Separate...and far from equal.

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about how I would feel if my child were bullied or was a bully. Today, I'd like to talk about what I'd do if my child was gay, wanted to take her same sex partner to prom, the school cancelled the prom because of it, the media got wind of the story, the school realized how bad they looked and decided not to cancel the prom and told her she could bring her date, and then organized a special prom for her and 5 other rejects while inviting every other student to the real prom, successfully managing to keep it a secret from her.

Yeah....That really happened.

Now, I don't know this girl, so it may be that she is a total asshole and even the people who realized it was an awful thing to do still didn't want her around. But I really doubt that that's the case. So how is it that not one single person, not one student, not one teacher, not one parent, stood up and said, "Hey, this is the biggest dick move ever?" No one. What an awful place that must be to live in.

I'm not someone who thinks that people should run and get a lawyer over every little thing, but if that were my kid, I'd sue the shit out of that school. And then I'd move. They'd be eating beans and gruel for lunch everyday after I got done with them. Someone needs to make an example out of these people.

I'm peeing like CRAZY!

So the Texas Board of Education is revising (conservatizing) the standards for curriculum for History classes. They've decided to eliminate Thomas Jefferson. I'm sure he'll be mentioned, but it looks like it will be in passing. Go figure.

They also voted to exclude "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others," from the standards. I think it's important to note that there are 5 Democrats and 10 Republicans on the board and everything conservative was passed with voting being straight down party lines.

Damn you, Board of Education, now I actually have to teach my daughter things at home.

Don't worry though, they're making a conscious effort to beef up the emphasis on the Right to Bare Arms. Because it's really...awesome...?

I'm drinking a ton of water this week in an attempt to be ultra hydrated in the hope that that will help my voice survive 1 practice, 4 shows, and a few hours of promoting and talking to people on the streets this week. The immediate result is that I'm peeing like crazy.

Whenever the old man at work creeps up behind me and starts talking, I die a little bit inside. I start wishing the phone to ring so I can get out of the conversation. He's not an asshole, he's just annoying. I wish he was an asshole so I could justifiably tell him to leave me the hell alone. Sometimes, I really hate being nice to people. Is there a nice way to say "I hate it when you talk to me?"

So it goes.

1.2.3. She's a real left winger because she's been down south and held peasants in her arms...

Our final rehearsal is tonight with our "orchestra" and it is supposed to rain, so I'm not looking forward to loading in and out of the Music Lab. Oh well, can't be helped. The grass has to drink, too.

I've mentioned the Talk Origins Archive a few times, and because, somehow, almost every discussion on here about Atheism/Religion turns, in part, to Evolutionary Theory, I spent some time on there today. It really is a great resource and very easy to use/understand. Its fascinating to me because my education on the subject was so depressingly incomplete. I remember my high school biology teacher only mentioning Evolution once, saying "I don't mind if they teach it as a theory but I'm big on Creationism." In my high school biology was like history, always taught by coaches who wanted a little extra cash. Then I got to college. I only attended college for 2 years at a Jr. college in East Texas but I took biology again there. My teacher was really good and actually had an interest in the topic but it was still East Texas and while she clearly understood and accepted Evolutionary Theory, I don't remember it being part of the curriculum. My geology teacher that year talked more about Evolution than my biology teacher, which is weird.

I love learning about how unpredictable and chaotic life can be, even at the tiniest levels. Its really beautiful. I read about a new study the other day that showed how from just one generation to the next there are 100-150 mutations on the genetic code. ONE HUNDRED & FIFTY MUTATIONS just from me to Harper! That's crazy!

I digress.

I've watched Serenity twice in the last week, I'm really pissed that the new Kingdom Hearts game is only on Nintendo DS, and everyone should love the Pixies.

This way to the moral highground...

I don't know why this is the first thing on my mind, but one thing I have never understood is "school spirit." Maybe if I was an orphan and had been raised by an aunt and uncle who despised me and neglected me and then one day a half-giant showed up and told me that I was a wizard and would, in fact, be going to a wizard school and then when I went to wizard school I found life long friends who would help me survive harrowing adventures on the path to destroying the most dangerous dark wizard of all time (who incidentally had killed my parents), maybe then I'd understand having some pride in where I got my education.

Anyway.

We shot the video for "On Modern Men" yesterday at the Georgetown courthouse. I've seen some of the footage and it looks amazing. A ridiculously big "THANK YOU" to all the people that came out to be extras. I think everyone had a good time and made some new friends. I'm also really thankful for Chipotle, Sweet Leaf Tea and the lady from Subway for sponsoring the event. The bookstore on the square in Georgetown, Dog Eared Books, is one of the best smelling, coolest book stores ever.

I really don't think I'm a music snob. I know that I used to be, in the worst way, but I'm pretty sure that I grew out of it a while back. Music's value, like all art, is completely subjective. That being said, I watched most of the VMA's last night, and I think it made me hate music a little bit. Well, let me correct that... It made me hate the current culture of music that allows Lady Gaga, and every auto-tuned, middle of the road hip hop star to flourish. I'm also really glad that Madonna got a chance to make Michael Jackson's death all about her. I thought Taylor Swift and Green Day both had good performances, and Beyonce was as great as she always is, but the more I watched the more I started feeling like music is disposable and I don't like feeling that way, so I went and played guitar in our room until it was time to get Harper up for her "dream feed."

I liked "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" a lot, but I'm also wondering if Russell Brand was the only person available to host. I would've done it, if they'd asked me.

Next Tuesday, President Obama plans to coerce your children into a windowless van with promises of candy and feel-good drink.

President Obama is giving an address next Tuesday which will be addressing students K-12. I'm sure it will feature themes like staying in school, taking responsibility for your education, and how educating our young people is key to America's future. You know, the same kind of thing that any American politician for any party would say about education.

So obviously, this is the worst thing that could happen to children.

Parents are really pissed that he wants to talk to their children. If you're one of those parents let me help you understand why you feel this way. Its probably because(A)you're a ridiculous person, (B)you might not be very smart, or (C)because you have a huge boner for Glenn Beck and will do anything to please him.

What do these parents think school is for? I've always been under the impression that school was supposed to be preparing young minds for life in the real world. You know, the world where Barack Obama is their President. Maybe they just see it as a daycare for their kids to hang out at while they're at work and they don't want their kids to fall under that vile, nasty, Democratic party peer pressure that's so prevalent in public schools now.

Its just so silly.

My favorite line from that article is "I perceive this as a socialist type of move," said Tammy Canatella, whose daughter is a freshman at Consolidated High School. "This should not be a forum to promote himself or his cabinet."

Oh, Tammy! You don't like Socialism? You don't want any Socialism in that publicly funded high school you send your daughter to? Do you even know what Socialism means or is it just the buzz word that Fox "News" tells you to repeat over and over in hopes of destroying that secretly Muslim usurper's regime?

If George W. Bush had wanted to address my children in school I cannot imagine ever threatening to take my kids out of class because of it. But then, maybe my arguments aren't so shaky that I would feel the need to shelter my children from anyone else's prespective. Maybe I just accept that children will eventually make up their own minds about this horse shit. I believe it was Malcolm Forbes who said "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open mind."

Guns don't kill people, Chiropractors with guns kill people

Here is an article by Simon Singh. Leah went to a chiropractor once and my impression was that we were meeting the smarmiest snake-oil salesman ever. He actually told Leah that if he didn't adjust her 80 more times she would just become paralized.

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results - and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer's first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying - even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world's first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: "Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck."

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.


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No, as a matter of fact, I don't think "Harry Potter & My Left Nut" is an appropriate title for a book.

Maybe its because we're a week away from the movie or maybe just because we've been reading The Sorcerer's Stone to Harper every night, but either way, I've fallen back into my Potter addiction. I've spent all day reading The Half Blood Prince and looking at fan sites. I don't know what the point is, really. I know, generally, everything interesting there is to know about Harry Potter. I think I'd give my left nut to be a wizard for a day. I'd probably start that day by using my powers to regrow my left nut, though.

Another thing I did today was take a Bible quiz. Its made by the Freedom From Religion Foundation so obviously, the questions are cherry-picked to make the scriptures look strange and sick. That being said, those things are actually in there and sometimes the scriptures are just strange and sick. So it goes. Chalk it up to cultural relativity if you want, but, unfortunately, there's only so much you can account for with that explanation.

I did really well on the quiz (48 out of 50 questions correct), but I'm really curious to see how well the people that read this blog would do, particularly the Christians. The trick is, when you don't know the answer, just pick the weirdest one. I had to do that a few times.

Lastly, this is a reminder that if you haven't called your state senator about Cynthia Dunbar yet, you really need to. With Don McLeroy, it was all about Evolution vs. Creationism, the right vs. the left. But I think that, in Cynthia Dunbar, we've all found a common enemy (assuming that we all care about the education of our young people). This is a woman who openly hates the very idea of public education. To borrow an analogy, its like hiring an arsonist to be fire chief. For Liberals, she represents a lot of what we hate about stereotypical conservatism, for Conservatives, she's an embarrassment, making ignorant statements on par with a drunk Sarah Palin. The fact that she's even on the board of education is gross, the idea that she could be put in charge of it is flat out depressing. Find your senator, tell them what you think. Let them know that globally competitive education is important to you and your tax dollars. THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

So today, I am feeling patriotic again. I just got off the phone with my senator's office and now I want you to pick up your phone and call yours. If you don't know who your senator is then go here and find out. There's a "find my senator" widget at the bottom of the page.

Remember a while back when Rick Perry nominated Don McLeroy, an ultra Conservative dentist, for chairman of the board of education? Well, luckily, he was defeated. But, remember how I said that I was concerned that Perry would just nominate someone worse? Well, its not official yet but its looking like he's going to. Her name is Cynthia Dunbar and she's very open about her disdain for public education, which to me is a giant red flag when you're looking for someone to be chairperson of the Board of Education.

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country’s founding fathers created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a belief system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Also in the book, she calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.”

The Establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical,” she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

Dunbar home-schooled her own children.

First off, there are few things more annoying than when right wingers imply that our founding fathers were saintly men who wore their devout faith in Christianity on their sleeves. It takes about 10 minutes of research to figure out that most of our founding fathers were Deists, and had quite a bit of disdain for religion. Take the George Washington approved Treaty of Tripoli, for instance. "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;..."
Here's a quote from Ben Franklin's autobiography, "But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns several points as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of the Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of the sermons which had been preached at Boyle’s Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them. For the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to be much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
And then there's Jefferson who called himself a Christian from time to time but only because he got down with the moral philosophy of Jesus. However, he took a pair of scissors to his bible and hacked out all the things he considered to be superstitious, miraculous or mystic. When speaking of god he was known to, more often than not, use the popular Deist term, "Nature's God."

I digress. If you want to get a clear view of our founding fathers religion and skepticism, its pretty easy to find.

The real problem at hand is this Dunbar lady. Can we not, honestly, find someone better for this job? Someone who doesn't already think the very idea of public education is morally wrong? Someone who isn't, very clearly, intending to use the position to push their ideals into the education system?

It doesn't matter if you have kids now or not, because this is a fight that will affect how our nation's future leaders are educated. The biggest, most important thing that parents and schools can teach children is how to think, not what to think.

ps. Here is some more crazy shit Cynthia Dunbar said. Apparently, Obama is plotting with terrorists to attack the U.S. and he's going to institute martial law. Yeah...that sounds reasonable.

Applaud your Texas Democrats, they might actually care about your child's education

Last night we had our second practice after the "baby break" and it was great. We're playing two shows this weekend, though we're only advertising one. We're the secret special guests on the other. The show we're really pushing is on Saturday at Antone's in Austin w/ Alpha Rev, The Campaign, and Deadbeat Darling. This should be a big show so if you can go, you should get there early. Also we're playing first so definitely get there early enough for that. Also this week (actually today at 2pm), KUT 90.5 in Austin will be playing the in studio performance that we taped last week. I hope it sounds good. You can listen to it on their website if you don't live near Austin.

Band practice on weekdays is for the birds, though. I'm at work all day and then go home for just long enough to eat dinner and relieve Leah from Harper-Duty for a few minutes and then I'm back out the door. If anyone knows anyway where the government would pay me just to hang out at home keep things cool, please let me know.

As much as it sucks to leave my wife and child for any reason, I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to get to play music at all, and especially to play music with the guys I play with. I try to tell them as much as I can, but I love them all and feel honored that they've thrown in with me.

I even appreciate all the guys who've quit the band...well, most of them. The first drummer we had was a great drummer but he is total human garbage in every other regard. I mean, a real asshole. I don't think I've ever disliked a person with the ferocity that I dislike him.

Anyway, the Texas Democratic senators are saying that we've got enough pull to block the nomination of Don McLeroy for chairman of the Board of Education, so...yay! I don't want to sound pessimistic but the concern is that Rick "Texas could secede from the union" Perry will only nominate someone just as bad. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here's a news article that I found stimulating this morning:
Radiohead denies influencing local band

Do you think they teach evolution at Hogwarts?

Yesterday, I felt like a real patriot. I called my state senator to voice my opinion on an upcoming issue. The seating of Don McLeroy as Chairman on the Board of Education has come under some controversy and I told my senator to vote against him. I doubt he will because the senator for our area is Republican like McLeroy and I would imagine they would have each others backs.

If you haven't heard of McLeroy, he's the guy who fights tooth and nail for keeping evolution out of biology text books and putting Creationism in. Now, I'm a Deist, which to me just means that if I had to bet on it, I'd probably say there's a "god" who may or may not have sparked the big bang. Whether or not there was a plan or design that he/she/it/they guided, I have no idea. So that being said, the idea of a Divine involvement in the how and why we're here isn't entirely foreign to me. But that's philosophy, not science. Science is the study of things we know, not the things that some people in the class may or may not believe. Science is falsifiable or can be tested. Creationism and Intelligent Design (which is essentially the same thing) don't qualify, and therefore don't belong in biology text books. I'm not picking on believers, I have no problem with them discussing it in philosophy class, but saying its science is a falsehood. Its not a political issue, its just a matter of one thing not being another. Religion isn't science, doesn't try to be, has never been, possibly never will be.

(Please don't mistake me for qualifying religion and science as Non-Overlapping Magisteria. I don't. I agree with Dawkins that god's existence is a scientific matter and just because we currently have no way of testing it, doesn't mean that we never will.)

I was thinking about school this morning, as well, because I was listening to the Bobby Bones show on the way to work and Bobby was talking about how he gave a speech at a graduation ceremony yesterday. It got me thinking about what I would say if I were to be asked to give such a speech, for some unforeseeable reason. What would I want/need to hear? I don't know, honestly, other than to tell them that life is short and better spent filled with love and lived to the fullest. What I think I really needed to hear (assuming that Young Taylor would've listened), I needed to hear much earlier than graduation. I would've told me that education is less about learning facts and formulas(though they are immensely important) and more about learning how to think. Logic, reason, and creativity are the most important things being developed in our schools. Hopefully, those things are being taught in school, while at home kids learn kindness, humility, and responsibility. I wish I'd taken my education more seriously, now. I hope I can convince Harper how important it is, and how lucky she is to be able to go to the schools she'll go to. About a year of substituting in these schools has left me impressed. Compared to the school I went to, these are like Hogwarts.

So, personal rants aside, I just want my daughter to have as thorough an education as possible without anyone pushing their agendas on her. Our forefathers understood the need for separation of Church and State, so what could be more patriotic or American, than insisting that we keep the science in science class and the theology in church?