Symbols in context

As usual, visit dbqp frequently for illuminating posts. Yesterday's post is a highlight, not only because Geof reads a backyard swingset as a symbol/visual poem, but also for his discussion of Je$usfish vs. D@rwinfish.



I responded in the comment boxes thusly:



"Being from the South, and from Austin, the liberal haven of Texas, I can remember when I first noticed the D@rwin fish. The Xti@n fish (my sister, a pastor's wife, dislikes the X-mas and Xti@n abbrs.) adorned about 50% of the cars in grocery store and mall parking lots, it seemed. Not that I counted. But in about 1994 I was working for Bookpeople (the largest indie bookstore in the Southwest) and we began selling the D@rwin fish that summer. Bookpeople had it's origins in a New Age/SF bookstore called Grok, Timothy Leary used to frequent it, we had sections on Tantric sex and hallucinogenic drugs and UFOlogy and channelling, and a crystal shop in the front of the store where Jimmy Dale Gilmore often shopped. (The crystal shop was run by a witch with a pet wolf.) So you have an idea of the oasis it seemed at the time; if extreme at least it was different. At least it was okay to admit there that as the granddaughter of a Baptist preacher I was never baptized. In fact, I mostly faked it through high school. Anyway, there was a HUGE outcry about the D@rwin fish. The alt weekly paper ran a story, the daily even gave it a mention, and the rightwing radio personalities and a "Xti@n" activist named Mark Weaver had his say as well, if I recall this correctly. (Of course I could have some of this confused with the outcry over a local nudist hangout--Austin okayed going topless for women in public sometime during my childhood--#ippy #ollow, or with the frequent uprisings against the queer community by the same folks). This is all to point out that in Texas at least, even in green lefty Austin, creationism is mandatorily taught alongside evolution in school cirricula. Teachers, or school districts, used to have the option of leaving out the lesson in creationism--as long as they also left out the theory of evolution. This may not have changed--I haven't kept up. We were also taught the "combination theory," a sort of evolution guided by divine hand. All this in public schools receiving Federal funds. Unfortunately, Texas often dictates textbook choices for the rest of the country, because the publishers pander to the big-T money. Anyway, I digress. My high school biology teacher practically sputtered his way through the Bible scriptures to get to what he obviously felt was the point of that semester's study. When asked, some of my relatives have answered, "Well, I don't believe Evolution happened in the way THEY say," if they give the theory even that modicum of credence.



"As usual, a symbol's meaning has much to do with context!"