Wingding in the canyon

TigerAnn played with Bea's kids.

That's my "fortress of absurditute" at right.

“It’s kinda like the Montagues and the Capulets,” I said to my class Friday.

My students stared at me, uncomprehending.

“Try this: it’s kinda like the Hatfields and the McCoys!” —Still nothing.

Annie decorated the sky, employing a sky hook that she purchased in Pacifica.

I was trying to explain to my students the nature of the party that I was about to give the next day, the first party in the history of Irvine Valley College to combine the School of Humanities and Languages—a real “party” School, pre-Mathur—and the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences—a relatively antisocial school (as the joke goes), both pre-Mathur and since Mathur.

Actually, there’s no bad blood between these schools, but their respective faculties have never partied together before (off campus), and so, who knows, maybe you put 'em together and you get an explosion or a time warp or a rift in the space-time continuum.

I think these things are poisonous or something.

So, anyway, yesterday, starting at 4:00, Annie and I hosted the first ever combo-School party, and I think things went pretty dang well. No time warps. No rift. As I predicted, my sister, Annie, and her cat, TigerAnn, were the hit of the party, blah, blah, blah. The details are unimportant.

— And, no, we didn't play "Pin the tail on the Fuentes."

Mark M wore a fedora, I think.

Plus there were pink flamingos.

Traci wore a cool retro hat.

After everybody left, Annie asked, “How many pictures did you take?”

“None,” I said.

She punched me. TigerAnn stared.

So, today, I took a few pics to give you a sense of the party—kind of a “ghost town” or maybe a “Twilight Zone” or maybe even a “post-apocalyptic” gestalt of the event.

These people sure can drink. Drink is key, I find.

TigerAnn remained Stoical throughout.

How to treat pups

In today’s OC Reg, Scott Martindale interviews embattled Capistrano Valley High School history instructor James Corbett—he of “Jesus glasses” infamy. ('I'm never negative toward religion')

Know about his case? Martindale explains:

Corbett, 62…routinely brings up divisive topics in class and often makes inflammatory statements about religion. It's all part of his effort to "provoke" students to think critically about "changes in religious thought and institutions," he says.

The class in question, after all, is a college-level Advanced Placement European history course that has religion as one of its key themes.

"I'm never negative toward religion," Corbett said. "I'm negative toward the actions of some churches toward religion. It's not disparaging religion to point out that the Renaissance popes were a bunch of whacks."

About six months ago, Corbett offended Chad Farnan, a Christian student. That ultimately provoked a lawsuit. The matter recently reached the courtroom, where Corbett was “found to have violated the First Amendment for referring to Creationism as ‘religious, superstitious nonsense’”:

District Judge James Selna…found that by making the "nonsense" remark about Creationism, Corbett violated the First Amendment's establishment clause. ... Selna, however, dismissed more than 20 other statements attributed to Corbett … in the lawsuit as not being violations….

Corbett hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll appeal.

I hope the district is paying his legal bills. If not, he could take a terrible hit.

Q. How does your teaching style differ from your colleagues'?
A. … I try to relate what we read in history to what's going on now. ...[T]he majority of the kids find history to be the most boring class. The reason they hate it is because it's dry and irrelevant.

Q. You were found to have violated the First Amendment's establishment clause when you discussed a 1993 court case involving your former colleague, science teacher John Peloza, who sued for the right not to have to teach evolution. You told your class, "I will not leave John Peloza alone to propagandize kids with this religious, superstitious nonsense." The court said you were referring to Creationism. Do you agree?
A. I was referring to the way John Peloza was teaching in his biology classroom, not Creationism. He was leading kids to the understanding that there were major scientific flaws in evolution. As a matter of science, there really aren't….
…
…When people say, let's teach both sides of the evolution debate, well, there is no both sides. There is science and there is religion.

Q. What is your approach to addressing religion with your students?
A. So many people think that sitting around in a school or mosque of church or synagogue or temple and memorizing large amounts of information is knowledge. It's not knowledge; it's indoctrination. The fact that I force people to think about other ways doesn't mean I'm anti-Christian. I regularly say, "Look, there's belief and I don't care what you believe. But there's also history and science.”….

Q. People have accused you of being anti-Christian. What are your personal religious convictions?
A. The most important words ever spoken are: "Love your neighbors as yourself," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "Judge not, lest you be judged." We hear those words from a lot of religions. That's what I believe – that's the core of it. I'm eclectic with religion. I was baptized Catholic and have worn a Celtic cross around my neck for the past 50 years. Right now, I'd call myself a smorgasbord Catholic. Occasionally, I go to a church on holidays. And I often stand behind the curtains at Crossline Church (a nondenominational Christian church that meets at Capistrano Valley High on Sundays) and listen to the sermon. They are intellectually stimulating, and they can often provide you with a perspective on major issues of the day. I like to hear what anybody has to say….

If we can take all of his comments seriously, they portray a Corbett that is, oh, complex. He doesn't strike me as a very consistent thinker. That's not necessarily a terrible thing.

For what it's worth, anyone familiar with science and its methods will agree that the notion that there are scientific "flaws" in "evolution" (i.e., the body of theory concerning natural selection, genetics, etc.) is nonsense. That body of theory is one of science's great success stories. Within the sciences, there are no "two sides" about evolution. (As one of my students suggested recently, this business about "evolution being just a theory" commits the fallacy of equivocation. The enemies of evolution are often word cheaters.)

Corbett uses provocation as a teaching method, and this means that some of his classroom remarks should not be taken at face value. Even so, I find his assertion that he is never "negative" toward religion implausible.

Clearly, he is negative toward religion—even in the classroom. He should just say so. He is hostile to it, at least in some of his moods. The question is, should he be allowed to be hostile toward (or dismissive of, etc.) religion in the classroom?

If his classroom were in a college, I think the answer is clearly "yes." Not sure about public K-12.

You can be honestly atheistic or agnostic without being hostile to religion, I find. Science is not about certainties, but probabilities. Its methods discourage dogmatism even about what is well-established. And it is plain that there is much about the nature of the universe that scientists don't have a clue about. They will have a clue, I think, but, for now, they're frustrated with their cluelessness.

I dunno. Seems to me that a certain humility about "what we know" is appropriate in the sciences. One who approaches religion and faith from that perspective seems less of a threat, I think.

Corbett compares his students to puppies. He should go easier on his pups, I say. Don't be kickin' 'em.

But I don't think we should kick Corbett either.