Crown me!

This morning I had the joy and bliss of going to the dentists' office for the first of two operations to install a crown on my #2 molar. I decided this time to bring my iPod. About two-thirds of the way through the procedure, the nurse said, "What are you rocking out to there?"

"Iron Maiden. I, uh, I guess it's probably a bad idea to be listening to a band named after an instrument of torture right about now, huh?"

"Well, don't you have anything else on there?"

"Sure. Rock, jazz, hip-hop, classical, newage. I could even listen to my Japanese lessons while I'm here, but I doubt I'd remember them after this, don't you?"

"Of course you'd remember them," she said. "You'd have them drilled into you!"

Evolution vs. Insanity

By putting cameras into babies' bedrooms, boffins have been able to determine that even infants are capable of practicing deceit. The capacity to fake cries or laughter in order to get attention emerges as early as six months. This isn't as surprising at it seems to some: children are cause and effect machines, learning about the world by doing something and seeing what happens. This is just one more capability, an interesting one, but hardly shocking.

So you have to admire the fundy headline Children: Sinful By Nature, which is such a weird composition of worldviews that it doesn't even begin to add up. I mean, how can "sin" be "natural?" Doesn't it have a supernatural origin to begin with? And isn't it sad to see the "we're all filthy beggars from birth" attitude expressed in all its ugliness?

Color me perplexed.