Saturday, 23 July 2011
First:
Turns out, some Edmonton mom is upset that a church passed out candy to her daughter at a playground. I would be upset, too. Notice, in the video, the mom simply says other people might have other “intentions,” but the journalist inserted the word “good” into the write-up below. Bad journalist! The mom didn’t say the church had “good intentions” (and they didn’t), she only said they had “intentions.”
Her daughter Angeline, meanwhile, said she doesn’t like taking “candy from strangers,” and I have to add that I think it’s very astute of that young girl to recognize that Christians are stranger than most.
Second:
Back on June 2nd, I blogged about my experience being a chaperone for Owen’s Kindergarten class as they attended a performance at the Ordway.
Here’s an excerpt from that blog post:
Oddly, the creators’ homepage titles the play Darwin the Dinosaur, while the staff at the Ordway introduced it as Corbian the Dinosaur (and, in fact, that’s what they call it at their site). Not sure why the difference. I wrote to the Ordway to ask them but, as of yet, no response.
I realize that I never provided any updates on that.
In fact, a few days later, I did receive an update. A very polite, friendly-sounding woman from the Ordway called and left a message on my voicemail. Here’s what she said:
Hi James this is XXXXXXXX from Ordway center for the performing arts. I am returning a message. We received an email from you via the Ordway contact form asking about our choice in titling Corbian the Dinosaur that rather than Darwin.
Indeed with this particular company, you have the choice of one name or the other, because some places and locations and markets have had some issue with Darwin and the scientific notations that that means and, kind of, the connections that sometimes Darwin can have especially for school groups and so to be as inclusive as possible we chose one of the options which was Corbian the Dinosaur. So I hope that gives you some understanding.
You definitely saw the exact same performance. The Corbian visual arts and dance just allows this particular performance the option of two different names however your market wants to handle it.
Thanks so much for coming out to the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival. It was great to have you here. And if you have any other questions, feel free to give me a call my direct line is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thanks again. Take care James. Bye.
So, let me make this clear before going forward: I have nothing negative to say about this woman nor about the Ordway. As I said, she was very polite in her message, and she offered a thorough, honest response. Also, I can understand that the Ordway wishes to be as inclusive as possible. In fact, I’m not even gonna say anything negative about Corbian, because they too offered us an outstanding experience and I can understand that, being artists, they want their work to be seen and enjoyed by as many people as possible.
Instead, I’ll just say something negative about religion (and that’s not being pessimistic, it’s just being realistic). The Ordway representative noted that the name “Darwin” carries “scientific notations” and that it has some kind of “connections.” She’s right: Darwin is very rightly associated with science. And who could possibly have an “issue” with that? Oh, I don’t know…maybe the home-schoolers that were in the audience. Or, more correctly, their parents. Or maybe the Christian parents of schooled children, too. I mean, they’re the one who deny evolution, right?
What’s weird though is that the show did not touch on evolution at all. It was just the story of a dinosaur created in a lab by a human. So, even if you’re Christian apologist who refuses to accept evolution or 99% of our ancestors’ history, you still shouldn’t have had any problem with this performance. Corbian’s website (linked above) clearly states the word “Darwin” in the performance’s title, and it’s no secret that the show features a dinosaur, so if anyone was that easily offended, they had ample warning to stay home. Heck, even back when I was a Christian, I wouldn’t have been offended by a show named “Darwin the Dinosaur, I just would’ve thought, “Yeah, that makes sense, since Darwin did stuff with fossils.”
But maybe that’s one reason why I’m not a Christian anymore. After all, as my favorite scripture says, “the taking of offense is what rests in the bosom of the stupid ones” (Ecc. 7:9), so if I wasn’t stupid enough to be offended, then I wasn’t a good Christian.
Anyway, if it was up to me, I would have titled the performance Owen the Dinosaur, after Robert Owen, the man who coined the term ‘dinosaur.’ But I may be biased.