111 Follow the
By Crispin Sartweil
Capital Times Advisor
Copies of Nicolas
Copernicus’ masterwork *De
Revolutionibus
Coelestium* are disappearing
from libraries around the world.
The book summarizes
Copernicus’ interesting but obvi
ously false theory that the earth
revolves around the sun rather
than vice versa.
First editions, worth maybe
half a million bucks each, have
been pilfered from Kiev, St.
Petersburg, Champaign-Urbana,
Krakow, Stockholm and so on.
Police have developed the theory
that the thefts are being perpe
trated on behalf of some
obsessed collector who eventual
ly would like to acquire all 260
copies of the 1543 edition. But I
have another idea. I think some
one (don’t worry, Alan Keyes
and Pat Robertson, I won’t say
who) is trying to rid the world of
pernicious heliocentrism. Once
there are no more extant copies
of Copernicus, the earth will
return to the center of the uni
verse; the Bible and we who take
it literally will once again be vin
dicated.
Perhaps you recall a little to
do between the Catholic Church
and this dude named Galileo who
seemed to think that observations
made through his delusory
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invention the "telescope" con
firmed Copemican astronomy.
The church forced him to recant.
Well, its too damn late to force
Nicolas to recant; his book was
published after he was dead and
he’s already being spit-roasted
by Satan. But it’s never too late
to defend the literal truth of
scripture against the ridiculous
and illogical theories of so-called
scientists. Silencing the enemies
of God never goes out of style.
You’ve got to check out a
website called
Orbium
www.fixedearth.com which
declares boldly that "there is no
proof that the earth rotates on a
(sic) "axis" daily and orbits the
sun annually. None." And yet
there is rich evidence that the sun
moves in relation to the earth:
"Then spake Joshua.. .Sun, stand
thou still upon Gibeon, and thou
moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
And the sun stood still . . . and
hasted not to go down about a
whole day" (Joshua 10:12).
Many ancient Greek philoso
phers believed such primitive
myths as that the earth was round
(they even calculated its approx
imate "circumference"!), that the
earth revolved around the sun as
did the other planets, that the
earth rotated on its axis, and so
on. But with the help first of
Aristotle and then of Ptolemy,
they came to see the error of their
Advisor: Crispin Sartweil
Editor: Matthew McKeown
Son
ways. The earth was fixed in
space and the sky was a kind of
vault or planetarium above us in
which little dots of light moved
in seemingly arbitrary epicycles.
It has been pointed out that the
Ptolemaic system was jerry
rigged and ad hoc, and that it was
utterly discredited by the "tele
scope," not to speak of space
travel. But when you think about
it carefully, being jerry-rigged,
arbitrary, or even baldly ridicu
lous, is no more objection to a
scientific theory such as
Ptolemy’s than it is an objection
to a religion such as mine and
Jerry Falwell’s. And as to space
travel, any person with even
rudimentary rationality can see
that it follows from the fact that
it is impossible that it never hap
pened. QED.
Christian fundamentalists
such as myself have long argued
that the theory of evolution is a
laughable pastiche of immensely
compelling data. We ourselves
account for the fossil record in
much simpler terms, in fact with
breathtaking elegance: it was all
planted there by God as a test of
faith. In fact pretty much the
whole universe is a test of faith
in the sense that it cannot be
accounted for at all according to
our belief system.
But perhaps we have been
premature in objecting to the the
ory of evolution. Don’t blame
Darwin; the slippery slope began
with Copernicus. He was one of
the first post-ancient Europeans
who allowed the obvious evi
dence of their senses to interfere
with their slavish conformity to
Christian dogma, thus paving the
road to hell.
Terrible, terrible things have
happened since 1543. The Third
Reich. The Return of Buggery.
John McCain. Video games.
Feminism. Coincidence? I think
not, Forget about Darwin for a
little while and refute the perni
cious "theories" put forward in
*De Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium.*
Better yet, steal all the copies
and destroy them, in accordance
with the beautiful tradition of the
religion we all share.
Crispin Sartweil is chairman
of the PSH chapter of the
Campus Crusade for Jesus.
Cheers for
Dear Capital Times Editor,
There is a professor here at
Penn State Harrisburg that is
deserving of recognition. Since
he will never admit it, much less
advertise the job he did, I felt it
my duty to let everybody on cam
pus know about this professor.
Back in October 1999, ■ Dr.
Blake Nelson received a packet
of materials from the American
Mock Trial Association. That
packet contained a court case
that was to be tried in the mock
trial forum during the weekend
of 2/11-2/13/00. Throughout the
five months that followed, Dr.
Nelson took time out of his
schedule to teach two teams of
students the proper procedures of
trying a case in court. During the
week, the time taken out of his
schedule would vary from eight
hours to sometimes more than 20
hours per week.
This past weekend, the two
teams he taught for those five
months went to the 2000 Mid-
Atlantic Mock Trial Regional
Competition held at Princeton
University in Princeton, N.J.
Following two days of competi
tion, an awards ceremony was
held in front of all 21 teams that
were present at the competition.
A team award was announced
From the Cap Times Office
Dear Readers
A well-produced newspaper is
like a well-produced puppet
show. The people behind the cur
tain and the elaborate network of
strings needed to make the show
happen should be invisible.
Mid-terms, course deadlines,
Tamhelm judging and having
esteemed editor Matt McKeown
sidelined with what he thought
was the flu made this issue of
The Capital Times a particularly
difficult one to produce.
So, I want to pull the curtain
aside for a moment and recog
nize some of the puppeteers.
First, SGA President Rod Lee
has the fastest email response
time of anyone I know. Thanks,
Rod, for helping me sleuth out
the needed details for several sto
ries in this issue!
Dr. Sheldon, thanks for having
your Journalistic Writing students
cover the SIE initiation story as a
class assignment. It was a plea
sure to read so many excellent
reviews. It was also one less story
we had to write. With Matt sick,
the timing was perfect!
COMMENTARY
Dr. Nelson
and it was also announced that
there was a tie for this award.
Not one, but both the teams from
Penn State Harrisburg received
this award. While this award,
The Spirit of AMTA Award,
speaks highly of both teams, it
also speaks volumes of Dr.
Nelson. Without his help, guid
ance, and professionalism none
of us that went to competition
would have stood a chance
against other schools.
Three of Dr. Nelson’s students
also received individual awards
during the award ceremony, and
once again, credit is to be given
to Dr. Nelson, and those three
students as well.
Please, if you see Dr. Nelson
in the halls around campus,
shake his hand and offer him
congratulations for his work.
Dr. Nelson, congratulations
and thank you for the job you did
for us. We hope you are very
proud of what you did, because
we are very proud of what we
did, and even more proud of you.
Thank you,
Sean Vanek, Communications,
for the members of teams 506
and 507
Brad G. and Jesse, thanks for
the emergency help on Monday.
Nicole and Dan, thanks for
always being there. Copy enter
ing and proofreading will look
good on your resumes. Really
they will!
Thanks, also, to the many peo
ple who took time to talk with
me and/or return my calls on a
Sunday. Putting an issue together
takes the better part of four days.
If information isn't available
until Monday, we're behind
schedule.
But, the bulk of my thanks
goes to my buddy Alice, recent
PSH graduate and lifesaver. I can
pull together content. I can write,
edit, use a dictionary, a thesaurus
and an AP Stylebook (thanks
again, Dr. Sheldon), but I have
never done layout. With Matt
completely out.of commission,
this was a serious problem. Alice
came out of “retirement” and put
some serious time into this issue.
Matt, get well soon!
Cathie McCormick Musser