A friend of mine sent me an e-mail today wondering about the many recent natural disasters that have made the news: “…what has happened to this world????????? Floods, tsunami, hurricanes!!!” I couldn’t really share her apocalyptic angst and wrote her this e-mail in return:

To be honest with you, I think the natural side of the world is doing just fine; it’s the human half that keeps getting itself into trouble. We have this curious desire to move to the most dangerous spots on earth and then conduct our lives in a manner that leaves us helplessly vulnerable to such regular ‘catastrophes’. Louisiana as the most recent example is guilty of destroying much of the surrounding wetlands, which, aside from being the home to a unique diversity of plant and wildlife, also serves to buffer the inland areas from the brunt of such storms. Our insistence to move ever closer to these areas and to destroy the natural protection they once offered is perhaps similar to moving into an already occupied lion’s den and then having the nerve to rearrange the furniture! It’s just a (very brief) matter of time before you’ve worn out your welcome.

Most puzzling to me is the number of people who chose to ignore the many and timely warnings issued by the affected cities and states urging everyone to evacuate while there was still time. I understand this would not be possible for a certain percentage of people due to sickness, poverty or other circumstances, but ‘standing your ground’ in the face of certain death for its own sake serves no other purpose than to further burden an already stretched rescue operation, diverting help from where help is truly needed. For many of the victims, the adjective ‘stupid’ might be more accurate than ‘unfortunate’.

It sounds a bit heartless, perhaps. But it’s hard not to think we’re often the cause of much of our own misery, or at least an agitating factor. No new lesson there, I know.

Considering the name of this blog and that a few of its contributors have degrees in anthropology, We’re going to add our belated two-cents to the latest fatuous remarks prattled by our feckless leader, George W. Bush.

Never one to have let facts and critical deliberation stand in his way before, George has joined his fellow fundamentalists in insisting “intelligent design theory” be taught along side the theory of evolution in our nation’s schools. He claims he wants to allow other competing theories to have a chance as well, multilateral guy that he is. The only problem is intelligent design is a theory in the wish-upon-a-star sense only, not in the scientific sense. Of course, you can’t expect ol’ Gee Whiz to know that. Why shucks, he didn’t even know the difference between Jesus and a political philosopher.

A theory, even those belonging to that special class of’ ‘justa’ theories so troublesome to fundamentalists, MUST be testable.

theory: a working hypothesis given probability by experimental evidence or by factual or conceptual analysis but not conclusively established or accepted as a law

“theory.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (11 Aug. 2005).

The existence of an ‘intelligent’ designer (hmm, just WHO could they mean?) can not be tested; therefore, it is not science and belongs in religion class. Period. That it has become a point of serious debate in the US only shows the rest of the world how poor the science instruction in our schools really is – and how dangerous faith can be.

By renaming their supernatural creator an “Intelligent Designer”, fundamentalists have merely dressed God up in mortar board and gown and replaced his lightning bolt with a diploma – signed by Sally Struthers herself, no doubt. But no matter how hard you try, believing will always remain believing and thinking will always remain thinking.

Or should we start asking fundamentalists for the finer details on how Noah built an ark big enough to hold two of every animal on the earth?

If I had a lot of money or amazing powers of hypnosis, I would simply get someone to manage the technical side of The Typing Chimps for me so that I could dedicate my oh-so-valuable time to more important things, like playing this really cool race car video game I just found the other day. Sadly, the oppressive weight of my responsibilities to our loyal fans keeps me from smelling the roses as often as I’d like, and I muddle through the confounding tasks of creating Photoshop images and getting a row of pictures to appear at the top of a web page instead of the bottom.

But no man is an island; there are times when I simply can’t do it all alone, and I need a little help from my friends - or, in this particular case, my Internet host. Originally I used an Internet host company in Germany because my first site was a .de and not a .com. But they obsessed with rules and regulations, and I moved to greener pastures, thereby adding to the long list of potential German business customers who are scared off or turned off by one of the most expensive, inflexible, rule-ridden markets in the world. I found a small company in that antithesis of Germany, California, and was instantly sold. No sooner had I given them my credit card number than I was happily, if also cluelessly, building my very first web site.

The honeymoon soon came to an end, however, when I recently phoned my host again, this time not to buy something, but merely to avail myself of their customer services - the pride and joy of the company:

“We have top rated general support staff as well as advanced system administrators and programmers to assist with your more complex issues. If there is a problem, we will fix it - if you don’t understand something, we will explain it - we are proud of our service and our skills. In fact, we guarantee your satisfaction.”

Aaron answered. I love that first-name approach and have missed it ever since I came to Germany. Here you might have shopped at the same grocery store every week for the last 23 years and every time checked out with the same cashier and you still wouldn’t know anything more about her than what you read on her minimalist name badge: “Frau Schmidt”. In the US I’d know her first name, middle name, the names of her husband, children, dog and pastor no later than the third week. If I don’t shop during peak hours, that is.

“Hi, this is Chris,” I casually responded, ready for a little small-talk about the weather, the Dodgers, our hopes and dreams, “I’ve got a few questions about….” I went on to tell my good friend Aaron how I wanted to change my domain name. In one sentence I said “domain”, in the other “web address”. “What do you mean?” he asked dryly. Stupid me. I’ve just outed myself as the Internet putz that I am. Now he knows he’s dealing with a rookie. I just lost respect points with my friend, Aaron. “You know, the www-dot-whatever,” now sounding like a total idiot. “Oh,” said Aaron. I wanted to clear up the nomenclature issue right away so I could sound a bit more in-the-know the next time, “What is the difference between a domain and address, anyway?” I asked. “There isn’t one,” he said.

He never did ask me if I was going to get that embarrassing tattoo removed, and I never got the opportunity to ask him if he was going to try to patch up his estranged relationship with his pops this Christmas. You see, as things turned out, Aaron was a jerk. An arrogant computer jerk to be more precise. He knew what I wanted to know. He knew I knew he knew what I wanted to know. He was no doubt wondering what business I had trying to make a website when I clearly didn’t know anything about computers. If I couldn’t even say ‘domain’ or ‘web address’ without slobbering on my shirt, why should he waste his precious time with me? The rest of our conversation was curt and far from helpful. “So, do I have to change all the domain-address-whatever settings for anything I’ve uploaded?” “I’ve changed the domain name.” “Yes, but will my blog software be transferred to the next site?” “I’ve changed the domain name. That’s all.”

That was our real conversation, but as I filled with Dr.-David-Banner proportions of rage, THIS is the conversation I was holding in my mind:

Me: Aaron, do you have a body?

Aaron: Uh, yeah.

Me: And I’m guessing you’ve had your body for about 24 years now. Do you know everything about it? I mean, when you get sick or injure yourself or a wart suddenly appears in strange places, do you know exactly what to do or do you call a doctor? And if you do call a doctor, does he berate you for not knowing the difference between a sinoatrial node and an atrioventricular node even though you’ve owned them your entire life, or does he explain that one is a ‘pacemaker’ and the other a ‘relay station’ for your heart? And when your car breaks down, are you able to repair it no matter what the problem is, considering you’re completely dependent upon it, or do you have to shell out big bucks to get the thing fixed by someone who does know what they’re doing? My point is this, Aaron: let me speak to one of your colleagues and go have your bad day with somebody else.

Yep, I sure wish I had said that.