Gack! According to this CNN article, high school kids don't understand what the First Amendment protects:
when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.
I just accidentally found a new blog that I really liked called Gray Matters. It's a bit more Christian-oriented than the blogs I normally go to, but I have to love this guy as he describes his utter frustration of being told not to quote Deepok Chopra at his Bible study group ("He's not Christian, is he?") and eventually leaving that church. Smart stuff from an interesting perspective.
The past few days it's seemed like the Intarweb has been trying especially hard to make me angry. I was able to ignore most of the disturbing reports up to now, but this one has me hoppin' mad:
The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.
...The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.
It's hard to describe my seething anger over this particular issue. It reminds me of how racist parents wouldn't let their children watch Sesame Street because it showed white and "colored" children playing together happily. How dare lesbians make sugar in Vermont! Decent people shouldn't have to watch that!
Grrrr...
Boing Boing just reminded me of a song I used to love growing up. (John, do you remember this one?) The lyrics are just beautiful. Not only do they contain gems like "I learned to rock like dolomite," but there's even a duel between our DJ hero and Superman, apparently moonlighting as a DJ of Steel.
Ah, good times. Has anyone seen Mergatroid?
Thanks to Prince for that. Turns out that I'm actually 29! Woot! (and no, that's not my shoe size)
This is what I'm talking about:
Why is Dick Cheney smiling?
See Iraq for details.
Let's hope America (and Congress) won't be fooled so easily this time...
Did you read science fiction as a child? If so, take a look at this SF Reading Habits Questionnaire. It might be interesting to know who "our people" are...
"The purpose of this questionnaire is to provide material for a book called (provisionally), The Inter-Galactic Playground of Children's Science Fiction to be published by McFarland Press."
News that Virgin Atlantic is planning to offer private double beds on the new A380 got me thinking. It really would be nice to spend most of a 14-hour flight sleeping in a real bed, kind of like travelling by train. The way it is now, the first and last day of any long trip are wasted "flying days", and the nicest long flight I had was an "overnight" from San Diego to Sydney. Timing and melatonin helped us get almost a full night's sleep (if sitting up) on the flight. (The worst long flight was the one on the way back, unfortunately.)
Apparently this is an idea that's catching on :
"The Club World Sleeper Service now offers you up to five dining options throughout your journey, a more tranquil cabin with fewer announcements, the usual complimentary spa treatments and more. Designed to help you be ready for bed as soon as you take off, The Club World Sleeper Service will deliver you at your destination feeling rested and refreshed."
Just found this neat article by an Asian-American woman partnered with a European-American man. One child has the dad's name while the other has her name. It's an interesting article and the author bio at the end is especially fun.
Who says that beauty can't be truth, that art can't be science? It seems that a scientist at LSU has found the long-lost sky catalog of Hipparchus in plain sight. Specifically, it's on a statue called the Famese Atlas, a depiction of Atlas holding up the sky. Apparently the sculptor used one of Hipparchus' catalogs to lay out the constellations on the 7-foot statue's globe, with enough accuracy that the sky depicted can be dated to within 50 years.
How to pronounce Huygens - come on, you know you've worried about it.... :-)
I am not kidding. William "Kirk" Shatner is back in the music (?) business in an album with Ben Folds (famous from Karen's shirt, at least in my world) called Has Been. The link is to a site that has mp3s and reviews, but I actually heard about it on NPR this evening....
In case you're still keeping score:
While the Sparrow reminded me of a gigantic shnoz, this one reminds me of a fish (one of those tall, skinny ones, not a blowfish).
Would you want to do 150 MPH (top speed) in this thing? Or 0 to 60 in 4 seconds?
Amazingly, it is not easy to tip.
Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?
Whoa. (OK, it's not as visually impressive as that Topanga boulder, but stunning nonetheless.)
The Depressed Democrat's Guide to Recovery. 'Nuf said. Enjoy!
This is just ridiculous, but I can't help it. A few days ago, just for fun, I decided to search for "kitten" at Wikipedia (Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit). Here is their entry for 'kitten'. Totally adorable. What I love the most, though, is the subsection entitled "Perceptions of Cuteness."
Entries as yet unwritten are marked in red. So I spent some of Saturday morning writing a needed entry on the Blue Bayou restaurant at Disneyland!
You bet it is. Good luck to the next crew of the shuttle Discovery.
(I still get a kick out of the fact that the average age of the 7-person crew is 45. The "youngster" is 8 years older than me. Mission Specialist Charles Camarda is making his first flight into space at 52. Maybe I'll do something as cool in 20 years...)
A recent study has shown that a whistling language developed by shepherds in the Canary Islands is processed by the brain in the same way as ordinary speech. It implies that the brain can process other non-verbal communication as language, too.
If you've read David Brin's Startide Rising, this should ring a bell. (If you haven't, consider this a recommendation.) The book has neo-dolphins and humans communicating in a common language, developed to allow either species to make the appropriate sounds.
[Deana points out an earlier post about Silbo, the language in question. The new article is more about how the language is processed in the brain. ~c]
Here's hoping that 2005 will be better than 2004.
