My dad collects records from garage sales. My friend collects stamps. Some people collect postcards. Others take pleasure in working out, riding bikes or skateboarding. To some, this is just too boring.

Sicksack.com is the website of Rune Tapper of Sweeden. His hobby is collecting those lovely “I don’t feel good” collectors also known as “barf bags.” His collection currently has a total of 1279 bags from 478 airlines in 133 countries. Although mostly from airplanes, he has gotten some from ferries and trains as well.

Don’t worry – None of them are used.

Perhaps something more risqué? Get some balls and paint them like Mike and Glenda Carmichael of Alexandria, IL. Mike got his first painted baseball in the mid-60’s after it fell into some paint. After two years of painting and dipping it, the ball took on a football shape. He eventually donated it to a museum in Knightstown, IN. In 1977 however, he felt the need to paint another baseball and began a project with his son.

The hobby soon became a local attraction and now sits inside a special shed near the road where visitors can stop by and add another coat of paint. Each layer is a different color and logged in a guest book. The baseball now weighs over 1300 lbs and has almost 20,000 coats of paint. It is a few feet in diameter. This story was found on roadsideamerica. com.

For those that like to have more fun than the law allows, there is always urban exploring. This unique hobby consists of gaining access to otherwise off-limits areas such as abandoned buildings, heating tunnels, and construction sites. Uer.ca is a site that lists a wealth of information on this pastime including a database of locations to explore. One site was a former trucking depot in Grand Rapids. Uer.ca actually tells would-be visitors valuable information such as the hazards: asbestos, rust, flooding, unsafe flooring, and air quality.

The page also lists the security measures: police hang out across the street, there is a part time guard, and cameras are on site. I feel obligated to remind readers not to try this at home, but if you were at home – you wouldn’t be urban exploring.

Get out there and try something new – but not illegal!

I recently had the pleasure of seeing a lecture given by the British zoologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins originally came to fame with his 1976 groundbreaking book, The Selfish Gene. In the book Dawkins argues that evolution is driven by genes and this is what natural selection is based upon.

The multitude of books he has written to a general audience has gained him much fame as a popular science writer. Works such as The Blind Watchmaker, The Ancestor’s Tale and Climbing Mount Improbable have made him one of the world’s best-known scientists. His follow up to The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, was written to his colleagues and not intended for general readership.

More recently he has stirred the pot by becoming the informal leader of the atheist movement and has had a best seller with his most recent book, The God Delusion. This book is joined by various other books by authors that are considered to be the cornerstone of the “new atheists,” who have had growing media attention recently. These include journalist Christopher Hitchens, philosopher Daniel Dennett, writer Sam Harris and physicist Victor Stenger.

Dawkins is seen as the head of this movement though, and rightfully so. He brings the most well though out arguments to the table and looks at the issue from many different angles. Whether you agree with him about religion or not, he is no doubt one of the most brilliant scientists of our time.

At his lecture that I attended at Michigan State University recently, he discussed the “purpose of purpose.” He began with why people feel like they need a meaning in life, and the reason that the so-called “why” questions about our existence are asked.

The lecture as a whole was heavier on the scientific side of things, but he peppered in his views on religion when necessary. One of the most interesting points of the night though was the Q&A session for the final half hour.

In my view, the best question that was asked of him was how modern medicine and human consciousness and intelligence have affected the process of evolution. His answer was well put and got straight to the point. He stated that the “bad” genes that would have been selected out of the gene pool are now flourishing because of today’s technologies.

If someone has a genetic trait that would have otherwise made them die at an early age, modern medicine has kept them alive and enabled them to pass on their genes. He was in no way saying that modern medicine is bad, just that it has had a major impact on the evolutionary process.

Another important question that was asked of him was concerning if he is a “dogmatic” atheist and isn’t he guilty of the same ideology that he accuses fundamentalist Christians as having. This question was essentially asking how set in his ways he is about the question of God’s existence.

Dawkins’ response to this was important and showed why atheists are not in any way dogmatic and why it is a much more rational stance than belief in God. He stated, “I would change my stance in a second if the evidence changed.” He also stated that if evidence for God suddenly came up, or evidence against evolution, he would happily embrace it. This is what it means to be a scientist.

His point shows the difference between religious belief and science. While religion is based on doctrine, dogma and faith, science changes with the evidence, It uses empirical data, it is not dogmatic and it does not make unnecessary assumptions.

These types of arguments are what has lead Dawkins to the view that science and religion are incompatible. Many scientists do disagree with him on this point though.

The crowd that came to watch him numbered around 9,000 and sold out the Wharton Center on the MSU campus. This crowd size just goes to show the popularity and impact Dawkins has had in the intellectual and even general audience.

If you haven’t heard of or read any of Dawkins’ work, do yourself a favor and pick up one of his timeless books. Even if you don’t agree with him, it is necessary to question your own beliefs and to understand where modern science is at and how we know the things that we do.

As the sun shines and the flowers begin to bloom, human beings become easy targets for ‘Spring Fever’.

A mostly non-scientific condition, though containing some roots in biology and traceable behavioral patterns, Spring Fever is commonly labeled as the cause of changes in mood and affection. According to Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center in an article for Scientific American, “…I would say it begins as a rapid and yet unpredictable fluctuating mood and energy state that contrasts with the relative low [of the] winter months that precede it.”

Personally, that sounds like a pretty watered-down way of saying that the change in the way we feel may be a result of changes in the weather. Each spring I have a seemingly scripted conversation with one of my best friends about the potential benefits of entering into a long term monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex. We list the pros and cons of the situation and each year thus far have successfully avoided succumbing to this illness.

Perhaps it has something to do with the inverse relationship between the increase in temperature and the decrease in total clothes worn by young women, but on a warm sunny day the campus seems to explode with attractive potential future Mrs. Kelsey Schnell candidates. With every turn of my head I feel the pitter patter of my heart quicken a beat or two.

A 2001 study in the Journal of Biological Rhythms showed a vast increase in the number of babies born in March, meaning their conception would have been in the last gasping breath of the spring air of June, than any other month.

Appropriately acronymed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) could be to blame for the mood swings that accompany the post-winter months. Suggesting that the changes in the weather from dreary depressing winter to spring time has a direct impact on one’s emotional status seems like weak reasoning to explain why I am less likely to become irritated with the company of young lady if the tulips are plentiful.

Mostly all of this science points in too many directions, suffice it to say that there is something going on inside us that we can’t quite explain. And in this time of year as the crocuses sprout through the newly thawed earth it seems only fitting that love, or at least the idea of it, blooms between young men and women.

Red, white and blue are the colors Americans from sea to shining sea know and wave with pride.

It is not always the stars and stripes being flown though, the Southern Bars can be seen on display throughout the country as well, although, it is seen mostly at Nascar races and in front of southern state capital buildings.

Locally in Big Rapids, I have seen one hanging in front of a window on campus, vehicles clad in full-window decals with matching novelty license plates, and I have even seen the flag hanging in the front yards of houses.

This flag symbolizes the Confederate States of America. This would-be nation condoned slavery and is the area of origin of the Ku Klux Klan other racist hate groups. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 500 extremist groups use the Southern Bars as one of their symbols.

Why are people here in northern Michigan, some 144-plus years after abolition of the confederacy, waving this flag?

According to a University of Virginia’s American Studies dissertation, “White Southerners see the flag as a symbol of their distinctive and proud Old South culture.”

I wonder if this is the same “proud Old South culture” that owes its prosperity to generations of black slaves who were subjected to forced labor and unspeakable acts of violence.

In high school, a girl had a Confederate flag phone cover. When asked, she replied, “What difference does it make? It doesn’t mean anything.”

Sorry honey, a flag is nothing but a symbol and its attached meanings, and the Confederate flag means a lot .

The flag stems from a time when intolerance and bigotry ran rampant throughout the south. Not just during the Civil War, but through the civil rights movement. I can only assume that those who display the flag are aware that it represents a time of pain, disparity, and injustice to most African Americans.

The Confederate flag is a symbol many people hide behind and use in attempts to “covertly” display their misguided beliefs. Active and present-day display of the Confederate flag only perpetuates and legitimizes an archaic and ignorant mindset.

In 1968, South Carolina flew the Confederate flag above the state house in response to the Civil Rights movement.

The state argued it is only flying it because the flag celebrates the proud, distinctive heritage and the gentility of the Old South.

This is a complete lie. It goes back to these stubborn southerners still wanting a social order that puts them ahead of African Americans.

It is funny how the state saw the flag as an important part of the “Old South” heritage only upon the onset of the movement.

For the sake of a brief reminder of the paradigms this country was truly founded on, examine the first sentence in the third paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

All men are created equal, regardless of skin color.

When I see someone displaying the Confederate flag, it is more likely to give me the impression that the person is a racist and not that he is proud of his Southern heritage.