Nobles & Knaves

Noble: The Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project, which puts severely injured veterans on the ski slopes, cycling, on the running track and more.

This country owes all its veterans returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere a decent transition to civilian life. Nowhere is this truer than with regard to service-disabled veterans. Groups like the Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project help these heroes stay active and engaged during a very difficult transition. As featured in The Washington Times last week, the sports project most recently took nine disabled veterans skiing at Pennsylvania’s Liberty Mountain with a staff of specialized trainers bearing adaptive ski equipment for the disabled. Army Spc. Jesse Murphee, profiled in The Times, whizzed down the mountain on a mono-ski designed for double amputees. Spc. Murphee lost both legs when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Before enlisting, he had been a competitive snowboarder.

The Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project is a collaborative effort of the Wounded Warrior Project, which is based in Jacksonville, Fla., and Disabled Sports USA, which is based in Rockville, Md. Last week’s event was hosted by Blue Ridge Adaptive Snow Sports (BRASS).

For helping the military men and women who make great sacrifices for us all, the Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project is the Noble of the Week.

Knave: Benny Shanon, the Hebrew University professor who claims that the prophet Moses was high on drugs when he received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

How does Mr. Shanon, an Israeli, know this? Two plants native to the Sinai Peninsula have the same psychoactive properties as the folk-medicine “ayahuasca” found in the Amazon. Moses saw a burning bush, heard lightning, thunder and blaring trumpets before encountering God. Ergo, the professor concludes, Moses was high. “As far as Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effects of narcotics,” Mr. Shanon, a professor of “cognitive philosophy,” told Israel Radio on Tuesday.

Someone please enroll Mr. Shanon in a research methods course. At minimum, show him that “I don’t believe” is a poor evidentiary standard outside the Department of Smart-Alecky Term Papers.

For purporting to instruct others about Scripture while also failing the most basic rules of evidence, Mr. Shanon is the Knave of the Week.