdom of using taxpayer dollars to fund specific Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or other religious education, this will also not be an option for most low-income children. Parochial schools have been closing all across Pennsylvania. There are now 35 counties without any such schools at all. It is unlikely that the remaining religious schools will actually have room to educate more than a tiny percentage of the tens of thousands of children eligible for vouchers each year.


There are many other questions raised by this voucher proposal, including whether schools accepting the vouchers would be required to comply with Federal legislation regarding children with special needs, or what level of accountability will be imposed on now unaccountable private schools who start taking state money. But for me, the key concern is that we don't end up subsidizing a few children to go to private school by depleting our public schools. If we create a system where the slogan "my-child, my choice" is an empty false promise, and results in most children being relegated to schools that we incrementally abandon, we will have failed our children utterly and robbed our future of its greatest potential.
 
 
 
Daylin

(if you would like a personal reply to a comment, please include your E-mail address)


Howdy!
Some things are better with time. Moldy cheese improves with age (although I'm told moldy meat does not). And it's not only pungent dairy products. Communications technology continues to improve. Just last night I watched 4 different reality shows about "little people". Just think: Ulysses Grant lived and died without ever seeing the daily trials and tribulations of a 3 foot tall couple making chocolate pretzels. Maybe his sadness, longing and regret are what made him die so young.


One thing that is not getting better is our political discourse. The recent campaigns on the federal level were disheartening enough. Although I did enjoy the TV ads enough to get a special application for my iPhone where the faces of my family members continuously morph into Nancy Pelosi. But I'm going to focus on the state-legislative races, which I watched much more closely.


Up until recently, our state legislative campaigns were banal, soulless, witless affairs. They basically only focused on one issue: TAXES. Every candidate was against them, everyone's opponent was not only for them, but had personally raised them, as if Harry Potter had taken his wand and said "Taxonimous Raiserosa".



There were three basic lines of attack in the tax wars.
1. Number of times:


"While on the Bird-In-Hand School Board, my opponent raised taxes 2,455 times, and then...he raised them again!
2. How high:
"My opponent introduced a bill which would have raised taxes by Infinity. That's right, INFINITY!
3. On what:
"My opponent is a bastard! He even raised taxes on Lipton's Cup-O-Soup. See! A


Bastard!!"


Of course, many of these claims were not true. I mean what kind of a bastard would raise taxes on Lipton's Cup-O-Soup?? But even to the extent they were true, no context was ever provided. Maybe taxes needed to go up. Maybe there was a deficit, or there was a need for funds to provide vital human services. These were nothing but brain-dead, empty, pandering campaigns. But again, those were the good old days.


Now, demagoging over TAXES has been replaced with with even more disheartening demagoging over PERKS. Virtually every single ad or mailing in every single state legislative race can be synopsized as follows:
"If you elect me, I will not accept any perks. I will not take a car (even if it is cheaper for the taxpayers than getting mileage) and I will not take per diems (even if they are cheaper for the taxpayers than receipt-based reimbursements). I will never vote for or accept a pay raise. In fact, I won't take any salary. I'll starve, and make damn sure my kids do too. Plus, if I get sick, I won't accept health care. In fact, I will pay the doctor NOT to treat me out of my own pocket."


"But I won't stop there. I won't take a pension. My sole plan for retirement is to wake up each morning and say "Oh Crap, I don't have any money" and then eat a bowl of moist poison. Further, if it gets cold during my term, I will not turn on the heat. Legislators do not deserve heat. And I will never accept a meal of any kind. I will eat nothing but old Skippy Super-Crunchy peanut butter. And I give you my word that I don't like crunchy stuff."


"My opponent on the other hand accepted a tax-payer funded masseuse (assuming his secretary is a masseuse). And he did it in the middle of the night! (It's always the middle of the night somewhere). He also voted to give himself a salary, claiming that his family wanted to...and I'm not making this up...EAT! That's right, he is using your hard-earned tax dollars to stuff his kid's face with formula. Has he no shame?"


Now, you are entitled to your views as to whether legislators actually get exorbitant perks (of course, if your view is "Yes" then you are entitled to hold incorrect views). But regardless, is this really the most, in fact, the only important issue we should be talking about??


Let me illustrate what I mean. Did you know that in Pennsylvania, 25% of our fellow citizens live in poverty. Tens of thousands of children go to bed hungry each night, and studies show that some kids are failing in school because they suffer from malnutrition. Mal-Freaking Nutrition!! Did you hear any candidate tell you what he or she (or he/she) would do about that?


How about Transportation? We have 14 billion dollars in unmet transportation needs, including bridges rated far more dangerous than the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota a couple of years ago. Did you get any mail about that? Some people can light their tap water on fire. Did we discuss that at all? Celine Dion does concerts right here in PA! Who the hell is putting a stop to that??


In one campaign this year a candidate got reimbursed for a meal, and on the receipt was a charge for a Mojito. A Mojito is a Cuban Alcoholic Beverage which was apparently invented by Fidel Castro himself in his early bar-tending days.


This candidate's opponent spent about a half a million dollars talking about the Mojito. It was really the only issue in the campaign. For a half million dollars, not only could you talk about poverty in that district, you could SOLVE poverty in that district!



When I ran for the Senate 2 years ago, a similar amount of money was spent talking about how I got a "luxury" car. I'm not sure what the definition of "luxury" is, but I'm pretty sure it involves not stalling out whenever one stops at a traffic light. But given that everything is called "luxury" now, including any apartment with an indoor toilet and any hotel where the rats are unarmed, I guess the car thing was fair. In fact, I'm typing this BLOG entry on my new luxury keyboard.



The point is that we all should be troubled by how low, baseless, and just plain stupid our politics are becoming. From my perspective, if you have some ideas on how to make sure our kids get a good education, or walk to school in safety, or get breakfast occasionally, I don't care if you spend your entire staff budget on back-waxing. Put another way, I want to talk about real issues, not these faux issues which cover up how utterly vapid some of our candidates are.



A couple of days ago was the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Once he gave a speech about how much we share even with people we disagree with. He said:
"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.

Why give a speech like this when you can talk about your opponent's Mojito?

Daylin

(If you want a personal reply to a comment, please include an e-mail address)
Howdy!

           I don't go looking for trouble.  I tend not to buy pinatas filled with angry hornets, and I rarely shout at a group of Hells Angels "Hey, you guys don't look like you could kick the crap out of anybody!"  For the most part, so long as I have a comfortable chair, a good cup of chai tea and a Bengals game to watch, I'm happy. Oh, and smelts. I need some fried smelts. Plus it doesn't hurt to be getting a shiatsu massage. And a live Klezmer band is always nice. Also, a disco ball, and nunchucks, just in case. The point is, I'm usually a pretty contented guy.

            The same thing is true in my career. I don't go around looking to investigate people or point out their personal foibles. Ken Starr is not my hero (except of course for the haircut) and if I somehow ever gained subpeona power the only person I would grill would be whoever it was that gave Celine Dion a record contract.

             Last Thursday was no different.  I was just sitting in my office doing what I usually do, drinking cans of red bull and wondering what it would be like to be a hamster, when one of my staffers brought to my attention the crazed rantings of one Kaukab Siddique.

             Mr. Siddique is a literature professor at Lincoln University, which is a state-related and supported school in Chester County. But unlike most literature professors, Mr. Siddique is interested in more than pretending that Beowulf is a BLAST to read. It seems Mr. Siddique enjoys mixing a little Mein Kampf in with his Shakespeare and Chaucer. Specifically, Mr Siddique has either publically said or written the following:

= ON ISRAEL - We must stand united to defeat, destroy and dismantle Israel. We must Unite against this hydra-headed monster that lives in Tel Aviv.

= ON The HOLOCAUST - The Auschwitz "gas chambers" story has been meticulously rebutted and destroyed...Don't take the Holocaust myth lightly, it is Israel's milk cow...The concentration camp photos show emaciated inmates as well as piles of bodies. These were from starvation and disease caused by allied bombing. The German's behavior was so good that Ellie Weisel left with the Germans when the Russians advanced towards the camp. He also wrote that the Nazis were really the victims of World War 2.

= On AMERICAN JEWS - We can see how you Jews operate. You kill, rape, destroy...Jews have taken over America by immoral and devious means. They control the government, the media, education, libraries, book chains, banks, Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

           As you can see, Mr. Siddique is quite the literature professor. He is also quite the conspiracy theorist. He makes Glen Beck look like Allistaire Cooke. But knowing this, what should be done?

           To begin with, it does seem legitimate to question whether we really should be spending tax-payer's money to fund the salary of the President of the local Third Reich Fan Club. At a time when we are cutting such basic programs as child-nutrition, environmental protection, and politician junketeering, can we really afford to subsidize dramatic readings of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?
        Of course, this has to be juxtaposed against the back-drop of academic freedom. Professors should generally have the right to express unpopular, off-the-wall, even bat-shit crazy opinions. I once had a professor claim that he heard voices talking to him from some big guy up in the sky. Admittedly, it was a religion professor, but still.

      But as Danger Mouse once said (I think it was him) "you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts". A professor does not have the right to purvey false factual information to their students. A geography professor cannot teach that the world is flat. A professor of "Elizabethan England" cannot adopt the perspective that Elizabeth never existed, and "there's no such stinkin' thing as England".

       Similarly, if Mr. Siddique just purveyed his own unique brand of hate to drunk guys at the local sports bar, that is very different than if he actually used his classroom for the same purpose. "OK kids, tomorrow we'll cover chapter 5 of Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliffe embraces Cathy, symbolizing the Jews' hold on the stock market". Which is closer to what is happening? We're still investigating.

       The other thing to consider is the noble historical role of Lincoln University. Lincoln was the first degree-issuing university in the world to provide a higher education to black students. The first university in the world to provide a higher education to white students was...every other university in the world!

       Lincoln can take pride in the fact that such notables as Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and Cab Calloway graduated there. Also, Sarah Palin did not, which they can also take great pride in. I am personally a big fan of Lincoln and I worry in this time of extremely tight budgets and demands to cut everything, it might be harder to get legislative support for their subsidy given Professor Himmler's remarks.

      It is profoundly ironic that Siddique has chosen a university that was founded on the ideals of equality and understanding (and that inexplicably gave him a paying job) as a platform for his hate. He is not only biting the hand that feeds him, he is smearing it in slime.

Daylin

(If anyone would like a personal reply to a comment on this Blog, please include an E-mail address in your message.)


Howdy!

It is by now a cliche to say that Christine O'Donnell is the gift that keeps giving. I don't mean the "gift that keeps giving" part. I mean the "Christine O'Donnell is the gift that keeps giving" part. By now that whole sentence has been repeated so often that it is itself a cliche.

We all know that Christine wants to crack down on masturbation (insert your own 2,145 jokes here), and would happily tell the Nazi soldiers exactly where Anne Frank is hiding, because "lying [even to Nazis] is bad". Specifically she said that "God would find a way for her to tell the truth" in the Anne Frank scenario. And if the truth is that Anne Frank is hiding upstairs, that's just unfortunate. (My religion teaches me that in that situation God would scream "Lie to them you zombie-freak!)

I would note that God did not find a way for her to tell the truth when she said for years that she was a college graduate. You see, that was true except for the part about graduating from college. So to recap, lying to Nazis....bad. Lying on your resume...part of God's plan.

A newly released video tape shows Christine arguing that "evolution is a myth" because she sees no evidence that apes are still evolving into humans. And she has apparently really, really looked. She once spent 4 hours at the zoo watching a group of apes very closely, and not one of them turned into Ryan Seacrest. Although she did leave to get a soft pretzel and think chaste thoughts for 10 minutes and when she came there was a janitor that wasn't there before. Where did he come from? Who can say?

The real issue is that evolution conflicts with Christine's religious beliefs. And apparently when any scientific assertion (the world is older than 6,000 years, the world is not flat, etc.) conflicts with her subjective view of religion, then religion must prevail. Fair enough. I have my own subjective beliefs for which there is no evidence (me having hair like Link on the Mod-Squad for example). It's a free country. People can believe what they want.

But what troubles me is when people actually try to make scientific arguments for what they believe in contradiction to all scientific evidence. I guess they feel it makes it more credible for them to make science-y arguments for implausible things. Hence Christine's "Look at him, that monkey's not evolving" argument. Of course, carried to its logical extreme, the personal observation argument would lead one to lots of interesting conclusions. Such as:

= I've never seen milk churned, so butter must come from Dairy Fairies.

= Have you ever seen microwaves? Me either, so don't try to tell me there aren't people in the TV set.

= I never see the sun at night. They must hide it in a warehouse in Brooklyn.

= I've never witnessed someone buying a Celine Dion album, so it simply doesn't happen (oh if that were only true!)

The origins of life in particular cause people to lose perspective. The same people who find "flaws" in science of evolution, have no problem believing that one day there was an open field, and literally the next day - POOF!! There is a brand new full-grown water buffalo who has had no parents. Clearly, there are no scientific flaws in THAT theory.

The desire to imbue the patina of "science" onto a religious belief is so strong, that there are entire institutions dedicated to the endeavor. For example, there is a museum in Kentucky called "Answers in Genesis" which claims that "overwhelming evidence proves" that the earth is 6,000 years old. They admit dinosaurs existed, but claim they lived side-by-side with people. There is even an exhibit of a man putting a saddle on a T-Rex, which, if it actually happened I'm guessing led to the invention of the phrase "Holy SHIT"! and the first "things to avoid" list.

The fact is that for many people who hold religious beliefs, there is literally nothing scientific you could show them to make them abandon those beliefs. If the good Lord himself came down and said "Listen, people, evolution really happened" these people would call it a socialist plot, which becomes all the more plausible if the person claiming that is wearing tea bags on his hat. These folks are not open to evidence or being convinced. Again, more power to them (so long as it's not literal power, like in government).
But it is one thing to reject science. It is quite another to try to make up science to fit beliefs that have no relation to science. The Flat Earth Society, which still exists claims that the earth is flat and "heaven is about 4,000 miles away. The fact that you can fly east from New York and eventually land in New York from the west doesn't impress it's founder Charles K. Johnson. And from his front yard, it's hard to argue. I wonder if Christine O'Donnell is afraid of falling off of the edge.
Daylin

Sometimes in life, you have to take on your own side when they are wrong. I have never been afraid to do that. I even went after the "Daylin Leach Fan Club" for the outrage of not existing. It is important to do this out of a respect for intellectual fairness. Plus, it helps keep you awake. I mean making fun of...for example....Sarah Palin is like shooting fish in a barrel. And by that I mean a whole bunch of very large fish, nailed to the bottom of a very small barrel, so they keep still.
I like to think that opposing religious discrimination is one of the things that most motivates me in politics. Of course I also like to think that I'm "Hunky", but my grip on reality will be the subject of a future Blog. So you'd think that a group like the Anti-Defamation League would be right in my wheel house. Plus, their self-professed mission statement says "ADL's ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens." Plus, I'm Jewish, so I'm entitled to free Gefilte Fish at all the meetings.

So Groovy. If any religion anywhere is being discriminated against, or any injustice against any group of people anywhere is being perpetrated, or if Celine Dion starts to record a new album, the ADL will stand up against it. (They don't actually mention the Celine Dion thing on their website, but it should go without saying.) Sadly, recent history suggests that this assumption is not true. On the contrary, on two recent critical tests of their commitment to their basic principles, the ADL has actually come down on the side of religious discrimination and injustice.

The first issue was the Armenian Genocide. For those who do not know, 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks from 1915-1924 in an effort to eliminate Armenians as a race from that region of the world. Turkey, not embracing the "confess and reconcile" model of Germany, has opted instead for the less satisfying "deny and arrest those who speak the truth" model. In 2007, the US Congress was considering a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Apparently they had already recognized that the sky was blue.

Be that as it may, the national ADL issued a statement OPPOSING, (no, not a really bad typo which was meant to say "supporting") the passage of that resolution. Abraham Foxman, the then head of the ADL said essentially that since Turkey and Israel get along so well, we are willing to go along with their equivalent of holocaust-denial.

I would point out that Turkey's "friendship" toward Israel has now taken the form of boycotts and bizarre anti-Israeli rantings. Turkey has been completely unreliable and in fact hostile to Israel. And with frends like that ...actually, I'm a friend like that, so I probably shouldn't say anything.

But more importantly, can you imagine Mr. Foxman tolerating the US denying the Holocaust because Germany sends a ping-pong team here? I know I would tie myself to the gate of the White House, this time in protest, and not just to meet girls like I did in high school. It seems like there should be one test when determining whether to recognize a genocide, and that should be, was there a genocide? The test should NOT be: Was the genocide perpetrated by a country we like or don't like?

More recently the ADL weighed in on another issue of religious discrimination, but sadly, again, on the side of that discrimination. It seems that a group of Moslems wish to build a Mosque within a few blocks of Ground Zero in New York. Some support the Mosque. Some have objected saying that it would be an insult to build an Islamic house of worship near where so many died on September 11th. Still others only open the newspapers to the horoscopes and believe that it matters whether or not you were born under the sign of a crab.
The ADL stood on principle here. Unfortunately, it was the principle they were founded to oppose. They said that the Mosque should not be built because "it might cause pain" to families of 9-11 victims. A church would be fine there, as would a synagogue, or an Ashram, or presumably a Dank Hell-Cave of the Dark Prince. Just not a Mosque.

Now there are many places where it would be inapropriate to build a House of Worship. The passing lane of the PA turnpike comes to mind, as does Lindsey Lohan's "Party Room". However, any place that you can build any house of worship should be open to all religions.

The Moslem religion did not kill 3,000 people on September 11th. 19 pig-poop crazy Moslems did. They no more represent their religion than the self-proclaimed Christians who burnt crosses on the lawns of black people in the south represent Christianity. Would we say that we can't build a church in Alabama because "it might cause pain" to victims of the Klan?

If the ADL objects to historically accurate recognition of religious persecution, and actually supports religious discrimination, it's hard to understand what their on-going purpose could be. It would be like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals coming out in favor of Moose-Catipulting, and dropping live turkeys out of airplanes like sacks of wet cement. I'm done writing checks to the ADL, and the fact that I didn't in the past, and if I had the checks would not have cleared doesn't lessen the impact of my protest.
Daylin