The writing is all right.

Every once in a while, I hear people complain about those rotten kids who are wantonly ruining English with their electronic gizmos and their internets. It's a myth that's been taken apart in various ways.

One fact that I don't see mentioned as frequently in this discussion is that people in this generation are communicating in writing much more than previous generations. Blogs, Facebook, email, Twitter. It all adds up. So it's nice to see this fact mentioned in this Wired article.

Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.

"I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.
The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

People used to phone. Now they're writing. And the writing isn't half bad, possibly because the entire world is reading, ready to correct you if your logic or your spelling is faulty.

You can listen to me talking more about this on an RTRFM radio interview (about three-quarters through the stream).

Tesco doesn't like cosplay

If you're a member of the Jedi religion (and no, I'm not talking about you poseurs who just said 'Jedi' on the census), you must have picked up on this newsy item:

Tesco has been accused of religious discrimination after the company ordered the founder of a Jedi religion to remove his hood or leave a branch of the supermarket in north Wales.

Daniel Jones, founder of the religion inspired by the Star Wars films, says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following the incident at a Tesco store in Bangor.

The 23-year-old, who founded the International Church of Jediism, which has 500,000 followers worldwide, was told the hood flouted store rules.

I am slowly becoming persuaded that Jedi-ism (or is that Jediïsm?) is slightly less of a parody than Pastafarianism. I'm no fan of people claiming victimisation when people try to stop their religious practices. But fair's fair -- if some Muslims get to cover up in a burqa at the store, the Jedi's should get to wear the hood. The Jedi religion is just as valid, and to its credit it probably doesn't try to kill its apostates.

Tesco thinks it's done its homework.

But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.

Silly supermarket! Everyone knows that religions evolve away from their origins in arbitrary ways for their own convenience.

Oh, and points off for timing.

God has been credited with another crime.

A Bolivian priest who said he was acting on a divine revelation hijacked a Mexican plane mid-air Wednesday with 104 people on board triggering a brief airport drama, officials said.

Bible-carrying Jose Flores Mar Pereira was said by Mexican officials to have hijacked the Aeromexico plane after it left the popular tourist resort of Cancun on a flight to Mexico City.

A lot of people would say you should watch out for those Qur'an things. But me, I say those Bible things are just as hazardous, if not more so.

How can people who believe in a god claim to be moral?

Maybe he's just a spelling reform advocate.

Senator Steve Fielding's fiscal gaffe is in the news.

Gaffe-prone Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made another blunder while trying to clarify his economic position.

Senator Fielding, who previously called a double dissolution election, "double disillusionment", has frequently spoken about "physical policy" instead of "fiscal policy".

When questioned about the mispronunciation this morning, he only managed to jam his foot further into his mouth.

"I'll make it quite clear: fiscal, F-I-S-K-A-L," he spelt.

The journalist repeated the misspelling, prompting Fielding to correct himself.

"F-I-S-C-A-L. Yeah, fiscal."

I'm not here to pile on. I don't think it's fair to label someone as thick just because they can't spell. Spelling is a superpower that was thrust upon me at birth, and I don't know how someone could go about acquiring it.

What I would be more embarrassed about is being a Family First senator. And saying things like divorced people are harming the planet, a piece of claptrap which I covered a couple of years ago. I would also be embarrassed to be a citizen in an electorate that had a Family First MP.

I hope he really does have a genuine learning disability, as he says he does. Using the term 'learning disability' as a cover for more general 'not knowing how to spell words and stuff' would be really slimy.

When a loved one can't accept your non-acceptance of god

It's not often that I bother with proto-arch-evangelist Billy Graham, but on this particular Sunday his article seemed appropriate:

What to Do When a Loved One Rejects God

The correct answer is, of course, to congratulate them on their clear-headed reasoning skills, and offer support for the sometimes tough deconversion process that follows. And thank Zeus that they'll no longer be trying to evangelise you, with that hopeful but concerned expression that loved ones often wear when they consider the state of your hypothetical soul.

But that's not Billy's answer.

Q: Our college-age son says he doesn't believe in God anymore. We talk about it some (mainly when we're trying to get him to go to church), but we always end up arguing. How can we convince him that he's wrong? - Mrs. A. McC.

Gotta love those assumptions. I suppose a bit of evidence is out of the question.

A: In all honesty, you probably can't convince your son that he's wrong right now - because he's probably not willing to admit that he might be. Hopefully, some day, he will be open to changing his beliefs - but right now, he isn't.

Well, not willing to admit you might be wrong isn't a good thing, that's true. This ad appeared on the same web page, which gives you some idea as to how eager these folks are to allow that their beliefs could be mistaken.


I'd like to pose the question from the opposite perspective: what to do when a loved one accepts God, but won't leave you alone about it? In which case, my answer would match Mr Graham's answer to the letter.

I don't mind if my family stays religious. I'm certainly not trying to deconvert anyone -- I'm happy for them to do as they please. (If someone finds themselves not believing any more, but they don't know what to do about it, that's another story.) I don't even mind if people in my family (or anyone else) want to talk about religion to me; it's actually one of my favourite topics. I wish they'd bring it up more! Just as long as they know that when they do, they know they can expect a factual and straightforward response.

I've just received a message from a loved one who I've known for years, who's still in the LDS Church. Here's an excerpt, emphasis in original:

I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church.

No, you're merely certain.

I also know that you and Miss Perfect love one another and would want to be married and sealed for all eternity.

That would be lovely, if eternity were on offer. I wonder if anyone else can offer eternity on slightly better terms, perhaps without threatening me with eternal consequences if I don't obey commandments involving (say) giving them lots of time and money.

In order to do this you need to come back into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sounds simple. So what's the problem? Equally simple. The LDS Church is untrue -- a fact which every non-Mormon already knows. Like all religions, it teaches untrue things. All I ask is that a religion live up to its own hype, and this one doesn't.

To put a finer point on it, the doctrines of the LDS Church (and every religion I've ever run across, which are myriad) fall into exactly three categories:

1. Teachings that are unconfirmed by evidence, like the existence of supernatural beings, an afterlife, and so on
2. Teachings that have been refuted by evidence, e.g. ancient Americans are Hebrews who spoke a form of Egyptian, rode horses, and smelted steel
3. Teachings that are more or less true, but which were already known by people without any revelation being necessary. For example, Mormons are fond of claiming that the Word of Wisdom is revolutionary, especially about smoking. But the anti-tobacco movement was getting started around the 1830's, about the same time as the temperance movement, and could have been familiar to people in that area.

(Naturally, if anyone thinks I'm wrong, and knows of a religion with doctrines that do not fit into these three categories, please mention them in comments.)

It's especially hard for family members to deal with your deconversion. Spouses, parents, siblings -- they all want you to be happy, and they've been told you can't be if you're outside the religion. My old religion pretended to be able to keep families together after death, dependent on you staying in the system. Which basically means that you're threatened with eternal isolation if you leave. This is a despicable tactic for religions to use. If I were feeling nasty, I might call it emotional hostage-taking. It makes it impossible for family members to have emotional boundaries -- they think your choices will affect them for eternity.

So it's hard for me to feel upset with caring people who try to evangelise me. I'm just glad that, as someone who accepts rationality, I'm no longer prone to the kind of worry that they feel.

Zippy theme song

Did you know that Zippy the Pinhead has his own theme song? I've just run across it.

It's a strange little item. The music was written (partially) by Janis Siegel of the Manhattan Transfer, and the lyrics were written by Fred Schneider of the B-52's. So if those two artists are on your radar, this is rather a unique collaboration.

The song reminds me of Zippy, in a way. The chord progressions are weird and hard to follow, just like the strip. The lyrics are full of pop culture references, just like the strip. And something about it suggests that it could have been more interesting... just like the strip.

If Zippy isn't your cup of Fresca, maybe you'll have better luck with the latest version of Autotune the News. I'm on tenterhooks, waiting for #8 to drop.