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HA!
Not really. Maybe in my mind.
I was getting my NYT on, and came across this article about a science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio - specifically, a science teacher in a public school who is accused of teaching creationism. Despite the various run-ins I've had with a plethora of religions, creationism is not a concept I've readily embraced at any point in my life. I've always had a more scientific mind. Evolution and science is something that seems to make sense to me. BAM! BIRDS! --- not so much. I live within a reasonable distance of a creationism museum and some of the billboards have made me almost drive off the road. One of these days, I'd like to go there JUST for the experience, but I'm afraid I might have difficulty not laughing or something. I do like dinosaurs though...it's a tough call.
When I read this article and see people saying that this teacher is being persecuted for his Christian beliefs, I feel compelled to call bullshit. He is not a teacher in a Christian school, but a public one. His duty is to teach the subject assigned to him with the curriculum guidelines provided. In other words- SCIENCE, not religion. I don't understand why there are people who have a real difficult time with the separation there.
This is one of my favorite quotes from the article and called out by many of the commenters:

"If he had 'Origin of Species' on his desk, they would celebrate that."

Go figure...a celebrated work of scientific literature on a science teacher's desk. That WOULD be scandalous, wouldn't it?
I was a Catholic-school attendee all 12 years of school. Even so, religion and science managed to remain separate -- for the most part. Our 11th grade term paper was graded by both english and religion class - on the format and the morality issues. My topic was genetic engineering, which would have been really fascinating had my research not been based on a bunch of musty books from the library and had I not done all my research the day before it was due. Ah kiddos... the days before the internets. I also typed that shit -- on an actual typewriter. If I remember correctly, I pulled off a B in religion class for it, but the teacher clearly wanted me to lean more towards the "it's morally wrong" angle and not the scientific approach I took. Which I totally get, because the moral aspect was his grading angle. But for the record...that guy was a dick anyway.
The biggest clash of science-vs-religion that I can remember though (and by biggest, I mean most potentially damaging to the atmosphere of true learning) happened my 7th or 8th grade year of science. (I think I had the same teacher both years, so the exact year is foggy). It was the sex ed portion of the curriculum. Up on the projector was the male anatomy - you know, the standard diagram of wang and rectum and all the tubing. I remember the teacher talking about the anus, and then mentioning the "homosexuals" having sex that way, and, as matter as factly as a 60 year old woman can be in a classroom full of awkward teens, she stated "and that's how AIDS was formed". Her reasoning, of course, was that people are not supposed to have sex that way. In retrospect, that gave me WAY more information about her sex life than I should have ever been privy too. Being young and naive, I just accepted that as fact. Course, these days I know that it's all because someone had sex with a chimpanzee...duh...
...
Actually, it's called zoonosis.
Or "sex-with-monkey" transmission.
And I believe this post has run its course. Good night everybody! I'm out!

...that the sanity level in the human race gets lower and lower.

You know, I will be the first to admit that I don't "get" a lot of performance art. I suppose my brain functions on a more logic-geared blueprint than is required for such art. I'd like to say it's because I outgrew that stage in my life where I looked for deep meaning and hidden subtext in such things, but honestly I don't think I ever was in that stage. I blame it all on the drugs I didn't take. It's not that I don't think it's good to spark conversations or force people to look beyond the status quo; I'm all about that. Does smearing feces on a painting urge me "to move beyond the superficial material plane to a higher level of spiritual contemplation"? Uh...not really. In fact, it makes me think "Damn. If that's all it takes to get some sort of fame...why didn't I think of that?" It also makes me wonder both where the 'artist' procured said dung, and whether or not he wore gloves while handling it. (I really am no fun for these artists.)
So I'm not really surprised that the latest controversy-inducing artist to pop out on the scene decided to raise the bar in terms of "how can I possibly disgust people even more", as the elephant dung, while getting some people's knickers in a twist, was fleeting. And if you're going to be a fame whore, by all means BE a fame whore. That leads us to our latest story . Add one woman, donor sperm, a turkey baster, and herbal abortifacient into a large bowl. Mix well. Film the alleged abortions, splatter the results on some sheets, and call that mess "art". Garnish with a dose of "this is supposed to evoke a dialog on a woman's body and its roll" for added zest.
I answer this with a "um...do what now?" This doesn't anger me or make me scream about the morality of the project. I am just wondering why is it when someone in an art program or with a school backing them or the right sponsors gets her period all over a bed sheet and hangs it up, it is considered "art" but if a regular ol' person such as myself did that, no one would be pondering on the function of my uterus or engaging in a dialog about women's roles in life? Instead, people would think I was completely out of my mind. If a regular ol' person tied a up a dog and let it starve to death slowly, no one would be examining it for a statement against animal cruelty; instead, the person would be hauled off and charged.
It baffles me. It really baffles me. I'm not sure why there is a degree of allowance with these things when done under the pretense of art, or even if there should be. Like I said, maybe I'm not designed to understand such things. Perhaps I'm not hip enough to believe that every bodily function could pass as an artistic expression. I suppose on one hand, these artists were successful. They've disgusted people into speaking about their actions and managed to gain their 15 mins of fame, whether positive or negative. Let's have a dialog on that.
And then after that, let's discuss how unbelievably nasty it is to put your bodily fluids on display for the world to see. I mean, come on now.

(And is it me, or does 'let me bleed all over the place and film it" chick look an awful lot like Elizabeth Peña? It's eerie.)

I've seen this story making the rounds on the internet, and I figured I'd weigh in too.
Basically, a 72-yr old man in Kansas was convicted of 'aggravated indecent solicitation of a child'. Part of his sentence was that he needed to post signs on his house and car identifying himself as a sex offender. Now a few years ago, I would have been like 'you're goddamn right, but this isn't nearly harsh enough', but I seemed to have shaken my vigilante-esque attitude of late that encompassed the belief of removing body parts off of offenders. I guess I began to understand that such an action, aside from being completely insane and barbaric, would not really accomplish much especially since the core of the problem does not stem from a couple of nads, but from the mental aspects. This punishment just seems..off. As I've seen other people mention, if the man is truly a danger and the judge feels people need to be warned, then lock the dude up. If not, there is no point in doing this unless the intended result was to stir up some true vigilante nuts and have them harass the guy. It's a difficult issue to be looking at, especially as a parent. I cannot honestly say that if someone harmed so much a hair on my kids' head that I wouldn't go utterly ballistic and unleash some raw animalistic maternal ass-kicking to reciprocate, because I know I would lose it completely. (I am the person that called my son's first soccer coach's wife a rather unpleasant name because she was getting a little too close to my son with her car, but in my defense I did not realize it was the coach's wife. Had I known, I would have chosen a much less controversial insult to toss her way completely behaved myself. Yeah. He didn't rejoin that team the next season. Too awkward.) I suppose it's quite easy to allow ourselves to dismiss those deemed unfit for society , dehumanize them and condemn them to a sub-standard lifestyle, but there is just something in my gut that tells me this accomplishes nothing in the long run for our society. I certainly don't want to seem like I'm sympathizing here with the 'bad guys', as I cannot possibly understand what would make a person think it was okay to do something of a sexual nature to someone who's not anywhere near sexual maturity in the physical sense. I just don't feel like this was the most effective sentence the judge could have come up with. It'll be interesting to see if it holds up.

I read this bizarre article on Newsweek that described the 'rebel movement' occuring in Chile's youth. They call themselves "Pokemones", love their anime and gadgets, and entertain themselves with a little thing called public orgies. I say bizarre because to me, technophilia and anime doesn't seem to have a logical connection to public orgies in my mind, but hey...what do I know? And I realize that I'm not quite *that* old to be making comments about youth today, but what the eff? Seriously?
We used to rebel by stealing street cones or knocking over signs or sneaking out of the house and breaking curfew. Maybe some underaged drinking. But not public sex romps for spite. That's just...well how is that even effective? I predict an upsurge of STDs in Chile.

Caught a story on Reuters today about a children's Advent calendar in Germany that includes the imagery of a serial killer from the 1920s who killed a good number of boys (Story here)

Totally messed up. Merry Christmas!

Slate has published an absolutely wonderful article that I think everyone should read and take to heart. Its subject matter should be taught in every school right beside fire safety and "stranger danger". That's right folks. Life-saving information.
What to do if you are surrounded by a street gang monkey hoodlums

You know, those monkeys are goddamn bastards sometimes.

Woman yanks off testicle with bare hands

AND TRIES TO EAT IT!

YARRRGGGGHHHHHH!

There is only one response I can think of for this story:

Here's a beaut.
A woman is claiming that she was harassed over her child's sippy cup while at the airport. The TSA is saying they dealt with the situation just fine and that she was the one overreacting (news link here). The TSA actually went ahead and posted the security footage of the incident (and I absolutely love that they put it in the MythBusters section).
The incident is viewable here: http://www.tsa.gov/assets/wmv/dca_incident2.wmv (It's a 45 mb file).
At one minute into playing time, you see the cup incident. Her side of the story is that she was trying to take a drink and it accidentally spilled. Their side is that she intentionally dumped it.
Around 1:02 on the video, I see a shake of the arm. Never once did the cup approach this woman's lips. I see dump, arm shake, and then her trying to storm off. If you accidentally spill a beverage, you don't shake the cup to get every last drop out.
Looks intentional to me.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this.

So..ahem...this panda, Xiang Xiang, was bred in captivity and then released into the wild. But that only occurred after 3 years of survival training. Yes, survival training. For a panda. To add to the story, the theory is that a gang of wild pandas chased him around, ultimately factoring in Xiang Xiang's death.

Now, I'm no scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but common sense tells me that no amount of "survival training" or kickboxing classes or self-defense classes can turn a captive bred panda into a wild panda. Not gonna happen. It's much like no matter how much you think you tame a wild animal, it can still very well maul the shit out of you once it gets tired of your stupid ass. And that was not a cheap shot at Siegfried and Roy. Okay, I lie...it totally was.

Secondly...are there really gangs of wild pandas that chase after candy-assed captivity bred pandas?

Finally, I am now going to try to use the phrase "candy-ass" more often.

Apparently, in some parts of the Midwest, the cicadas are going to swarm again. Now personally, I think the cicadas are kinda gross as far as bugs go. Not on the same level of cockroaches or hairy spiders, but nonetheless gross. So why is it every time these 17 year cicadas come out, there's inevitably an article or a blurb in an article about someone who wants to eat the damn things?
I have to say, that is no way on my list of "Things I must do before I die".