Wednesday, April 14, 2010

DOCTOR DINO, GLEE AND THE BIG BANG

Doctor Dino says the universe was created 6,000 years ago. He’s a Bible guy. I watched him on the local access channel the other night. I think he’s from Tennessee.

Dr. Dino has it all figured out. What about his namesake, the dinosaurs? Well obviously, Noah took only the baby dinosaurs on the ark. Dr. Dino seemed to have an answer for everything (DVDs available). He was exhausting.

I have a lot of Facebook friends who I suspect pretty much agree with Dr. Dino. My relatives are evangelicals. And recently I picked up a whole bunch of new Facebook friends when I joined a group created for alumni from my high school back in Flint from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Many appear happily religious. For the life of me I can’t remember most of them, even when I look back at my ancient high school yearbooks. Still, I’m fascinated by the peeks into others’ lives – and the varieties of religious experience – that Facebook provides.

Last week on Facebook an old friend from the East Coast was complaining of an interminable train ride to New York City with his partner: “Thank God Bill packed cocktails!” Next was a post from my Michigan pastor friend happy that his son had gotten a housekeeping job: “GO GOD!” The pastor says that a lot in his posts. His Facebook friends seem to like it.

Speaking of cheerleaders, last night on TV the cheerleading coach on “Glee” said this:
You may be two of the stupidest teens I've ever encountered. And that's saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to a young Sarah Palin.
Whether or not Sarah Palin legally qualifies as an “idiot,” as Keith Olbermann boasts frequently, the woman certainly has a following. The fawning comments I see on Facebook are a mystery to me. I’ll bet Dr. Dino thinks she is one hot babe. We look at the universe and see different things.

I looked up Dr. Dino’s creation research on his website. It reminded me of my visit to the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico (“The Truth Is Here”).



Lots and lots and lots of words. Throw in bits of obscure science. Or pseudo-science, it really doesn’t matter because who’s going to argue and if someone does there’s nothing better than talking and arguing. Dr. Dino has this sly smile, one that tells the believers that they are in on the truth and that it’s the rest of the world that’s nuts.

The Mormons – that’s my wife’s side of the family – they put Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden in Missouri 6,000 years ago. They know this is true because the Angel Moroni told their prophet, Joseph Smith where to find these golden tablets buried in upstate New York. Smith wrote down all their secrets but the original golden tablets vanished.

I wonder if Dr. Dino thinks this is kooky stuff. Except for the 6,000 years ago part, of course.

Crazy as it is, a 6,000-year-old universe can be easier to picture than reality. I struggled through this book, “Before the Big Bang.” Here’s what the author (Brian Clegg) concluded:
Personally, I find myself in a real quandary. I very much like Turok and Steinhardt’s bouncing brane theory; it has a feeling of elegance that the much-patched and fudged Big Bang plus inflation theory doesn’t. Yet bouncing branes are dependent on the M theory with the baggage and worries about the validity of string theory that it brings with it. It seems whichever way you turn, there is no easy answer when it comes to the earliest moments of the universe.
Unless you go with Doctor Dino.

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Monday, April 5, 2010

EASTER MURDER

In case you are not Facebook friends with our daughter, Kristen, I wanted to share her brief account of our blood-tainted Easter adventures: She wrote:

“I would like an Easter do-over. One that doesn't involve runaway dogs, a hostage situation, and dead Taj Mahal chickens. Long story short, our dogs got out and our new German shepherd mix (just got her 2 weeks ago from Greenhill) killed a neighbor's pet chickens (who had names and lived in a "chicken Taj Mahal" as the lady put it). So in exhange for her dead chickens she was going to keep hostage our golden retriever (Duke, who we've had since before Mason was born) as retribution. It took all day, but we eventually got our dog back... and discovered that we live among some really weird people.”

I went along (packin’, just in case…) to pick up the dog in the pouring rain with my son-in-law. The chicken-distraught folks have a little wholesale nursery operation up Rat Creek Road. Banjo country. To be honest, I didn’t think the people were all that weird. More like old friends from the 60s. Who were really into their (now murdered) chicken friends. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the chicken coffin with their names on it.

You just can’t plan for family holiday fun like this.

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