Decalogue

There are no absolutes, right? So I've decided it may be time to compromise on the question of whether public schools, courthouses, and other government buildings can post the 10 Commandments.¹

Here's my offer:

1. Believers get to post the 10 Commandments in a prominent place in government buildings.
2. Stores, advertisers, and others who profit from rampant consumerism will be required to prominently display the commandment against coveting.
3. Everyone in the following list will be required to get the commandment listed tattooed onto their forehead (along with the citation for Leviticus 19:28, just for the irony).
   • Newt Gingrich: the commandment against adultery,
   • All bankers: the commandment against stealing,
   • All soldiers and Florida gun owners: the commandment against killing,² and
   • All trial lawyers (prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, and civil litigators): the commandment against bearing false witness.

That oughta do it. After all, why tell the kids and the hoi polloi to follow them if the elites won't?

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¹ There are more than 10 individual commandments given in Exodus 20:1–17, and there are 3 traditional systems for compressing them into 10 units. We can let the various groups of believers fight amongst themselves over whose list gets posted.

² If the believers insist that this commandment only forbids unjustified killing, then I'm OK with having the tattoo state Thou shalt not kill without a just and proper cause.

Technorati Tags: fundamentalism, irony, Newt Gingrich, religion, satire, Stand Your Ground

Term limits

I don't know whether the 2-term limit for presidents is good in the abstract, but since its only effect so far has been to keep Ike and Reagan from going on for another term each, I can't complain.

(The irony tag is because it was Republicans, in reaction to FDR's 4 terms, who passed the term limit amendment.)

Technorati Tags: irony

Blessed are those with a persecution complex? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post

Blessed are those with a persecution complex? - Guest Voices - The Washington Post:

The kicker:

I am sorry to dash anyone’s hopes, but being required to honor a contract you have voluntarily entered into is not persecution. Being required to abide by your employer’s dress code and other rules is not persecution. Being required to carry out the job you are paid to do is not persecution. Not being exempted from laws that apply to everyone else too is not persecution. Not even if you are religious, and no matter how much you had set your heart on the promised heavenly reward.

These cases are the very opposite of persecution: they are self-serving, self-aggrandizing demands for special treatment. More seriously, they are an insult to Christians around the world for whom the word persecution means something altogether more deadly.

What are we educating for?

I've been thinking lately that what we need kids to learn is not facts or theories but skills. There is some foundation knowledge that may remain relevant long after graduation, but it will be far more important for the kids to be

• flexible, questioning, and able to change their understanding of what is true,
• able to learn new skills and material, and
• interested in the world.

Life imitates Monty Python

Geoff Pullum, one of my professors from when I was in grad school in linguistics, posted a blog entry over at Language Log talking about how some high schools in the UK seem to be having their students who are native speakers of a non-English language take the proficiency exam for their native language in order to pad the high schools' average scores for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exam scores.

I won't take a position here on the ethics of the practice, but I was reminded of this sketch from Monty Python's flying circus. Note, however, that no-one is claiming that the high schools are having native French speakers (for example) take classes where they endure constructing sentences on the pattern of la plume de ma tante ... (modify appropriately for other languages).

Technorati Tags: Monty Python, satire, spoof, language instruction

Word play

Plato's jester: They laughed at me at the Academy.

Newts are slippery

Newt Gingrich's current persona reminds me of a quote from C.S. Lewis's The abolition of man:

No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that a gentleman does not cheat, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.

Technorati Tags: Newt Gingrich