I am a fervent supporter of the separation of Church and State for several reasons.  Among other things, I believe that people should be able to hold any spiritual, religious, and crackpot notions in their head that they want.  Thus, if Tom Cruise wants to believe that the director of the galactic confederacy (a guy named Xenu) brought aliens to this planet, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with H-Bombs 75 million years ago, causing their essences to pollute us ever since, then that’s fine.  If Christians want to believe that children are born inherently sinful, great, go for it.  If Buddhists want to believe that they will be reborn after they die, not necessarily as a human, but reborn nonetheless, fine.  None of them should be able to tell the others what to believe anymore than I should be able to tell them that when we Frisbeetarians die our souls go up on the roof and we can’t get them down.

That’s what faith is about.  A belief in something without evidence.  Yes, the Catholic church believes in miracles.  Documentation on the other hand, is iffy.  Never mind.  Let them believe.

Behavior on the other hand is a different thing.  If we are to agree on public policies that affect everyone, they really need to be based on things we can demonstrate to each other.

For instance, it is generally agreed that stepping off a cliff is a bad idea.  You can demonstrate this in many ways.  I prefer dropping a watermelon rather than an actual person, but we can clearly demonstrate, time and again, that whether the watermelon hits the ground or the ground hits the watermelon, it’s not going to end well for the watermelon.  This is called evidence.  Whether I’m an atheist, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Scientologist, we can agree, stepping off cliffs–generally bad.

Interestingly enough, it was probably only anecdotal, at first.  “I heard this guy, named Ugh went off the cliff after the mastodon and it was not pretty.” “Yeah?”  Then, through something we call inductive reasoning, we saw that every time someone went off the cliff (and lets not be petty, we’re talking cliff, not a slight drop–fifty feet minimum) there was clean-up involved.  (Unless you landed in a big pile of dung like what happened during the second defenestration of Prague.  And there was still clean-up involved.)

So, here’s where I get really incensed.  I believe that our public policies on health should be based on this evidence thing.  I don’t want people going, “Oh, my brother-in-law got aids and they threw him off a cliff.  It cured him completely.”  In particular, I am upset with the Anti-Vaccination movement, a “health” movement that is killing people daily. In the 1980′s there was doubt raised about the safety of vaccinations and ingredients used to preserve those vaccinations.  When concerns are raised, people conduct studies.  They investigate the concerns.

Consider Vioxx (rofecoxib).  On September 30, 2004, Merck voluntarily withdrew rofecoxib from the market because of concerns about increased risk of heart attack and stroke associated with long-term, high-dosage use.  Previous and subsequent studies demonstrated an 4-fold increase of heart attack and stroke.

In the late eighties, a concern was raised about vaccinations, the preservative thiomersal, and autism.  There was a concern so studies were done.  There was no correlation.  Tiomersal was removed from vaccines though in 1999 and in the interval since, there has been no drop in autism.  More detail here.

And still the anti-vaxxers claim it causes autism, though they’ve mostly shifted their attacks to the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine.  Again, evidence is against them.  Unfortunately, their influence has increased the number of families who don’t vaccinate their children leading to increased outbreaks of these diseases, some leading to death or permanent disability.

Here’s a related insanity, aptly described by Rebecca Watson of Skepchik and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

2009 was a banner year here at Casa Ramrod, assuming that the banner said “Mission Accomplished” in a font called “Clueless Irony.”  (Yes, I know.  It’s been done.)

Nevertheless, I think I learned a few things in 2009 that may serve me well in 2010, especially if I retain the backup option of hiding under the covers.  Here, then, are a few 2009 True Facts and the lessons I’ve taken from them:

True Facts:  In June, I was diagnosed with small lymphocytic lymphoma/chronic lymphocytic leukemia.  SLL/CLL progresses slowly and is considered indolent.  So rather than start treatment, I’m engaged in “watchful waiting.”

Lessons Learned:  As I already suspected from my own personal habits, “indolent” is not a bad thing.  Barring meteor strikes or other accidents, then, I’ll probably live more-or-less normally for many more years.  I’ll just have to regard my body as if it were a suspiciously unattended package at the airport.

True Facts:  During both my endoscopy and colonoscopy, I was given a wonderful “twilight” anesthesia that made me forget the most uncomfortable and unpleasant parts of the procedures.  But I was given no “twilight” during my bone-marrow biopsy, so I remember every undignified second of it.  Afterward, however, I was given a snack.

Lessons Learned:  Drugs are good.  But so are cookies.

True Fact:  On the same day that a doctor first said the word “lymphoma” to me, I received an email telling me that the movie version of my second novel would begin filming in October.  This coincidence seems to indicate that God is a merry prankster.

Lesson Learned:  Not really a big fan of merry pranksters, here.

True Facts:  The movie did not begin filming in October.  Or November.  Or December.  This seems to indicate that Hollywood is a merry prankster as well.

Lesson Learned:  See above.

True Fact:  I have an amazing spouse who always has my back despite the fact that I’m a foul-tempered old crank who’s addicted to cookies.

Lesson Learned:  None.  I already knew that.

True Fact:  My friends aren’t half-bad, either.

Lesson Learned:  Suckers.

True Fact:  Throughout 2009, the first picture that popped up in a Google Images search for “Bradley Denton” was a photo of me kissing Steve Gould.

Lesson Learned:  Make one mistake, and you pay for it the rest of your life.

Scott Edelman, over on Twitter, pointed out this amazingly awful attack on the great writers of science fiction by David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service.  It’s not quite James Bond, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but it does have a ring to it.

Anyway, his post, titled Beware of Science Fiction, uses Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut, and Gene Roddenberry, as examples of agnostic or atheistic proponents.  His descriptions are factual, using quotes from the writers in question.  After reading every one of the quotes, my reaction is “Right on!” but he seems to see them as, uh, damning.

He finishes with:

Science fiction is intimately associated with Darwinian evolution. Sagan and Asimov, for example, were prominent evolutionary scientists. Sci-fi arose in the late 19th and early 20th century as a product of an evolutionary worldview that denies the Almighty Creator. In fact, evolution IS the pre-eminent science fiction. Beware!

So, I’m guessing that evidence based science is just right out of the picture, for him.

I laughed when I read the informational paragraph at the bottom of the website which includes:

OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR.

In conclusion, I’m making a unilateral deal with him.  He shouldn’t read ANY Science Fiction and I’ll promise never to read his web site again.

(also posted at Steve’s blog, An Unconvincing Narrative)

Huh. I doubt if this post counts as being substantive, but what the hell.

I just thought I’d mention that Dark Star Books has re-issued my first (okay — so far my only) novel in trade paperback format.

You have no idea how delighted I am and how grateful I am to Tom Knowles for shepherding this project though a lengthy and difficult gestation and birth. Tom’s an old friend who has partnered with a guy who just happens to own a multi-million dollar printing installation. They’re aggressively entering the market with small-run books that can then immediately ramp to print-on-demand and near-instant shipping when the sales call for it. This is likely to be the most survivable business model for small-to-medium publishers in an age when the old business model is dying an agonizing, prolonged death.

Because they’ve almost completely cut out the middle man and aren’t engaging in that monstrous practice where books are destroyed and stripped covers get returned for credit, they can sell at a highly-competitive cover price. And they make extremely high-quality product with great exterior and interior art, printed on acid-free paper, with thick covers and library-quality binding. They’ve got a good line-up of titles already in place, including Robert Asprin’s last novel, ‘No Quarter’. Later this year, we should see John Steakley’s ‘Werewolve$’.

Also, Tom did something almost unheard-of in the publishing biz — He got me and Brad Foster to exchange emails before Brad did the art, to make sure the final cover pleased us both. Brad came up with some neat ideas, including some fun in-jokes with the patches on the jumpsuits that Henry Lee and Star are wearing.

Brad basically nailed it in first draft, except that we had a little back and forth about what Sprocket’s drilling toungue should look like. We decided to step back from showing that, since, well, certain dirty-minded people might think the tip looks like a gigantic penis…

Also, I mentioned that I’d like to see lots of cleavage on the cover. Brad’s one of the Secret Masters of Cleavage, so that worked out okay.I think it’s a perfect cover, especially considering that the book’s being aimed at the YA market.

Tom got me over to watch the print run, which was another wonderful experience. I phone-vidded some of the visit, which I’ll likely post here, once I’ve gotten it edited.

The book is just now coming into stock at Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble. It’ll be available unpredictably in stores in small amounts. You can also order any of their titles directly from Dark Star, of course.

I hope this adventure works out for Tom and Dark Star, because he wants to see the sequel, ‘Sprocket Goes International’, in time to print for this next holiday season, and then, hopefully, ‘Sprocket Goes Interstellar’ the year after.

Now all I gotta do is write them.

:

We traveled for the holidays visiting mostly family and some friends in Texas. Among these were supposed to be Rory but he wasn’t answering his phone or texts or emails. Then he did.

“I’m completely turned around,” he said. “I’ve flip-flopped my day-night cycle, staying up all night and sleeping all day. That’s why it took so long to respond.”

A likely story. I suspect he was too busy draining some luscious co-ed in the back alleys to check his phone. I mean, here you are sneaking up on someone and your phone goes off. It must make it difficult to hook up, so to speak.

Now, I can’t personally confirm this since business and weather stuff conspired to scoot us out of the state before planned, but just look at that picture and draw your own conclusions.

I guess we’ll know in February. Blind Lemon Denton and the Lemonaids will be playing AggieCon and Rory plays guitar for them. If he shows up during the daylight hours, I guess I’ll have been mistaken.

Or is that Sunscreen SPF 15 X 10^3?