Updates

At my Wordpress site

• Up is down at UD? - more comments on the inanity at UD.
• Crack dealers for Rudy? - a comment on the indictment of Rudy Giuliani's South Carolina campaign manager.
• Is intelligent design science? - comments on some inane postings at UD
• Creationism in Canada - a look at a survey of attitudes toward evolution by Canadians.
• Terrorists celebrated - about "Paul Hill Days" in which Minnesota anti-choice activists celebrate terrorist.
• Dispersal, vicariance and press releases - Ceiba pentandra in the Neotropics and Africa (and how not to write press released).
• Jesus for the Non-Religious (part III) - the third part of my look at Spong's book.
• Fuel and economics - about biofuels and food prices for the poor.
  

Sleeping in the library

One of the strangest phenomena at OU is the way that people sleep in the library. Now, the idea of people falling asleep hunched over a book is pretty normal to me - been there, done that. It's a little bit weird to see, but part of student life. But what's really odd is the way people do it here - the lie down on the couches, put a jacket or something over them, and sleep with the abandon of people at home in their beds.

It takes a great deal of trust for total strangers - after all, when you are that deeply asleep, you're pretty much helpless. I just can't imagine doing such a thing, and even after all this time, it has never ceased to be very strange.

Benny Hinn update

I had never heard of Benny Hinn before he came to Trinidad and talked about the large number of "demons" there (which most people took as an insult directed at the Hindu population). He also went on to praise then-Opposition Leader Patrick Manning. Richard Bartholomew at Salon blogs has some choice quotes from Hinn's TV show:

..."Years ago I was in Trinidad...this man was sitting on the platform and I said... you will be the next Prime Minister and he is till now. I was in his (Manning) office a few months ago... he brought with him a very foolish woman who called herself a prophetess.

"He came to the room with this woman and said "I have a gift for you". So he looked at me, said this is the woman, she has a word for you... I was not happy and when I am not happy people will know it.

"He (Manning) said I want her to pray for you and give her the word, I take her with me everywhere he said (Manning).

"God speaks to me through her. She has been a great blessing to the Government. I'm thinking you foolish man.

"This woman reaches out to touch me and I grab her hand in mid air, 'don't touch me' I said. Shaken, I said Mr Prime Minister, I honour you but I don't know who this woman is...nobody will lay hands on me and I walked out of the room. Whether it is the Prime Minister or President, nobody lays hands on me. I don't know what spirit is in her. Don't let people touch you."

Bartholomew also managed to find some articles from the TT press - notably Sat Maharaj's comments and a Newsday story about Manning's "prophetess".

Anyway, since I was only really aware of Hinn in relation to the nonsense he did in Trinidad, it was interesting to know that he did similar nonsense in Uganda. Only there, he cast demons out of a local pastor, which have now infected a heard of pigs. Looks like people will have to call on a witch doctor to remedy Hinn's work.

The willingness of people to believe in televangelists is both shocking and sad. (H/T Ed Brayton)

On the other hand, if he called Manning a "foolish man" he can't be all bad, right? ;)

American televangelist Benny Hinn has told millions of TV viewers that he thought Prime Minister Patrick Manning to be a "foolish man", after an incident which occurred during his last visit here.

Updates

At my Wordpress site

• The effect of topography, a comment on ecological effects of canyons on vegetation in western central Oklahoma
  
• Teaching creationism, my first comment on DeWolf's Boston Globe OpEd
• Politics and evolution, about support for evolution in the major US political parties
• Holes in the big tent?, my second comment on DeWolf's Boston Globe OpEd
• DeWolf and denialism, my thirdcomment on DeWolf's Boston Globe OpEd (ok, so it was getting abt much)
• Omnivore’s Dilemma, a comment on Pollan's book and the food industry
• Dembski’c ongoing antics, which comments on Dembski's latest argument argument in favour of intelligent design creationism “your ugly, nyaa, nyaa”.

From my other blogs

At my Wordpress site

• The Edge of Evolution, a comment on review about Behe's new work of religious fiction
• Chesterfield and Dover, a comment on the latest school district to consider adding creationism to their biology syllabus
• Travel to the US, which talks about the fears of Trinis (especially Muslim Trinis) travelling to the US after the JFK plot.
• Another nail in the coffin, which talks about the discovery of post-synaptic proteins in sponges (which lack nerved).
• In which I contemplate my own comments, where I do just that.
• More hilarity at UD, which reflects on their attempt to fisk Sean Carroll's review of Behe's book.
• Continuing assault on science education, which looks at the new DI textbook Exploring Evolution.
• Small world, a sort of meta-comment on the US Senate candidacy of Rand Knight, the first ecology PhD to run for the senate.
• The destruction of our shared cultural heritage, which laments the treatments of archaeological sites in Iraq by the Americans.
• Powell's redemption?, which talks about Colin Powell's attempt to redeem himself.
• Really?, which is a comment on an alleged "inductive proof" for ID

and finally

• Jesus for the Non-Religious (part II), which talks a little about Spong's newest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious.
  

Liberal progressive Christianity in Norman, Oklahoma

As Oklahoma goes, Norman is hotbed of liberalism - between the election of Cindy Rosenthal as mayor and the passing of a recycling initiative, we are cutting edge. But as liberal progressive Christianity goes, I was only aware of St. Stephens UMC. However, googling around led me to Dr. Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, president of the Oklahoma Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and host of "Religious Talk", an AM radio talk show. In 2004 Frederick Clarkson featured him in a post entitled Blogging the Christian Left (in which he also features "Pastor Dan", who was then blogging at Faithforward (and now, primarily at Street Prophets, a site I really wish I read more).

I'm rather curious about Prescott - Clarkson reported that he had two blogs: Mainstream Baptist and Christian Democrats - the former appears to be active, the latter hasn't been updated since September 2006. I'm curious about the wider world of progressive Christianity in Norman.

Crossroads

I'm at a bit of a crossroads with respect to what to do with this blog. Somehow or other, I ended up with five separate blogs:
* this one
* my wordpress blog
* my plant news blog
* my fish blog
* and my livejournal
In every case, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but as a result of an experiment at the wordpress blog, all the archives of this blog are now present over there. That would seem like a pretty good argument in favour of shuttering this one...after all, it's pretty much inactive. So why keep it? It isn't for the hordes of loyal readers.

I started the plant news blog for just that purpose - to write about plants in the news. Although I have not updated it in a long time, it's probably the blog with the most potential. The fish blog probably generated the most concentrated posting, but I ran out of steam. The wordpress blog is good for posting about religion, science and politics. The livejournal (which I only created because Carol's blog is now private) is useful for personal stuff, journaling. So what does that leave for this blog? I'm really not sure, but hopefully over the next few weeks I will figure out a purpose for it.