I voted for Obama this morning

I like to vote on Election Day, and I sucessfully resisted the considerable urge for Early Voting this year. Since I was anticipating a wait at the polls, I got up a bit early this morning. I arrived with my 11-year old son, Evan, at the polling place for Coralville 6 (Wickham Elementary, his school) at ~7:40am. Evan went over to the Kid's Voting booth and voted while I initially got in the wrong line (no coffee yet)... After waiting in line for a few minutes, I realized that I needed to sign-in. So I did that and returned to the line to pick up my ballot. The line was ~20 people long and was moving briskly. There were ~15 voting carrels on one side of the gymnasium (the same gym that was jam-packed with Democrats on Caucus night).

The ballot was a two-sided legal-sized document with bubbles to fill in. As it turns out, I could have just bubbled-in the Democratic strait ticket. But it was a lot more fun to fill in the bubbles separately for Obama/Biden, Harkin, Loebsack and few others. I showed Evan my vote for Obama and he approved. We then together fed the ballot into the reader and each picked up "I VOTED" pins. All together it took about 15 minutes.

I am looking forward to a new start for this country!

The Simpsons Movie

On Friday, I took my kids (ages 10 & 12) to see "The Simpsons Movie". There's always something fun (and risky) about seeing a movie on its opening day and this one actually delivered on the hype. We all enjoyed it, and I would generally recommend it. However, families should be aware that it's rated PG-13 for good reasons. There's quite a bit of off-color (adult?) humor and even a brief shot of Bart's penis (aka "doodle"). They clearly took advantage of the off-TV venue for some saved-up "mature" (?) content. But long-time Simpson's fans should expect some of this (like showing Otto smoking a bong).

The other reason to post here about The Simpsons is the fun piece in Nature this week entitled "Mmm...Pi" that discusses the science-based humor that has permeated The Simpsons for years. The "Top Ten Science Moments" are worth remembering.

The OUT Campaign

Sorry for the long haitus & thanks for staying tuned! Summer time has been keeping me busy this year.

So, what does this big red "A" above mean? Click it and find out for yourself. The folks over at RichardDawkins.net have launched an internet effort to let the world know that there are alot of us OUT there. I'm happy to be OUT. Here's a snippet from the site:

"As more and more people join the OUT Campaign, fewer and fewer people will feel intimidated by religion. We can help others understand that atheists come in all shapes, sizes, colours and personalities. We are labourers and professionals. We are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and grandparents. We are human (we are primates) and we are good friends and good citizens. We are good people who have no need to cling to the supernatural."

When you see the A, you know!

Beach, Beer & Books

Sorry for the long delay in posting here. It's been an eventful few weeks. After my return from the ASM annual meeting in Toronto, I attended an excellent PhD thesis defense (Tetyana Nosenko from Debashish Bhattacharya's lab), and then left immediately for the 13th German-American Frontiers of Science Symposium. I'll write more about this meeting later..

From there, I went directly to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week of vacation with my family. The main agenda items for me are given in the title to this post. I spent 4 of 5 days on the beach, drinking beer, body-surfing and other water-frolicking, napping and reading books when possible (one day was spent recovering from a sun-burn).

Beach. We (12 of us, comprising both my immediate and extended family) stayed in a guest house in Hatteras which was situated ~5 min from the Atlantic Ocean. It was glorious. The kids (myself included) has a great time splashing in the waves and digging in the sand. Thanks to my sister, Beth, for making the arrangements.

Beer. Throughout the week, I emptied many bottles of Red Hook's Longhammer IPA. This was a perfect beach beer. It's both tasty and refreshing! Of course, there were a few bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (my standard libation) consumed, too.

Books. Although I brought more than I could possibly finish, here are the ones I actually cracked (and in a couple cases, finished): Blink (Malcom Gladwell); Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs (Chuck Klosterman); Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig); Killing Yourself to Live (also Chuck Klosterman).
So it's back to reality for me, but at least I enjoyed myself on the Outer Banks!

Parenting Beyond Belief

Since I have not posted for awhile, I'll follow through on a promise made in March. Here is my review of Parenting Beyond Belief that was published in the Iowa Secularists newsletter in April. I'll point out that the author/editor, Dale McGowan (pictured at left), has an interesting blog called The Meming of Life.

This I don’t believe: a parenting guide for us
A review of Parenting Beyond Belief. On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, by Dale McGowan (Editor) AMACOM/American Management Association (April 30, 2007)

A search of Amazon.com for books containing the word “parenting” in their title yields ~4000 hits. This sounds like a huge number, but for those of you with kids, it’s probably not terribly surprising. Parenting books are a major market. A quick browse through the titles reveals both general parenting guides and some very specific categories (Nighttime Parenting, Financial Parenting, Militant (?!) Parenting, You-Name-It Parenting…). Indeed, a considerable fraction of these books are focused on religious parenting of various flavors (for example, 87 titles contained “christian parenting”)—and this presumably excludes other parenting guides available only in religious bookstores.

If you have kids, you probably have at least a few—and possibly many—parenting books. In my home, we have no less than 24 such books; for us, that’s 12 per child! But none of these books are aimed at a significant part of our demographic: we are non-believers. With the impending publication in late April 2007 of Parenting Beyond Belief (herein, PBB) we—and many of you—will no longer be left behind. Depending on how you feel about parenting books, you may or may not consider this good news. But now you won’t have the excuse that none of them are aimed at secularist (atheist, freethinking, etc.) parents.

The PBB website (http://parentingbeyondbelief.com) touts that this book is “for loving and thoughtful parents who wish to raise their children without religion. There are scores of books available for religious parents. Now there's one for the rest of us.” Ok, so what if someone found an untapped niche in the parenting genre…is the book any good? The quick answer: it’s a really good, and in some places great, little book.

PBB is a collection of essays from a variety of authors on a wide range of parenting topics. Most pieces tackle issues specific to non-belief parenting but many also deal with more general topics. The editor, Dale McGowan, a writer, educator, husband and parent of three, has pulled off the difficult task of weaving together diverse parts into a very cohesive whole. It sure helps that most of these parts (the individual essays) are simply terrific! PBB is broken into nine topical chapters. For each chapter, McGowan provides a brief, but clear, introduction and synthesis; then he lets the contributors’ pieces stand on their own. Most of them do so with flair.

You can either read PBB from cover-to-cover, or pick-and-choose based on your topic of interest. If you do the latter, don’t skip the first chapter “Personal Reflections”. In my view, McGowan started with the strongest material—it simply blows away the standard parenting book drivel and sets a great tone for the rest of book. The essays by Julia Sweeney and Penn Jillette are truly wonderful. I really enjoy Penn’s no-holds-barred-style:

“Those of us who are out of the closet atheist parents have all the extra time on Sunday mornings to love our kids…Tell your kids that there’s no god and be done with it...your kids aren’t stupid.”

But this approach may not be for everyone and, to balance things out, some of the essays are more circumspect. I am also really pleased to see that a favorite essay from Richard Dawkins is included here. “Good And Bad Reasons For Believing” is an open letter that Dawkins wrote to his 10-year-old daughter on the nature of evidence and belief (reprinted from A Devil's Chaplain). I am moved every time I read it.

PBB is not only an interesting and enjoyable read, it is also stuffed full with good information and pointers to other sources. Each chapter ends with “Additional Resources” that includes websites, books and other helpful information. But it doesn’t even end there. On the website you’ll find a useful study guide available for free download. The reader is advised that “the study guide – like the book itself – is intended only as a starting point”. So don’t wait to get started.

© John M. Logsdon, Jr., Ph.D.

Parenting without believing

Even though it's only been a few days for me here, I will go ahead and "out" myself as a non-believer. That won't come as a huge surprise to many, perhaps. I'm not planning to get into philisophical issues here, but as a parent and a general member of society, there are some important practical things to deal with. Both parenting and religion are among my "approved" topics for this blog...

So when I was asked by a colleague to write a short review on the upcoming book Parenting Beyond Belief for the Iowa Secularists newsletter, I was delighted to oblige. Although I haven't yet completed the book (and the review!), I am already in a position to reccommend it to parents like myself. It is a series of essays from a wide variety of folks on a diverse set of topics. The website says:

"Parenting Beyond Belief is the first comprehensive parenting book by a major publisher on raising children without religion"

So far, my favorite essays are by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller), Julia Sweeney (formerly, of SNL) and Richard Dawkins (most recently, of The God Delusion). The latter is a reprint of my favorite piece from A Devil's Chaplain, called Good And Bad Reasons For Believing. This is an open letter that Dawkins wrote to his 10-year-old daughter on the nature of evidence and belief. I am moved everytime I read it.

Since I'll retain copyright on the review, I'll also publish it here when its done. I had better finish the book now...