Pipe, if you don't think the sound pioneered on Chronic Town and Murmur was seismic in quality, I don't think you've really listened to them.

And Pixies, unpopular?! Fight Club ended with a Pixies track. A million indie bands name check the Pixies. Every article about Nirvana practically has the footnote "influenced by Pixies" stapled to its collar.

Throwing Muses, yeah, they're kind of unsung, but there are tons more bands from that era that are just as innovative that are unsung as well (Swans and Jarboe, anyone?). Kristin Hersh is basically a unique singer/songwriter, and I don't see that what she did was any more "unique" than Stipe's early mumblings and incantations.

I'm not white!

Don't knock a deep fried Gehry. They're like tender shrimp chips.

The whole cooler than thou thing is annoying, yeah. But for me, a very good written review can connect dots that maybe you wouldn't have thought of on your own. What you're putting down in words is not the music, but the music filtered through your own sensibilities and experiences, and this CAN be a very valuable tool for sharing music, movies, art, etc. It doesn't replace direct experience of art, but it supplements it.

"The thing I hate though is the idea Leonard offered, that people feel obligated or pressured to stop liking a band or a type of music when it is deemed no longer cool, no longer underground, etc.

Sorry, I don't let outside arbiters decide my taste. I still recall around 1997 or 1998 when critics declared grunge dead. I'd like to know who appointed them? The artists themselves will declare when a form is dead or still breathing. And I'll listen to whatever sounds good to me."

What you're talking about is the reality of individual tastes--sometimes they'll track with popular trends, other times they won't. But I think it's more complicated than peer pressure or coolness.

For one thing, if you hear a band's early work and love it, say you bought Murmur when it first came out, when that band changes you're either going along for the ride or you're not. Out of Time sounds different from Murmur, and if you loved that earlier album maybe you simply just don't like the change in sound. Others will adapt and listen as long as they're interested, depending on their taste.

See, it's not JUST "they're not cool anymore," although that definitely comes into play, and scene hopping isn't something I admire.

In the spirit of good natured ribbing: House suuuucks. Yet another show about a doctor to add to the huge pile of shows about doctors, House somehow passing as "edgy" because he's a jerk. Survivor: Micronesia was way funnier.

You know, Stentor, the tag "reality" TV is what keeps people misunderstanding the appeal of Survivor. Of course it's scripted and manufactured to a certain extant--but so is any game.

Do we stop playing Monopoly because it doesn't accurately reflect real world real estate markets? No. Is Survivor close to anything "real?" No. But that doesn't take away from the what makes it fun: watching how people behave when a game requires them to compete and use social skills we see in offices and schools every day. It's not deep, but it's not the end of civilization either.

Okay, I'm willing to say there's value in spirituality and philosophy, all that stuff.

BUT, the subject here is teaching COUNTERFACTUALISM. Young Earth Creationism is blatantly A LIE. It's different from myth. It's not a poetic truth. Not a flower. Not SCIENCE. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing. This isn't just harmless fluffy daisies and taking away the ability to dream and create meaning.

You're still missing the point. Believing in creationism is still different from believing in Young Earth Creationism. If you had a bunch of kids in a science class taught that the earth literally is flat and carried on the back of a giant turtle, would you still just say "oh, how poetic and fanciful. No harm done. Let them teach and believe in that?"

I somehow don't think so. Young Earth Creationism is the same degree of irrationality.

As lots of people have pointed out, it's not small c creationism that's the issue. The Catholic attitude towards abortion and birth control are "quaint", but they are not out and out falsehoods--just rules of conduct.

They're not teaching your kid that the world is a giant tortilla riding on a cosmically supersized burro. They're not saying that the earth must be 5000 years old or the Bible is a lie, and science can prove it.

Small c creationism simply says "there is a god." Nobody cares if they teach that in a church school. What people are reacting to is a "science" class that teaches out and out falsehoods. I think it's a bit much to call it child abuse, but come on, you have to have some standards.

It's only natural that new gadgets would be adapted for use in the age-old practice of casual sex. It's not like people weren't "hooking up" (in my day it was "scamming") before cell phones were invented.

I remember some book I saw on a shelf recently that was all about this new sexual revolution revolving around hookups and booty calls and texting as if it were some new discovery that old folks just didn't understand. Umm, sorry people, but kinky anonymous sex wasn't invented in the last few years by a few gadget savvy first adopters.

So, women get excited by going to the gynecologist? Somehow, I don't think so. Analogy = FAIL.

No, what you're missing is that going to the doctor's is pretty much universally UN-SEXY. Not enjoying your prostate exam says exactly nothing about whether or not anal SEX is enjoyable.

And that's the last troll bait I'll leave out there today.