Jesse Jackson's Gaff

The key to Barak Obama's campaign is making people believe he represents all Americans, not just black Americans.

As evidenced by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, the greatest threat to Obama's support among white people may be any perceived association with sixties and seventies era "blame white people" civil rights activists.

The most famous example of that kind of public figure has to be Jesse Jackson. Even though his son is Obama's campaign co-chair, you rarely see Obama and Jackson linked in any way.

Recently, Jackson was caught on video criticizing Obama when he thought his microphone was off. Jackson immediately apologized and the Obama camp, including Jackson's son, immediately distanced themselves from Jackson.

My question is: was this real or was it staged?

Certainly, people are sometimes caught saying things they wish they hadn't when they thought the microphone was off, but the timing of Jackson's gaff makes me suspicious.

By now, Jesse Jackson has been attached to a microphone in a television news studio a few hundred times. He knows how it works and it's unlikely that he, all of a sudden, forgot that his lapel microphone picks up everything he says, even whispers.

I have to think that Barak Obama's campaign represents something really significant in Jessie Jackson's life's work. Does that mean he would make himself look bad to benefit Obama? We will probably never know for sure, but if I were Jesse Jackson I'd do it, and do it again if need be.

Plain Speaking and Metaphor

The preacher on television said that some one's heart was "full of the holy spirit". It was beautiful how he said it. You could tell why he's on television and I'm not.

The thing is: what does it mean?

Since religious people deal in the greater mysteries of our existence, they rely pretty heavily on metaphor to try and make sense of things that don't make much sense. The bible itself is full of metaphor in a thousand different varieties.

Metaphor can be a crutch though, and over-used it can get in the way of people understanding what it is we're trying to say instead of illuminating it.

I don't know what "full of the holy spirit" means. Hearts aren't full of the holy spirit, they're full of blood. As far as I know, the holy spirit doesn't actually infest our bodies, and even if it did, since we don't have a really specific idea of what the holy spirit is, how would you know?

In the example from television above, "full of the holy spirit" was a metaphor for someone taking action in the real world based on their religious faith and teaching. If the preacher wants to teach us listeners that this is good to do, then he should have spoken plainly rather than rely on a metaphor like "full of the holy spirit".

Jesus used metaphor, like when he asked peter to be a "fisher of men", but he also spoke very plainly too.

Some men came to Jesus. They said, "Teacher, what should we do if someone hits us on the side of the face?" Jesus said, "Turn your face and offer them the other side to hit as well."

That's pretty plain speaking. Jesus leaves us no question about what he means and "turn the other cheek" became one of Christ's most remarkable and memorable lessons.

It's important for religious people to remember that when we teach about our faith, it's more important to be understood than it is to use flowery code words or phrases and a lot of times, plain speaking is a much better choice than metaphor.

Penn Jillette Doesn't Know About The Weather

The earth is dying and we're killing it. Any reasonable person knows this.

Never mind that scientists can't make an accurate 24-hour weather forecast.

Never mind that anyone who saw the 2000 presidential debates knows that Al Gore is bat-shit crazy.

The logical path is laid out for us, and if we don't follow that path, then we're all gonna die!

At the most recent skeptics convention hosted by The Amazing Randi, Penn Jillette was asked about global warming--to which he replied: "I don't know". It took him about a thousand words to say "I don't know". If you've ever seen his act then you know a thousand words is conservative for Jillette. His normally silent partner's response was maybe five hundred words.

Penn & Teller are among America's greatest thinkers. I say this because I agree with them about half the time. They have a great program on television called "Bullshit" where they expand on just how insane and illogical most of us are.

After the skeptics conference, Newsweek's Sharon Begley wrote an article dismissing Jillette's comments on climate change (in her best Post hoc ergo propter hoc manner) because he dislikes Al Gore. You can read her article here.

In his reply to Begley, Jillette was again terse (only about a thousand words).

The deal is: we don't know as much as we think we know about climate change. We suspect many things, and a lot of them may be accurate, but a lot of it we just can't posit as a scientific fact yet.

Jillette's response was reasonable. He doesn't know. I don't know either. Begley is pretty sure she knows but she doesn't. As a race, we will do our best to rectify the climate change problem, but that doesn't mean we should be sanctimonious about it all, because quite frankly, we don't know.

Watermelon Viagra

Scientists in England or somewhere have made the astonishing discovery that eating watermelon has basically the same effect as Viagra. You can read more about it here.

I gotta call bull-crap on this one. I've eaten more than my fair share of watermelon since early childhood and if it had an effect like Viagra, I would have noticed by now. Maybe you have to eat the whole melon, seeds and all for it to take effect.

Of course, this does give a whole new meaning to the phrase "melon balls". . .