A native son of Texas on the teaching of creationism in public schools

There has been much talk since the election of Obama of the fear of imposition of "sharia law" in America as if the President were intent upon its establishment as a national religion. 

The irony here is that there is a group working in concert to establish, or more correctly, impose a rigid moral and ethical code in America and it is the Christian Fundamentalists. I do not doubt their fervent faith, nor deny them their right to believe as they choose, but when their actions bleed into the social/political arena, stand the constitution on its ear and violate it, yes violate constitutional law, by teaching hokum (creationism) with established scientific theory (and please look up the use of theory in the scientific sense) then we are treading the same path that led to the demise of a vital and scientific culture decades ago, namely the Persian empire that was driven back into ignorance and poverty by the rule of the religious intolerant.

 The irony is palpable and the threat is already playing itself out in school boards across the nation and congressmen on scientific committees who publicly declare scientific theory to come from the depths of hell. Not all Conservatives think like this but their silence is telling and they have made a political calculation to embrace ignorance to achieve a political end. But should it come to pass, it will be a pyrrhic victory, as history has shown us, to well, the consequence of such silence. But these days, we are more interested in rewriting history than studying it. This country was founded on the idea of freedom from the establishment of a single religion, "the government shall not establish" but leave all the freedom to worship as they please. Is it not strange that those who proclaim to stand up for America, truly know so little about its founding principles.

the fountain of youth

In the autumn of time
All that is left is but to make
the bed of our final rest

Gauf is a way for some, and a torment to the rest

Shinny (Rooster)

“More than 200 years ago, Indians throughout the United States played a variety of club and ball games described as ‘Shinny.’ Translation of the various Indian appellations given the game include ‘The Club of the War Gods’ or ‘the yielding stick’ but it was popularly known as ‘Rooster’ amongst the Tashuan tribe where it is said to have first originated and had a shortlived, but well-documented history amongst its people.

Introduced to the Tashwans by a seaman second class by the name “Shanks” McNaught who claimed he was washed ashore after riding a great white whale with his Captain Jonah, after the wreck of the whaler, The Raven out of Turro, Massachusetts. Rooster was more akin to dueling than to the game of golf as we now know it. In the game of Rooster - two contestants compete head-to-head in a match of ‘fool-hardy will and dubious courage.’ Each player armed with a wooden club called a baffer, which has a leather grip at one end, and a bent, gnarled, spoon-like head at the other. If the contestants were to smote each other with these baffing clubs they might have caused considerable damage, but the rules of Rooster strictly forbade striking your opponent directly with the business end of the club. Rather, the rules of the game required the contestants to stand 216 paces distant from each other and to “flayel the baffer, thereby striking the baul at yourn foe in the wee hope of goffin ‘im in the noggin.” “Wee hope,” being the operative words. For the most part, it is said Rooster contests devolved into utter frivolity, as few of the players were capable of striking the baul with any degree of certainty, much less inflicting any damage upon a foe so far afield.

Games of the North American Indians was first published in a U. S. Government document titled Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1903, by H.W. Holmes.