Mirecki

Here's a photo of Kansas University Professor Mirecki before the beating, and in this you can see how good he looked shortly after he was ambushed by two alleged supporters of "Intelligent Design" being taught in schools.

The local sheriff's department is investigating.

He said he was not pleased with the sheriff’s investigation because he had been “treated more like a criminal than a victim.”

He said he was interviewed by officers several times, “once for five hours straight. They keep asking me the same things over and over. They seized my car; they entered my office and seized my computer. They said they need them for their investigation but it didn’t make any sense to me.”

Mirecki was going to teach a course at Kansas University that compared I.D. to other creation mythologies. He was the head of the department of Religious Studies there until recently. He still holds his tenured position as a professor, but he has "resigned" his chairmanship.

Mirecki had made some indelicate comments, under a pseudonym, to an online opinion board.

In the e-mail message to a listserv, Mirecki said of intelligent design: “The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face by teaching it as a religious studies class under the category ‘mythology.’ ” Mirecki said he was “doing my part” to upset “the religious right” and signed his posting “Evil Dr. P."

Of course, after being outed, which in itself is rather creepy, by a conservative gadfly bass-player with attention-deficit disorder, Mirecki apologized. But it had all really hit the fan by then. Then he got beat up. The university says they will continue with plans to offer the course, but Mirecki will not be teaching it.

His health insurance would probably drop his coverage if he did teach that class. It's Kansas, after all. Things happen there.