On the Eighth Day, God Made The Creation Museum

Yes, you read that correctly. I said “Creation Museum.” Salon.com has a piece on the new Creation Museum that opened in Petersburg, Kentucky, this week. It’s like the Natural History Museum, but wrong: T-Rexes hang out with Adam and Eve. Yes, Adam and Eve.

At the ribbon cutting, Ken Ham, the rugged-faced CEO and president of Answers in Genesis, the nonprofit ministry that built the museum, tells an enthusiastic crowd that the Creation Museum will undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. “It was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America, and that was a downward turning point for Christendom,” Ham says. “We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum. We are going to answer the questions Bryan wasn’t prepared to, and show that belief in every word of the Bible can be defended by modern science.”

Except that modern science disproves almost everything in the Creation story. And nevermind the fact that there are literally hundreds of Creation myths from hundreds of tribal, monotheist, and polytheist religions. And most of them don’t have an Adam and Eve, or some wierd knowledge fruit. Or sins.

The museum is organized thusly:

Inside, the museum is organized according to the “Six C’s of History”: creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, Christ, and the final C, consummation, which isn’t given much time or space in the exhibits because there still isn’t consensus on just how the apocalypse will come down or who goes to heaven and when.

Thinking about this is giving me a headache.

Why, why is religion in America so unrelenting? Why is it so diffucult to let go of fundamentalism? Why can’t you merge your Christian beliefs with scientific reality; why do they have to oppose each other? What is so horribly, horribly wrong about admitting that the Bible is not the word of God, verbatim?

I’m not saying people should deny their spirituality, nor do I think people should regect a monotheistic religion just because it’s not literally true. I consider myself to be a spiritual person, and in a general, amorphous way, I do believe in a higher power. I don’t personally believe that said higher power plopped us all down on Earth, but I think that there’s some evidence that humans are psychically connected in a way that cannot (at least cannot yet) be explained by science (for the best writing on this topic, read 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck… brilliant). The Bible, the Torah… especially the Torah, considering that it comprises the Old Testament in Christianity and is the source for this ridiculous creation myth in the first place. These are all stories. They were written by men, men who lived millions of years after man was created. They are tales of unexplainable things — some of which are explained now, some of which aren’t — that were turned into narratives that these people could understand. They were written because people are curious, they desire to know where they came from and where they are going. When Gallileo said the Earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around, he was put in jail for heresy and blasphemy. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a Christian (fundamentalist or no) today that disputes that fact. The Earth revolving around the Sun does not mean that God (in some form) doesn’t exist. Nor does the recognition of evolution disprove God’s existence either. It just means that when we wrote the Torah, when we wrote Genesis, we were using narrative and mythical techniques to tell a story that science can now explain.

Isn’t it more important to learn from the lessons of these scripts? Shouldn’t we take away the need for human solidarity — the way Adam and Eve stick together after their fall — and the need for peaceful coexistence with the Earth (like in Eden)? Isn’t it so much more hypocritical and wrong to deny the existence of Global Warming while still espousing the holiness of God’s work in creating the Earth?

–Sara Tenenbaum

Department of Truly Weird Diplomatic Threats

So, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that Africa is kind of a truly fucked place. Most countries are run by a delicate mix of anarchy and semi-authoritarianism (to varying degrees… places like Zimbabwe are clearly autocratic, while places like South Africa actual resemble democracy in most ways, and Somalia is just complete chaos), and genocide abounds (*cough*Rwanda*cough* *cough*Uganda*cough* *cough*Darfur*cough*). The complete destruction of natural ethnic boundaries by the imperialism of the West in the 19th century (and the continued imperalism by China, though that is debated by those who know best) have screwed Africa more than we could ever imagine, or could ever fix ourselves.

But sometimes it’s easier to pick out the “bad” from the “just desperate,” and in Africa “bad” is delivered with a capital “S” at the beginning of “Sudan.” After years of turning the other cheek, Americans, and the American government, are finally starting to call the genocide in Darfur a, well, a “genocide.” And good for them; it’s hard to get American politicians to recognize the truth if they don’t want to.

Turns out it’s even harder to get the Sudanese government to recognize the truth that’s bleeding at their feet. Dana Milbank has a piece in the Washington Post today about the incredibly wierd response from Sudanese ambassador to Washington, John Ukec Lueth Ukec, to the charges of genocide in his country. He begins in a fairly normal, blustery and boastful way:

Genocide in the Darfur region? “The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide,” Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. “I think this is a pretext.”

Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? “See how many people are dying in Darfur: None,” he said.

And the 2 million displaced? “I am not a statistician.”

Okay, blatant denial. Fine. Not much of a change from what Sudan’s been saying for years. But then it gets truly strange:

What’s more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.

“I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country,” the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to “stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world.”

“I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this,” Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. “But I don’t want to go that way.”

As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we’ll take away your Coca-Cola.

Say WHAT? The truly hilarious thing is that this threat really does have the ability to bring the Western world (especially America) to its knees! How pathetic is that? We’re so addicted to our cola that — and you can quote me on this — I bet we’ll be seeing fat Americans screaming at the government to chill out on Sudan before all the Coke runs out! There will be riots and demonstrations and calls for resignations! That is, if Sudan actually does what this weirdo is threatening, which is a slim chance it seems to me, but nonetheless.

How said is that we’re so obvious and materialistic and selfish that the Sudanese ambassador knows exactly where to hit us where it hurts? Oh man, I’m ever so slightly ashamed of being an America.

I’m also out of Diet Coke. BRB.

–Sara Tenenbaum

puff puff puff puff puffpuffpuff

Howdy, kids. It’s been a while. Didja miss me?

It seems like everyone’s up in smoke lately about the MPAA’s decision–influenced largely, it would seem, by recommendations from the Harvard School of Public Health–to consider the presence of smoking when determining a film’s rating. The anti-smoking activists are unhappy because (of course) they wanted the mere presence of a single cigarette, smoked by an extra in the background during a five-second street scene, to bring down a XXX rating; and everyone else is unhappy because apparently this new bit of information parents may want to consider in deciding whether a film is appropriate for their children actually amounts to a gross violation of artists’ first amendment rights in a manner completely different from the totally reasonable considerations of sex, violence, and profanity. Because while it is totally okay to glamorize for our children a horribly addictive and deadly habit that has absolutely no societal benefit, it would amount to child abuse to let them hear the F word or see a bare nipple.

As a (very recently former) smoker myself, I have a sort of immediate, knee-jerk reaction to anything the extremist anti-smoking lobby proposes, as well as a slight involuntary tendency to dance a dance of gleeful rejoicing at any small defeat they may encounter at the hands of unbridled reason; so I have to admit I was initially not very supportive of the move to factor gratuitous smoking into a film’s rating. Add to that the fact that I tend to be far more “liberal” when it comes to first amendment rights than most any other issue, and you’d think I’d be as mad at them trying to take away fictional representations of cigarettes as if a real live person had come up to me and taken a smoke right out of my mouth and stomped it out (which, in case you didn’t already know, is something you should NEVER, EVER DO, no matter how much you hate cigarettes or “care” about someone’s “health,” unless maybe they’re smoking in a tiny elevator and you’re critically asthmatic and standing in a pool of gasoline, in which case you probably shouldn’t stamp it out anyway). But the MPAA really did only meet the rabid party-poopers halfway: rather than the mandatory R ratings for all films in which any character smokes, as the lobby had initially demanded, the Motion Picture Association of America agreed to consider whether smoking was both pervasive and glamorized and weigh these factors against any historic or other mitigating context in determining a film’s rating. Overall, this was a surprisingly thoughtful and even-handed response to a long-standing public health concern that, let’s face it, is really only still the leading preventable cause of death in America because of a) the underhanded, sinister actions of the evil, money-hungry Tobacco industry, and b) the deeply-rooted cultural connotations of what most of us hold in our minds only as a mild vice, perpetuated from one direction by Hollywood and from the other by every dorky guidance counselor everywhere.

Joel Stein wrote an awesome column last month on Rotten Tomatoes on this issue. For those of you who can’t quite be bothered to follow the link and read the whole ghastly five hundred words, I’ll excerpt and summarize:

PEOPLE LOOK COOL when they smoke. That long, confident pause on the inhale. The ability to make smoke billow forth from inside their bodies. Who’s going to argue with someone gesturing with a laser pointer that’s on fire? The only thing that could make smoking look cooler is if they made cigarettes that smoke tiny cigarettes.

. . .

When I asked [Harvard School of Public Health Associate Dean Jay] Winsten if directors should only make movies in which people eat vegetables and lean protein and work out all the time, he said that wasn’t what he was after. Which was disappointing, because a world in which every movie contains a “Rocky” training sequence seems pretty awesome.

. . .

But even if Leonardo DiCaprio’s chain smoking in “Blood Diamond” causes kids to try cigarettes, that’s the price of liberty. Art is empty propaganda if it just shows the world as we want it to be. The Harvard report states that “most smoking in movies is both unnecessary and cliched.” But most everything in movies is unnecessary and cliched.

When smoking becomes as shocking and publicly unacceptable as nudity, gore and cursing, you can reflect that by putting an R on those movies. But by that time, it won’t be in movies any more than men wearing hats. Which, by the way, also looks cool.

Now, I found myself nodding along in agreement through most of Stein’s article, until I came to the end and suddenly felt . . . dirty. (Not because of the part about the hats, I totally agree with that on all levels–men should definitely wear more hats in movies and in real life, because it really does look cool. Take note, cute nerdy boys.) What it comes down to is a forest/trees kind of issue: I agree with Stein on most of his points, but I think he’s entirely missed the mark when it comes to the heart of the matter, which is that–really, honestly, without the hint of irony Stein employs to undermine the arguments he knows could be raised against him–smoking is really, really bad for you and for the people around you, at least as bad as profanity and gratuitous nudity; that Hollywood is an extremely powerful cultural force, though admittedly not the single influence on our collective actions and desires; that children should be protected, always and at all costs, even at times to the detriment of certain adult privileges in their presence; and, most importantly, that in this particular case we’re not actually talking about the government telling people what to do: we’re talking about some very “liberal-agenda” suggestions that have been weighed carefully against considerations of both profit and artistic expression and found to have merit by a relatively conservative privately-run standard-setting body which has limited effective power.

The Illinois legislature recently decided to move up by six months and apply state-wide a smoking ban the city of Chicago had enacted effective July 08; Massachusetts, New York, California, and a large number of other municipalities have already lead the way in outlawing smoking in public places other than Tobacconists’ shops; taxes on cigarettes keep going up and there’s even talk in California of banning smoking in cars and on streets. Smokers and civil libertarians (not even all of the latter group) cry out against this horrible infringement against their rights, and while I wholeheartedly support anyone’s right (never state-recognized) to kill himself, I can’t help but think: Why not just take a cue from the changing tide and just quit already?
–Elisa Harkness

Sara’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend

My roommate broke her leg Thursday night. It was a bad time. She’s alright now (as alright as one with a broken leg can be), but it was a very long, very difficult weekend. Hence… no blogging.

In happier news: Karma bites hollywood in the ass again, as Lindsay Lohan got busted for coke and a DUI at the same time in one night. Holler.

Blogging should resume as usual today-ish.

–Sara Tenenbaum

Bush Can Has Cheezburger?

Your morning lolpresident.

More on this later.

Source

–Sara Tenenbaum

Another thing the Britons got right-er than us

I think it’s unofficial foreign news day on Special Comment, because I like other countries more than here and I… am… so… tired.

From the NY Times:

Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.

[snip]

“What we’re hoping to do is to, over a period of time, reinforce the message that people who are gay, lesbian and the like are welcomed in the armed forces and we don’t discriminate against them in any way,” a Defense Ministry official said in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the ministry’s practice.

It’s a good article. Read.

–Sara Tenenbaum

You’re a Good Man, Gordon Brown

I’d like to start by saying that I really, really like Tony Blair. Always have (always = since I became aware of/interested in politics and foreign politics), probably always will. I know his obedience to Bush has earned him a lot of criticism since 2003, and I’m not saying it’s unwarranted, but I still like him.

England and America have a very interesting diplomatic relationship. What was I watching, what was I watching… a TV show, or maybe a movie, it escapes my exhausted mind at the moment (it very well may have been The Good Shepherd, which was awesome, but I’m too tired to be sure, so I’ll leave it at a maybe). Regardless, in this talking picture, an American character and a British character are talking. They’re doing a bit of diplomatic one-upmanship. “We saved your ass in World War II,” the American says. “Yeah? Well we saved your ass in the War of 1812,” the Brit responds. They’re both correct. For two countries that had to have a big war because one country didn’t want to be part of the other anymore, we get along awfully well. And we save each others asses a lot.

Since WWII, the diplomatic relationship between the UK and the US has been one of strong, strong support. England goes how America goes; they’ve done so because of the debt of gratitude they had after WWII, and because over the course of the 20th century relations between our two countries were at an all time high. We were allies in every sense of the word, and allies support each other.

That is, after all, how Blair got into Iraq in the first place.

Blair’s bad decision (though one based on quite a bit of precedent, to his credit) to follow Bush into Iraq has sullied his image. It’s a shame, because Blair did a lot of wonderful things in and for England. Now he’s resigning before the end of his last term, in quite a bit of disgrace. It’s a shame.

Gordon Brown will pick up his slack, and turn around Britain’s engagement in Iraq. Don’t believe me? Look here: Bush ‘told British troops will leave Iraq’. Brown might do it in his first 100 days as PM.

What did Bush call the allies? Iraq/Iran/North Korea are “The Axis of Evil” (except clearly not, as everyone remembers that the Axis of Evil was Japan/German/Italy back in the 1940s… and yes, technically, those were the “Axis Powers” but who are we kidding?). It’s, like, us, England and Australia… what is that ridiculous term? The Coalition of the Willing! God, that man comes up with the stupidest names. Australia’s pulled out, now Britain’s going. Bye bye, coalition. What will happen to us now?

–Sara Tenenbaum

Does my work hate my that much?

It’s not really work’s fault. I’m the one who decided to stay up until 3:30 in the morning, knowing my alarm would go off only 4 hours later. I’m tired, I’m a touch (but only a touch) hungover… I brought this on myself.

That being said, even on 8 hours of non-hangover sleep, there is no way I could wrap my brain around a webpage written entirely in French at 10:30 in the morning. I could barely do that for my French 30 final last year, and that was preceded by weeks of studying.

Which is, of course, why I got asked this morning to find out how to get reprinting rights from Le Monde. You would think Le Monde–France’s premiere newspaper–would have an English website for international readers. That would entail forgetting that their French. The French don’t translate for anyone.

So I spent 30 minutes near-tears, finding the proper email address, and then another 20 minutes prompting every single brain cell I could into action so that I could write half a paragraph of French apologizing for how bad my French is and asking if she wouldn’t mind if the rest of the email was in English.

I’ve always had more luck in France using my awful, awful French to explain why I need to speak in English. They respect the fact that I at least tried.

Pray for me that she replies in English as well.

–Sara Tenenbaum

Just Like A Woman

It’s been a few days, I haven’t had much to say, so I haven’t been blogging. Apologies.

This is a really interesting and well-written article about what Hillary means to the 2008 race. Not “Hillary the Hawk” or “Hillary, Bill’s Husband- er, I mean, Wife,” but “Hillary, the Woman.” There’s a lot of talk about women running for president, but this is the first real examination of the impact it will have on the Democratic primary race, and politics in general. It’s written by Michelle Cottle, who I find to be very intelligent and a wonderful writer. I recommend it highly.

–Sara Tenenbaum

Well Hot Damn, Jerry Falwell Up and Died

It was bound to happen sometime: Jerry Falwell is dead.

I don’t know whether I’m sad, relieved, intriguied, or just indifferent. I don’t like Jerry Falwell, politically and morally. He is against everything I beleive in, and vice versa. But he was a man, and seemed to be a generally good man, and my best wishes go out to his family who must be as shocked — if not more shocked — than the nation is.

Maybe the death of Falwell will bring about the death of the evangelical movement in America? He was always their most charismatic speaker, their most prominent leader. Obviously, his time came. Perhaps the movement’s has as well.

–Sara Tenenbaum