Let it go, you lost

Dear Bob McDonnell,

If you would stop bending over backwards to commemorate a violent, racist legacy that has been tirelessly whitewashed (yeah, I said it) and romanticized, you wouldn’t have to apologize for omitting any related mention of slavery.

You’re welcome.

**

I googled Confederacy links to include in this post, but many of them made me want to vomit, weep, or perhaps vomit while weeping, so I’ll just skip those today.

Staying put

I’m back! I was on vacation for the latter part of May, and although I had an excellent time, I didn’t have much to share in the way of blogging. I spent a few days in Boston, came home long enough to repack, and then made my way to Richmond, Virginia to hang with my friends from undergrad. Stayed there for a long weekend, and then rested my head on my pillow a few times and made my way up to Canada for the wedding of a friend from my time at McGill. If you like the country and are looking for someplace to go, you could do a lot worse than Pembroke, Ontario. I love love love Canada. I didn’t take as many pictures as you might have expected whilst on my adventures, but here are a few snaps from each place:

Boston

Richmond

Pembroke

Please stop laughing

Sadly enough, this article is real, and not something thought up by the good folks over at The Onion. That’s right, folks: more Liberty University/evolution class silliness, this time brought to you by the Washington Post. Because it wasn’t embarrassing enough when the local Lynchburg paper was doing the reporting. Professor DeWitt, from the earlier article, takes his Advanced Creation Studies class to the Smithsonian, and complains how only one side is presented. Please explain to me how advanced any theory can be that essentially boils down to “A wizard did it.” If I went to Liberty, though, I would definitely take that series of classes. Sounds like an easy A for sure, as long as the words creator, infinite wisdowm, and divine plan figure prominently in all responses to essay questions. The Washington Post article’s subtitle makes me so sad: Creationist Students Take Field Trip to Hotbed of Evolution: The Smithsonian. When your real life would make a suitably humorous Onion headline, it might be time to reevaluate the road that led you to that point.

Things that do not surprise me

I haven’t lived in Lynchburg, VA for six years (man, the years have flown by!), but I haven’t forgotten what it was like to live there, either. Every now and then I catch up with what’s going on there by visiting the web site of the News and Advance, the local newspaper. I was saddened, but in no way surprised to see this article about Liberty University’s position on evolution (hint: not favorable towards). I know a lot of people who I respect and think the world of who do not believe in evolution either (we agree to disagree), but I think that a whole institute of learning should probably know better than to endorse an untestable, untried, unprovable theory based on the an account written when people still believed that offering sacrifices of animals, vegetables, and PEOPLE could appease the gods.
My kind of alma mater, Randolph College, comes out looking infinitely more reasonable here.