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Baying at the Moon

There is a man in Minnesota who wants to be a member of Congress.  There are probably a lot of people in Minnesota who want to be elected to Congress, but Aaron Miller wants to be elected to Congress so that he can protect his daughter.  His daughter is being forced to learn about evolution, and since Aaron Miller has not evolved, he does not think his daughter should have to learn about what has not happened to him.

Mr. Miller went to his daughter's school to talk to the teacher about it.  The teacher said not to blame him.  He himself did not believe in evolution, but that the Minnesota State Board of Education required him to teach about it.

Wow, wow, and what is the world coming to?  Innocent, harmless, impressionable children are being taught things like evolution!  Everyone with more than three or four synapses knows that evolution is just a description of what has been happening for billions of years, but now children are being taught it!

Mr. Miller won the Republican nomination to Minnesota's First Congressional district, in spite of the fact that it is a Minnesota Board of Education, and not the U. S. Congress, that sets the standards for science classes in Minnesota, so even if he is elected he will probably not stay in Washington D. C. long, not if he really wants to protect his daughter!  He will have to hie himself back to Blue Earth, or St. Paul, or somewhere more local.

Mr. Miller is not alone in his crusade to keep his daughter safe from common knowledge.  Alan Quist used to be a Representative from Minnesota, and he has endorsed Mr. Miller, saying that he believes dinosaurs coexisted with human beings, and he is right!

Mr. Quist and Mr. Miller are surrounded by ordinary human beings, living right next door to some of them.  Some of their best friends are human beings.  We can only assume that both Mr. Quist and Mr. Miller, as well as that remarkable science teacher who does not believe in evolution or many other ordinary facts, do not hate scientists:  they only hate the science, not the scientists.  I am waiting for them to announce that they are even willing for people to believe in evolution if they want to, but that they should not say so out loud.  Hate the sin, not the sinner!  Be scientific, but do not practice it!

I know what they mean.  Some my best friends are scientists, too, but I do not want them exposing themselves to me.  They can think what they want to, but they should keep their hands off our daughters' facts of life!  Would you want your daughter to marry a scientist?  What kind of a world would it be if people went around asking what the facts are?

I do not think I have the energy for it--I am, after all, retired from teaching--but someone ought to open an account at the Blue Earth Savings and Salvation Bank, to help Mr. Miller and Mr. Quist and maybe that science teacher, too, pay for passage on that Ark in Kentucky when it is ready to gather dinosaurs and Neanderthals and chickens and things, two by two, and sail off to the edge of the earth, somewhere in Turkey, or The Land of Nod, East of Eden.

In the meantime, let us practice baying at the moon.


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