Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
by Greg Mayer
I’ve just returned from Costa Rica, and hope to regale WEIT readers with further reports, but we’ll begin with a “spot the ____”. This is from Playa Pan Dulce, near the tip of the Osa Peninusla in southwestern Costa Rica.
On May 5, the unconstitutional National Day of Prayer, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) filed suit against the U.S. Congress, the office of the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, and the entire United States of America, arguing that FFRF co-President Dan Barker had illegally been denied his right to offer a secular invocation to the House (guest prayers are often allowed). Part of their announcement:
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison, Wis., district, sponsored Barker to deliver a guest invocation in February of 2015. The chaplain’s office informed Baker’s staff that it requires “guest chaplains” to be ordained and to submit an ordination certificate. Barker, who was a Christian minister for 19 years, retains a valid ordination, which he still uses to perform weddings.
Not only did Barker provide all the required documentation but he also submitted a draft of his remarks after being told he must address a “higher power.” Barker’s proposed remarks stated that there is no power higher than “We, the People of these United States.” Barker also invoked the spirit of founding patriot Thomas Paine, a non-Christian deist who promoted “Common Sense over dogma.”
Conroy [Patrick Conroy the official Chaplain of the House of Representatives], after delaying for months, officially rejected the request in January of 2016, noting in a letter to Pocan that Barker had “announced his atheism publicly” and therefore was not a true “minister of the gospel” eligible for the honor of appearing in front of Congress.
FFRF’s legal complaint documents that nearly 97 percent of House invocations over the past 15 years have been Christian, 2.7 percent have been Jewish and less than half a percent Muslim or Hindu. More than a third of the prayers were delivered by guest chaplains.
This is hilarious in a way, as Barker is indeed a minister of the gospel: he still carries his God Papers, and was deemed “not a true minister” because he’s now a nonbeliever.
This refusal is clearly uconstitutional, both in denying a secularist the right to offer an invocation, and in decreeing that an invocation has to be a prayer to a Higher Power. That privileges religion over nonbelief, a violation of the First Amendment.
Another technical violation of the First Amendment is the very office of the chaplaincy itself, which costs the American taxpayer about $800,000 a year for the House and Senate. In other words, if you’re a nonbelieving American, you’re subsidizing religious activities. You do it for the military, too, since they pay military chaplains, but they’re all religious. Humanist chaplains in the military don’t exist; as the Secular Coalition for America notes:
Currently, the armed services of the United States only allows chaplains who are granted an endorsement by an approved religious organization and who have received a graduate degree in theological or religious studies. This precludes atheists and non-religious from becoming chaplains. This does a tremendous disservice to the members of the armed services of this country.
If the courts followed the law, they’d have to allow not only secular chaplains in the military, but secular invocations (or, better yet, no invocations) in Congress. They can, after all, do without this stuff. The Constitutional Convention in 1787 managed to draw up our founding principles without any prayers, although Benjamin Franklin, then 81 years old, asked for them.
Here’s the FFRF’s lawsuit; click on the screenshot below to go to the pdf:
This is getting depressingly tedious, and I’m starting to think that “TSA” stands for “Terrorist: Squeeze his Ass.” With wallet, belt, keys, change, and all other things removed from my clothing, I still set off the detector in the See-You-Naked Machine, and the problematic area was the same as always: a yellow patch on my right buttock (or left; I can’t tell from the diagram). That earned me a full patdown, this time with the agent running his hands inside my waistband as well as groping both buttocks (“with the back of my hands”—does that make it better?) and running his hands inside my thighs from the knees to the groin. And they swabbed my hands for explosives. Of course they found nothing.
Now it’s 4:25 in the morning (I have a 6 a.m. flight) and, after buying a “blueberry” muffin and a coffee, I discovered that the muffin had exactly ONE blueberry in it. But I nommed it before I could photograph it. Now I will write a few posts and fume at the TSA. For the first time ever, I glared at the agent who was goosing me.
Reader Mark Sturtevant sent us some insect photos, along with his notes (indented). There’s also a new biology word to learn in the description of the nursery spider.
Here is yet another installment of insect pictures from last summer for your readers at WEIT. It seems that this supply might never end, but actually it is winding down though there are plenty more from the Fall and even the Winter and now this summers’ supply is already beginning to grow.
First up is a delicate mayfly. I think this is one of the ‘flat headed mayflies’, and it may belong to the genus Maccaffertium; but I do not rule out Leucrocuta. Note the weird compound eyes that swoop behind the head and the big simple eyes staring upward.
Next is a nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira) that I found under a milkweed leaf. This large spider comes in different colors, as explained here. I showed one of the other varieties a while back, and that too was under a milkweed leaf. This new one demonstrated that these spiders are strongly thigmotactic since it firmly sat on its leaf, desiring to keep a purchase on its substrate even after I held the leaf upside down to take its picture. After a time it would zip to the opposite side of the leaf and cling there instead of dropping to the ground…
… so I simply rotated the leaf back to take more pictures. This little game went back and forth for a while until I felt that I had enough pictures.
Speaking of things found on milkweed, here’s a handsome monarch caterpillar (Danaus plexippus). There were quite a few of these in my favorite meadow late last summer.
Finally, we have a dancing peacock fly (Callopistromyia annulipes) which was shown previously by reader Mike McDowell. If you truly believe, you can see eye of Sauron in its wings. Getting this picture was a bit of an effort. The fly was strutting around on a big dead log, but my attention was initially on a couple of jewel wasps that were also patrolling the log. They refused to cooperate for a picture —always flying off the moment I drew my camera near them and then coming back —but this little fly stuck around, watching me closely while always waving its wings. So I stacked up all my extension tubes and went in close for a picture of it. But as I moved forward to get it into focus, it would walk backward, staying just out of range. I would then withdraw to catch my breath (it was an awkward and exhausting position), and I would try again. Finally, I just lunged forward for a rapid burst of pictures and managed to get two decent ones before it flew off.
Welcome to June! When you read these words, I’ll already be on my way to Boston on the 6 a.m. flight. On this day in 1495, John Cor, a monk, recorded the production of the first known batch of Scotch whisky. And in 1967, the Beatles released their Sergeant Pepper, album; it was while I was listening to it that I had my atheist epiphany.
Notables born on this day include Marilyn Monroe (1926), Pat Boone (1934) and Charlene (1950), whose one big hit, “I’ve never been to me,” (1982) is possibly the worst song of all time. I can remember the moment I first heard it, just as I can remember the moment I learned that John F. Kennedy had been shot. Those who died on this day include Helen Keller (1968). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej gives Hili some wise advice:
Hili: Can this creature sitting over there eat me?A: No, it’s a woodpecker—it’s not interested in cats.Hili: Can I eat it?A: I wouldn’t advise it, it might drum the idea out of your head.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy to, co tam siedzi może mnie zjeść?
Ja: Nie, to jest dzięcioł—on nie interesuje się kotami.
Hili: A czy ja mogę to zjeść?
Meanwhile in Montreal, Anne-Marie’s yard squirrel, “Le Petit Ami”, is resting in the heat:
And lagniappe (from the great site Meanwhile in Canada): Baffroom Cat:
I doubt that I’ll ever make it to Venzuela to see Angel Falls, the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world—3212 feet, or 979 meters: 6 times the height of the Washington Monument. But this video, from the BBC’s Planet Earth, is a decent substitute:
And here’s a longer video, well worth watching. It also shows the plane from which Jimmie Angel first saw the spectacle in 1933. Trying to land on the plateau in 1937, he crashed the plane, but it was recovered by helicopter in 1970 and now sits by the airport in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela.
In line with the end-of-the-day-feel-good policy, here’s a chipmunk caught at the bird feeder, dumping his ballast to make a hasty exit. Look how many seeds it can pack in those pouches!
Poor thing. . .
Before you dismiss this as dubious because it came from the New York Daily News, remember that unsubstantiated accusations against the Catholic Church are dangerous, as they have fancy lawyers, and the story has also been reported by other sources (e.g., Gawker). And this time the Church’s naked venality exposes it for the horrid and insensitive institution it is.
According to both articles, the Church has spent over $2 million dollars hiring lobbyists to fight the passage of the Child Victims Act, which would make it easier for victims of sexual child abuse to get justice from their predators. Among other things, that Act would open a one-year window for people older than 23 to file charges against sexual abusers—something that they can’t do now.
Why on Earth would the Church lobby against an act that protects the victims for which it now shows contrition? Yep, you guessed it:
Gawker:
State records show that the [New York Catholic conference], a group representing the bishops of the state’s eight dioceses, retained lobbyists to work on a number of issues associated with “statute of limitations” and “timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses.”
“We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church,” Catholic Conference spokesman Dennis Poust told the New York Times in 2009.