Darwin on Screen: Circle Cinema Film Celebrates Evolutionary Struggle

Thanks to Tulsa's Circle Cinema, Oklahomans can get a inside look at Charles Darwin's life of ideas, especially his long struggle to write On the Origin of Species.

The film, Creation, opened February 12 (Darwin's 201st birthday). It follows the famous English scientist at home, providing a portrait of his passionate marriage and his grief over the death of a beloved daughter.

For more on Creation and the Circle Cinema, see their website here.

UPDATE: Reading some book ads today, we discovered an interesting title regarding Darwin. The book is Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne. We don't know the book, but it's a provocative title and it's now out in paperback from Penguin.

A link to the book on Amazon is here.

Obsolete Jobs: A Slideshow of Occupations that Went Away

This post has nothing to do with any of our usual concerns, but we want to post it anyway. The topic is jobs of yesteryear, which we found on the NPR website.

We all know that jobs change over time, but it's interesting to review some of the occupations that once were, but are no more.

Two quick examples: Telegraph operators and copy boys. Check out the NPR slideshow of obsolete jobs  here.

GOP Leaders Back Away from Party's Nasty Campaign Tactics

AltTulsa has been a consistent critic of fear-based campaigning. Now, at last, even Republican leaders are pulling back from the GOP's latest round of demonizing by the Republican Right.

Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell has gone on record against GOP tactics. So has Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican. We applaud these men and their rejection of destructive, hyper-partisan rhetoric.

Here's the story from the Salt Lake Tribune:

Sen. Orrin Hatch said he is "ashamed" of a Republican National Committee presentation that called for demonizing Democrats and President Barack Obama to help raise money.

"There is no excuse for that kind of stuff," said Hatch, R-Utah, during an appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday. "It shouldn't have happened. I'm ashamed of that."

Hatch's comment was in response to a question about a 72-page Power Point presentation created by the RNC's finance director that included a slide labeled "The Evil Empire," which showed Obama dressed as "The Joker" with the word socialism written underneath.

It also depicted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Cruella De Vil and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

The RNC delivered the presentation to potential fundraisers in Florida last month. Someone leaked it to the press last week.

One name we haven't seen opposing these shameful attacks: Oklahoma's own Jim Inhofe. Wonder why that is?

Oh, that's right. Inhofe is one of the Republicans who practices these shameful political attacks.

Liz Cheney Gets it Wrong: Playing Politics with Terror

The excesses of the Republican Right are considerable and, often, outrageous. Now this list includes exploiting terror to score political points.

The culprit is none other than former Veep daughter Liz Cheney, a person with a a less-than-firm grip on political reality. Her latest screed is an attack on a handful of Justice Department lawyers who once defended terror suspects.

Heavens! A lawyer actually defending a guilty person. We all know that guilty persons—terrorists of not—don't deserve legal representation or a fair trial.

Even conservative thinkers (a group that doesn't include Liz Cheney and her ilk) have backed away from Ms. Cheney's attack. Unlike Cheney, they recognize that defense lawyers have a responsibility to defend suspects, even when the suspects are terrorists.

There is, after all, something wonderful in the law that involves the protection of individual rights, even when the suspects are horrible people. More often than not, it appears, terrorists are found guilty.

The full story is linked here.

Racism: Alive and Well in Nashville

Some on the conservative end of the spectrum claim that racism is dead, that we now live in a post-racial society.

We suspect otherwise. In fact, there's plenty of racism to go around, much of it directed toward the president and his wife.

Here's the latest example: 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - After accusations of racism and calls for him to step down, a prominent local businessman says he's sorry for forwarding a controversial email.
Walt Baker, the CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association, is at the center of controversy after forwarding an e-mail that compared First Lady Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee.

Metro Councilman Walter Hunt said he started to get phone calls about the e-mail on Friday.

"I don't know what he was thinking," Hunt told News 2, "and the people who got [the e-mail] said I don't think it's funny."

"It was demeaning, insulting, racist -- not only to her, but to every citizen in the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee," said Hunt.

Walt Baker initially brushed off the e-mail controversy, telling the Nashville Scene on Friday it was in good fun, but on Saturday he apologized.

"It was wrong, my initial reaction to the story was wrong," Baker told News 2. "It was stupid and I am alone the responsible party in this."

Given the long and sorted history of racism and intolerance in human history, this is hardly a surprise. But we'd like to think that people were smarter and more enlightened than this.

Celebrate Oklahoma's Young Artists: The Momentum Show in OKC

AltTulsa likes to hang with artists. They're a quirky bunch—which is probably why we like them.

Which brings us the Momentum show in Oklahoma City, a show in for Sooner state artists under 30. 

It's a cool idea. We like it. We've posted a link to a NewsOK video here.

Beck's Illusions of Grandeur: He's Socrates! No, He's Ben Franklin!

Glenn Beck is coming to Tulsa (yawn…) later this month. But Beck's fans many might want to consider the man's Montana-sized ego. 

To wit: Beck has repeatedly compared himself to great thinkers including (get this!) Socrates, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, and Martin Luther King. Wow!

It's silly, but true to the man. He's clueless, all hot air and fear. The dumb details here.

Hate by the Highway: A Slide Show of Anti-Obama Billboards

The zanies on the Far Right can't be bothered with ordinary political speech. No boring policy debates for these folks.

Instead, they have opted for hyperbole and fear—making claims about President Obama that don't pass the truth test. It's sad, and it says more about the fear-mongers and race-baiters than it does about the president.

The good folks at The Daily Beast have looked at the sorry evidence. See the slide show here.

Hoosiers Go Rogue; Use 10th Amendment to Claim They Are Sovereign

There are many legitimate reasons to complain about or protest government actions. Then again, some reasons are nutty, which is exactly what we have now in Indiana.

Using a highly questionable interpretation of the Tenth Amendment, these folks say they can claim their own sovereign status, which (conveniently) means that they don't have to pay taxes.

Cool—and quite idiotic. The state of Indiana isn't buying it. Neither is anyone else with half a brain.

Only the Tea Party folks think this notion is legal—and they happen to be wrong. The story here.

David Corn Tackles Rove's Claims: Bush Administration Not Interested in Truth

Karl Rove is out with his new book. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Rove is still spinning the story of how the Bush team got us into war. 

Thankfully, David Corn has taken a look at Rove's fish story and found some problems, to put it politely. To put it bluntly, the Bush folks lied.

Writing in Mother Jones, Corn sums up the problem:

Rove can argue that in the run-up to the war, Bush and the others believed what they were saying about Iraq's WMDs. But Bush and his crowd demonstrated a profound disinterest in sorting out the truth. They made no effort to distinguish between known facts and convenient suppositions. They exaggerated. They trumped up unconfirmed pieces of information. They presented rosy assumptions. They overlooked or discounted data that didn't advance the cause.

That's right, Sooner fans, Bush and his cronies lied. Corn gets it right:

Bush and his aides, Rove included, were not looking to lead an informed debate based on the best information available; they were aiming to start a war. Almost by any means necessary. They spun the nation into Iraq—and now Rove is spinning to cover that up.

Brooks on the Tea Party Gang: They're 'Wal-Mart Hippies'

The Tea Party folks are having a bad week. Their candidates were duds in Texas this week. (This raises an interesting question: If you can't win in Texas, where can you win?)

Now a leading conservative voice is dumping on their fake outrage and actual extremism. On the Colbert Report, David Brooks, Times columnist, compared them to hippies, but these folks are the "Wal-Mart hippies."

Read more and see the video here.

Frederic Chopin at 200: NPR Has Clips of Great Performances

AltTulsa doesn't claim to have the best background in classical music. But we like to keep abreast of all things musical, which is how we come to Frederic Chopin.

It was the composer's 200th birthday the other day and in honor of the occasion, NPR has set up a site with video clips of great pianists playing the master's work.

The link is here. Needless to say, it's worth a listen.

Mesofacts: When Reality Changes Slowly, Most of Us Have Trouble Adjusting

Facts don't change, right? The Mississippi River still flows down the middle of the country and the height of Mount Everest is always the same.

Or is it? Turns out that many facts do change. The "facts" of the weather change all the time, of course.  Even the height of Mount Everest has changed, thanks to more accurate measuring devices.

But people don't always adjust to some changes of fact, especially changes we don't really notice, and therein lies the problem.

This is the thesis of an interesting Boston Globe article by Samuel Arbesman, who argues for a category of fact called the mesofact, which describes factual knowledge that changes slowly over time. 

Check out Arbesman's essay here.

Selling Scare: Republicans Plan to Push Fear in Fund-raising Campaign

The Republican Party loves fear, especially when they can exploit it to their own advantage.

The recent Bush Administration made a habit of it. Condi Rice warned of mushroom clouds and Dick Cheney—well, Cheney was afraid of almost everything. Or so he claimed.

Following in this grand paranoid tradition, the current GOP plans to push more fear, especially fear of Obama and his supposed socialist, Marxist, Maoist, Fascist, totalitarian tendencies—even when those tendencies don't actually exist. 

In the Republican worldview, fear is good. Let's scare people into voting Republican.

Hey, it works for Rush and Beck and Hannity the whole mindless world of Talk Radio. So what if it's hype and hot-air?

Politico has the story here.

Texas Tea Party Update: God Gives Debra Medina Only 18 Percent of the Vote

Voters should always be skeptical when political candidates start claiming that God is on their side.

That's the case with Debra Medina, the Tea Party's favorite candidate in Tuesday's Republican primary for Texas governor. Speaking in Waco before the election, Medina said this:

If you haven't seen the hand of God in this race, you haven't been looking.

Medina got 18 percent of the vote; incumbent Rick Perry topped the 50 percent mark. He'll face Democratic candidate Bill White in the fall.

As for Medina and her followers, maybe they ought to take the hint. Apparently, God doesn't want these folks in power.

GOP Obstruction: Bunting Goes Down