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The Human Zoo/August 18, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around The Human Experience...
GO IN PEACE, BUILD AN ARK AND THE TOWER OF BABEL: News is starting to filter out of northern Kentucky that a religious based theme park is being planned near Hebron. The centerpiece of the project is scheduled to be a life size replica of Noah's Ark.
Hey, How About A Stairway To Heaven, Too: This is an ambitious project because even a heathen knows that Noah's ark was not small. As noted in chapter six, verse 16 of the popular Old Testament book Genesis, God directed Noah to build the ark to be 300 cubits high, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high.
Dry, Technical Matter: A cubit is one man's earliest units of measure that historically has been of varying lengths, though often times it corresponded to roughly the length from a man's fingertips to his elbow, so it is not unreasonable to figure that park organizers will be building a structure that is 450 feet long, 75 feet long and 45 feet high.
More Dry Technical Matter: The group planning this is called Answers in Genesis, who are also known for their Creation Museum, which they opened in Petersburg, Kentucky around the turn of the century.
Labor Watch: Current plans are to have teams of Amish builders put up the ark. The Amish are known for the rather high quality of their wood products, and they're probably already unionized, too.
Onward! Christian Soldiers: Organizers claim the ark would also provide "a powerful outreach to teach the world about God's word and the message of salvation."
Maybe, maybe not. A more cynical view is that it would simply be a big, useless boat and that a more powerful method of teaching the world about God's word and the message of salvation would be to have God come visit us and say "howdy".
Will There Be A Lion's Den? Also planned is a replica of the Tower of Babel and a village set in the first century.
Actually, period villages, like the one at Williamsburg, Virginia, as well as others, can be fun, and we could see ourselves enjoying the first century village, at least until it would come time to use the can, at which point we don't see an authentic, first century village being much fun at all.
Too Bad: Organizers have said that despite their commitment to presenting a literal interpretation of the OId Testament, plans for the Human Sacrifice Altar have been scrapped.
ALMANAC: Virginia Dare becomes the first baby born to English parents in what is now the United States on this date in 1587.
Uh-Oh: She probably didn't live long. Young Virginia and her parents were part of the Roanoke Colony, and news of her birth is known only because her grandfather returned to England shortly after her birth. When he returned three years later the colony had disappeared without a trace.
Next Thing You Know They'll Want Equal Pay: The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, assuring women the right to vote, is ratified on this date in 1920.
Yeah, Yeah, Whatever: A couple of rabble-rousers named Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first made noises about chick sufferage way back in 1878, though Congress couldn't be bothered to send the proposed amendment to the several states until 1919.
We Fought To Keep Blacks Enslaved And We Lynched Jews, You Think We're Going To Roll Over And Let Women Vote? Several southern states rejected the 19th Amendment in 1920 and wouldn't begin ratifying it until the 1950's, though Mississippi gets the Jeff Davis Humanitarian Award for not ratifying it until 1984, the final state to do so.
Batter Up: Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds sets the major league record for plate appearances on this date in 1982, stepping into the batter's box for the 13,941st time. Rose passes the mark that had been established by Hank Aaron in 1974. Rose retired with 15,861 plate appearances, a record that still stands.
A Long Day: Playing in the second game of a day/night doubleheader at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees play four hour, 45 minute game, the longest nine inning game in major league history. The Yankees won 14-11, with each team getting 17 hits.
Here, Let Me Help: Serial killer Dennis Rader, known as the BTK killer, is sentenced to 175 years in prison on this date in 2005.
Rader may well have been ready to be captured. His ten known victims were killed from 1974 until 1991 and Wichita, Kansas police had some zero clue as to the killer's identity until Rader resumed his long-lost habit of corresponding with the police in 2004 to brag about a 1986 murder,
FunFact: Rader had corresponded with both police and the media from 1974-79 and again in 1988, though it should be noted the 1988 letter was to disavow any knowledge of the murder of a Wichita family.
In February, 2005, Rader sent the police a floppy disc that, among other things, showed a deleted document that mentioned a Christ Lutheran Church that had last been edited by someone named Dennis. You didn't have to be Joe Friday to perform a Google search, which showed one Dennis Rader was a lay leader at a Christ Lutheran Church. Some surveillance and routine detective work led to Rader's arrest a couple of weeks later.
Soft On Crime: This admitted, cold-blooded killer is eligible for parole and could be walking the streets as early as February, 2180.
Thought For The Day: …in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman does his or her duty…The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. - Theodore Roosevelt, the Man in the Arena speech, 4/23/1910
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Greg Minton of the San Francisco Giants gave up Pete Rose's final major league hit, single in the seventh inning of a 2-0 Reds win on August 14, 1986.
Today's Stumper: The first three states to ratify the 19th Amendment did so on June 10, 1919. Name these three states? - Answer next time!
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