Hey, kids! Learn to dig an oil pipeline across your neighbors' back yards as part of 4-H! From an Extension Service press release:
"October 6-12 is National 4-H Week, which culminates with 'one day 4-H' — a day of community service set for Oct. 12, said a Texas 4-H program coordinator. ...
"Toby Lepley, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service 4-H and youth development specialist ... aid this year’s one day 4-H efforts are being sponsored by TransCanada."
Oy.
I see that our neighbors to the north, at least in the oil bidness, aren't so much kinder and gentler after all in the PR world. Will said sponsorship include teaching them how to email President Obama to OK KeystoneXL?
This is not quite as bad or blantant (yet, at least) as the Exxon Math and Science Academy, guaranteed not to teach kids the truth about climate change, but it's bad enough.
And,, beyond TransCanada, or ExxonMobil, this whole issue of sponsorship is problematic. Yes, both small-town Main Street businesses and bigger companies have contributed to nonprofit organizations for decades. But, they've never before talked about "sponsorship." I find this troubling.
I would find it troubling with a less controversial company than TransCanada.
September 24, 2013
Shock me: Gay hater Rod Dreher doesn't like Pope Francis
Pope Francis' recent comments about how the Catholic Church shouldn't focus quite so much on gays and abortion does sound relatively enlightened. And, it's straightforward stuff, it seems, unlike his comment about atheists that the mainstream media first got wrong and therefore blew out of proportion.
The fact that this interview was kept under wraps at first, then simultaneously printed in multiple Jesuit publications, shows its serious.
That said, it's no surprise that former Dallasite and former Dallas Morning News op-ed columnist Rod Dreher, who has a history of not liking gays, as well as being an apologist for racism, takes offense. (I had the semi-pleasure of meeting him in person once, after I emailed the Morning News, as did others, about him violating company police by also opining for World Nut Daily at that time. I didn't yet realize just the totality of what he was like, though.)
Dreher first claims the NYT and the rest of the big media are overblowing this one. Au contraire. The Vatican itself reacted when the media claimed a month ago that Francis said that good atheists were guaranteed a shot at heaven. There's been no such pushback this time.
Dreher refers readers to one of those journals, which American Conservative may have excerpted without authorization. It doesn't explicitly say in the story that it does have such authorization, and the Jesuit mag says that excerpting without it is a no-no.
And, Dreher's wrong.
Per the full interview, which I shall not excerpt without authorization, the pope says that he was disciplined when he spoke even briefly on such issues before.
Or per the New York Times story:
And, no, Rod, he's not naive, either. See my timeline note, above.
And, he's made clear that previous comments about gays (and lesbians, but gays in particular on this one item) refer not just to the priesthood but the laity, too.
That said, nothing he did say indicates the Roman Catholic Church will change its stance on either abortion or homosexuality.
But, it will treat people dealing with being gay, or terminating a pregnancy, with more love than Rod Dreher ever will.
As for people like the ex-Catholic Dreher, or the right-wing Catholic priests and laity he counts among his contacts, Francis addresses him and them:
Of course, Dreher is the man who, among others, prayed for Chris Hitchens to have a deathbed conversion. By his religious rights, I suppose he thinks he's just doing what he's supposed to. Well, 150 years ago, Indian Hindu women thought they were supposed to throw themselves on their dead husbands' funeral pyres. Less informed Muslims think female genital circumcision is supposed to be part of their religion. Mormons still get baptized for dead people.
Nuff said.
Meanwhile, speaking of those earlier misinterpreted platitudes of Francis? He's not a Gnu Atheist, but Massimo Pigluicci takes him to the cleaners. And, per Massimo, he actually isn't letting up **that much** on the idea of judging gay people.
Indeed, blogger Pacheco shows that, although not as much as with "atheists get to go to heaven," the MSM has perhaps overblown this one, too, even though the Vatican hasn't objected this time. In fact, he notes that since the interview, Francis the Talking Pope and the Vatican have, among other things they've allowed or caused:
Maybe not as much as that frothy substance called "santorum," but froth, nonetheless.
And, that the likes of Dreher takes offense to even that shows how ridiculous he is.
The fact that this interview was kept under wraps at first, then simultaneously printed in multiple Jesuit publications, shows its serious.
That said, it's no surprise that former Dallasite and former Dallas Morning News op-ed columnist Rod Dreher, who has a history of not liking gays, as well as being an apologist for racism, takes offense. (I had the semi-pleasure of meeting him in person once, after I emailed the Morning News, as did others, about him violating company police by also opining for World Nut Daily at that time. I didn't yet realize just the totality of what he was like, though.)
Dreher first claims the NYT and the rest of the big media are overblowing this one. Au contraire. The Vatican itself reacted when the media claimed a month ago that Francis said that good atheists were guaranteed a shot at heaven. There's been no such pushback this time.
Dreher refers readers to one of those journals, which American Conservative may have excerpted without authorization. It doesn't explicitly say in the story that it does have such authorization, and the Jesuit mag says that excerpting without it is a no-no.
And, Dreher's wrong.
Per the full interview, which I shall not excerpt without authorization, the pope says that he was disciplined when he spoke even briefly on such issues before.
Or per the New York Times story:
“I see the church as a field hospital after battle,” Francis said. “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else.”Sounds like that's not overblown. Francis is talking about about priorities.
And, no, Rod, he's not naive, either. See my timeline note, above.
And, he's made clear that previous comments about gays (and lesbians, but gays in particular on this one item) refer not just to the priesthood but the laity, too.
That said, nothing he did say indicates the Roman Catholic Church will change its stance on either abortion or homosexuality.
But, it will treat people dealing with being gay, or terminating a pregnancy, with more love than Rod Dreher ever will.
As for people like the ex-Catholic Dreher, or the right-wing Catholic priests and laity he counts among his contacts, Francis addresses him and them:
The pope said he has found it “amazing” to see complaints about “lack of orthodoxy” flowing into the Vatican offices in Rome from conservative Catholics around the world. They ask the Vatican to investigate or discipline their priests, bishops or nuns. Such complaints, he said, “are better dealt with locally,” or else the Vatican offices risk becoming “institutions of censorship.”Well, sure. That's exactly what these people want.
Of course, Dreher is the man who, among others, prayed for Chris Hitchens to have a deathbed conversion. By his religious rights, I suppose he thinks he's just doing what he's supposed to. Well, 150 years ago, Indian Hindu women thought they were supposed to throw themselves on their dead husbands' funeral pyres. Less informed Muslims think female genital circumcision is supposed to be part of their religion. Mormons still get baptized for dead people.
Nuff said.
Meanwhile, speaking of those earlier misinterpreted platitudes of Francis? He's not a Gnu Atheist, but Massimo Pigluicci takes him to the cleaners. And, per Massimo, he actually isn't letting up **that much** on the idea of judging gay people.
Indeed, blogger Pacheco shows that, although not as much as with "atheists get to go to heaven," the MSM has perhaps overblown this one, too, even though the Vatican hasn't objected this time. In fact, he notes that since the interview, Francis the Talking Pope and the Vatican have, among other things they've allowed or caused:
- Pope Francis denounce abortion and tell Catholic doctors to refuse to perform them (even when the life of the mother is in danger and the fetus is not viable)
- The Vatican excommunicate a priest in Melbourne for his support of women priests and gay people (not exactly the loving approach one would expect from the person interviewed a couple of days earlier)
- A damning report from MPR on how Minneapolis Archdiocese leaders KNEW about inappropriate sexual conduct from one of their priests covering over a DECADE, and yet failed to do anything about it until after the priest had sexually abused several boys. Way to provide moral leadership, Archibishop Nienstadt.
Maybe not as much as that frothy substance called "santorum," but froth, nonetheless.
And, that the likes of Dreher takes offense to even that shows how ridiculous he is.
September 23, 2013
Which is more spammy — #LinkedIn or #Facebook?
At one time, it would have been easy to say Facebook.
But, starting with the crack cocaine of LinkedIn's "endorsements," especially when we're asked to endorse people who not only aren't in our network but are more than one step removed from people who ARE in our network, or so it seems when I'm asked to endorse people I'm not even close to knowing, LinkedIn's closing the gap fast.
The clearly made-up nature of many of these skills, such as "storytelling" (what is that for, career politicians) only increases the height of my skeptical antennae.
Then there's this.
Not only is LinkedIn about as spammy as Facebook, it's apparently taking lessons on TOU-shifting and similar things:
The why is because kids can now have LinkedIn accounts. Yeah, like the average 14-year-old is applying for a job via LinkedIn.
And, no, I'm not kidding. LinkedIn has lowered its age of usage to 14 as part of the privacy updates.
It's all about the money. The "University Pages" are clearly an attempt to get more said universities to advertise to 14-18 year olds.
Great. And now, high school freshman can increase popularity contests by playing with LinkedIn's crack cocaine of endorsements.
I now have a poll up. Feel free to vote.
And, Twitter's not in the mix yet. But stay tuned.
A likely-overvalued IPO will mean, as with Fraudbook, the need for more revenue streams. That means more ads, or more marketing of Twitter. Plus, with using Twitter as my log-in for Disqus since, per a friend of mine, OpenID has sadly fallen by the wayside, means I'm getting all sorts of commercial spam tweets. I've just been blocking them so far, but I'm soon going to start reporting them as spam.
And, speak of the devil, three days after I write this, LinkedIn spams me on Twitter. And, I reported you as spam, I didn't just block you.
Oct. 24, 2013: LinkedIn's latest spamminess? This idea of intruding into your personal email flow.
===
Per the first comment below, re LinkedIn, I become part of the solution and avoid remaining a passive part of the problem by refusing to accept more endorsements and refusing to pass them out. As a LinkedIn account is semi-de rigeur with many larger companies, at least, I'm not going to delete my account. But I'm not going to expand it any further. Like Facebook, I think we should also be wary about how much personal information we put on LinkedIn.
And, so I have just done.
===
Actually, Twitter, with its laughably wrong suggestions on whom to "follow" (Barack Obama? When I know the Green Party has to have a Twitter account? Katy Perry? When I am not even sure what she's been in? Oops, she's not even an actress.) Seriously. Twitter has never suggested the St. Louis Cardinals' feed, or an individual Cardinal player. It's never suggested, besides the Green Party, say, Dennis Kucinich.
And, doorknob help us when it launches its IPO.
And speaking of that devil, it just took the lid off that IPO.
But, starting with the crack cocaine of LinkedIn's "endorsements," especially when we're asked to endorse people who not only aren't in our network but are more than one step removed from people who ARE in our network, or so it seems when I'm asked to endorse people I'm not even close to knowing, LinkedIn's closing the gap fast.
The clearly made-up nature of many of these skills, such as "storytelling" (what is that for, career politicians) only increases the height of my skeptical antennae.
Then there's this.
Not only is LinkedIn about as spammy as Facebook, it's apparently taking lessons on TOU-shifting and similar things:
On September 12, 2013, we published revised versions of our Privacy Policy and our User Agreement. Your continued use of LinkedIn means you agree to these revised documents, so please take a few minutes to read and understand them. Visit the LinkedIn blog to learn what these changes mean to you.Really? Did you have this in 48-point bold type on or before Sept. 12? Of course not.
The why is because kids can now have LinkedIn accounts. Yeah, like the average 14-year-old is applying for a job via LinkedIn.
And, no, I'm not kidding. LinkedIn has lowered its age of usage to 14 as part of the privacy updates.
It's all about the money. The "University Pages" are clearly an attempt to get more said universities to advertise to 14-18 year olds.
Great. And now, high school freshman can increase popularity contests by playing with LinkedIn's crack cocaine of endorsements.
I now have a poll up. Feel free to vote.
And, Twitter's not in the mix yet. But stay tuned.
A likely-overvalued IPO will mean, as with Fraudbook, the need for more revenue streams. That means more ads, or more marketing of Twitter. Plus, with using Twitter as my log-in for Disqus since, per a friend of mine, OpenID has sadly fallen by the wayside, means I'm getting all sorts of commercial spam tweets. I've just been blocking them so far, but I'm soon going to start reporting them as spam.
And, speak of the devil, three days after I write this, LinkedIn spams me on Twitter. And, I reported you as spam, I didn't just block you.
Oct. 24, 2013: LinkedIn's latest spamminess? This idea of intruding into your personal email flow.
===
Per the first comment below, re LinkedIn, I become part of the solution and avoid remaining a passive part of the problem by refusing to accept more endorsements and refusing to pass them out. As a LinkedIn account is semi-de rigeur with many larger companies, at least, I'm not going to delete my account. But I'm not going to expand it any further. Like Facebook, I think we should also be wary about how much personal information we put on LinkedIn.
And, so I have just done.
===
Actually, Twitter, with its laughably wrong suggestions on whom to "follow" (Barack Obama? When I know the Green Party has to have a Twitter account? Katy Perry? When I am not even sure what she's been in? Oops, she's not even an actress.) Seriously. Twitter has never suggested the St. Louis Cardinals' feed, or an individual Cardinal player. It's never suggested, besides the Green Party, say, Dennis Kucinich.
And, doorknob help us when it launches its IPO.
And speaking of that devil, it just took the lid off that IPO.
#TxDOT bribery? - we don't do urban roads, we don't need machines!
The folks at the Texas Department of Transportation claim that they've got taxpayer interests in mind with plans to auction off as much as 6,000 pieces of equipment.
And, just in time for the meeting tomorrow of the Texas Transportation Commission!
Yeah, the road-dump idea is just being discussed, but I'm sure a "spoonful of sugar" would be to offer cities involved a right of first refusal or something on any auctioned-off machines.
In fact, this story about Permian Basin leaders opposing the road-dump plan kind of confirms that's a possibility:
Showing how ridiculous the plan is, in Waco, for example, TxDOT wants to "abandon" U.S. 84 where it runs through Waco as Waco Drive. I originally thought, before hearing details, that this proposal was only about loops and spurs, like Loop 12 in Dallas, or Spur 491 in Waco, not through routes,
This is 10-cents-on-the-dollar cheap, folks.
And, it's another way in which state-level GOP wingnuts will try to continue to claim that they provide government without raising taxes.
Noooo, they just raise fees instead, where they can, and dump stuff on the local and county level where they can't.
Meanwhile, there's the flip side of the coin, with TxDOT wanting to convert more and more farm-to-market roads to gravel. Its starter plan was 83 miles of road in six counties in South and West Texas to gravel. However, state Sen. Carlos Uresti says he has heard the agency has 400 road miles in its target. And there's this:
"We owe it to the taxpayers to get the best value we can," said TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson. "When we have 16,000 vehicles, we should ask the question, 'Do we need all of those?'"Er, isn't this instead likely to be connected to the agency's push to dump maintenance responsibilities for a bunch of state-signed highways in major metropolitan areas on the respective cities or counties?
And, just in time for the meeting tomorrow of the Texas Transportation Commission!
Yeah, the road-dump idea is just being discussed, but I'm sure a "spoonful of sugar" would be to offer cities involved a right of first refusal or something on any auctioned-off machines.
In fact, this story about Permian Basin leaders opposing the road-dump plan kind of confirms that's a possibility:
Ector County Judge Susan Redford, who called the proposal “an extra kick in the teeth for counties in West Texas,” said the county builds roads more cheaply than TxDOT, and it lacks the equipment it would need to maintain the state roads.Connect those dots, folks!
Showing how ridiculous the plan is, in Waco, for example, TxDOT wants to "abandon" U.S. 84 where it runs through Waco as Waco Drive. I originally thought, before hearing details, that this proposal was only about loops and spurs, like Loop 12 in Dallas, or Spur 491 in Waco, not through routes,
This is 10-cents-on-the-dollar cheap, folks.
And, it's another way in which state-level GOP wingnuts will try to continue to claim that they provide government without raising taxes.
Noooo, they just raise fees instead, where they can, and dump stuff on the local and county level where they can't.
Meanwhile, there's the flip side of the coin, with TxDOT wanting to convert more and more farm-to-market roads to gravel. Its starter plan was 83 miles of road in six counties in South and West Texas to gravel. However, state Sen. Carlos Uresti says he has heard the agency has 400 road miles in its target. And there's this:
Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke met with TxDOT officials in August to address questions rural Texans have regarding the conversion of the roads hardest hit by oil and gas exploration.On the other hand, all you folks like the president of the Farm Bureau who continue to vote for GOP government on the cheap, of the cheap, by the cheap and for the cheap, you've got nowhere to look but yourselves for why this is happening.
As a result of that meeting with Farm Bureau and concerns expressed by others, TxDOT has pledged to work closer with stakeholders with plans to hear their concerns in public meetings in the affected counties.
Also, in a response via letter to Farm Bureau, TxDOT said they will restore converted roads to their original construction “as soon as possible.” TxDOT qualified “as soon as possible,” however, as contingent on the reduction of energy-sector activity on FM roads and provided that “sufficient additional funding” is obtained.
In other words, don’t hold your breath.
September 21, 2013
Will the next black Texas Democrat to run statewide please stand up?
After all, we haven't had one since former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk challenged John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate in 2002.
Hell, even counting Kirk, in the last 20 years, there's been more black Republicans run for (and win) statewide races with Wallace Jefferson and Dale Wainwright getting elected to the Texas Supreme Court. And, let's not forget the GOP's Bow Tie, Michael Williams, elected to the Railroad Commission way back in 2000.
Per the Austin American-Statesman, you have to go back to 1990 to find the one black Democrat elected to statewide office, and within the judicial branch, the Court of Criminal Appeals is certainly a cut below the Supreme Court. And, interestingly, the story focuses more on Hispanic nominations and elections within both parties than on African Americans.
What brings this to mind is PDiddie's post looking at downballot statewide races in 2014 and Democratic chances. He mentions prominent black Democratic state senators Royce West and Rodney Ellis and wonders if either of them will finally bite the bullet. (Eye on Williamson asked the same question earlier this summer.)
I commented there, in essence: Not a chance.
Here's an expanded version of my thoughts.
Neither Royce West nor Rodney Ellis will make any fricking leap. As I said on my updated post about blue-state Tejas and Hispanic demographics, talking about black Democrats, who besides Ron Kirk has run for a statewide office? In the last decade, the GOP has had more blacks running statewide, in the person of Wallace Jefferson. Beyond that, I said black state senators like their little patronage and back-home ring-kissing. Unless it's the surest of things, and the statewide office is high up the scale, AND it's not in a senate re-election year for their seats ...
Ain't.Gonna.Happen. Period and end of story.
And, the re-election year problem rules out West, anyway.
Besides, with Royce, I believe that somewhere, some of that ring-kissing includes some tenuous connection to John Wylie Price and his obstruction of the Dallas Inland Port in south Dallas/south burbs. I hadn't heard anything specific before I left, and Jim Schutze at the Observer's never fingered Royce (who's too skilled to get directly entangled with JWP), but still. For more on JWP, go here on my blog.
Even if that's not true, no, Royce West ain't never running for a statewide office. I don't know as much about Rodney Ellis, but I suspect the same will be true for him.
Beyond building up urban black power satrapies by playing off the prestige of their part-time Senate jobs while doing an occasional actual solid for their constituencies (like West getting the state to require police departments to file annual racial profile reports on all traffic stops and on all arrests from them), and not wanting to give them up, I'm not sure what else the issue is.
Maybe some statewide jobs, like ag secretary or land office commissioner, seem too rural-white to be desirable. Maybe the Railroad Commission seems to require too many white connections in the oil biz. (That's even as West, at least, shows ability and desire to work across ethnic and party lines.) What about comptroller? AG? Lite guv? Governor? Senate?
Of course, since Kirk resigned as Dallas mayor in 2002, followed by Lee Brown being term-limited in Houston in 2004, none of Texas' four largest cities has been led by an African-American, and only San Antonio, in Julian Castro, has a minority mayor at all.
Oh, and just to be on the safe side, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sheila Jackson Lee ain't never running for the Senate, neither.
In short, hell may not quite be frozen over, but it will certainly be off-season before a black Democrat runs statewide again.
Or, if not hell cooling off, let's loop this post back on its own beginning:
A black Democrat will run for statewide office in Texas about the time Michael Williams stops wearing his bow tie. (Or Clayton Williams starts wearing one.)
===
Update: Per PDiddie's comment, no disparagement was meant of those who have made the leap, or at least the attempt, and didn't succeed. In part, this is about Democrats of all ethnicities developing more of a "bench" for state-level offices. On judicial positions above the district level, it's also about telling people more what's at stake. And, it's about blacks perhaps realizing that some of those statewide offices aren't "bad" ones. There's still black farmers and ranchers in rural east and central Texas, for example.
And, although blacks and Hispanics don't generally, and certainly not at the Democratic officeholder level, see themselves in "competition," there are demographic issues at stake. The large Hispanic migration and internal growth of the last decade or so, combined with at least some of the largely white migration to Texas from other states being Democratic means that African-Americans have become a smaller portion of the Democratic pool than before.
===
Update 2: PDiddie notes there's still no announced Democratic competition for Cornyn, but that speculation grows that he might be primaried from the tea party right. Would one of the Three Blind Mice challenging Dudley Dewless for Lite Guv move over to that race? If that would happen, I'd actually bet on Patrick being most likely to leap.
Hell, even counting Kirk, in the last 20 years, there's been more black Republicans run for (and win) statewide races with Wallace Jefferson and Dale Wainwright getting elected to the Texas Supreme Court. And, let's not forget the GOP's Bow Tie, Michael Williams, elected to the Railroad Commission way back in 2000.
Per the Austin American-Statesman, you have to go back to 1990 to find the one black Democrat elected to statewide office, and within the judicial branch, the Court of Criminal Appeals is certainly a cut below the Supreme Court. And, interestingly, the story focuses more on Hispanic nominations and elections within both parties than on African Americans.
What brings this to mind is PDiddie's post looking at downballot statewide races in 2014 and Democratic chances. He mentions prominent black Democratic state senators Royce West and Rodney Ellis and wonders if either of them will finally bite the bullet. (Eye on Williamson asked the same question earlier this summer.)
I commented there, in essence: Not a chance.
Here's an expanded version of my thoughts.
Neither Royce West nor Rodney Ellis will make any fricking leap. As I said on my updated post about blue-state Tejas and Hispanic demographics, talking about black Democrats, who besides Ron Kirk has run for a statewide office? In the last decade, the GOP has had more blacks running statewide, in the person of Wallace Jefferson. Beyond that, I said black state senators like their little patronage and back-home ring-kissing. Unless it's the surest of things, and the statewide office is high up the scale, AND it's not in a senate re-election year for their seats ...
Ain't.Gonna.Happen. Period and end of story.
And, the re-election year problem rules out West, anyway.
Besides, with Royce, I believe that somewhere, some of that ring-kissing includes some tenuous connection to John Wylie Price and his obstruction of the Dallas Inland Port in south Dallas/south burbs. I hadn't heard anything specific before I left, and Jim Schutze at the Observer's never fingered Royce (who's too skilled to get directly entangled with JWP), but still. For more on JWP, go here on my blog.
Even if that's not true, no, Royce West ain't never running for a statewide office. I don't know as much about Rodney Ellis, but I suspect the same will be true for him.
Beyond building up urban black power satrapies by playing off the prestige of their part-time Senate jobs while doing an occasional actual solid for their constituencies (like West getting the state to require police departments to file annual racial profile reports on all traffic stops and on all arrests from them), and not wanting to give them up, I'm not sure what else the issue is.
Maybe some statewide jobs, like ag secretary or land office commissioner, seem too rural-white to be desirable. Maybe the Railroad Commission seems to require too many white connections in the oil biz. (That's even as West, at least, shows ability and desire to work across ethnic and party lines.) What about comptroller? AG? Lite guv? Governor? Senate?
Of course, since Kirk resigned as Dallas mayor in 2002, followed by Lee Brown being term-limited in Houston in 2004, none of Texas' four largest cities has been led by an African-American, and only San Antonio, in Julian Castro, has a minority mayor at all.
Oh, and just to be on the safe side, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sheila Jackson Lee ain't never running for the Senate, neither.
In short, hell may not quite be frozen over, but it will certainly be off-season before a black Democrat runs statewide again.
Or, if not hell cooling off, let's loop this post back on its own beginning:
A black Democrat will run for statewide office in Texas about the time Michael Williams stops wearing his bow tie. (Or Clayton Williams starts wearing one.)
===
Update: Per PDiddie's comment, no disparagement was meant of those who have made the leap, or at least the attempt, and didn't succeed. In part, this is about Democrats of all ethnicities developing more of a "bench" for state-level offices. On judicial positions above the district level, it's also about telling people more what's at stake. And, it's about blacks perhaps realizing that some of those statewide offices aren't "bad" ones. There's still black farmers and ranchers in rural east and central Texas, for example.
And, although blacks and Hispanics don't generally, and certainly not at the Democratic officeholder level, see themselves in "competition," there are demographic issues at stake. The large Hispanic migration and internal growth of the last decade or so, combined with at least some of the largely white migration to Texas from other states being Democratic means that African-Americans have become a smaller portion of the Democratic pool than before.
===
Update 2: PDiddie notes there's still no announced Democratic competition for Cornyn, but that speculation grows that he might be primaried from the tea party right. Would one of the Three Blind Mice challenging Dudley Dewless for Lite Guv move over to that race? If that would happen, I'd actually bet on Patrick being most likely to leap.
September 20, 2013
Chimerism causes problems for souls, life forces and other metaphysics
I had originally titled this post, pre-publication, as "How many individuals are inside each of us?" But, as I later expanded it more, I decided I wanted the change, especially when I, like one of the few good things Christopher Hitchens did as a Gnu Atheist, took Eastern as well as Western religion into my gunsights.
That first sentence? That's a rhetorical question, as regular readers of this blog might guess. But, it's one based on hard science, and this time, it's not based on neuroscience or philosophy ideas of Dan Dennett.
Carl Zimmer's latest science piece in the New York Times is simply fascinating. It appears that many more humans than previously recognized are chimeras.
That is, whether you were part of a twin birth or not, you were part of a twin conception, and you either absorbed some cells from your twin or, in many cases, you absorbed the entire twin.
Or, some of us may be a mosaic, just like the mosaic cats you see with two halves of their faces with definitely different colors. In humans, it seems the mosaic patterns don't show up in outward appearance; rather, more insidiously, they may be behind the formation of some cancers.
A mosaic is not a blend of two different persons' DNA, as one twin absorbing another. Per this new piece by Zimmer, rather, a mozaic is when one zygote undergoes mutations early in cell division, before any differentiation, and both (or three or more!) cell versions are preserved. Result? Part of the cells of a heart may be defective, but not all.
As regular readers of this blog know, I'm also an atheist. And, not just an atheist in the way the Dalai Lama is, or some New Agers claim to be. Rather, I'm also an anti-metaphysician.
And, while I'm not a Gnu Atheist, generally poking fun at Christians liberal and fundamentalist alike just because they're Christians, nonetheless, to anybody who believes in an immaterial, metaphysical soul, the fact of chimerism (and other issues of human conception behind it) present stark challenges to your belief. As they do to religious-based prolife stances. (What a Nat Hentoff does with information like this, I have no idea, but he may "elide" it too.)
My answer to the rhetorical question is that there's quite posssibly more than "one" inside of me, if we're talking about DNA. It's also that, Dennett's multiple-drafts theory of consciousness, and ideas of subselves, aside, that there's only one inside of me if we're talking about core personalities. That's because I have only one brain, and only one body to embody the consciousness that's inside me, and zero souls, no matter whether my DNA is from one fertilized zygote or two, representing that consciousness.
This is why that, though my move from conservative-to-fundamentalist Lutheranism to eventually land in atheism, or secular humanism, began over psychological and philosophical issues related to the problem of evil, as well as doing intellectual judo on my religious upbringing from my own religious graduate school training, eventually, science issues also came into mind.
Now, liberal versions of Christianity can find themselves perfectly compatible with, say, evolution. But, any religion that believes in an individualized, metaphysical soul? I simply don't see how you reconcile these scientific findings with your beliefs. And, under "individualized, metaphysical soul" I include the likes of the Dalai Lama and millions of other Buddhists who believe that some individualized life force is reincarnated. If it's an item tied to an individual person and it's metaphysical, it fits the bill here.
Many people claim that the Dalai Lama has said that he'll accept whatever science says.
However, I have read (sorry, I never did bookmark it) that he has elsewhere said that if it is science vs. one of two core Buddhist principles — karma and reincarnation — then science goes and Buddhism stays.
And I don't doubt that its true.
In other words, chimerism simply wrecks the idea of a soul being created at conception, unless one is prepared to stand by an even darker god than John Calvin was. If you're of the ilk of Hobby Lobby, or Catholics, then, in the case of chimeras, you have to quadruple down on the biblical myth of Jacob and Esau in the womb, and believe that one of two fraternal twins, in many births, is a cannibalistic soul-devourer. Or else, it's a physical cannibal with two souls "attached" to what on the outside seems to be one body, with one brain.
Chimerism also has other connections to the abortion debate, especially within the Western monotheistic/monotritheistic tradition.
It's another variant on the old problem of evil. How can a deity purportedly both all-powerful and all-good let human reproduction be such a minefield of problems? Beyond all the chimeras (which, to be most blunt, from the fundamentalist point of view, must be considered versions of tiny infant cannibalism) to the fact that as many as one in four, maybe even one in three, human conceptions is spontaneously aborted, it is not even close to being anything but an evolutionary minimum of success, it would seem. And, aside from the fundamentalist problems I just lined out already, it's also a vast waste of putative divine economy.
If any fundamentalist tries to do the old hand-waving about how god's ways aren't are ways and vice versa, and god is inscrutable, etc., therefore there's surely an ultimate good behind this, I answer twice.
The first is that a god who is all-powerful and all-good not only can but morally should make his plans scrutable to any sentient beings he creates. Therefore, this is just the problem of evil squred.
Second is that said god is illogical, and unless one wants to be Martin Luther and talk about "that whore, reason," not all-good and therefore self-refuting.
To any fundamentalist who says "original sin," I reply three ways.
First and second, the two answers above.
Third, that you believe in a monster who isn't even close to all-good. (And, yes, like Ken Ham, some Xns actually will attribute the cause of anything wrong in our world to original sin.)
And, speaking of "souls," maybe chimerism explains why identical twins aren't so identical, even in their brains. (Of course, this would require parental cells/DNA, or else a third, fraternal twin.)
That first sentence? That's a rhetorical question, as regular readers of this blog might guess. But, it's one based on hard science, and this time, it's not based on neuroscience or philosophy ideas of Dan Dennett.
Carl Zimmer's latest science piece in the New York Times is simply fascinating. It appears that many more humans than previously recognized are chimeras.
That is, whether you were part of a twin birth or not, you were part of a twin conception, and you either absorbed some cells from your twin or, in many cases, you absorbed the entire twin.
Or, some of us may be a mosaic, just like the mosaic cats you see with two halves of their faces with definitely different colors. In humans, it seems the mosaic patterns don't show up in outward appearance; rather, more insidiously, they may be behind the formation of some cancers.
A mosaic is not a blend of two different persons' DNA, as one twin absorbing another. Per this new piece by Zimmer, rather, a mozaic is when one zygote undergoes mutations early in cell division, before any differentiation, and both (or three or more!) cell versions are preserved. Result? Part of the cells of a heart may be defective, but not all.
As regular readers of this blog know, I'm also an atheist. And, not just an atheist in the way the Dalai Lama is, or some New Agers claim to be. Rather, I'm also an anti-metaphysician.
And, while I'm not a Gnu Atheist, generally poking fun at Christians liberal and fundamentalist alike just because they're Christians, nonetheless, to anybody who believes in an immaterial, metaphysical soul, the fact of chimerism (and other issues of human conception behind it) present stark challenges to your belief. As they do to religious-based prolife stances. (What a Nat Hentoff does with information like this, I have no idea, but he may "elide" it too.)
My answer to the rhetorical question is that there's quite posssibly more than "one" inside of me, if we're talking about DNA. It's also that, Dennett's multiple-drafts theory of consciousness, and ideas of subselves, aside, that there's only one inside of me if we're talking about core personalities. That's because I have only one brain, and only one body to embody the consciousness that's inside me, and zero souls, no matter whether my DNA is from one fertilized zygote or two, representing that consciousness.
This is why that, though my move from conservative-to-fundamentalist Lutheranism to eventually land in atheism, or secular humanism, began over psychological and philosophical issues related to the problem of evil, as well as doing intellectual judo on my religious upbringing from my own religious graduate school training, eventually, science issues also came into mind.
Now, liberal versions of Christianity can find themselves perfectly compatible with, say, evolution. But, any religion that believes in an individualized, metaphysical soul? I simply don't see how you reconcile these scientific findings with your beliefs. And, under "individualized, metaphysical soul" I include the likes of the Dalai Lama and millions of other Buddhists who believe that some individualized life force is reincarnated. If it's an item tied to an individual person and it's metaphysical, it fits the bill here.
Many people claim that the Dalai Lama has said that he'll accept whatever science says.
However, I have read (sorry, I never did bookmark it) that he has elsewhere said that if it is science vs. one of two core Buddhist principles — karma and reincarnation — then science goes and Buddhism stays.
And I don't doubt that its true.
In other words, chimerism simply wrecks the idea of a soul being created at conception, unless one is prepared to stand by an even darker god than John Calvin was. If you're of the ilk of Hobby Lobby, or Catholics, then, in the case of chimeras, you have to quadruple down on the biblical myth of Jacob and Esau in the womb, and believe that one of two fraternal twins, in many births, is a cannibalistic soul-devourer. Or else, it's a physical cannibal with two souls "attached" to what on the outside seems to be one body, with one brain.
Chimerism also has other connections to the abortion debate, especially within the Western monotheistic/monotritheistic tradition.
It's another variant on the old problem of evil. How can a deity purportedly both all-powerful and all-good let human reproduction be such a minefield of problems? Beyond all the chimeras (which, to be most blunt, from the fundamentalist point of view, must be considered versions of tiny infant cannibalism) to the fact that as many as one in four, maybe even one in three, human conceptions is spontaneously aborted, it is not even close to being anything but an evolutionary minimum of success, it would seem. And, aside from the fundamentalist problems I just lined out already, it's also a vast waste of putative divine economy.
If any fundamentalist tries to do the old hand-waving about how god's ways aren't are ways and vice versa, and god is inscrutable, etc., therefore there's surely an ultimate good behind this, I answer twice.
The first is that a god who is all-powerful and all-good not only can but morally should make his plans scrutable to any sentient beings he creates. Therefore, this is just the problem of evil squred.
Second is that said god is illogical, and unless one wants to be Martin Luther and talk about "that whore, reason," not all-good and therefore self-refuting.
To any fundamentalist who says "original sin," I reply three ways.
First and second, the two answers above.
Third, that you believe in a monster who isn't even close to all-good. (And, yes, like Ken Ham, some Xns actually will attribute the cause of anything wrong in our world to original sin.)
And, speaking of "souls," maybe chimerism explains why identical twins aren't so identical, even in their brains. (Of course, this would require parental cells/DNA, or else a third, fraternal twin.)
Update, May 2, 2021: Fascinating Smithsonian piece here. If you're familiar with what chimeras are, namely a human fetus that has absorbed another in the womb, the discovery that moms can become chimeras from their fetuses is ... fascinating.
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