aldenswan.com

It is my sincere hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to another 3-day weekend. At my house, we’ve had more than our share of colds and related viruses over the past several weeks, with a seemingly endless cycle of fevers and symptoms. It made for a rather slow Christmas, which was ok.

It was, however, a milestone Christmas for me - believe it or not, I’m 50 years old and until this Christmas had never played poker! My mom taught my kids a couple of years ago, and since then my oldest has taken to watching poker on TV, and playing with his siblings on occasion. With my mom and sister out for Christmas, they had a series of games going, and finally I decided to join in.

I have played various card games, mainly varieties of Rummy, but hadn’t played much other than Rook or Flinch once or twice in the last several years. It had never occurred to me that Poker was so much fun, and so addicting. It probably also contributed to the spread of everyone’s viruses, as poler chips are infamous carriers of germs.

My oldest son, Elliot, got the Xbox version of World Championship Poker 2 for Christmas. Again, I had no idea that poker for the Xbox could be so much fun! You can create your own characters, and play against a rather odd assortment of players. I think it’s more fun than Enter the Matrix or Halo 2. The great thing is, you can have just as much fun losing as you can winning.

So, I’m hooked. I’ve even started watching poker on TV and reading tips online. I’m even considering scheduling a father-son poker night - just for chips, of course. One thing I am not into is gambling with my own money. I’ve spent years negotiating with other people’s money (a quasi-gambling activity) and I’m quite good at it- however, I’ve never been tempted to risk my own.

This past year, in which I turned 50, has found me doing many new things: fencing, ballroom dancing, my first international speaking gig, blogging, a change in jobs, and now poker. It’s had its challenges as well, but overall, it’s been a pretty good year.

For a couple of years I listened regularly to NPR as I drove back and forth to work, putting up with their slightly liberal slant on the world. I’d always heard that NPR lived on the left, but had never listened to them enough to know. For a while, I wasn’t bothered too much by their take on things - I can deal with and even appreciate a certain amount of liberalism. I have a few liberal genes myself, that pop up here and there.

However, after the invasion of Iraq, it seemed that their reporting became more dramatically liberal, to the point of almost sounding anti-American. The NPR reporter that reported from Iraq always took an approach that clearly showed her anti-involvement feelings, and it became obvious when comparing NPR’s reports to others, that we were not getting even close to “fair and balanced” reporting. Of course, NPR has never promised us “fair and balanced.”

But, shouldn’t it? After all, they are supported in part by the same taxpaying public that twice elected George Bush. If we had a box to check on our tax returns indicating whether we wanted to support NPR or not, I wouldn’t mind so much. But, this is National Public Radio, not Liberal Public Radio or Anti-Bush Public Radio. It should, then, represent the nation, not just the ultra-left.

Yesterday, I happened to turn to NPR just as “Fresh Air” was starting, and they opened with something like, “2005 - a year that George Bush would like to forget.” I listened for a minute or two, and switched over to classic rock. What kind of “public” radio is this?

Any year with challenges is going to be a year with ups and downs. NPR apparently decided to focus only on the downs, and try to characterize the whole year as one of “downs.” But consider these ups (not that I have to defend Bush, I just want to put some proper perspective on things):

• A successfully appointed conservative - and young - Chief Justice.
• A very successful year in Iraq, with a new constitution and parliamentary elections, upheld by the U.N.
• Bush’s approval ratings on the upswing.
• One of today’s headlines reads “Consumer confidence rises strongly.”

Get it? This was not a lousy year, in spite of Katrina and in spite of everything else. Liberals hate to admit this, but many of Bush’s policies are working. Now, I don’t support everything that Bush and the Republicans are doing - for example, I am concerned with the size of government and the level of spending, as I’ve said before. However, if I were Bush, this is not a year that I would necessarily want to forget.

NPR has proven themselves out of touch with the mainstream, and in my opinion, have complete abused their unrestrained free speech. We - that is, “we, the people” - don’t have to support them. Perhaps it’s time we set them loose on the open market, and let them fend for themselves. I’d rather hear radio ads then several weeks of begging for money, anyway.

Did anyone read Doonesbury last Sunday? You know, Doonsebury used to be one of my favorite cartoons, back when it was actually funny. (Yeah, I know, that was about 2 decades ago.) I especially loved the Vietnam-era Doonesbury, with Phred the peace-loving North Vietnamese guy. But, those days are long gone. Gary Trudeau lost his sense of humor, and his sense of reality, a long, long time ago.

Anyway, Sunday’s comic was very timely, dealing with Intelligent Design. The cartoon demonstrated one very important fact: most people don’t have a flippin’ clue about the issues, including Gary Trudeau.

This week, District Judge John Jones III added his voice to the issue, issuing a 139-page (double-spaced) opinion ruling that ID is Creationism under a false label. I’ve started reading the opinion (I’m on page 40), and have several thoughts; however, I am reserving final judgment on the decision until I read the whole stinkin’ ruling. I’ve probably read hundreds of court opinions over the last 19 years, and so far, this is not one of the easiest to read, and definitely one of the longest.

My first thought was that the good judge was just as ignorant as Gary Trudeau, and he might be; however, if (and this is a very big “if”) the opinion states the testimony correctly, he probably ruled correctly on the evidence. This could be one of the worst defended cases I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a few bad ones). I think I would have had to have ruled against the School Board, just based on the defense witnesses.

But here are some of the glaring issues that makes this case, and others like it, completely inane:

• Who decides what is Science? As far as I know, there is no constitutional amendment defining what is, or what is not, science. “Junk science” is all over the place, including courtrooms all over the country, and I wouldn’t doubt that it’s also in our schools. These self-proclaimed “scientists” and teachers of “science” who are so concerned about keeping God out of the laboratories have conned the country into believing that there is a bright line that distinguishes science from anything else. It’s a farce.
• We’ve lost the original intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If the founding fathers had truly intended for a “separation of church and state” as interpreted today, why does our money say “In God We Trust?” Obviously, the intent was not to ban any mention of a higher power.
• Divorcing science from philosophy is bad. Many classic sci-fi and horror stories make this point, and it’s a good one. Just as a legal system is inexorably tied to someone’s morality, science - the study of why things are and how things work - is undoubtedly tied to philosophy, which is also the study of why things are and how things work. There are different methodologies, but to pretend to study “science” without consideration of the other questions is downright stupid.
• No court can decide the issue. All the court can do is (supposedly) rule on evidence it is presented, based on existing laws. If, for example, the Creationists (or ID-ers) are poor litigators or are just plain stupid, they will lose. Losing proves only that they lost.
• The Court’s ruling should only apply to these set of facts. The court was ruling on specific language mandated by the School Board. If that language is the official language of everyong who believes in Intelligent Design, that is one thing; however, in this case it seems the language was pretty poor.
• Some of the Judge’s conclusions seem to be based on flawed information, not presented in the case itself. He discusses the history of Creationism and Intelligent Design, claiming it is based on “fundamentalism” and lumping all creationists as fundamentalists. I take offense at that … I don’t even know if this analysis would apply to all of the creationist school board members involved in the case. It seems absurd for the judge to be discussing church history and theology, wheh it is obvious he really hasn’t a clue about these issues.

There are many more issues to consider, based on sound logic and common sense. I’ll finish reading the case sometime over the Christmas holiday, and continue this rant …