Son of Monkey Glue

You should know that, albeit early in the life of this august organ, The Referee is beginning to have an influence in the upper echelons of US society, including none other than the Supreme Court. (You should also know that The Referee occasionally likes to refer to himself in the third person, like boxers and dictators.)

Anyway, returning to the first person, for fear of being tedious (heaven forbid!), I explained in my message of 25 November why I think the age-old argument between evolutionists and creationists is a huge waste of effort based on a false premise - ie that mainstream scientific and religious views on the origin of things are necessarily contradictory.

Well, it is now clear, on the balance of probabilities, although not necessarily beyond reasonable doubt, that that message was taken to heart by one Judge John Jones III (a Republican, by the way, appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bush). Just before the start of the "holiday vacation", Judge Jones delivered his ruling in the leading case of Kitzmiller et al v Dover. (Tammy Kitzmiller is one of the parents who challenged the local school board on the basis that teaching "intelligent design" was unconstitutional, in the sense of muddling Church and State; and Dover is the small town in Philadelphia where the (Republican) school board attempted to introduce intelligent design into science classes and was subsequently ousted at the recent local elections in favour of an entirely new (Democratic) school board (in a traditionally Republican-voting area) which swifty reversed the policy.)

If you will permit me (and even if you won't) I think that a section of Judge Jones' ruling bears setting out verbatim here. He says this: "Both defendants and many of the leading proponents of I.D. make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."

I'm sure you will agree that there is little doubt that that passage was written in the light of The Referee's message of 25 November (or 11/25 as it is known here).

Just think of the potential benefits which could be unleashed if creationists and evolutionists would stop fighting a battle which doesn't need to be fought. For a start, those of us with a religious bent would save a huge amount of time and effort which could be put to much better use. Helping the poor and needy, for example. Just a thought!

Happy holidays.

'Twas the Night Before a Holiday

How can you spot a conservative (small "c")? He (or she, these days) is the person who can't utter the phrase "political correctness" without immediately following up with the words "gone mad", in a sort of involuntary Pavlovian response. (Which reminds me, when Pavlov invented the pavlova, what was that a response to?)

Anyway, if, like me, you like to think of yourself as a modern, progressive, lover of all things PC, try living in the US in the build-up to what used to be called Christmas, and you will soon be cured of all your ills. In other words, why oh why, if we mean "Christmas" can't we say "Christmas"? And if we mean "Hannukah", why can't we say "Hannukah"? And if we mean "Eid", ...you get the picture.

Not here. Oh no. Over here, the done thing - for good honest PC reasons, you understand - is to get half way through a sentence and then forget which festival you were talking about. Then, in order to cover up your momentary lapse (as Pink Floyd might have had it), you say "holiday", in the hope that (i) no one will have noticed your stumble, and (ii) no one will have been offended, except of course for the people who wanted to follow what you were saying.

Of course, as soon as this sort of rot has set in, it becomes the norm which is followed forever after, in decreasing circles of illogic, by shopkeepers, signwriters and the designers of greetings cards. As a result, our lovely New York home is now decorated with "holiday lights" and "holiday cards", which we put up shortly after having returned from a session singing "holiday carols".

If you think I'm exaggerating, read on. Exhibit one. One of our kids has just received a letter from his art teacher about what the class will be doing next term. It starts - I'm not making this up - "After our holiday vacation...". Work that one out.

Exhibit two. Starbucks has just introduced two seasonal coffees, one called "Christmas blend" and the other called - wait for it - "Holiday blend". They do at least have the excuse of not being able to call them both the same thing, but what's wrong with, for example, "yuletide" - a lovely little word, now rather under-used, with the distinct advantage of being clearly linked to the topic at hand.

Exhibit three. Our guest wing (okay, room) is decorated with a sweet little picture of a reindeer, skipping through the snowflakes, with holly berries in his antlers, under the words "happy holidays". I wonder which holiday the little chap has in mind? Perhaps it's Easter.

Season's greetings!

Turkey Pardoning Time

Fellow fans of the wonderful West Wing (that's what www stands for, right?) may remember a very funny scene in an early episode in which President Martin Sheen "pardons" a turkey from making a Thanksgiving sacrifice in a little ceremony at the White House. How we laughed at the silly and inventive script-writing! How on earth did they think that one up?, we wondered.

Well. Imagine the surprise in our house when preparations for our first Thanksgiving last week were interrupted by the news that turkey pardoning is not a script-writer's wheeze, but an actual tradition of actual Presidents.

In fact, on Tuesday 22 November - two days before Thanksgiving - President Bush and Vice President Cheney held a ceremony on a stage in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. They were joined by a gaggle of journalists, a class of visiting schoolchildren, and the chairman of the National Turkey Federation. In that esteemed company, the President pardoned a turkey named Marshmallow. How precisely he did so was not clear, although one imagines that the moment was mysterious and rather spiritual. An understudy turkey, named Yam, waiting in a van outside, was also pardoned, demonstrating that the President has long-distance pardoning powers.

However, as is so often the case regarding serious political matters such as this, controversy was not far behind. Pardoned turkeys have traditionally been sent off to somewhere called Frying Pan Park in Herndon, Virginia, where they have apparently tended not to last all that long, vis a vis this mortal coil. This year, the President announced that Marshallow and Yam did not fancy moving to Frying Pan Park; this was understandable, perhaps, but how he had established it was not entirely clear.

As an alternative, the two turkeys were sent - first class on United Airlines - to spend the rest of their days at Disneyland in California, where they took the roles of grand marshals in the Thanksgiving Day parade, before being moved to their new permanent home: an enclosure in Frontierland, near the entrance to Santa's Reindeer Roundup.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said that previously pardoned turkeys had been badly treated at Frying Pan Park, where they looked "lonely and neglected", and sought to take some credit for the move to Disneyland. The National Turkey Federation were keen to point out that PETA had had no influence on the switch and suggested that if members of PETA believed otherwise they were "absolutely delusionsal". Oh, politics!