Sometimes I do stuff.

A blog about writing, ecology, and wildlife rehabilitation.

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snake

[moniquill]

Such fierce. Very battle. Snake: I SHALL VANQUISH THEE, VAST FURRY SNAKE! Cat: wtf are you even doing, tiny tube monster?

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tiny tube monster

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How NOT to write a review article.

Gather ‘round children, for it is time for a story.

Once upon a time there was this girl.  She was not extraordinary in any way other than for the fact she loved to write research papers.  And by loved, I mean loved.  Her love for writing research papers was so profound that if it were between two people, it would devolve into a ‘more than friends’ situation.  Because of this love, and past good grades, when asked to write a review paper, she was over the moon.  After all, this was what she did.  She wrote.  And she wrote very well.

Then she realized what a review paper was, spent a couple of weeks throwing out draft after draft, and eventually she had a meltdown.  The meltdown led to her handing in a paper late and barely making a passing grade on what her instructor said would have easily been an A paper.

This is a true story.  That girl is me.

*waves hands in a ghost like manner*  WhoooooOOOOooooo!

Okay, so that was a pretty lame work in to my entry here but there you have it.  I learned a very humbling lesson regarding a review paper I just wrote:

Being skilled in one format does not equate to being skilled in all formats.

This may seem like common sense but if you’re someone who has had to write paper for years pretty much all in the same format and for the same purpose, it can be hard to mix it up.  I’ve been writing research papers for a long time and I’ve always loved it.  To me, it’s very satisfying to take bits and pieces of information, data, studies, etc. and put it altogether into one glorious paper-ific stack of science (or literature evaluation, social issues, Tumblr posts, etc).  I don’t know what it is.  Most people cringe and whine when they find out their grades revolve around research papers of some sort.  Not me.  I cheer…and loudly.  To me the cringe and whine moments come when I find out that my grade in a class revolves completely around how I do on 4 tests and a smattering of quizzes.  That’s led to a separate but not completely unrelated meltdown.

Maybe more on that later, maybe not…we’ll see.

So imagine how befuddled I felt when I first sat down and nothing would come from my fingers.

Everything I knew about the topic (which is on the hunting strategies of Allosaurus fragilis and the effect of morphology on these strategies) flew out the window.  For some reason, I could not even get this paper started.

I went back to my guidebook.  It clearly outlined the form of this paper.  There shouldn’t have been any question about it.  It was all right there in front of my face.

But this paper deviated so far from my comfortable realm of APA/MLA style papers/lab reports that it sent me into a spiral of near insanity.  I would type-type-type away just to find myself in tears over the load of crock I was spewing out.  Dear goodness, how could I ever manage to get a decent grade on this paper?  Eventually I got so panicked about it that my knowledge on the topic went soaring straight outside the window.  What the hell was I even talking about?

What the fuck is an Allosaurus?

Now, maybe it didn’t go that far, but that’s how I felt.  My brain was so thrown off track by this new form of paper writing that I just could not function any longer.  I just stopped writing; after a couple of days of not writing, I went into writing overload and ended up with almost a ten page paper when I was supposed to end up with a (at maximum) five page paper.  So I sent it to an empathetic friend who gave me some better guidelines and showed where I could cut some things.  That helped…a bit. 

By the time I had to turn in the paper, it was a butchered mess of subheadings, random paragraphs, and typos that I didn’t want to take the effort in correcting.  I probably never would have turned it in except for the small fact that I actually like and respect my instructor (he’s a Mormon…how cool is that?!) and I was bound and determined to educate someone on my particular topic of interest.  Finally I buckled down and fixed up the damn thing.  It ended up almost being a week late but damn it, I turned it in.

I didn’t turn it in feeling good though.  I was absolutely certain that even though I had followed guidelines, my paper would be trashed.  Rob would take one look at it, laugh maniacally, and heave it violently into his wastebasket.  I was sure I was going to fail it, and in the ever building depths of my anxiety, I didn’t have the guts to actually ask my own instructor to look over the paper (though he had that offer out for everyone in the class) or to even ask for some help.  My anxiety had reached the “bail out, bail out!” level where all I could do was simply wait for the worst to come exploding over my head.

Today I had my “conference” with him.  We talked about our kids, what kid shows we like and don’t like, how scary house centipedes are, and finally, my paper.  That was when he made the big reveal that it was easily an A paper, but I had turned it in so late that he had no choice but to deduct a ton of points from it.

I was embarrassed, to say the least.  I had allowed my anxiety swallow me to the point where I let all confidence in my abilities as a writer to completely slip away.  I had basically thrown away an A grade paper because I was so caught up in not being familiar with actually writing this style of paper.  And worse?  Even if I had handed in a piece of crap to him, I would have still had till December to revise it and get a better grade!  Yet I allowed myself to panic and simply skipped out on turning in the paper until it reached the point where I felt like every time I went to class, the fact that I hadn’t yet turned in my paper was the proverbial elephant in the room.

For a long time I didn’t understand most of the freshman (I still don’t, to be entirely honest; they’re like a whole ‘nother species to me), especially when I watched them meltdown over simple APA/MLA styled papers.  What can be so hard about that?  I mean, I remember doing that in high school.  But the simple fact is, not all of them were taught specific styles in high school.  I remember in many classes using a monstrous hybrid child of MLA/APA to write every paper.  Or not even a certain style.  As long as it had my name and was double spaced with 1’ margins, it was good to go.  Still, MLA/APA has always seemed so basic to me that watching incoming students flounder with it was almost amusing.  Yet I did the exact same thing when I went crashing over the hurdle that was my review paper.

I really want to stress this to other students; writing can such.  It can be horrifically painful and dry at times.  But it is absolutely necessary, even if you’re going into a scientific field.  I think a lot of people feel that by going into one of the sciences, they can avoid a lot of the paper writing that people within the humanities do.  This really isn’t true.  In many jobs revolving around the sciences, it isn’t even necessarily how good you are at the technical portions of your task, but how well you write it down and sell it or how well you can sell your research get your company/organization more money.  Knowing how to write in several different formats may not be exciting to learn, but it will be critical someday.

At the least, learning these different formats early on in your scholarly career or at least familiarizing yourself with them can help avoid a catastrophic meltdown.

So that was my experience with ‘how not to write a review article’.  I’m fairly ashamed of myself for letting my anxiety get a hold of me and drowning a great paper. 

But any how!  If you’re ever interested in a good paleontological debate, check out the multitudinous theories on how the Allosaurus actually hunts and brings down prey.  You won’t regret it!  Unless you don’t like dinosaurs, in which case, get off my blog.

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Guess who visited the butterflies today....

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I'm drinking, so convergent evolution...kinda.

Convergent evolution is an interesting topic.  A commonly used example of convergent evolution would be the flight mechanisms of bats, birds, pterosaurs, and insects.  None of those species are closely linked but due to a peculiarity of evolution, they all evolved with the same sort of traits.  When looking at phylogenic trees, it becomes even more puzzling how such evolution occurs.

Today in my vertebrate biology course, we received an interesting discourse on the importance of lungfish and their relation to the evolution of tetrapods.  As fish people purportedly state, we are all essentially fancy fish.  While listening to the lecture on lungfish and the interesting development of lungs within the group, it occurred to me that lungfish weren’t the only fish I knew of that had a sort of lung.  While more derived in lungfish, lung like structures are not unique to that group alone. 

Over the course of their evolution, labyrinth fishes, the anabantoidei, developed a means for surviving in low oxygen content environments.  The labyrinth organ is different than the modified swim bladder that serves as lungs for a lungfish, but both do serve the same purpose.  When gills cannot be relied upon, these organs provide a means for the fish to survive by being able to take oxygen directly from the atmosphere.  Lungfish are famous for burying themselves in times of drought in a large mud cocoon; while in shallow pools or post-aestivate period, lungs are essential for the survival of the fish.

Looking at why the lungfish felt the need to develop a lung helps explain why the anabantoidei also felt the need to copycat the evolutionary maneuver and develop their own oxygen seeking organs.  The Betta splendens (yes, that colorful little fish that stores sell in cups), are almost fabled for their ability to survive low oxygen content environments.  Erroneously, this has risen to the belief of novice fish keepers that bettas can be kept in poor conditions long term without harm to the fish.  While bettas can certainly survive environments that have poorer oxygen quality than say, a goldfish, this is not the preferred manner of keeping them.

I digress; the important point is that this is a curious case of convergent evolution.  Most of the anabantoidei live in areas that are afflicted by seasonal drought/rainfall; the complexity of the labyrinth organ in different species varies per locality.   These two very different types of fish developed comparable organs, greatly increasing their chances at surviving harsh environmental conditions.  And they’re nothing alike.

And that is supremely cool.

Lungfish and let’s say, bettas, are extremely different.  They belong to completely different families that evolved separately from one another.  They really have nothing in common except for their shared ability to draw oxygen directly from the atmosphere.  And what a freaking awesome trait to share.  This is why evolution is so amazingly interesting.  Due to developing these characteristics, these fish can survive in niches that very few other species could survive in.  Really, that’s what evolution is all about; the drive to outcompete someone for a selective niche.  Sometimes it doesn’t work and history dooms you strictly to the fossil record.  Other times, it ends up in allowing a group of organisms to survive on in places where they logically shouldn’t.

Just look at other commonly used examples; again, the bat and pterosaurs.  Pterosaurs, by the way, are not dinosaurs.  They belong to a completely different group altogether.  Yet whether due to environmental pressure or just pure coincidence, both groups managed to evolve the ability for powered flight.  This is awesome.

I might change my major to evolutionary studies.  It’s that amazing.

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Image shows radioactive water seeping into the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

This illustration has been cycling the internet for a while and though other sites and individuals have debunked it, Snopes finally got on it.

Let me tell you why this irritates me so.

For starters, I have no patience for the wild stories that people love to post on Facebook.  Many of them can be disproven via a simple Google search, yet with social media as it is these days, people are far more likely to panic over half-cocked or outright false stories without checking their sources.  It seems that source and fact checking has retired to the great research heaven in the skies.  There are times I want to jump on a story but learning the hard way has shown me that individual research can go a long ways.  So when I see people running wild with these stories, it just makes me want to tear my hair out.

You can't believe everything on the internet.  Check your sources.  Check the source's sources.  I thought that this was an established standard.  If you can't find anything to prove or disprove something, but it seems shady, sit on it a while.  Look for some more information.  If it proves to be true, commence freaking out.  If it proves to be false, either sit in relief that you narrowly avoided looking idiotic or if you did have a Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever freakout, own up to it and show people the new, improved, factual story so that they don't make the same mistake.

The other really, really big thing that bothers me is how this sort of misrepresentation of facts cheapens the event.  If the radiation levels disperse as estimated, then people won't look at that as a bullet narrowly dodged; they're going to point the finger at this graph (which doesn't relate to radiation at all) and say "Look at those stupid scientists.  They said it would be THIS BAD", and that isn't an overstatement.  This legitimately happens.  People don't understand that science is not like history; it is ever changing and evolving.  New things are discovered, old things are question; it is a field that is ever moving forward.  Yet many people do this because they fail to understand that change is the very core of science and that it is not a stagnant field.

So when something comes along like this, hyped up by the unknowing masses via social media, it makes it even harder for the people studying the actual issue to make the facts known.  People have already been freaked out by what they see.  They don't want to listen to some measly EPA guy who specializes in this.  There is nothing wrong in taking stories and statements with a grain of salt; there is nothing wrong with saying, "Hey, I know that this is how they expect it to be but I'm concerned it may be worse."  A healthy dose of concern doesn't do any harm.  But arm flailing refusal to believe in the facts presented to you is asinine.

Imagine this.  You're sitting outside with a friend and you say, "Boy!  The sky sure is clear!" and they respond with, "Hell no, it's cloudy as fuck."  So you escort them around your yard and show them several times that the sky is indeed clear of clouds.  Your friend refuses to believe it.

"WeatherBug said it was cloudy today.  It's cloudy."

So frustrated, you take them on a short car ride.  While on this car ride your friend spots a vapor trail left behind by an airplane.  Immediately they start screaming in your face, "CLEAR SKIES, HUH?  WHERE ARE YOUR CLEAR SKIES NOW?!  WHAT IS THIS?  A CLEAR SKY CONSPIRACY?".

You try and explain what a vapor trail is to your friend.  They instead whip out their phone and proceed to show you a dozen pictures of clouds that look vaguely like vapor trails.  You try and tell them that hey, it may look kind of like a cloud but it isn't a cloud in the traditional sense.  One vapor trail does not a cloudy sky make.  But instead of listening to reason, they pull up Facebook and show you an AMAZING picture of multiple vapor trails someone took at an air show and ten thousand idiots who have circulated the picture claiming them to be clouds and that it just proves how dumb weather people are.

And at this point, you just kill your friend because there's no living with them any more.

That's an exaggeration of the situation, but for those of us who are fans of science and study within the scientific field, the frustration felt is much the same.  Something might look like something, something might be incorrectly labeled as something, but that does not make it correct.

Further more, the argument that some make about how it doesn't matter what the graph really means, only the end result, is dishearteningly ridiculous.  People should be aware of the issue; it may have some ecological impacts that are deleterious to the Pacific and certainly to the lives of those around the area where radiation is highest.  The fact that a corporation held back on the details and glossed over the severity of the leak definitely deserves attention; it has some frightening ramifications of how much power corporations have worldwide. 

The ends does not justify the means when it ends up in a mass of people who have their facts frightfully wrong.  People tend to set themselves up on pedestals when it comes to these kind of things.  I know because I've been one of them.  It's easy to jump all over the stories that discredit something you take a stance again, and it's equally as easy to turn to mouth frothing enragement over a story that might support something you take an interest in or holds personal value to you.

When a story like this is encountered, again, the best thing to do is fact check.  Snopes is a good site for a quick check over rather something has weight or not.  Otherwise, some picky Googling past panicked headlines is always worth a moment of your time.  Having been a person experiencing keyboard warrior outrage, I can tell you that fact checking will save you from having to swallow some embarrassment down the line.

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Drunk butterfly picture time!  It's monarch season in Iowa, bitches'

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I’m drinking and Skyping with a buddy. Everyone gets a butterfly!

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Across wide swaths of Iowa and other Corn Belt states, the rich, dark soil that made this region the nation’s breadbasket is being swept away at rates many times higher than official estimates.

For anyone interested in the damage that soil erosion and run off does, this is a great site to visit.

Prevention of erosion and run off factors is a complicated matter.  While the use of buffer strips and discontinuing the traditional "fence line to fence line" farming practices show how simple fixes can easily prevent the loss of soil and nutrient flooding of run off waters, implementing these changes is difficult.

The awards for neglecting environmental impact remain higher than the awards for following environmental standards.  More money is sunk into compounding the existing problem rather than fixing it; for example, why would someone create a buffer along a stream or river when the pay out from various ethanol programs is much higher?  I remember in one of my ecology classes this summer how polarizing this issue can be.  It boiled down to this:  you're either with farmers or against them.  By against them, I mean in support of agricultural rulings that would help stabilize soil loss and run off.  This seems to be where many people stand on the issue, especially when you're dealing with fellow natives of Iowa who are sensitive to farming issues due to familial experience.

Solving the problem won't be easy.  Already in place standards get neglected and are poorly reinforced in heavy agriculture states such as Iowa.  Little funding is given to those farmers interested in creating buffer zones, wetland areas, etc.  For farmers, right now, the cost of being environmentally conscientious is heavier than standing by staple practices.  The sad thing is, many farmers do see this as an issue.  If you talk to the farmers who have been in this field (pun intended) for years, it's clear that they recognize that there is a problem.  But fixing it, when the price of fixing it often lays upon them or offers them little reward, is no simple task. 

My father is friends with a good number of farmers.  I've talked to him about the issue of run off and erosion, and he paints a dreary picture of farmers and farming corporations who attempted to meet better environmental standards but were lambasted by red tape and heavy costs.  The sad thing is that there are people who are legitimately trying to fix old practices and who see the detrimental affects soil loss and nutrient/chemical run off has on Iowa and surrounding states, but can't find a way to balance implementing new standards with their own due to the cost and difficulty navigating the legal system.

Losing Ground is a great website that clearly explains how poor government action and the failure to enforce existing standards has led to a round robin of one problem after another.  More so, it offers clear explanations as to why people in the agriculture industry need to be concerned about this issue as a whole.  The loss of our prairies and enriched top soil has led to increased use of fertilizers; poor soil and the loss of natural draining points has led to the fence line to fence line style of farming in an attempt to maximize crop yield.  These all perpetuate each other; without buffer zones and planted run off strips, soil and nutrients flow away from the fields, creating a heavier dependence upon chemical means to support the crops.  Increased chemical fertilizer use leads to an increase of nutrient/chemical run off that lacks effective filtration barriers.  As you can see, this is a troublesome cycle that in the end, causes more loss of money to the agriculture industry and to the people who work in it.

More so, what we do up the river leads to negative impact down the river.  The Dead Zone, a vast area of hypoxia within the Gulf of Mexico, has led to the loss of fishing industry and tourism.  As a whole, what we do in the Grain Belt not only affects our own state and the industry here, but numerous states and national industry.

In the end, everyone loses.

In an ideal world, more funding would be given to farmers to promote natural barrier strips and wetland conservation and less to those who adhere to old, Iowa hurtin' practices.  Until this happens, those in agriculture are caught between a rock and a hard place; do they try and conserve their land at a loss to their business, or do they maximize profits and hope that the trouble brewing on their land doesn't soon bite them in the rear?  It's easy to characterize farmers all as slack-jawed idiots with no concern for Mother Earth.  I would challenge anyone who sees agriculture workers in that light to go out and talk to them.  I think you'd find that most farmers of all varieties are concerned about the issue but have their hands tied due to the exhausting legalities and cost. 

I would love to see all the practices that Losing Ground suggests be put into place but until it can be done without those in agriculture facing what must feel like a penalty, I don't see it happening.  Our environmental agencies and government as a whole needs to wake up and provide better long reaching programs for farmers to work with.

For interest, is a picture from a kayak trip I took down the Skunk River.  The problem of erosion along river banks due to riverside planting can clearly be seen:

[diggiehope]

I'm addicted.

...to butterflies.

I can't stop visiting the butterfly wing at Reiman Gardens.

I think they've accepted me as one of their own now.

God help me, why butterflies?

GUYS.  HELP.

I spend hours at the butterfly wing.  They know me there now.

  I even make up personalities for them.

I anthropomorphize butterflies.

  I feel bad when I see torn wings.

I've perfected the art of stalking them.  I'm the freaking butterfly paparazzi.

  I mean, I literally stick my phone right up in their shit.

  "Jesus Christ, Helen, she's back."

"Just ignore her, Charles."

  This is what my life has become.

Butterflies.

Mother truckin' butterflies.

[diggiehope]

LiveScience and Wayne Pacelle: You lost a reader.

Today I am officially declaring myself done with LiveScience.  It’s a rather junky science source to begin with, relying heavily on “celeb” op-eds, but it’s a good source for quick news, or at least it has been in the past.  But when I went to check it last night and found that the animal section of their site was flooded with articles written by Wayne Pacelle, I decided to call it quits.  LiveScience and I have had a good run.  Their ad infested site was moderately improved by a newer layout and while it might be a nightmare to navigate, sometimes there’s a good story hiding in there.  The increasing presence of Wayne Pacelle written articles, though, has driven me to break off this relationship.

For those who aren’t familiar with that name, Wayne Pacelle is the current CEO of the HSUS, the Humane Society of the United States.  For those of us familiar with the mechanics of the HSUS and affiliated groups such as PETA and ALF, the mere mention of the HSUS causes us to cringe.

Animal welfare groups (welfare, not rights) and supporters have long been aware of the sordid history the HSUS carries along with it.  It is an organization that despite its advertising attempts, does not support animal welfare.  The goal of the HSUS, as well as groups such as ALF and PETA, is not to help your shelter adopt out homeless dogs and cats.  The long term goal of groups such as these are not to help the pet overpopulation problem; they want to end pet ownership entirely. 

Due to their powerful ad campaign, the HSUS still continues to trick people into thinking that by donating to them, they’re putting money into the hands of local shelters.  Local shelters will be the first to tell you that if you want to donate, donate items to them and volunteer; do not put that money in the hands of the HSUS where the chances of your local shelters ever seeing a return on it are essentially nonexistent.  The group plays on the emotions of people such as myself who have a soft side for animals.  I’ve been lucky, though.  I’ve heard shelter organizers and volunteers talk about the nightmare it is to get any sort of grant from the HSUS, and worked with veterinarians who were all very outspoken about the ugly nature of the HSUS.  Not everyone has had this experience so many people continue to donate to this organization under the impression that their money will go help puppies and kittens that are on death’s door in high-kill shelters.  This is portrayed in just about every ad the HSUS puts out.  If you listen to the HSUS and watch their ads, you’re going to begin to believe that all farms are cut of the same cloth and even those lovely backyard layers are suffering a cruel fate.

Wayne Pacelle, like his counterparts in PETA and ALF, is not looking out for you.  He is not looking out for your local shelters.  Why someone who heads an organization that has been repeatedly poked at by Congress due to IRS inconsistencies, is watched by the FBI due to fraudulent activity and domestic terrorism ties, and does not actually help further animal welfare, pushing an animal rights/liberation agenda instead, featuring on LiveScience?

I’m just one reader, obviously.  But I don’t really want much to do with a site that tries to pass itself off as an authentic source for news about the environment, scientific progress, etc. when they’re consistently featuring opinion pieces from a man that no one in the animal welfare camp wants anything to do with.  Nothing kills your reputation as a news source if you front page an extremist with a hidden agenda.  Unless you’re a major news network like Fox, in which case, that’s all you’re built on.

So until the quality of LiveScience op-eds improves and stops featuring this wacko, I’m going to refrain from the site.

[diggiehope]

My daughter and I went to the butterfly wing at ISU's Reiman Gardens.  We go every week and we both love it. I'm addicted to taking pictures of butterflies!

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I'm coping, I'm coping...

Ah shit.  Forget it.

Initiating crazy cat lady mode in 5...4...3...2...1

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I should squish them all but they're so effing cute.

[diggiehope]

Invasive but cute little suckers. Japanese beetles.

[thebiglesbian]

Slam Poetry- A man talks about the women he fell in love with and lost. Video here, you must watch it.

[deactivatedsamayres1992-blog]

This is the saddest video I’ve ever watched, yet it’s wonderful in it’s own little way.

[m0rphlne-deactivated20170108]

so perfect

[diggiehope]

There's a lot of us out there that wish someone would leave a door unlocked for us, or kiss us 24 times on Wednesday because just once can't be perfect.

[diggiehope]

Tennessee Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew unilaterally renamed a seven-month-old boy because she objected to the parents' selection of "Messiah." Her reasoning: "The word Messiah is a title and it's a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ."

Let me first clear the air on this:

I loathe 'unique' names.

I'm with the judge on the bullying aspect of this.  Unique names like this can be torturous for kids. As most people know, kids can be horrific little bastards.  Even something as small as having a weird name can set them off.  I understand wanting to name your child something a bit out of the ordinary.  My daughter's name is Justine, a name I've loved since my mom told me the inspiration for my name, Megan, came from the classic novel The Thornbirds.  In the novel, Megan's daughter's name is Justine and she's a hell of a pistol.  From the moment I read that book I knew that if I ever had a daughter, her name would be Justine.  I love the name.  It has a deep meaning to me; growing up, I even went as far as to use it as a pen name.  It has the added bonus of being a name that's not overly common.

I truly do understand wanting to have a name that stands out for your child.  No one wants their child to disappear into the fog of having to go to school with several classmates sharing their name.  But there comes a point where a name that's different crosses the threshold into why.. Why would you name your kid that?  I've encountered unique names where I've been, "Eh, alright" after finding out the name has a deep meaning to the parents.  Every so often you encounter someone that's like, "Oh, I just like the sound of it" and its like great, I'm sure other people will too once they figure out how to pronounce it.

But that's just me.  I'm kind of old fashioned when it comes to names.  I've been told by family that all the names I like for children are "old people" names.  So by all means, my personal taste doesn't have much weight.

For all that I hate weird names for kids, you have the right to name your kid what you want to.  It's a personal decision.  Not only that, but it can't really be enforced.  From my understanding, there are countries that have approved naming lists for parents.  To me that just seems dicey.  I even read once that in Germany (please correct me if I'm wrong), a child's name must be obviously male or female.  Though I might want to strike you across the face for naming your child something ridiculous, it's a right we have.  What constitutes as a weird name or not is hard to determine.  My family thought Justine was weird, so it's all about perspective.

If the family had named their child something obviously detrimental such as "Hitler", "Snookie-puff", or "Le-a" (pronounced le-dash-a), I could see a judge stepping in and saying "Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Back up a moment.  You want to name your child what?".  While Messiah is not a name I would ever choose for my child (unless there was a gun against my head, and maybe not even then), it lacks any culturally negative connotations.  And as far as bullying goes, there might be some of it, but in a society where naming trends towards ridiculousness such as "Nevaeh" (OMG, like, it's Heaven spelled backwards!!) and the whole "anything goes as long as it ends with -den or -dyn", I highly doubt Messiah's peers will blink twice at his name.

The real reason the judge took it upon herself to rename this child was because she found it in conflict with her religious beliefs.  While she expressed concern over the child having to contend with the conservative Christian masses that apparently overwhelm Tennessee, the heart of her decision revolved around her believing that "Messiah" is only a literal title that applies to Jesus Christ.

Now there's some issue with that belief alone.  A quick peek at dictionary.com tells us already that while the word "Messiah" is often related to Jesus Christ, that is not the only meaning of the word and that is not the only way in which the word could be used.  I could show up at darling Ari's house with an armload of wine and cry out, "Behold!  I am the messiah of wine!" and not be entirely inaccurate as one of the meanings of "messiah" is "deliverer".  So if you were inclined, you could say the pizza boy is the messiah of pizzas.  It isn't specified that this deliverance can't be of the literal sort.

I have a lot of issues with religion as is, and things like this just get me frothing.  The family was in court initially because the parents couldn't agree on a last name and decided to bring a third party into it.  For the life of me, I can't imagine reaching the point where I would bring a judge into it.  I'd probably just be like, you know what, fine...no one has time for this shit, so she/he will just take your last name.  Yet it isn't some insane offense.  The judge's job was to help the parents reach an agreeable conclusion on what the child's last name would be.

Instead, they came out with a child who was given, unasked for, a whole new name because they happened to be in conflict with the judge's personal religious beliefs.  Can you imagine that?  That's like naming your child something like "Roman" or "Baron" and having someone change it because, eh, well, the kid isn't a literal Roman OR a baron therefore he has to be called something boring like Bob or John.  Or in the case of poor Messiah, Martin, which I'm not sure is much of an improvement. 

If the judge is let off the hook for this, it sets a dangerous precedent.  No one should have to be concerned when naming their child that an overzealous judge might be offended due to his/her religion and force a change upon the family.  No matter where you stand, this is most certainly an abuse of power.  We are not a Christian theocracy; our government should (I repeat, should) be free from the taint of religion.  Everyone is entitled to their personal belief systems but no one has the right to use that belief system as a means of controlling others and forcing them to conform to the tenants of that belief system.

The judge had every right to be insulted; she could have gone home and vented about it to her loved ones or friends.  She could have simply made a statement to the parents about their choice in names if she felt something just had to be said.  Instead, she crossed a very clear boundary and took it upon herself to force her religious stance upon the parents.  No matter what you think of the name, no matter what your religious beliefs are, this is a highly personal decision on the part of the parents and no one has the right to interfere unless the name would cause immediate, detrimental affects on the child's quality of life.

If someone attempted to name their child something profane, I'd have a hard time arguing against that.  But taking it upon yourself to rename a child because it conflicts with your personal beliefs?  That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

[diggiehope]

Today Facebook thought I was Frogman.

I admit, the resemblance is uncanny.

We both have gorgeously tussled hair.

And I too have a hat.

  I think our parents have some 'splainin to do.

http://thefrogman.me/

If by chance you haven't checked him out, I recommend that you do so!