Extra credit

Is Jesus stingy?

My least favorite teaching task is the assignment of final grades. You can count on it: There will always be a couple of students teetering on the brink between two grades. Some of my colleagues solve the problem by being very strict constructionists: “A grade of B requires 80%. That's 80%. Not 79%. Not 79.9%. End of story.” Others are conditional rounders: “If the student's semester average is 79.5% and the final exam score is a B or better, I'll round it up to a B. Otherwise it remains a C.” There are many decision mechanisms.

You can probably anticipate the problem. Sometimes two students have the same borderline score, but one of them did it with an exemplary effort on the final exam and the other did it by squandering a better grade with a final-exam pratfall. You can't really drive a wedge between their semester scores when both of them have 79.0%. They rise or fall together. What to do?

This recently happened in one of my classes. One of my students closed strong while the other had steadily lost ground. They ended up in a numerical tie. Both were aware that they had fallen short of an outright B because I had released their final exam scores. It all came down to the grade brackets and my judgment on what decision would be the most equitable and most reflective of their accomplishments. I compared notes with a couple of colleagues and both students ended up with Bs, which rewarded the diligent student for her strong finish and didn't punish the student who had lost some of his drive in the last weeks. I picked the “nice” option.

I could still argue for the other outcome, but I was comfortable with the decision to award both students “good” grades. At least, I was comfortable till one of them reacted with the following message:

DEAR PROFESSOR Z!!!!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!!!!!!!!
I WAS PRAYING ABOUT MY GRADE.
THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!

That you decided to give me a B!!!!!!!! God bless you for doing it!!!
I was in church on Saturday and the pastor was talking about God's power to answer our prayers. He told us how he was asking God about parking in a very busy time when there never any available spaces. He was driving and praying to God when he saw that one person was taking off from his parking spot. He was so happy about it because God gave him a parking spot. He said that if you believe in God and ask him whatever you want, He will always answer. So after church I asked Jesus to give me a B for my math class. And now I see that HE answered my prayer. Isn't it amazing!?

Oy veh. I have only one question: Why didn't she pray for an A?

Counting on the popes

Flexible figures

I confess: My weekend television viewing includes Jack Van Impe Presents. “Dr.” Van Impe claims multiple doctorates (but not from accredited institutions) and is probably best known for his facility at spewing Bible verses. He likes to make a statement and then append a string of chapter-verse citations. Occasionally Van Impe pauses to catch his breath, during which time his wife Rexella (also the holder of uncertain doctorates) offers praise to her husband or exhortations to the viewers.

During the episode scheduled for the first weekend in March 2014, Van Impe returned to a favorite topic: the pope in Rome. While most television evangelists are content to decry Roman Catholicism and its extra-biblical excesses, Van Impe frequently speaks positively about Pope Benedict and even cites passages from the Church's official catechism. His affection for Catholicism does not, however, extend so far as to endorse Francis, the current pontiff. Van Impe considers Pope Francis to be theologically unsound and suspects that he is fated to be the last man to occupy the papal throne.

Over the years, Van Impe has frequently referred to the supposed prophecy of St. Malachy. Apparently Malachy, a 12th-century Irish bishop, was favored with a vision that presented him with the identities of the next 112 popes. Each pope is described by a very short phrase that Malachy aficionados have not hesitated to twist into shockingly accurate (or shockingly strained) prognostications.  For example, Angelo Roncalli, elected in 1958 as Pope John XXIII, corresponds in Malachy's list to description #107, “Pastor and sailor.”  In what respect was John XXIII a sailor? The best anyone has come up with relates to Roncalli's position at the time of his election as Patriarch of Venice. The city has canals, you know. Hello, sailor!

Fortunately, I looked up from my Sunday crossword puzzle when Van Impe began his breathless description of the Malachy prophecy. The TV screen was crowded with a numbered list of papal names, beginning with Celestine II (the pope in office at the time of St. Malachy). Subsequent screenfuls displayed more names, progressing through the 112 of the alleged prophecy. A problem arose, however, with the last two screens:

It just so happens that John Paul II was the immediate successor of John Paul I. What is going on with Jack Van Impe's list, which displays the names of Gregory XVII, Michael I, and Pius XIII in the positions #108 through #110? These men were (are) antipopes and have no place in this roster. Michael, in fact, is a self-proclaimed pope who washed out of a seminary program; he's not even a priest. I suspect he's read Baron Corvo's Hadrian VII a few times too many.

Thus Van Impe's list is badly screwed up. Shall we all breathe a sigh of relief and rest easy that we are spared the anxiety of an apocalyptic last pope? Sorry! There are plenty of papal lists that correct Van Impe's mistakes and end up matching Francis with #112, the last pope on Malachy's list (not #113). This final pope is supposed to be “Peter the Roman,” but Cardinal Bergoglio disappointed many superstitious prophecy fans when he chose to name himself after Francis of Assisi instead of St. Peter. However, the father of St. Francis was named Peter—and that's proof enough that Malachy was right! Sort of!

Really and truly, these people should dress up in funny outfits and go to Comic-Con.

Warding off bullets with magic

Armored with irrationality

Ruben Navarrette was outraged by the behavior of some people in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut. The syndicated columnist quickly took aim at those who offended his sensibilities: the people who decried America's insane love affair with guns. Navarrette was dismayed by the prompt and vigorous reaction by supporters of more stringent gun-control standards. In his view, they were guilty of not maintaining a sufficiently long period of silence. The NRA, at least, was good enough to duck and cover for an entire week before calling a press conference to double-down on their traditional gun-worshipping insanity.

Navarrette singled out in his column some especially egregious offenders against common decency:

How about giving a horrified and heartbroken nation a chance to mourn and bury the dead? How about showing some respect for the victims you claim to care about? How about giving politics, pet causes and partisan jockeying a rest until we wipe our tears and catch our breath?

Tell that to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who said after the shootings: “If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don't know when is.”

Sorry, Ruben. I agree with Nadler. Completely.

Navarrette points his accusing finger at Nadler and other gun critics and demands, “Have you no decency?”

Go to hell, Ruben.

In his defense, we should perhaps point out that Navarrette is legitimately worried over the state of the nation—although he dismisses Nadler's similar concern. The columnist fears for the safety of his children, as would any responsible parent. His solution? A return to childhood superstition.

I spent Sunday morning looking for answers in a place I hadn't been in a while—a pew of my neighborhood church. The woman next to me wore pain on her face, and didn't smile once during the hour-long service. I held on tight to my kids. During communion*, I asked the priest to bless them. As we walked toward the altar, I whispered, “This is to keep you safe.”

Yeah, Ruben. And a garlic clove dangling from a neck thong will keep vampires away.

---

*Note: Is Navarrette a nominal Catholic? If Navarrette has indeed been absent from his neighborhood church for a while, then he is guilty of the mortal sin of deliberately missing mass and therefore cannot legitimately partake of communion. I have more contempt for pretend-Catholics like Navarrette than those who take seriously the arcane rules of the club they belong to. If you think that communion is real, then you apparently believe in the Church's magical powers. How does that square with flouting the Church's rules except when you feel like going in for a tasteless snack?

An angelic experience

Learning on the wing

Like a moth to a flame (or an archangel to a young Jewish virgin), I was drawn irresistibly to the opportunity to attend a faculty training event on the existence of angels. When it first came to my attention, I was initially struck by how inappropriate it seemed as a topic for a professional development activity. While not quite as bad as giving nurses continuing education credit for attending a Catholic indoctrination session, the angel seminar simply seemed irrelevant and beside the point. Where was scholarship in this? What useful lessons might I learn?

The presenter was TM, a young woman who holds a doctorate from the California Institute of Integrated Studies. She is an alumna of the CIIS program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, but I suspect “cosmology” in this context has very little to do with what science-types consider to be cosmology. That's just a guess, of course. You can visit the program webpage and consider the course content for yourself.

To give credit where it's due, Dr. TM declared in her opening remarks that she did not expect attendees to change their opinion about the existence (or non-existence) of angels as a result of her 90-minute presentation. That demonstrated TM's connection to reality, recognizing that the material she would present lacked the evidentiary weight necessary to persuade non-believers. Among the two dozen attendees were several who nodded their heads in sad acknowledgment that some people just aren't open-minded enough to embrace the reality of God's messengers. Others, like me, sat still, resisting the impulse to roll our eyes. It was prudent of TM to allow for our skeptical presence. We were, however, very well behaved throughout the event.

TM was much enamored of Carl Jung's notion of synchronicity, a concept I have never been able to take seriously. As TM explained, a synchronicity occurs when a strong interior impulse, condition, or sensation is reinforced by an exterior manifestation that generates a transformative moment of understanding. Jung's own favorite example, according to TM, was the appearance of a beetle at the window during a psychotherapy session with a female patient who was telling him about a dream about a golden Egyptian scarab. Since the beetle at the window was the nearest local analog to Egypt's golden scarab, Jung deemed it a synchronicity—an acausal simultaneity between his patient's inner life and the external world. (J. B. S. Haldane might have preferred to regard it as a manifestation of God's inordinate fondness for beetles, having scattered hundreds of thousands of species of beetle throughout the world.)

As TM hastened to explain, “Synchronicities are not just happy coincidences!” In response, one of my neighbors muttered, “No. Synchronicities are happy coincidences which people invest with heavy significance.” Only the closest people heard the riposte, but a couple of us nodded. (I was one of them.)

So, where were angels in all of this? As you might suspect, angels are implicated in synchronicities, especially when they manifest as exterior confirmations (i.e., as if they exist in the physical world) of interior emotions or yearnings. The archetypal example is The Annunciation. TM asked the attendees if anyone recognized this special event. I helpfully raised my hand and offered a description: “That's the event reported in the Bible of the archangel Gabriel appearing to Mary and announcing that she was to bear a son who would be the savior.” TM beamed at me and added some details. First of all, the yearning of the Jews for the coming of their messiah would be manifested in the hopes of young Jewish maidens to become the savior's bearer. Second, it didn't matter whether Mary was pregnant or not when Gabriel made his announcement. Either way, Mary would have a deep interior desire or anticipation that was acausally linked with the archangel's appearance.

TM was particularly interested in the parallels between synchronicities and annunciations. The incident with Mary and Gabriel is the most famous, but angels were also reported to have advised Joseph not to divorce Mary and later to flee to Egypt to avoid Herod's slaughter of the innocents. In her dissertation research, TM made the case that annunciations in religious history (by no means limited to Judeo-Christian sources) were anticipations of Jung's theory of synchronicity and fit well into the Jungian model. Furthermore, the parallels remain even if the angels did not actually exist. (Surprise!) That's because it's not strictly required that the coincidental confirmation of the interior sensation be an actual event in the physical world. The angels could, in fact, be confirmatory figments of the imagination.

At this point, I got to learn something—and by this I do not mean that I learned there's a lot of silliness in this field. After all, who should be surprised that there are parallels between supposedly different forms of delusion? No, in this case I learned a bit of Bible lore that I had not heard before, and which I found interesting and intriguing. According to TM, Gabriel does not appear in the earliest Bible texts. His role is magnified by redactors who found fault with Mary's inner conviction that she was indeed fated to become the mother of the messiah. If this is correct, then Mary's synchronicity was a progression from “I want to bear the messiah” to “I will bear the messiah.” That's pretty thin gruel. Having an archangel with a name showing up to put his stamp of approval on Mary's inner yearning makes the story much more satisfying.

A few of us got fidgety near the end of the event as some of the attendees hastened to offer personal examples of synchronicities. My inner yearning for it all to end was confirmed by the external manifestation of a yawn, but I'm afraid it lacked the acausal quality that would have classified it as a synchronicity.

A seraphic school seminar

Guardian angel

John Vasconcellos was a well-known figure around the State Capitol. A big teddy bear of a man, his rumpled figure had all the debonair flair of an unmade bed. He briefly achieved national fame when his “self-esteem” initiative drew mocking attention from the Doonesbury comic strip. John himself, however, was unfazed, even if his more substantive contributions to the state of California passed unremarked.

Anyone who serves in a California community college tends to associate the name of John Vasconcellos with his landmark education reform bill, AB 1725, which in 1988 rewrote the sections of the state education code dealing with our schools. One legacy of that legislation is a greater emphasis on professional development for faculty members. On most community college campuses, professional development opportunities are embodied in various seminars and training programs, especially on “flex days” when faculty assemble in the absence of students to rack up their required hours. The flex days, how ever many there are, are ordinarily scheduled at the beginning of each semester. We hear talks, participate in meetings, attend panel discussions, enroll in training sessions, or watch subject-specific demonstrations.

Some flex sessions are great. Most are okay. A few have been dreadful enough to be entertaining. (I recall one in which a colleague quipped—but was it a quip?—that he was thinking of killing himself and several people in the room offered to help. Now that is supportive!) In other words, flex is like any other activity, with its ups and downs, successes and failures. In general, though, we all give it the good old college try and make the most of it.

However, sometimes you run into professional development opportunities that strain credulity just a teensy-tiny little bit. In looking at the flex program books posted on various California community college websites, I have encountered seminars that strike me as, well, odd. Do teachers really need an introduction to “qigong breathing techniques”? I suppose it could be lumped in with those other activities involving movement and health activities, although yoga and various stretching routines seem to be more popular options. No doubt the “Happy Fanny” workshop announced at one school is one of those feel-good PE-type sessions—especially with that Middle Eastern dance component.

But qigong and fannies cannot compete with my favorite among all of the spring sessions I perused. The angel seminar wins it going away:

An Inquiry into the Existence of Angels

There are many who claim that any lingering belief in angels is merely the residue of imaginary wishful thinking. There are others who hold that angels (wings, halos, harps) literally exist. How is one to reconcile such contradictory beliefs? In this session, you will discover how C.G. Jung’s theory of synchronicity provides a vehicle for the exploration and possible reconciliation of this question. Rather than echoing the skeptic who says angels cannot exist or the religious enthusiast who affirms their immanence, this study asserts that by expanding our understanding of both synchronicity and angels, we might be able to resolve the conflict.

It may well be that you are having an uncharitable reaction to the description of this 90-minute program, indicating that you are one of those anti-angel skeptics. If so, how close-minded of you! Are you not open to the possibility of a synchronicitic reconciliation of (A) angels don't exist and (B) sure they do! (Synthesis: Angels maybe exist!)

I confess that I am one of those cynics who has been known to remark that a good course in probability is the best cure for folks who cannot stop seeing significance in random occurrences and coincidences. Still, I must admit that it behooves one to examine carefully the credentials of the seminar leader. Perhaps there might be some substance here:

The faciliator earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion from the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at California Institute for Integral Studies.

Whoa! “Cosmology”? (Of course, angels are indeed reputed to hang out in the heavens.) What exactly is this peculiar doctoral program? Here's the on-line description:

Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness (PCC) graduate programs in San Francisco are dedicated to re-imagining the human species as a mutually enhancing member of the Earth community.

They attract intellectually engaged individuals who are in varying degrees dismayed by what they see happening in industrial societies and who are striving to find meaningful ways to develop their gifts to serve the future of the world.

We support those called to meet the Earth community's unprecedented evolutionary challenge by offering students a challenging and supportive learning community in which to find their voice and vision as leaders.

Please return to the links on the upper left of the screen to explore the PCC mission, faculty, curriculum (including our Integral Ecology track), current students, alumni and community, as well as how to apply to the program.

Okay! That's clear enough, isn't it? Well, I don't know about you, but my doubts are completely assuaged. Perhaps I should write the angel-seminar school and suggest a topic for a follow-up seminar next year. I hear that business about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin is still outstanding.

Cutting remarks

Cosmetic surgery?

Remember the episode of Seinfeld titled “The Bris”? Jerry gets quizzed by Elaine:

Elaine: Hey, Jerry, you ever seen one?
Jerry: Oh, you mean that wasn't ... uh?
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: No. Have you?
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: What'd you think?
Elaine: [wrinkles her nose] It had no face, no personality. It was like a Martian. But hey, you know, that's me.

I was reminded of this when Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle decided to have some fun with circumcision in her opinion column this morning:

The ballot measure bills itself as a ban on “forced genital cutting” and “mutilation.” Clearly the authors want to confuse voters by equating male circumcision to female genital mutilation, the barbaric, unsanitary butchering of a young girl's private parts in a procedure that has been known to leave girls severely infected and in pain.

Saunders is echoing the remarks of Rabbi Gil Leeds, who similarly complained that “mutilation” is a misnomer. I tend to disagree, since the permanent amputation of part of the penis should not be treated as a trivial matter, even if the results aren't on the same level as the brutality of so-called “female circumcision.”

Saunders tips her hand even while trying to be even-handed. She cites a pediatrician while ostensibly presenting both sides:

[Dr. Erica Goldman] informs parents of the pluses—reduced chances of urinary tract infection and sexually transmitted diseases—as well as the risks—it's a permanent cosmetic change.

Oy! The “risk” of circumcision is that it's a cosmetic change? It's not a direct quotation, so we can't simply blame Dr. Goldman for this conclusion. It's what Saunders picked out as the key item, ignoring all other factors. (Should we tell circumcised boys that the lack of a foreskin is why they need lube? Is Johnson & Johnson—manufacturers of K-Y Jelly—behind the push for more male circumcisions? This calls for an investigation!)

I snorted when I saw Saunders using the words “cosmetic change,” but I guffawed when I read her peroration. Like the dutiful right-wing columnist that she is, Debra has to complain about “nanny state” legislation and frame the anti-circumcision measure in those terms, slipping in an allusion to the city's ban on toy giveaways with unhealthy fast food. It's a poor fit:

A busybody law? Check. Does it address a problem most folks did not know existed? Check. Pun opportunities? Oh, yeah. First they came for the Chicken McNuggets, then they came for my son's ...

No, no, no, Debra. You're missing the point entirely. The ballot initiative says they have to leave your son's nuggets alone!

Back away from the penis!

San Francisco on the cutting edge

The voters of the City and County of San Francisco have placed a proposed circumcision ban on the November general election ballot. It would make it illegal to remove the foreskins of minors without a showing of medical necessity. It would not, however, have any impact on adult males who wish to have their penises clipped. The rationale is simple: Baby boys cannot give informed consent.

The reaction to the ballot initiative is unsurprisingly shrill. Here's the opening paragraph of an opinion piece by Rabbi Gil Leeds, which was published on May 20, 2011, in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Freedom of religion, enshrined over two centuries ago by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, is now subject to a vote with the certification in San Francisco of the referendum on circumcision for the November ballot. The vote will empower a secular majority to impose its will, and ban one of the oldest religious traditions known to humanity. When religious belief and practice become subject to vote by the majority of a city council, government agency or referendum, it endangers all of our rights and freedoms.

The proposed legislation contains no religious exemptions, so the traditional Jewish bris ceremony could no longer be practiced in San Francisco if the circumcision ban were enacted. That is why Leeds frames it as an attack on religious freedom. This got me to thinking.

What does religious tradition protect? How far can it go? Leeds correctly points out that male circumcision is a very old religious practice, so it definitely fits under the mantle of tradition, at least for Jews. It's also long been considered normative for American males, quite apart from religious practice. As a culture, we're inured to it and most people take it in stride as expected and unexceptional. While a few circumcised men have complained about having been robbed of their foreskins, most clipped males appear to be content with their condition. It hasn't been a major controversy.

On the other hand, female circumcision is widely condemned as genital mutilation and is against the law in the United States and the target of an international campaign to suppress it. In fact, “circumcision” is rather a misnomer for the procedure(s) applied to young girls in those cultures that practice it. The term comprises a broad range of actions, from reduction or amputation of the clitoris to wholesale excision of the labia. The most extreme form involves infibulation, stitching up the vaginal passage to make it smaller and to ensure the virginity of the victim; the procedure may be reversed when she is properly married off.

Female “circumcision” is an ancient practice that is done in secret in places like the United Kingdom and the United States, nations in which it is legally banned. Members of immigrant families may go to great lengths to ensure that their daughters are genitally cut so that future suitors may be assured of their respectability. The UK and US make no allowance for the ancient tradition, deeming it a violation of basic human rights and labeling it as “female genital mutilation.”

The sponsors of the anti-circumcision measure in San Francisco took a page from the international campaign to protect girls when they titled their proposal as the “San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation” initiative. The city attorney toned that down to the “Male Circumcision” measure, but Leeds the mohel is unmollified:

The proposal's backers are trying to deceive the voters by labeling it a “ban on genital mutilation.” Honesty would have demanded they called it a ban on circumcision. By using such a toxic term as mutilation, they hope to garner support from an unsuspecting public.

My question is this: How is cutting off part of a little boy's penis not a “genital mutilation”? Because our society is inured to it? Because some people practice it as a religious rite? Because it's not as grotesque as the female version? Because there are some supposed health benefits?

What if a religious sect insisted it was their right to practice infibulation on their infant daughters? Would we be violating their freedom of religion if we refused to allow it? (We have clearly already decided that question, haven't we?)

Circumcised males can take comfort in being in the majority and having undergone a procedure that has long been considered unremarkable and of which they haven't the slightest recollection. They understandably react negatively at being told that they were “mutilated” at birth. It's a charged term. At the same time, the uncircumcised minority cringe at the thought of having their foreskins lopped off and marvel that their clipped brethren can be so complacent about having lost theirs. It's what you're used to, I suppose.

The religious aspect doesn't faze people for whom religion is just a superstitious practice that gets more respect than it deserves. Rabbi Leeds hung his argument on the right of people to clip their sons' penises in honor of a supposed covenant with Yahweh. After his article appeared in the Chronicle, San Francisco's archbishop weighed in with an angry letter in support of the rabbi:

I would like to add my “Amen” to the op-ed piece by Rabbi Gil Leeds, “Circumcision ignores our basic religious freedom” (May 20).

The proposed ban on circumcision represents an unconscionable violation of the sanctuaries of faith and family by the government of San Francisco. Although the issue does not concern Christians directly, as a religious leader I can only view with alarm the prospect that this misguided initiative would make it illegal for Jews and Muslims who practice their religion to live in San Francisco—for that is what the passage of such a law would mean.

Apart from the religious aspect, the citizens of San Francisco should be outraged at the prospect of city government dictating to parents in such a sensitive matter regarding the health and hygiene of their children.

George Niederauer, Archbishop of San Francisco

I don't know that you're helping, George. Protecting the health and hygiene of one's children these days would seem to include keeping them away from Catholic churches. May I suggest that you—ahem!—keep your hands off their penises?

Fear of dead peeping Toms

Or Thomasinas

Sometimes I can't resist getting into the act. I see an advice column in my morning newspaper—for the Internet generation, be advised that a “newspaper” is a sheaf of large sheets of paper with printed news on them—and I want to rewrite the responses. Yesterday's Dear Abby is a case in point:

Woman Fears Being Watched by Ghosts of her Loved Ones

Dear Abby: I am in my 40s and have never lost anyone close to me. Unfortunately, my darling mother-in-law has terminal cancer. I am now preoccupied that people's spirits are near us after they die.

Please don't laugh, but it gives me the creeps. I don't want to think my mother-in-law will watch me making love with my husband, that my father will watch me in the bathroom, or that my mother will be critical of my spending more time with my kids than cleaning the house as she did.

Am I crazy to think I might not have any privacy after my loved ones die? — Spooked in Spokane

Dear Spooked: Calm down. The departed sometimes “visit” those with whom their souls were intertwined, but usually it's to offer strength, solace and reassurance during difficult times. If your mother-in-law's spirit visits you while you're intimate with her son, it will be only to wish you and her son many more years of closeness and happiness in your marriage.

As to your parents, when they travel to the hereafter, I am sure they'll have more pleasant things with which to occupy their time than spying on you. So hold a good thought and quit worrying.

Now doesn't that set your mind at ease? Abby sure is an expert on souls and what happens after you die. The afterlife will have too many distractions to make it likely that your dearly departed will hang around and watch you as you rut like bonobos with your love interest, or go to the bathroom, or pick your nose, or vote Republican. They won't spy on such shameful behaviors.

Good to know.

Of course, if I were to try my hand at replying to Spooked in Spokane, the response would have come out a bit different:

Dear Spooked: Calm down, Spooked. Being dead is a full-time occupation. The deceased lie mouldering in their graves, settling in their urns, blowing in the wind, or lost at sea. Whatever. Once they've passed on, they're just dead. Finished. Kaput. They lack senses and cognition and any trace of prurient curiosity. They're gone forever and can't bother you.

In the meantime, you're not dead yet, so consider getting a life and outgrowing the fantasy stories of youth and religion.

I guess I could offer my services to Dear Abby as a ghostwriter, but I don't want to spook her.

Triple-action Jesus (only $9.97)

While supplies last, of course

There used to be these things called newspapers. They'd magically appear on your doorstep each morning (usually; sometimes in the afternoon). On weekends they would contain an item called a Sunday supplement. Before newspapers, in their dying throes, began to sprinkle color throughout their publications, the Sunday supplement was often referred to as “the color section.” I used to pore over the color section in utter fascination. It brimmed over with exciting weirdness.

Some things never change. The surviving newspapers and their Sunday supplements continue to uphold the weirdness standard. This morning, for example, the USA Weekend section that accompanies my local paper sported an advertisement that took me back to the good old days. If I were my hyper-religious and ultra-superstitious maternal grandmother, I'd be calling the toll-free number right now to get a heaping helping of Jesus-based magnetic copper pain relief. (Since copper itself isn't magnetic, I gather that some ferrous material must be embedded in the copper. Or maybe it's just a miracle.)


As those enamored of woo-woo health nostrums are given to understand, copper bracelets suck the pain out through your wrists, magnets align the iron in your hemoglobin for smoother blood flow, and Jesus ... well, he's just the Son of God, you know. One might think that divine intervention should suffice on its own, but a dash of pseudoscience can't hurt, right? Triple-strength Jesus-copper-magnet healing is here!

COMBINES THE MOST POWERFUL FORCES
OF HEAVEN AND EARTH

Do you believe? Wear this solid COPPER MAGNETIC THERAPY JESUS BRACELET for the most powerful healing and comfort you’ve ever experienced! COPPER has been relied on for centuries to ease the pain of arthritis. MAGNETS are used therapeutically to ease muscle pain, tendonitis, bursitis, back pain, poor circulation and more. And faith in the miracles of JESUS can not only protect you from physical pain, but soothe your soul in times of stress! Fully adjustable to fit most wrists.

Act now! Operators are standing by.

I've also heard that laughter is the best medicine. (I think I'll try some now.)

Touched in the head

Mainstream mysticism

Remember Emily Rosa? Lots of people would probably rather you forget. Emily was only nine years old when she devised an experiment for her local science fair. Twenty-one practitioners of “therapeutic touch” participated in Emily's double-blind study of their ability to detect the energy aura that supposedly emanates from every living human's body. Despite the practitioners' confidence that they could detect and manipulate such supposed human energy fields, the results were no better than random chance. They could not tell the difference between human presence and absence when screened from visual cues.

Emily won a blue ribbon in her science fair and her research study was later published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, making her the youngest person ever to have a JAMA publication to her credit. Thereafter, of course, the practice of therapeutic touch was thoroughly discredited and its practitioners slipped silently away into obscurity.

Are you kidding? Scientific refutation never truly discourages the pseudoscientist.

Therapeutic touch is bigger than ever. The currently preferred term is “healing touch.” It's an extremely popular technique among nurses who can actually get continuing education credit for taking courses in this imaginary therapy technique. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a big story on healing touch on the front page of its B section this morning. Stanford University is taking healing touch therapy seriously enough to embark on a three-year clinical trial of its efficacy. The results will be out in two more years.

Are you psychic enough to predict the results? I suspect that healing touch will prove to be no more effective than a placebo. That, nevertheless, will be enough to produce shouts of triumph from the imaginary medicine community. After all, it could be working. What more do you need?

Here are some excerpts from the Chronicle article:

Energy therapy: Where mysticism meets science

By Carrie Sturrock
Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, May 26, 2008

Anne Broderick believes she can use her hands to alter the energy fields of others to help them heal, taking away fatigue, stress and nausea.

A clinical trial at Stanford University aims to prove it. The university is testing whether an energy therapy called Healing Touch can reduce the debilitating effects of chemotherapy on breast cancer patients.

It's the juncture where touchy-feely New Age mysticism meets hard science.

Healing Touch is a noninvasive energy therapy program founded by a registered nurse in Colorado in 1989. Its following has spread nationwide. Advocates stress that it isn't a cure but a way of easing the stress, fatigue and nausea of radiation and chemotherapy.

---

It's “energy therapy.” Could someone tell me what form the “energy” takes? Can you measure its strength in joules? (The answers are “No” and “No.”)

Ms. Broderick is a “Healing Touch certified practitioner.” That basically means taking some course work from the people who invented and promote therapeutic touch. You pay your tuition of $300 or so and sign up with the Healing Touch Program: “The Healing Touch Program offers a series of energy-based therapy classes in which students use a variety of hands-on techniques that facilitate energy balance for wholeness within the individual, supporting physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing.” Simple as that.

Healing touch is offered at several major medical clinics. The provider at Stanford is Healing Partners, the director of which is one of the investigators in the clinical trial.

Healing Partners has paired more than 100 breast cancer patients with Healing Touch providers since the free program began three years ago at Stanford.

That success prompted its director, Kathy Turner, a registered nurse, to prove its effectiveness in a randomized, controlled clinical trial that started last year. As all undergo chemotherapy, one group of breast cancer patients receives Healing Touch for 20 minutes, a second group listens to a relaxation tape, and a third gets nothing. Researchers haven't yet analyzed the initial data.

---

Turner gave the Chronicle a summary of the notions behind healing touch:

“It's based on the belief that our bodies are surrounded by a field of energy and our bodies themselves are a denser form of energy,” Turner said. “The belief there is that once the body's energy is cleared and balanced, our bodies have the innate capacity to heal themselves.”

The underlying technique is age-old, advocates say, and intends to balance and align people's energy fields so they become “whole in body, mind, emotion and spirit”—although no one knows quite how it works.

---

Or even what the words mean. Denser form of energy? Balance? Align? Age-old? (Therapeutic touch was invented in 1989 by the late Janet Mentgen,RN.)

Although Anne Broderick presents herself as originally skeptical in an interview with Palo Alto Online (“I thought it was pretty 'woo-woo' stuff”), she now has the faith of a true convert:

Broderick, a former corporate executive turned psychotherapist, provides Healing Touch to Lydia Li every week. Both survived breast cancer and took part in Healing Partners at Stanford.

Earlier this month, Li arrived at Broderick's Palo Alto office with shoulder pain and a headache. She lay on a massage table, and Broderick covered her fully clothed body with a white sheet. Broderick, 69, then silently told herself, “I set my intention for the highest good,” and began methodically touching Li to the sounds of running water and quiet music, occasionally sweeping her hands above her. At times, she firmly held a foot, knee or wrist. At others, she seemed to play an imaginary piano on Li's back.

Often, Broderick begins sessions by holding a crystal (although she said a “lifesaver on a string” would work just as well) 4 inches above Li and watches it circle over the seven chakras—energy vortices—that run along the length of the body. Clockwise is a good sign. No movement or one that's counterclockwise means the person could use some help getting healthy energy flow, she says.

---

Chakras? I think we just found the “age-old” part. Healing touch contains a healthy dollop of repackaged Eastern woo. Deepak Chopra would be proud. (Or jealous.)

The Chronicle illustrated its news article with a large photo of Broderick in action, waving her hands over Lydia Li. Thanks to the skills of photographer Kat Wade, Broderick is captured in a nimbus of light. You want an aura? Move around in front of a light source while the practiced eye of a professional photographer captures the perfect moment. It's all in the hands.

Of the photographer.

No Bones about it

Ben Stein as Zeitgeist

[S]cience leads you to killing people.
—Ben Stein

Vernunft ... ist die höchste Hur, die der Teufel hat. (Reason ... is the greatest whore that the devil has.)
—Martin Luther

---

The season finale of Bones revolted me.

No, it wasn't because Bones specializes in scenes of graphic gore and I'm squeamish. (I am a bit squeamish, despite the helpful influence of a farm upbringing.) One can forgive a certain amount of sensationalism in a program whose lead character is an adamantly nonbelieving scientist. If it weren't for the shock value and the excitement of each week's mystery, how many people would tune in to the musings of a relentlessly logical and minimally emotional protagonist? Atheists seem to need a lot of window dressing if they're to be cast as heroes in a TV series. (In the case of Bones the openly secular scientist is counterbalanced with some conventionally devout costars.)

My revulsion at the last episode came as a delayed reaction, once I reflected on the illogic and tacit assumptions of the surprise ending. For the sake of melodrama, the writers decided a perversion of logic would provide the exciting twist they needed for a jolting conclusion to the third season's big story arc.

Fans already know that the Bones finale unmasked Dr. Zack Addy as the mole hidden inside the Jeffersonian Institution's laboratory, the new apprentice of the cannibalistic serial killer called “Gormogon.” Zachary Addy (Eric Millegan) had been established in earlier episodes as a kind of counterpart to Temperance Brennan, the lead character portrayed by Emily Deschanel. Both Brennan and Addy are scientific and logical to the point of compulsion, although Brennan is somewhat more successful in her social relations. She, after all, is a bestselling author and has a relatively normal sex life, while he is the quintessentially awkward nerd. (When interviewed, his neighbors are certain to say, “He seemed like a nice, quiet type and he always kept to himself.”)

The crimes of Gormogon were a continuing thread throughout the third season, sometimes fading into the background, other times taking center stage. Gormogon kills people and eats them, assembling bits and pieces of them into a composite skeleton. (Since each victim presumably comes with a complete skeleton, it was never clear to me why it was necessary for Gormogon to create a slow and tedious composite. Perhaps my attention nodded off during one of the less interesting expository scenes. Or maybe the writers didn't bother with an explanation any more than they bothered to write a sensible season closer.)

Gormogon is not only a serial killer, he's multigenerational. Each Gormogon recruits and trains an apprentice to take over the responsibilities of killing and eating people. The apprentice, of course, is expendable, and one is expended earlier in the third season in a jail house suicide. It's assumed that Gormogon has recruited a new apprentice, but his identity and activities are mysteries to the members of the Jeffersonian team (or, rather, to all but one member).

Addy, of course, was part of the effort to unravel the earlier crimes of Gormogon and his late apprentice. Despite this exposure to these macabre atrocities, Zack proves astonishingly susceptible to the killer's blandishments and falls under his influence. By day he works at the Jeffersonian in a team effort to expose Gormogon, but by night he's available to do his master's bidding, even to the point of murder. (In a weird bit of amelioration, we learn later that Zack had yet to graduate to the cannibalism level of his initiation, preserving some modicum of his boyish innocence and reducing the viewer's disgust. That's only-in-television convenient.)

The final episode's conclusion is supposed to reveal the subtle logical cantrip that ensnared the cerebral young Dr. Addy. As Dr. Brennan explains in the scene where she and Booth (David Boreanaz) confront him:

Brennan: Zack responds to logic, Booth.

Booth: Really? Because I'd love to hear the logic of killing and eating people to change the world.

Addy: The master's logic is irrefutable.

---

Oh, this is going to be good, right? Sorry. Here is the word-for-word transcript of Brennan's brilliant counterargument, as she discerns and unravels Zack's highly logical motivation:

Brennan: I've never met anyone more rational or intelligent. But there's a fault in your logic.

Addy: With all due respect, you aren't cognizant of his logic.

Brennan: Assumption No. 1: Secret societies exist.

Addy: Accepted. Hodgins has been explaining this to me for years.

Brennan: Assumption No. 2: The human experience is adversely affected by secret societies.

Addy: Accepted.

Brennan: Assumption No. 3: Attacking and killing members of secret societies will have an ameliorating affect on the human experience.

Addy: Accepted.

Brennan: All of your assumptions are built upon a first principle, Zack. To wit: The historical human experience as a whole is more important than a single person's life.

Addy: Yes.

Brennan: Yet you risked it all so that you wouldn't hurt Hodgins.

Addy: There's ... You are correct: There is an inconsistency in my reasoning.

---

Yes, he had risked his mission to spare a colleague from danger. Zack sheds a tear as he realizes he was wrong to agree to become the secret apprentice of a cannibalistic serial killer. He has been defeated by the very logic he worshiped. Ironic, no? The silly boy was ready to join a small secret society dedicated to eating the members of other secret societies. It's, like, poetic.

Sheesh.

As the ensemble stands around wondering how Zack got caught up in the Gormogon conspiracy, Dr. Brennan underscores the episode's theme with one word: “Logic.” (Shudder.) At least U.S. prosecutor Carolyn Julian (Patricia Belcher) offers a facile refutation: “This happened the way this always happen: A strong personality finds a weak personality and takes advantage.”

That's the slender straw we're left to cling to at the show's end: It was domination by a criminal mastermind of a hyperlogical nerd boy. Nevertheless, we must remember our lesson: Logic kills.

Especially its absence.

Outlook cloudy

Try again later

What would you bet that most viewers of today's Bizarro cartoon will miss half the joke? Dan Piraro depicts a man earnestly beseeching God to improve the reliability of his Magic Eight Ball. That's rather amusing, of course, because we all know that the Magic Eight Ball is just a playful gimmick.

The joke goes deeper than that. The man is praying to his big imaginary friend to impart some actual magic to his oracular toy. The petitioner has about as much chance of getting a substantive response to his prayers as obtaining a useful prediction from his Eight Ball.

Amen.

Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again

Thou shalt knot

His Mom gets most of the good gigs, but Jesus likes to make an occasional cameo appearance. In keeping with the well-known theme that God works in mysterious ways, the Savior has popped up in a wooden fence in Lodi, California. His apparition has taken the form of a knothole in a residential backyard. Lodi, in case you didn't recall, was immortalized in 1969 by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Their song Lodi contains the refrain “Oh, Lord, I'm stuck in Lodi again.” The local Chamber of Commerce has declined, however, to promote the song as a municipal anthem.

Although Lodi is practically in my own backyard, I have decided against making a pilgrimage to see Knothole Jesus. Yes, I'm passing up the chance to see Jesus stuck in a fence. While the more credulous may need to see the divine splinters in person, the Lodi News-Sentinel has provided me with as much information about the woody apparition as any sensible person could want. Here's how News-Sentinel staff writer Ross Farrow reported the situation:

Ana Garcia was mowing her lawn last Friday when her sister, Emily, saw something odd on Garcia's fence in her backyard.

“She said, ‘Ana, you've got to come over here,’” Garcia said. “‘What do you see?’”

Garcia replied, “Oh my God, that's Jesus!”

It may be said that Jesus is in the eye of the beholder. Some may swear it's a likeness of the Son of God on her fence on South Hutchins Street, while others will think it's just her imagination.

“It's bizarre, it's a mystery, but I'm a true believer that he's around us,” Garcia said.

---

Ms. Garcia is reportedly planning to get in touch with her local Catholic Church for an official investigation of her backyard miracle. I can just imagine the joy of the local cleric at being confronted with yet another mundane delusion. Priests and ministers work so hard to inculcate their doctrinal superstitions in their flocks, then face the embarrassment of garden-variety manifestations like this. The Catholic Church in particular, having sanctioned the apparitions of Lourdes, Fatima, and Guadalupe, has its hands full trying to quell its flock's enthusiasm for outbreaks of pareidolia. The Lodi event is one of those pesky cases of too much superstition. The credulity must be channeled and doled out in more manageable chunks—some of them bite-sized on Sunday.

The Lodi community is now squabbling over the significance of Knothole Jesus. The scoffers and believers are not always displaying Christian charity in their comments on the Lodi News-Sentinel website. Here are a few of my favorite remarks:

Stop being so negative! wrote on Aug 27, 2007 11:28 AM:
"I think this is a GREAT article for the front page! What's wrong with you people? Perhaps if you let GOD into your heart, you wouldn't be so negative. For whatever reason, Ms. Garcia has been blessed by this rare event."

I Want To Buy That Board... wrote on Aug 27, 2007 11:51 AM:
"I will be saved if I can buy that board of jesus! How much are you willing to sell it for? Price is no object because I can't take my money to heaven!"

Benita Hernandez wrote on Aug 27, 2007 6:44 PM:
"Only an no-believer can not see it...I can and God is watching over the ones who have fait and beleive in him....There should be no bad comments about Ms.Garcia cause she is only sharing this with us....Someone who is selfish would not share this and all she wants to let you guys know that there is a God and one day he may show up in the back of your yard.. but then it may be to late for you...."

Retired cop wrote on Aug 27, 2007 7:26 PM:
"To all you non believers, I went to look at the fence and saw the image of Jesus. All you need to do is believe and have faith. Obviously some of you are not believers hence the comments."

---

I think perhaps Retired cop did not pay a lot of attention during his training on the rules of evidence, but I'll bet he was a great witness during criminal prosecutions. I thank Knothole Jesus that this particular peace officer is retired.

Prostitution and the vasty deep

Shackled by sorcery

The Los Angeles Times is reporting this morning the breaking of a prostitution ring in southern California. Criminal indictments were unsealed Thursday against nine people who are being charged with sex-trafficking. Their scheme allegedly involved luring young women—some of them minors—from Guatemala with offers of employment in the United States:

According to the indictment, the victims were recruited in Guatemala for what they believed were legitimate jobs as baby-sitters, waitresses and other positions, then smuggled across the border with the understanding that they would repay the people who had helped them get into the United States.

Once in the U.S., they were forced into prostitution to repay inflated smuggling debts.

---

The girls were subjected to threats of violence in order to keep them in line and to prevent them from seeking help from the authorities. They were particularly vulnerable to magical coercion. As the Times reports:

The defendants, all of whom are in the United States illegally, also took some victims to reputed “witch doctors” in Los Angeles, warning them that a curse would be placed on them and their families in Guatemala if they tried to escape.

---

This hit a little too close to home for me, a member of a superstition-ridden family. I had a grandmother who took the notion of curses absolutely seriously. My sister-in-law is a complete sucker for every pseudoscientific nostrum that comes down the pike. Her daughters, my nieces, could pick up this nonsense from their mother and thus be susceptible to “magical” coercion. Fortunately, I think they're just feisty and rebellious enough not to have swallowed it whole, but I don't know.

Rational thinking is armor against the purveyors of fraud and delusion. The girls of Guatemala were not equipped to combat their exploiters. Are the young people in the United States any better prepared? Examples in my own family cause me to doubt it.