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Lawrence Krauss is a pretty smart guy.  He is to dark matter what Columbus is to America.  He has written  books  about  the  origins  of the Universe.  He is well informed on topics both scientific and theological.  So, when he speaks, I listen.

But, I think he’s wrong about this.  He’s saying that religion will be extinct within one generation.  I’m not at all a religious person, I’m probably just  about as much an atheist as Krauss or Dawkins.  I’m not saying it would be a bad thing if religion disappeared, I’m not saying what I think should happen, I’m just saying what I think WILL happen.

Also, even if it were to happen, I don’t think it would change the world that much.  Christian Fundamentalists, if you took their Christian Fundamentalism away, would still be crazy people who want to dictate how other people live their lives, puritanical about sex, and loudly proclaiming something.  Islamic fundamentalists, minus Islam, would not necessarily embrace western styles and give equal rights to women.  They’d find some other justification, but keep on doing the same old shit.

But  I don’t think it will happen.  Sure, science will continue to roll back the curtains that hide the inner workings of the universe from us, and we will see farther and clearer than any generation before.  At least, those of us who pay attention to those  kind of things will.  But, there are still more people who go to church  than watch the  Discovery Channel, and they are not going to be convinced by mere logic.

People like their religion.  Church is a place of social networking.  Also, having something to believe in, illusory as it might be, can make life seem a bit less  complex.

I think it more likely that religion in the future  will continue to morph, and liberalize.  Nobody’s burned any witches (at least not in the west) for  several generations now.  Most religious people are not fundamentalist nut cases.  I think it far more likely that religion will evolve into something  else, but they’ll still call it religion.

If it’s going to go extinct, it will certainly take longer than one generation.

When we left the house this morning, my daughter and I, it was raining a bit.  I considered going back in for an umbrella but we were running a bit late and it wasn’t really rain, just sort of a light drizzle.  More like walking through fog, the rain wasn’t actually falling, it was more like you were walking through it.    I figured I could deal with that.

I dropped her off a bit before 8.  My first class at the Gymnasium (High School) where I teach on Thursdays was at 9:40, and I got there way early, so I stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s.  I don’t care what anybody says.  I like their breakfasts.

I had time enough to get started on a poem but not quite enough inspiration to finish it.  The concept is that in the same way we see farther at  night, when our back is to the  Sun and the sky is dark, so it is with dreams.  When we close our eyes and give up on consciousness, the dreams appear.  They are the stars of our consciousness.

The classes all went fairly well, even the two problematic ones.

After that, it was two hours to my next class, at the German pre-school.  I got on the first bus that came along, figuring it would go the same way as the tram I usually take, but it took a weird turn right off the bat.  It would have got me to a Metro station, but way the hell in a different direction to where I needed to go.

I got off after one stop and started to walk back but right  away, the road crossed a stream and I took a left and went for a walk.  I love this city.  There are places like that every where you look.  They are underused spots, which is both their beauty and their curse.  They are overgrown, and not crowded, but you see a lot of garbage strewn around.  Why in the world is a plastic bag hanging from a tree?  Who does that?  I strolled for about half an hour and there were points were I couldn’t see any sign of the city at all.

It was lovely but I reached a point where I figured I’d better get out and get back on some form of public transport, or two hours wasn’t going to be enough.  So, I did, but I was still in a part of town I didn’t know at all.  It was O.K., I made my class in plenty of time and 3 little kids, who think they are very clever, pummeled me with pillows for an hour.  If they’re learning any English from me at all, I’d be surprised.

Then I picked up Isabel from school and we went home.  The air was still misty.  Nothing had changed.

Happy Bonfire Night, British friends!  Enjoy burning an effigy of a totally innocent man.  Yeah, that’s my theory.  It was a false flag.  James I was in a situation similar to George W. Bush in 2001.  Trying to follow on the heels of a popular leader, and seen by the public as weak and ineffectual, he needed a scapegoat and he needed to look like a man of action.

Also, he wanted to prove he was tough on religious extremists, and sell a lot of his bibles.

He didn’t even have to block an investigation, because this was back before investigations had been invented.

We’ll never be able to prove that now, so King James got away with it.  Or maybe he’s totally innocent, pay no attention to me.

Of course, I am hideously disappointed with the mid-term election results from the U.S.  Me and every other liberal minded person.

On the bright side, Oregon and D.C. voted to legalize pot.  If California gets its shit together, that’s the whole west coast.

I’m glad I had a couple of classes to teach, busy work to keep the depression at bay.  My 1st class canceled, but I didn’t realize until I’d been sitting in his office waiting for 15 minutes.  So, I had lots of time to get to the school where I teach on Wednesdays, two  9th grade classes and one group of 8th graders.  I stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s and headed over.

There was a weird vibe.  The front door was locked, which it isn’t usually.  When I got to the class, there was still a class going on even though I was scheduled to start in 2 minutes – or so I thought, I was getting my Wednesday and Thursday start times mixed up.

I played “Stump the Teacher,” which I think has as much educational value as anything, and it’s fun so it makes the class go easy.

Finished reading “Zanesville” an extremely bizarre book by Kris Saknussem.  Now I have to find  something new on  Kindle, to while away the hours on public transportation.

That’s about it for tonight.  Life goes on.

When people like Ben Stein and Alex Jones say that Barack Obama is a racist president, I have to wonder if they actually know what racism means.  Or,  to put it another way, if they and I are defining racism in the same way.

Because I don’t actually see what they are talking about.  It’s not that we disagree.  Of course we disagree.  I am a liberal and they are rabid right wingers.  It’s that I have no idea what they are talking about.  Has Barack Obama told police officers they should  start shooting white people? Has he accidentally lost approximately 40,000 new voter registration applications and change of address forms, from predominantly black neighborhoods?  Has he put a big sign on the White House lawn that says “Black House now, Bitches.”   No, he has not.

They go nuts and say Michelle Obama said something racist, when it was a mild joke before black people, from a black person, and about black people.  ( She said first, go  out and vote.  You can eat some fried chicken later.”)  See, if a white candidate had said “Go out and vote first.  Then you can stop and celebrate at the Olive Garden on your way home,”  I don’t think there would be any problem.

So, I’ve got three handy guidelines as to when somebody’s being racist or not.

1) You are allowed to make jokes about your own race.

2)  You are not allowed to make jokes about other people’s races.  This is what being politically correct is all about and, as far as that goes, I’m a big advocate of political correctness.  Even though I sometimes call people retards, especially if they are Republican or something.  That may be insensitive and horrible, but it is not racist, because there are white retards and black retards, and lots of little brown and yellow retards.

3)  There is a difference between a bit of friendly banter and vicious racist comments.  Have you seen 40 Year Old Virgin?  It was seriously funny, laugh out loud till you’re crying type funny.  But there were a lot of racist jokes.  Which were also seriously funny, btw.  But that’s where the line is.  If you are making, or laughing at, more racist jokes than that

4 )  Actions speak louder than words.  If you don’t act like a racist,  you get a bit of extra credit the next time you say something stupid.

In short, Alex Jones and Ben Stein can fuck off.

We have a hamster.  We’ve had him for about 3 days now, and the kids like him quite well.  Isabel picks him up and walks around with him quite frequently.  Sam is less demonstrative, but he likes him, too, I think.  I’m not sure if we’ve got him temporarily or permanently.

Correction – Alvin is a Guinea Pig, not a Hamster. My bad.

He belongs to my wife’s sister, and her family.  She’s got three kids, and the oldest is about a week younger than Isabel.  After they got the hamster, a couple of the kids got rashes.  She’s not sure if that was a cause or just a coincidence.  So, they might want Alvin back, they might not.

Alvin.  Well, of course.  There’s not really that much of a difference between chipmunks and hamsters, and if you’re going to name your hamster (isn’t that a silly word: hamster?  It sounds like it should mean somebody who likes ham a lot.) after one of the chipmunks, it might as well be Alvin.  I would be willing to bet that there are not as many hamsters named Simon or Theodore, even though those would be fine names.

Come to think of it, Alvin could be more like a Britney, Janet, or Eleanor.  We don’t know.  But, I’m going to continue using the male pronoun, since his name is Alvin.

Whether he’s with us temporarily or permanently, I’m O.K. with it either way.  He’s harmless enough.  Mostly he likes to just stay inside his little house, and I’m pretty sure that that is a common characteristic of hamsters (and guinea pigs).  Not particularly sociable creatures.

They are sort of like cats, in that way.  And, they’ve got soft, cuddly fur.