Is the Bible Outdated? Asperger Observations

This was interesting to me...and it may piss off some others who read it and happen to be religious. If you are religious and prone to getting bent out of shape by someone's opinion, skip to tomorrow's post or yesterday's. If you decide you're curious enough for this post then do us both a favor and read it the entire way through. If you want to respond, go ahead with the comments, as long as they're constructive and preferably have some reasoning to back up and support your view. I'd rather not close comments on the blog because someone wants to be an arse-head.

I mentioned previously that I had a wonderful time reading Look Me In the Eye by John Elder Robison. I really recommend it. I was about to put the book into my sacred storage area where I could have it for reference in the future...a bit of clutter programming in my head, I suppose, wherein I stash things I think I might want later because I really liked them...but instead I passed the copy on to my mother in law (and perhaps father in law) to read in hopes that they may understand me a little better. I believed that while I would love to put it into my storage area the book will be useful only if the words carry on in other people's minds, and the only way to do that is pass it along. So I did.

Moving on...I also mentioned in that blog post that John Elder has a blog. Well, he posted an interesting observation regarding religion. The question seemed to have been posted innocently, but it is one that I've often pondered in my own head and made observations regarding. It's a really touchy subject though. Big surprise. Usually when I've tried to explore it with other people...and I don't personally know other Aspies in realspace, since I'm rather isolated socially (and most Aspies aren't social butterflies anyway, another big surprise) I end up offending people which I find out after the fact. Or right to my face when they get really huffy and start getting petulant or just flat out angry or insulted, thinking I'm calling them stupid. It makes it really difficult to puzzle things out when other people from whom you're trying to get information and understanding aren't cooperative.

He (John Elder) stated that he's spiritual, but not in an organized religion of sorts. He was asked by a researcher why Aspergians tend to not follow religious organizations. On reflection it seemed that other Aspies he's met weren't religious either, and this researcher was actually collecting (or had collected) data regarding this topic and found that apparently most aren't religious. Coincidence?

Here's what I can say:
Aspergers seems to create a predisposition towards reason and logic. We prefer working for results, not warm fuzzy feelings. We prefer working with people we deem effective, not "nice".

I've been told by someone neurotypical and close to me that they have seen the trend where the more educated people tend to be liberal in their beliefs, and the less educated tend to be neo-Republican. The Republican party in the US is famous for their family value platform, Bible values platform, as well as their willingness to murder thousands of foreigners in war (as long as the guys in suits don't have to go and get shot at) and the all too common scandal of yet another affair from Republican figureheads. It's not limited to them, but they're the ones generally telling their supporters they'll burn in Hell on the pulpit...er, campaign platform...before retiring to their office for some alone time with their cute senate page. Have to make it a quickie though...they have to get to the floor in time to vote on the laws they proposed that make what they just did more illegal.

The poor tend to be more religious. Could that be part of the reason that the generally more impoverished live along the Bible Belt in the US?

Religion (speaking of Christian religion in Northeastern USA, since that is the kind I'm personally exposed to) is full of fallacies and contradictions. The Bible is wonderful in that it can justify everything from kindness to strangers and justifying banning abortions for the sanctity of life to killing homosexuals. If you have a view of something, chances are you and someone who disagrees with you will find some way the Bible supports your view.

But Barry! You said religion has fallacies and contradictions, but you talk about the Bible! The above mentioned the Bible in particular, but religion is worse, as it is basically an interpretation of the Bible by people. Many religions are based on the Bible yet there are how many sects you can join? There are the big ones, of course, like the Catholics and Baptists and Methodists. The major religions take potshots at groups like the Mormons for being a cult. But the even The Family is based on the Bible as well. Check them out if you want to see how wild things get.

Hypocrisy is rampant in various organized religions. I've known Mormons swigging caffeinated beverages and downing chocolate. Priests are in the news for turning altar boys into altar men. I know regular church attendees who hate particular people for their features or actions or traits...where's the Christian love Jesus was so fond of? I roomed with a guy in college who refused to utter a single swear word (even though I don't see the difference it made when he simply substituted another word for the curse...other than it annoyed the hell out of me. Frick this, frick that, gosh darnit...I wanted to punch him square in the mouth). This same guy was heard thumpin' the ceiling over the living room area of the common room of the college apartment when his girlfriend visited, and since she lived on campus, it was every, @#%-ing, night. I asked him how he could profess to be so religious when getting more tail than most prostitutes.

"I'm human and have failings. I ask for forgiveness for them."

So it's not religion that has the failings, it's the people...

I've also observed that the religious tend to not understand much of what they're talking about with issues related to their religion. I don't think most have any idea that Jesus, if he existed, didn't speak English. We still have people who every Christmastime insist that "Xmas" is trying to remove the Christ from Christmas. Makes a good headline and riles up the followers, but it's wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Yet even when shown the proof I've had people insist their view was correct.

These are just some of the issues I had with religion while growing up.

If anything, I became a full atheist when I finally realized that with all the hypocrisy, contradictions, and ignorance I was encountering I simply couldn't live with what I felt were too many inconsistencies in the stories. I couldn't live with the idea that I would be living a lie. It came down to basically a question of would you rather be ignorant of what is happening and be happy, or know the truth and be miserable? It turns out that I'd rather know the truth.

I'm beginning to think this may be partially due to the Asperger's. There may also be a correlation between people being of liberal bias and having higher education, and true atheism and education (true atheism since I wouldn't count the people who have a "falling out" with God and thus say they're an atheist for it; they're just being pissy about something that happened to them, not seeking a higher truth). This correlation does not imply causation, but it does give one pause to scratch one's head a moment for some reflection.

This sounds arrogant. I'm simply stating what I've come to believe after a couple decades of observation and my own studies. Of course there's much more to it than I state here, but this is one facet of my understanding. And it pisses people off.

I don't know how to sugar coat it.

Even reactions to this give me a bit of a curiosity since in some cases it incites a lot of vitriol...when in most Christian sects, I'm supposed to be considered a wayward sheep in need of finding my way back with compassion. Another case of hypocrisy? I don't worry about it any more.

I don't know what the answers are with absolute certainty. But I do know what I've observed, and I know I've had many questions of religions that fail to have adequate answers. In the end people don't want to entertain the idea that they're wrong. They are happy with their beliefs. And I don't care what you believe as long as I don't suffer for what you believe. Myths, sky wizards, doublethink, whatever floats your boat. Just don't bother me unless you're willing to have an actual reasoned discussion. I have enough legislated morality to swim through in my world already.

I'll be interested to see what comments John Elder's blog post receives. I worry that some people will dismiss my opinions more then they already do if they associate my atheism with being "brain damaged" with Asperger's when perhaps it should give some pause to the fact that if there is a strong correlation, maybe they should wonder why people who are wired to see things through a nonemotional filter see religion as a sham, in general. But on the other hand maybe it's another reason to just leave my brain-damaged self alone.

Does Democracy Rely on Free Press?

I was listening to Episode 67 of StackOverflow and heard Jeff and Joel talking about Craigslist. Apparently Joel Spolsky is not a fan. Details are in the show notes if you're interested.

That part that caught my ear was Joel saying that free press is necessary for democracy to work. Countries like North Korea get away with lunacy in part because of state-run and state-controlled press. In the US, he argued, Craigslist was taking away the revenue stream from the press, meaning more newspapers are shutting down and thus are harming our democratic system. At least, I think that's what he's saying. If not he can feel free to comment here and correct me.

I got to wondering about that. What makes democracy work (I should probably note that we're not a democracy per-se, but a Representative Republic or Representative Democracy instead of a Direct Democracy) is participation of the people. If the people care, we find a way to get what we want.

Joel was saying that without the free press, the people aren't informed of corruption in the government. Scandals and atrocities are hidden away.

In my view these things already happen in plain sight. People just don't care. Ever talk to a teenager? They're in many respects not all that different from adults. My own teenage daughter didn't know that the movie Catch Me If You Can was based on a true story. Despite the fact we watched it. And told her that. And saw it in the news at the time.

Oh, sure, one anecdote does not a trend make. The problem is that there are numerous examples. And her friends, too, tend to be on the bubble-headed side. Ignorant of the world around them not just in the stereotypical Americans wanting a familiar McDonalds while touring Japan type ignorance (what the hell is a "mega muffin"??) but rather the ignorance of not having any clue of what's going on right in their home town or in the local news when it's being discussed right in front of them.

There's been a trend emphasized more since the Bush administration was in power (with allegations of his administration being heavily anti-science) that our culture has shifted to having a pride in ignorance. Intelligence was to be mocked; you were "too good" for everyone else if you were proud of having a PhD or being interested in science. What comes of that? Ignorance of what your government is doing, for one.

The fact that most people are struggling now to pay bills and just keep a roof over their heads have taken front seat to caring about how our government is screwing us over. Look at the PA legislature; they've screwed over their budget, still taking vacations and breaks instead of hammering out a budget plan. Schools are taking out million dollar loans with one district saying they may not be able to pay teachers (with the ignorati saying, "So what? They're overpaid anyway" to do a job that you'll notice they themselves aren't willing to do; put up with other people's kids...), government offices are cutting hours, others are cutting staff and doubling up workloads. Strange enough they don't seem to accept my excuse when they want taxes and fees paid that I just didn't have it budgeted right now. Nice double standard.

Yet I've heard nothing of people complaining to their representatives. I've heard no angry protests at this dereliction of duty. No flooding them with phone calls. Worse, come election time, I'm sure plenty of these people will be reelected.

It's not that a lack of free press is necessary for democracy to work. It's the people willing to work for democracy. We've enjoyed a lot of good times and somewhere along the way we gained a sense of entitlement to ignorance that is filtering up to those who are now adults. We willingly give responsibility to think for ourselves up and allow others to think for us. Free press is worthless when the people won't read about the issues unless it's in the form of a textspeak twitterfart online and when anything over a paragraph in length is ignored.

Joel, it isn't Craigslist that threatened people's access to information and democracy. It's the laziness of the people.

But otherwise...keep up the great work, both of you (Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky)...

Taking Advantage of People: Airborne

I was listening to a podcast that was discussing in part how celebrities are listened to for medical advice; in particular, Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccination tirades. The woman has no medical training and yet an endorsement from Oprah somehow makes her qualified as an authority figure for medical advice.

That got me to thinking about other things that are successfully marketed despite the information available publicly that the claims are baloney; they're successful because people want them to be true, and because of this the people making these products knowingly take advantage of the public. It's really quite disgusting.

Case in point: Airborne.

I was thinking of this because, oddly enough, I was in Walmart shortly after listening to said podcast dropping off a prescription and I saw this medication in the aisle. You've probably heard of it. It's a supplement that is supposed to fight off colds and flu, invented by a school teacher (being an elementary school teacher somehow carries over into being qualified to market medications...probably because there's an association between a room of kids and being covered in bacteria and virus laden snot, I suppose).

Now, the fact that they've been sued and lost over claims to their health effects should probably warn people about using it. From Wikipedia, the Federal Trade Commision sued them over false advertising and the company ended up paying 23 million dollars and another 7 million in class-action lawsuits.

Shouldn't it throw a warning flag up when the lab that supposedly tested the product turned out to be a two-man company created for the sole purpose of testing that one product?

Moreover, because it's marketed as an dietary supplement and not a drug there's no federal oversight on the claims made by the manufacturer...it's perfectly legal for them to knowingly sell something that is essentially a placebo. Worse, if you follow the directions you are overdosing on vitamin C which can cause other side effects with your kidneys.

I looked at the label on one of the Airborne products; you can see it here, on Amazon, for $17 (three 10-tablet tubes). Yum, zesty orange! Some facts (click nutrition information):

• One pill has 10% recommended intake of sodium. You're taking 10% of your recommended intake of salt with each pill. The instructions tell you to take it every three hours. Is that good?
• It has 2.8 mg Riboflavin
• 8 mg zinc
• 3 mg manganese
• 15 mcg selenium
• 5000IU vitamin A
• 1000 mg vitamin C
• 40 mg magnesium
• The rest are an herbal blend, which have no scienfic proof of being effective at healing or preventing disease.

All that for 30 tablets in this package for $17.

Let's look at a Centrum multivitamin, okay?

• According to the label off Amazon, there's no sodium.
• 1.7 mg riboflavin
• 15 mg zinc
• 2 mg manganese
• 20 mcg selenium
• 3500IU vitamin A
• 60 mg vitamin C (which is 100% of the recommended allowance)
• 100 mg Magnesium

And of course Centrum has a slew of other minerals and vitamins. This 250 pill bottle is $18.

$18 for 250 pills...versus $17 for 30 doses. And the Centrum has more minerals and vitamins in it. Hmm...

The real difference is that Airborne has herbs in it that haven't actually been shown to do anything, and before you poo-poo me for being anti-herbals, keep in mind that the company that makes Airborne commissioned a lab that consisted of two guys that had nothing to do with medicine (the "lab" was incorporated only to test this product, and they had no doctors, no researchers, nothing...ABC news discovered this in 2006). They never actually had any evidence that their own pills are actually effective under lab conditions. That should make your critical thinking caps start burning.

Sadly the sales of these things are still astronomical. It's a hugely expensive subset of what you get in a plain multivitamin (although...as I stated before...it has a dangerous level of vitamin C in it, which can HURT YOUR KIDNEYS as well as affect your absorbtion of other minerals in the body) for much less money.

I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I'm a stupid person for not coming up with my own supplement concoction and selling it to an unsuspecting public. I could even bypass the whole claims thing from a fake lab so I can avoid bad publicity when skeptics like myself start digging into facts and tell people about the truth...

Wondering About the Nature of God

I was on a drive with my wife half a month ago when I pondered out loud a question that was tickling the back of my mind about God.

Why would God, an almighty being characterized a as a father figure that loves us (according to Christian tales), able to poot stars and planets into existence and create humans from dirt, only communicate through vague events that are left up to us inferior beings to interpret?

I didn't understand why with "His" infinite wisdom and power and our backwards, primitive ability to comprehend we would be left with vague things to figure out what "His" will is.

When something bad happens, many Christians say it's to test us, or draw us closer to God. It's to show that we need Him. It's to strengthen our relationship with God. Etcetera, etcetera.

So...let me get this straight. God, all-knowing, all powerful, creates Earth and stars in seven days along with all life (and many new-Earthers and Creationists say the Earth is 6,000 years old according to the Bible), isn't able or willing to create a memo for we slow humans that isn't so vague that we can't tell if it is either a vital message about our lives or some coincidence?

Okay, let's take it as not as silly a question as I think it is.

Next, our Heavenly Father figure, communicating through vague signs and signals like our cars dying on the way to work making us horribly late and getting fired or our houses catching on fire or tree limbs narrowly missing us as they fall into the road...we misinterpret signs or don't see them as Him talking to us, so when we die God, who loves us, punishes us but throwing us into eternal torture and damnation.

I don't know about you, but when it comes to father figures, my father wasn't vague. He didn't hint at what he wanted. Which when the recipient of the message has Aspergers that is a really really good thing. He came right out and said things like, "Take out the trash," "Pick up your room," "What's wrong with you, anyway?" and "Why the hell didn't you take out the trash already?!"

The model that I'm under the understanding God uses as our Father is to walk into my bedroom late at night, dump a bucket of sand on me and put a pair of boxers on my head before walking away without a word, then giving me the belt when I didn't know this meant I was supposed to do the dishes.

Just a couple thoughts to ponder. I'm sure there are reasons for this that's I'm simply too dense to accept, and I sure don't accept answers that boil down to "just because". Voices in the head, vague signs and "tests" of hardship in my life and the promise of eternal punishment for something that He didn't come down and actually specifically tell me to do (or not to do), instead relying on his army of followers (who are also flawed and unable to comprehend our Father's nature) to interpret from an ancient text that in itself was created by committee (look it up) and was translated and translated and reinterpreted over centuries.

Jus' saying...

Obama and Expectations on His Administration

Here are a few random thoughts I've had recently regarding our current President and some of the reactions I've been hearing recently...mostly on TV. Which is surprising given how little TV I really watch nowadays. Anyway, what I'm about to say may actually be a bit of a pot-stirring thing. It's controversial. It's opinionated. And I very well remember what a fraternity brother we named Gomer told me: it's pointless to discuss religion or politics with anyone, because you're never going to change minds. Well, I've already broken the rule about religion, so why not go for broke?

So when I had some random thoughts relating to the current administration, I figured, why not?

I've read and heard quite a bit of the bubbling criticism against Obama and his administration's proposals lately. There's quite a bit I don't think that the American people take into account when they're venting.

First, Obama often acts as a figurehead in these situations. It's easy to pin the blame on the President...he is, after all, the President. But do you remember that there are three branches to government? It was put in place to act as checks and balances. Granted, they don't seem to work very well much of the time, but the point is that there isn't a lot the President can do without oversight, ideally by Congress. Things we can blame on the President: his plans, his initiatives, and things he says and does in public to present himself to the people in a certain light. Things we can't blame: anything that has to be vetted by Congress, and does.

Second, the government is supposed to be for the people. It's an interesting system we have here in that we have a nation of people who like to believe they're part of a democracy and most are too ignorant to realize we're not.

No, not because the government keeps us down.

It's because the founding fathers, both to keep power with wealthy landowners and to belay fears that common people were too stupid to govern themselves, set us up with a representative republic. A democracy means you can vote legislation and have a say in the law. A representative republic means we have people sent in to do it for us by proxy, hopefully in our best interest.

If you want something changed, it means getting people in power that have your interest at heart. Good luck with that, though. Most of our representatives spend more time raising money and campaigning than actually doing their jobs.

Third, the expectations put on Obama were huge. Bush (and his contemporary Congress) sent the nation into a war that cost several times what it would have cost to end hunger and housing debts for our population. After the country got fed up with his BS...let's face it, regime changes occur when everyone finally gets tired of the current BS from the current administration...they handed a shovel over to Obama and told him to fix it, ignoring the fact that it isn't just this one guy that can "fix" everything. Congress needs to get their collective heads out of that tunnel called the rectum and get on track to fix things.

Fourth, health care. After my surgery,...oh hell, before my surgery...it didn't take a genius to figure out that health care isn't in the best of shape. One of the few things I HAVE been lucky with is holding a job with decent health coverage...and it was still and major PITA to keep things straight. You'd have to be a bloody moron not to see how the insurance companies and hospitals play games with each other and that in turn ends up pinching doctors and patients in the middle.

Now we have people, usually conservative Republicans, decrying how this would ruin everything to have government-backed healthcare.

It's interesting to me in that the few areas in the US that try managed healthcare seem to fail, while I don't hear much about Canadians running across the border for our healthcare and Britain has a fairly successful national healthcare system. The brilliant scientist Stephen Hawking credits their healthcare system for saving his life.

I have read stories about Americans getting decent healthcare by flying to India, China, Europe...as well as jumping the border to Canada for prescriptions.

Others point out that insurance companies can't compete against a government business. I don't understand why the post office is failing while I have packages delivered by UPS and FedEx. NASA is now having the space race outsourced to private companies seeking the X-Prize. And burglars and muggers have always competed with the IRS.

I really think that a lot of the anger slowly snaking through media reports at Obama is a combination of "I told you so's" and expectations that were set too high. We're in a deep deep pit as a country. It's taking time to re-emerge. In the meantime, we have Americans too busy blaming someone for their own problems.

Now, to be sure, we had lots of help getting into troubles. We had a lot of companies that should have known better encouraging us to get into trouble. We have a lot of companies that continue to keep us in trouble. And I'm no exception to being put into thumbscrews; watching bills and trying to keep them paid on time is slowly increasing my body pains and aches and there are times where I just sit and wonder how I got myself into such a mess and whether there's any light at the end of the tunnel. But at the same time, we collectively helped dig this pit.

• We sat passively by and allowed ourselves to be screwed.
• We obsessively followed football and NASCAR stats instead of Congressional debates.
• We voted for the pretty, the well spoken, the superficial that knew what strings to pluck when they wanted a congressional seat. And that was just the tiny percentage that voted for their representatives.
• We had huge turnouts follow the circus of the stars for voting. Er, the Presidential elections. We all rally around to get "our guy" in. There are two branches we have some kind of say in who gets a seat...one guy that gets his face on TV the most isn't the one with the most influence, people. And yet this is the election that slightly more than usual (and the usual is nearly zilch turnout, as far as I can tell).
• Our population is more concerned with who's voted out of the Big Brother house than whether or not their representative knows what the hell they're voting on.
• We elected...twice, supposedly...a President that was a failure in business so many times over and funded by his father and by foreign oil interests, a cokehead and one-time heavy drinker, a man who declared we were doing God's will when we attacked Iraq, a man with little regard for law, for the constitution...we reelected him. And this man also coincidentally took about a 1/3 of his presidency as vacation time. And he become that rally point for fundamentalists across the country. How did that happen!?
  

Obama is an intelligent man. He may be the geekiest president we've had since Thomas Jefferson. The thing we may have going for us is not only the ability to properly pronounce the word "nuclear" (why didn't that scare other people when the guy that controlled our nukes couldn't properly pronounce the word?), but also that he understands one of the most potent ways to be an effective leader: surround yourself with smart people and listen to them.

Some of the most successful people in business and power have followed that formula. While I doubt that Obama can save the country economically within his term, I am hopeful that he can at least turn the boat a little in the right direction. In the meantime...we're in for one bumpy ride.

Excuse me. I have to go forage for bologna. I think it's the only thing we have in the pantry right now. Except for some cat food...nah...bologna.

Centralia (Or, Why You Shouldn't Set Your Town on Fire)

WARNING: There is some objectionable language in this post. If it will make your head explode, wait to read tomorrow's post instead...

On a recent trip my family stopped in the now nonexistent town of Centralia, PA.

In case you're not familiar with Centralia (I linked to the Wikipedia article about it for a full story) it's a small town...excuse me, was a small town...in Pennsylvania not far from an amusement park called Knoebels. In 1962 a bunch of yahoos decided to burn some waste in an abandoned strip mine that ended up setting a 400 acre coal deposit on fire for the next 250 years.

Thanks largely to politics, the fire raged underground out of control. Had they intervened early on they could have stopped the fire; instead it was allowed to burn on while suits pretended it was a non-issue.

They would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for a little boy falling into a backyard subsidence. Whoopsie.

He survived, though. The town largely didn't.

Eventually the government bought out most of the town and razed the structures. Today only a smattering of houses remain, along with a blocked off portion of route 61 (accessible by foot and motorcycle, if you're careful), cemetaries that have more residents than living people in town, and vents from which smoke and gases rise and a town landfill. Oh, and graffiti. Lots of defacement from resident asshats.

I found it utterly fascinating. This town became a ghost town; utterly and completely barren aside from sidewalks. You can't really tell where anything was except for the upheaved sidewalks, actually. There used to be signs telling you about taking your life into your own hands due to unstable ground and benches and Centralia signs, but they're all gone now, probably taken by souvenir collectors and...well, asshats.

It's quite eerie; I couldn't believe that the town disappeared, completely, in an amazingly short amount of time. It's almost postapocolyptic to see trees popping out of pavement. It's even neater to think that this is the town that inspired the video game (and movie) called Silent Hill. Here's some of the sights we saw...
Here's what we believe is the spot where the time capsule is buried. It's supposed to be dug up in 2016. That's assuming it's not being baked by the fire under the town.

My wife got a huge kick out of this. That smiley face is tarred on the road. Evidently the road crew...often out patching the roads as it's cracking and heaving from the ground issues...was willing to have some fun.
My wife said this little church on the hill is now abandoned and was the last one open for the town.
I was surprised to see so many windmills near the site of the town! This was taken from a small rise in what looked like a town landfill. The landfill's surface had little more than fireworks, broken booze bottles, and a toilet and some other home waste scattered around. By home waste, I mean windows, paneling, shutters...evidently as homes were destroyed some of the remains found their way to the landfill. Oh, and there was a lot of pavement broken up, like pieces of roadway laying around.
One of the few homes still standing and inhabited. The black shadow is a person that was out mowing; I blocked it out since I didn't get her permission to use her in the picture. The brick pylons are apparently there to hide support beams; the homes were part of row houses, and as most sold their homes they were demolished. To make up for the now missing parts the beams were hidden in these brick supports. Neat, huh?
This is part of old route 61. The image blacked out here is my daughter. Did you think I'd expose her image on the site?? Yeah, right.

The tree on the left is coming from the center of the four-lane. I put this one up for scale...my daughter is on the upper range of average height, so you can get an idea how tall that tree is in the picture.
One of the myriad graffiti in the road of abandoned 61.
Some more of old 61. It's blocked off by huge mounds of bulldozed dirt at each end.
See the heaving and cracking from the heat of the ground fire?
More of the cracking and heaving and graffiti. The blur in the shot above is my daughter again. We hiked quite a way down the road to find the cracking. If you look closely you can see some of the gas rising from the cracks. There were a few weird smells in the town too...one of the things to be careful of in the town is the fact that there are concentrations of poisonous gas from the fire.
One of the reasons I hate seeing what people do. Actually I'm kind of torn...this one shows some artistic merit, but still, I hate the graffiti around the remains of the town. This was again on old 61. It's quite evident that kids use it as a party place.
Another shot of the foilage growing in the middle of the freeway.
This reminded me of watching "The Wonder Years."
Hey...where's the crack in the road we were promised? This was near the beginning of the hike my daughter and I undertook on old 61. I began to think we'd never find it.

This was one of the few buildings we found still standing. Kind of. Apparently this was some kind of building used as a bathhouse for miners in the town, and later a storage building. We don't know what was in that bag near the "door" and my wife refused to stop here, fearing we'd find something we didn't want to find in there. I thought it would be neat, but feared we wouldn't find what she didn't want to find in there and would be disappointed. In the end we didn't look for two very different reasons, I guess.

My wife and I had stopped here about five years ago or so and remembered signs that warn people about the danger of wandering around here; those signs were gone. There were apparently other signs and benches and such here as well at one time. Other pictures can be found at this site. I couldn't believe how a thriving mining town of 1,100 people dwindled to just a few people in such a short amount of time...it's mind-blowingly amazing to me. We actually stopped on the way down and on the way back simply because we couldn't believe our eyes, how little there was left to the place. It's like the town just shriveled up in embarassment after letting petty politics keep from taking decisive action to stop the fire when it first started, and the fact that they were warned about violations previously in relation to the burning of the landfill trash and they continued to ignore regulations.

Simply. Amazing.

It's been a long post, and there's plenty of information floating around about Centralia as well as a number of references that can be found off Wikipedia of where Centralia has shown up directly or indirectly (like the previously mentioned Silent Hill movie).

Scooby Doo as a Skeptical Role Model (Oh, and Happy Birthday)

This year is Scooby Doo's 40th birthday. Hard to believe.

At least he's older than I am.

Scooby premiered on September 13th, 1969. But you know the best part of the Scooby Doo cartoons? No, not the question of Velma's sexual orientation or what Fred and Daphne were doing when they weren't onscreen. Or even why Fred always wore that ascot.

Okay, maybe it was some of that.

What I was referring to was that the original incarnation of Scooby Doo was really an introduction for kids to think in a skeptical manner. Basically, skeptical thinking is just questioning an assertion before accepting it. It's integral to the scientific method; scientists must have proof for a claim and show that the idea is not pulled from their arses.

If you lived in a small island in the middle of the ocean that didn't happen to get television or popular media advertising for various toys in the past 40 years I'll tell you what Scooby Doo was; the premise was really very simple.

A bunch of teenagers (Fred, Shaggy, Velma and Daphne) drive around in a psychadelic van (the Mystery Machine) with their sentient talking dog with a speech impediment (Scooby Doo) until they arrive in a town of the week. In this town they encounter some ghost, creature or monster that is terrorizing some person, people, or townsfolk. This group of teenagers and their dog offer to investigate said monster, creature or ghost. Madcap chases ensue and eventually the monster, creature or ghost turns out to be a very human criminal trying to scare people away in order to commit or perpetuate some theft or scheme, which they would have gotten away with if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog.

In other words, they encounter some group that claims a ghost or monster is attacking their town and the Scooby gang investigates to find the truth behind the claim. Skeptical thinking for kids.

The early shows were just as much fun as they were formulaic. Later incarnations veered away from this and started getting more into the "woo" factor, incorporating "real monsters" and watering down the skeptical thinking to appeal more to the updated audience (or to distance the newer shows from the older ones).

But regardless of this straying from the concept, the original show was a fun romp for kids. I remember watching it as a kid and later on having fun with the in-jokes and yes, wondering what was up with Fred's fashion choices. I mean, an ascot? Geez, Freddie.

Happy birthday, Scooby. Thanks for the memories.