...Kotter

I'm back.
A while back, I heard one of the students in my dorm (so this would have been last May or earlier) say in a smug voice: "They still don't know how a bumblebee flies. Take that science!" I shook my head and spent a couple of hours over the next few days finding out if that oft touted 'fact' was true. It is not. The misunderstanding comes from the fact that according to the physical properties or laws regarding fixed wing (wings that don't move, like an airplane) flight, the bumblebee's wings would not support it and it could not fly. However, the fact that it beats its wings changes all of that, and though they could not fully explain how until a few years ago (I think 2004 or 2006) does not mean that it scientifically could not fly. It just means that it could not be explained with what they knew - but no one ever said they (whoever they are) knew everything.
This summer, when I was living with my brother and a friend, I had my laptop hooked up in the living room and it became a bit of a joke that any question, especially entertainment related, that they asked, I would soon have an answer for, and anytime I didn't have the answer, they would tell me to get back to my job and look it up.
I find these little facts and background things fascinating. I watch a movie, and then I go to www.imdb.com and look up the trivia and the FAQs sections about the movie, seeing the background details. When there is something I am interested in, I enjoy looking at the background info about it. I want to be on a movie set not because I want to see the acting, but I want to see what the gaffer actually does. I want to see how the cameramen perform their art. I want to see how they figure out where the shot is going to be.
There is an episode of Futurama (basically my favourite TV show) where Fry, the main character, goes back in time and meets his grandfather. He becomes worried that gramps will get hurt and die before he can have Fry's...parent (they never say if it is his mom's dad or his dad's dad), and so Fry makes it his job to protect his grandfather at all costs. At one point they are sitting in a diner and they see Fry's grandma, and Enos (his grandpa) makes some sort of comment that implies he may actually be gay ('do you ever feel like you are only going with a woman because that is what you are supposed to do?' 'DON'T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN!'). Later, Fry, in a fit of paranoia (I am going somewhere with all of this, I promise) takes Enos to the middle of nowhere ('the safest part of nowhere') and tells him to just 'stand here and enjoy this pin up calendar'. The calendar has a picture of a woman in a 1940s style swimsuit. Enos looks at the calendar and then flips to the next month which is a picture of a shirtless cowboy. He smiles and just looks at the picture. Fry gets an intensely irritated look on his face and slowly forces Enos' hand down so that the girl is displayed once again. Here's the point - it is a funny gag, but I think I enjoy it differently than most people would - I don't just laugh because the broad joke is funny, but I also laugh because I deeply appreciate the expression they were able to get on Fry's face in animation. It is so incredibly complex and fitting - showing exactly what a real live person would show if they were feeling the same way.
I love the background stuff, and I love knowing the truth about things. The problem is, I know most people don't, at least not in the same way I do. The question becomes, for me, how much do I tell people? When do I become a 'know-it-all'? When does my pursuit for the truth become a detriment? If you are wondering how it can be bad to know the truth, the issue becomes whether or not the truth matters. I think of an episode of the Simpsons where they are celebrating Jebediah Springfield, the founder of their town. He is held up as a hero ('a noble spirit embiggens us all'), but Lisa finds out that he was a goon and a crook and a generally nasty guy. She wants to tell everyone the truth, but when she sees how his image has inspired so much goodness among the townspeople, she decides that his good reputation is worth more than knowing exactly what he was like. I wonder about that sort of thing all the time. Never with anything quite so grand scale, but it is still a similar sentiment. If someone repeats a story they have heard about, say...Spider-Man's origin back in the sixties, but they are wrong, and I know that for a fact, do I set them straight, or do I let it go because in the grand scheme of things it does not matter? What sort of funny fact or amusing anecdote could I crush with my mighty treasure trove of knowledge (read that last part with a deep booming announcer-guy voice...it sounds cooler that way) when it really does not matter? There is a clip that someone just sent to me that features an 'Australian politician' being interviewed by a 'news reporter'. It is supposed to be an example of a politician trying to put a positive spin on an oil tanker breaking apart (the front fell off) and the ship dumping 20,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea. It is in fact from a comedy satire program in Australia. Do I tell people that (obviously yes) and thus let them know the truth about the piece, or do I not mention it and let them go one believing that the politician is a complete moron and a bit of a sleeze, something that they find amusing and perhaps a bit of a reflection of their attitudes towards politicians in general (ironically, that is basically the point that the satire in the piece is making)? I wonder about that all the time. If I was a more aggressive person I would be destroying people's perceptions on things all the time, but I am rather laid back towards the whole thing, so instead I just shrug and carry on, except when I don't.
The exception is those little tid bits like the one about the bee, or the forwarded emails that are supposed to be all 'rah-rah God', but which are full of inacurate information. I refuse to let those slide, because if a Christian is trying to make a point and they use very inacurate information, then it just makes us all look ignorant and backwards and makes it that much harder for people to take christians seriously. Just because there is a scientific explanation for why bumblebees can fly does not make it any less cool or impressive that God made it. It just shows once again that God likes us to learn and that He likes things to have a purpose and a reason. We know how rainbows are scientifically formed - does that lessen God's message at the end of the flood in Genesis? No.
That's my rant for the day.