Personal space and Hey-Zeus...

Personal space. Don’t people know about personal space? I wonder about this because whilst I was out getting lunch this afternoon, I had ordered my sandwich, was waiting for it to come off of the grill, and this slack jawed redneck rolls up behind me, orders his sandwich, and then immediately stands so close to me, I swear I could feel him breathing down my neck. This, in my opinion, is too close. There is about a 3-5 foot bubble around all people that should be observed at almost all times. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule (SO’s and others that you want to let that close to you), but by and far, it’s not something that should be invaded. It makes me feel cramped, and makes me want to turn around and tell whomever it is behind me to get the hell away from me. Which is what I did to the good old boy standing behind me at the sandwich shop. It went something along these lines, “Um, sir would you mind taking a few steps back?” To which he responded, “Huh? What? Oh… OK.” When I asked him the question, he looked at me like I just stepped on his head while he was drowning and gasping for air, or I just shot his puppy in front of him. Sorry buddy, but you’re in my space, and there is no way to get around that, I hate it. Which brings me to the subject of my boss, who is a close talker. She arrives near and dear to your ear, and then talks right on top of you, and moving away, it doesn’t help, she just moves with you. In order to not get fired, I don’t mention it, or push her into the wall. I’m pretty sure that this would not go over so well, but damn, she talks close. And loud. This woman definitely has more energy than just about any 4 year olds combined that I could imagine, and word on the street is that she’s calmed down over the last few years. I pity her kids. They must be bouncing off the walls all of the time and driving others up and down walls like you read about. But going back to personal space, please respect mine and other’s personal space at all points in time, because it’s just no cool to stand so close to me. I think there’s a song in there somewhere.

I see now that there is another initiative in Kansas going around their school board to allow them to teach Intelligent Design (ID) and Evolution as Science in their school systems. What the hell is wrong with these people? Don’t people know that ID is just a very thinly veiled version of Creationism. Why do they need to teach ID in a science class? There is no justifiable science behind it. Their answer is always the same, “Well, evolution is just a “theory” and it can’t be proved either because it’s still a theory.” Umm, people, let’s get a grip really on this. Yes, evolution is a theory, in so much that there is enough scientific fact and evidence to prove that it’s true, but there are holes within the theory, the missing links so to speak, that haven’t been filled in yet, but are certain to be in years to come. This so-called “theory” has so much evidence, vetting, and documentation, and fossil records, that it pretty much is fact. ID has, well, nothing. No scientific basis at all in the real world of the real world. ID folks just want to push religion back into public schools. I swear, I think we’re moving backwards in this country instead of forwards. Is it any wonder at all that our students are falling way behind the rest of the world in things like science and math? It’s starting to make sense now with hearing about this ID movement in Kansas. Here is a good fairly in depth description of intelligent design from my favorite website, Wikipedia which covers a lot of the aspects of this pseudoscience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

What is more utterly amazing, is that in the statistics I heard today, there is a full 45% of the US population that believes in ID, or even worse, creationism (or essentially the Book of Genesis from the Bible). We seem to be turning into a nation not of thinkers, and do-ers, and movers and shakers, but into one of religious fanatics. People seem to believe that the salvation of the nation lies within the belief of the Lord Jesus Christ and being Christian. But hey, while that’s all fine and dandy and nice, and I don’t have a problem with Jesus as a whole, but I have a huge problem with Christians in general, and their narrow minded views of the world as a whole, and their narrow minded views of the United States and its citizens. Doesn’t anyone else have a serious problem that there is a weekly conference call between the President of the US and the evangelical leaders of Focus on the Family? A highly religious Christian group based in Colorado. Here are some of the articles that they have on the front page of their website:

• Straight Talk: How to deal with a strong willed woman
• Myths About Living Together
• The Proper Care of Husbands
• God Save This Honorable Court
• Can Homosexuality Be Treated and Prevented?

And other such drivel that these folks put out. Check out their webpage here: http://www.family.org/ It really actually disgusts me to see these folks acting in this way, and kind of makes me mad, because if there was ever a bleeding heart liberal in the world, I’d have to say Jesus was the original bleeding heart liberal. These folks like Focus on the Family, take what is good and dare I say righteous about the Bible, and pervert it to meet their own prejudiced feelings. Do you really think God and or Jesus care if you’re gay? I highly doubt it, and if these people are correct in their assumption that God will judge all before allowing us into this place called Heaven; why are they so concerned about it? God will judge them, and judge the gay folks, and I’m betting the vast majority of gay people get through the pearly gates before they do. And one more thing. Why in the hell are all of these religious groups always have something with “family” in their titles and or names? Do they actually think that they are the only people in the world who care about their families? Maybe I could start a liberal group and name it something like, “Focus on Everyone.” And the purpose of my group would be to refute just about everything these evangelical groups come out against, and to protest anything that these evangelical groups promote. Now that, would be a good time.