Metro Pulse

You’ve seen the fish medallion, a symbol of Jesus Christ, and you’ve seen the version with legs and “Darwin” on it. Keep your eyes peeled this weekend for a van with the two painted on its side, dolloped with lipstick, kissing. The van belongs to a husband-and-wife team that has spent six years traveling around North America delivering the good news of evolution. Full story »

When you learned how bills become laws, whether from Schoolhouse Rock or in a schoolhouse, the first step was probably a citizen coming up with a great law. The citizen shares the idea with their friendly representative, who immediately recognizes its brilliance and champions the bill. After some singing and dancing, a law is born. Full story »

You most likely know Lou Gross as the mustached man behind the sound board at Laurel Theater, where he has been volunteering for the better part of three decades. He founded and for years hosted Live at the Laurel on WUOT, and his recordings get airplay on radio stations all over the South that play bluegrass and traditional music. He has assembled a musical archive likely to find a home in the Smithsonian some day, or perhaps the Museum of Appalachia. Full story »

That's Wild by Rikki Hall: I only listen to Rush Limbaugh by accident, but when it happens, it is like a four-car pile-up. I cannot turn away. I might hear three segments in a bad week, none if I am living well. As little as I listen, I heard two egregious scientific proclamations in recent months on the man’s show. I wonder how wrong he is, and how often, on matters of science. Full story »

That's Wild by Rikki Hall: The phrase “hunted to extinction” applies to many creatures, from whales to birds to plants, but the hunter is always the same. We are the only predator that wipes out its quarry. With Carolina parakeets and passenger pigeons, we did this on purpose because we considered those birds pests. Sometimes we overharvest a resource. Early American naturalists described ginseng as one of the most common plants in eastern forests, but it is now illegal to pick because it has become so rare Full story »

That's Wild by Rikki Hall: The dam break in Wisconsin last week that cracked open a couple houses and a sewer line generated some spectacular video, but the damage was minor compared to what could happen as aging dams square off against worsening floods. Full story »

That's Wild: When food prices rise, living off the land crosses everyone’s mind. It is a healthy thing to keep in mind even when living is easy. In the time it takes to boil noodles, you can make spaghetti sauce that beats anything in a jar, using canned tomatoes, fresh herbs and a sauteed onion. No one is truly rich unless oregano and thyme grow on the porch and an onion sizzles on the stove in olive oil with a few cloves of garlic. If all you have is a porch, a couple of pots of herbs constitute living off the land. Full story »

That's Wild: The relatively flat land atop the Cumberland Plateau was once the bed of an inland sea bordering the young Appalachians. Coal seams are the residue of ancient swamps, and sandstones formed as ancient river sediments piled on top of each other year after millions of years. Full story »

Viewed with eyes of wonder, any wander in the woods is a pilgrimage. The exuberance of life is plain whether trees are leaf-laden or bare winter sculptures to bending strength. The silence of winter woods lets you hear faint things normally lost in leaf rustle, like a squirrel scraping meat off a hickory nut 40 feet over your head or a nuthatch snapping a flake off bark to get at a grub underneath. Full story »

They say language is important, but I don’t believe them. Words serve the devil as nimbly as a saint. It takes a lot of words to make an idea, and the job can be done many ways. Good ideas feel good no matter what language they come in or how clumsy or elegant the delivery; bad ideas are dangerous whether expressed with vulgar words or promises sweet as a spring meadow. Ideas are more important than the language they are expressed in. Full story »

Henry Morris was a hydraulics engineer with a flood fetish. Defiance of the devil evolution gave him fevers of Biblical literalism. He tolerated none of the hedges and compromises of intelligent-design theory or even old-earth creationism. He was a young-earth purist, righteous enough to cudgel aside geology, boot isotope dating into a rip in uniformity, and burst biology beneath his mighty hoof. Few mortals can sustain disbelief like young-earth creationists, but few mortals were as mulish as Morris. Tireless in Biblical inerrancy, his rims stopped sparking in 2006. The Henry Morris Center for Christian Leadership in Dallas has been dedicated in his memory. Full story »