In D*g We Trust!

January 16, 2015 • 3:30 pm

Another elebenty gazillion readers sent me links to this story, which just begs to be told. As both CNN and the BBC report, there was a big error made when a Florida sheriff ordered carpeting for his office. From CNN:

A Florida sheriff’s office is sending back some official rugs after an embarrassing typo in them put the rug company in the doghouse.

The large green rugs with the black and yellow Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office logo included the phrase “In Dog We Trust” within one of its crests.

It was supposed to read “In God We Trust.” A deputy standing in the lobby spotted the error on Wednesday,according to CNN affiliate WFTS.

The Sheriff’s Office told WFTS that rug manufacturer, American Floor Mats, made the “In Dog We Trust” error. The company will replace them.

Here’s what the flubbed carpet looked like:

150115014036-florida-dog-we-trust-super-169

150114210519-sheriffs-carpet-in-dog-we-trust-large-169

This, of course, is quadruply offensive.  It shows a religious slogan in a public office (probably not illegal given that the phrase, with G*d, is the official motto of the United States), it is an egregious error that would anger the faithful, and it’s a waste of public money to order such a custom carpet. Regular readers can figure out the fourth problem.

h/t: JSP

Are the French hate-speech laws hypocritical?

January 16, 2015 • 1:20 pm

Short answer: yes.  It’s forbidden in France to engage in “hate speech,” which includes anti-Semitic remarks. Denial of the Holocaust is a crime across much of Europe, including France and Germany. This week the odious French comedian Dieudonné was arrested for saying that he felt not like Charlie Hebdo, but like “Charlie Coulibaly,” a reference to jihadist gunman Amédy Coulibaly who killed four people in a kosher grocery store. Dieudonné is a notorious anti-Semite, who performs a kind of Nazi salute during his performances and whose shows have been banned by the French government.

Should he have been arrested or censored? Nope. It’s hypocritical to prohibit making fun of some religionists but allowing some (as did Charlie Hebdo) to make fun of others. Yes, anti-Semitism, which is a criticism not of Judaism but of Jews, differs from simple criticism of Islam (the goal of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons), but too bad. It’s too hard to make that distinction when it comes to “hate speech,” for criticism of religion is often taken as criticism of believers. And, as Christopher Hitchens once said, denial of the Holocaust forces us to re-examine precisely what the hard evidence for the Holocaust is, and so even if it’s seen as anti-Semitic it should not be banned. I respect the hurt feelings of Jews no more than I respect the hurt feelings of Muslims.

I am a hard-liner when it comes to free speech: I think that no speech should be banned or criminalized save speech meant to incite imminent violence.  And I think Europe needs to truly embrace its democratic aspirations by decriminalizing “hate speech.” Yes, I’m aware that those laws come from a traumatic past and a sensitivity to newly-arriving cultural minorities. But it’s time to deep-six the hypocrisy that pervades the speech laws of Europe.

I am saying this because, though I thought my views were obvious, I’ve received several snarky emails this week from people who tell me that I’m a hypocrite because, as a secular Jew, I must surely agree with the French laws against anti-Semitic speech and yet defend the right to criticize Islam. One person, for example, sent me this cartoon:

jLkgar

And I also got this email, requesting that I “comment” but actually implicitly calling me out for hypocrisy:

Hi Prof Coyne

Thank you for reading this email. Can you comment on this article, in light of the recent discussions on free speech?
Thank you.
[name redacted]
I don’t know where these people are coming from, but they surely aren’t regulars at this site, and they’re making unwarranted assumptions that all Jews will defend “hate speech laws” protecting Jews.  I’m not one of those. Let the neo-Nazis have their marches and anger the Jews; let the anti-Semites call me—as they did in junior high school—a “dirty Jew.” Let the media mock Jews and Judaism all they want. I will respond, when necessary, with words—a weapon far more effective than the muzzle.

My New Republic piece on Charlie Hebdo, the Pope, and free speech

January 16, 2015 • 11:40 am

I’ve extensively rewritten and also lengthened the short piece I wrote the other day on Pope Francis’s dumb claim that mocking religion doesn’t count as free speech; it’s essentially a new piece, and has just been published in The New Republic as “Pope Francis is wrong about Charlie Hebdo. We have a right to make fun of religion.”

If you feel so inclined, go read the new piece and give the journal, which has just been revamped, a few clicks. It’s a small price to pay for all my free content!

Boy who wrote bestseller on visiting heaven retracts his claims

January 16, 2015 • 10:43 am

In 2010, a ten-year-old boy, Alex Malarkey (note the name), wrote a book along with his father that described how Alex had gone to heaven after a car accident four years earlier and then came back. The book, originally published by Lifeway and shown below, became a New York Times bestseller along with other “heaven tourism” books like Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo (another young boy) and Proof of Heaven, by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander.  People’s desire to be assured that there really is a wonderful afterlife ensures that these books will earn a lot of dough.

Screen Shot 2015-01-16 at 9.09.58 AM

Here’s the Amazon description, which has not been changed in light of the news that the book is, in fact, a made-up fantasy by Alex:

In 2004, Kevin Malarkey and his six-year-old son, Alex, suffered an horrific car accident. The impact from the crash paralyzed Alex—and medically speaking, it was unlikely that he could survive. “I think that Alex has gone to be with Jesus,” a friend told the stricken dad. But two months later, Alex awoke from a coma with an incredible story to share. Of events at the accident scene and in the hospital while he was unconscious. Of the angels who took him through the gates of heaven itself. Of the unearthly music that sounded just terrible to a six-year-old. And most amazing of all . . . of meeting and talking to Jesus. The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven is the New York Times bestselling true story of an ordinary boy’s most extraordinary journey. As you see heaven and earth through Alex’s eyes, you’ll come away with new insights on miracles, life beyond this world, and the power of a father’s love.

As many readers hastened to inform me, it’s just been reported by the Washington Post, which drew on the Christian site Pulpit and Pen, that young Alex, paralyzed from his accident, has owned up to the story’s being (forgive the pun) complete malarkey. Alex published this retraction in Pulpit and Pen:

“An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven.”

Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.

I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.

I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.

It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.

In Christ,

Alex Malarkey.”

Well, that’s very brave of Alex. But there were in fact warning signs a while back that the book was bogus. In April of last year, Alex’s mom, Beth, wrote a post on her blog Life’s a Journey saying that the book was a fake and her son’s name was being coopted against his will. (I can’t corroborate that.) In fact, as Pulpit and Pen wrote in an update, Thom Raniel, President of Lifeway, almost certainly knew of the scam but did nothing. There was too much money to be earned.

In light of Alex’s letter, the book has been withdrawn from publication (though it’s still on Amazon). As the Post reports:

This evening, Todd Starowitz, public relations director of Tyndale House, told The Washington Post: “Tyndale has decided to take the book and related ancillary products out of print.”

Since Eben Alexander’s book has also been exposed as a likely fraud, that means that two out of the three Heaven Tourism Books have been shown to be fictions. Any bets that Heaven is for Real is for real?

In a burst of Christian honesty, Pulpit and Pen notes, with unintendended irony:

. . . we are publishing this story because Christian publishers and retailers should have known better. They should have had the spiritual discernment, wisdom, compassion, and intestinal fortitude to not sell a book which contains, along with all books like it, deep theological problems. It also doesn’t help that in what is purported to be a “TRUE STORY”  that there are vivid descriptions like which test the limits of how far we are willing to go outside the realm of scripture and accept as having been from God.“The devil’s mouth is funny looking, with only a few moldy teeth. And I’ve never noticed any ears. His body has a human form, with two bony arms and two bony legs. He has no flesh on his body, only some moldy stuff. His robes are torn and dirty. I don’t know about the color of the skin or robes—it’s all just too scary to concentrate on these things!” 

And then closes its piece this way:

The Bible is enough.

The Bible is sufficient.

Christ is enough.

Christ is sufficient.

We don’t need Christian bookstores to sell us books and resources  that tell us otherwise. We pray that Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, other Lifeway executives and all Christian book retailers will take notice of this courageous and Gospel-centered 16 year-old young man, and that everyone reading this will lift him up to the Lord.

Ironic, isn’t it, that that site found the Malarkeys’ book to be dubious but has no problems with the credibility of the Bible itself? For, after all, any rational person reading the Bible might echo Pulpit and Pen by saying, “They should have had the spiritual discernment, wisdom, compassion, and intestinal fortitude to not tout a book which contains, along with all books like it, deep theological problems. It also doesn’t help that in what is purported to be a ‘TRUE STORY’  that there are vivid descriptions like which test the limits of how far we are willing to go . . . ”

Although Alex duped people, he was young and most likely exploited. Now, still a teenager, he has the courage to admit he’s wrong, even though he says he was convinced to do so by scripture. He’s the only one that comes out of this affair looking good—certainly far better than his father and his publishers, who used the boy to make a gazillion dollars.

Holiday snaps: India (noms)

January 16, 2015 • 8:35 am

While I was shopping one day in Delhi, I came across an outdoor “food fest” right off Connaught Place. This is something I’ve never before seen in India, and the offerings were delectable. Unfortunately, I had a big lunch on tap that afternoon, so I forced myself to simply photograph and not eat what you’re about to see. (It was hard!) But here are some of the streeet foods of India—a country that, along with China and France, has one of the world’s three great cuisines.

Identification of the comestibles was done with the help of  Indian friends.

First, a very common street food: roasted sweet potatoes, here served with starfruit. A savory form of chaat (cereal-like snack, see below) is also for sale:

Sweet potatos and starfruit

Channa, or chickpeas, is one of the favorite snacks in India. They can be served curried and whole or, as in these three versions on offer, mashed with spices. Two of these have paneer (Indian cheese):

Channa

Channa 2

Channa 3

Aalo tikka (spicy potatoes):

Aalo tikka (potato cakes)

On the left, dokla, a savory rice-and-chickpea dish often eaten for breakfast. Chaat, spicy crunchy snacks, on the right:

Dokla

Dessert: ghavar, a sweet made with flour, ghee (clarified butter), milk, and sweet spices. I’m not quite sure about this one, though; it may be rice pudding.

Ghevar (sweet)

Kheer (rice pudding with saffron):

Kheer

The multifarious forms of chaat, or savory snack, are favorites of mine. (The Wikipedia article lists the many varieties.) They can be dry, and in that form make a great accompaniment to beer (you can often find them in Indian food stores or even gourmet groceries in the US). Or they can be mixed with onion, tamarind sauce, yogurt, lime juice, and various other spices and condiments, like the famous bhelpuri of Mumbai. Here are some of the dry chaats on offer at the food fair. You can often get custom chaats simply by specifying which of the ingredients below should be mixed. (I can’t identify them all).

Chaat 2

A chaat stall, from which you can order mixed snacks garnished with the wet ingredients on the left:

Chaat 1

Finally, after a big meal there’s no better digestif then paan, a betel leaf wrapped around various ingredients. The sweet paans (meetha paan) offered at this fancy stall are good at refreshing the mouth after some spicy Indian food:

Paan 1

You pop the whole thing into your mouth and chew, getting a fantastic explosion of flavors. If you get a chance to have a sweet paan in the US (it’s possible now that betel leaves can be imported), don’t pass it up. Ingredients include jaggery (palm sugar), date paste, fennel seed, cloves, cardamom, saffron, and a lot of other stuff that I can’t identify in the premade paans below.

Paan 2

Friday: Hili dialogue

January 16, 2015 • 4:31 am

It’s Friday already? How time passes when you’re a geezer in statu nascendi. I have a theory, which is mine, that time seems to pass more quickly when you’re older, because you experience each unit of time relative to all the time you’ve had in your life, and that the fraction decreases with age. I always thought someone should test this by asking people of different ages to judge when a minute (or five minutes) have passed—without counting. According to my theory, the actual time corresponding to a perceived minute should drop with age. That’s an easy experiment, but I don’t think anyone’s done it.

But I digress. In Dobrzyn, Hili is engaged in Serious Business that preempts her duties on the website:

A: Hili—editorial meeting!
Hili: Later: now I have more important things to do.
Paa (1)
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, zebranie redakcyjne.
Hili: Później, teraz mam ważniejsze sprawy.

Lion roars while sleeping

January 15, 2015 • 4:15 pm

Hercules, a rescue lion, makes some pretty fearsome noises while napping. I wonder what he’s dreaming of?

The YouTube info, which is a bit biologically confusing:

Watch a full-grown African Lion Roaring in his sleep. “Hercules” is a rescued Lion that lives at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, and like other lions there, he sometimes dreams of roaring while he is sleeping. Much like dogs do (where they dream of barking or running in their sleep), lions also have vivid dreams, and Hercules is having one heck of a wild dream!