Under a Gibbous Moon

According to an similarly titled article on Wired.com, Pam McLaurin, who is a teacher for the Big Sandy Independent School District, has refused to undergo the  fingerprinting that is mandated by the state of Texas in order to get a teaching certificate, because she believes that being fingerprinted is the “Mark of the Beast” spoken of in Revelations.

She is now suing, saying that the requirement infringes upon her right to the freedom on religion enshrined in the First Amendment. Now it strikes me to be very simple. There is nothing that the school district is doing that restricting her freedom to believe and practice her religion. It just says that if you wish to teach the children of Texas that you undergo fingerprinting and background checks to make sure that you are not a pedophile, serial killer, or some other deviant. The constitution does not entitle any particular person to any particular job.

She can always go work somewhere else, maybe find a Christian school that shares her beliefs (I imagine that some Christian schools also do similar checks to weed out criminals). It reminds me of a story from my college days.

During one year’s Day of Silence, a women in a friend’s speech class refused to give her oral presentation because she was participating in the protest. The professor failed her. She attempted to fight it via the proper channels but was informed that she had the right to hold her views and to protest but she also had to accept the consequences of her decisions.

Somewhere along the line, people have come to think that because they have the freedom to do something that it also means that the are free from the consequences of those choices.

Red 3 making his attack run. CERN; Bird via Foxypar4/Flickr

The Large Hadron Collider, according to an article in Popular Science, has suffered yet a another setback. This time, a piece of bred dropped by a passing bird caused significant overheating within the accelerator.

The upside to this is, that even though the LHC is not fully functional yet, it has already began to make astounding discoveries. Apparently afraid of having their existence discovered, Bird Alliance has sent one of their best flyers to strike a small target with a piece of bread, thereby destroying the menace and returning peace to the skies. Or something like that.