Ann Coulter

I just saw a talk by Ann Coulter at the IU Auditorium. What a bitch!

Before it started I asked my friend Larry how many people he thought were Republicans, and how many watching it ironically like us. He estimated 30% Republican but when they stood up for the ovation I thought it looked more like 80%!

I don't want to get into the content because it's too depressing but I have to comment on style.

She really makes too much of a fuss about shutting people up. It's like she's a princess, she doesn't just pause when people yell out, she talks to the ushers and insists that they remove anyone who has interrupted her before she'll resume. She's really quite rude about it too, saying things like, "Well if you're not going to do anything about it I guess you'll be getting a short speech tonight" and "Did you hire Democrats as ushers or something?" Anyone who's done it for as long as she has would be used to heckling; the only explanation is that she want's to pretend she's being persecuted.

The other ridiculous thing she does is hurl simple facts as though they are insults (this is after she has a go at the left for using "flag-waving" as a negative epithet)! The best examples are accusing people of not believing in God. saying that John Kerry testified that US troops had committed war crimes in Vietnam and "Democrats try to argue for family values too, they say a gay marriage can be a family" (she even called one of her questioners "gay boy"). Obviously this says as much about her audience and the wider cultural climate as it does about her but I still have trouble with her claiming any points from such an attack. Luckily someone took her up on the second one and asked what she thought about the My Lai massacre. But she refused to answer because he prefaced the question with something innacurate. Bitch! It just gets to me that people like Coulter and her audience can see the situation in the same way as their opponents yet be filled with such spite that they hurl the facts back as insults. Sigh!

Addendum:
I friend sent me a link to the Indiana Daily Student, who reported it pretty much how I did. Then this:

IU College Republicans President Shane Kennedy defended Coulter's comments by stressing that the speech was for entertainment and attendees should have expected Coulter to say controversial comments.

"I think the guy could have been more respectful to her," he said. "I mean, we already know that she was going to be controversial and she was just saying what people were thinking. If you are going to talk like you are gay, then Ann Coulter is going to call you gay. Of course, she said it in a spiteful tone, but it was expected."

Oh, well if you make such a habit of insulting people that everyone's come to expect it, that's ok! Vilify to your heart's content!vilify

Happy Darwin Day!

Today is Charles Darwin's 197th Birthday. It's not actually a big deal, even for HPS folk, but I wish it were celebrated more enthusiastically. Today I'm going to watch Inherit the Wind with a few dept friends and a few drinks. I did suggest that doing this on Darwin's birthday is as perverse as having a debate on the existence of god on 25th December but this is the USA and the unequivocal science is not separable from the social debate.

Evolution has been on my mind of late because we've just read a couple of relevant books in my history of science class (Desmond & Moore's Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist and Numbers's Darwinism Comes to America -- the fat Darwin bio was far more interesting than the shorter academic text). This is good because next semester (starting September) I'll be teaching assistant for the undergrad class "Evolution, Religion and Society", which I'm sure I'll enjoy. I did bring my copy of Darwin and a few other evolution books with me and have bought a few more to read over summer just so I can live and breathe the debate (Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic Evolution and Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution). In fact, I'm starting to think if I can become a quasi-expert on this I would then be in a good position to eventually write something on creationism in other countries. As much as I'd like to simply ignore the few creationists Australia has, I'm starting to realise that it's going to get much worse before it gets any better. Of course that is a distant project and I'll have to be careful because something like that is guaranteed to make my bloodpressure skyrocket!

Despite this deplorable situation where archaic superstitions are being pushed in the 21st century, the professor in our dept who knows the most about this is relatively optimistic. He points out that the Scopes Trial (1925) tried to ban evolution altogether; in the '70s and '80s Creation "Science" claimed to be an alternative to science; and now Intelligent Design theorists claim that they are not an alternative science but an alternative to evolution and just as much a part of science. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good thing. If it becomes too prevalent (45% of Americans believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old) then it could taint the good science, whereas a fringe movement is less threatening. I have to say I have just a little more respect for creationists who admit that be believing what they do they are rejecting science, it's far more intellectually honest than deluding oneself, manipulating arguments and telling downright lies in order to convert others. (Actually, that reminds me of Fred Nile's tactics. But that's another rant for another day.)