Friday, July 11, 2008

PZ Myers Needs Your Help

Actually, he needs you to have a good laugh at the expense of Bill Donohue, the raging, out of control Super Catholic who protects America:
So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy, all because I was rude to a cracker. Four of them have included death threats, a personal one day record. Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired. Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because — in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness — apparently only some religious icons must be protected, and I would only offend Catholics because they are all so nice that none of them would wish me harm. I even have one email that says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind.

Oh, and of course, the university president's office has also received lots of mail demanding my immediate ouster (keep in mind, though…Catholics are no threat to anyone at all.) I don't know how much, but since Donohue published the president's email address and not mine, I imagine it's much greater than what I've seen. Those lovely Dark Age fanatics at the Catholic League have started a write-in campaign to start up an inquisition.

So no poll-crashing today. Instead, I would appreciate it if you would write a short note to President Robert Bruininks in support (he's going to hate me for this). I have to ask for a few constraints, though: only do so if you are willing to sign a real name to it — most of the complaint mail I'm getting uses fake names, making it much less persuasive — and that, unlike the religious screeds I'm seeing, you take the time to proofread and send him something that at least looks like a high school graduate wrote it, which will put you way above the level of the hate mail. Be polite and rational, too!

If you really want to impress, send him regular mail at this address:

President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455

All of this started because Myers wanted to be mean to a cracker. Isn't it five minutes past the time when someone was supposed to report Donohue to the police for having public sex with an animal while wearing a nun's habit?

Update below the fold:


BG writes a letter in support of Dr. Myers:

I know first-hand the foam-flecked idiocy his detractors are capable of. I have been threatened, stalked, and at one point...pelted with rosaries as I walked across the quad to the Science and Technology building, and lemme tell ya - that can hurt!

My most recent bit of difficulty came after a panel discussion on ESCR - having a functioning scientific brain, I'm for it - one of the religious whackos on the panel tried to talk science with me. In mid rant I asked him to stop, I had a question - Could he tell me what a telomere is, and why it is important? He was at a loss, and he stammered and stuttered and tried to shift the topic, stopping just short of pointing and screaming "Witch! Burn her!"

I am certain that I gave the chancellor heartburn when I zeroed in for the kill and maybe engaged in a little more mockery than was absolutely necessary (but not much) and utterly humiliated that poor fool who thought he could vanquish my science - and my mean streak - with a bible. I left the panel discussion, and trotted off to engage in the valiant struggle of attempting to force some semblance of understanding of Cellular Biology to stick in the eensy little brains of the future nursing students who will, upon receiving licenses, inspire me to consider bleedings and leeches when I need health care. Back at my crummy little grad-student office after class, about an hour and a half after the panel ended, I had tens of emails and my voicemail box was full of the stupidest, most illiterate spewings you have ever seen, some rising to the level of death threat.

I corrected them for grammar, spelling, proper sentence syntax, etc and sent them back, with a nice little note explaining why they should try to come off literate, and I agreed, I am a monster who must be stopped, but they were going to have to step up their game a bit.

Aren't you glad we don't both work for you?


I even signed it with my professional name and included a gaggle of initials off to the right...

Oh - and here is Bill Donohue's cell phone number if you want to give him a jingle: 917-838-1057.

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