Subway Apologizes

...but doesn't retract:

To HSLDA [Home School Legal Defense Association]:

We at SUBWAY restaurants place a high value on education, regardless of the setting, and have initiated a number of programs and promotions aimed at educating our youth in the areas of health and fitness.

We sincerely apologize to anyone who feels excluded by our current essay contest. Our intention was to provide an opportunity for traditional schools, many of which we know have trouble affording athletic equipment, to win equipment. Our intent was certainly not to exclude homeschooled children from the opportunity to win prizes and benefit from better access to fitness equipment.

To address the inadvertent limitation of our current contest and provide an opportunity for even more kids to improve their fitness, we will soon create an additional contest in which homeschooled students will be encouraged to participate. When the kids win, everyone wins!

—Subway restaurants

There was a very simple solution to this problem that would have achieved Subway's goals without excluding anyone, but Subway has chosen the way of "separate, but equal." That's their right, of course. Since they only went half-way with this, I'll only go half-way too. I'll go to Subway if there's nothing else around.

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

There's a discussion re the Why's of atheism over at Vox Day's blog. It got me thinking about whether the question of an afterlife has played a significant role in my theism. I don't think so. Maybe as a child I was scared by thoughts of hell, but I honestly don't believe in eternal punishment anymore. I just don't see the evidence for it in Scripture. I'm also not motivated by thoughts of Heaven. Mansions and streets of gold really don't interest me much.

So why do I believe in God? During the serious crisis of faith that every thoughtful theist experiences at some point, I examined all the info I had at my disposal and decided that God fits the facts better than anything else. All of my reading and experience since then has only strengthened that conviction. Maybe the need for a higher purpose has skewed my judgment. Maybe I'm delusional. But I know I don't worship the God of Abraham for fear of death or hope of Heaven. I worship him because I believe it is the right thing to do.

No More Subway

There's a lot of talk online about Subway excluding homeschoolers from their "Every Sandwich Tells a Story" writing contest. Having seen many a similar e-rumor, I thought it would be wise to confirm this one before passing it on.

Here's the confirmation from subwayfreshbuzz.com:

This accomplishes two things for Subway:

1. It eliminates needless profits. I like going to Subway because it's relatively healthy fast food. Unfortunately, I won't be eating there again until they make a well-publicized apology and change the contest rules.


2. It makes public school students feel better about their inability to spell common English words. Basket, for example.
   
   
   
   This image was captured from Subway's web site. I didn't modify it except to crop it shorter.

Historic Patriarchy vs the Mythical Idyllic Matriarchy

Patriarchy Is Just a Scheme to Enslave Women...Right?

Strength or weakness can be expressed in one's decision making process. The greater one's authority, the greater one's responsibility in making decisions. A leader may ask his followers for their opinions, but he may not ask his followers to make his decisions for him. He has the final say, and his is the ultimate responsibility for the consequences.

For example, if a man is faced with a major decision that will effect his entire family--such as buying or selling a house, changing jobs, or relocating--he should not tell his wife, "We will move if you are willing to quit your job." That would put the final decision-making authority and responsibility onto his wife. However, he can legitimately ask God to tell him what to do: "If you want us to move, then tell me by providing employment in the new location or taking away employment here."

He who wears the pants bears the burden. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, and I still need reminders now and then.

What Happened to the Ancient Peace-Loving Matriarchy?

In the prologue to Marriage, East and West, David and Vera Mace wrote:

From the Fertile Crescent…to the rocky eastern shores of Nippon…the patriarchal family reigns supreme. For full four thousand years of recorded history it has held undisputed sway. The odd and fascinating family patterns of some island peoples and hill tribes–polyandry, matrilineal descent, matrilocal marriage, and the like–have captivated the anthropologists. But these are, by comparison with the patriarchal family system, of little account in the great stream of human culture…The hereditary pattern that has dominated the human family, that has been passed down through countless generations, in East and West alike, is solidly, unvaryingly patriarchal.¹

Their conclusion was most soundly reinforced by Stephen Goldberg throughout The Inevitability of Patriarchy. He went a step further than the Maces, however, by asserting that those few exceptions are either too unstable to last more than a few generations or else they are illusions, actual patriarchies behind a few token elements of matriarchy.<sup>2

1</sup> David and Vera Mace. Marriage, East and West. Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1960. 29  
² Stephen Goldberg. The Inevitability of Patriarchy. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1974.

Babies Are Good For You

I remember years ago reading about how the incidence of certain types of cancers in women could be dramatically reduced by bearing and breastfeeding babies. To obtain the maximum benefit, I think the article said women should have their first children in their late teen years.

A new study claims that breastfeeding for a year or more halves a woman's likelihood of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

Women Who Breastfeed For More Than A Year Halve Their Risk Of Rheumatoid Arthritis
ScienceDaily (2008-05-13) -- Women who breast feed for longer have a smaller chance of getting rheumatoid arthritis, suggests a new study. The study also found that taking oral contraceptives, which are suspected to protect against the disease because they contain hormones that are raised in pregnancy, did not have the same effect. Also, simply having children and not breast feeding also did not seem to be protective. ... read full article

The old feminist canard about the terrible risks of pregnancy keeps getting weaker.

Platypus, Darwin Bane

In an AFP article by Marlowe Hood [the original article no longer exists, but this article at Reuters contains most of the same quotes: Australian platypus genome a link to evolution.] Darwinists once again demonstrate a complete lack of critical thinking skills:

According to a study released Wednesday, the [platypus] is a genetic potpourri — part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal.

And we all know how common it is in nature for vastly different species to interbreed. How else do you think we could have the werewolf, the unicorn, and the Tree-man?

“The platypus genome is extremely important, because it is the missing link in our understanding of how we and other mammals first evolved,” explained Oxford University’s Chris Ponting, one of the study’s architects. “This is our ticket back in time to when all mammals laid eggs while suckling their young on milk.”

The fossil record is just chock full of evidence for egg-laying mammals.

“It is much more of a melange than anyone expected,” commented Ewan Birney, who led the genome analysis at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge….

Anyone that is, except those people who have ever seen a platypus (or a picture of one) and generally accept that living things reproduce after their own kind. I guess the really devout Darwinists must have thought the bill, the webbed feet, the egg-laying, and the poisonous spike were not the results of genetic coding. But then, if they understood the nature of codes–especially object oriented codes like DNA and C++–they wouldn’t be Darwinists.

“By comparing the platypus genome to other mammalian genomes, we’ll be able to study genes that have been conserved throughout evolution,” said senior author Richard Wilson, a researcher at Washington University.

Sure we will. Because dinosaurs (with one kind of sexual determination) evolved into birds (with a different kind of sexual determination) which evolved into mammals (with yet another kind of sexual determination), except for the platypus (with retro avian sexual determination) which apparently evolved directly from birds except for the parts that evolved from from reptiles or from mammals. All three branches of the evolutionary tree…er…bush exchange chromosomes all the time in nature.

Riiiiiiiiiiight...