Eden Prairie News

The 4/19/12 Eden Prairie News leads with a happy family coming together to fight ALS--the disease ravaging the family's father, Michael Brandt.  They've rigged a bicycle trailer which will allow pop to sit in a chair while hauled forward the 11 miles of ALS Bike Trek Minnesota.  The ever-chipper, boostering newspaper informs us that during his ongoing degeneration, 'Brandt has been Mr. Positive.'  You're going to need it.

Contracting a terrible illness is one of the surest ways to become newsworthy, in our town. 

'Mr. Sullivan, five minutes prior to going under the guillotine, was a portrait of composure and even gaiety, availing himself of a Marlboro Ultra Light, sharing a laugh with a stranger, cursing his foes--ideological and familial--one last time.'

If you're being eliminated by Disease X, it's odd that people feel the need to play poster child for that specific illness, no?  If you're going to contribute money (or work to get others to do so) to reduce human suffering, why not look for the lowest-hanging fruit?

The Berboks are practicing a Kinshasa family ritual almost as common here as corrugated metal roofs and dirt streets: the “power cut,” as residents in this capital of some 10 million have ironically christened it. On some days, some children eat, others do not. On other days, all the children eat, and the adults do not. Or vice versa.

The EP News continues to allow local religious yarn-spinners free access to readers:  Today Rev. Rod Anderson--the superannuated snake oil salesman just replaced by David Lillejord--invokes Timothy Kellor's The Reason For God.  We need to doubt our doubt more, to allow the faith/doubt yingyang to function better in our lives.  (They're sure getting clever, aren't they?)  Once we give doubt less leeway, Anderson argues, Jesus will begin to make more sense.

Anderson's is an idiotic argument, of course:  If we dial down our anti-magical skepticism, we won't simply let Jesus in the door--we'll allow thousands of deities in.  When you subsidize the suspension of critical thinking, you end up with a lot of religious drivel in the public square, particularly when the local gatekeeper takes a fawning attitude to superstition.

Same newspaper, same day:

Answers in Genesis conference at Grace

A free "Answers in Genesis Conference" provides scientific answers to support the biblical account of creation by uncovering the facts, investigating the mysteries, and comparing current secular beliefs to the account of creation presented in Genesis 1-11," according to a news release.

Scientific, my ass.