After railing against the use of intelligent design in classrooms, I felt it only fair to offer up an opinion that shows maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a horrible thing after all. In today’s Washington Post, metro columnist Jay Mathews argues that presenting the concept would actually enhance learning. He makes a compelling argument:

Drop in on an average biology class and you will find the same slow, deadening march of memorization that I endured at 15. Why not enliven this with a student debate on contrasting theories? Why not have an intelligent design advocate stop by to be interrogated? Many students, like me, find it hard to understand evolutionary theory, and the scientific method itself, until they are illuminated by contrasting points of view.

When you put it like that, it makes it hard to disagree with, whether you believe the theory is being pushed through by the religious right.

Harry Shearer, the actor/comedian (SPINAL TAP, THE SIMPSONS) on Dan Rather’s fade into the sunset, over on Talking Points Memo:

what other distinguished personage of such lengthy service in the public eye suddenly decides, in the last few years of his career, to change the side of his head on which he parts his hair? That, my friends, is plain weird. Sure, he changed the haircut, opting for the youthful short-and-semi-spiky look, and, after a lot of to-and-froing with the dye bottle, allowed himself to go gray, then white. But all that could have been consistent with the right-side part we’d come to know and….know. Somehow, Dan decided–and you’ll hear from the clips that these are decisions to which he gives long and thoughtful consideration–that all that was not enough, that the twilight of a long life on camera had to be marked with a migratory part. And nobody asked why. Until now.

Okay, yeah, that’s weird.

When I saw this editorial this morning, I literally threw my arms up in gratitude and shouted out loud to my computer screen, “THANK YOU, New York Times.” (As a side note, I should say that talking to one’s computer startles and confuses one’s office mate.)

Here’s what I was so worked up about:

The Bush administration has come under a lot of criticism for its attempts to fob off government propaganda as genuine news reports. Whether federal agencies are purchasing the services of supposedly independent columnists or making videos extolling White House initiatives and then disguising them as TV news reports, that’s wrong. But it is time to acknowledge that the nation’s news organizations have played a large and unappetizing role in deceiving the public.

FINALLY. Finally someone takes a stand and chastizes the media for its role in the whole administration-funded “propaganda” debacle. Whether you believe the government is out to deceive its citizens or not, the fact is that news outlets ultimately make the decision about what to disseminate. And when they choose to present one-sided stories and regurgitate press releases and run VNRs unedited, they deserve some of the flak.

This is so creepy:

Fingerprint food
Sat Mar 12, 2005 06:38 PM GMT

BERLIN (Reuters) – Customers of a German supermarket chain will soon be able to pay for their shopping by placing their finger on a scanner at the check-out, saving up to 40 seconds spent scrabbling for coins or cards, bosses say.

An Edeka store in the southwest German town of Ruelzheim has piloted the technology since November and now the company plans to equip its stores across the region.

“All customers need do is register once with their identity card and bank details, then they can shop straight away,” said store manager Roland Fitterer.

The scanner compares the shopper’s fingerprint with those stored in its database along with account details.

Edeka bosses said they were confident the system could not be abused. The chance of two people having the same fingerprint is about one in 220 million.

Now, I’m all for the convenience of saving time at the grocery store. I’m a big fan of paying with debit card instead of writing a check, and of using the self-check lanes.

But TYING your FINGERPRINT to your BANK ACCOUNT? Are these people insane? Can you imagine what kinds of crime would creep up if you could buy stuff just by swiping your fingers across a scanner? And that’s to say nothing of the privacy implications for such a thing. Lift someone’s fingerprints, access all their personal data and steal their identity…

All I can think about is the scenes in Minority Report where there are cameras scanning your retinas everywhere and marketers bombard you with holographic advertisements as you head wherever you’re going.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of a future doesn’t sound so fun to me.

Jeremy, en fuego:

In other words, I know I’ve unfinished business with Msr. Marcel [Proust], but the sheer effort of trudging once more through the tall grass of l’oubli really pisses me off, because a) I’ve got a reading stack the size of two Emannuel Lewis’s teetering at bedside, b) unlike New York City, Los Angeles isn’t crawling with chain smoking, twenty year-old, brunette French waifs easily impressed by the meager virtue of simply having read Proust, and c) actually, I don’t think there is a “c”; I’m just obsessive about listing things in threes. Currently, though, the appeal to my vanity being made by these new translations just isn’t strong enough to grant them safe passage to the front of the line where Mark Steven Johnson’s adaptation of GHOST RIDER waits treacherously on deck. Am I okay with that? Not really. But I bet some chain smoking, twenty-three year-old, brunette D-Girl working on a competing comic book project is dying to hear all about the DAREDEVIL auteur’s latest, looming travesty. And that, my friends, is… not why I changed coasts, but there’s something to be said for being spared 1,000+ pages of solipsisitc prose. I believe it has something to do with “lowering standards”.