Firefox article and my book!

Red panda in the Himalayan foothills of eastern Nepal, near the India border
Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I know, I know, all my blog posts lately just talk about recent articles but several have come out recently, and this one I'm really excited about! I've actually been checking the National Wildlife magazine website nearly every day in anticipation of this piece, which I knew was in the Feb/March 2009 issue which I knew came out some time in January. Hence, the obsessive checking. And here it is! As you all probably know, I traveled to Nepal last November, wait that would be November of 2007, trekking through the Himalayan foothills in search of the endangered red panda. The article is called Fighting for the Firefox: Nepal’s red panda is getting help from a small group of local forest guardians, but the highly endangered mammal still faces a troubled future as its habitat is lost to deforestation.

The first paragraph starts out...

IT’S AFTERNOON in eastern Nepal, near the India border, and a fine mist fingers its way over the broadleaf temperate forest. We’ve pitched camp near a giant mossy stone, carved all over with the words Om Mani Padme Hum, the ancient Buddhist mantra of compassion. I’ve flown halfway around the world, trekked on treacherously steep paths for days, endured squatting toilets and camped in freezing weather just for a chance to get a rare firsthand look at efforts to save one of the world’s most endangered mammals: the red panda.

In other news, I've been working hard on my book, writing new content, and rearranging my first few chapters into a cohesive story. I can write a feature article like it's nothing, since I've been doing it for nearly a decade and a half, but this is my first book and wrapping my head around the overall structure is challenging - but I'm actually having a lot of fun with it. I've cleared my plate of other tasks and made it my only focus for the time being. The first chapter in the book, The Making of a Christian Evolutionist, talks about how I came to be a Christian who accepts evolution. It takes the reader from me as a naive but faithful young child, through some challenging life situations and to the point where I became an atheist in high school and college, then ultimately back to the Christian faith. But of course during college, I became educated as an evolutionary biologist/ecologist. The chapter tells the story of my life, in a nutshell.

The next chapter is titled - as it stands now - The Fish Wars. This introduces the whole debate over evolution and creationism from the perspective of me teaching biology at the community college where I worked for several years, and the interactions with my students. This chapter gives a good, simple overview of what evolution actually is - and what it isn't. The next chapter is In Search of the Holy Grail of Truth (Or, I Don’t Quite Understand Your Question) - and it's in progress, but covers my experience testifying at the Texas State Board of Education in 2003 and this year (well late 2008 - and there's another hearing next week!), conflicting views on "truth" and how and why people come to believe what we believe.

The next chapter, There is a Striking Resemblance Between You and a Monkey, is about my travels to Colorado to spend Easter with the Epperson family, who were involved in the landmark 1968 Supreme Court case Epperson v. Arkansas that essentially overturned the infamous 1929 Scopes Monkey Trial which confirmed that it was ok to make teaching (human) evolution illegal. I love the title of this chapter! It's actually what someone said in a letter to Susan Epperson during the time of the Supreme Court battle back in the 1960s. The things people say! Yes, as a matter of fact there is a striking resemblance between you (and me) and a monkey!

So that's where I'm at now, completing and organizing and writing these first few chapters - the first half of the book. I've already done the excursions and such for the rest of the chapters too (which include narrative chapters on young earth creationism, and one on intelligfent design, among others). I'm having a lot of fun with it all, and am very excited about my progress! Prayers are much appreciated!!

another day

Copyright (c) 2008 Wendee Holtcamp
Brooke and Chloe getting ice cream! This was from April when I visited last.

Today Jenny and I went to the mall and got some coffee and just browsed and talked, and then I came back and started transcribing tapes from my visit to the Epperson family in Colorado from Easter weekend. It's hard to believe it was that long ago I went there! This is a part of my book since Susan Epperson was the plaintiff in Epperson v Arkansas, the Supreme Court case that essentially made it illegal nationwide to prevent the teaching of evolution on religious grounds. Prior to that, the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial had de facto made it "ok" for states to pass laws saying that it was illegal to teach evolution. Only a few states did, but Arkansas was one of those states - where Susan lived and taught biology at the time.

The Eppersons are Presbyterians, a mainstream Protestant denomination that has a doctrine stating that evolution is the way humans came into being - a step beyond many church denoiminations that simply say there can be no conflict between science and faith. So I am including my discussion of their interesting story and my visit with them over Easter in my Chapter 2 and maybe other parts of the book too.

I've been reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and am enjoying his chapter about the pain-body. I will blog some more about it but it's a really fascinating idea of how the past pain rears its ugly head into our present circumstances but by being aware of when this happens makes it "go away" to some extent. It can not tolerate the light of awareness. When people are unconscious, they can be dominated by the pain-body. Even when someone is conscious of it happening, it does not always go away immediately but awareness is the first step to change. Back to work!