The American war against telephone poles

In a short article entitled, “The War on Telephone Poles,” the February 2009 edition of Harper's Magazine includes a fascinating excerpt from an essay by Eula Biss, which was originally titled "Time and Distance Overcome” as it appeared in the Spring issue of Iowa Review. Biss's article is a terrific example of the human tendency to resist long-range change that would substantially improve the community as a whole. As she clearly documents in her essay, many people ferociously opposed the erection of telephone poles back in the 1880’s. Whatever their stated reasons (aesthetics and defense of private property were often argued), the real reasons for resisting telephone poles were timeless: fear of change combined with a warped sense of the importance the individual in relation to his or her community. The Biss essay reminds us that Americans have long been quite capable of harpooning critical community-building endeavors in the name of individual freedom. We don’t fight telephone poles anymore, but this destructive tendency is one we still see in modern day America. Only a small bit of Biss's essay is available online. The basic idea presented by her essay is that in the 1880s, numerous people (including elected officials and newspapers) ferociously opposed the erection of telephone poles. They argued that telephone poles were ugly. They characterized telephones to be considered playthings of the rich.

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I ask; will the apologists answer?

Following from this post, which describes questions assembled by apparent atheist-to-theist convert Lee Strobel, posed to Hemant Mehta (and destroyed by Greta Christina and Ebonmuse) I decided I'd ask one or two questions of my own of theologists/apologists. Obviously I have my own thoughts on these questions but I really want to see answers from believers on these matters (even from non-believers who are playing Devil's Advocate!). Also, I realise my questions may be in some ways incomplete or even naive, both to theists and non-theists alike, however the following are what occurred to me after reading Strobel's questions (and the ensuing dismemberment of them), and I present them more or less how they appeared in my mind. Without further ado, let us begin.

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Strobel asks; atheists answer and ask “is that the best you’ve got?”

Two of my favourite heathens: Ebonmuse and Greta Christina recently answered what were assumed (before they were read) to be atheist-stumping questions, assembled by some bloke called Lee Strobel. The questions, summarised, were of this calibre: (1) Assuming that events of Jesus' life are accepted historical facts, please provide a naturalistic explanation of the events following the crucifixion. (2) The universe is remarkably fine-tuned for life, doesn't this suggest involvement by a higher entity? (3) Explain how something can come from nothing. (4) Do you ever doubt your atheism? (5) Can we trust our minds to be relaying to us an accurate picture of the universe? Both Greta's and Ebonmuses's responses, while more or less echoing my own thoughts on each topic, are of a succintness and calibre that for now escapes me

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States don’t have to wait for stimulus payments

What with the Congress mulling over plans for stimulating the American economy, there is an even more critical role to be played by the states in delivering aid to those hardest hit by our current economic crisis. States are where the tires hit the road, and states can act much more efficiently and quickly to meet the specific demands of their citizens. Even after the states have taken action, Congress can support these actions with direct funding and augment the strained budgets the states face with declining tax revenues in our recessionary economy. I’ll use an example from Missouri. We have just elected a Democratic Governor after four years of a GOP Governor who spent his time giving tax breaks and favors to corporations and contributors and left the State of Missouri with a budget shortfall of over $300 million. We have a GOP lead legislature in both chambers of our bicameral legislature. So far, everyone has promised “bi-partisanship” and all are looking at ways to make up the differences in funding because Missouri, like all states, has to have a balanced budget. Regardless of responsibility for why revenues are down, the Governor apparently will have to cut the budget in the current fiscal year to make ends meet. I say apparently because of that pesky requirement we balance or budget each and every year. So how does a state government fully fund priorities when immediate cash revenues keep that from being done? Here’s how . . .

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DI is still under construction, but now there’s artwork in our header

Although more work remains to be done, DI is making progress on its site reconstruction, as you can see. Many of our navigation features are now functional and the site mostly "works." Tonight, "Alistair" of Solostream (the company that created WP-Vybe, the WordPress template I'm using) helped me figure out what I had been doing wrong, thereby enabling the artwork to pop into the header. That artwork really helped to class the joint up, I'd say. I do want to mention that Solostream is a terrific company that provides first rate support. They offer several "magazine" style templates for WordPress websites, and their prices are incredibly reasonable. Check out Solostream's website for details and tutorials. I'll end with a bit of trivia: the "dangerous intersection" you can see in the header is a real-life intersection located at 8th and Cerre, downtown St. Louis, just south of the baseball stadium.

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