Yellow Cat Answers Detractor, Proves He’s Open Minded with a Prayer

We heard back from our unhappy reader Brian again, and now Higgs wants to answer his second email. To review, I've pasted Brian's first correspondence with me. He indeed caught two typos in a post I'd dashed off Friday about more bills aimed at inserting creation science into public school science classes.

Flim Flam,
Hey genius, in your haste to post yet another anti-Christian rant about Indiana you misspelled "pseudoscience" and used incorrect grammar in "A number of scientists and religions figures testified...". You meant religious, perhaps? I think you need to "dress up" your English writing skills before "foisting" your opinions on others.  In the least you would look more intelligent while trying to mock the intelligence of others.  But that's the Inquirer today where ideology trumps journalistic talent and skill.

I usually erase anything that makes fun of my name, but since I was using it for blog fodder, I decided a minimal response was in order.

Me: Oh Please.

Brian: At least you spelled those two words correctly.  Just love you tolerant, open minded liberals when it comes to diverse thought you don't agree with.....   

Higgs: Dear Brian, I didn't want you to think we dismissed your diverse thoughts out of hand. We considered the possibility that my co-blogger "can't spell" and decided this was an erroneous conclusion drawn from the evidence at hand. You see, most word processors include automatic spelling checkers. When you see a spelling error, it's rarely because the writer didn't know how to spell the word in question. A more plausible explanation is that the person made an error of motor coordination and then forgot to activate the spell checker. Sometimes alcohol is involved, though not in this particular instance. Another plausible explanation is that we both tried to use the keyboard at once. I sometimes have trouble waiting my turn.

We also took seriously your contention that occasional misspellings should disqualify one from a job in journalism. Thanks to automatic spell checking, spelling skills have become about as relevant as good penmanship.  Spelling is not an important journalistic skill.

I would also like to explain that evolution is not an ideology. Right now there's no evidence in any branch of science for supernatural tampering. In the famous 2005 Dover case, the judge was a Republican and a church-going Christian but he agreed with us that creationism shouldn't be taught in public school science classes.

Your sarcastic tone in the second email suggests you think we at Planet-of-the-Apes are not open minded. I will prove my open-mindedness by offering an experimental intercessory prayer. I will pray good and hard that you find a $100 bill under your pillow. All I ask in return is that you let us know if it works, and send us a $20 processing fee. This is quite a good deal IMHO. Thanks for letting me express my views. – Higgs