Tag Archives: education

Podcast #18: The Truth about Islam

hijab

http://www.babulilmlibrary.com

Based on the 14 years of experience that I have working with Muslim students on campus, I have come to see Islam as a faith like any other. It’s sad and unjust that Americans are conditioned to respond to it as something utterly different. Hijab, in particular, is profoundly misunderstood.

BRB

brb_black_funny_text_1366x768_99251

I know it’s been a long time.  I’m sure you understand that life can be like that.  You, too, may have a side project that you love, but no time to dedicate to it.  You, too, may have a dream to pursue that is a borderline fantasy and a job that is real enough to keep you from making it happen.  You, too, may know what it feels like to start something great and get stopped in the middle.

The hiatus is nearly over. I’m two months away from removing the obstacles in my path.  The podcast is returning.  The format may change a bit, but Episode 16 is finally on the way.

If you listened to the show, then please write to me.  Ask me some questions.  Give me some feedback.  Toss out some topics.  It’s been difficult doing the podcast in a vacuum.

My goal, to be clear, is radio.  National distribution, AM or XM, broadcast or podcast. That means I need people to talk to.  There’s a new voice mail line coming soon where you can leave me a message to play and respond to on air.  One day those calls will be live.  Send me an email or tweet for now.

#theanonymousanthropologist

theanonymousanthropologist@gmail.com

Stay tuned.

Prebut of the Rebut: 2013 SOTU

2012 state of the union

I can save you a lot of time tonight, when the President will deliver his State of the Union Address. The entire affair is completely predictable.

First, the President will tell us that the State of the Union is strong. He will then go on to address its points of weakness: jobs, immigration, education, voting, and guns. He will offer practical strategies for addressing all of these, and he will go out of his way to do so in a manner that studiously avoids offending anyone.

Next, the GOP will tell us that the President is a socialist who represents the worst of “big government” intrusion into our private lives. His economic plan will hurt small businesses.  His immigration policy amounts to nothing more than a free ride for illegals on the backs of hard-working Americans. He’s taken God out of the classroom – which explains both poor test scores and school shootings. He’s coming to take your guns away and his wife wants to outlaw corn syrup.

Then they will go home to their districts, where they will proceed to manipulate the democratic process to a state of near-inversion wherein one man has $1 billion votes and most of us have none. Their gerrymandering at the state level will give sparsely populated white Republican districts each their very own representative, while starving the more densely populated urban districts down to just a few. They will change the way their states vote to eliminate the possibility of Democratic victory.

They will continue their prodding – literally – of women along The Handmaid’s Tale path toward losing all reproductive autonomy. They will work to overturn Roe v. Wade, to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, to revive Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and to constitutionally prohibit gay marriage. They will scale the clock tower and turn the hands of time back at least half a century, and they will do it all while proclaiming themselves to be “the party of small government.”

An unwilling coalition of Ayn Rand capitalists and Christian fundamentalists, they are the New Theocracy. The only thing small about them is their minds.

I love you despite your (lack of) politics

Ignorance vs. Apathy cartoon

Like so many American families, we had house guests for the Thanksgiving holiday. I love them dearly and apologize up front if this comes off poorly, but I cannot resist sharing the lesson learned.

X and I have known each other for thirty years. We grew up together, grew apart, and then reconnected. Our childhoods spent in NY, X wound up in New Hampshire while I moved out to the West coast.

During the visit I was horrified to learn – although I had suspected it already – that X had voted for Romney.  I’ve had trouble understanding how anyone could be snowed by him, but there X was, someone I respect, hating on Obama. Sure, X had voted for him the last time but had seen things go from bad to worse in New Hampshire since then. I asked why Obama was to blame.

Me: So what does Obama have to do with what’s going in in New Hampshire?

X:  It’s the kids. They’re all very upset about what he’s done with education.

Me: What’s he done?

X: The student loans are incredible. It’s so expensive, it’s unbelievable. You can’t even afford to think about it.

Me: What does that have to do with him?

X: He cut the funding, didn’t he?

Me: No. The federal government doesn’t fund colleges; they help provide student loans. Almost all of the funding for education comes from the states. That’s the Constitution; education is left totally to the states. The federal government had almost nothing to do with it until Bush gave us No Child Left Behind. Colleges are funded privately or by the state.

X: So why is there no money?

Me: It’s your state. It’s got nothing to do with Obama. Do you pay state taxes in New Hampshire?

X: My property taxes are off the wall.

Me: Granted. But you pay no state income or sales taxes, right?

X: Right.

Me: So where is the money going to come from? How is the state going to fund education if they have no income?

X: Then where does all that tax money go?

Me: Infrastructure. Administration. Roads and bridges. The DMV.

X: Well, I don’t pay attention to politics anyway.

Me: I get that now.

And I love you anyway.

God made me fittest

It’s not easy teaching evolution to evangelicals.  The internal inconsistencies are mind-boggling.   They enter the classroom secure in the knowledge that God created them, yet they believe in “survival of the fittest.”

I tell them: Darwin’s theory was about biology, specifically reproduction.  Simply put, some individuals have genetic traits that give them advantages in a particular environment, while others have disadvantages.  This is a matter of luck, not superiority.  When sea turtles hatch, all at once by the thousands, the birds are standing there, waiting.  Those who hatch first become dinner, while those who hatch later stand a better chance of making their way past the sated birds to the sea.  This is about luck, not ingenuity.  Individuals who happen to possess the right combination of traits for their moment in time and their place in space will be more successful at passing on those traits; those who don’t, won’t.  Over time, as the traits that work best are passed on and the ones that don’t fit are filtered out, the species adapts to fit its environment.  If the environment changes, the rules change, and different traits are encouraged — and so much for your “fitness.”

They have no problem with any of this.  It doesn’t threaten their belief system in the slightest.

I tell them: “Survival of the fittest” is an incorrect interpretation of Darwin’s theory.  First, it’s not about survival; it’s about reproduction.  You can live forever but if you fail to reproduce, evolution doesn’t give a damn about you.  Second, fitness is relative to the environment, changeable, and largely a matter of luck.  It’s not about how smart or strong you are; it’s about whether or not you have an opportunity to pass on your genes.  Think about the sea turtles.  Third, Darwin may have used the phrase, “survival of the fittest,” but he didn’t coin it; we have the philosopher Herbert Spencer to thank for that.  Spencer never intended it as an alternate explanation for the biological facts of Darwin’s theory.  He meant, from the very beginning, to apply the phrase to his theory of society — which was a bit of predictably racist, imperialist, 19th-century nonsense.  It held that the English were “civilized,” while the Africans were “savages.”  “Survival of the fittest” has been handy ever since as a perfect justification for capitalism and colonialism.  It normalizes white privilege and economic hegemony while relieving us all of the burden of assisting those less fortunate than ourselves.  Let nature take its course.  Only the strong survive. Might makes right.  Every man for himself.

This, they hate.  “I like survival of the fittest,” they protest.  “It’s right.  You shouldn’t change it.”  They never see the irony.