Comments for Valley Notebook

Comment on World leader to visit Fresno this weekend by Philippine government confirms their president’s visit to Fresno « Valley Notebook

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:38:39 +0000

[...] macapagal-arroyo, health care, immigrants | As we were the first to report last night, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will stop by Fresno between San Francisco and Washingto…. as part of a 10-day state [...]

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by eirene

eirene — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:37:33 +0000

oops, sorry about the excess italics at the end there. Perhaps I am HTML-illiterate (and Betty will therefore not take me seriously).

Comment on Fresno Bee retreats from Clovis, Tulare County and Madera: Clovis Independent to be shut down. by James

James — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:13:18 +0000

Well, I think you covered almost everything I had mentioned over at Fresno Famous, but you’ve definitely added several good points, especially the one on writing for the web. That involves much more than copying and pasting from the Word document used for the printed piece.
Thanks for sharing.
James (aka pido)

Comment on Clovis Independent ends 103-years of publication this month by Mike Oz

Mike Oz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:52:32 +0000

That was a very nice read. Thanks for sharing the nostalgia.

Comment on Fresno Bee retreats from Clovis, Tulare County and Madera: Clovis Independent to be shut down. by Dan Jensen

Dan Jensen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:38:51 +0000

How sad. I wonder whether these little outlying papers were purchased because they couldn’t survive otherwise, or whether, had they never been purchased in the first place, might have avoided such wide-reaching actions. Is it the Web effect, or the Walmart effect?

Here’s a tidbit from a story I’m trying to write about living in the Valley that mentions the Bee:

http://kaweah.com/blog/2008/01/01/homecoming/

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by eirene

eirene — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:19:44 +0000

Whenever some idiot does something offensive like this (or worse), there seem to be two common responses:

a) those who oppose the religious or political group the idiot belongs to claim that the idiot is fully representative of this group, and his/her actions naturally follow from its beliefs. It should therefore be abolished, rejected, despised, etc. (in spite of any other members who have led exemplary altruistic lives).

b) members of the idiot’s group claim that his/her actions are not representative of their belief system at all, and the idiot is an isolated case of someone who misinterpreted their beliefs. (You know, those were only a few bad apples in Abu Ghraib.)

Both responses are overly simplistic. I wonder if it’s more helpful to ask something like: what is going on within the group that could have led this person to think that such actions were acceptable, when in fact the group officially believes they are not?

In this case, I’d suggest that the warlike “battle for truth” rhetoric of the creationist and ID movements creates an us-vs.-them mentality in which extreme actions seem justifiable. Also the mean-spirited ridicule directed towards evolutionary biologists contributes to thinking of them as unworthy of tolerance and compassion. Things like the “Expelled” website, which features a JibJab clip of four scientists dancing the can-can. I can imagine how someone could get the idea that if it’s ok to publicly humiliate someone by pasting their face into a video clip, it’s not too big of a stretch to rip things off their car bumper.

This is something everyone should think about, whatever your beliefs are. Because it’s totally naiive to think that hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, and extremism are unique to only one ideology. Seriously, if the followers of the guy who said this sort of thing…

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you… Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:27, 31)

…can end up committing hate crimes (not to mention crusades, massacres, etc.) and still think they are his loyal followers, it can happen to anyone. So I’m not going to discard religion because of the Darwin fish vandal, and I don’t reject the biological theory of evolution because of the eugenics movement. Anything can be twisted by someone’s sick personality, political ends, or whatever.

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by drl2Blog

drl2Blog — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:45:51 +0000

[...] the world are lovingly and peacefully fighting back against their oppressors. Whether it’s a slashed tire on the car of an educator who assailed them by gluing a Darwin fish to his bumper or the burning to death of [...]

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by DMD

DMD — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:44:50 +0000

It’s interesting how we’ve turned this into a battleground for our faith v. atheism debate. Still, there’s not a single piece of evidence to suggest that the perp was a Christian, or professed to be a Christian. I, for one, think the perp was a disgruntled student, who mentioned darwinism only because the Prof clearly held it as a belief (as evidenced by the fish on the car). When people get upset with another, they tend to lash out emotionally at the beliefs or immutable characteristics of others (e.g., race, faith, sexuality, etc).

The idea that some Christian, a complete stranger to the Prof, was walking along and, upon seeing the fish, became enranged and vandalized the car seems far-fetched.

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by lovable liberal

lovable liberal — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:45:43 +0000

Uh, its oppression.

Comment on Would Jesus slash Darwin’s tires? by lovable liberal

lovable liberal — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:45:11 +0000

Science is about what is, not about what we might prefer to be. But in any case, the 19th century doctrine called Social Darwinism was not a logical consequence of Darwinism. It was just the ruling class trying to justify the morality of it oppression.