Accidental Blogger
A general interest blog
Category: Educational, Cultural & Social Matters
-
Stop the presses: a physician just admitted that he believes in God! At least, according to CNN that’s a publishable story. Francis Collins, "Why this scientist believes in God." His argument boils down to "I believe in God because I want to believe in God; it’s a matter of faith, to which reason is (merely)…
-
Peter Stark, a US congressman from Freemont, California since 1973 has done the unthinkable. He has publicly declared his non-belief in a Supreme Being. His "courageous" announcement has caused much rejoicing among atheists, secularists and other assorted godless groups. Until Stark "came out," the highest ranking public official to identify him/ herself as a "non-theist" …
-
An update on what’s happening with the School District Saga: Currently, Judge Wettick of the Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County, PA denied a motion for a protective order moved by the Upper St.Clair School District and the School Board majority (BM).(newspaper article link) The BM were trying to conceal the facts behind the IB…
-
Although a large country, India has just one time zone and no Daylight Savings. Time is always the same in all parts of the country 365 days a year – Indian Standard Time or IST. Officially, IST is like EST, CST or PST as they apply to American time zones. But in common Indian parlance,…
-
Iran is much in the news these days. Most of the US media coverage of Iran is concerned with Islamic extremism, the nascent nuclear program that has the Bush administration on a war footing, Iran’s meddling in Iraqi affairs and of course, the theatrics of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Iran is a large country…
-
So says a Texas lawmaker. While Kansas has cried uncle and joined the rational world after a wild spree into the realm of the befuddled, one Texas state representative would like to drag our state into the never-never land of creationism and fixed earth theory. Warren Chisum, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee of the…
-
China’s booming economy has made its citizens dizzy at the prospect of striking it rich. The Chinese can barely wait to get their share of lucrative deals. Gone is the communist era austerity – people are unashamedly pursuing wealth. This year particularly, Chinese optimism is at an all time high in anticipation of the coming…
-
After writing a slightly snide comment about the mushiness of Valentine’s Day yesterday, I thought of making amends today. Although my husband and I do not celebrate the occasion, many of my dear women friends (and sometimes, my kids) send me heart warming V-Day greetings in one form or the other. Most come in as…
-
An apt story for Valentine’s Day. Some have wondered if the Neolithic skeletons discovered in Valdaro, Italy belonged to a pair of passionate, star-crossed lovers entwined in death. Others see mortal enemies in a death grip. Whoever they were, they have been immortalized – locked in a petrified embrace for some 5000 – 6000 years. …
-
An interesting report from Chris Newmarker of the Associated Press about a little known middle eastern community about whom I knew nothing. (Photo shows a Mandaean at worship) Among the casualties of the Iraq war is a little-known religious faith called Mandaeanism that has survived roughly two millennia and whose…
-
This BBC article postulates the interesting possibility that high-tech proliferation extends into religious practices in India . "A growing trend is for people to go online to get their daily dose of religion.Religion is very important to most Indians, and the country is dotted with temples and religious shrines.But increasingly, many young Indians are expressing…
-
We all joke about our passport and driver’s license pictures. Fortunately, most of us are spared the humiliation of posing for a police mug shot. The recent arrest of astronaut, Lisa Nowak and the story of the tawdry and tragic love triangle at NASA has caught the attention of the entire nation. People are wondering…
-
The stream of comments emerging from the NYT’s story and blog post about Sen. Joseph Biden’s “Oops!,” his bathetically racist remarks about Sen. Barack Obama, includes just a few tributary themes. Some commentators wish the media would “get over it” and report real news, others note Biden’s chronic “foot in mouth” condition, others figure he…
-
On Sunday afternoon on C-Span’s book TV, I heard author Chris Hedges discuss his book, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” . He listed the inroads the Christian right has made into various national institutions. The far right social agenda was familiar – anti-women, anti-gay, anti-science, xenophobic. But what really got…
-
An enjoyable article in the Economist (subscription link – see file below). Will try to have a proper post later. "SIR ISAIAH BERLIN, a Latvian-born Oxford philosopher who died in 1997, may well have ranked among the greatest conversationalists who ever lived. According to Robert Darnton, a Princeton historian, Berlin’s friends would “watch him as…
Accidental Blogger 