I Know, I Know.... It's Been A While.

But watch this and smile:



Why the hell can't more people stand up like this and say, "Ignorance isn't a political position"?

Wanna Get Really Mad?

A while back, I posted a link to the "Fundies Say The Darndest Things" website top 100 list of crazy shit people have written on the webby-computer-nets. Now I would love to direct you toward the top 100 list for Racist People Say The Darndest Things!!

Go HERE!

Fun game: Note how many insane, racist comments include religion and, in particular, Christianity. Hate to sound like I'm singling them out... but don't hate the player, hate the game. If they're willing to target people from the comfort of their own keyboard, I guess I'm just as bad. I may be doomed for all eternity as a sinning Atheist, but I'm no hypocrite. Enjoy!

A Twelve Year Old Tells Us Abortion Is Wrong

What could be a more appropriate topic for a speech assignment is 7th grade? Maybe discussing Homo-Sin-Uality or Jesus being the ONLY path. (Notice the little slip of "Who knows them all by name).

I can't begin to figure out where to focus my diatribe:

Is it the viewpoint being expressed?

Is it the clearly obvious fact that this little girl didn't write this speech herself and at best is regurgitating what her parents are pounding in to her head like an abortionist's coat hanger?

Is it the fact that this was for a 7th grade class and if my child was subjected to this, I would be outraged?

Is it the facial expressions that border on Annie-like Broadway stage enthusiasm to the point that I almost picture this girl dressed as a fetus on a poorly built stage made to resemble a massive uterus while shouting, "TOMORROW, TOMORROW!"?

Is it the odd, bare background and shaky camera movement mixed with frequent religious undertones and reference notes that make me feel like I'm watching a lost Waco tape?

Is it the, let's face it, raping of Seuss' story?

Is it the overwhelmingly sour smugness that this girls voice and expression exude as she berates?

Is it her quoting a pro-life website's message board as an example in her persuasion as if it were, dare I say the words, gospel?

No, these things bother me, but the heart (half formed and unbeating) of the matter is this:

She's F'n Twelve!!!!!

How the hell am I supposed to take any amount of seriousness in a 12 year old's discourse on a matter as intricate and multi-faceted as The Godfather? You can't expect a twelve year old to comprehend the slightest notion of the film. It's sense of family ties, moral division, 30's - 60's era organized crime.... And that's just a fucking movie! If I can't expect a pre-teen to handle the complexities of a film, why on earth would I turn to one on something like abortion?

I have never once stopped and thought to myself, "My personal standings on a difficult issue are decidedly obtuse. I know, I'll ask someone who still believes in Santa!"

I guess I can take solace in the fact that her argument is at just about the appropriate age level. (I.E. it's childish and crude)

Passion For Christ Movement's "Ex-Campaign" Is Insulting... And Hilariously Misguided

So this website is making some... interesting shirts.


This is (I can't believe it either) a Christian message they are spreading. Somehow, they have decided that masturbation is something that needs to stop RIGHT NOW!! In their words:

We pray that you will join us in breaking the silence on an issue that has stayed silent for too long. Be the first to boldly rock your Ex-Masturbator shirt and let's change the world baby!

Now, apparently this is a pretty serious issue for this particular group of Christians. According to their partner-site, God is very much opposed to masturbation. Just read the letter he wrote for their article:

"Is it a good thing to have sexual relations? Certainly-but only within a certain context. It's good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder." *

Signed,

God

It goes on to say that the only sexual intercourse that is OK is the intercourse that takes place in a (straight) marriage. Even at the expense of common sense...

The sensation that many long to achieve was instituted, manufactured and conceived in the factory of God's mind. He knew the functionality of it, the mechanics of it, and the modus operandi. And God's method of operation for sex is marriage. He created the fibers of sex to be so strong that it could only be contained in the confines of marriage.

So.... God created orgasms and then marriage to contain them. What? One word comes to mind (no, not crazy): Animals. Animals achieve orgasm as well as humans. We do this because procreation/sex is pleasurable. It's pleasurable because without it feeling good, we never would have done it and we wouldn't be here. Oh and it also feels good because.... It's SEX! SEX FEELS GOOD AND IT IS OK!!

Why is masturbation bad?

Because God never created solo sex.

This, after saying God created everything involving sex. I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways. (unless you happen to have that sexual lifestyle)

The article goes on and on to make pubescent kids feel bad about themselves so if you want to read the whole thing, you're on your own.


The not-so-subtle 'Ex-Masturbator' message printed on the shirts isn't the only one they are printing.

You can get your very own Ex-Diva (not sure what that has to do with being Christian), Ex-Hypocrite (again, cloudy on the context), Ex-Atheist, and perhaps the most insulting... Ex-Slave.

Yeah, Ex-Slave. How that in any way an OK thing to put on a shirt? I can only interpret it in the context of the actual person wearing the shirt. So they used to be a slave? A literal Slave? Or just a slave in some stretch pertaining to Jesus in some odd way? Is it wrong that I find it offensive that a black guy is wearing the shirt?
Is it just me, or is it completely disgusting and offensive?
It's like a shirt that says Ex-Holocaust Prisoner.
And to put it in the same line as 'Ex-Masturbator'?
I wonder what would be said if it were an Atheist company making the shirts.

Perhaps the scariest part of all this are the replies on the website from people scrambling to get these shirts. How can fighting your own physiology be healthy? I don't think I've ever heard anyone but religious zealots say it was bad or bad for you. I guess what I'm saying is this:

Don't be a Jerk: Jerk Off.

Yep... Still Love Tim Minchin!

Here's a great poem written by Tim about well.... Science. It's easire to understand if you've heard the way he can push words together and make a flow out of something that normally wouldn't. ENJOY!!

“Storm”

Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat,
Rice Paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host’s a physician,
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend’s an actress
An old mate from home
And they’re always great fun.
So to dinner we’ve come.

The 5th guest is an unknown,
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favour
because this girl’s just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she’s the sister of someone
Or has some connection.

As we make introductions
I’m struck by her beauty
She’s irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits
I admit I’m a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says “I’m Sagittarien”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.

Chatter is initially bright and light hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment by me

“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.

The food is delicious and Storm,
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists
“But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”

My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there’s a chance
That I’ll be off on one of my rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it’s becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because - like her meteorological namesake -
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:

“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It’s time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”

And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”

“So you don’t believe
In ANY Natural remedies?”

“On the contrary actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that’s virtually side-effect free
It’s got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Masprin?
Basprin?
Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore.

The debate briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates
but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,

“Shakespeare said it first:
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we’re trained to look at reality,
It can’t explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”

I’m becoming aware
That I’m staring,
I’m like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it’s the Hamlet she just misquothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:

“Look , Storm, I don’t mean to bore you
But there’s no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.

By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you’re in touch with the other side?
That’s just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there’s no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we fucking 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn’t had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edwards?

Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition

“You’re so sure of your position
But you’re just closed-minded
I think you’ll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”

“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!

You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.”

Everyones just staring at me now,
But I’m pretty pissed and I’ve dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:

“Life is full of mysteries, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won’t be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn’t life mysterious?
Let’s sit here and hope
Let’s call up the fucking Pope
Let’s go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra

If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there’s a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.

Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?

Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.

And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We’d as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you’ll change your mind.

The Abstinence Clown?

The hard part of watching this is trying to decide to either hate him or pity him. I mean, this is his LIFE.... Oh well. Watch carefully as he tries to "smoothly" transition into the whole "don't have sex" theme that he's inevitably been leading toward. The way he does it is completely arbitrary. He might as well say, "You have to do one other thing to make your dream..... You have to kill a Hobo with a knife." How does not fucking someone assure your success in life? Shit... most people would measure it the other way! Oh well, enjoy the 'clown'.

If There Is A God...

Explain this:

Tim Minchin: A Funny Man Singing About The Absurdity Of Religious Rules

I've been meaning to listen to Tim's latest special for a while and I finally checked it out. I'm glad I did, he's great! Here he is singing a song called 10 Foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins:

Because I Love The Wire....

If you haven't seen the Wire, see it! And DON'T watch this!!! It has nothing BUT Spoilers.

If you have, then watch it!

This American Life Needs Us!!

Okay, I love This American Life, the most unique and wonderful radio program that ever graced these ears. If you listen to the show, great! I feel like we can connect. If you haven't heard of it, that's fine... just make sure you give it a listen PRONTO. If you have heard of it but haven't listened to it yet, see previous statement. If you don't like the show, then I have no time for you seeing as you can't even exist anyway cuz NO ONE doesn't like This American Life!

That said, they are feeling the economic crunch. WBEZ in Chacago, where TAL calls home, has already had to lay off a dozen or so people and may ahve to do more trimming in the budget. So here is the deal. Most poeple that listen to the show do so by downloading the free FREE! podcast each monday of the episode that aired brand spanking new on friday. This costs WBEZ 150,000 dollars a year for bandwitdth alone! All so we can listen for free.

SO.... Ira Glass is calling on you. And me. I already donated today and want to give you the same oppurtunity. Click the following to do so:

DONATE DONATE DONATE!!!

Oh, and if you are so inclined, it's tax-deductible. I have never asked for money on here*, but I really love the show and you more people need to hear it. Thanks for reading my begging/diatribe.









*If you want to give me money for the site though, you should.