messiestobjects

Conscientia Mereo in Choeung Ek

    I had my first International assignment last week, very exciting. A client had a branch in Dublin, so I used up all of my miles to bring Julie along and we got to spend a few days in Ireland. Unfortunately, it coincided with finals so I really had to scramble to keep up with all of my school work so that I could enjoy some free time over there; while I took a couple of pictures I haven't had time to go through them so the Ireland post will have to wait a week or three. I actually have my last final exam later today, for Astronomy. In the meantime, I wrote a poem and introductory essay for my final term paper in British Literature so I thought I'd post it along with some old pictures from a trip I took to Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields in Cambodia. I had a choice between just writing a seven page essay or the poem and intro essay in response to any of the works that we covered in class, and even though poetry is terrible I chose it for reasons I will explain in the essay itself.

    For anyone who hasn't read it, Paradise Lost by John Milton—the main subject of my attentions here—is a dramatic rendering of the fall of both Satan and Man based on the Bible in the style of the heroic poetry of Homer and Virgil. Milton opens several chapters in his saga by breaking the third wall and appealing to his muse, the holy ghost, for inspiration that his poem might be infused with skill and veracity. He was aping the greek poets when they would appeal to the Muses in their own epics.

On Paradise Lost and Knowledge Gained

    I trepidatiously chose to write a poem rather than an essay because I wanted to try my hand at a piece of Heroic poetry that did not rely on a moral foundation that I wholly disagree with. I decided on this course of action in response to the religious literature that we covered such as Doctor Faustus and Margery Kempe; however, the form and content of Conscientia Mereo, as I’ve called it, are linked most directly with John Milton’s Paradise Lost. I originally considered writing a lengthy diatribe about the problems with literature based on religious principles and how any moral content or heroic actions become corrupted by a dogmatic view of the Universe rather than a naturalistic or at least agnostic one. But I feared the arrogance of judging what is considered to be an important piece of historical literature based on more modern personal preferences and prejudices without adding anything creative to the conversation myself, and so I committed the arrogance of aping it and subverting the message instead!

    The title of my poem means ‘knowledge gained,’ a would-be clunky name which is why I chose to use the Latin rather than English and it is a rather obvious play on the title of the poem that inspired it. Interestingly, mereo means ‘to gain,’ but it also means to serve as a soldier, a connotation I like in the context of knowledge as antipathy to religion. Additionally, I like the idea that anyone who would want to know what the title meant would most likely have to look it up online. It both supports an idea in my poem and further serves as ironic subtext, as Latin is a dead language formerly used in church masses, alienating parishioners who didn’t speak it. This restriction or shrouding of knowledge is a major theme of my poem; an important part of religion is the idea that things must be taken on faith, which is detrimental to gaining knowledge about the cosmos. Now that we know that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, that it started in a massive “explosion” of matter, and that humans evolved from apelike ancestors who in turn evolved from single-celled eukaryotes, scolds about original sin and the danger of knowledge are ill-suited to epic literature that would strive to inspire our imaginations and heroic yearnings rather than to keep us in our place.

    To wit, the hero [Adam] in Paradise Lost is admonished by the angel Raphael to avoid seeking knowledge when he says that “God to remove his ways from human sense, / Placed heav’n from earth so far, that earthly sight / If it presume, might err in things too high, / And no advantage gain” (Milton 8.120-122). Basically, he is saying that the quest for knowledge is far above human capabilities and even if we didn’t muck it up, any knowledge attained would gain no advantage for us anyway. Rather than fighting against this arbitrary restriction as a true hero might, Adam rather meekly accepts this condescending judgment. As we in modern times can attest, the successful quest for knowledge has actually led to quite a few advantages, and it has been a heroic, generational battle to overcome those who would have preferred to keep us in the dark. The play Doctor Faustus, for example, serves as a reminder of how someone living in darker ages viewed the acquisition of knowledge when the eponymous character trades his soul for it. We are led to interpret this as a petty lust for puerile power, which of course is not true knowledge at all and is nothing more than a cheap trick meant to instill the idea that knowledge can only come at the cost of one’s salvation.

    Another, more important detriment to the idea of a heroic epic is the way in which the underlying moral structure of Milton’s worldview corrupts the very concept of heroism. In book 12, the angel Michael says the son of god will come, “Proclaiming life to all who shall believe / in his redemption, and that his obedience / Imputed becomes theirs by faith, his merits / to save them, not their own, through legal works” (Milton 12.407-410). In other words, no man or woman can be a hero because Jesus is the only hero, he has used up all the heroism, and it doesn’t matter what good deeds or heroic acts that anyone else performs; we will only be judged on whether or not we believe in this man who we’ve never met from a book full of claims with no historical veracity. This hardly inspires the rest of us to live up to heroic qualities.

    To counter these problems, there were two main things I wanted to accomplish in Conscientia Mereo; I wanted to show that the search for knowledge was the true heroic stance, and I wanted to illustrate that what these Christian writers interpret as morality is actually quite immoral when presented in a slightly different context and is therefore problematic when proposing a heroic epic based on such a foundation. I chose a Luddite father-figure as the stand-in for God, a curious young daughter and her brother for Adam and Eve, and an estranged Uncle as Satan. My underlying idea was that God kicking Adam and Eve out of Eden for the crime of disobeying an arbitrary rule designed to keep them in their place would be a shocking abuse of power in any other framework. And this is without even taking into account the appalling idea that the entire future race of man are to be punished for this crime as well, shouldering the burden of the choice between irrational belief or infinite punishment for a finite crime.

    Whether or not I succeeded is definitely up for debate. Perhaps if I had years to perfect the language and more space to flesh out the story, it might approach something like a respectable attempt. However, in trying to adhere to pentameter and in getting quickly to the point in each “scene,” I believe that I have at the very least made a statement worthy of consideration regardless of my skills as a poet. I've chosen to begin with my own appeal to the Muses; it seemed important to carry on that particular epic tradition in my own humble way.

 

Conscientia Mereo

The Muses of old are now hard to find,

ancient spirits and ghosts, all lost their shrouds.

In the age of cause and effect, the Gods

and aether are replaced by the sciences.

Thus, should my fare fall short of the poets—

the bar that serves Homer, Virgil, Milton—

I’ve no one to thank and no one to blame;

the vision dies alone, unseen, my own.

And yet in such times, ever there are found

those who shun and loathe the light of the truth

and still prefer the comfort of leaving

their reason on some unnatural plane.

The brothers lived in a happier home

before the rift. Raised in a Luddite way,

taught to fear change and to hold to the old.

The elder learned well, the younger did not.

He’d questions and doubt, fire troubled his blood.

 

And when the manse passed on to the firstborn,

the new ruler of small places declared

an end to all inquiry. “In my stock

the book is the law, I’ll hear nothing else.”

Young Hob took this ill and started a plot,

shut up in his room, his spirits burned hot.

“His house it may be, yet also my home.

My preferred way in my life is my own.”

A battle ensued between wits and might,

and bad blood is e’er bitter with brothers.

It ended of course in the way it must;

the heir remained, and the contender shunned.

Hob left for a terrible place, alone

a job at McDonald’s, and his new home—

a two room apartment and five bunkmates.

Yet even in his anger and defeat

he thought to himself, “at least I am free.”

Time passed and things got better, as they do

Hob went to college, Summa Cum Laude.

 

Now in the meantime two children were born,

their names were not new but old as the Earth.

The father, still fearing all change, raised them

on a diet of old legends and tales.

He schooled them at home and kept them closed in—

“My garden is all you shall ever need.

Go out and play, but I warn you right now

wander not astray, great are the evils

for which you are prey, and all things but one

I can help you forget; the internet.

Ask me not what it is, and no one else

avoid it like fire, to touch it is death.”

He told them these things because knowledge burns

and births awful questions from which he’d turned.

This went on for years, they learned without peers

and all that he told was all that they knew.

Until came a time with her Pa away,

no longer a girl, a woman near grown

lovely to see, a travesty to hear

incomplete knowledge of all she held dear.

She raked in the yard and when she looked up,

A man in a car was watching her work.

He opened the door and gave a small wave:

“Hello there young lady, how do you do?”

“I’m feeling just fine, who the hell are you?”

“I once lived in this home, ages ago.

By any chance, is your father about?”

“He’s gone for the day, but just leave your name,

I’ll tell him you called, now please go away.”

“I’ll do you one better, here’s my email…”

Suffice it to say, one question hatched more,

by end of the day, her brain was aflame;

she knew that Pa's wrath would cause her some pain.

First she said nothing; she thought she’d combust,

'til one restless night, to brother she said:

“Did you know the Sun is really a star?

Our forebear’s not Adam, but a monkey?”

“What story is this? A children’s fancy?”

“No brother, it’s real, my eyes are opened.

I’m terrified, true, but Pa lied to us.

Here look at this, old Hob gave it to me.”

She showed him her phone and accessed the Net,

and taught him to use Wikipedia.

“Any question or thought, type it in here—

smaller in size but worth a thousand books.”

Horrified yet drawn, and fearing Pa’s wroth,

he asked her “just who the hell is old Hob?”

“He lived in this house, ’til Pa kicked him out.

He came to make peace, but something I said

made him quite angry and say we’re ill-used,

that no child should live in fear of the truth.”

Hesitant at first, but fear giving way

to a flame squelched down hard by years of shame.

Time lost in the night, an orgy became,

question and query turned into a game.

When Earth came around and greeted the Sun—

eyes blurred and minds buzzed—new day dawned within.

 

Caught by surprise when Pa opened the door:

“Oh my dear children, you’ve betrayed my love.

The day that I feared has finally come,

Just as I’d warned of, you’re banished from home.”

Cold, out on the street and shivering bright,

twinkle in her eye she said to him now,

“After Pa’s ‘love,’ there’s no fear in the night!”

Wandering In An Intellectual Desert

    Rather than post my final paper in a fit of pride, narcissism, and a lack of alternative material, I thought that I would take this opportunity to rant about the utter lack of intelligence that it apparently takes to become a community college professor (which in no way serves to further my egotistical worldview, I swear). Now, I'm not saying that this is true of all community college professors—my English professor from last year is an incredibly intelligent person who is a famous Puerto Rican author, for example—I'm only saying that apparently the bar is low enough that people like my philosophy professor this semester are able to saunter over it. Also, pictures from a certain hypertrek to Egypt many years ago! Some of the pictures were taken by Scott, Matt, or Jeff: hovering over the photo will reveal more detail.

    And not to say that my philosophy professor—let's call him 'Ted'—is completely unintelligent. There are of course different types and degrees of that sort of thing. But in my opinion, one of the most important types of intelligence, especially in an educational setting, is the ability to admit that you were wrong about something and then to integrate the information that you were wrong about.     I realize that when you're in a position of authority, it can be really bruising to have to admit when you're wrong, especially to some snot-nosed student. But I feel like it's even more important to exhibit integrity in such situations because you're setting an example. Learning is a process, not an end game; just because you are old or have a degree in philosophy does not mean you will always be right. Imparting the idea to your students that it is okay to make mistakes so long as you're willing to change your position rather than hold on to an incorrect idea is probably the single most important lesson that an educator can impart, and the best way to do that is of course by example.     So on to what it is that happened that completely made me lose respect for Ted. It was a writing-intensive Ethics (ETHICS!) class, and we had to write a three page paper every week on some subject or another. This particular paper had to do with Kant's Deontology, and the idea that our worldviews can be attributed to any one particular ethical system. From the beginning of the class I took the position that no one deduces their own moral system from any one particular school of thought, and Kant was frequently my foil in this regard because he had some severely rigid views about morality, which was based on a rational system called the Categorical Imperative and not on any particular worldview. I also, of course, never tried to hide my own atheistic worldview and I think that Ted is a Catholic, though my only evidence for that is that he got his degree from a Catholic University.     In any case, despite my assertion that I wasn't going to lazily post a school paper, it is necessary to here paste an excerpt from it. 

    As far as [Kant's] claim that right and wrong ought not be determined by any particular worldview, I’d agree wholeheartedly as it is in line with my personal philosophy that every case must be judged on its own merit, preferably devoid of any preconceived notions. However, that is also a worldview—though perhaps an ill-defined one—and as such perhaps this Kantian axiom is unrealistic, if not impossible. If someone sincerely believes in the veracity of the Bible, they would never be capable of seeing the world in any other way than in the rules for right and wrong they gleaned from it. If someone such as myself were to believe whole-heartedly in a scientific materialist worldview (though of course my view encompasses more than just that—but for the sake of argument) then they would never be able make moral judgments not based entirely on known facts. But in truth, no one wholly belongs to one worldview over another. Scientific Materialists, on the face of it, ought not to value human life any more than any other form of life since there is no real evidence that there truly is any intrinsic value to it, and yet we do. Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so, and yet they don’t. Our morals do not come only from what we believe to be our worldview, and so perhaps in this sense Kant is correct, though only ex post facto.

    Pretty straightforward, right? Well, here is how Ted responded in his critique of the paper [sic]:

    Great detail and analysis of both Kant an Capital Punishment. 
I really appreciate that go beyond the page limits others often keep to, as it allows for me to evaluate a full paper, even after I've 'red-lined' your diatribes on religion that just sidetrack from otherwise really great submissions.

 

    "Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so..." Hmmm - only if they have a seriously impaired view of Christianity, or at least of Christ's role as a Jewish Rabbi. In any case, such talk undermines your point about worldviews. A good editor would say "delete the second paragrpah and your paper is improved -- clear, concise and on-point"

    What? I was so confused. I was in no way bashing religion there and was just trying to make a point about something else. Here is my response (don't worry, this back-and-forth doesn't go on for very long at all):

    Hi professor, I just wanted to reply to your comment about my Unit V paper. You cited the following line saying that it was an anti-religious diatribe and sidetracked from my point: “Christians ought to be hating their parents and abandoning them to follow Christ the minute that they are old enough to do so...' Hmmm - only if they have a seriously impaired view of Christianity, or at least of Christ's role as a Jewish Rabbi."

    But that is actually the opposite of what I was doing there. I was referring to an actual Bible verse, Luke 14:26, that says "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." And I was using it to illustrate that even Christians don't get the entirety of their worldview from a single source, the Bible. This was a part of my larger point in that section of the paper that, as rigid as moral philosophers tend to be about their worldviews, the fact is that no one is in practice that rigid, and I even cited how we Scientific Materialists are not as rigid as we pretend to be! Best, M.

    Right? So, If he thought that I had simply misinterpreted that particular Bible verse (although, I rather unfairly suspect that he was probably unfamiliar with the Bible verse to which I was referring in the first place) I would have welcomed some clarification, and in any case I could then have replied "oh sorry, my bad, I should have chosen a different example"... such as when Jesus tells people to only beat their slaves as much as they deserve, and yet most (modern) Christians find slavery immoral to begin with—let alone the idea that beating one "just a bit" is anything other than moral quibbling. Therefore neither Christians NOR Scientific Materialists (atheists, for all intents and purposes) get all of their morals from a single source, etc etc. But guess what his response instead was [sic]:

    M,

 

     I'm sticking by my point -- the paper is better with the paragraph is excised out.

 

    That's it. No discussion, no acknowledgement that he may have misunderstood me or that while my point may or may not have validity, he simply disagrees with it. Nope, just cut it out, he's right and I'm wrong, end of discussion. He's sticking to his point even though he never actually made one. Using the Bible's own words against the actions of people who claim to believe in the immutable truth of the Bible is not making any kind of a valid point, but using reductio ad absurdum against Scientific Materialism is just fine. GAAAHHHH!
        I also find it rather unbelievable that a college professor doesn't know how to double-check his own syntax but whatever. Clearly this guy is in over his head. Although to be fair, most of the students in the class seem to have enrolled in Community College in order to take remedial High School, so I guess he's adequate enough for those purposes. I guess that doesn't say much about me, sigh. At least I still got an A in class... would have been extremely depressing to get anything less.         Well, out with the old and all that. I shouldn't really make fun because I'm taking remedial algebra next semester... always my worst subject in High School. But I want to take some higher science classes and I can't unless I've taken College Algebra... which I also can't take until I've mastered Elementary Algebra. God I'm such a hypocrite. Happy New Year!

Career Day

    This summer I took a Creative Writing course. It will come to no one's surprise that I wrote a rather atheistic short story as a part of my final. My college writing career is getting to be a little one-note, but at least I'm getting it out of my system, right? Anyway, here it is, in all its self-published glory.

 

Career Day

 

Child abuse. Defining what it is and what it is not is a tricky thing nowadays. But it always comes back to a single dynamic—the one between the child and an authority figure. It’s my job as a Deprogrammer to determine on a case-by-case basis the extent of the damage—of a type referred to as iatrogenesis in our business—and whether the State has the right to interfere in such a relationship. And if I determine that it does, I deprogram.

It’s an audacious position to accept in society, and requires no small amount of intelligence, self-righteousness, and tact. It’s a relatively new branch of social services, and practitioners are paid according to its importance in the survival of our society. Let me put it this way: I make more money doing this than any thirty of the highest paid social services employees made all together fifty years ago. In other words, I only make slightly less than teachers do.

But to enter into this career for pecuniary satisfaction is a mistake. If that’s your goal, you won’t last long in the business, take it from me. The money is nice—it gets you through the down times—but eventually you’ll stop getting out of bed in the morning if you don’t view this job as a calling. That’s my job today; to help you people determine whether you truly belong here before it’s too late to make a different career choice. I plan on doing this by showing you what child abuse victims look like, what child abuse means. The following is an excerpt of our initial interview with one Mr. Jacobs.

 

“Mr. Jacobs, do you understand why your son was taken into protective custody?”

“Yes, I understand your reasons.”

“Mr. Jacobs, your son has been routinely abused. He’s terrified, and he may need years of therapy. We’ve brought you here to determine if you were the one responsible. I’m here to help you and your son.”

“Is it abuse to teach a child the discipline and values of his father? Is it a sin to teach my own child right from wrong? I understand the law, but I also know that the bond between a father and his son is sacrosanct and that interference by the law of man goes against the laws of God. I have the right of a father to raise my child as I see fit, to make him see the world for what it is and to prepare him for the horrors that are coming.”

“Perhaps that’s true, Mr. Jacobs. But you’ll forgive me if, from the outside, it looks like a simple case of abuse. Doesn’t the right of a father to raise his child include the rights of the child? In the old days people beat their children black and blue in the name of discipline and ‘raising them right.’ We have found better ways.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. In any case, I do not beat my child black and blue, Miss Taylor.”

“No, I wasn’t implying that Mr. Jacobs. What you’ve done is in many ways quite worse.”

 

So, you see what we’re up against. It isn’t easy, regardless of the fact that society has largely come out against this type of cult behavior. The saddest part in all this is of course that Mr. Jacobs is not simply an abusive parent. If it were that simple then our jobs would involve a lot less self-recrimination and stress. No, the fact is that Mr. Jacobs is himself a victim. What he did to his son Reuben is only what was done to him first by his parents, and if we had been unsuccessful at deprogramming Reuben then he would most likely have gone on and passed the same abuse on to his children. This is how this particular meme operates, of course. Children are hard-wired by evolution to unquestioningly believe whatever an established, trusted authority figure tells them—and to thus meekly accept whatever harm is done to them—because they haven’t yet developed their full capacity for reasoning. It is because of this that deprogramming children is so difficult. But it’s our duty to break this chain, for the good of society. We are in conflict not with individuals or their bizarre ideologies per se, but with a potent mind virus that has held humanity in its grip for far too long.

Of course, it’s not always as disturbingly complex as separating a child from his family. Because the damage done to a young mind is internalized, symptoms often don’t appear until later in life and so iatrogenesis is more pronounced in older children. In these cases our job is more dangerous, but it’s easier to identify them at least. Teenagers diagnosed with Stygian Complex, for example, are more likely to behave in a reckless manner and may cause real problems in society, lashing out against what they view as a very hostile world. Here is a case study that came across my desk thanks to a school counselor who contacted us when she realized what was going on with a student of hers named John.

 

“John, please tell me why you’ve stopped caring about your education.  Your transcript says that once you were a fairly decent student with a good mind. What happened?”

“It’s all so pointless. School, I mean. What difference does it make if I do well in class?”

“What do you mean, John? A good education is the best way to understand the world we live in, and it enables us not only to succeed, but to make a difference in life.”

“We’re all gonna die anyway. I could die tomorrow. We could all die tomorrow! Judge’s Day will be here soon enough! All that matters is living life according to the Hallows, only people who do that are gonna have a life to look forward to anyway.”

“John…”

“All that science and junk, it’s crap! I mean, it’s fine for what it is. I like watching holos and thank God for the Pont Tubes. But all that crap about climate change and overpopulation; it’s just signs of the end. It’s arrogant to think that anybody can change the plan. And don’t get me started on all these dupes who actually believe that the Universe ‘evolved’ from some primal multiverse somewhere. It’s so obvious, man, ‘Uni’ means one! People who fall for those lies are gonna be sorry. That’s why I don’t care about my grades; all that matters is avoiding the traps, and honoring the Judge of the Quick and the Dead!”

“John, what would be so awful about Universal Evolution, if it were true? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything, because I’m goin’ to Heaven when I die! You people though, with your arrogance, you have something to fear!”

 

Once we got John to open up about the specific reasoning behind his behavior, we were eventually able to help him see why his beliefs were detrimental to his own well-being, but that’s not always the situation. As in the case of Mr. Jacobs, many people who reach mid- to late adulthood infected with these destructive ideas are nearly impossible to deprogram. They have held on to them for too long and invested too much of their time and energy to allow themselves to be convinced that their entire lives may have been based on a cult-induced misconception.

That is why, as a general rule, the younger we can find victims of abuse, the better our chances of long-term success. Some of you may sense the irony in that statement; after all, we are claiming to fight against childhood behavioral indoctrination by taking them from their families and deprogramming them which, from the outside, is easy to confuse with further indoctrination. There is a crucial difference, however, which I will address after we see what this abuse we are fighting against looks like at a relatively young age. Everyone, meet Mr. Jacob’s son, Reuben.

 

“Reuben, have you ever heard of the theory of Universal Evolution? The Multiverse?”

“What? No…?”

“Hmm. Let’s go a bit further back. Are you familiar with the general theory of Evolution? Natural Selection?”

“Oh yeah, that’s the one that if you learn it, it will kill your soul and the Judge of the Quick and the Dead will spit you out on Judge’s Day.”

“I… H-how about the age of the Earth? Do you know how long our planet has been in existence?”

“Well, Dad says that some people think it’s only six or seven thousand years old, but that’s silly.”

“Well, that’s certainly true at least. How old does your father say it really is?”

“He doesn’t know for sure because it’s impossible for people to know something like that, but that it doesn’t matter ‘cause we’ll find out all the real answers in Heaven anyway.”

“But… Reuben, according to your family’s beliefs, you will have to… what is it…? ‘Die the hallowed death.’ You will have to die the hallowed death here on Earth to go to Heaven. What good will those answers do you then?”

“Well… what good do they do me here? Nothing like that really matters. Life is just a test, and if we fail it...”

“What happens if you fail it, Reuben?”

--

“Reuben?”

 

For those of you who decide to stay with it and devote your lives and careers to the cause of Deprogramming, these case studies and others—including the actual deprogramming sessions—will be examined further in future classes. The methods for repairing the mind of a very young child are at the heart of what we do and will be better understood after you’ve received some basic training. We will delve further into the point-by-point methods of dealing with every mental roadblock you will come across as a professional Deprogrammer.

The difference which I mentioned earlier—the one between childhood indoctrination and Deprogramming—is that as you’ve just seen in Reuben’s case he was sheltered from a proper education by his family, which is a large part of the disturbing framework of what child abuse really is. He was denied the chance to form his own reasonable conclusions grounded in evidence-based knowledge by being pre-programmed with an unprovable and frankly quite primitive belief system which he most likely would have been unable to break free from later in life and additionally, as we saw with John, would have made him incapable of accepting any contradicting information, no matter how factual.

Deprogramming, on the other hand, is the careful breaking down of this mental barrier. That is all we do. Despite some of the media paranoia we’ve weathered, we don’t actually replace old ideas with new ones, their beliefs for ours. We simply make sure that they know they can safely evaluate conflicting ideas without fear of some sort of divine retribution and then provide them with the impartial tools they need in order to do so. In the meantime, however, you can see from what I have shown you the damage that can be caused by indoctrinating a child with a debilitating fear of the afterlife.

Once the idea of an eternity of unimaginable torture and suffering is planted in a young, impressionable mind, it is very difficult to overcome that fear enough to become a fully functioning, mentally healthy human being. Now, if you try to instill this fear in a relatively normal, educated adult who has never before encountered the idea of a hellacious afterlife, he will engage his critical mind—which he will have become well accustomed to using in the weighing of evidence against various claims—and most likely come to the conclusion that it’s an irrational doctrine without a single fact to support any of its assertions, and he will dismiss it out of hand. Most of you here know exactly what I’m talking about. However, the point here is informed consent. If as an adult you were confronted with this particular brand of belief, and you still decided that the idea had merit and you converted your worldview to this outlook, you would be well within your rights to retain your beliefs in that case. But you would not have the right to abuse a child with this idea, not even your own.

But as we now know, the concept of Hell was invented solely as a way to violently coerce impressionable young minds into adopting a pre-determined viewpoint—usually a particular interpretation of a particular religious doctrine—and as such constitutes mental and emotional abuse of the worst sort. I’ve casted a document for you all to read which will help to understand the utter depravity of such a worldview. It’s an annotated copy of one of those doctrines that used to be a publicly endorsed book of acceptable moral behavior, and which was used as an excuse to terrorize children for generations. Now, if you will all please search and open the section titled ‘Exodus,’ chapter 20, verse 5.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

So it's not so much a short story as it is a monologue, but hey, it got me the grade. In any case, before you start to worry that I'm in favor of some sort of Orwellian Nightmare where children are taken away from their families for the crime of Religion, well, actually I see why you might think that. But I got the idea for the story from this news item that appeared at the time my class was starting, and I thought it might be fun to write a little Spec-fi about what such an unlikely future society would be like. If religion were to become considered a mental illness, how would it be dealt with? There are no easy answers to the problem of religion.

 

It's All In The Interpretation

    I chose to write my final paper for American History about the first amendment. This is obvious if you know me at all. I thought it would be an easy topic to write about; it is a subject I feel strongly about and there is plenty of material available. And so it was... too easy. It was only supposed to be a six page paper and there is a plethora of material available, not to mention the superabundance of arguments to be made. Everytime I researched a facet or a tidbit, I came up with more and more material to pontificate about. Keeping it down to scale and deciding what should be focused on and what should be left out was the hardest part. My wife tells me that is what writing is always all about, or at least it is for someone such as myself who tends to overdescribe things. So I'll shut it and post it, with pictures from my visit to Mont Saint-Michel in France.

    The First Amendment guarantees that Congress will neither interfere with the free exercise nor make any laws respecting the establishment of religion. The wording of the Freedom of Religion clauses is perhaps a bit too concise, as its exact interpretation has been a constant source of dispute, even up to the modern day. The arguments surrounding any constitutional interpretation generally center on two talking points. What did the Founding Fathers intend? And given that the US Constitution was meant to be a malleable document subject to change as agreed upon by its constituents, why should it matter exactly what they intended? If the inherent and inalienable rights of modern people have been infringed upon by a devious interpretation of the Constitution, isn’t it our duty to clarify the wording to promote equality under the law? As Thomas Jefferson boldly states in the Declaration of Independence, “…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” (US Declaration of Independence)

    On one extreme of the argument about the religious clauses of the First Amendment, certain religious fundamentalists believe that the antiestablishment clause means that government cannot interfere with their own particular religion or church, but believe that they have the right to politically enforce their own individual moral code, or even to enforce religious practices in a public sphere such as school-led prayer. This is because the founders did not explicitly state that the freedom from religion is a part of the constitutional guarantee, and yet on the other extreme this is exactly the way that many people believe it should be interpreted. It doesn’t help their cause that for most of the life of the United States, the former extreme is how the First Amendment was generally understood. It has only been relatively recently that—as a part of the fastest-growing “religious” affiliation in America—non-believers have felt secure enough to begin the conversation without fear of reprisal and with some certainty of being taken seriously. In order to discover whether the founding fathers meant for the religion clauses to imply that we have the right to be free from religiously derived moral legislation, we need to begin by going back to the complex figure of Roger Williams.

    There is a legend in my family that my great-great grandfather took Williams’ surname as our own when he first came to America. He arrived as a stowaway on a ship, and the story goes that when he got here he stole a horse and was promptly caught. Judge Hawkins Hart presided over his case and gave him leniency, choosing not to hang him. My great-grandfather had seen a plaque or a statue bearing the name of Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams, so when he was released from jail he changed his name to Hawkins Hart Williams both to honor the man who let him live and in hopes of pinching off some of Williams’ prestige for himself. Despite the shady nature of my family history and our legend—or perhaps due to it—I have thus an inherent fondness for and interest in Roger Williams. He was decidedly ahead of his time regarding the relationship between religion and politics. He was also a brave man as he dared to defy the Puritan authority, risking his reputation, livelihood, and safety in the defense of his beliefs, which included the then heretical notion that Church and State must be completely separate.

    Williams was staunch in that particular conviction, even though he himself was a devout Puritan. Perhaps even because of it. As Williams stated anonymously (fearing retribution) in a tract to British Parliament, “Religion was local, not national; the church was spiritual, not political… when persons are forced to conform to a mode of worship that their ‘hearts embrace not,’ then they have been violated in the very depths of their being.” (Gaustad pp. 86-88) When he came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, fleeing persecution in England for his religious beliefs along with many other colonists, he found himself ironically at odds with the other Puritans there when he tried discussing his ideas. They exiled him from Massachusetts for challenging their own religious authority, and he survived thanks to Native Americans with whom he was friendly. He went on to found Rhode Island in the hopes that he could put his ideas into practice there.

    At first look, it doesn’t seem as though Williams was promoting freedom from religion so much as the freedom to practice religion without interference from the State; a subtle difference, but one that a religious totalitarian might exploit if not examined too closely. If you happen to be an atheist, an anti-theist, a non-believer, or simply unaffiliated, how else can one interpret such sentiments? If Roger Williams believed that the State had no right to tell him how to worship, what if one decides not to worship at all? Would Williams have then said to the unbeliever: you can worship in any way you choose, so long as you worship? And make it law that one must do so? In taking a stand against interference with the individual’s right to worship as he or she sees fit, it would be absurd to then turn around and tell non-believers that they have to believe in something. Luckily, we don’t need to speculate on this matter too heavily as Williams made his opinion about religious rights quite clear in a letter he wrote to the town of Providence, in which he made an analogy comparing the relationship between church and state to a ship at sea:

    The passengers aboard that ship had full liberty to worship as they pleased, or not to worship at all. ‘Papists, Protestants, Jews, Turks’—whoever—all were free to worship in their own fashion, and none could be compelled to attend anyone else’s worship. But on the other hand, the captain of the ship had his own characteristic liberty too: ‘to command the ship’s course; yea, and also to command that justice, peace, and sobriety be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and all the passengers.’… Citizens had to pay taxes, they had to fulfill their obligations to serve in the militia, they had to obey—but in civil matters only. In religion, their liberty was complete. (Gaustad pp. 104-105)

    Roger Williams may not have been a founding father, but he was certainly an early inspiration with regards to the forming of the US Constitution. In 1689, a few years after Williams’ death, the philosopher John Locke published A Letter Concerning Toleration revealing the influence of Roger Williams. “I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other…care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate…it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another as to compel anyone to his religion.” (Locke 1689) Locke was in turn to be a heavy influence upon James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the two greatest champions that religious liberty in the new world would ever have.

    I wish that I could simply quote Thomas Jefferson’s A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in full and be done with it. No argument that I am capable of making is more lucid or concise than that great document. But it shows the heavy influence of Locke in certain key points: “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers…who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men…hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time.” (Jefferson) Williams, Locke, Jefferson and Madison—who championed Jefferson’s Bill until it was finally adopted in Virginia on January 16, 1786—all show a deep distrust that any man on Earth is wise enough to assume authority over another man’s conscience in religious matters. Further, the act of forcing someone to subscribe to the moral cause of another is itself morally wrong: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical: that even forcing him to support [a] teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose moral he would make his pattern.” (Jefferson)

    There are several interesting things in that passage. One is that Jefferson makes it clear that a State Religion—enforced belief—harms not only the non-believer, but the believer as well. This is a fine point that is often lost on those who would impress their religion into law. When a believer is made to practice a set of morals, he has lost the dignity of taking a personal stand on his own merits. “A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed.” (Lee v. Weisman 1992)

    Another fascinating point is how Jefferson uses the word ‘disbelieves’: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.” If only this particular statement had carried over into the US Constitution, many ambiguities and arguments would be resolved. It is of course possible that Jefferson meant ‘disbelieves’ to be an interfaith qualification only, as in the way that someone who is Jewish disbelieves in the divinity of Christ, or a Christian disbelieves that Mohammed was a prophet. However, he made no such distinction between types of disbelief and, being a very careful man, it seems likely that—rather than an oversight—he intended it in every sense of the word. We know that he did indeed have a deep distrust of all religion: “Jefferson was a child of the eighteenth century enlightenment. He emphasized reason and was skeptical of religious dogmas. While he championed personal freedom of conscience and religious belief, Jefferson was suspicious of institutional religion and was fearful that it might have a corrupting influence on the body politic.” (Barron and Dienes pp. 422) After all, a Christian may disbelieve in Allah, Zeus, or Odin, but a non-believer simply goes just one God further. If this particular statement of Jefferson’s had been a clause in the constitution, the very idea of legislating against a group of people who don’t believe in the validity of the legislator’s religiously-derived morals would be a far shorter conversation in this country. In any case, whether it made it into the Constitution or not, we can easily deduce that his intent as a founding father was indeed to allow for the freedom from religion and its edicts.

    One of the most odious ways in which certain religious groups try to force their will on the populace is through devious interpretations of the free exercise clause. Recently, certain corporations—who should never have been given the same rights as the individual, but that is an entirely different subject—have attempted to deny certain rights to their employees by asserting the right of a corporation to coerce its employees into abiding by the morals of the CEO’s religious beliefs. The CEO of Hobby Lobby, David Green, believes that he has the right to deny his employees access to government mandated healthcare in the form of contraceptives, because of his so-called “Biblical Principles:”

    A new government health care mandate says that our family business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions. Which means that we don't cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. (Green)

    Forgetting for a moment the fact that the Bible actually says nothing about abortion—not to mention that contraception is not abortion, no matter what you believe—the fact is that the right to freely exercise your religious rights and beliefs does not give you the right to deny those rights to other people because they believe differently.

    It is true that judicial interpretation of the free exercise clause has changed over the course of its lifetime. On the one extreme, judges have ruled that exemptions from civil laws are allowed when they infringe on certain religious practices; allowing certain faiths to utilize otherwise illegal drugs in their religious ceremonies, for example. On the other extreme, they have ruled that only the beliefs and opinions of men are exempt from legal coercion, but not practices that are otherwise unlawful. A case which I find particularly interesting in this regard is from 1878, when a Utah Mormon named Reynolds was charged with violating a federal law prohibiting polygamy. I agree whole-heartedly that civil laws must be adhered to for the good of society whether they go against someone’s religious beliefs or not… when those beliefs might cause harm to society. It would be absurd, for example, to allow an adherent of an ancient Aztec religion to perform a human sacrifice to appease his volcano god. No matter how strenuously his court-appointed lawyer might argue his client’s right to freely exercise his religion, there is simply no chance that any judge would allow this particular religious observance to proceed unchallenged. Cases involving a consensual crime such as polygamy, however, require more deliberation.

    In the case of the Utah Mormon, “Chief Justice Waite… drew a sharp distinction between protected belief/opinion and the conduct of polygamy. Reynolds’ defense that his conduct was protected by the free exercise clause was rejected…‘Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices.” (Barron and Dienes pp. 505) I completely agree with the judge’s statement in principle, but disagree with his ruling, which was that Reynolds could not use religion as an excuse to break the law against polygamy. This may seem like a subject for another paper, but the law against polygamy is a morality-based law. It harms no one and picks no pockets so long as all parties in the marriage enter into it willingly and with full knowledge of the situation. Informed consent is a value that is too often ignored when writing such laws. I consider it ironic that the judge’s (and the federal law’s) distaste of polygamy is probably informed by the dictates of Judaic religious morality—whether he was aware of it or not—and yet he used civil authority as a shield with which to deny a member of an opposing religion the free expression of his beliefs, based on the prejudices of his own.

    This is getting into tricky territory, which shouldn’t be surprising given that the attempt to understand the First Amendment often leads to such places. As Peter McWilliams so eloquently puts it,

    In listening to the reasons why laws against consensual activities are enacted, or why laws against consensual activities should not be eliminated, one begins to peel away the layers of an onion, and at the core of that onion is almost invariably a religious belief. The progression usually goes something like this:

“It’s not right.”

“Why is it not right?”

“Because it’s not moral.”

“Why is it not moral?”

“Because God says so.”

And this is usually followed by some reference—sometimes specific but usually vague—to the Bible, a sermon, a televangelist, or a story remembered from Sunday School (or was it Cecil B. de Mille?)

    Knowing about that pesky separation of church and state rule… some politicians and commentators do the best they can to cloud the fact that criminalizing consensual activities is a religious issue. (McWilliams pp. 169)

    This is the danger of supposing that the First Amendment does not or should not guarantee freedom from religion. There is nothing intrinsically harmful to society about polygamy, homosexuality or the marriage thereof, personal drug use, prostitution, contraception, stem cell research, etc. and legislating against these activities or the groups that engage in them denies consenting adults the freedoms that the Constitution is meant to guarantee. As I have shown, it seems clear from the writings of Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson that their intention at least was for the citizens of the United States—ALL of its citizens—to enjoy those freedoms and that the religious clauses of the First Amendment are meant to be interpreted in exactly that way. Furthermore I have also attempted to show that whatever the rest of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution intended, it doesn’t change the fact that certain morality based laws—so often derived from religious beliefs—constitute a threat to free expression and whether the words of the First Amendment explicitly declare it or not, it is in the best interests of freedom-loving Americans to make it explicit that the freedom from religion is a self-evident truth, an inherent and inalienable right.

Works Cited

Barron, Jerome A. and C. Thomas Dienes. First Amendment Law, 4th Ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing CO., 1993.

Gaustad, Edwin S. Roger Williams: Prophet of Liberty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Green, David. "Column: Christian companies can't bow to sinful mandate." 09 September 2012. USA Today. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-09-12/hhs-mandate-birth-control-sue-hobby-lobby/57759226/1. 30 April 2013.

Jefferson, Thomas. "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom." 1777.

Lee v. Weisman. No. 505 U.S. 577. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1992.

Locke, John. "A Letter Concerning Toleration." 1689. http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm. 24 April 2013.

McWilliams, Peter. Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. Los Angeles: Prelude Press, 1993.

Reynolds v. United States. No. 98 U.S. 145. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1878.

US Declaration of Independence. 1776.

 

The Sheepdog Mentality

    Have you ever wondered what soldiers, cops, and other protectorly types really think of people who don't like guns? Several years ago, I found a transcript of a speech given by Dave Grossman at a military base while I was there for a job —I was not present for the speech itself. When I read it, my initial reaction was extreme indignation. I was going to post it then, but I decided to sit on it instead. The transcript fell behind my desk and escaped my memory for a few years until this past week when, during an intensive office spring cleaning, I rediscovered it. As I read it, I found that age hadn't changed my perspective very much. In it, he refers to the non-gun-toting 53% of Americans as "sheep," and tells any gun-owning citizen with a concealed weapons permit that if he leaves his home without his gun, he may as well say "baa."

    Now, by pulling that out of the context of his speech, I expect any non-gun-owner to be sufficiently outraged. It's insulting. But putting it into the context of his larger speech, it is slightly less insulting. Slightly. He actually makes some good points, and it's easy to see why he believes what he believes. But there are a couple of fundamental problems with his assertions, and there are some frightening implications, not least of which is that in my job I come into contact with a lot of people who are rabid gun-carriers, and who clearly have a sense of righteousness about the idea of carrying a concealed weapon. Many of those types of people that I talk to tend to be middle-aged overweight white men with average intelligence and an apparent sense of impotence. I don't mean sexual impotence; I'm talking about that feeling you get around someone who clearly thinks of himself as a hero, yet has never had the chance to be one. There are of course many heroes in the cop and soldier business, and I don't mean to denigrate noble action. But there are many, many more frustrated, unactualized, would-be John McClanes who yearn for the chance to use their weaponry and prove to everyone that they are worth something.

    At any rate, I get the feeling that Grossman and his views have had a large impact on the "responsible" gun-owning society that seems to exist largely behind the scenes to many people in America, particularly to liberals who don't have much contact with those types. So I'm going to post the transcript in full and discuss the issues I have with it in between in blue.

_______________________________________________________________

     Everyone has been given a gift in life. Some people have a gift for science and some have a flair for art. And warriors have been given the gift of aggression. They would no more misuse this gift than a doctor would misuse his healing arts, but they yearn for the opportunity to use their gift to help others. These people, the ones who have been blessed with the gift of aggression and a love for others, are our sheepdogs. These are our warriors.

     One career police officer wrote to me about this after attending one of my Bulletproof Mind training sessions:

     "I want to say thank you for finally shedding some light on why it is that I can do what I do. I always knew why I did it. I love my [citizens], even the bad ones, and had a talent that I could return to my community. I just couldn't put my finger on why I could wade through the chaos, the gore, the sadness, if given a chance try to make it all better, and walk right out the other side." -Even the bad ones. This is the first indicator that it is normal to label certain people as "bad." I'm not saying that there aren't bad people, I'm just saying that it's unwise to make such judgements without more qualification. What does he mean by "bad?" Gay? Muslim? Shoplifters? Welfare recipients? Or does he mean to suggest that he even loves terrorists? It's all very condescending.

     Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial; that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid’s school. Our children are dozens of times more likely to be killed, and thousands of times more likely to be seriously injured, by school violence than by school fires. -This is an interesting point, or would be if he compared school violence to something a bit less controlled than the school system's gigantic efforts related to fire prevention and emergency evacuation. How about prescription medication overdoses? I get that he's talking about just that, the need for preparedness in the case of school violence, but it's not clear that having armed guards in every school is actually a proven way to deter violence.

     But the sheep’s only response to the possibility of violence is denial. -So then the sheepdog's only response to the possibility of violence is more violence? Hmm. Did he steal that idea from the Bible?- The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard, so they choose the path of denial. I'd like to see some evidence for this claim besides a bold assertion. As near as I can tell, most parents worry themselves to crow's feet and grey hairs about their kids' safety. Grossman chooses to interpret a distaste for armed security guards in schools as denial rather than as a healthy skepticism of the effectiveness of such methods. Homes with guns in them are associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home itself. There is no reason to suspect that it would be any different in schools with guards, what with them leaving their guns laying all about for any depressed or homicidal student to pick up.

     The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog that intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Ugh. This metaphor is perhaps meant well, but if Grossman really believes that all types of people have a place in society, that everyone has something to offer and that "sheepdogs" are merely another such type, I find it disingenuous that he would choose to use such denigrating language.

     Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. Or not search your adult diapers at the airport, nor make obnoxious comments about your private items, maybe even don't arrest journalists covering events that the government doesn't like, or not pepper spray students SITTING DURING A PEACEFUL PROTEST. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa." Yes, clearly our distrust for authoritative gun-toting security types is all about a sheep-like denial of the possibilty of violence. Grossman seems to be in denial about the fact that we are too often at the mercy of the idiocy of people given sheepdog-like authority.

     Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog. As Kipling said in his poem about “Tommy" the British soldier:

While its Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall behind,”

But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,

There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,

O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

     The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at w hat happened after September 11, 2001, when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero? Here he makes his strongest point. Yes, absolutely, when bad things happen it is good to have a strong good-guy around. It is not denial, however, to recognize that the last time that Homeland Security created an entirely new nation-wide security team in response to a threat, we got the TSA, an amalgam of untrained security guards whose ineptitude has been a constant source of amusement, scandal, and ineffectiveness ever since. Yeah, let's do that again, but with children and inept guards with guns instead. I agree, it's a subject worth discussing, but I find it odd that the regulation of gun sales in a manner similar to the way we regulate driver's licensing is somehow more worthy of the sneering claim of "denial" than the idea that more guns won't solve the problem of violence.

     Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones. He's really stretching this metaphor. I wonder how he deals with the cognitive dissonance in stating that there is nothing morally superior about yearning for a righteous battle while the sheep go stick their heads in the sand. Perhaps he simply doesn't really mean what he says, and is just trying to downplay the aggravated sense of moral superiority that he actually seems to have a very difficult time hiding.

      Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference. Most of the Citizens of the US are sheep. Well, on that we can agree, though perhaps for different reasons. I'd like to know, though, why he thinks that most people pretend that the wolf will never come, or that bad things will never happen. I think he misunderstands the motivations of people who aren't crazy about guns and violence. For myself, I know that bad things will happen, that there are batshit lunatic jihadists out there who want to kill me for saying that Mohammed was a murderous pedophile, and more charlatan than prophet--as are all prophets. The difference is that I choose not to live my life in fear. I am glad that there are men out there who want to prevent crazy people from destroying the lives of normal people, but the problem is that they are not always the best types of people to perceive where the actual threats are. To hijack Grossman's metaphor, I once saw a sheepdog bark at a squirrell in a tree for ten minutes while a fox happily kept an ear on him from the safety of the henhouse.

     While there is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, he does have one real advantage. Only one. He is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. Besides admitting that a sheepdog's only advantage doesn't necessarily have anything to do with critical thought, I think he again underestimates common people. I have been in some scary situations: I've had a gun pointed at me outside of Saddam's gigantic mosque, I was 100 yards away from an explosion in Iraq, and I walked weaponless down Karrada street, by myself, in Baghdad in broad daylight during the spring of 2004 to get some schwarma at a popular restaurant. I also used to drive a bus full of Iraqis every day down route Irish, the most dangerous road in the world at the time. I knew that something bad could happen, but I've always believed that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If I had had a gun when that Iraqi security guard caught me taking pictures of the mosque, he probably would not have stopped me to ask questions.

     There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory acts of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness.  They  chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when  they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

     However, when there were cues given by potential victims that indicated they  would not go easily, the cons said that they would walk away. If the cons sensed that the target was a "counter-predator," that is, a sheepdog, they would leave him alone unless there was no other choice but to engage.

     One police officer told me that he rode a commuter train to work each day. One day, as was his usual, he was standing in the crowded car, dressed in blue jeans, T- shirt and jacket, holding onto a pole and reading a paperback. At one of the stops, two street toughs boarded, shouting and cursing and doing every obnoxious thing possible to intimidate the other riders. The officer continued to read  his book, though he kept  a watchful eye on the two punks as they strolled along the aisle making comments to female passengers, and banging shoulders with men as they passed.

     As they approached the officer, he lowered his novel and made eye contact with them. "You got a problem, man?" One of the IQ-challenged punks asked. "You think you're tough, or somethin'?" the other asked, obviously offended that this one was not shirking away from them.

     "As a matter of fact, I am tough," the officer said, calmly and with a steady gaze.

     The two looked at him for a long moment, and then without saying a word, turned and moved back down the aisle to continue their taunting of the other passengers, the sheep. I love this story. I've heard a hundred blowhards tell stories exactly like it. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying that 9 times out of 10, this is the way the guy imagines it will go down the next time, or if he had had his gun on him, or if New York street punks were still living in bad 1970's movies. I've also often noticed that stuffy authoritative types frequently mistake kids acting in a macho or overly confident manner--or who are simply having a noisy good time--as punks who are trying to throw their weight around. People who follow authority like sheep...dogs... don't like people who question and/or disrespect authority. Think I'm just making shit up? Hey, my anecdote is just as good as his.

     Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. Stats, please. Although, I don't disagree. There is a definite mindset in government offices that I see more and more of.

     Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airline about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers--athletes, business people and parents-- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground. Grossman is kind of all over the place with his sheepdog stuff. But I want to draw attention to the way he claims Todd Beamer as a sheepdog here. Beamer was a Christian who graduated from Wheaton College. He was a field marketing rep for Oracle, and he was not in the military and as near as I can determine, he never carried a gun. Now, he does fit the sheepdog mold in that he was ready to go into action, but as we will see, he also fits the sheep mold according to Grossman.

 

"Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."

- Edmund Burke

Reflections on the Revolution in France

     Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

     If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior 's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

     For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to slaughter you and your loved ones. I wonder if Jesus wished that he and his disciples were packing that day in Gethsemane?

     I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a police officer he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas, in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down 14 people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw him on the boy’s body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?" Hey, that's a nice anecdote. I've got one too. One time this guy brought his gun to church, and he accidentally shot a young girl (the pastor's daughter, actually) in the head and killed her while showing it to a friend. He had a concealed weapons permit and everything, and being such a well-trained individual he was thus a guaranteed deterrent against church violence. I wonder how hard it was for him to live with himself after that?

     Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Weird. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work, or if some lunatic didn't have to pass a psych test before getting a concealed weapons permit. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them. Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones were attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?" Or how hard it would be to live with yourself if, as a church pastor, you encouraged your "flock" to bring their concealed weapons to church and then some moron shot your daughter? "Shit," you'd say, "If only guns were better regulated."

     The warrior must cleanse denial from his thinking. Coach Bob Lindsey, a renowned law enforcement trainer, says that warriors must practice "when/then" thinking, not "if/when." Instead of saying, “If it happens then I will take action," the warrior says, "When it happens then I will be ready."

     It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up. Yes but, there are many truths about life which one can deny. If you deny that more guns mean more death, period, are you really a sheepdog? This denial turns you into a sheep of another kind. If you deny that US policies have had a direct effect on the desire for terrorists to attack us in the first place, what kind of sheep are you then? (I don't like Ron Paul, but when even right wing nuts like him start accepting facts, gun nuts like Grossman ought to do some soul-searching.)

     Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: You didn't bring your gun; you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by fear, helplessness, horror and shame at your moment of truth. This is where he really begins equating sheepdog-ness with gun-carrying. If you don't know how to use a gun and you don't have it with you, you are a sheep. Granted, he appears to be addressing cops and soldiers and if he was talking only about cops and soldiers being prepared in the line of duty then he would be far more difficult to argue with. But Grossman goes on the circuit on a regular basis in favor of the second amendment and more guns more guns! Guns in schools! Guns in church! If everyone had a gun and was prepared to use it, what could go wrong?

     Chuck Yeager, the famous test pilot and first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, says that he knew he could die. There was no denial for him. He did not allow himself the luxury of denial. This acceptance of reality can cause fear, but it is a healthy, controlled fear that will keep you alive:

     "I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment_ and kept me flying respectful of my  machine and always alert in the cockpit."

-Brigadier General Chuck Yeager

Yeager, An Autobiography

     Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation:

".. Denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling. Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level."

     And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. How about confronting the denial that the world is an extremely dangerous place in large part thanks to US policies? And that perhaps the best way to get terrorists to stop being terrorists is to stop terrorising them?

     If you are a warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7 for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself... "Baa." Todd Beamer walked out without a gun, and so did Chuck Yeager, two men he held up as prime examples of sheepdogs. Apparently you don't need a gun in order to combat either fear or terrorists, after all. I get that he's making a larger point about readiness, which I actually agree with. But his point about weaponry is erratic and full of bullet holes, and he is trying to falsely equate the two things. Bad things will happen, yes. But be strong and face life with your chin up and your eyes open, not with your mind closed and hiding behind a gun. In any case, Grossman's attempt to claim every hero as a sheepdog and then to turn around and say that real sheepdogs all carry guns is schizophrenic.

     This business of being a sheep or a sheepdog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-grass sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth. Ah, the halcyon days of post 9-11. If only people lived in fear like that every day, and more easily allowed the eroding of civil liberties and the ascention of authoritative fascists bent on manipulating us through those fears. It's true, if I don't have a gun I might be less safe from terrorists or mass-murderers. But with a gun, I've surrendered my confidence to a piece of metal. I choose to carry my manhood somewhere else. Speaking in terms that Grossman would understand, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. In any case, there are no easy answers to Dave Grossman's deep and disturbing fears, but he is in a denial just as debilitating as that he envisions the rest of us are in when it comes to the reasoning of "wolves" and the best options for solving our problems of violence. He clearly holds a simple view of good and evil, cannot conceive that his "side" is not the Light Brigade, and thus can abide only a simple, aggressive solution and will deny that anyone who thinks differently is anything other than a sheep.

Drunken Atheism. Try This At Home, Kids.

    Pray for me. Tell me that may God have mercy on my soul. Beg for my forgiveness, on your knees. Abase yourself, O Heavenly slave! All for me. Because you love me, though I'm a stranger and a sinner and a heathen in need of God's love and understanding. Drink Christ's blood, slurp his divinely creamy intestines like fettuccine, slathered in alfredo sauce! Beg Jesus for my heart on a platter, because you care! Implore the Holy Spirit to jump my fucking bones! Better to be anally raped by a ghost than triple-tined in the urinary tract by Satan! It's all for me! Because you're SO concerned for ME! You're so kind. Thank you random online Christian proselytizer! I really appreciate it. Don't forget to block me from replying to you on the way out, otherwise I might have commented on the picture of your forearm, on which you tattooed the name of Yahweh, in Hebrew. You clearly fear being charged with a 'may god have mercy on YOUR OWN soul.' Leviticus 19:28 - "You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the LORD."

    I feed on the delicious inconsistencies of believers. I am the anti-christ, I am mammon, that which you fear. Not because I say so, but because you fear it and declare it so. To which, I respond, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Whatever. Fuck you. I need to finish my game of Dragon Warrior IV.

The Prison Of Modern Life

    It's gotten to the point where a trip to California doesn't get it's own blog post any more. I think that may mean that I'm getting to be a grumpy jaded traveler. Alcatraz? Humbug. Desultorily snap a few photos, move on. I was in the San Francisco area for two weeks in a row. Alcatraz seriously made me grumpy.

    Oh looky, a notorious piece of American History! "Isn't it fascinating?", the boat and tour guides insist. A prison! Where some famous criminals were incarcerated like so much animal meat. Yay America! Bah.

    I admit, I was drawn to go see it by all the hype. "You gotta see Alcatraz while you're in San Fran, it's famous!", pop culture insists. But of course, once I paid my 20 bits and took the boat ride, I realized that I had just spent money to go see a bunch of rotting old buildings which once upon a time housed nothing but human misery and I am somehow supposed to believe that it is a worthwhile expenditure. "We don't know exactly which cell was Al Capone's but hey look, they're all the same!"

    Al Capone, the "Birdman" of Alcatraz... these are a part of some sort of mythic pantheon of America's recent rough-and-tumble past. But you know what? They were murderers and thieves, and our answer was to treat them like animals rather than men. Isn't it cool? Isn't it fascinating? Isn't prison worth preserving? America, fuck yeah.

    Escape from Alcatraz! You can see the Golden Gate Bridge through the door in the bay there, even though it's really red, not gold. My drive down to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park was much more pleasant.

    Big, giant, man-eating trees! Well, big giant trees, anyway. And gnarly. The shots I took of me standing in front of this next one--in order to show the scale--turned out pretty lousy. But if I were standing in front of it, my head would come up to just above where those two little nubbins hanging down from the big knob in the center of the photo are.

    Ohmygod, they really are man-eaters! Standing inside of a big tree is neat-o.

    This next tree is called the Father of the Forest. Probably because it's really big. Like, really really big.

    And this last tree is called the Mother of the Forest, although they placed the sign that tells you so on the face opposite of it's most distinguishing feature. I wonder why?

    Anywho, my job was actually situated in Menlo Park, which is in Silicon Valley. Our client was SRI, the Stanford Research Institute, who not only sent the very first communication ever over the "internet" back in the 1969, but is essentially the grandfather of Silicon Valley itself, being responsible for encouraging students (when it was still a branch of the University, and had not yet been pinched off as a private company) to open computery-type businesses in the area... And they hired us to teach them how to get certified in some computer program. My job is pretty cool sometimes. So, I got to see a bit of where the modern era began, although the area isn't much to look at. It's all big buildings with locked doors and security guards because they're busy inventing big important world-changing technology there all the time, and no they don't have time to give you a tour. Go away now please. Humph. But I did find an Easter Egg.

    No, me being grumpy in front of facebook is not the Easter Egg. Although hey, pretty meta, right? If the tree on the left was a bit more rounded, it would look like the facebook thumbs-up icon is being shoved up someone's butt. Ha! But no, the Easter Egg is what's behind the facebook sign. Apparently, facebook leased or bought their corporate headquarters building from Oracle, who own a piece of Silicon Valley history.

Vitamins B(ald) & E(agles) Are Recommended By Crying Chief

    Eagles! Four of us drove up to Lackawaxen, PA several weeks ago to hit a spot where the Lackawaxen River meets the Delaware River on the New York border and bald eagles like to congregate. For the fish. It wound up being pretty exciting because I was thinking about how, growing up in the 70s and early 80s, the word on the birds was that they were disappeared, very rare, nearly extinct. To actually see them around now is exciting and probably worthy of some sort of American Indian quote about soaring hearts or summ'at, but no. We saw about seven of them. My pictures are lame though, because I need a better telephoto lens. Mine is cheap-o. Also, that's all I have to report. So the rest of this blog will be other bad bald eagle pictures, and a response I had to write for English class last year on an article in the NY Times by Michael Pollan. Yup, I'm scraping up the dregs.

    Michael Pollan artfully defines “food” as anything your great-great-grandmother would recognize as such, and his point is that in modern times the industry has drastically altered our perception of what qualifies as real food. Pollan says that part of the reason people have a difficult time eating real food is that when you walk into a grocery store the “most healthful foods in the supermarket sit there quietly in the produce section, silent as stroke victims, while a few aisles over, the Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms are screaming about their newfound whole-grain goodness.” He has a decidedly sneering attitude about such health claims, and with good reason; in 1977, George McGovern “prepared what by all rights should have been an uncontroversial document called ‘Dietary Goals for the United States’… calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products.” The red-meat and dairy industry bellowed, and this very practical advice was drowned out. In Pollan’s view and in mine, the food industry has since waged a campaign of misinformation about American health.

    In 2007, at 35 years old, 5’ 11” and 220 lbs., my doctor told me my cholesterol was high and wrote a prescription for Lipitor. Concurrently I had seen a specialist about my arms frequently going numb during sleep and was told that I had pre-carpal tunnel syndrome, meaning that it wasn’t full-blown and not too late to fix it with arm braces and some other types of treatment. I had a brief conversation with myself at that point that went something like this: “Self, you’re 35. You’re falling apart. You’re too young for this shit.” I decided that I needed to get in better shape. I never filled the Lipitor prescription because of my personal conviction that it is a junk drug, meant to treat a symptom but not the actual problem. I never wore the arm braces because I couldn’t bear the idea of starting down that path towards riding a jazzy with a big-slurp in Wal-Mart. I got a gym membership and lost 35 pounds in about a year. I slowly began changing my diet to whole foods, which became easier the more I exercised because I didn’t want to ruin a good workout with empty calories. I also started getting into vitamins.

    Pollan believes that separating individual vitamins and nutrients from food is missing the forest for the trees. I agree with this to an extent in that I strongly believe that vitamins are not a substitute for healthy food. However, since I began taking natural, non-synthetic vitamins in addition to my healthier diet and exercise, I haven’t had a single cold. I have felt a bit run-down on occasion, which I strongly suspect were cases of my body fighting off what would normally be some such common sickness. I did get bronchitis once, but it only lasted about two days which is unusual for such a normally debilitating condition. While I could attribute this to exercise and healthy eating, and I’m sure that’s a part of it, I know plenty of people who eat well and exercise and yet still get regular illnesses.

    While my evidence for the health benefits of vitamins is anecdotal and hardly scientific, I am wary of ending my vitamin regimen as Pollan, while offering much sage wisdom, had little in the way of science in his opinions on individual vitamins to offer either. My own feeling from reading various sources is that today’s farming practices have reduced the amount of minerals and nutrients in our soil, therefore reducing the health benefits of even the most naturally grown whole foods, which is why I feel that supplementing a healthy diet with natural vitamins is still important.

    Pollan seems to fall into the same trap that he warns us of, asking that we take so-called scientific studies done by nutritionists with a grain of salt and yet at the same time citing a study that says “in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers.” The error in this stance lies in what he leaves out; that many such negative vitamin studies are done using synthetic vitamins. Synthetic vitamins have been shown in fact to be very bad for you, however when the naturally occurring forms of these vitamins are used in more honest studies, no such negative health consequences are found. Therefore it seems obvious to me that the hype surrounding the supposed danger of vitamins is simply more misinformation from the industry.

Covered In God Poop In Portlandia

        I am way behind on my travel posts. I went to Portland Oregon in October, after getting back from Hawaii. I don't have much to say about the trip though... I didn't see or do anything particularly noteworthy because it was actually a busy week of work, plus a busy week of school work, plus some old friends from Chiemsee live there and I spent the small amount of free time I had at a Halloween wig party they were having. Not much to blog about really, because I'm not going to tell the story of how I wound up passed out in my rental car, covered in vomit and dog poop, trapped in the wrong rental car lot at three in the morning just hours before my flight. It's just a typical Chiemsee sort of thing. Good times. And since I'm not going to tell that story, and the only pictures I got were of the Portlandia statue, I'm going to post a discussion from my Philosophy class discussion board. The question on the table was—"What is your philosophy? Do you believe in God, and if so, for what reasons? How would you prove to someone who does not believe in God that God does indeed exist and your belief is true?"—And since I tend to have one sided atheist rants on my blog, I thought it might be fun to show me in action when people talk back to me. Last names are left out to protect the ignorant innocent.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 11:08:16 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 11:08:16 AM EDT

    I am an atheist. Not only am I an atheist, but I will state outright and argue with anyone who wants to argue rationally about it that religion is the greatest evil that humanity ever invented. I am also a humanist, in that I am concerned for people suffering under the delusion of religion. I respect their right to believe whatever they wish, but I do not respect the belief itself that was not arrived at with critical thought backed with evidence, nor do I respect the right which all religions seem to claim of forcing their beliefs onto the populace through moral legislation.

    Since I would never try to prove to anyone that God existed, as there is no evidence that he does, I suppose I should turn the question around. However, neither would I try to prove that God does not exist. That is not what atheism means. I would never state categorically that there is no God for the same reason that I would never unconditionally declare that there is not a race of hyper-intelligent shrimp living in the oceans of Europa. There probably isn’t, but it’s an unanswerable question at the moment. It is not up to me to prove that something exists for which there is no evidence; instead, it is up to those who want others to believe in their God(s) to prove to me that he/she/they do exist. There are an infinite amount of ideas of things which might exist out there somewhere, but it is ridiculous to expect us to have to go around actually disproving each one of them.

    There is plenty of scientific evidence which proves that a creator is unnecessary, however. Evolution has shown that life can evolve from simple single-celled organisms without divine help, and modern cosmology is rife with ideas on how the Universe itself may have got its start. We may not yet actually understand how life got started in the first place, but I am far more comfortable with saying “I don’t know” to the ultimate answers of these questions than I am in trusting to the ridiculous claims from some musty old books, which were written by goat farmers and compiled by scribes and rulers with political agendas in a time before anyone on Earth had the smallest idea of what was really going on in the Universe. Science has shown that it is quite capable of understanding the world around us, and in a far more accurate way than any single religious claim has ever been able to.

Author:

Jason

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 1:07:37 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 1:07:37 PM EDT

     I understand and respect your belief.  I do belief in God.  I see that you have quite a problem with religion...which is the same sentiment of a lot of people.  I was wondering do you belief that there is a difference between religion and having faith? Also you said that "There is plenty of scientific evidence which proves that a creator is unnecessary, however. Evolution has shown that life can evolve from simple single-celled organisms without divine help, and modern cosmology is rife with ideas on how the Universe itself may have got its start", my question to you would  then be have you ever wonder where did that single- cell organisms came from?  

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 2:12:45 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 2:12:45 PM EDT

     Well, faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence, and religion is simply the codifying of those beliefs. So no, I don't see a huge difference. They both involve a lack of critical thought.

     And yes, I do wonder how life got started in the first place; that first single-celled organism. It's true that science has not yet discovered the truth behind the beginning of life on Earth, but that's not to say that there are not some very reasonable theories about it. There's even a name for the scientific branch of the study of how biological life could arise from inorganic matter through natural processes: Abiogenesis.

     However, the important thing about this is that it shows the difference between the religious mind and the scientific mind; Scientists have no problem looking at a question, and saying "I don't know" as an answer. In fact, a good scientist views such questions as exciting challenges, and will attempt to find the answers through further questioning, experimenting, revising, reframing the question, experimenting again and so on until an answer is found. Religious folks delight in pointing out areas where science has not yet found the answer and saying "We can't know! God did it!" But this is a dangerous game that religion has been playing for centuries. Every time Religion has tried to use God to explain something which we don't yet understand, it has had to backpedal when science eventually has explained it. In light of this, God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance.

Robin

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 4:57:53 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 4:57:53 PM EDT

    It says in the bible Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." I quote the bible and I realize that not everyone believes in it. What makes this useful to the - "Religious folks delight in pointing out areas where science has not yet found the answer and saying 'We can't know! God did it!' But this is a dangerous game that religion has been playing for centuries. Every time Religion has tried to use God to explain something which we don't yet understand, it has had to backpedal when science eventually has explained it. In light of this, God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance.", is that this is a overgeneralized statement with a hint of disgust -"ever-receding pocket of ignorance." Not every person that believes in God writes off their lack of knowledge for the world and our existence to God's doing due to ignorance. It is that obviously we have only the capability to think for ourselves and not others, and yet we have the choice to think of others. It is a humble choice that we put someone before us, especially God. We trust God's ways before ours, there is no room for pride or ignorance if we do this. Then what is ignorant in a person who in their own life acknowledges God's existence, where as another person would hope to dissuade that person to believe in God by only having physical facts to show for proof towards a spiritual matter and of course without the ablity to completely know what that person knows for themselves?

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 5:56:59 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 5:56:59 PM EDT

     Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding"

     This is a wonderful Bible Verse which illustrates another critical difference between Religion and Rationality. You'll get no argument from me about the meaning of this verse, and in fact it is a major reason why I am an atheist.

     Please explain exactly how "God is merely an ever-receding pocket of ignorance" is an overgeneralized statement, especially in the context in which I used it. I don't think you are using that phrase correctly because it is a very specific statement which means that all throughout history, whenever man has not understood something, he has attributed it to God. Priests used to preach that Angels kept the Sun and the Moon in the sky and moving about. Now they do not, because we understand the mechanics of gravity regarding bodies in motion. People used to think that insanity was a sign of demonic possession and subjected the afflicted to unspeakable tortures, such as drilling holes in their head to get the demons out. Now even the most fundamentalist among the religious understand that human psychology is prone to certain neurosis and understand that demons have nothing to do with it, or at least understand that these people require actual medical treatment rather than torture.

     I used that phrase which you found offensive, but was not meant to be, in response to Jason who asked me "have you ever wonder where did that single- cell organisms came from? [sic]" because this is an argument that religions like to use often when trying to prove in God. If we don't know how life began, then God must have done it. But this is what they used to say about the reason for the sun shining before we understood Nuclear Physics.

     "It is a humble choice that we put someone before us, especially God. We trust God's ways before ours, there is no room for pride or ignorance if we do this." This statement is of course a matter of personal opinion, one with which I strongly disagree. Is it humble to think that an all-powerful creator who created the entire Universe is personally concerned with you and your relatively insignificant lifestyle choices? Or is it more humble to realize that you are one tiny insignificant human on a tiny insignificant planet of billions of humans orbiting a tiny insignificant sun which is in a tiny insignificant Galaxy composed of billions of suns, which in turn is one galaxy among billions?

    Lastly, when you say that "only having physical facts to show for proof towards a spiritual matter and of course without the ablity to completely know what that person knows for themselves"[sic] please understand that this is a meaningless statement to me. In October of 2008 James Randi offered a one million dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, spiritual or occult power or event. To date, no one has claimed this prize, or even been able to pass the preliminary test. People may have experienced personal spiritual events in their lives, but this is meaningless to all those who have not personally experienced any such thing and furthermore is absolutely not a claim for the existence of God, much less for making laws based on said claimant's morals.

Author:

Robin

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:49:04 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:49:04 PM EDT

    The question that if we believe in God and how would you prove it to someone is all that I am trying to share. There is way too much we both have to say on this and although we're not here to prove each other wrong, I was curious if my thoughts would make any difference to yours that maybe no one has said to you before. No big deal, it's a good discussion no matter how much we agree or disagree because it has substance from both sides and if you think of it like math when you're finding the lowest common denominator, it goes as far as it can and I think that's interesting and is good critical thinking on both sides of this, and I think we're there. :)

Author:

Tracy

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:13:47 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 8:13:47 PM EDT

 Hey messiestobjects,

    It was very nice reading your views on religion. I am not an atheist but I also don't consider myself to have any religion right now. All I know is that I have faith, not sure in who or what...but it keeps me going each time I struggle with something. I can say that I never met an atheist and when I first started reading your post I was nervous, but you made some great points. I like that you would never force your belief on anyone just as well as people should not force their belief on you. Can't wait to read more of your posts in the future!

Tracy

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:41:24 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:41:24 PM EDT

     Atheism does tend to make people nervous and/or angry. It's strange that it is that way... after all is said and done atheism is simply the declination to believe in something for which there is no evidence. The nature of religion is such that its followers need for as many people as possible to share their own beliefs in order to obscure the idea that there is actually no other reason to have faith in such ideas other than the reasoning of popular opinion. When a jerk like me thumbs his nose at such beliefs, it rattles the false idea of the self-evidency of those beliefs.

Author:

Jason

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 2:00:40 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 2:00:40 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, as I read through all you responses it appears that because you don't believe in God you are trying your best to have everyone else believe what you believe. I am not convinced and you have not showed us that God does not exist. You talk about science but the same things you are saying that religion does not prove no science has proved it either. I not saying that in every instance majority rule is right, but 82% of Americans believe in God. Are you saying that we are all wrong and you and your science is right? By the way if God does not exist and science can explain and prove everything as you a making it out to be ...... why haven't they proved to the 82% of Americans and the rest of the world that God does not exist? One last thing, this country was founded on God! our forefathers used the Bible to aide them in writing the constitution that you and the  rest of us abides by. You spend the American dollar "In God we trust".

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 4:11:53 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 4:11:53 PM EDT

     Jason, apparently you haven't actually read my other posts, or at least you haven't comprehended them. As I've stated at least twice, as well as stated outright in my original post, it is not up to atheists to prove that God does not exist. That is not our claim. I am not making out that science has proved he doesn't exist. I am making out that truths which science has uncovered have simply made him unnecessary as an explanation for life, the universe, and everything. Atheism is simply a LACK of belief in theistic claims for which there are NO EVIDENCE. There is no evidence that God exists, period. Therefore, I don't believe him. And you are correct, the fact that 92 percent of Americans believe in him is meaningless. 73 percent of Americans also don't know the reason behind the Cold War. More Americans know who Kim Kardashian is and what she is up to than who Richard Feynman was and what he did for this country. By and large, the larger the number of Americans that believe in something, the more wary you should be about the veracity of it.

     Also, you are 100 percent wrong; our country was not founded on God. "In God We Trust" was added as a motto to the American dollar in 1956, many years after the country was all done being founded. Also, there's this: The 1796 US Treaty with Tripoli, Article 11 reads: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." Additionally, none of the founding fathers were Christians, especially not Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, or Madison. This claim that we are a Christian Nation, founded on God, is completely false and revisionist. They despised the Christian religion, in fact, and left behind many writings to attest to that fact. Have you ever heard of the Separation of Church and State? A concept introduced by Thomas Jefferson.

     I am not trying to have everyone believe what I believe, Jason, far from it. I leave that sort of behavior up to the religious inquisitionists and Republicans who want to dictate laws based on so-called Christian morality. All I want is for people to understand the difference between fact and opinion, evidence and belief, knowledge and faith.

Author:

Dana

Posted Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 11:16:28 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, September 3, 2012 11:16:28 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, that was a very well thought out and well written argument and it is apparent that you have taken the time to draw the conclusions that you have. Interestingly enough, I was also 'indoctrinated' at a very young age into religion and due to many unfortunate circumstances spent many years resentful at churches and the idea of God. My views have since changed with age and life experience and although I am not here to force my beliefs upon you (something I still abhor), I do have a few things to say in response to your post. I was at one point a nursing major and took several science classes in order to  get all my prerequ's for the program. I have a friend who is a nurse and is athiest and felt that his science classes helped him in that direction. At times he would ask me while I was in these classes how I could still believe in God and I would answer him, how can you take these classes and not believe in God? The human body is made up of so many complex systems that all must work together perfectly forr us to exist. Additionally, the world around us must operate in a certain way as well to create a balance for the environment and for us. It is a hard pill for me to swallow that these complex systems just evolved over time without some sort of divine guidance. I agree with you that people's faiths are their own and should never be forced upon others which is why I would never be associated with people that live as such. However, I have personally lived through many life experiences that have given me a firm foundation for a belief in God that science can never explain. Also, interestingly, science itself is based soley on theories. Theories that when retested are often altered and changed. The theory of evolution is just that, a theory that began with the observations of some guy in 1859... over 150 years ago. Their are many aspects of Darwin's original theory that have been discredited by scientists over time. The point I am trying to make is that nothing is absolute, which you agree with. Everyone has a right ot believe whatever they want and it is harmful to try to force those opinions on others.

Author:

Messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:01:33 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:01:33 PM EDT

HI Dana,

    I appreciate your viewpoints on God and your willingness to accept differing beliefs in people. I agree that you should never force your beliefs on anyone through say, legislation or the brainwashing of children. However, this idea that simply debating for your own point of view is the same thing as forcing your opinion on others is false. Merely having to hear about the reasoning and logic behind science and evolution vs. creationism in a school is not an act of violation! I find it amusing that certain Christians can’t read my views on atheism in a philosophy class without gasping in fear that I am forcing them to hear that not everyone agrees with their own views on the existence of God, and with good reason. Especially since this is actually exactly what they are attempting to do when they are happy to tell me all about how I am in the minority in America, and how 92 percent of Americans believe in God, so I must be wrong and should stop trying to force my views on others through, say, a debate as assigned by the class professor! Clearly, you are not one of those types, and so I am grateful to have the opportunity to debate you in a rational manner.

    So with that in mind, I will first address your statement that “The human body is made up of so many complex systems that all must work together perfectly for us to exist. Additionally, the world around us must operate in a certain way as well to create a balance for the environment and for us. It is a hard pill for me to swallow that these complex systems just evolved over time without some sort of divine guidance.”  The fact of the matter is that just because you personally find the human body to be so complex that you don’t understand how it could have happened without some kind of a creator is meaningless. Perhaps you studied evolution in school, perhaps not, but it is clear to me that either way you haven’t fully grasped the power of natural selection. I don’t hold that against you because the fact of the matter is that very few people seem to understand the Theory of Evolution, which is because it is a complicated idea and requires concentrated effort and will to study it and completely grasp it. But anybody can do so if they want to and so I suggest you spend some time studying books and lectures on the Theory of Evolution and fully coming to grips with how it works before you decide that it can’t possibly explain complex life forms.

    Which brings me to my next point; you state that “The theory of evolution is just that, a theory,” which is a common statement by creationists who don’t understand what a scientific theory actually is. Did you know that gravity is also “just" a theory? However, you don’t see many creationists trying to prove their point by stepping out of 12th story windows! Most people tend to confuse a hypothesis, which is an educated guess about the outcome of an experiment, with a Scientific Theory, which is the framework of ideas which explain an interrelated set of facts and observations. In fact, the Scientific Theory is the strongest and best explanation of the natural world that currently exists! When you say that “Their [sic] are many aspects of Darwin's original theory that have been discredited by scientists over time,” what you actually mean is that a good scientific theory must be falsifiable, which in turn means that they must be able to adapt to new information, i.e. observations, evidence, and facts. So it is true that the Theory of Evolution has changed over time, but rather than being discredited it has only become stronger. It is currently the strongest explanation for how life has organized itself on this world, and you are dead wrong to say that it has been proven incorrect in any meaningful way.

    Lastly, I would like to direct you to two excellent videos by Qualia Soup which explain very clearly how Science and evolution work. The first one is called "Skewed Views of Science" and is self-explanatory. The second one is called simply "Evolution" and is an excellent primer on the misconceptions surrounding evolution. They are ten minutes each and well worth your time.

Author:

Samantha

Posted Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 4:56:16 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Monday, August 27, 2012 4:56:16 PM EDT

    I do believe in God and attend church when I can.  I was raised Catholic and then changed to Lutheran.  The reason I changed I attended church with my cousin and I enjoyed her listening to her Pastor and Youth Pastor who talked about you making a change in the world.  Whether it be big or small everyone can make a change.  While some people believe there is no God how can that be with this earth as beutiful as it is.

    In trying to prove to someone there is a God I would not be the person to do that, as I am one person and how do they know what I say is true or false.  I believe that people accept or deny someone or something for different reasons, and if they want to change they can but on their terms or something in their life has made them change.  Just like when I reading Tracy posting that he started questioning the beliefs of the Catholic Church and did not take everything they said at face value.  The reason he changed his beliefs was because of when he was sick and it made him start questioning things. 

Author:

Messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:04:39 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:04:39 AM EDT

 

"While some people believe there is no God, how can that be with this earth as beautiful as it is."

 Hi Samantha,

      I just want you to know that I'm not picking a fight, but I want to respond to this statement of yours. The fact of the matter is that beauty does not imply a creator. Evolution can actually explain why we find the earth beautiful because 'survival of the fittest', as Natural Selection is otherwise known, does not mean survival of the strongest, as is often misunderstood. It means survival is awarded to the organism that fits its environment better than other organisms. This means that we have evolved and flourished on this planet because we adapted to the environment extremely successfully, in large part thanks to our brains (and a very enthusiastic 'thumbs up' to our opposable digits). Is it really a surprise, then, that our minds find this world in which we grew up to be beautiful?

     You don't personally have to accept evolution as true in order to see how my argument shows why beauty is not an argument for God. The fact that evolution has a perfectly logical explanation for beauty simply shows that there is an alternative possible explanation for why we find the world to be attractive, and why beauty in and of itself is not proof of God's existence.

Paulette

Posted Date:

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:45:58 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 9:45:58 PM EDT

    In my youth I would have to say that my belief in God was force fed to me. As I grew older and saw more terrible things I would come to believe there is no God. For if there was a God and if he was so good why then could all these bad things happen to one person. As I grew even older I realized that God was not a thing but a way to live a set of standards that people use to have something that is greater than them and then the fear of being alone would be less scary. God exists because there are people who believe in this theory and if there is belief then it becomes a thing. The existence of God is not in its physical form but in its metaphysical form (can’t believe I just used that word) and it is because of this that God exists.

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:50:17 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:50:17 AM EDT

 

Hi Paulette,
      So, are you saying that you think that just because people believe in something that doesn't exist and choose to live their lives by the myths surrounding the non-existent deity, that this deity somehow becomes an actuality? Or are you using the term metaphysical as a metaphor for "not real"?

     Obviously, as an atheist, I disagree that the term "metaphysical God" means anything at all: If there is no God then there is no God. But I'm curious to know what you think metaphysical means, because it sounds to me like it means "wishing something into existence".

     Sorry, don't mean to sound combative, it's a difficult subject to talk about without sounding confrontational! I really am just trying to talk about the definition of metaphysics, here.

Paulette

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:04:14 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:04:14 PM EDT

    Wait, wait, wait messiestobjects. LOL! 

    This is the first class I have taken on Philosophy. So then my first response is yours. Oh great, the pressure to answer. So I'll try.

    I think that if you want to believe this gives it, its reality. The more you believe the more you think it is real so it will be real to you.

    So I guess the answer is not if you wish but "believe" which to me are two different things.

    I am 39 and still dont know where I stand on God, I sometimes find myself saying "God forbid" or "Oh My God", but then I think why did I say that do I really believe??

Sometimes I pray, but not really sure why.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:48:59 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:48:59 PM EDT

     This is my first philosophy class too! It's perfectly ok not to know where you stand on God... but if you make statements about him, I think it's important to be clear what you mean,  which is why I asked all the questions. Again, I am a dyed-in-the-wool atheist so if anyone is going to make claims about God, I am usually going to challenge them on it. It's not personal, and I'm not trying to convert anyone, but it's important to me.

     I think an important part of philosophy is the art of Sophistry, which I know that Socrates spent a lot of time philosophizing against. In his day, Sophistry was the art of argument using rhetoric (word games, essentially), in order to prove a point, whereas Socrates tended not to respect such approaches; he seemed to be more concerned with the actuality of ideas and delighted in winning arguments not by making statements, but by asking his opponent questions.

     In this case, I want to get to the bottom of the difference between a wish and a belief. By "wish," I don't mean something you wish for from a magic lamp. I mean it as something which you need to be true in order to validate your beliefs. Often, people claim that prayer works, which is wishful thinking. There have actually been experiments performed which test the power of prayer, and the results are conflicting and certainly not in favor of prayer. There have been studies performed by religious groups in the hopes that they could prove that prayer works scientifically, and they found that prayer in fact could have a negative effect on the recipient of a prayer! I think that what you can safely take away from this is that prayer, at best, is not scientific and as such there is no evidence that it actually works for anything.

     Belief, in my mind, is no different from a wish in this respect. Just because you believe in something, doesn't make it true. Harold Camping predicted last year that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011. Some of his followers believed the "proof" which he claimed to have found in the Bible, and sold everything they owned in order to donate money and time to Camping's ministry to try and get the word out to as many people as possible. They BELIEVED that the Lord was coming back. When he didn't, lives were ruined. Belief does not make something true, in any sense that matters.

     So my Socratic question to you is; if you believe something for which there is no evidence, and it becomes real to you, in what sense is it real? If you pray for world peace, or for a relative not to die of cancer, and world peace doesn't happen or he or she does die (Or even if he or she doesn't die, the question remains; was it the prayer that saved him or her, or modern medical treatment? You can prove that medical science may have had something to do with it, but you'll never be able to show what good, if any, that prayer did), and yet you continue to pray for things, in what sense are your beliefs real?

Author:

Robin

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:07:17 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:07:17 PM EDT

    Messiestobjects, why do you usually challenge people when they make claims on God? If there was solid scientific proof of God and prayer, would you believe in God? This is a deep question for us all, and I think this is very interesting to be able to discuss  such this with people with many views on it in depth that we might not normally have a chance to otherwise. I'm not used to talking fairly to someone that is an atheist that doesn't quickly get upset with me for disagreeing in what I believe in, while they tend to get upset if I disagree with what they believe in. I appreciate your objectiveness!

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:22:24 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:22:24 PM EDT

     I usually challenge them because I find that most beliefs are based on faulty reasoning, and I myself was once a victim of religious belief. I am a first generation atheist: my family are NOT happy with me (in the religious sense, at least). The process of realizing that I had been lied to my whole life, and of shedding my irrational beliefs, was both liberating and traumatic. So the debate is a lifelong, ongoing process for me. I challenge others because I am challenging myself.

     I have yet to hear of any evidence for God's existence, but I will tell you this: If there were solid, verifiable evidence that God existed, not only would I NOT believe in God, but there would not be one single believer left on Earth for the same reason that no one on Earth believes that the Sun exists: We know it does.

     This is the crux of atheism. It is NOT a belief or a claim that God does not exist. It is simply a lack of belief in things for which there are no evidence. You yourself are an atheist you know... you don't believe in Odin, Thor, Baal, Osiris, Ahuru Mazda, or Zeus! I just go one God further... :)

Author:

Christine

Posted Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 1:36:37 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 1:36:37 AM EDT

    Hi messiestobjects,

    Religion is a real sort of tabou subject, in the sense that if you don't believe in God or if you question his existence then you are sort of looked at with a discerning eye. It is really hard to question someones beliefs without at times sounding combative.  I myself question if there is a god, especially the more you read about history and science.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 10:49:15 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Friday, August 31, 2012 10:49:15 AM EDT

    Right; when you claim to be an atheist who finds religion ridiculous, religious people don't like it. Which is actually a double standard... I don't like it that Republicans are attempting to legislate women's reproductive rights based on their religion, but for some reason we are supposed to respect their beliefs anyway. This is an untenable state of affairs. Any religion that needs to coerce others into adhering to its belief system through the law deserves NO respect, and needs to be called out on all of its hypocrisies at every opportunity.

     It may have been a taboo subject once, but no longer. There are more and more people realizing that religion is a big scam every day, and the internet has made it possible for us to make ourselves heard without fear of being ostracized from our local communities... I was an atheist for a while before I felt comfortable declaring that fact, but the more I've learned and the more I've debated, the more confident I am and I no longer have any trouble wearing a T-shirt that says ATHEIST! out in public.

Author:

Brittany

Posted Date:

Saturday, September 1, 2012 8:47:07 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Saturday, September 1, 2012 8:47:07 PM EDT

    Personally, I was raised Methodist in a small town in southern Missouri. Church activities constituted most of my social life as an adolescent, as well as the social lives of my peers. This being said, I bought into Christianity wholeheartedly during that part of my life. I believed in God, I was baptized, and I became a member of the United Methodist Church. As I got older though, I started to question the things that I had been taught, and slowly became an atheist. My main question was: If science can prove that something is true, why would seemingly intelligent people deny its validity because of the Bible? For example, some religious people have a problem acknowledging that evolution is real, or that the Earth is actually over 4.5 billion years old. I just can't bring myself to believe in an ideology that tries to hold back the advancement of knowledge in our society. I also dislike when religion is used as a weapon in the political arena. For some reason, all politicians have to say that they're Christians to get elected, and sometimes they use the idea of Christianity to deny people their rights. I also think that people often use religion as a crutch to get through the trying times in their lives, instead of actively trying to fix things themselves. Telling someone to “Pray about it”, is much less effective than giving them advice on how they can proactively make the change they want to see in their lives.

With this in mind, I would never take it upon myself to impose my own personal philosophy (that science is truth, and that we make the decisions that shape our lives) on someone who said that they did believe in God. I think people are entitled to their own beliefs, and no one is necessarily right all the time. However, if someone had a question about whether a scientific fact or a religious idea was true, I would offer them my opinion.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:59:55 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:59:55 AM EDT

    "With this in mind, I would never take it upon myself to impose my own personal philosophy (that science is truth, and that we make the decisions that shape our lives) on someone who said that they did believe in God."

    What do you mean by "impose"? I would never try and force someone to believe/acknowledge scientific truths through say, legislation or brainwashing, but I have no problem "imposing" my atheism on people through conversation or debate. Religion has been imposing it's moral values on everyone for centuries, and has been a huge force for harm in the world. I am compelled to point out errors in reasoning whenever I can because I feel very strongly that if humanity doesn't wise up very soon, we're going to destroy ourselves.

    I also don't believe that people are necessarily entitled to their beliefs. What I mean is, Islamic fundamentalists believe that it is their imperative to kill all infidels and subjugate all women. Do you think they are entitled to this belief? Christians in the US seem to believe that it is their right to impose the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in public schools at the expense of evolution. They also believe that Homosexuals do not have the same legal rights as other human beings, or that women don't have the right to choose how to use their own reproductive systems, and want to enforce this moral code on them by law. They are entitled to hold these insane beliefs amongst themselves, but they are not entitled to believe that they have the right to force other people to live by their beliefs, because we have a constitutional guarantee for the separation of Church and State.

     Since "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed, and Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved," (Tim Minchin) I believe that the teaching of science trumps the beliefs of the religious in every public sphere. In the US, Christianity and other religions have every right to teach their beliefs to their own children at home and in church (or at temple or at the mosque etc etc) or even in conversation and debate with others, but they don't have the right to claim that we are trampling over their religious freedoms by keeping their beliefs out of schools and out of the lawbooks.

     I realize that, as an atheist, you probably agree with me at least to some degree, but I feel like it's important that when someone says "everyone is entitled to their beliefs" to point out that beliefs are not guaranteed equal status with the truth. The truth is not somewhere in between a fact and a lie, and opinions are not worthy of equal footing next to facts.

Author:

Claire

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:52:36 AM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:52:36 AM EDT

    Samantha and Stefani- I'm right in the same boat with you! I know I believe in God, and while I could probably start an argument with other people who don't believe in God, I don't feel the need to. Faith is an intimate thing. It is shaped by the way you grew up and by the situations you've lived through. Sure, someone could argue God is fake and use science to back up their claims, but that still wouldn't change my views. After living in a Christian home for my whole life my beliefs are so ingrained into the person I am that no one can take them away. Even though I may not attend church on a regular basis the Christian values I have will stick with me.

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 12:03:34 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 12:03:34 PM EDT

     "I could probably start an argument with other people who don't believe in God, I don't feel the need to." REMINDER: The topic of this discussion board is "What is your philosophy? Do you believe in God, and if so, for what reasons? How would you prove to someone who does not believe in God that God does indeed exist and your belief is true?"

     Not an argument, a discussion. You get more points for the assignment the more good comments you make.

Author:

Jeanette

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:57:57 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 10:57:57 PM EDT

    I am a believer.  My views have changed as I have gotten older but I have always believed in God.  I was raised Baptist.  When I was 5 my parents would send me and my borthers and sisters to Sunday School every week.  They decided to stop goin after a few years but I went every week. I believed what was told to me and just accepted what they said.   After graduating High School things in my life went astray and I stopped going to church for a long time.  After my Divorce in 2006 I spiraled downhill and called out to God in Prayer asking for help.  I am not going to go into all the details but I did not think I was going to make it through the night, I awoke in the morning and heard a voice telling me to get up, get dressed and go to church. So I did.  I decided to go to a local church here and immediately felt at home.  It is not your conventional church.  Few months after I started going I decided to be baptized and accept Jesus as my savior, not because someone was telling me it was the thing to do but because it was what I felt in my heart.  I felt the change inside after the baptism.  Few months later I met a man who did not believe in God.  He knew I was a christian and I accepted that he was not.  I did not force my views/beliefs on him but I did pray to God for help in deciding what to do.  A few months later he asked to go to church with me, the first time he felt uncomfortable and left shortly after arriving and did not come again for a few weeks.  Eventually on his own he came back and accepted Jesus as his Savior and was baptized.    When I asked him why the change he told me that he had been hearing voices for a few weeks telling him it was time to go to church.    I can't prove to someone that God exists, but you also can't prove that he does not exist.  Each branch of religion be it Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, etc still believes in God, they just worship him differently.  I found that the less conventional way was best for me to show my love of God.  Each person has to find their own path.  Sure I still stumble and make mistakes, but my belief in God helps me to get through the good times and the bad. 

Author:

messiestobjects

Posted Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:28:27 PM EDT

Edited Date:

Sunday, September 2, 2012 11:28:27 PM EDT

    Hi Jeanette,
     I have no desire to argue with your personal experiences that led you or your friend to become born again, but I do want to address one statement that you made: "I can't prove to someone that God exists, but you also can't prove that he does not exist." The burden of proof is an important philosophical argument that has been prominent recently amid creationist / atheist debates, and the assertion you make here is an often used point on the religious side. The crux of the matter is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the existence of a God who is responsible for everything is quite an extraordinary claim for which no evidence exists. This is the reason why religious belief requires faith. If you have faith, that is certainly your business (and your unequivocal right), but you cannot  expect someone who has never heard the voices that you have to accept your claims, which is why the first half of your statement is admirable and true.

     However, the second half is a non-starter, a non-point, and yet widely used. As I've said elsewhere, it is not up to unbelievers to prove that something doesn't exist. It would be like if I asked you thus: Jeanette, do you believe in Zeus? You would probably say no. Then I would say, you can't prove to me that Zeus does not exist! I've heard Zeus telling me to go kill Medusa, so I know he is real, and you can't prove to me that he isn't!" There are many, many ideas in the world of things that probably don't exist: Purple rain, talking dogs, flying shoes, a teapot orbiting Jupiter... the only way to definitively prove that a talking dog does not exist, for example, would be to interview every dog on Earth, which is absurd. How much harder would it be to prove there is NOT a teapot orbiting Jupiter, or an all-powerful, invisible creator who only speaks to a chosen few? Therefore, you can see why most non-Christians are hesitant to accept Christian claims of special knowledge regarding the creator, and their right to impose their beliefs through legislation.

    And that's it... I tended to have the last word against my classmates. I like to think it's because they had nothing against my devastating logic bombs, but in all likelihood it's more probable that they just didn't understand some of the big words I used. Or that they simply wrote me off as an asshole.-- Powell's books was HUGE!

An Atheist In Ken Ham's Court

    There is a sign on the entrance to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky that tells you that they reserve the right to remove from the property anyone who wears offensive clothing, among other things. Well I braved it anyway, and ran into no problems for the duration of my visit. I suspect that when deeply religious people (of the type who might visit the Creation Museum) see written words their first impulse is not to read them. Avoid knowledge at all costs! Such seemed to be the case on the day I was there, at any rate. To be fair, there was a preponderance of Mennonites, who are likely more used to ignoring what people's T-Shirts might say.

mu·se·um

[myoo-zee-uhm]

noun. a building or place where works of art, scientific specimens, or other objects of permanent value are kept and displayed.

    So right off the bat, the Creation Museum fails to meet the requirements of actually being, you know, a museum. All that is there are dioramas of Bible scenes, and placards which lay out the anti-science of Creationism. Also, they have a huge dinosaur fetish. In the old days, Creationists denied that dinosaurs ever existed. They used to say that dinosaur bones were deliberately placed by God to test our Faith. Well, they must have finally conceded that this would make God a huge asshole, and so to quite a large extent the Creation Museum is a Christian Apology, where they are now saying that dinosaurs are in the Bible, and that Fossils actually prove that the Bible is true. This is a popular reverse-position tactic used by Christian Apologists all throughout history, and it was entertaining to see the results of the latest Christian Backpedalist thinking.

    There is this whole thing that they keep saying there that the conclusions that people come to change depending on what point you start your assumptions from. They divide the only two possible starting points, apparently, between "Man's Word" and "God's Word."

    This is an example of the kind of "scientific specimen" they have there. They list certain scientific ideas, devoid of context or explanation as though it's insane to "believe" in the "priesthood" of Science, and right next to it they list certain vaguely congruous Biblical ideas, devoid of any context, evidence, or logic other than Biblical authority itself.

    So God is apparently Popeye now. Sorry, cheap shot, but goodness gracious. I yam what I yam. At any rate, what they've done here, right from the get-go, is to set up a false equivalency, a straw man argument that carries them through their twisted line of logic. Before I explain the false equivalency, allow me to digress on that point. When you go to a real museum, which is full of actual specimens and scientific conclusions arrived at through careful examination of evidence, the museum is usually an open floor plan. You can go from room to room, willy-nilly, and decide what section you want to peruse as your own whim takes you. This is because real evidence supports itself, it can stand on its own and is supported by other evidence from other disciplines, or at the very least remains uncontradictory. The creation museum, interestingly, is physically laid out as a single, twisty road which you follow from beginning to end in order to be exposed to certain ideas at proper moments. They start you off with faulty assumptions and build on them from there, until by the end of the walk you are asked to accept as the Creation-version of truth some pretty outrageous claims, and you hopefully ignore the contradictory and hypocritical statements they've fed you along the way. We'll get to that stuff.

    So back to the false equivalency. This whole "Man's Word" vs. "God's Word" business. It reveals a severe lack of understanding of what science actually is. Science is NOT man's word. It IS man's understanding of nature, as revealed through observation, experiment, the cataloging of verifiable fact, and the careful consideration of facts in conjunction with each other based, yet again, on further experiment. We arrive at scientific conclusions based on THINGS THAT ACTUALLY CAN BE MEASURED by other people, even people from different cultural, religious, or linguistic backgrounds, and they will all arrive at the same answers because physics always works the same way under similar conditions, in all places. Science is not just some dudes getting together and making shit up based on fancy. So calling science "Man's Word" sets up a false idea in the minds of the gullible. In reality it is "Nature's Word" vs. "Bible's (written by many different people, from goat farmers to pubescent scribes, who had less idea of what was really going on in the world than most 2nd graders do today) Word."

    "But because we never have all the evidence, different scientists can reach very different conclusions, depending on their starting assumptions." ARGH. This is just stupidity. The scientific method actually rules out starting assumptions. Experimenters have all manner of ways to eliminate Confirmation bias from their results. Is it always successful? No. Scientists actually can come to incorrect answers, yes. BUT, that is why science demands rigor, repeat experimentation, and PEER REVIEW before it will ever accept any particular idea from any particular scientist. If Richard Dawkins, a very respected biologist and champion of the modern atheist movement, came out and said that he had discovered evidence that Christian's brains were smaller than atheist's, the scientific community would not accept it as a fact just because he said so. They would say "That's preposterous. Prove it." And no one would accept his claim as fact until he could verifiably demonstrate it. Which of course he couldn't, because it's a lie I just made up. And it shows that if even someone like Dawkins made an erroneous claim, it would still not become scientific fact, because science does not allow false ideas to remain once evidence proves them wrong.

    This, however, is an example of the type of evidence that Creationists require and the type of reasoning they use. Atrocious, just atrocious. They think they've proved that the world is 6000 years old by adding up the ages of the sons of Adam in the Bible. This right here is the poster-child poster for what this museum is all about. A literal interpretation of the Bible and unquestioning trust in its authority, and a severe misunderstanding of science.

    And hopefully, you never will hear this in school. This is the garbage that they want taught in public education.

    This, for instance, is an outright lie! "Scientists are puzzled how so many finch species could arise?" NO THEY'RE NOT! They know exactly how. Natural Selection. Oh but wait, later on in the museum you want to talk about Darwin's Finches?

    So HERE NOW they are saying that Natural Selection (or as they are trying to rename it "created kinds", which are studied by a type of creation pseudo-scientist called a "Baraminologist") is now acceptable! Just like dinosaur bones, Creationists are finally coming around to the idea of Natural Selection, but it is still not proof of Evolution, they say. So in the previous picture, they say that Scientists are puzzled by finches, when in reality they are not because Darwin, Natural Selection; the many-finch problem SOLVED over a hundred years ago. Boom, lie. And in this one they are saying oh well, natural selection as told in the Bible is perfectly reasonable! Gah! Do you see the mental disconnect? Do you see how they take what they want, use it when they want it, and discard it when it is not convenient for a different argument they want to make?!

    "There is not enough time--even in billions of years" for man to evolve from microbe. This again is, if not exactly a lie (though it is), at the very least a simple bold statement with no context, and no evidence presented either way. ABSOLUTELY there is enough time for a microbe to evolve into a man... in the 3.5 to 3.9 Billion years that scientists think it may actually have taken. Again, this reveals the stupidity of creation scientists. They cannot conceive of a billion years, so therefore evolution could not have happened.

    Going back to Natural Selection, which apparently creationists now concede as true (though note the subtle switch from "Man's Word" to "man's opinion"); The fact that in our own minuscule lifetimes we can observe natural selection occurring in various species is a compelling argument for much larger changes occurring over much larger stretches of time. Simply saying "There is not enough time" is meaningless. How do they know there is not enough time? They are happy to add up all the sons of Adam, after all, why don't they want to add up the time it takes for natural selection to occur, and apply that function from 100 years to 3.5 billion years? There is definitely enough time. Also they are saying, again apropos of nothing with no facts or evidence, that mutation does not have the ability to create new genetic information. IDIOT, that's what mutation IS. A mutation IS a change in genetic information. Since that is what it IS, it most certainly HAS the ability to be what it IS. Fucking infantile word games with these people.

    So... because poison dart frogs aren't naturally poisonous, this is evidence that the Garden of Eden actually existed? What about Rattlesnakes? Black Widows? Scorpions? Jellyfish? Pfeffer's Flamboyant Cuttlefishes? This is cherry picking one instance to back up your argument while ignoring all other instances which contradict it, and is known as Confirmation Bias. And in any case, the "evidence" of the Poison Dart Frog is evidence of nothing except that Poison Dart Frogs can synthesize their poisons from the alkaloids in the food they eat in the wild. In no way does this "evidence" in any way prove or even imply that someplace named Eden existed, though it doesn't stop them from trying to imply it anyway.

    Biblical diorama of Adam fucking a sheep from behind in the garden of fuckin'. "Holy Me, Adam, knock that shit off! I said name them, not rape them! Man, I need to give you something to fuck. Go to sleep, will you? Even though I created the entire Universe out of nothing, I need your rib to create just one more thing. You dirty sheep-fucker."

    Adam: "Awwwww yeah. Thanks God, but you know, the sheep didn't make so many mouth noises. Maybe this woman-thing ought to be subservient and silent, hey? Hmm, apples."

    Anyway, another big thing in the Creation Museum, obviously, is a literal interpretation of the Wholly Babble. They had this urban section dedicated to the dangers of what happens when culture abandons scripture. This was a 7-fucking minute video of a kid fidgeting in church. They claim that when a literal interpretation of the Babble is given up in exchange for liberal Christianity, the damn kids lose respect for religious authority and, you know, do drugs and whores and fidget in church and stuff. The real point Ken Ham wants to make here is that when you stop terrifying children with the real, literal possibility of hellfire and damnation, because actual science has shown that it's totally, ridiculously impossible for the Bible to be literally true, that they will no longer respect his religious authority! Wah! This actually is evidence of the authoritarian nature of religious control, and nothing else.

    "The Big Bang is just a theory! Scientists don't have all the evidence, they're just guessing! Man's Word! I mean, Man's opinion! Oh wait, we can't find any timber from Noah's Ark, which should definitely still be there if the Flood only happened a few thousand years ago? WELLLLL, we can't be sure that the Ararat in the Babble is the same Ararat as the Ararat in Turkey! The Earth's crust was probably unstable! Guess, obfuscate, theory! BUT DAMN YOU TO HELL, THE BIBLE IS LITERALLY THE TRUTH YOU FUCKIN' HEATHEN!" Now see, here is where an actual museum might have, say, some actual timbers from Noah's ark, or a leg to stand on.

    Nope. Some nice models though, with a subtle reminder that all you damn unbelievers are gettin' they asses left behind. And oh, wait, perhaps some more apology and supposition?

    "With a jug maybe like this, Noah's family could simply... With a cage system similar to this one, Noah's family could simply..." In other words, we don't know shit, because there is no evidence that anything in the Bible ever happened, but we're going to twist science to mean what we want it to mean, abuse English to say what we want it to say, and attack facts as mere suppositions and imply that suppositions are facts until your head is so fucked you won't think straight 'till Sunday, when we can fuck your brainhole in Church, too.

    Oh yeah. And Dragons. They had this whole movie about how even though every scholar on earth regards dragons as mythical, that the fact that they are such a prevalent myth means that Dragons actually existed... as dinosaurs. PROOF OF DINOSAURS AND HUMANS, LIVING TOGETHER, THEREFORE BIBLE. BITCHES. That was pretty much when my head exploded, and the Lord forced me to reveal my inner four-eyed demon, and I had to run before the Christians pitchforked me.
So that was my Creation "Museum" adventure. At its conclusion, I had to admit that it is in fact a museum, if not in the way its creators intend: A museum dedicated to human stupidity and willful ignorance. 2 Peter 3:3-6 - ³ Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,⁴ And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.⁵ For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:⁶ Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: I love that they highlight 'willingly Ignorant.' Oh how they twist and twist!

The Bible mentioned me!

Atheism: Cure For the Common Brainwash

    I got an A on a paper on atheism for my English final, and my professor said it was the best paper he'd read in 15 years of teaching English. Granted, I'm a little old to be in English 101 and therefore ahead of the curve, but still. Swelling with pride over here.

    At any rate, I thought I'd post it. I have heavily edited two paragraphs because as part of the assignment I had to interview a friend who is a Christian and then incorporate part of the interview into my paper. I thought it unfair to leave it in publicly because it was an interview and essay which I got to dictate the track of, not a debate; I tear his position apart in it without fear that he would have the honest chance to defend himself.

    Please keep in mind while reading that it was not the main goal of my paper to disprove the existence of God (nor in fact is that the goal of any atheist) or the veracity of any religious claim, which is why I don't go into any specifics regarding Biblical contradictions. Instead it was my aim to describe how and why atheism is important to me. As a point of interest, the friend I speak of in paragraph 7 is Gary Drechsel, he of the now defunct GoDrex blog.

_________________________________________

    I began my life as an atheist because as Richard Dawkins puts it, “There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents… children are too young to know where they stand on such issues, just as they are too young to know where they stand on economics or politics.” (Dawkins 18 & 25) Despite this fact, at around age five I became sufficiently programmed by my parents’ religion to believe that I understood enough to become a Christian. This is the natural progression of the religiously indoctrinated, because a child understands nothing of the convoluted concepts of the Holy Trinity, Original Sin, or the Immaculate Conception. He must be taught these concurrently over a debilitating fear of Hell, allowing him to don a shroud of anxious belief.

    Atheism is a concept that stirs much controversy and before going any further, I must define it in terms of what it means to me: It is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. “Lack of belief” is an important qualification, and not mere semantics. It means that one has no belief regarding the validity of Theistic claims. It doesn’t mean that I will categorically state that “There is no God!” which would qualify as a belief. Rather, what it does mean is that given the complete lack of evidence that the universe was created, there is an extremely low probability that some sort of Supreme Being or Beings exists. Therefore, the question of God’s existence is about as important to an atheist as the supposition of the existence of a purple dog that can survive in space and is even now chasing a polka-dotted space cat around the star Sirius. Without evidence (Holy Books do not count as evidence, as for instance the Bible is proof of God the way a comic book is proof of Spiderman), one is as likely as the other, and anyone who claims to have some sort of special knowledge which is not available to the rest of humanity about the existence of such is either honestly mistaken, lying, insane, or brainwashed. If it turned out that there actually was a God sending private messages to certain select individuals, then this God is both useless and impotent since personal internal experience is unverifiable and does no one else any good, and even in their circumstance “good” is a debatable adjective.

    In my case, I was brainwashed. Christian brainwashing is a deceptively simple procedure. All of the sermons about faith and love, all of the Bible stories about Moses and Abraham and Jesus and his followers are pretty much beside the point. The key to turning a healthy 5-year-old boy into a blubbering convert is to let him know about Hell. You don’t even have to be all that scary about it. In a sweet voice just tell him what it’s (supposedly) like, that it’s a real place, and that all he has to do to avoid experiencing such horrific eternal torment is to cast aside his reason in favor of a nebulous concept called faith. He will swallow it as truth wholesale, because children with underdeveloped minds and overactive imaginations will believe any information that any adult they trust imparts. “Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them. Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival… But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility… An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad.” (Dawkins 205)

    My climb out of that pit was long and difficult, and while I haven’t the time here to relate every step of the ascent, I will recount two experiences of particular importance. The first was at a Christian rock concert I attended in my early teens with my church youth group. Carmen was a performer whose music I liked, and towards the end of the show, after a rousing version of his hit song, he asked the audience a question: "I can feel the spirit of Jesus here with us tonight! Can you feel the Holy Spirit in the room? He's speaking to all of us, can you feel His love, right here right now!!?" I was about to raise my fist and join the crowd response ("Yes! I feel him! I feel Jesus!"), when I had an odd thought. “Jesus? Huh. Actually, what I'm feeling is admiration for the rock star who just lip synched that awesome song and got my fist pumping and adrenaline rushing, and has even made me feel good about being a Christian since I'm in a large group of people who feel the same way and we're all cheering for Jesus, but I don’t sense any specific Jesusy presence. It actually feels a lot like that time I got excited when Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star. That made me SO happy, and that's the kind of elation I'm feeling right now.”

    On that night I took an important breath of rationality above the noxious gases of what I now recognize were crowd control and mob psychology. Afterwards I began to notice other conflicts. The second experience I want to describe was another such moment of clarity which at 19 years old finally broke the camel’s back. It happened during a church sermon, ironically. The pastor happened to address an issue which had been on my mind lately. He said that "…some people say that the Bible contradicts itself. They say that the Bible was written by men, and is not the true word of God.” (And here I was thinking, well that’s true, people do say that and I’ve worried about the implications! I perked right up, interested in how he would handle this troubling conundrum.) “Well folks, I'm here today to tell you that those people have been misled by Satan, and that they are liars! The Bible does not contradict itself! It is God's word, handed down to us by his prophets, and it is the truth!"

    I waited for him to make his case, but that was the end of his rebuttal; a bald statement containing bold word stresses. His point began and ended with an exhortation to believe that the Bible is the literal truth and word of God, because pastor says so, AND so does the Bible itself. It was the first time I understood clearly that this Christian “argument from authority” was in fact a Mobius strip leading nowhere other than back to its own say-so, and that there was no basis in reality for any of its claims. That was the end of organized religion for me, if not yet the end of the road of some sort of belief in some sort of God possibility.

    My final deconversion occurred only relatively recently; it followed a conversation with an atheist friend who pointed out to me that atheism wasn’t a claim of definite knowledge about God’s non-existence, as is widely misconceived. It is more the claim that any evidence which any religion claims as proof of their respective version of God is in fact so far nonexistent, and that “the burden of proof rests with the believers, not the non-believers.” (Dawkins 76) It is not up to atheists to prove the non-existence of God any more than we have to go around disproving purple dogs in space or any other ridiculous fantasy that the human imagination can come up with.  I realized then that I was effectively already an atheist.

    My childhood was a relatively happy one. My parents were kind people who believed they were saving my soul by raising me to accept their religion as truth. On the surface, you couldn’t say that I was in any way abused. Yet government guidelines regarding child abuse include emotional maltreatment as part of their definitions of abuse or neglect, and define emotional abuse as “injury to the psychological capacity or emotional stability of the child as evidenced by an observable or substantial change in behavior, emotional response, or cognition.” (Child Welfare Information Gateway 3) In this sense, I will make the case for religion as child abuse. I can make a strong illustration regarding the change in cognition that I experienced thanks to childhood religious indoctrination.

    Religion used my own natural capacity for reason against me and therefore undermined my ability to think critically throughout my adolescence, until I was later able to shed my religious upbringing. Ever since then, I have been rediscovering that I am a rational person with a naturally curious and logical mind. Perhaps for people with less rational needs, being indoctrinated with religion and then carrying on with their otherwise normal lives isn’t a problem. But as a young child with an underdeveloped mind, religion had a disastrous effect when it did battle with my native logic circuits. In order to make sense of what I had been told was the nature of reality — that Heaven and Hell were real places where you would spend an eternity depending upon your spiritual behavior on Earth— I decided early on that nothing in this life actually mattered other than believing in Jesus, being a good person, and trying to convert other people (thankfully, I was never very good at that part of it). If that was the situation, what was the point of working hard on my education, or at anything else if it was all only prelude to hopeful, eternal happiness? The concerns of this world didn’t matter. This was the only logical conclusion I could come to. In this way I became an indifferent student, smug in the belief that I was “saved” and that God had a plan for my life.

    The mental gymnastics required in order to hold on to a belief for which there is no evidence, indeed for which evidence suggests is irrational, creates an unfortunate mental condition called cognitive dissonance. According to Simply Psychology: “Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to ‘put it down to experience’, committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).” (McLeod)

    This behavior was also observed on the national stage only last year as Harold Camping predicted the Rapture would happen on May 21^st, 2011, and some of his followers spent their life savings to help spread the word. When the day came and went, Camping quickly changed his story to say that it had been only a spiritual judgment day and that the real end would come later, on October 21, 2011. Please take note of today’s date, and then also notice that we’re all still here.

    Most Christians choose to ignore the voluminous and weighty evidence found by Biblical scholars that “the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’ life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different [games of telephone] by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agendas.” (Dawkins 118)

    Additionally, Christians ascribe a particular weightiness to the red words of the Bible, when in fact Jesus says very little throughout the Gospels that has not been said in various ways by many other so-called wise or spiritual men throughout history. If this is their case for God, they use thin reeds and ignore any contradictory evidence indeed, not least of which can be found in the wild contradictions between the accounts of the four Gospels themselves.

    It is my contention that this cognitive dissonance is a major side effect of religious upbringing and that every person on Earth who is a religious believer has learned to employ certain mental tricks in order to remain true to their faith. It has an extraordinarily corrosive effect on critical thinking abilities, this facility for denying facts and holding beliefs that are provably false. It is also my contention that this is a disastrous state of affairs which has a similar effect on the mind as driving into a wall has on your car; you may or may not ever be able to get it working again, but even if you do, it will never again run as well as before the accident. People accustomed to living in this inferior mental state have had their ability to think rationally severely compromised and are easily manipulated into positions that are contrary to their own well-being. For example when they accept the rhetoric that a public health care option is going to result in death panels yet at the same time demand the government keep their hands off of their Medicare, a government run public health care program, and are meanwhile tricked into voting against it; or when they are convinced that by flying a plane into a building, murdering thousands, they have earned rewards in the afterlife.

    The fact that religious beliefs are instilled in children before they are capable of reasoning out the implications of reality on their own damages their ability later in life to evaluate evidence in a reasonable manner, and therefore constitutes cognitive damage as stipulated by government guidelines set in place by experts in child psychology. Most people have no problem with the fact that children raised in dangerous cults (i.e., religions with which they disagree) are considered victims of emotional abuse, but as of yet society at large has not made the next logical step forward that there is no evidence that Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other extant religion, no matter how many followers line up behind them, are any different from dangerous cults.

    We are a world of walking wounded, with the majority of humanity mentally disarmed by the emotional damage inflicted upon us in our youth. You might not think that someone who has written this startlingly eloquent argument against religion is exhibiting any signs of permanent psychological damage, but you’d be wrong. The fact that I feel so strongly about it at all is one sign of the damage: We first generation atheists tend to be an angry, surly lot when it comes to religion which is hardly the mark of a completely healthy mind. After all, if I were constantly belligerent towards writers of science fiction, you’d think I was in need of anger management. Second generation atheists however, of whom I’ve met a few, tend to become bemused when confronted with a first generationer’s anti-religious tirade; since they were raised by atheists and were therefore taught how to think rather than what to think, they lack the religious damage and therefore the anger which can sometimes seem crippling to others.

    Another, more important sign of damage is that I am 39 years old, and in my first successful year of college. I was so ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of learning that I failed my first semester of college miserably after barely scraping through high school. I had always assumed that there was something wrong with me such as a learning disability or low intelligence, but the fact that at my age I can become an Honor Student gives the lie to that fear. As I stated before, not everyone is affected in this way by religion, but that is how it affected me.

    I in no way wish to imply that I was a victim of intentional abuse by my family. The sad truth is that they are every bit the victim of brainwashing that I was, as were their parents and grandparents and so on. Religion has been described as the worst virus to ever assail mankind, and if religion is a virus then it is a hereditary one and more trenchant than AIDS. In truth I feel extremely fortunate to have been naturally gifted with the necessary tools to eventually fight off the disease. However, I believe that the tools are now becoming available to everyone. Every day the internet is opening up pockets of isolation around the world to instantaneous participation in the battlefield of ideas. With these millions of voices participating in the discussion, it is getting more difficult for individuals to ignore extremely important scientific concepts which push the religious need for the existence of God further and further into irrelevance, namely Evolution and possibly String Theory or a future equivalent. One day perhaps, history will look back on us as being in the final death throes of the dark age of superstition.

    It is for these reasons that being an atheist is important to me, and not only simply to be one, but to be outspoken about it. When patients praise God for healing them rather than the doctor who studied medicine and actually prescribed the drugs or performed the surgery, or when the theologian wonders at the amazing complexity and beauty of the universe as illuminated by Einstein’s theories or Hubble’s telescope and sanctimoniously takes the credit for his pet supernatural being while undervaluing the hard work of the scientists who made the discoveries, they are displaying a shocking inability to deal with the world as it is and a willingness to behave in irrational ways which in every other case we would label as delusional. Religion damages the mind, and damaged minds in turn damage society. It is time to put an end to this wretched state of affairs.

 

 

Works Cited

Child Welfare Information Gateway. "www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.cfm." 11 July 2011. Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect. Document. 6 August 2012.

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

Drawing of Bibleheads. Source Unknown.

McLeod, Saul. Cognitive Dissonance. 2008. Web Article. 10 August 2012. <http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html>.

 

I Juxtapose The Salton Sea With A Depressed Mood I'm Having

It was hectic holidays this go-around, but I thought it might finally be time to get back to the Salton Sea. Behind Salvation Mountain lies Slab City, an RV community for nomadic hippies. That's my only picture; I liked the community bulletin board but I don't really feel comfortable just going around shooting people trying to go about their lives, no matter how weird it seems. I suppose I'll never make a good cultural photographer.

I headed over to the Salton Sea itself; a vast inland body of salt water which is drying up at an alarming rate, apparently, leaving behind salt caked beaches.

To be honest, after spending all morning at the massively fascinating Salvation Mountain, this was more of a rest stop for me. It was creepy enough to keep me shooting, but my mind was elsewhere.

And my mind is elsewhere now. A lot's happened in the month since I was here, and I'm posting these mostly just to get them off of my pending shelf.

I guess I'm feeling a bit out of it at the start of 2012 because I'll be taking a few months off of work, and I'm sad that I won't have any travels to post about in the meantime. I broke myself on Christmas Eve.

I was playing Manhunt Dodgeball with the niece and nephews, and I have no idea how it happened but I found myself writhing on the concrete basement floor in pain. I'd torn my acl and broken my hand.

So I may or may not be getting hand surgery today, depending on how the doctor thinks my hand is healing, and I'm getting surgery on my knee in a couple of weeks. They're going to put a cadaver tendon where my acl used to be. Zombie knee. I'm going to name it Ted. I'd introduce you, but Ted's dead baby, Ted's dead.

We were supposed to go to Thailand in February to hang out with my friend Scott, who teaches Scuba. We were going to sit on the beach, drink and tell our significant others funny and embarrassing stories about each other, and scuba dive.

So that's off now. Hopefully we can still go later this year, but we'll see. It'll be hard to take these two unplanned months off from work and then turn around and ask for more time off. Anyway, that taken with Obama signing an abhorrent document into law while everyone was partying on New Year's Eve which allows the military to detain any American citizen indefinitely on the suspicion of terrorism, evidence and trial be damned, and it's shaping up to be a depressing start to 2012.

I don't believe in all that Mayan prophecy jazz, because it would require a complete lack of critical thinking on my part to do so, (If the Mayans could predict the future, why did their entire culture disappear? Why do scientists who actually study Mayan writings keep saying "Duh, it's merely a cyclical calendar which is due to reset this year, but they weren't actually predicting the end of anything other than the calendar itself!"?) but some sort of world changing, eye-opening event this year sure would be nice. It's really astonishing how fast the American end-game is approaching.

I Get A Little Salty In The City With The Mormons

Lately I've been splitting up posts about single trips into multiple posts, each showcasing a different leg. It allows me to have more blog content, stretching a very thin blog out to respectable proportions. However in reality my real reason for doing so is that now that I'm all into HDR photography, I take about a bazillion photos and have a serious issue with being able to cull them properly. Anyway, Salt Lake City! This is the Salt Lake Temple, home lair of the Mormons or Latter Day Saints or whatever they want to call themselves. Silly buggers.

But I will say that in some small way, walking around Temple Square pleasantly reminded me of walking through some small European town, what with the grandiose religious architecture and people walking around speaking gobbledygook. In Europe of course, the gobbledygook is merely another language which I don't understand. Here it was English, but spoken in a freakish religious dialect completely alien for all of that. I had fun telling a couple of pretty young Mormon girls who tried to bother me while I was taking pictures that I'm an atheist, and that their beliefs are based on nil evidence and a thorough brainwashing. This is the Mormon Assembly Hall.

I mean most religion-speak is nonsense, but next to the Church of Scientology, The Latter-Day Saints take the prize for wackiness without even counting the insanity of that whole golden plate thing. Check this out:

I mean, to a sane person, this reads as batshit crazy. But even looking at it within religion's own internal "logic", why did God have to restore the authority of Baptism? Given the baptismal habits of all of the other practicing sects of Christianity, it doesn't seem as though such authority was ever lost from the Earth. This is the statue in full.

Two guys go off in the woods, see John the Baptist, and found a religion. Man, I see stuff in the woods around my house all the time! Just this morning Jesus and I were all like, kicking back on a stump and smoking a bong. He told me to tell everyone that marijuana was the new sacrament of his coming reign, and ye shall recognize your brethren by the sign of "peace-out, man". Of course, you probably don't believe me, but why on Earth did anyone fall for these con-artist's similar bullshit?

Again, nonsense. If the power of God is manifest, shouldn't people be able to uh, notice it? That's kind of what manifest means. I belong to the priesthood of Messybastards. The power of reason is manifest in all my actions and therefore God has chosen me to lead the world in it's fight against the descent into madness. Can't you see the halo of God's atomic logic hovering over my head? Well, you just don't believe strongly enough, so you're going to the fiery nuthouse in the ground.

The main thing about these statues that gets me is the authoritarian motif. You're supposed to trust con artists like Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery because they are getting authority all conferred up on them by the wonky ghosts of ancient spiritual leaders. Says who? Says the con artists. And you know what? Even if any of those Ghosts appeared to me, and tried to confer authority on me, I'd tell them to take their little 2-inch authorities and shove them up their asses. I don't want their permission to tell people how to live their lives; I'd much rather people used their own brains to figure things out than just accepting the say-so of anyone, including mine.

So yeah, I suppose an anti-religious rant was inevitable. But I was pretty jazzed to go to the Mormon Tabernacle. Not that I'm a huge fan, but their music is pretty. Though I'm not sure what Exxon has to do with anything...?

There was a guy playing the organ, so I hung out for a while. Not a very ornate Tabernacle, but giant organs are cool.

The Mormons have the largest Genealogy library in the world. I went in to see if they could find my family roots in Europe, but when I told the confident library docent the story of how my great great great grandfather was a stowaway on a Portuguese ship who changed his name to Williams without ever revealing his real name to his family in the New World, his confidence slipped a bit. When I told them that my other ancestor was a horse-thief who named his oldest son after the judge who didn't hang him during the decade where all the census records burned in a fire, they gave up. Guess I really have to embrace this whole disreputable vagabond thing; seems to be a family heirloom. Here's the Salt Temple at night.

The rest of Salt Lake City was fairly uninspiring. It actually looks like a cool city to live in though. The surrounding mountains are pretty and there's stuff to do. And there are bars so it's not really a dry city, despite my misconceptions. Plus, the Mormons make up only a small portion of the population these days. Anyway like I said, I had a couple of other legs to my SLC trip so there's more to come.

An Atheist Rant Which Those Whose Hands Are Over Their Ears May Wish To Avoid.

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people."

-Doris Egan, House M.D., The Right Stuff, 2007

I haven't done a nice long insane rambly sea ranty in a while, and tonight I inexplicably find myself in the mood. Perhaps being stuck in Fort Bragg for three weeks in a row where there is nothing much to photograph has something to do with it, but perhaps also I can lay the cause on the doorstep of religion, my favorite whipping post.

For those of you who are facebook friends of mine, this is no surprise; other than my photo of the day, about all I've been doing over there is posting links to anti-religious videos, blogs, and news items. I've been feeling up for a fight lately. The problem is that my adversaries, those who put authoritarian belief in front of rational discourse ain't got much fight in 'em. You can't have a dialogue with those people because they haven't got a brain to stand on. Perhaps that is not fair; they do actually have brains but they've been quite thoroughly trained not to use them. I should know, I used to be a member.

In order to believe in the existence of God, any God, one must have faith. Faith is the belief in something for which there is no evidence. Fine. When I wipe my bottom after disposing of bodily waste, I use the first knuckle method. Since you will never witness this yourself, you'll have to trust me that it's true. You might not even know what the first knuckle method is, but what's important here is that it exists. I know, because I made it up. BELIEVE me when I tell you, I've felt it's presence. So you see, I have belief in certain things which can only be witnessed by an individual on a personal basis. However, if you choose to ignore my account of my VERY personal ass-cleaning method, I'll completely understand. In fact, if you want to pretend I never said it, so much the better. That's exactly how I feel about your god damned religion.

So, by expressing a belief in God, for whom there is no evidence, you've put yourself in an awkward position. More awkward than the first knuckle method in fact, difficult as that may be to imagine (don't imagine it!). You've aligned yourself with those who wish not to believe in reason. Reason, of course, is the primary tool of the mind. But this is the nature of faith, the very definition of it. "Set aside your reason, saith the lord, and believeth in this shit in this book right here. And do this not by your own impulse, but because these dudes who got that book from some other dudes, who are now dead, tell you it's the truth." Can you feel the presence of the lord in that logic? Amen!

I must say that my own progress towards rationality has been long and hard. I believed, and the illogic of the Lord did not sustain me. I searched for the Lord, and did not find him. Instead I found some used book store philosophy which slaked my thirst better than vitamin water for a time, until that too became as coca cola. Then, after discovering Carl Sagan and Joseph Campbell, I settled into a comfortable agnosticism where science was the only possible language of God, if he existed. I spent a while there, but all it took was a logical argument by a friend I've never met to convince me of the liberating joys of atheism.

If there is one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that one side will almost never convince the other. An atheist speaks the language of reasonable discourse and the religious speak the language of authoritarian "knowledge". An atheist can be convinced to change his mind on a subject through strongly reasoned logic and hard evidence, and a theist can be convinced by an impassioned emotional plea and hypnotic crowd techniques. Never the twain shall meet, as reason and faith go 'round and around and around.

One of the most overused and incorrect arguments against atheism is that one is simply switching a belief in God to a belief in no God. This is a false understanding of the situation. Atheism, in it's strongest sense, is a lack of belief. Were actual, hard evidence to come to light that God truly existed, atheists would still not become believers-in-God, they'd become knowers-of-God. In other words, we don't believe in an all-knowing deity for the same reasons we don't believe that thunder is really Thor going bowling. Because it's nonsense and there is far more evidence against religious dogma and a creator than there is evidence for it. In fact, there is NO evidence for it.

When I was a member of the Christian cult, there was a lot of talk about "knowing God" and "feeling his presence" and "answered prayers". I always wondered why, as fervently as I prayed to Jesus and as badly as I wanted to be on the side of Heaven, why did I never feel or sense those things? Why did Jesus talk to the crazy old cat lady, or the Pastor who had an affair with his daughter's best friend's Mom, or the self important and exceedingly boring old usher guy, but never to me? I was earnest, I was in need, ready to be called to battle in the old "Onward Christian Soldiers" sense.

Finally I figured it out, when I reached a certain age and began to fumblingly learn how to utilize the logical part of my brain. None of those people feel or sense those things. They want to, they try to, they convince themselves with certain self-hymnotic techniques that they do feel them, and then they go to church and Praise Jesus or Allah or David Koresh or Fred Phelps loudly in order to continue to convince themselves and those around them that they are one of God's chosen. It was the biggest scam in history, perpetuated mostly in ignorance by it's own victims; the true meaning behind my favorite fable, The Emperor's New Clothes.

"All I Wanted Was To Connect My Moods With Those Of Paris. Beauty Paints And When It Painted Most, I Shot." -Ernst Haas

Despite popular belief, Parisians are not, in fact, all assholes. Every Parisian we interacted with was lovely. It wasn't my first time there either; it was my third visit to Paris and I've found that to be true each time. I think that the reason that so many Americans seem to think Parisians are jerks is because Parisians are actually quite friendly and accommodating, and as a result they lose patience really fast with people who do not return the same courtesies. Americans are typically known in Europe as rude and oblivious travelers, though in fairness I don't think we mean to be. But, and obviously I'm stereotyping us here, our habit of not trying to understand the customs or the languages of the places we travel to is fairly considered to be pretty asinine. There are cultural and geographical reasons for our seemingly built-in xenophobia and obtuseness, however when leaving your home and entering another's, it's not unreasonable for the host to expect a little understanding that things are done differently there and that while it may be their duty to make us feel welcome, it's our duty to try and fit in.

So that's our lecture for today kids. God I'm getting preachy in my old age. Aw who'm I kidding, I've always been preachy. ANYway, obviously after hitting Barcelona Julie and I night trained it up to Paris. As I said I'd visited a few times before, but Julie hadn't and as it is quite a lovely honeymoon destination, we hit that. We were there for three days. What can I say about Paris though? It's a beautiful city, with a crap ton of cool stuff to do. You might find it odd that after having said that, I pretty much only have pictures of the Sacre Coeur church to post.

There's a good reason for that. Paris was bloody cold. Actually from here on out, the rest of our trip was bloody bloody bloody bloody cold. It wasn't often that I had the gumption to pull my camera out of the bag. But the Sacre Coeur has a special signifigance for Julie and me. She's had a painting by Maurice Utrillo of a street scene on her wall in her bedroom for many years; It had belonged to her Nana and she'd always loved it. She would stare at it and wish she could enter the painting and go there, but she never knew what or where it was. Not until I once had occasion to see the painting myself whereupon I said to her "Hey, that looks like the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre, Paris. I've been in that exact spot. Cool picture."

It's possibly a little more commercial in that spot nowadays than it was in Utrillo's day. But still a cool looking scene. So of course this was one of our most important must-do's on our honeymoon. Julie said it was quite surreal to stand in this spot after all those years of staring at it and wishing she could go there, but perhaps she will wish to comment more on that herself. At any rate, of course we went back there at night when shops were closed and no one else was out, mostly because it was snowing and was bloody bloody bloody bloody cold. But very attractive.

We did do other stuff in Paris of course. But posting photos of paintings in the Louvre is rather dull. There were still a crap ton of people in the Mona Lisa room. Probably the same ones who were there last time I was there. However we did pass by proof that all of the paintings there are fake stand-ins. They train 'em right there, during normal business hours!

We also passed a window which had a really nice view of Montmartre, so I pulled out the 'ol telephoto lens.

And a bit more tele, please.

Another very, very important aspect of Paris was the food. You can not go wrong in Montmartre. We hadn't had the greatest food luck in Lisbon or Spain; the Tapas were kind of nasty. I think we just picked bad places somehow though. But everything we ate in Paris was awesome. That stereotype is absolutely true. Julie sated a yen for Foie Gras and I sated a yen for Creme Brulee, along with many other italicized satiations and some great wine. The only bad experience was at this one trendy fondue place. The fondue was delicious, but the restaurant itself was a bit unpleasant. It was tightly packed with squealing young foreigners, Julie was forced to stand on the table to get over to her seat where she became quite literally booby-trapped for the evening, and in a final indignity they served their passable house wine in baby bottles which is exactly where I drew the line. I immediately took the lid off as I have a snobby attitude toward wine which tastes of rubber nipple.

Julie apparently does not. She's much more fun than I am.

I'm not really sure what exactly the gimmick was supposed to be. So then Parisians may not all be assholes, their food may be all kinds of awesome, but they are also kind of weird sometimes. Anyway, we also hit Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, of course. And the catacombs. Gotta hit the catacombs. Because miles of human bones deep underground are cool.

Two-headed ogres live down there.

And that's pretty much our Paris trip. I left stuff out, such as the five story spiral staircase we had to climb three to four times a day, and the unforced evacuation of the Louvre which we did not participate in, or the Christmas concert in Notre Dame, but really those are just details which are better kept between ourselves.

One post closer to Krampus! Sorry it's taking so long to get there. Busy time of year and all that. Here's the next teaser pic.

More Travel Chanties: Oh Sevilla, Barcelona, Alhaaaaambra, España! You Were Fun But Now It's Over, Dreadful Sorry, Clementine.

We took a night train from Lisbon to Madrid. I've been on night trains in Europe before, and once from Cairo to Aswan, Egypt, and they are awesome. You get a bunk bed room with a sink. You hang out, drink some wine or whatever, pass out. Then you wake up at your destination well rested and ready to sightsee. For some reason, the Lisbon to Madrid night train wasn't so restful. I mean, we did everything right; we had a private room and a bottle of genuine Porto bottled Port Wine. (Which we learned was invented by the British in the Portugese city of Porto. They didn't like Portugese wine, so they mixed it with Brandy and voila!) Maybe I'm just getting... well certainly not older. I'm the same age I always was. Maybe just out of practice.

At any rate, all we saw in Madrid were train stations as we attempted to find a way down to Seville. They don't make it easy, the damn Spaniards. But we made it, and spent a night. We didn't like the tapas, but the old Cathedral that looks a bit like a mosque in the last two pictures was pretty. We opted not to pay the overpriced entrance fee to check out the interior, however. How's that for hard-hitting travel journalism?

This was a museum which we also didn't go in to, but I dig the lion device over the archway. Hey, we were still a bit jet and train-lagged, and we were just glad we had the energy to wander around town at all at this point, ok? So after Seville, we got an early morning train to Granada.

Again, still exhausted, and Granada was extremely stressful and confusing at first. But after hauling our packs onto many buses and over many hills, we finally found what we were looking for, the Alhambra.

To be honest, I'd never heard of the Alhambra before Julie convinced me that we had to go see it if we were going through Spain. I feel a bit confused by that now; it's like never having heard of the Louvre, or the Roman Colliseum. How does that one go under one's radar? Washington Irving lived at the Alhambra for a time and wrote a book of tales about it. And I'll be embarassingly honest once more; at first I was a bit cranky, and did not enjoy walking around it. My excuse? Again, train-lagged and we had hiked over a lot of hills already that day, and the place is HUGE.

But you can't stay cranky for long with these kinds of sights. On the one hand, the place is awe-inspiring. An aggregate of palaces and gardens, constructed by various conquerors of contrasting empires over a period of centuries. On the other hand, my inner proletariat was outraged once again by the excesses of the wealthy at the expense of the subhuman working class.

But at some point you just have to let the rage go and enjoy the views.

Or not, you know. Bitterness is a good frame of reference for the traveler. And either way, it IS beautiful. It's not like I want to visit the shanty towns of South Africa as a sightseer, or even the poorer districts of Granada. Bloody rich people.

If I seem conflicted, it's because I am. You can't walk around this planet without a healthy dose of confliction. I despise the overly wealthy, not because they're wealthy but because they seem to spend their lives and their wealth making sure that the mass of humanity gets screwed, but of course when you travel as an American, one realizes that I am overly wealthy compared to much of the world. Which is kind of sad and makes me even madder. And then I try to put it all out of my mind and just enjoy the trip.

So you know, Travel for the self-loathing! I oughtta work for Carnival or Disney. At any rate, the Alhambra was really wonderful to see. But the best part of the day was dinner. After hiking back down into the main district of Granada, I found a Doner Kebap place! Doner Kebaps are the Turkish version of Gyros and are way awesomer. They are all over Europe, but I have yet to see one in the States which is crazy. You could make a small fortune if you opened a Doner stand. One last view of the Alhambra, and then it's off to Barcelona.

We spent a few days in Barthelona. That's how they pronounce it. It's a really neat city, with loads of the usual city life kinds of things. Nightlife, sidewalk cafes, museums, etc. Our first night there though, we hit the Gaudi stuff.

Gaudi was a religious nut, and judging by his architecture at least partially insane. But you know, that's a good combo for art. They started building the Sagrada Familia cathedral in 1882, and it is still under construction, to be completed in 2026. That's freaking crazy right? But it really is an amazing looking building.

And honestly, it also looks a bit demonic. Like a big church made out of flesh. Maybe that's why I like it.

We also checked out his Casa Mila, which is awesome but I feel like it falls a bit short of his vision. I don't understand why all of the windows aren't desgned the same way as that big one on street level. The webby soap-bubbly like pattern of the door frame is awesome, and the other windows are all just, square.

The next day we hit the Picasso museum, once again at Julie's prompting. And I have to say, it did it's job. I'm a convert, I like Picasso's stuff now. I didn't really care about him much before, though I always thought that his attempts to render the idea of actual three dimensional vision rather than two dimensional representation of the third dimension onto canvas was rather awesomely nerdy, if a bit inherently flawed as a concept. But being in a room full of his weirder stuff is definitely one of the few times in my life where I actually felt wonderfully affected by art, because I'm not normally big on paintings and sculptures and such. But, you're not allowed to take pictures of his paintings, dammit.

We spent a lot of time in Barcelona just walking around and enjoying the atmosphere. I have loads of pictures but they're mostly touristy, so I'll leave off with this one.

And that's it for Spain. One post closer to Krampus! Speaking of which, here's the next teaser pic I promised.

My San Diego Mission Of Religious Decommission

San Diego. Eh. I don't see what all the fuss is about. I had a job there for 7 days the other week. Julie lived there for a short time after college, so I used some miles to bring her along to give me a tour of her old stomping grounds. The thing about San Diego that sucks is that it's ALL highway. Want to go a couple of blocks away for dinner? Get on the highway. Not because it's a shortcut, but because the only roads are highways. But one thing we found that was super cool in San Diego was the Geisel Library on the San Diego campus of the University of California.

Cool right? Because he once said that if he were to ever design a building that it would look like that, it is named in honor of this guy:

 

The human, not the cat. You know, that one there with the hat. We happened to be there on the good Dr.'s 106th Birthday, and they had a few of his sketches on Display.

Apparently they were also going to have their annual birthday party for him out in front of the library, with punch and pie, but they canceled that this year due to some racial incidents that have recently plagued the University. It apparently began with the Compton Cookout, a frat party where guests were supposed to come dressed as racial stereotypes, and then someone put a KKK hood over the Dr. Suess statue's head, and then someone hung a noose in the library. It's all very weird and I don't understand it. I thought that California was supposed to be a bastion of tolerance? For different types of people at least, as long as they drive a hybrid, are vegetarians, and recycle, etc etc... Well I guess I was myth-taken. Between their unusually deep economic troubles, their recent vote against equal rights for homosexuals, and now this, I'd have to say that things are going downhill over there, and that's a bad sign for the rest of us, shall we say, less plastic liberals in the country. (Not to mention what's happening to public education in Texas; not that it's a surprise as such, just that every day our once great nation gets weirder and weirder and more willfully ignorant, and it's happening at an alarming rate. Dollhouse.)

All I can say is, if you're going to cancel the birthday party of the man who wrote 'The Sneetches' and 'The Butter Battle Book', well, the terrorists win again. I mean the racists! The racists win again. Whatever. Same thing. Bad people scaring good people into reacting ineffectually. (Thanks for stealing my thunder by the way, Miss Luongo. :)

Well anyway. We took a drive up the Pacific highway, which is "one of the good ones"... highways, I mean. Obviously. We stopped on an oceanside cliff in La Jolla.

Paragliding is cool. My friend Dirk, when we lived in Germany, used to snowboard all day, then strap on his paraglider and fly down to the river where his VW Van (which he called his toybox) was waiting with his kayak, and he'd kayak down the river into town. One of his less insane friends of course usually had to help him out with the logistics of that of course.

The last adventure of ours of note, besides lunch on Laguna Beach and a corona in Tijuana, was our visit to San Juan Capistrano. There's some famous mission there. You know, a church built by missionaries back in the early days of westward expansion for the purpose of bringing God's word to those stupid heathen Native Americans.

And how best to make these savages understand that God means business?

 Why stand around and be all holier than they while making them do all the laundry, of course! And then make them build the building that honors your God through slave labor!

That will teach those stupid dumbbrain injuns to not have ever heard about Jesus. Everyone knows you can not teach an injun to be holy except by showing 'em how, with ancient European holy martial art; holy-shit-I'm-so-holy-stance!

I especially love how the present day mission museum was ashamed enough of these dioramas to shove them in a back corner that I was super lucky to find but not enough to, you know, get rid of them.

So what did I learn about the San Juan Capistrano Mission?

That priests love being in authority over children of ALL ethnicity. And are very holy fucking creepy about that fact. Isn't that right, Pope Friendly? Seriously! Look at this guy! He is the best Pope ever, because he gives the creepy shivers like no other! Hey Pope Child Molester! I have a funny religious joke for you: What do you call a pregnant virgin? A fucking liar!

I Scold Humanity With Science Fiction

If you haven't read 'Childhood's End' by Arthur C. Clarke, I'm about to spoil it for you so continue reading at your own discretion. Childhood's End blew my mind when I first read it many many years ago; it opened my eyes to exactly what Science Fiction was capable of. Before that I was more of a Fantasy geek; I really enjoyed the epic battles of Good Vs. Evil and knew very well how a good fantasy novel could speak to the moral center of your mind. I tended to feel that Science Fiction was a bit stupid; I loved Star Wars but knew that that was essentially a western in space. I hadn't really read much Science Fiction because why waste time with that when I could re-read the Robert Jordan series?

At any rate, I found myself reading Childhood's End and as I said, it changed a few things for me. It's about a race of aliens who appear in a ship one day, and decree an end to all strife and warfare on Earth. Anyone who ignores the warning and starts some international bullying gets a super blast of the alien laser canon of doom from above. It turns out that the aliens play the role of a sort of galactic nursemaid; they are here to supervise humanity's transition to the next step of our evolution to join the galaxy's more civil population. There are a few other things going on in the book but that's enough to be going on with for our purposes.

With all of the 2012 insanity going on these days, and that deeply stupid looking disaster movie exploiting people's irrational fears of the Mayan prophecy, I really think that someone should make a movie of Childhood's End and update it to tie in with 2012. For the record, I don't buy for a second that 2012 is going to be any more dramatic than Y2K was, or the 7th Day Adventist's original belief that the Return of Christ was to occur in 1844. Even the Mayans, contrary to popular belief, don't predict disaster so much as the end of the world as we know it. They saw something more like a sort of renaissance of humanity, or perhaps a disaster or event which leads to a new state of mind. This is a much nicer thought and Childhood's End is an apt vision for this belief. The novel was originally published in 1953, based on a short story that Clarke wrote in 1950, and to the best of my knowledge and research he did not intend for it to have anything to do with the Mayan prophecies of 2012; however it seems to be a perfect fit.

I don't believe that a pleasant state of mind is going to occur in 2012, either, especially if that nitwit Sarah Palin actually succeeds in being nominated for the Republican presidential bid. However I do believe that should humanity survive such a disaster, someday we will reach the next stage in our evolution and it's far more exciting to entertain such notions than it is to watch apocalypse porn. It's time to put aside childish things, humanity.

Apparently Reading PD James Influences The Way I Write My Bitter Rants

I realize that complaining about airports and airplane travel is rather banal and overdone, and that there is nothing new I could possibly add to the general discussion in this matter. But complaining isn’t about creativity or elevating the conversation; it’s about getting things off of your chest and passing on the impotent rage of less-than-rage deserving things. For me, in the case of all things air travel, it’s about dealing with the shock of modern dehumanity.

 So let’s start with the TSA agents. I’ve already made my contempt of security in general known, that I feel that security is %90 for the sake of appearances and comfort for the dimwitted, and only %10 of any actual effective deterrent, if that much. For instance I found, while digging through my carry-on bag looking for my ibuprofen, a large tube of sunblock that I’ve been apparently carrying around on planes with me for months. I’d forgotten I had it in there and of the 30 times I’ve been through security clearance to get to my departure gate since I first placed the lotion in my bag, exactly zero TSA guards have caught it, obviously.

 And now I want to add that the TSA agents themselves are a dull and predictable consequence of the paranoid yet exasperating culture of security. They are people who quickly become a natural extension and personification of the tepid evils of their jobs. They fall into a few general categoric personalities, and I’ve named the ones I see the most often.

 Slagathorn is the bitchy generally older but sometimes merely overweight female who thinks she works on a factory line inspecting cans of meat product. She talks to people queuing up to have their traveling lives inspected as though we are a single multi-headed cow whom if she were to look us in the eye would cause her to feel as though she needed to bathe. She treats us as though we are retarded 3rd graders who still don’t comprehend how to line up rather than as tired and confused travelers who can’t always keep up to date on the latest byzantine line-up rules dreamed up by the security authorities which pointlessly change from day to day, even hour by hour, as well as from airport to airport. She sees us trying to collect our bags after they’ve been processed by their X-ray contraption and yet will still attempt to push them all in a row further down the conveyor belt the second they emerge in order to clear the way for yet more bags and totes coming through as though we were weren’t standing there already waiting for our bags, so we consequently wind up stepping on each other’s toes and reaching over, under, and past the next guy to try and snag our bags which were a second ago just in front of us.

 Dullard Bing is the guy who, in order to relieve the boredom and tension of his job, tells bad jokes about what to take out of your bags, which of your clothes must come off and what stays on, all with a slightly condescending though ultimately apologetic manner as though he actually has a glimmer of how demeaning their job requires them to be. He’s trying to put us at our ease about our upcoming rectal exam by being our funny friend, but unfortunately lacks the true wit required by this position and in any case isn’t doing so out of sympathy, but for the purposes of crowd control.

 Then there is Paws Grubby. I hate this guy the most. He’s the guy who loves his job more than the others because occasionally, if the TSA agent currently scanning your bags via X-ray vision stops drooling long enough (thus, the X-Ray scanner’s name is Señor Droolcup) to spot something suspicious like a bottle of water or some nail clippers, then Paws Grubby gets to look through your bags while you have to sit there and watch him do it. It’s not just the violation of privacy of the job itself; that’s unfortunately the nature of the beast and in order for the illusion to work, sometimes bags must be checked. I get that. What makes this agent particularly odious is the casual disregard for your sovereignty as a person from a position of bureaucratic (and hence, petty) authority with his commentary on the things you choose to take with you. If he were to find a knife or a bomb or a bottle of sunblock, fine. Make a comment, confiscate it. Them’s the rules. But if you find my vitamin box and feel the need to jovially judge me on being a silly person for being a health nut; don’t, you fat retarded slug. Or when you find a bunch of computer gadgets and want to say something witty like “Wow, you really need all this stuff on the plane?” Fuck off. Just fucking die. My life is not up for your review. I don’t like you and I don’t respect your job, even if I have to put up with it silently.

 I think that ultimately what I despise about the TSAs is that they don’t seem to realize that they are an inconvenience to us, not the other way around. I know they don’t see it that way because they’ve been told that they’re protecting us from more would-be planejackers. But the reality is that they are not. If I can get a bottle of sunscreen onto a plane 30 times, not to mention my big metal pointy tripod, they aren’t stopping anybody with the will to do so from doing something tragic.

 But whatever. It is the way it is. This rant of mine is really just my frustration at my own powerlessness to end stupidity in the human race. It’s a frustration caused by many things, but most notably by the daily barrage of stupid people in and on and reporting the news, and by the people that eat it all up. I’d rant about that, but they do that very well over at the Huffington Post already and anyway that’s what posting links on facebook is for. I guess that I used to think that religion was the greatest evil plaguing mankind, but I’ve been realizing more and more, through the dubious joys of general human interaction, that stupidity and willful ignorance are the greater. In any case, you couldn’t have religion without those two as the catalyst.

 There’s another thing that got to me on the plane, which made me sad in a different way. When I have a window seat, I enjoy staring out at the sky. When there are an especially large amount of cumulus, the clouds can transport me for the entire flight in a bemused trance. It still amazes me that we can fly in a huge metal can, thousands of feet above clouds. One of my favorite feelings in the world is the sudden jolt of catching a rare and quicksilver glimpse of another plane going in another direction. It’s a fascinating perspective to see another plane so high up; it really gives you a clearer sense of how fast planes are going, how high up you are, and of how odd the whole endeavor is. We’ve made the dream of flight routine, but when you take the time to meditate on it, you remember how amazing and beautiful it is that we fly.

 But then the in-flight movie comes on. Usually it’s some safe, trite rom-com or inspiring yet shallow drama which I have no interest in seeing. On this flight I had an aisle seat, and the Captain came on the intercom and asked those sitting by a window to close their shades so that everybody could see the movie screens better, and everybody did. This made me incredibly sad. Maybe I’m just too sensitive today, but it felt like a betrayal of the spirit. When I have a window seat, the shade stays open, even if it’s a rare occasion where I happen to want to watch the movie. It’s unthinkable for me to close the shade, especially just to try and get a clearer view of a tiny screen with a brain killing movie. One time a person sitting behind me tapped my shoulder and asked me to close my shade, and I told him no. He seemed a little surprised, but I didn’t understand why; I myself felt that he’d been incredibly rude & insensitive to even ask. Now I know that it’s because in modern life, it’s more important to shut the outside, well, out, and zonk yourself out whenever possible, and I’m the weirdo.

For a fun bonus anti-TSA story, click on the TSA agent in action below.

"Officer! That Man Stole My Wallet!" "Don't Like It? Go Live In Cuba, Socialist!"

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
-William H. Borah

It's a lie, you know. Airport security. A shameless, bald-faced ridiculous lie. (What does it mean to say someone is a bald-faced liar? Does that phrase express a distrust of the beardless?) I travel a lot for work, as you may have noticed, and I've actually gotten to the point where I often momentarily forget what city I just arrived from when checking the baggage claim board. "Did I just come from Cleveland, or Los Angeles? Oh yeah, no, San Francisco, it was a direct flight this time."

My point only being that I'm pretty slow in the head when traveling, and it's taken me this long to catch on to the scam; I woke up thinking about it this morning. Part of my travel preparation ritual includes a few things, including wearing slip-on shoes, a plastic belt buckle, and bringing four packed bags; unfortunately I travel heavy due to all of the work items I have to bring, as well as a backpack for my camera and lenses... and my big tripod. I check two bags (don't worry, I'm a Silver Elite flier, no charge for check-ins) and carry on my camera bag and a small book bag with books to read, my mp3 player, my netbook, and sundry other items to keep myself occupied during the endless travel time. SO, my point being, I carry my camera bag on the plane with me, which has a large metal tri-pointy-ended-pod strapped to it, and the TSA security agents DON'T BAT AN EYE.

I've often wondered why that is, exactly. Especially considering that items you are not allowed to bring include, well, water. And you can bring liquids, but they have to be in 3oz bottles AND sealed up in a ziplock baggie. Why? What the hell difference does it make to ziplock them? If you are sneaking acid on a plane to dash in the face of an airline attendant, what the hell difference, security-wise, does it make to have to zip your liquids up in a baggie? A terrorist can train to hijack a plane and fly it into a building, but somehow a ziplocked baggie that he packed himself is going to give him trouble?

And then I realized; it's a smokescreen, a ziplockscreen. (I've often thought about how 90% of all security is mostly for appearance, especially after living in the IZ in Baghdad, to make you scared first and then to feel like you're being kept safe, not to actually make you safer) Anyway, in the aftermath of new and ridiculous airport "security" rules, they banned water. Water. To include all liquids, to make it look good. Then, when they realized that travelers were getting pissed because this meant they could no longer bring their toilet kits on board, especially now that they're charging all you non-elite fliers for baggage check in, they had to backtrack a little and allow toiletries with a few completely nonsensical security precautions, designed solely to save a little face and perpetuate the no water policy; I mean, you can bring 3oz of water on board, but that's not enough for a thirsty traveler. It's all about the water.

Because once I clear security, the first thing I do is head to a kiosk and buy a large bottle of water for my flight. For like $3.00 to $5.00. Because arriving for flights two hours early, layovers, and flight times can take all day, and you've got to have water. AND, airport water fountains are few and far between, and anyway the water always tastes rather rancid. And once you're on the plane, the flight attendants come by once, maybe twice if you're lucky or on a longer flight, with tiny little cups of water. Not enough. I wonder how much the rise in bottled water sales in airports has been since the implementation of, um, dangerous water rules at TSA checkpoints. I also wonder who is the biggest supplier of bottled water to airports across the country. I suspect Halliburton. But then, I suspect them for a lot of things, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, have you noticed lately how much tiny little travel bottles of liquid products cost lately? Sometimes, almost as much as the regular sized ones.

It seems unlikely, I know, to the untrained eye that TSA security is designed mostly to pick your pocket at the airport, especially when they're nominally there to protect you from terrorists. But little things like heavy pointed metal tripods Vs. bottles of water, the nectar of life, something everybody now has to BUY, make me suspicious. That, and everything in the news now is about the fight against greed in the health care industry. The more I read, the more obvious it is that corporate America is out there finding new and improved ways to pay off the US Government to legalize creative pickpocketing by targeting products which a human body can not live without. The fact that water and health care are now considered products is a God Damned tragedy, and disgusting. I honestly don't know which side Obama is really on, but in reality, it doesn't matter. Whether or not he wants to help, the cards are stacked against him, and he seems unable to break down the drug company lobbyists. Especially since, you know, he's dealing with them as though they were a legitimate part of the Government, and not tossing them out like the shills they are.

Now It's MY Turn To Indulge A Little, Pope Craphead!

"Repentance alone is of no help; grace cannot be bought with repentance; it cannot in any way be bought."

"If His churches and priests were like Christ Himself, there would be no need of poets."
-Hermann Hesse

So speaking of religion, here's a fascinating little fact that just came across my desk. Ever hear of indulgences, or Johann Tetzel? Well, in point of fact, Johann was a German Dominican preacher who in the year of our lordy lord lord 1517 was trying to raise money for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica; Yes that's correct, an integral part of that huge, garish, ostentatious monument to man's power and greed known as the Vatican.

 

In order to fund this little project, Johann travelled around to towns and villages. Rather than to say to them, "Hey poor people, we're trying to build this monstrous church in Rome that will display Catholic power to the world, how about giving us your milk money to, you know, help a Friar out?", he instead went around singing a little ditty that is now known (by me, anyway) as the Indulgence Rag. It goes: "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs." Yes, in point of fact, he created one of Satan's moste potente minde controlle gimmicks, the very first Advertisement Jingle.

Basically the premise is that, if you've been less than good but not quite bad enough to go to hell, you can buy your way out of Purgatory, because the Pope had the authority to tell God who deserves to go to Heaven, and God had to listen. And the Pope would perform this small task for even the poorest meanest villiager out of the kindness of his cold black heart, and for a small, meaningless fee, of course. And not to forget, he would not have even offered the poor people this kindly ease of mind had he not needed cash to build his big crappity church. So there's Papal altruism for you.

I feel that there is something extremely poetic about the world's first ad jingle being composed and utilized by a Catholic priest trying to scam poor people into giving him their last copper in order to build the most gaudy, useless building in the world. On the one side, it's poetic because essentially, advertising in that respect hasn't changed; advertisers would love for people to still believe that buying stuff will save your soul, and in a sense they've continued to create this sense in people. The feeling that buying those shoes or my new Canon Xsi will make us happy, complete in some way. It's a gaping hole in every shoppers chest that can never be filled, and the only thing I'm not entirely sure of is how exactly it got there. My bet is that the Church created this need in people by selling them indulgences, and has continued to exploit it ever since, but even if it's always been there, an integral part of Man's nature, there is no denying that the Church first learned of it and exploited it through Johann Tetzel.

On the other side it's also poetic, because it helps to bathe the Pope and the Catholic Church in it's own ugly light. The questions that weren't thought about in 1517 by dirty uneducated villagers can be easily asked now. So, why does God, whose Son supposedly upended all of the money changer's tables in front of the Temple, give a rat's ass about 2 copper bits when it comes to men's souls? Of course he doesn't. This episode in the Church's history clearly shows what a corrupt, scamming pile of God Turd the Catholic Church really is. They thought they could get away with this because people were stupid and uneducated, but history didn't forget, and now we may still be stupid, but at least we're educated enough to recognize a hustle when we see one. This is what organized religion is really all about; Getting butts in seats by using the fear of eternal hell or purgatory and offering salvation through the application of a little magical formula, and don't forget to tithe on the way out, y'all.

Anyway, the wikipedia page on Johann Tetzel is here, and the article which turned me on to this very illuminating tidbit is here. I'm going to leave this rant with another picture I took during my visit to the Vatican a few years back. It's a shot of the escalator leading up to the Vatican Museum entrance, and it sure looks a lot like many Christain fantasist's idea of the stairway to heaven to me... wonder if that's what the Catholic church was going for? A little not-so-subliminal advertising? What do you think?

 

 

Soulless Meat Products Of War

I ran across this article on this guy because of email alerts I get from Google on any news out there relating to my imprisoned boss from Iraq. The article barely mentions my old boss, but this guy, Colonel Frank Wismer III, is a real piece of work. He's an Episcopalian Army Chaplain; you know, a believer in the Bible and Jesus and peace and love, and the article says this:

"Wismer, whose awards include the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge, passes on to readers many lessons he learned while in Iraq. Here's one: "Going to war is an incredibly fantastic experience if one lives through it…One year in Iraq revealed things about community that the church was not able to reveal to me in 50-some years. I say that not as a criticism of the church, but to highlight the incredible bond that is established by individuals who survive the horrors of war."

Going to war is an incredibly fantastic experience? Because of the bond soldiers get while protecting each other and killing the other guy? I think he's missed the point of his religion. I mean, I get the bond thing, I really do. I've been in several situations which can never be understood by anyone who wasn't there with me, and this certainly creates a bond, so I can maybe imagine what being in the life or death struggles of combat can do for friendships, though I'm not sure what that has to do with religion. But this is a supposed man of God, talking about how great war is without any sense of irony. I'm not sure that "Onward Christian Soldiers" was meant as a literal call to literal bloody war, dude. My understanding, from having grown up in the church, was that we were being called to fight a purely spiritual war to convert human souls to God, and I'm not sure how you can justify turning people into soulless meat product in even a just war, let alone the atrocious moral and criminal mess that has been Bush's campaign in Iraq, as a so-called man of God.

"The big picture, he suggests, are the strategic objectives that led to the invasion of Iraq -- to fight the war on terror outside of America's borders, to plant democracy in a part of the world that spawns terror; to isolate neighboring Syria, influence a democratic movement in Iran and give notice Saudi Arabia that it cannot tolerate a strict, conservative brand of the Muslim faith practiced there and harbor Islamic militants."

He's agreeing with the sentiments in this paragraph, by the way, calling the lies and misinformation that led to our illegal and immoral war in Iraq "strategic objectives." And he feels that his God is okay with fighting the war on terror, America's war on terror, outside of America's borders. This, to me, is a most horrific sentiment. That a supposed Christian man thinks it is okay to take our battles and fight them in someone else's home. We've taken our war on terrorism, which now we all know had absolutely nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, Iraq or terrorism, and destroyed those innocent people's lives and homes, and he thinks this is what we as God's army had a right to do.

I don't know. I've never understood how any church can justify Army Chaplains who are also war mongers for the church. In my mind, if an Army Chaplain were to be living up to his beliefs, he should only be there to encourage moral behavior among the troops, (Hey guys, when you're out there today, please don't rape and kill any Iraqi women and their families. They're God's children too, you know) and to do everything in their power to help end conflicts, not promote them.

If you really want an extreme lefty belief here, I'm pretty sure that, were Jesus everything the Bible says he was, he'd vastly disapprove of the very concept of Army Chaplains. Men of God have no business in war, except perhaps to be there independently, (not on the military payroll) and being compassionate to all people involved while doing whatever possible to end it. However, he's actually against withdrawing our presence in Iraq, mostly because of how he thinks it would make us look.

"To pullout our troops out of Iraq now would be a colossal mistake and send that country to chaos," he says. "Strategically that would not be helpful. We would be seen as a people only in something for a short time, not for the long haul."

"I would like to see the Iranian government be able to manage, the military be able to protect the country from without and the police to protect it from within. Then there can be phased withdrawals, but that needs to be done over time."

Iranian Government? I hope that was just a misprint and not a telling slip of the tongue, dude.

Barock The Votebama!

Nothin'. I got nothin'. I just wanted to put my little play on words out there. You know, for happy election day. Which, by the way, is today if you're voting for Obama, and next Tuesday if you're voting for McCain. Yeah, it's a new rule. Like early voting and superdelegates. It's a new rule that's going to be used by the losing side to accuse the winning side of vote fraud. If Obama wins, you watch; FOX News will be making innuendos, (In your endos) if not outright accusations of electoral fraud related to early voting or perhaps, ironically, some sort of shady business at the polls in Ohio & Florida. That would be awesome. And if McCain wins, FOX News will be all like what? That was fair.

On the other hand, if McCain wins, that's exactly what me and Oliver Stone will be saying. Or perhaps not... I did go see W. last week, and it's disappointingly short of conspiracy theories. He didn't even try to cover the shady business in Ohio or Florida back in 2000, Ted Kennedy's accusations of fraud in 2004, or that day with those flying tin can thingies and the buildings that fell down and went boom. Maybe he's saving those subjects once the not-as-crazy-as-they-once-seemed conspiracy theorists get a chance to self-publish their investigative material.

But what was great about W. was the Rorschach Test that is Dubya. On the surface of the movie, Dubya came across as a pretty normal guy who constantly has more food in his mouth than a person normally should. Interesting depiction, by the way. Even while he was making the worst Presidential decisions imaginable, he seems pretty well meaning, even affable, if misguided perhaps. But hardly the demon he seems like from a distance. But if you look closer, after the credits roll and you've thought about it a bit, it's a more damning portrait than you might at first glance think.

I'm not going to say much about it though, because like I said, it's a Rorschach Test and the important thing is what you take away from it, if you ever see it, not what I think. I'm sure you can guess what my opinion of the man is. The one thing I do want to say though, is that even though it's a cliché, the road to hell is, in fact, paved with good intentions; Even Hitler believed he was doing what was right, all the while using his feelings and his guts as his guides, ignoring the evidence that was all around him that what he believed so strongly was only what he wanted to believe.

Of course, the movie is still merely an interpretation of the events. My gut tells me we shouldn't be so kind to ickle Georgie in the history books. I strongly believe, in the absence of any real evidence available to me, that he purposefully misled the nation and probably has nonconsensual sex with goats while feeding on aborted baby fetuses. But that's just an opinion, you know, don't take my word for it.

I guess the real point of this post is how different types of people interpret things, and how this election seems to have polarized people into two major groups of different interpretive capabilities. Is this an election which has polarized the Good from the Evil? The intelligent from the deeply stupid? The authoritative from the nonauthoritative? The butter side up from the butter side down? None of the above or all of the above? Humanity confuses me, and while I strongly believe that Obama is the right choice and that the McCain camp is only preying on one type of humanity's inability to deal with their inner conflict of Mind Vs. Fear, that's just my interpretation. I've been wrong before. Besides, it's also entirely possible that by even participating in this election, I have also succumbed to the fear by way of the terror that Palin inspires in me. I mean come on, do I really believe that she's Satan's goat-whore bride? That's just silly.

The brave thing to do might really be to sit it out, since what my actual leftist beliefs tell me is happening is that Obama and McCain are the left and right hands of the Military-industrial complex which murdered JFK, RFK, & MLK. After beating us with the stick in their right hand for eight years, they might let us rest up with a nice carrot from their left hand for a bit.

I know, I know, it's all a bit radical. But I'm feeling quite philosophical this morning, this election day. All my life I've been told that voting is the most sacred duty of every American, and to be fair I've never really believed that so my opinions are already coming out of left field. But I am voting today, for Obama, and it's not because I think Obama is going to save us, and it's mostly not because I think McCain and Palin are going to be another 4 to 8 years of happy-go-lucky skipping to Gomorrah, but because I'm simply tired of being beaten with a stick. Time for some Beta Carotene in my diet.

McCain Is A Liar Er Misspeaker!

I know, I know. You're sick of my political ranting already. But after seeing this YouTube video of a short clip of John McCain mentioning JFK and Goldwater on his way to criticizing Obama for not meeting with him anyplace anytime as previously agreed, I couldn't help myself. Partway through the video, McCain refers back to the Kennedy assassination as "The intervention er the tragedy in Dallas". Now.

As the word 'intervention' is escaping his lips, his hand is coming up to his mouth, his eyes widen, and then his hand takes a miss on his mouth and rubs his nose as he says "er tragedy". This gesture, the hand to mouth/nose and wide eyes, is a classic tell among those who read body language as a sign of someone who is lying. More specifically, to break it down, what happens with this gesture is that something has escaped your lips which you didn't mean to say, were trying to keep hidden. The hand coming up to the mouth is the involuntary and unconscious act of trying to keep your mouth closed; trying to force the words back in your mouth, and the wide eyes are the realization that you messed up. The quick switch from a mouth cover to a nose rub is the more conscious grown-up gesture of realizing that if you clap your hand over your mouth, it's a dead giveaway that you're lying, and so it turns into the nose rub in order to try and obscure the fact that you were just trying to clamp your mouth shut.

It's classic. Classic. There's no getting around it. That gesture means what it means. Many times when people are lying, we've trained ourselves not to give ourselves away by not being all shifty-eyed, not stuttering, not being all nervy with your hands, trying not to sweat. So that tell doesn't often happen. But when you've said something without thinking about it, without having thought in the seconds beforehand that you needed to not say what you're really thinking, that involuntary tell can happen before you've realized you've done it. When John McCain thinks of the Kennedy assassination, he considers it to be an intervention. Period. I have no doubt in my mind.

Now, is it possible he was just scratching his nose? Yes, of course. People get itchy noses all the time while they're speaking. But taken in combination with such an egregious misstatement... well, someone who studies body language would say that the odds are thin. Very thin. But I'll go further away from certainty and mention how McCain is prone to such unfortunate misstatements though. And his eyes are often all wide, blinky and twitchy anyway. Everybody slips up, right? But McCain's slips are painful. He's caught flack for saying he desires to be a dictator, calling citizens "prisoners," and saying how he wants the US to be energy independent so we won't have to go to war for oil anymore. [John, supporters of the war aren't calling it that.] So you know, he's already prone to saying the wrong thing. We shouldn't judge him too harshly since he does it often. The more a person makes the same mistake, the less it means anything, right? Right guys?

Does he personally know something about the Kennedy assassination? Who knows, but probably not. Paranoid as I am about McCain now, even I'm not prepared to go that far. McCain wasn't really anybody back then; he was busy being a young naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers at the time. Regardless, someone who likely thinks of one of the most tragic moments in American history, our loss of innocence, as an intervention, is to be handled with care. The fact of the matter is, I think a lot of people fear that the reason Kennedy was killed was because he was being made an example of by some powerful people who did not like his liberal policies, and a Republican Presidential hopeful putting a word to that fear over 45 years later is chilling.

EDIT: Just had to add in the "My fellow Prisoners" YouTube that Gary linked me to (the silence at the end of the video when he pauses for applause, seemingly unaware of his gaffe, is deafening) and then I saw the Colin Powell interview where he endorses Obama and I had to post that too. Clear, rational thinking turns me on, what can I say?

The Fact Of These People's Existence Makes Me Want To Be A Cutter

So okay, GoDrex posted this YouTube, and then Julie did, and I commented on it, and now I have to post the video, because I can't stop thinking about it and it inspires a constant state of weird otherworldly incredulity in me, because I think it accurately represents the thought processes of most people who actually think another Republican administration is a good idea, and because this was a convention in Bethlehem, PA, near where we live, and it's embarrassing and I can't wrap my head around the fact of these people's existence.

I'm re-posting my commentary from Julie's page on it here and expanding on it, because I need to get it off my brain before it freezes in this expression forever.

Does that first guy know that 25 out of the 43 American Presidents were lawyers? And that it's actually sort of an advantage to understand law if you're going to be in a political field? Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Polk and Millard Fillmore. Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley. William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and William Clinton. (I know that's only 23, I can't find the other 2.)

European socialist is a buzzword with these people. (Instead of buzzwords, I’m going to start calling them FOXwords) Like Terrorist. Why is European Socialism bad, exactly? Because of all the free health care? I particularly find the “I think you’re stupid” guy quite illuminating.

Why am I stupid?
“… uh… because… that guy gets elected, he hangs around with terrorists.”

Who’re the terrorists?
“Obama”

So… Obama hangs out with himself?
No just kidding, I get it. I know what he means, it’s just that he doesn’t know how to speak properly, or form a logical or coherent thought. What he means is, Obama is a terrorist because some guy he sort of knows did some crazy shit when Obama was 8. And that's a more accurate understanding of the situation than even FOX news was able to tell him to think.

As cogent and insightful a point as this guy makes, I have to wonder, with all of the black men in prison, and all of the “suspected terrorists” at Guantanamo Bay, is it very likely that had any politician or policeman or spook at any time throughout Obama’s life even had the tiniest shred of real proof that Obama might have actual terror affiliations, isn’t it likely that he would never ever ever ever nerver never nev been allowed anywhere near any sort of elected office in the USA ever?

Or maybe FOX news and every dumb piece of crap that believes this Rhepublican Rhetoric has proof in a shoebox under their beds that Obama really is a terrorist that the guys over at the CIA doing his background check somehow missed.

“Get a Job!”

What does that even mean?! How do you know they don’t have jobs? Because they’re exercising their political right to protest? If you’re basing the fact that someone is at a political rally because they don’t have a job, then what are you doing there? Maybe you should get a job yourself? But oh wait, you can’t because Bush screwed up the economy so badly that the jobless rate is skyrocketing and competition for work is heavier, and you’re about to attend a rally for the guy who wants to continue the same policies.

“Go to Russia!”

Go to Russia? Because… people aren’t allowed to politically dissent in Russia (which isn’t exactly true anymore, but we’ll let that one slide because you obviously haven’t thought out your statement anyway) and you think that people who dare to dissent with your Republican knee-jerk non-views deserve to get shipped off to Siberia… which would kind of make you more like a Communist than an Obama supporter/McCain protester could ever dream to be? And as far as the whole "Commie/Faggott!" slur goes, I think we all know which political party has had more of those types outed from it. Plus, Joe McCarthy was a Republican Commie hunter, and I think it's probably widely agreed now that he was the biggest Commie of them all. I mean sure, not technically, but his tactics certainly were not American nor were they Democratic.

I think that by telling someone who disagrees with you at an American political rally to go to Russia, you’ve officially chased your own tail and deserve to be impounded for being dumb as a dog and not on a leash.

And ACORN? How the FRICK is ACORN, a community-based organization that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, health care and other social issues, responsible for our current economic crisis? Hey check out this picture and story of McCain with... that's right. ACORN.

And for God's sake people! Obama is NOT a Muslim, (not that being a Muslim is automatically terror-worthy) nor is he a terrorist, or affiliated with terrorists! Again, CIA background checks! They're pretty thorough. They'd have caught it by now, and Obama would be in Guantanamo. Palin, on the other hand, had the hands of a Witch hunter laid on her. Now, Olbermann is a tad histrionic, but if you're not one of those finger-in-your-ears Republicans, singing "God Bless America" to block out opposing viewpoints and spouting party FOXwords as substitutes for logical argument using fact and proof, this is something you need to watch. I mean, those types need to watch and understand it more than anybody, but they've got their fingers in their ears, you see.

 And I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is, people like those in the YouTube video believe what they believe because they want FOX news to tell them what to think and say so that they don't have to hurt their little brains trying too hard to think about it themselves. No amount of logical argument or fact checking or proof is going to sway them. God, I hope America is smarter than I give it credit for this election day.

Ghouls & Goblins & Palin Oh My! It's Going To Be The Scariest Halloween Yet!

I haven't been around much lately, I know. My question is, have any of us? For myself, I've been consumed with fear and paranoia over the state of the economy. My 401k has less money in it now than what was put into it out of my original paychecks. My stocks... well, as I've said before; when in 2050 they are teaching schoolchildren in the most powerful Nation in the world (my prediction: Eurasia) about the great world stock market crash of '08, my picture will be in the book as the poster child for those who bought in at exactly the worst moment in history. Maybe. I'm sticking it out in case my fears are incorrect.

Also, I've been consumed with the fear that no matter how many nonsensical utterings of bullshit come out of Sarah Palin's mouth, we still might be forced to look at her pasty vapid psycho doll eyed face for the next four years. If that happens, it'll be the final nail in the coffin of our country. She's deeply stupid (yet thinks she's smarter than everyone and that no one can see through to her motivations) and masks it poorly with down-home stylings meant to fool the common man into thinking she's like one of them. She's playing on the irrational blue collar disdain of elitists, which is scary because apparently the present down-home version of an elitist is someone with an education who speaks with knowledge and authority on a given subject. Apparently, the people with whom Palin is trying to connect would rather the officials in charge of their government not understand how to answer basic questions and mask their ignorance with folksy exclamations which make no sense. I CAN NOT believe that people are being taken in by her and McCain, especially after realizing finally that they've been taken in by Bush for the last 8 years.

It's embarrassing to have these people on the world stage representing us, and if you're voting for Palin (to hell with McCain; he's irrelevant and will keel over soon) shame on you, dupe. Well, the polls do currently favor Obama of course, but not by a wide enough margin to quell my disbelief.

Another thing I'm afraid of lately is this Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's a museum. Dedicated to Creationism. And people are visiting it in droves. Creationism is the belief that the world was created by God around this time of the year on a Monday morning in 4004 BC. Dinosaur bones and all. Now, the belief in God, the Bible, and its literal truth, is a Faith. Faith, not Science. The line between the two concepts is under attack. Science is the search for truth, based on verifiable fact. Faith is the belief in something for which you have no proof. I have no problem with people of Faith going to Church and learning about what they believe in. I just wish they'd stop trying to force their beliefs into the schoolroom. It's dangerous and useless. Education in America is already severely limited these days. I met a Gas Station attendant in Germany who studied math for fun and spoke four languages. Most European students can talk intelligently and at great length about world politics, and know where Eritrea is on a map. There are people like that in the States, to be sure, but they get made fun of and called geeks. Something that modern day religious Americans seem to forget is that part of the reason why America is such a great place to live is that we once valued a secular education, and our prosperity comes from the application of our knowledge AND hard work. And on Sundays and at mealtimes, God was valued and thanked in many homes, sure, but at the end of the work day, God helps those who help themselves. Deceiving ourselves into thinking that faith needs to compete with science is not going to help anybody, because it's false. When it comes to science, religion tends to breed rather a hostile attitude of indifference because what difference does science make when Jesus is coming back to turn the Earth into blood soup and all the people who are looking forward to this disaster get to skip it and go to Heaven for candy and unicorns? They tend to forget that, even according to the Bible, we are Stewards of the Earth, and as such will be held responsible for it one day, one way or another.

Granted, science has caused a lot of problems on this Earth. Next to all the good things like medicine and movie theaters. But at this point, Science is also the only tool we have to save ourselves, and subverting it with Bible stories is NOT the way to go.

So now I come to the thing I'm actually afraid of this morning, the real reason behind this post. I get up and begin my routine as usual; perform the daily miracle of turning tap water into coffee. Eat breakfast. Drink some pre-miracled water, gulp down my daily plethora of vitamins with a big glass of more tap water, brush my teeth with tap water from the bathroom sink. I go sit down at my computer for my daily stock torture, notice I have a message on my phone. It's my landlord, Frank, telling me they put out a warning last night not to drink the tap water, not even after boiling it, and that it might not be safe to even bathe in until further notice; I listen to this as I'm taking another long sip of coffee. SO, I call Frank back to see if I need to go to the hospital, and he says he doesn't know; he's on his way up to the borough office to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I wait here, typing out my ranty fears in this post, wondering how sick I can expect to be at any moment. I continue drinking my coffee because, what the hell, what's done is done.

I finally get a call back from Frank. Apparently, someone who lives next to the town Water Tower saw three guys hanging around the tower. Climbing it and other shady behavior. Neighbors called it in, water's being checked to see if terrorists poisoned it. I live in a very small town; that water tower probably supplies about 5 or 6 hundred people.

I make more coffee and drink a big fat glass of tap water. Laugh and shake my head. More disbelief, more wonderment at how afraid people are, and how much America is being ruled by their fears. I laugh as my stocks tumble. Screw it. It's only money. President Palin? Ha! Good joke! She'll only hasten the downfall of this abominable government we're stuck with! The terrorists have already won anyway. They've shown us how weak and vulnerable we've become, all on our own. Thank God I got to see Stereolab at the Fillmore in NYC before I died. Miss Luongo and I went up to see them last week with my friends Jeff and Steph. Pure aural pleasure.

Mount Rainier Is Often Much Rainier. And Don't Tell Me That Rainier Isn't A Word.

I spent a few more days in Seattle this past week. Sorry Jordan and Alison, for not calling this time around... I was stuck on Bainbridge Island for the whole two days I was there; no real free time this round. I did get to spend a morning in the town of Poulsbo... very proud of their supposed Viking heritage there. Cute town though. Bought some tea and used books. That's the thing about America... traveling and history here often don't really stand up very well next to other parts of the world. I mean sure, America has some exciting history, but it's rather few and far between. For instance in almost any small po-dink European town you go to, something cool happened there. Mozart was born there, or Franz Ferdinand was shot there, or a King was dethroned there, or the world's most famous physicist studied there, or dangerous idealistic crusades were crushed there, or fire was discovered there... well you know. But in the States... well okay, there is some cool stuff. We have loads of cool landscapes. The Devil's Tower, The Grand Canyon, Niagra Falls. There are some wicked cool landscapes in Europe, yet we've got them beat overall in that department. However, comparatively our sense of history is definitely a bit lacking; Whenever I'm in Paris, I visit the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. When I'm in Munich I visit the Glockenspiel and the Hofbrauhaus. When I'm in Venice, I hang out in San Marco Piazza or visit Murano, the glass blower's island. And whenever I'm in Seattle, I visit the very first Starbucks shop.

And you know, I'm not the only one. Both times I've been there, that little place was packed with people taking photos and oohing and ahhing. It would be really sad except that I'm one of those people. I even picked up three bags of the exclusive Pike Place special reserve blend, a blend only sold at the Pike Place original location. Wait, maybe it's still pretty sad. Heeey guys, look over here, it's another shot of Mount Rainier!

Yes, well. See? Landscapes. That's what we have in America. We may not have a political, economic, or health care system that anyone anywhere in the universe respects right now, and not much history to speak of, but we've got landscapes.

Speaking of our poor economy, today was a weird day. In a way I'm happy that the bailout package did not go through. It's not right that the crooks on Wall Street should be allowed to get away with all their dirty dealings, and then have the taxpayers give them 750 billion bucks when they hit a rough patch. But, you know, the fact that the bailout didn't happen is bad bad bad for our economy, it's true. We are approaching the Great Depression II, and I think that if that happens, we are all going to find out first hand why your Grandparents and Great-Grandparents were such bitter, cautious people when it came to money. (Not my Grandparents though. They're great. I'm talking about your Grandparents.) I myself have lost a ton of money in the market. A TON. But I kind of had a bad feeling today so I cashed most of my stocks out this morning before the really big crash hit. Should've done that weeks ago. I guess what I'm trying to say is, now is a good time to listen to your tight-fisted elder relatives. Because really, I feel that the only hope we have of avoiding breadlines and 100 dollar cans of peaches is that this is all some sort of master plan to initiate the New World Order. Either way, you know, bad bad bad. Of course this could be the bottom, as bad as it gets. Maybe they're really trying to fix things after they, you know, screwed it up so abominably. Maybe they'll come up with a bailout, and it will fix things. But they're either utterly incompetent or evil, and neither scenario bodes well for us. Aw hell, when you get depressed and think that the people on the following YouTube might possibly represent the subconscious of America, you realize that we're all doomed anyway, and maybe we deserve to be.

Anyway, sorry. I digress. Here's a nice photo taken of some photo takers with a fishmonger on Pike Place. I added some other Mt. Rainier and Pike Place photos from this trip over at the smugmug gallery.

Happy September 11th Day!

Be good kids, or Santa Cheney won't leave presents in your Iraqi Desert Storm boots! ... Ok I realize that many people won't find that to be funny, but I sure did. It was an Onion blurb last week about how Cheney was gleefully running out to do his last-minute September 11th Day shopping for family and friends. It may be insensitive to joke, but it's how I choose to remember this particular anniversary; the day when the Administration snoozed at the helm and helped to usher in a new era of death, destruction, economic downfall, and just plain evil. Because you know, if you can't laugh at that kind of stuff, what can you laugh at? I'd like to laugh with joy when the world goes back to normal and stops hating me because I'm an American, but pigs will fly first. Oops, shoot, sorry Sarah Palin, that was insensitive of me. I forgot for a second there that political commentary on any old subject can not in any way use any sayings that reference pigs, no matter how old the saying or how far off topic, because when you think of pigs you of course immediately think of Sarah Palin, and it's insensitive to say that out loud even if we're all thinking it.

The Stars At Night, Are Occasionally Big And Bright...

"Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think."
-Ambrose Bierce

Ahhhhh... The smell of Texas hick in the morning. I'm in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for work this week. There is nothing cool about this trip. No pictures, no wry observations. Except for the smelly Texan hick I got stuck in the elevator with this morning, and there ain't nothin' wry about that. The smell is quite similar to Pennsylvanian hick, actually. You'd think, you know, different States, different hicks, different smells. But hick pretty much smells the same all over I guess. The one exciting thing I did was take a drive down to Waco, Texas. There really wasn't much there though. I got a coffee. Turned around came back.

So I spent the little free time I've had this week at the movie theater just a few blocks up from where I'm staying. I saw The Dark Knight. Twice. I think it's the best superhero movie yet. In fact, it might be a work of film art. Heath Ledger of course was amazing, but even more amazingly, he didn't entirely steal the show. (Though his performance should make Jack Nicholson feel ashamed of his inadequacy as an actor) Everything in the movie was absolutely perfect. The worst that can be said about it is that some of the action was so busy and parts of the plot so byzantine, that if you weren't paying attention, you may have to watch it a second time. But what I really love about it is that it is an ensemble piece... Batman didn't get any more screen time than anyone else, and the most pivotal role in the movie didn't really even belong to him, and it was still exciting as hell. (I'd say the most pivotal role was Aaron Eckhart's, whom I was glad to see in such a good role. Been a fan of his since In The Company Of Men.) Christopher Nolan gave all of his characters an important piece of the story, and allowed all of them a chance to play themselves out. It's the first superhero movie I've seen that can correctly have the adjective "epic" be applied to it.

Anyway, sorry. I know that nobody comes here to read pop film reviews. I'm just indulging myself in a gush. And, you know, I've got nothing else to talk about, yet my habits dictate that after being away on a work trip, I must post about it. So, movies I saw in Arlington, Texas is my theme. Hancock. Stupid. REALLY stupid. It started off fairly intriguing. But it was like the screenwriter or director or whoever had had a neat idea for a superhero movie, got partway through the script, but then realized that he didn't have an actual creative bone in his body nor had he ever actually read a comic book, and pulled something stupid out of his butt and plopped it in the theater. X-Files. Yeah. Not actually a bad movie... if Mulder and Scully were supposed to be characters in a mature adult romantic detective novel. It was more Moonlighting, the later years, than X-Files. And really, after waiting like 10 years after the end of the series to make a movie, you'd think that X-Files fans would deserve some answers, or at least more plot development on the Alien theme. But, nope. Chris Carter doesn't think so. Wanker.

MILD SPOILER ALERTS THIS PARAGRAPH:
But the most disturbing thing about all three of these movies was the children. None of these movies were appropriate for very young children. There were 4 year olds, infants even, that parents had brought to the theater. Severed arms, Hancock shoves a guy's head up another man's butt, horrifically scarred man holds a young boy hostage... all kinds of potentially scarring moments on a young person's psyche. Plus, young kids are noisy and it's just rude to the other moviegoers. I mean, what are parents thinking? This kind of stuff can scare the crap out of kids in their dreams for years. I speak from experience... I inadvertently saw a Monty Python sketch one time on TV when I was very young which gave me the screaming willies for years. Monty Python. Imagine what seeing a psychopathic clown put someone's eye out with a pencil would've done. There was a preview for a horror movie... there were some pretty horrific images loud and proud on the screen. Blood, disfigurement, bizarre imagery... you know the kind of thing pop horror fans are into these days. There was a very young boy nearby, staring in horrified awe, and his father was laughing his ass off. Laughing at mutilation. What the F*** is wrong with people?

Ok ok... sometimes scaring the crap out of children is funny, but still. Not always.

Taking Stock Of My Stupidity

I've got yet another new, very dangerous hobby which I've chosen to become addicted to this week. The stock market. And you know, it's a good example of how extremely poor my sense of timing is, because there really ain't much out there that's doing any good. Especially not the stocks I chose to buy into... grr argh.

I'd picked up Jim Cramer's book, Stay Mad For Life a few weeks ago, and there was a lot of good advice in it about retirement planning and saving and all that boring grown-up stuff. And of course a few good stock tips. So I followed some of his advice, which as it turns out was of course written a bit before the current financial crisis which America is unlikely to ever fully recover from. In fact, much of what I read online from various stock pundits involves buying companies that provide raw materials to China, as they are the real economic up and comer these days, and investing in purely American ventures is widely considered to be, well, stupid.

But of course, at this particular point not even that advice is panning out because nobody really has any confidence in the market to begin with, so everything is tanking, more or less. Nobody is really saying it, but it looks like the US has peaked; we've reached the highest point of wealth and world economic power that we were ever going to reach, raised our hands up at the pinnacle of the ride and gone "woooo-hoooo!", and now we're on the full-tilt ride down.

Enter me and my money: The two of us go in, but only one is coming out. It's a fight to the death.

Anybody got any hot insider tips?

Commercials Make You Think Drivel Is The New Funny

I haven't had my own personal access to Television in maybe two decades. I despise TV, and have had nothing but disdain for it since... well I don't know exactly when, but at some point I decided that it was the devil. I'm not against a good show, mind you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the greatest TV show of all time. Actually, Firefly is quite good too. And Angel. And those are great shows because Joss Whedon created them, who is a genius. So I'm not a total TV snob. I believe that film can be art, even on TV. But art on TV tends to get canceled quickly, unless you're lucky. But my philosophy has been, for the past few years, that anything that is actually good, I'll hear about it and can watch it on DVD someday. That's how I discovered Buffy; I never would have chosen to watch that show, thinking that it sounded like the dumbest idea for a show on Earth. Especially because the movie was so bad. But I knew some people who really liked it, so I borrowed a friend's DVDs and gave it a shot. I was able to watch all 7 seasons of it without a single commercial break... which is the point I've laboriously been coming to.

Commercials are the devil. I hate hate Hate HATE them. In fact, I've been known to scream at them in disgust. I don't feel that TV programming is what is responsible for dumbing down America, although there are certainly plenty of shows out there that I wouldn't wipe my bottom with. Hell, if I was a personal Nurse for a quadriplegic Stalin I wouldn't wipe his bottom with them. Well ok, to be fair, I'd never be a personal Nurse for any quadriplegic, Stalin or otherwise. Gross. I'm just not that selfless a person. But still, you take my meaning. Next to commercials, aimless channel surfing is the next in line for most mind-numbing thing ever. Anyway. I feel that commercials, and most popular TV shows, are a way of making people think that raving lunatic morons are funny, or even normal. Like those Wendy's commercials where the black guy wearing a Wendy's wig is trying to convince people that they have a constitutional right to a better burger. I know, I know, it's supposed to be funny. Ha ha we're just kidding buy our burgers. But something about it makes me want to commit suicide inside.

So having said all of this, I finally caved and got cable. I did this because, earlier this year I was happily enjoying my HDDVD player when BAM! Blu-Ray won the High Definition battle, making my HD collection obsolete. No more new movies in that beautiful, pristine format I had so recently become accustomed to. Believe me, you have not seen Unforgiven, The Shining, or 2001: A Space Odyssey until you've seen them in HD. I could have made the switch to Blu-Ray, except that the cheapest player is still around $400, the discs cost like $30 to $40 a pop, and a few other reasons that you probably don't care about, but I do. HDDVD players were around $200, and the discs were usually around $20. Sigh. But so I got cable, because they offer some channels in HD, and I was really wanting to watch some stuff in HD again.

I haven't had it on much since I got it, since I don't actually spend all that much time watching TV anyway. I tend to watch a movie with dinner, and that's about it. But I've enjoyed a few things... I got to watch The Lost Boys in HD, and the other night I tried out the HD pay-per-view channel and saw The Golden Compass. Very nice! But last night, something happened which made me decide that cable in my house is a short lived phenomenon. Spiderman was on TNT HD, and I was all excited because I'd been curious what that looked like in HD. When TNT plays movies, they have commercial breaks. A commercial for a Stouffer's TV dinner came on. I was already irritated by the spate of obnoxious pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator commercials I'd been forced to sit through between segments of Spiderman, and the worst part is that they tend to play the same 10 commercials on every break, just in case you'd forgotten about their stupid product that nobody needs from ten minutes ago. Oh, I also have to say that the worst commercials to sit through (Well, they're all horrible. It's so hard to chose the worst, actually, that anytime I complain about any commercial it's going to be the worst.) are the chain restaurant ones where they show you large pictures of gross greasy things that come in food-like shapes and are supposed to be appetizing, but are in fact unbelievably nauseating, and are the worst reason to have HD channels.

(Keep in mind that these pictures, as disgusting looking as they are, are not even what the food you order will actually look like in reality. The actual food always looks limp in comparison to the ads. Gross and grosser. Blechh.)

So this Stouffer's TV dinner commercial came on. And it combined just about everything I could possibly hate in a commercial. It starts off with a shot inside of a moving car; Mom and Dad are in the front and three noisy brats in the back, eating some sort of take out and all looking generally miserable. Then the voice over comes on and says, "When did this become our idea of a sit-down dinner?" Several big gross photos of greasy Stouffer's TV dinners later, and a satisfied family sitting down at home to eat them, and I was screaming, frothing at the mouth, unleashing a stream of obscenities at the TV as though I had just been told I had to wipe Stalin's immobile ass. I mean, seriously, Stouffer's TV Dinners have the audacity to lament the disappearance of a sit down family dinner, and try to convince you that they offer a product which solves said dilemma!!? This is what is going to end us, I swear. The problem is is that people just pretend like it's no big deal to have to witness such towering banality, that it's just a commercial and of course it's dumb but it doesn't really affect me. But it's not true. People, you have no idea how much it affects you. Seriously, try not watching TV at all for a time; try turning off your cable for say 6 months. Then go back and watch some... you'll be appalled at the drivel you're made to swallow.

You might think that you can control it. You know, flip to another show while commercials are on, or mute it or whatever. But I'm telling you, having cable in the house is no different than keeping heroin in the cabinet for medicinal uses when William Burroughs is your best friend and drops by all the time. I don't have any TV addict friends who drop by to get a TV fix, and TV is an addiction I gave up long enough ago that it tastes like ashes to me now, so I'll keep it around for the moment, until I can find a better HD solution, but please. If you ever realize that I've relapsed into couch potatoism, please come over and punch me in the head really hard. I'm begging you, intervene. I think I'll be fine, you know. I gave up smoking and fast food. I'm sure I can keep away from idly turning on the TV for no good reason. I have plenty of methadone, I mean DVDs to get me through the more difficult moments. I'm just saying, you know, TV commercials are worse for you than smoking, fast food, or heroin, so I'm a little more nervous about it.

I Haven't Done This In A While, But I Really Enjoyed This Special Comment

PART ONE

PART TWO

I Bring You The TEN [CRASH!] Um, FIFTEEN Commandments!

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

The Athiest’s Commandments from ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. The first ten are from a website he found while researching his book, then XI through XIV are his own additions, and XV is mine, as well as the comments in brackets.

 I. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

 II. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

III. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

 IV. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

 V. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

 VI. Always seek to be learning something new.

 VII. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

 VIII. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. [But don’t let them get away with faulty reasoning without a fight. Besides, maybe they’ll prove you wrong and that’s good too.]

 IX. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

 X. Question everything.

 XI. Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.

 XII. Do not discriminate or oppress on the on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.

 XIII. Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

 XIV. Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.

 XV.  Patriotism is a lie. Religion is a lie. God is an unknown. [Patriotism and Religion are not even compatible, and yet most Patriotic Americans are Religious too. Here, I’ll prove it:

 a) Patriotism = My country is #1, above and beyond all others, right or wrong.

  b) My Country is run by old rich cowards who want our young idealistic men to kill for their comforts

c) Religion says thou shall not kill. [even if that commandment is the only part of the Old Testament which actually says that, because otherwise God sanctioned quite a lot of killin’ and rapin’ in those days.]

  d) Therefore, Patriotism & Religion can not go hand in hand. Yet somehow, when combined in the mind of deeply uncritical people, they do.

I’m not saying I'm an atheist. But I am saying that I share a lot more in common with an atheist than with religious thinkers these days. And here's the reason. One time in Church, I remember my pastor doing that whole thing where he says that a lot of people out there in the world will try to tell good Christians that the Bible is full of lies and contradictions. His response to the congregation? "Well I'm here to tell you that the Bible is NOT full of lies!" Brilliant, carry on, Pastor. What? That's all you got? Huh. Anyway I think I related this story in somewhat more detail once before, here.

But the realization that I eventually came to is that belief in God is fundamentally, in the mind of religion at any rate, an insidious and lazy way of avoiding the issue of Life, The Universe, and Everything. What I mean is, one thing that many religious types use to try to convince people that evolution is bunk is the idea that the world is too complicated, too amazing, too wonderful to have all just happened by random chance, it must have been created. (Here's a YouTube I will NEVER get tired of, which is a prime example of that sort of reasoning. If, of all horrors, you find the banana argument compelling, please watch this one also. Thanks again, GoDrex! )

First off, anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand evolution would never say that. Evolution is anything but random, which is part of its beauty and power. Secondly, all they've done by this argument is show a lack of logical thought. SO, you're saying that the Universe is too complicated and "well designed" to have just happened? So, there must be a Creator. Well then, logically, any possible Creator has to be larger and more well designed than the object of his creation. A hammer and anvil do not forge a blacksmith, for instance. Therefore essentially all that this argument has done is to push the question back a step and in reality, magnify it. Rather than believe in the apparent existence of a complicated and evolved Universe (based on verifiable fact), you'd rather believe in the apparent existence of an even larger and more complicated, magical Creator.

I'm not saying that definitively there's no God, which is why I'm not an atheist. (Although according to Dawkins' scale of atheism, I am a 5th or 6th degree atheist, with a 7th degree atheist believing absolutely %100 in the non-existence of God. I will always leave room for the possibility, if not the probability.) I'm just pointing out the weakness of logic in the Religious mind. And I AM saying that IF there's a God, he's not the God of that great work of fiction, the Bible. I think that IF there is a Creator, the only thing that he really gave us are our hearts and our minds, which are very effective tools when reason and logic are applied, and I think he'd be very disappointed in Religion.

For anybody who has read 'The God Delusion', it's apparent that I've used much of Dawkins' material here. In my own idiosyncratic way, of course. But I feel that it's a book which has provided me with a clear way of thinking about ideas which I've held for a while.

Basically what it all boils down to for me is this: Religious apologists have NEVER been able to prove the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible through either Science, logic, or reason. Which makes sense according to the Fundamental Religious version of "logic" anyway; it's all about faith, regardless of the facts. (Dinosaur bones were purposefully planted there to test our faith.) So why do they keep trying? Why do they want Creationism, sorry, Intelligent Design, taught in science classes? Science is about verifiable fact, religion is about faith. You don't see scientists banging on the doors of churches, trying to force Sunday school teachers to teach evolution. Although, the inevitable backlash has already begun with the likes of Dawkins. He's tired of Religion's interference in the world of reality, hence the book. It's time for the Religious to accept that faith is based on nothing verifiable, and that they are welcome to it. 

And his main points are good ones; You don't need Religion to be moral, brainwashing children with religion is immoral (Christians don't call it brainwashing when they do it, but what else would you call it when, in a different religion such as Islam for example, brainwashed children grow up to steer planes into buildings in the name of their faith?), and he (and I) would be the first one to believe in the existence of God should there ever be proof of his existence. In the meantime, people should stop fighting, brainwashing, and killing each other over minor differences in opinion as to his nature. Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity. Unless of course you're Jewish. The Old Testament God was an asshole.

On a final note, I want to reiterate what I believe to be Dawkins' most imperative point in his book: There is no such thing as a Christian child, a Muslim child, an atheist child, or a Buddhist child etc. There are only Children of Christian parents, Children of Muslim parents, Children of atheist parents, and Children of Buddhist parents etc. Until children are mature enough to have weighed all the facts and decide for themselves, they are only children. After all, no one says that their child is a Marxist, or a Democrat, or a Communist. It's ok to wait until the child is of age to decide for itself what its political leanings are, and the same needs to be true of religion.

Back To School: My Book Report & How I Spent Four Summers

Hey guess what? I'm having my Groundhog day. I'm in Virginia again, for the third week-long assignment in a row. Ick. If anybody ever wants to travel to Vienna, VA, I know all the good restaurants. I forgot my camera, so even if I wind up doing something interesting, I won't be able to share any images. I'm probably not going to do much though. I might go see another concert on Saturday; there's a band I really like named Louis XIV playing.

But I finally got around to reading a book which I'd touted here waaaay back in October aught 6. I'd been wanting to read it for a very long time, but I think I felt like I was still too close to my own experiences in Iraq, so I kept putting it off. I don't know exactly why I finally decided to pick it up, other than that I just needed something to bring to Virginia with me. At any rate, after I finished reading it, I went to the author's website and dropped him the following note:

I just finished your book... I lived in Baghdad (successively in a hotel in the Karradah district, the VVIP airport terminal, and in the Green Zone) for three years, from August 2003 through October 2006. Since I left, the level of both stupidity and insanity which I witnessed there slowly seeped away from my daily consciousness, until I was almost fit for normal human company again. Reading your book was an extremely engaging experience for me as it not only brought all of those old emotions back, but additionally shed some new light on the chaotic events that went on around me which I did not fully understand at the time.

Uh... thanks?

Which about sums it up. It's an excellent book in that I believe he really went out of his way to be as impartial and as nice as possible to the people he was writing about, which in the end only made their grand stupidities even more painful to read. Having lived there during the period about which he wrote, (The CPA's tenure in control of the reconstruction of Iraq led by Paul Bremer from 2003 to 2004) it added another layer of emotion which I find to be inexplicable. For instance, there was an incident near my company's compound in the Green Zone one time while I was covering for Rodney there while he was on his vacation. Rodney was the Irish scalawag friend of mine who'd had a friend working in Iraq who got us all jobs there in the first place back in August aught 3.

Anyway, one night the Green Zone incoming alarm went off, followed by a warning to all CPA employees to stay out of the streets of the Zone. Word came down to us that an American had been stabbed right out in the open inside the Green Zone and that the army was searching for the terrorist that had somehow snuck in and done it. We never heard anything else about it and, with so many other crazy things going on all the time, it was quickly forgotten about. Well, Rajiv wrote about that incident in his book. Apparently it had been quickly discovered that the stabbing was done by a fellow American; the two men had been having a drunken brawl or something. This news was hushed up, and that was that. It seems that the powers that be would rather have had us believe that an insurgent was loose in the Green Zone than admit the truth, and I'm not even really sure why. But I'll tell you one thing, when I read that, I laughed my ass off. I'd always kind of wondered about that stabbing, and it was an unexpected release of, something, when I read what had really happened, over four years later now.

That was one of just a few incidents that I was around for which he writes about from an insider's perspective. He wrote about the bombing of the United Nations building, which had happened just a week after my arrival in Baghdad. One funny incident that he wrote about was when the Iraqi Soccer team won an important match against Saudi Arabia. That night, the Americans inside the Green Zone freaked out when they heard an insane amount of gunfire coming from the city just outside their 12 foot high protective barriers; they all ran for bunkers and basements thinking that this was it, the Iraqis were storming the Green Zone. It was my second night in Baghdad and we were staying in a hotel downtown, NOT protected by the concrete blast walls of the Emerald City. We were inside, probably playing cards or eating strange and greasy local food or who knows what, when a CRAPLOAD of gunfire began right outside on our street. Dave, Scott and I were kind of like, aw hell, we're going to die on our second night here? Rip off. Ironically, my future boss-who-is-now-in-prison was there too; it's where I first met him. Dave tried to lock himself in the bathroom, Scott was standing in the hallway trying to figure out what good hiding was going to do, and I was under me bed. Phil (my future boss) was in his room, gesticulating at all of us urgently (and creepily) to come into his room while holding out a bottle of Jim Beam; I think that he was thinking that hell, if we're going to die we might as well party first. (That, incidentally, should have tipped me off about him right away.) We heard someone walking through the courtyard of our hotel, bullet shells dropping onto the tiles. Oh God oh God oh God, this is it. Phil's security guard walked in with a big grin, because he'd just been outside joining in with the celebratory gunfire over Iraq's victory in the soccer match. I wrote about that in less detail at the time here.

One that really got me was the bombing of the Green Zone Cafe and then the Market on October 14th 2004. I knew that date off the top of my head, and could have told anyone who asked when that happened without having to look it up. I'd quit my first job in Iraq and began working for Phil on October 12th, 2004. Rajiv called the market and cafe bombings the beginning of the end of the CPA staff's illusions in the Green Zone (I'm paraphrasing). I'd been to the cafe with Scott a few times, and we'd frequented the market during that summer. I think I also wrote about that in a mass email at the time, here. (This other page that I keep linking to by the way is a companion blogpage where I posted a bunch of mass emails I'd sent to friends and family from my early days in Iraq, before I had a blog) I was two blocks away from the market when a suicide bomber blew himself up, along with one of my favorite shops there; A tent where a nice old Iraqi man and a young Iraqi John Lennon lookalike sold songbirds and various other bric-a-brac.

It was a sobering omen of what was to come, and it certainly saddened me in ways that few other bombings which I was around for did. For the remaining two years that I was there, every time I drove by the area where the market used to be, I shook my head like an old man, and even indulged in a tut-tut occasionally.

But these are some of the moments I felt while reading his book because of how I experienced them, not what the book is really about. It's really about how the Bush Administration not only did NOT have a real plan for Iraq after his wrong-headed war, but how even more egregiously they sent people over to fix the country they'd just demolished who were chosen for their jobs because of their affiliation and loyalty to the Republican party. People who actually understood Iraq and what needed to be done were short-shrifted, shunted aside, even fired and removed in favor of Bush loyalists, most notably Jay Garner for Paul Bremer but also hundreds of others. Quoting from the book jacket:

...the case of the 24 year old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad's stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe [other] Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons specialists from defecting to Iran! (that's my favorite one, by the way); Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe vs. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer's ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.

Of course I wasn't even close to being directly involved in any of that stuff, but I was around for it and witnessed a lot of the side effects. I heard all the talk... the Green Zone was a small community in those days. I highly recommend 'Imperial Life In The Emerald City'  by Rajiv Chandrasekaran as a clear minded journal of one of the most embarrassing moments in American history. And yes, I was a part of it in my own small way. Yay.

On a final note, I want to say that one of my proudest moments in Iraq was when I got to be rude to Paul Bremer. Dave, George, Scott and I were eating dinner in the CPA building when who should walk right by our table, but Paul Bremer and Dan Rather, followed by a gaggle of reporters and suck-ups on their way to a quiet corner of the Republican Palace for an interview. As I saw him coming, I loudly whistled Darth Vader's theme. For my trouble I was rewarded with a sharp look from Bremer and some very frightening glares from his body guards. In retrospect, especially after reading this book, I realize that he was not so much a Dark Lord as an opportunistic incompetent, and it would have been more apropos to whistle the Animaniacs' theme.

Am I Alone In My Visceral Reaction To Bush's Monkeyface?

"Eating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there’s less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what’s the fun in eating anything you want to?"
-Tom Hanks

I've recently lost about ten pounds. I've been going to the gym since September, not exactly regularly due to work travel, but whenever I'm home at least every other day if not every day. The first three months or so were kind of slow going... my stamina on the treadmill got incrementally better, but I maybe lost a pound or three during that time. Then, in the last month and a half or so, it began to drop rapidly. One time I weighed myself, right before I went to Fort Lauderdale, and I was at 204 lbs. When I got back from being down there for a week and not getting any real exercise, after my first workout I weighed myself again, and I was at 198. Then, once more due to work and other unforeseen drama in my life, it was two weeks before I was able to hit the gym again. So this past Monday I weighed myself and I was still at 198, and yesterday at 197 & ¾! It seems as though I've hit a certain mark in my exercise where my body has finally started to believe that I'm really serious about the whole thing, and has decided to pay attention. Sweet!

My diet probably also has something to do with it. I've been %90 faithful to my 2007 New Year's resolution to give up fast food, and I buy lots of whole wheat products and vegetables at the grocery nowadays. I still indulge in the occasional pizza of course, but I never buy chips or other junk food any more except for Tostitos (which they now have a whole wheat variety of!) and salsa. I use Olivio instead of butter, and buy organic milk. I've cut waaay back on my cheese intake also, mostly because I was paranoid about my cholesterol levels. I haven't eaten more than a pint or two of ice cream in the last six months. I take a bevy of vitamins in the morning and I drink Metamucil with dinner every night. And then I take some more vitamins.

This probably sounds annoying to you. I sincerely apologize. Before I got all health conscious, I hated people that exhibited this sort of behavior and then that's all they would talk about. But what I want to say about it is that I've learned some extremely valuable things by doing the gym thing, and they're not even all fitness related. But this first one is: Exercise and diet are mutually reinforcing.

When I first started going to the gym, I didn't really care too much to change my eating habits. I just wanted to get on the treadmill and work off those extra calories I'd eat the night before. I mean, I cared a little, because I'd just been told that my cholesterol was too high, but overall I still ate what I wanted. But once I'd been doing it for a few weeks, I found that when I went to the store, I'd pay more attention to those food content labels. I found that I actually wanted, for the most part, to avoid junk and high fat foods that I loved, because I'd been so good about working out that I wanted to control my calorie count in order not to undervalue all that hard work. The diet thing actually came very naturally... at no time did I ever feel that I was giving up food that I couldn't bear to give up. I never had to plan to diet... it just happened rather organically. Except for my Fast Food resolution. But even that made sense at the time because I'd just come back to the States and was indulging in all the bad stuff I'd missed while I'd been away, and I knew that if I didn't put the kibosh on it quick I'd be looking like the inbred lovechild of Mayor McCheese and the Grimace in no time.

I've learned loads of other things at the gym, but I'm sure they're all clichéd... More energy, better moods, blah blah blah. I mean, it's all true, but everybody's heard all that before. The only surprises in the whole enterprise for me have been that whole unforced desire to diet thing I just said and also the fact that losing weight happens quicker and more abruptly than one might have thought. Granted, it took me five months to get to that point, but once I finally did, cool. But there's one more thing, fairly unrelated to health but very interesting.

My gym has about 12 big TVs up on the wall in front of the cardio machines so that you can walk, run, bike, or do your elliptics while watching whatever mind-numbing crap is on whichever TV station. Each of the machines has a little channel box which you can plug your headphones into so that you can listen to whichever one you choose. Anyway, I always listen to my mp3 player, but I'll watch the TVs without sound anyway as it helps to distract from the pain of jogging. But yesterday they had CNN, FOX, and MSNBC news on at the same time, and I noticed that all three of them were running the same story at the same time; the one about Bush's latest bribe to us. You remember; he bribed us with a tax rebate when he first got into office, in the hopes we'd like him and not make too much noise when he later unveiled his diabolical plans to destroy the world, and now he's doing it again in the hopes that we'll all go "Oh see? He's not so bad." Jerk-off.

Anyway, that's not my point. My point was that I was watching these three major news networks broadcasting this story simultaneously, and not only the same story, but the same news blurbs under the talking heads, the same exact camera angles, and the same commercial breaks. Different commercials, though. At first I was kind of not too freaked out by it, because it's a big enough story that sure, they're all going to be there at the same time. But I'm on the treadmill for 35 minutes, and the stories continued to triplet each other, even the less important ones. Some news from Iraq, the Roger Clemens on steroids thing. For my entire 35 minutes on the treadmill, all three of those news networks parroted each other exactly, I swear to God. It was very upsetting. It's like they are so confident in their ability to slop feed us whatever nonsense someone is telling them to without anybody noticing or caring that they weren't even attempting to keep up the appearance of being different news sources anymore. They were all using the same camera guy, for God's sake! The guy typing up the word blurbs at the bottom of the screen is working for all three major news networks! I wonder how long before they convince everybody that they may as well conglomerate into one big news agency since their news is identical in importance, content, and spin, anyway. And how long before it's just el Presidente giving us his daily benediction, because if he doesn't say it, it's not worth knowing.

I do have to say though that seeing Bush's monkey face on the TV while jogging is really good for the heart rate. I instantly get angry and that adrenaline rush of hate really gets me going.

Oh, Happy Valentines day! I love you.

Bitter, Bitter Taste

EDIT: The above YouTube has been removed due to copyright violation... It was a clip from a film named Downfall, a German movie about the last few days in Hitler's life in a bunker under Berlin. For the YouTube version, they cleverly replaced the original subtitles for a conversation between Hitler and his cronies discussing their defeat as HD DVD supporters by Blu-Ray.

Well, that's the problem with simply having a YouTube as a post, I guess. I've been punished for my lack of posting creativity.

I Know, There Are Bigger Problems Out There. It's Just One More Tiny Little Complaint.

"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."
-H.L. Mencken

So I just received my Christmas bonus from work, and I have to say that there is a good indication there of something deeply schizophrenic in the USA. Don't get me wrong, I think it's lovely that companies give their employees Christmas bonuses. It's certainly not something that they really owe their employees.

Winter is a hard time of the year for people: heating costs go up, (It costs $1,000 to fill my oil tank. 5 years ago it probably would've only cost like $300.) Christmas means buying presents for lots of people if you're, you know, Christian, our country's official religion. But the Christmas bonus is a traditional way for your employer, who is cold and heartless the other 364 days of the year, to show that they're not such bad people and that they want to help defray your higher Christmas time expenses, even if only a little. So in my mind, $50 or $1,000, it's not something to be complained about, because it's not a law that they have to give you a bonus. It's just nice, and even helps the company a little by generating some extra good will.

My Christmas bonus this year is $500. Nice, right?

But here's the problem. I received my Christmas bonus by company check, or in modern parlance, by Direct Deposit. Know what that means? Yeah you do. It got taxed. So $500 now becomes just under $350. Still not too bad, really, considering that it's $350 I didn't really earn. But what kills me is that I would think that my employer would ideally prefer that I got that $150 rather than the government, because instead of being entirely grateful that I got a nice Christmas bonus, I'm slightly bitter that I got robbed. Not necessarily towards my employer because, assuming that my previous statement is true, I have to believe that it is illegal for a company to pay an employee any money that doesn't get taxed, otherwise someone at the head office could just withdraw a bunch of cash and hand it out in envelopes at the party, right?

So what this means is that someone in the IRS, at some point in the past, actually made the decision to tax Christmas bonuses. "No toys for the children!", he cackled. And not only that, our freedom loving, commercially insatiable, (especially at Christmas time) consumer mad culture went along with it. We agreed that the government should have nearly a third of our Christmas bonuses instead of say, Sears, Toys-R-Us, or Penn Oil.

That's kind of schizophrenic, isn't it? You would think that someone in big business would lobby against taxing Christmas bonuses, so that not only could they generate that extra good will among their own employees, but then the average consumer would also have that much more to spend at their stores.

Conclusion? Well, I really don't know what to make of it. General all-purpose evil. That's all I can come up with.

First I Steal From GoDrex, And Then I Steal From Mr. Altemeyer. Huh. Knowledge IS Like A Virus!

"In my experience, the worst enemy and corrupter of man is the tendency - resulting from mental laziness and the desire for peace of mind - to join groups and organizations with set dogmas, be they religious or political."
- Hermann Hesse

GoDrex, in a recent post, linked to a very interesting online book about a human phenomenon as old as time: The Authoritarian Follower. In other words, a book about the sheep, the army ants, that infest humanity and allow incredibly evil things to happen through their passive/aggressive stupidity.

There is a section at the end of the third chapter in which he uses his theory to explain the inexplicable events surrounding our invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. I've copied and pasted it here, because it's the best rundown of the key events I've come across yet. 

A Little Application
That said, let’s take what we have learned in this chapter about how
authoritarian followers think and see if it explains what otherwise might seem quite baffling. Beginning in late 2001, the Bush administration stated that Saddam Hussein was a source of terrorist activities around the world, and frequently implied he was involved in the attacks of September 11th, even though nearly all the attackers had come from Saudi Arabia, and none had come from Iraq. The administration also said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, even though United Nations inspectors had never found any, so an invasion of Iraq was necessary. A choir of “theocons” seconded this “neocon” outlook with the argument, however implausible, that it was highly moral to start a war with Iraq. In fact, it was God’s will.

The polls showed most Americas supported the president, although a significant minority did not. Besides observing that no terrorist connections had been demonstrated, and no “WMDs” or facilities for making them had been discovered, critics said an invasion would make it easier for Muslim fanatics to launch suicide attacks on Americans, and would probably tie down America’s mobile armed forces for years to come because civil war was likely to develop after Saddam’s removal.

They also observed that the war would seem not only unjustified to most Muslims, but totally unfair given America’s greatly superior military forces. An American/British slam-dunk victory would probably create so much hatred for those countries in Islam that the number of zealots plotting terrorist attacks against them would probably increase rather than decrease as a result of the war. It would prove a monumental step in the war against terror--but backwards.

The critics were castigated by administration officials and their backers with a vehemence not seen since the anti-Vietnam war protests. Those who urged caution were denounced, even as late as the fall of 2006, as traitors, fools, and idiots by officials and supporters who will likely never admit that the critics were proved right. For after the successful military invasion of Iraq, no pre-existing ties to al-Qaida were discovered and no weapons of mass destruction were found. Some Americans then realized their country had invaded another country on false premises--which would seem to be very wrong morally, and which would have outraged many supporters of the war had certain other countries done such a thing. But several months after the administration itself conceded that no weapons of mass destruction had been discovered, pollsters found a lot of Americans believed such weapons had been found. And for these believers and others the new justification for the invasion, viz., to remove Saddam and bring freedom to Iraq, to make it a shining example in the Middle East of what democracy will bring, was good enough anyway.

But as American casualties steadily mounted after the war was declared over, and as chaos descended upon Iraq, and as the Bush administration had no response other than, “We know this is the right thing to do, no matter what,” and as the war helped drive the national debt to such unprecedented heights that the United States became the world’s largest debtor, most Americans finally saw the war had become a national disaster.

Still, nationwide polls for Newsweek, CNN, and USA Today revealed that in
October 2006, as the mid-term election drew near, 40 percent of the American people did not think the United States made a mistake in invading Iraq, 30 to 34 percent approved of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq, 30 percent said the administration did not misinterpret or misanalyze the intelligence reports they said indicated Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and 36 percent said the administration had not purposely misled the public about this evidence to build support for the war.

Thirty-seven percent even thought the U.S. military effort was going “well” (either “fairly” or “very”) And 35 to 37 percent approved of how Bush was doing his job in general, while 35 percent also were satisfied with the way things were going in the country. In all cases, the solid majority of Americans saw it otherwise. But you have to wonder, who were all those people who thought everything was fine?

Well, what’s not to understand, if that hard-core of supporters mainly consists of authoritarian followers, given what the experiments described in this chapter show us about them? The justification for the war in the first place was largely irrelevant to high RWAs. [Right Wing Authoritarians] They liked the conclusion; the reasoning didn’t matter. If the United Nations refused to sanction the war, so what? There’s no contradiction, in a highly compartmentalized mind, between believing that America stands for international cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflict on the one hand, while on the other hand insisting it has the “right” to attack whomever it wants, no matter how weak they are, whenever it wants for whatever reasons it decides are good enough. Those who protested were trouble-makers; everyone should support the government.

If no connections to al-Qaida and no weapons of mass destruction turned up after the invasion, just believe they had turned up. An aluminum tube that could have been designed to help enrich uranium was used to enrich uranium, proving Saddam was making atomic bombs! Trailers that could have been used to make biological weapons were used to make them. Besides, people whom the followers look to, such as the evangelist Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) said they still believed Saddam had such weapons, even if there was no evidence he had. And anyway, if the first reason for the war comes up lame, just invent a new one. Everybody knows Saddam is our biggest problem! And when later the president insisted he never said America would “stay the course” in Iraq, when actually he had said it over and over again, most people knew that was an outright, almost pathological lie. But it would not make much of a dent on an authoritarian follower’s mind, which is quite capable of believing white is black when his authority says so.

Authoritarian followers aren’t going to question, they’re going to parrot. After all, in the ethnocentric mind “We are the Good Guys and our opponents are abominations”--which is precisely the thinking of the Islamic authoritarian followers who become suicide bombers in Iraq. And if we turn out not to be such good guys, as news of massacres and the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, by the CIA, and by the arms-length “companies” set up to torture prisoners becomes known, authoritarian followers simply don’t want to know. It was just a few, lower level “bad apples.” Didn’t the president say he was sickened by the revelations of torture, and all American wrong-doers would be punished?

However the policy came from the top, and the administration scrambled to make sure it could not be punished. When the White House said it would veto a bill because it prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, you had to be nearly blind not to realize what was going on. When the White House also insisted, successfully, that Congress pass a bill allowing it to use torture, you had to be completely blind. But high RWAs are quite capable of such blindness.

And while most Americans came to realize what a mistake the war in Iraq has turned out to be, high RWAs lagged far behind. They listen to the news they want to hear. They surround themselves with people who think like they do. They believe the leaders who tell them what they want to be told. They make about as much effort to get both sides of an issue as the Bush administration does to foster different points of view within the White House. And if six high RWAs are sitting in a room talking about the war, and all six now have misgivings, it will still be hard for any of them to say so because the ethic of group solidarity is so strong in the authoritarian mind.

Is there any conceivable evidence or revelation that will lead them to admit the war was a mistake? I suspect some of them will eventually, begrudgingly reach that point, and others will rewrite their personal histories and say they had their doubts from the start. But others, petrified by their dogmatism, will never admit the undeniable. Did they ever about Viet-Nam? No. “We just didn’t use enough force!”-- which is exactly the argument those who proposed the invasion of Iraq are using now as they tried to shift the blame for the failure of their incredibly unsound policy.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the phenomenon, although I suspect that the people who need to read it the most, the authoritarian followers, will never even touch it and even if they do, they'll misinterpret it. It's a book that is preaching to the converted, for sure, but it's still eye-opening. It's called The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer. It's completely online, and completely free, and not even very long. So you have no excuse. Unless you're one of them, in which case I suggest you turn a blind eye, because we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself with self-recrimination, after all.

Thanks To Wolfboy

I'm really excited to see what's going to happen with the West Memphis 3 now that there has been some new DNA evidence introduced. These kids, now men, have been in prison for nearly 15 years, and everybody in the world who has read anything about the case, except for the arresting officer, prosecutor, and judge, are %100 convinced that they were innocent. Anyone that has seen the "evidence" which they used to convict them, has shaken their heads in utter disbelief that such a Salem Witch Trial could happen in this day and age. They've made 2 documentaries on this matter (click on the picture to go to the first one, I highly recommend it) and I can't think about it without getting really angry, and really sad. Anyway, go here to read a good background summary of the case, and here is what's going on with it currently.

My Adjective-Heavy, Overlong Version Of The Emperor's New Clothes.

One of my favorite stories of all time is The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a popular one, and technically it's a fable I think, but it's been in the back of my head for years and years. I think about it so much because it works on so many levels and also it’s another piece in the puzzle of human nature. For a short Fable, it explains so much about human behavior that it feels like an epic. I don’t remember how old I was when it clicked in my head what that story was really about, but ever since then it’s behaved rather fractal-like in my head (Although most things are behaving that way to me right now, because I’m an official Frack addict) as I’ve consistently seen more complicated patterns of human behavior within it every time I think about it.

An Emperor, who is very vain about his fashion sense, spends a lot of his country's money on his vanity, yet he feels that most of the people around him are too stupid to appreciate what is in reality his extremely gaudy taste. So he searches for a Tailor who will make him something so "beautiful" that only those with the "highest" fashion sense can appreciate it. It doesn't take him long to find his Karl Rove, his Ahmed Chalabi, his St. Paul. A clever Tailor has heard about his quest and responds with a devious plan.

He takes the measure of the Emperor, and declares that he will make him the finest suit imaginable, with the caveat that it will be so unimaginably fine that only those who are truly capable of sensing the greatest beauty will be able to see it, so ineffable will this creation be. The Emperor, of course, is very pleased by this and is looking forward to the day when he can prove to the world that he is not a vain idiot, but that he has the very keenest of aesthetic appreciation.

The Tailor takes his down payment and goes off to the pub and has a merry time. He plays some golf, takes a long weekend off in the hills with an easy lass from down the street, and sleeps off the hangover. He meanwhile sends messages to the Emperor that he's been hard at work, along with descriptions of the suit and how lovely it will be, relating his progress on how difficult and rewarding the work is. How the color is beyond the glamour of gold. How he searched far and wide to find the mythical thread of the gods in ancient and little traveled lands. How he imported the finest lace from ancient Babylon. How he is using only adamantine needles gathered from the secret merchants of Atlantis to do the thread work painstakingly by hand, being so careful that a well turned stitch may take him an hour per knot. The Emperor is beside himself with impatience, and daily his imaginings of the suit grow greater until the blinding beauty of what this suit will be has formed an unshakable picture in his mind.

At long last, the clever Tailor wakes one morning and decides that it is time. He opens up a closet door and grabs a dusty old clothing box from the back of it, cleans it up and proceeds to turn it into the finest dressed box in all the land using old ribbons and bits of cast off cloth from his cutting room floor, causing an absurd amount of envy in all of the other clothing boxes' tiny black hearts.

He then cleans himself up, and dresses himself in what are actually very fine and tasteful clothes, because he really is a fantastic Tailor and truly knows what a nicely cut suit is all about. In fact, looking at the Tailor that morning, you'd be forgiven for thinking that he was the lord of a wealthy fief with an old family and refined sensibilities. Further, he might have been happy to cut the Emperor as fine a suit as this one, but the Tailor knew that his tastes did not run in that direction and would demand something far showier than was truly tasteful.

Getting himself into his role, he grabs some air and arranges it fussily inside the handsomest box ever created. He then sends word to the Emperor that the suit is finished at last. Beside himself with joy, the Emperor sends an escort of his personal guard to bring the Tailor and his suit to the palace.

When the Tailor arrives at the palace, Box of Adonis tucked safely under his arm, the Emperor greedily demands to see the suit, so eager is he to present himself to his subjects as a man of the greatest sensibilities. The Tailor first admonishes the Emperor to remember his caveat, and before taking out the suit, begins to remind him of how sacred and beautiful this suit is, and that he must prepare his eyes to see it lest he be blinded by the beauty etc etc etc...

So after much ado about nothing, they retire to the Emperor’s chambers along with several choice Imperial Attendants and there, apart from prying eyes the Tailor opens the box and... Well what happens here is a matter of much debate. Some people believe that the Emperor, so fixated on the ideas carefully planted by the Tailor of the amazing technicolor suit, in fact actually saw the suit exactly as he imagined it, his fantasies becoming a mirage before his eyes. Others believe that, seeing nothing there he was loath to admit to himself (but even more importantly, would be loath to admit to his courtiers and advisers) that he could not see it, especially in front of his attendants and more so after talking it up for so long that only those with fine aesthetic discernment would be able to look at it, and so proceeded to convince himself that it was there, lest he be laughed at by those with more acumen for not apprehending it. Still others believe that the Emperor knew very well that there was in fact nothing there, but again for the same reasons as stated above and further chose to go along with the Tailor's clever ruse so that he could proclaim himself the only one in the world with the ability to see it; God's chosen fashion sensor.

In any case, whatever was going through the Emperor's mind at the time, the outcome was the same. It will be up to him to face the reality he hid himself from, or the reality he created, on judgment day. For the rest of us, it is what comes next that is important.

The Tailor made a great show of lifting the invisible clothes out of the box and draping them ‘round the foolish ruler. His Attendants, after an initial moment of confusion, began to help the Tailor and made various sounds of approval, exclaiming that the Tailor had done a wonderful job and that the Emperor looked simply incomparable. One of the Attendants quietly slipped out of the room to warn… I mean, to announce of course! To announce to the Lords and Ladies of the court that the Emperor was now dressed in his eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and would be attending them shortly.

The Emperor presented himself to his court, beaming happily in his amazing new outfit which everyone saw to be his bright pink polka-dotted underwear, yet none of them would be the first to say other than that his robes were splendorous (lick spittle cowards that people of such station invariably are). There was a tense moment for the Tailor when a poor ignorant chambermaid came in to tend the fire and gasped upon seeing him holding court before hundreds of his courtiers, wearing nothing but his Imperial Knickers! She turned a truly amazing shade of white which possibly had never been specified on the royal color charts before that day, and began to stammer an apology for walking in on the Emperor in such a state. Having gone over every eventuality in his head many times over, the Tailor smoothly explained to the Emperor and his Attendants in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, but especially by the poor white-faced chambermaid that it only proved his point that those without class or fashion sense would not be able to comprehend the world’s finest fabric creation.

Chambermaids, poor creatures that they are with little in their lives other than the drudgery of cleaning up after other folk’s dirty messes, are resultantly prone to gossip. So naturally word of this exchange spread quickly, although the story which the chambermaid told changed from her simply having seen the Emperor in his knickers to having been temporarily blinded by the Emperor’s au courant hauteur, and was now in fact one of the lucky first to have seen the new wonder which could only be seen, according to the greatest Tailor of the land, (For he was the Emperor’s personal Tailor, was he not?) by people of taste and education! An article of clothing which only those of a complete doltish nature would fail to behold, and of course all of the Lords, Ladies and residents of the palace, who with their position, wealth, and refinement were the envy of those of the working class, had perceived it and therefore proven that the rumors of the Members-of-Refinement only suit were in fact true.

And so of course it was not long before everyone in town determined that they would not be one of the unfortunates to expose their ignorance by failing to see the new outfit, having a great desire to prove themselves every bit as refined as their social superiors.

As it so happened, the Imperial Scheduler had on his calendar for this day an Imperial inspection of the Empire’s Cavalry. As the bent, near-blind old Scheduler informed the Emperor of this duty, the Tailor listened closely, and worried a little. He asked the Imperial Scheduler what he thought of the Emperor’s attire, and whether it was appropriate garb for an official public inspection. The Scheduler, having heard the talk of the eldritch suit of appreciative eyes only, and near blind though he was, exclaimed how fine the Emperor looked and declared that the Cavalry would likely be honored by his well-dressed inspection.

And so the Tailor, deeming the public ready as evinced by the fact of word having spread to the servants, was sure that by the time the Emperor’s retinue arrived outside word would have spread even further, and felt confident that he was safe. He then approached the Emperor and asked for the remainder of his fee, having delivered the new clothes as promised, before taking his leave. The Emperor, being always in the public eye, paid the Tailor his due with a healthy bonus thrown in for having far surpassed his greatest expectations. The Tailor then bowed his way out of the palace, thanking the Emperor for his magnanimity, and telling him that should he have any problems or need any further work done not to hesitate to summon him. The Tailor left in a very jubilant mood indeed, having more gold in his pockets now than ever another tailor may receive in a lifetime, and all for such toil free deception!

The Emperor ordered his retinue be made ready, and, dressed impeccably in naught but his undergarments, proceeded out onto the streets for a much anticipated inspection of his cavalry, for now all of the people would see and understand how wonderful their Emperor’s taste in clothing really was!

Strutting down the avenue outside of his palace, surrounded by his slavering suck-ups, The Emperor began to preen. Never before did such a preening take place as this one. In fact, were the Emperor even a small touch more smug and self-loving, this story may have come down to us through the ages known as The Emperor’s New Preen.

But of course, we all know what it’s really all about. It’s about a grown man publicly walking about in his skivvy, pretending that he looks simply fabulous. And as he walked down the main street of his city in this manner, the people were trying not to snigger, because while they all saw him, um, very clearly shall we say, none of them wished to be the first to admit it and invite possible ridicule in case there was any truth to the idea that he was actually very finely dressed, and so laughing would only expose their own lowness.

People are generally pretty stupid and have overlarge egos, and the Emperor was, well, their Emperor.

A young child, too young and intelligent to have paid any mind to the nonsense talk of the adults but not so young that he didn’t know what was truly important, was therefore looking around the street for interesting things to pick up from the ground and chasing pigeons. As he was running after a particularly energetic pigeon, he found himself quite inadvertently out in the middle of the street… directly in front of the nearly naked Emperor.

As the child’s clear eyes scanned up from the Emperor’s feet to meet his royally clouded eyes, widening in surprise along the way, I like to imagine that a chill of doom shivered up the Emperor’s regally ambivalent spine. I think that deep down, everyone knows you can’t fool children, not about the important things anyway, even when you’ve managed to fool yourself.

The child, not understanding the silly adult complexities of the situation, shouted up to the Emperor (who, leaning back with one leg crooked and arms going bent as he was, looked as if he was ready to flee from this harmless little urchin):

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

Those nearest the unfolding drama gasped, and the silence thundered like a wave. The complete ridiculousness of the situation had been apparent to all, but after being too cowardly to state their convictions on the matter, the child’s innocent question was as a needle to a balloon for the people on the street. And then: laughter. Unable to hold on to their imagined dignity any longer, the throng bellowed until the tears came.

Now, in the old telling of this story, the Emperor, looking quite like a scared little monkey, became ashamed as he realized that the jig was up and high-tailed it back to his palace in order to become decent and to find that louse of a tailor and hang him by his fingers. However, times being what they are, our story does not end nearly as tidily. Instead, our Emperor, looking more like a smug, semi-intelligent nose-picking little monkey, chose to ignore the laughter, loudly pronounce that all of those who were full of mirth were in fact scoundrels, and that he very well was wearing very fine cloth which they obviously were too uneducated and unpatriotic to see, until some of the people came around again to believing in the ruse and began to accuse each other of being on the wrong side of things until no one knew anymore what was naked and what was not. And rather than hanging the insipidly deceitful Tailor, the Emperor made him his top fashion adviser and gave him a big raise.

And that is The End of all things, children.

Ironic Irony And Other Twisty Paths Of Fate

Just in case anyone was thinking that irony was not a living, breathing concept which must be dealt with in the real world from time to time, rather than an internet lifestyle, I want to disabuse you of that notion. I was bitch slapped by irony yesterday.

I passed my motorcycle exam! Yesterday was the 4th class of my PA Basic Motorcycle Safety course, and after about 6 hours of classroom time and 10 hours of practical riding time, they give you a fairly difficult practical examination. I can say without shame that I did extremely well. I did a figure 8 in a tiny painted box without touching the lines. I did 90 degree turns very smoothly and most importantly, I did the emergency stops with a fine degree of expertise. The emergency stops are, you know, stopping really fast in case an obstacle on the road jumps out in front of you like a car or say, a deer. I killed at those. I've always been a good break screecher.

And then on the way home from passing the exam with flying colors, a deer jumped out in front of me and I rammed it at 15 miles per hour. I must say that I'd been going much faster, and I saw it coming out of the woods and hit the breaks, but I wasn't fast enough. I don't think I hurt the deer much, he kind of shook himself, got up and took off. Damn bambi.

And I'm ok... mostly. I think it only bent the handlebar a bit on my bike when I fell; I didn't see any other scratches and all of the hoses and lines and whatnot seemed intact, so I continued to drive it home. I have screwed up my ankle a bit, though, but I'm sure it's just a bruise... I can still limp about just fine and it's only slightly painful.

So my point about irony is... deer are a menace! Kill them all!

Seedy Underbellies Of Entities That Put Up Pretty Fronts

You know that thing that people do, where they accuse you of doing the very things that they themselves are egregiously guilty of? And then when it blows up they stand back and act as though they have gained wisdom about other people's Machiavellian motivations through the experience, yet seem to have no idea whatsoever that they are so deeply involved in denial and blame shifting that they've become a sanctimonious holier-than-thou asinine-hole? They do this because they cannot conceive of the possibility that they might somehow be the insanely wrong party. They do this in order to change the reality of the situation and avoid having to take a long hard look at their own behavior and questionable choices. It's all about the failure to accept responsibility, or even reality.

I hate that. Being on the receiving end of that crazy bat is really hard, too. I imagine that's what it's like to be a Democrat. You know, Republicans shout out the most insane babble about how the Democrats hate America because they want to stop the war, and when they try to point out to the Republicans that the war was based on lies, they sound all whiny and nit picky. How do the Republicans do that? Because they shout louder and insaner, and an audience loves that crap. The Democrats just hang tight and hope that reason will out.

Well anyway... I'm sorry to go on so. I haven't posted in a while because I've been bunched up about some things and I find it hard to write when I find the subject material I really want to rant about so personally distasteful. I know I shouldn't say the things I really want to say, and so it's not so much writer's block as writer's constipation. Christy, you're my spiritual ex-lax! I think I still need a good colon cleanse, though.

So, to change the subject, here's another picture of where I was last week!

This is a picture of Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard. What? No, I mean yes, really. Gay Head. Ok fine, here, I'll prove it:

Aside from the scenic and improbably named Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard also has other lighthouses and loads of gorgeous scenery and snooty people... and child molesters and wife beaters. It's a long story. The child molestation thing was borderline... it involves sitting in a brew-pub restaurant overlooking the ocean and watching this guy be overly patty with his 8 year old daughter. Nothing exactly over the line, but certainly uncomfortable and slightly inappropriate. There were about ten people at their table, so it was hard to decide if I should be beating him and calling child support, or just chalking it up to a weirdly affectionate family. I chalked it up and left, feeling uncomfortable.

Then that night, at about 3am, I was woken from a deep sleep in the charming New England Inn I was staying at in the town of Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard by a loud crash followed by several muffled crashes coming from the room beneath me. I assumed that some drunken idiot had locked himself out of his room and after breaking his door down, was trying to make himself ready for bed. You know, drunkenly. I started to go back to sleep, when a loud moaning from the hallway roused me again. It was a woman, who sounded a bit like Moaning Myrtle, yelling "Oh my God! Somebody help me! Somebody please help me!" repeatedly. I dashed out of bed and threw up the sash... I had gotten a bit sunburned that day, swimming on the sunny Vineyard shore, and so when this lobster-red bald dude wearing nothing but his knickers came dashing gallantly out into the hall, he found a damsel in distress sobbing with her face in her hands at the top of the stairs and a cowardly man, all of a sudden backing off back down the stairs.

Long story short, we called the police after her husband took off with her car keys and all her money, and I didn't get back to sleep until 6 am. Grumble grumble. And just earlier that day I'd been thinking about how easy a job the cops must have on Martha's Vineyard. It all looks very charming and nice, but even paradise has a seedy underbelly, apparently.

Other than that sordid little adventure, I have nothing but positive reviews for the place. If you ever go, see it by scooter. You can zip around the island in a day and see some of the most fantastic beach houses you are ever likely to see, spectacular scenery right out of Norman Rockwell and/or Maxfield Parrish, get some beach time in on arcadian shores, (I really like that word. Arcadian.) and even, if you're very lucky, fight some crime.

The rest of my Martha's Vineyard pictures are up here.

Orlando... I Got Nothin'.

Being in Orlando is like going through chemotherapy. It's stressful and I'm bald. Seriously, I do NOT understand how it can possibly be that people actually pay large amounts of money to voluntarily come here for vacation. The girl that is training me in the fine art of exam proctoring and I finally were able to escape the hotel and go to Universal Studios yesterday... ugh. That place is horrendous. We didn't do the ride thing, ($80 for a day pass! That's insane!) but they had a sort of a small Universal City walk with all kinds of completely plastic and phony experiences and a multitude of cheap crap for souvenirs. And thousands of people. Fat, crying, stupid masses of walking human cash cows who were suckered into this obscenity of a "holiday", and are somehow convinced that going to see The Blue Man Group Show is the hight of all culture. Regina and I had loads of subject material to be bitingly sarcastic about, so it was a really good time.

We ate at the Bob Marley themed restaurant, "Tribute To Freedom" where I had the 'No Woman, No Cry' salad and the 'Satisfy Your Soul' chicken wings. Like I said, loads of subject material to be bitingly sarcastic about. Which is good, because I don't know what I would have done with myself if for some odd reason I could not have found something to complain about in this most commercially mercenary of all cities.

Regina is my new lesbian friend by the way. When she hasn't been busy showing me the ins and outs of proctorship, we've been at either TGI Friday's or the Tiki Lounge drinking too much. Because that's Orlando; Hotels, crap chain restaurants, and manufactured adventure parks. (And I don't mean for the adjective manufactured to refer to the park itself, but to describe the so-called adventure. It's a manufactured adventure. Which is an oxymoron, stupid, misleading, and insulting.) And freeways. There are no actual roads in Orlando. The only way to get around is by very confusing pretzel shaped freeways, and half of them, naturally, are toll roads.

So other than our jaunt to Universal yesterday, I haven't been able to get out. You're kind of expected to be around for the most part while students are taking their classes, just in case someone needs something. It's an easy job; I've probably done more drinking and had more lesbian relationship conversations than actual work, but I'm on call 24/7. Sigh. In the future I will have to book more time after the ends of classes in order to do any real touring. But, I did get to see Orlando's very own Devils Tower:

I call it Dreyfuss, the Tuna Chronicles of his Madness. Or maybe, Orlando in a Nutshell.

And last but not not least, because of all the nagging, KC tagged me and I promised I would respond. I put it off as long as possible, but I had to pay the piper sooner or later. 15 arcane items about me, whose format I stole directly from KC so I wouldn't have to think too hard about it:

1- Orlando triggers my gag reflex. (Another chemotherapy comparison. Also, it makes my body really sore from all the drinking.)

2- By the time I graduated high school I had attended 10 schools.

3- I met Pete Seeger backstage when I was 5, and I asked him to play Abi Yo-Yo on his next set, and he did.

4- My parents used to put covers over their coffee cups when I was 1 because of the time I peed from a prone position in my bassinet right into Dad's coffee.

5- I followed my friend Joshua and his girlfriend Lauren as they intensely followed J.G. Thirlwell around a bar in Salzburg after a Foetus show, scaring him a little bit with the intensity of their star-struck questioning.

6- I absolutely do not like musicals. Except for the South Park movie. And the Once More With Feeling episode of Buffy.

7- I once walked from Main St. Stroudsburg over Fox Hill to the Delaware Water Gap during the worst Blizzard we'd had in years back in '93 to go to the Birthday Party of a hot girl I liked. She wasn't impressed, really.

8- I was in a fashion show my senior year of high school and was forced to wear a wedding dress.  (double-ugh)

9- I taught myself how to snowboard.

10- I have a newly 21 year old sister whom I try not to think about what the hell she's getting up to in that damn liberal arts school of hers.

11- I have an affinity for plain black T-shirts. And plain black socks. And plain black pants. And different brightly colored polka-dot boxer shorts.

12- I have a very healthy relationship with myself. Details are personal.

13- As a child, I used to tell people that I was a boy.

14- I think about Buffy. Constantly.

15- I have probably been to the country of your birth.

The only people I would in turn tag with this are people who read my blog. And there are most likely less than 15 people who read this. So, consider yourself tagged. Unless you don't want to be. It's cool, I totally understand.

An Impassioned Argument Using Not Only Logic, But Mixed Metaphors And Guts, Too.

I think I've got it aalllll figgered out, man.  I know why stupid people always seem to win out in this world, why logic has left the building. It's really quite simple. Say two people are having an argument about something. Anything. For instance, who can run faster, Superman or the Flash? Or who would win in a fight, a Caveman or an Astronaut? Or whether Ann Coulter is a mutant or not. Anything. Say one of the people involved in the argument is an intelligent, logical being. A Rational, as a sop to Miss Luongo's personality theory obsession. Convinced that conclusions ought to be reached with actual facts taken into consideration, each step of the argument followed by the next logical step, based on actual evidence. Say the other debator is... well, less rational. A Guardian type. Convinced that little niceties such as good conclusions based on logical thought are less important than following what your gut says is right, because we all know that following your gut is always such a good idea. Passionate argument is proof enough for them.
In the immortal words of Howard W. Campbell Jr.:

"The truth of your leader August Craptower, and those like him, will be with mankind forever, as long as there are men and women who listen to their guts instead of their minds."
                    -From Mother Night

August Craptower was a leader in the neo-nazi community in Kurt Vonnegut's little morality play there. August Craptower, George Bush, same thing.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that say these two are having an argument. The logical one states his case. He won't usually be all impassioned and heartfelt and all up in people's guts because he feels that the logic of his case, the obvious rightness of what he's saying based on rational thought, will shine through and people will get it, and as long as the people listening aren't totally evil they'll agree with him because he's right. I'm not saying that the logical person is infallible here, only that when he's thought things through clearly, he tends to firmly believe he's on the side of right, and based on fact and evidence, or lack of actual evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq thereof, feels that any other course of action is insane. The Flash can run faster than Superman, because DC comics has made a point of that many times. The Flash can go so fast he vibrates through walls. Superman can fly faster than the Flash can run, but that wasn't the question. Ok maybe there is no logic there, really, but you get where I'm coming from.

So, the logical guy makes his case, and steps back, knowing that after the evidence he's presented, there can be no argument, unless new facts are brought to light which he then will have to deal with. Then the less logical, yet more impassioned Guardian type steps up. He is also convinced of his rightness, but not because of any facts or evidence, excepting perhaps the tidbit that of course God created the world because look at the banana! (It was made to fit a Man's hand (or a monkey's...) and has a natural pull-tab, like a soda can! You can't evolve something like that! (Except that actually, man has cultivated the banana for centuries, making it what it is today, somewhat showing how evolution can work at an accelerated pace, but never mind that bit of fact.))

No, he's convinced of his rightness because he feels it can't be any other way. Of course Saddam is evil and has Weapons of Mass Destruction. He's all dark skin toned and has an evil laugh, and besides, G.W.B. wouldn't lie to us, not the President! He's more than a man, he's God's chosen leader for the greatest nation on Earth! Of course God is on America's side, otherwise we wouldn't be so powerful! He's on our side, just like he was on the side of history's other greatest empires, like Rome, and Egypt... oh wait, they don't usually take the logic that far, you know, because then they'd have to change their opinion. No, the illogical side of this argument will do whatever it takes to win the argument, because he feels right. He'll use facts that are perceived, he'll even make shit up, take things out of context and use them to prove his view of things. And the other guy, the logical one, will tend to sit back and laugh at the other guy's antics, because obviously he's an idiot, and nobody's going to buy that junk... Except of course, that they do.

Why? Well, my rather simple theory is that, since the greater part of the human population are these so-called Guardian types, sheep in other words, they will believe whoever talks longer and louder. Look at that guy, they say, he is so heartfelt and he won't shut up. Obviously he believes what he's saying. That whistleblower over there, who used to be a weapons inspector in Iraq, only offered a cold assesment that he found no WMD. But this guy, he knows that there are weapons over there, if only we keep looking! And he's never even been over there, so that shows you the strength of his conviction!

Logical people don't seem to believe what they're saying, because they offer things as cold fact and then stop talking once they've reached their conclusion, because once an actual case has been reached based on facts, there's really not much left to say. Illogical people seem to believe what they're saying because they never shut up and get louder and louder and more O'Reilly about it, and because they never seem to reach an actual logical conclusion, feel the need to make up for it with volume and heart. And the sucker that is the human race eats it up.

It's all very sad, but based on this fact alone, I'd say that the human race doesn't have a whole lot of time left. As races go, that is. The inevitable conclusion to a race gone with the Pied Piper is extinction. Unless lemmings learn to actually use their minds and not only their guts.

Wal To Wal Bargains On Wal To Wal Damn Shoddy Workmanship

Growing up in a world where the minimum wage was $4.50 an hour, there are two things that I learned to buy the best quality of that I could afford: shoes, and a wristwatch. I learned this lesson by finding myself back at Payless Shoes every month to replace the pair I'd bought there the previous month which already had seams with holes and flappy soles. And also by that same day stopping at K-Mart for another Timex because the one I'd had for only a few weeks was telling me the time on the planet Crapwatch.. So, eventually I figured out that If I went to the Army/Navy store and spent my shoe budget for the next 4 months on a pair of Officer's shoes, I wouldn't have to replace them for two to five years. And if I bought a mid-priced Swatch (Their quality line, not those candy-colored vomit things they got famous for back in the day) for the price of 8 Timexes, I could count the dollars saved on the additional 20 Timexes I eventually didn't have to buy.

It's a lesson that really only needed to apply to those two items for most of my life. Other items that applied to my life in such an intimate way never seemed to be an issue. Clothing lasted a good long time, whatever you paid for it, books came only in hardcover or paperback, and Mom & Dad supplied the rest until I moved out, and then I was really happy I already had a good watch and good shoes because then I could barely afford food, but that's another story.

But I'm finding that, after my burning re-entry into the atmosphere of the planet United States, this is a lesson that needs to be re-learned about many other things, and after a few anecdotes and some preliminary research, I've discovered the cause to be Wal-Mart. Here's the thing; Like McDonald's and other fast food, Wal-Mart tastes great to me. I like going to one hugeongous warehouse store and getting everything I need at one go, and getting the hell out, because I actually hate shopping. My feet get tired and my brain begins to swim when I have to make choices between things like strawberry, or blueberry, or whitening, or breath-freshening, or anti-plaque toothpastes! So I say, get in, get out, and enjoy the extra time you've gained in your life from it by locking yourself in your room with your computer and  your bloodshot eyes.

But, also like fast food, there is shit in Wal-Mart's meat! The anecdote that I first heard was from my friend Stephanie; she related that she (or a friend of hers, I can't remember) had bought an HP laptop computer there for a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the same model at Circuit City. In a matter of weeks, the hard drive crashed. She sent it back in for repairs, got it back, and a few weeks later, System Failure 2, at your local box office! So they brought it in and had it replaced with a new one, same model. System Failure 3: Joke's On You, Sucka! Intrigued as to why this should be, when HP is a respected manufacturer of fine computers, she did a little research and discovered that Wal-Mart, in their quest to bring loyal Wal-Mart shoppers lower prices, actually dictates to their manufacturers what prices they are willing to pay to stock their shelves with stuff. So, what companies like HP wind up having to do, in order to continue making any sort of a profit at all, is to manufacture a line of computers with their name on it, using inferior materials and cheaper production costs in Mexican child slave factories*, solely to be shipped to Wal-Mart stores!

If it's not obvious to you why this might be a bad thing, here's the breakdown: Johnny Dipshit wants to buy a computer. At Circuit City, he sees one for $1200, but at Wal-Mart, he sees the same one for $800. So, obviously he buys it at Wal-Mart. Well, there are 10,000 Johnny Dipshits in the world out there buying laptops right now. When Circuit City, or any other retailer, doesn't sell their $1200 model, they stop selling them and all that you can find, anywhere, is the crappy fall-apart in 3 weeks $800 model. Do the math, it's not good.

Well, I didn't really buy this anecdote, (seriously, I didn't. I'm not just saying that to sound like a reasonable crank with an educated conversion to Wal-Mart haters R us) but I started noticing little things. My Dad's wife Erin bought me a few car accessories at Wal-Mart for Christmas that I had asked for. The very solid-looking extendable snow brush and ice-scraper snapped in two the first time I tried to use it on my icy windshield. A pillow that I bought there for my room started off nice and fluffy but within two weeks you wouldn't have been blamed for mistaking it for a table place mat. ALL of the clothing I've purchased there has either shrunk, lost it's color, or frayed to an unacceptable degree after just a few washes.

Not everything I've bought there has caused me problems. Those blank DVD's for instance. The toothpaste seems to work just fine. So far my beanbag chair is ok... I'll keep you updated on that if anything happens there. But... it's all a part of the general degradation of US standards that I've been seeing everywhere. Mike Judge is a genius for his film Idiocracy, because the more I look around, the more prophetic it looks. It also reminds me of the bit in the novel 1984 by George Orwell about how everybody is eating substandard food and drinking crap Gin that makes your stomach into a big fat churning ulcer, because of the devolution of standards, or something. It's been a long time since I read it. Feel free to fill in the blank there, for me.

Anyway, I did some of my own internet based research, and with a preliminary article scan, here are two links that are quite troubling and eye-opening that I've found. The Wal-Mart You Don't Know, and The Man Who Said No To Wal-Mart. I'm sure some of you who like to comment when I talk about stuff you already know all about will have already looked into all this, or had your own experiences... send me anecdotes, send me links! I'd like to read further. I'm already considering boycotting Wal-Mart, as I have done with fast food; In both cases more for my own benefit than for any gung-ho anti-establishment reasons. I have already decided to limit at the very least the types of things I'll buy there. No electronics, no clothes, and no crap. Toothepaste, milk, other things that I don't see any degradation of the product on... for now. But you're in my crosshairs, Wal-Mart! Bow down before me and tremble! MUAHH HAHAHAHA!!!

Right. Anyway. The point of all this is, I think you'll find that in the long run, whatever your budget may be, that you're better off buying your laptops from quality retailers, and your clothing from the non-budget stores... granted, it's harder to find those sorts of things at decent prices outside of Wal-Mart these days because they've put so many lesser entities out of business, but it's still possible... FOR NOW!

 

*This was an attempt at humor, not a statement of fact. Although it's my opinion that Wal-Mart probably uses Mexican child slave labor as a bargaining tool with their manufacturers to make a cheaper product, I have no facts to back it up. It's also my opinion that they should not be allowed to dictate the manufacturer's pricing, but what do I know?

Time Wounds All Heals, And I May Be It This Time, So This Round To You But The Game Is Far From Over

I watched The US vs. John Lennon last night. Good flick. I admit I don't know that much about him, never having dove headfirst into Beatlemania, but it seems he had a bit of a Messiah Complex. Which, hey, good job, I say. If more people had Messiah Complexes, and weren't, you know, sociopathic, but went around getting millions of people to chant things like "All we are saying, is give peace a chance", I might have more hope for humanity. Anyway, the movie focused on the part of John's life where he evolves from a moptop into a political activist, and the US government's attempts, under Nixon and Hoover, to intimidate and have him deported.

As an aside, one thing that struck me in this movie were the bits of Government propaganda used to support the Vietnam War in those days, and how similar... no, how identical they were to our present day Nixonish regime's propaganda. Lord, we need another Messiah!

One thing that troubled me about the whole incident was something G. Gordon Liddy said in the film. John Lennon was a British citizen, living in New York under a visitor's visa. It galled G. that a foreigner, who loved living in the US and enjoying the freedoms that our National forefathers provided would dare to criticize the US war policy. "If you don't like it, go back to Britain", was the sentiment. And, as anti-US policy as I am, it sounds like a good point. As a US citizen, it would be supremely galling of me to go hang out in London and criticize the Blair administration for it's part in the Iraq war, wouldn't you agree?

Where it breaks down is here. The favorite Republican slogan, said off-camera, of "Shut up, or get out" is so twisted and unAmerican that anyone who says it and believes it, and even worse uses it as a policy making idea, ought to be the ones that get bitchslapped. I feel that, something that is often not thought about in those circles is that America was not a nation founded on religion, or borders, or policy. It was founded on ideas of equality and human rights, regardless of where you come from or who you worship or what kind of hat you hang on your coatrack in the evenings, and as such should be able to stand up to the critical eye of truth, or survive the attacks of lies, whichever Nation the mouthpiece hails from. Obviously, America failed that test in Vietnam, and we are woefully failing it again in Iraq. When the powers that be try to silence people, regardless of their citizenship, it means that they're scared. George Bush isn't scared, which means that Peace & Love and all that hippie malarky has no champion this time around.

Okay, getting off my high horse now, whom I've named Lennon.

Well, I've been "tagged" by Miss Luongo, and when such an august persona as she tells you to write something, you do not decline. I have been told that I must blog about my answers to the questions in the following category: Things I Know By Heart. Before I continue, I feel I must offer the disclaimer that although this rather feels like one of those emails you get with a list of half-questions such as: Favorite Color? Most Embarassing Moment? Second Favorite Movie? etc... and you answer them and reply to everyone on the mailing list, additionally sending it to five new friends, who in turn have to answer, it is not. One of those emails, I mean. First off, it's not an email. It's a "tag you're it!" blog game. Secondly, I was tagged under the geas of Buffy the Vampire Slayer metaphors, and seeing as I'm such a starstruck fanboy when it comes to Buffy, I must oblige. It's like when religious people invoke their deity. God told me to do it, amen! Well, Buffy has commanded me, via her latest acolyte Miss Luongo, and the power of the Slayer compels me.

Man, sometimes when I write things, I realize how lost a cause I really am. Anyway, moving on.

Things I Know By Heart:
Two Novels/Poems/Plays: What am I, Abraham Lincoln? When I was in the sixth grade I was in a play called Snow White and the Six Dwarves. There were only six because Smiley went to Hollywood to do toothpaste commercials. It was a stupid play. But I knew my lines by heart, does that count? I hate poetry. It seems to me that poetry is a cheap economical affected way of saying things in a misleading manner. Say what you mean, dammit! I understand that it's all supposed to be pretty, and in the old days a good way to make chicks weak in the knees. But, give me a good novel any day. I don't know any novels by heart though, that's ridiculous. So...

Love guppy

			You mean all the world to me.
			Without you I can't be free.
			You make me pant considerably.
			You're my love guppy.

			You have the finest rosebud's taste.
			Without you my life is waste,
			I'll stick to you like Elmer's paste.
			You're my love guppy.

			I'd break through a citadel.
			I'd fight with a raging bull, 
			Though winning would seem improbable.
			You're my love guppy.

			My love's as strong as the mid-ocean ridge.
			You shine like the rainbow bridge
			or like that light inside my fridge.
			You're my love guppy.

			For you I'd consume haggis,
			or lose the joys of Bacchus,
			or live in sin with Mike Dukakis.
			You're my love guppy.

			No time's too long for me to wait.
			For you, I'd fight against Fate,
			though maybe you could lose some weight,
			You're my love guppy.

			Without you, I'd be not whole,
			I would have to sell my soul,
			or gulp a quart of Tide-E-Bowl.
			You're my love guppy.

			My passion is always mounting.
			I'm like a geyser founting.
			Well, maybe not, but who's counting?
			You're my love guppy.

			The love that is the more intense
			always has the most silence,
			like quiet bursts of flatulence.
			You're my love guppy.

			I know that my love is true.
			I know that you'll love me too,
			or I'll hold my breath 'till I turn blue
			You're my love guppy.

			I'd not forget you if I tried.
			You make me all warm inside.
			My love's as pure as Naugahyde.
			You're my love guppy.

			Then I hear the words let slip
			From betwixt impatient lips,
			"I want to have a relationship.
			You're my love guppy."

So I don't actually have it memorized, but that's poetry!

Two Films/Television Shows You Can Quote From:  Well that's easy. The Kids in the Hall. The funniest show ever made, and I quote from it on a daily basis. If not out loud, then at least in my head, because if there isn't someone else around who knows the show as well as I do, it's not funny. For instance: "Well I think the great leader is some sort of twisted ass freak!" Or, "I'm crushing your head!" Or, "I'm not being sarcastic." And, not to be too obvious or anything, but you had to see it coming. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cordelia: "So, does looking at guns really want to make you have sex?" Xander: "I'm 17. Looking at linoleum makes me want to have sex."

Two Songs To Which You Know Every Word: Actually, I have a real problem with this. I don't know any words to any songs... at least, you know, not if the song is not playing at the moment so I can kind of stumble along with it, and that's only if I am extremely familiar with the music already. It's a serious mental block. I'm sure it has something to do with my disdain of poetry. When there's music on, I don't actually really ever pay attention to the words, which shocks my friends to no end. But, like I tell them, it's the music I care about, not the wooing of women by post-pubescent songwriters. Even when I really like the lyrics to something, I never commit them to memory. But having said all that, Scott, being so distressed over my handicap, saw his solemn duty as my best friend to teach me a song, and after days of practicing, (I'm not joking. Days.) I got this one down:

Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went straight to my head! -From JAWS.

Two Dishes You Can Make Without A Recipe: My Mom's special cheesecake, and tacos. If I buy the kind that come in that little yellow box.

Two Cities You Can Navigate Without A Map: I'm going to take this opportunity to be snotty about how well-travelled I am. Munich, Germany. Because I lived within an hour of it for six years and it's actually one of my top 2 favorite cities in the world. I spent alot of time there. The Hauptbahnhof (main train station) is one of my favorite parts of the city and makes a great starting point.
And while it may seem boastful considering what a maze the place is, but Venice. Because it's also one of my top 2 favorite cities and I've been there about 7 times, and because I know all of the major points and I don't mind wandering around it's back alleys lost for a few hours until stumbling upon a place I know. Actually, that's one of the most pleasurable activities in Venice. The other is riding the vaporetti (boat buses) around all day. San Marco piazza is sublime, too.

By the way, if anybody needs a personal tour guide, you know, I am totally for hire. For those two cities, or any other place I've been. Or not been. I'm really good at travelling.

And An Extra Question–What’s A Date You Always Remember, and What’s A Date You Always Forget?: This is the silliest question and reminds me more of those emails I was talking about than the other questions. But, the power of the Slayer compels me regardless, so, I always remember Christmas, because even if for some reason I didn't want to, the retail community makes sure that I don't. And I don't know of any dates I've forgotten, otherwise they wouldn't count as answers to this question, would they then? That was a very British answer in honor of John Lennon. Peace out.

Here's a picture of me in Prague which I thought of posting here because of the inherent personality-typing implicit in the tag questions. It's supposed to be mildly snarky. Probably it's narcissitic. Damn you, Myers-Briggs!

A Cranky Family Heritage, And Damn Proud Of It.

Well I hope everyone had a splendid St. Patrick's day. I myself spent the entire day in Cincinatti helping the Ohio Williams clan help my Grandmother move from her independent living home into her newer, smaller, assisted living home. Other than to say that these are NOT the same things as a nursing home, I won't bore you with descriptions.

I am really, really sore. She has alot of old family heirloom furniture, and you know, that old time furniture is not nearly as good as IKEA. For one thing, it's all huge and made of solid, solid wood. Oak and whatnot. So, very tiring to move. I can't believe any of that stuff still exists; think about how much more useful it would be as firewood, and modern furniture is so lightweight and cheap that it's either much easier to move or is so fragile that you might as well throw it all out and buy new stuff every time you move. God Bless mass consumerism and the global pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Also, speaking of mass consumerism and the global pandering to the lowest common denominator, the area where my Ohio branch of the Williams family lives is chock full of fast food joints, chain restaurants, and chain stores... the modern strip mall hell that we're all used to seeing, right? Well, something I noticed, and have been noticing in the Stroudsburg area as well, is that if you don't fucking feel like eating at a Ruby Tuesday's, or Red Robin's, or TGI Friday's, or any of a hundred other chain restaurants that serve identical menus with identical-tasting food nationwide, you don't have much else in the way of choice. What I mean is, if you want to eat at a unique but tasty privately owned restaurant, where the owner is very proud and/or involved in his business and the food is cooked fully right there on premises (meaning that rather than an employee of Outback Steakhouse unfreezing a pre-cooked steak, warming it up and sending it out, a real live Chef in a fully functional kitchen picks a piece of raw meat out of the walk-in and cooks it to perfection and serves it to you fresh off the grill just the way you asked for it) you really have to search. While driving around town out here, I didn't see any businesses, food or otherwise, that weren't part of a chain located in a strip mall. And I was looking. In Stroudsburg there are still a few genuine restaurants left, but the chains are slowly taking over even there. Where my Dad lives, near Allentown, it's horrendous. There are still a few non-chain diners in the area, however, and hopefully that's an East Coast tradition that will never die out; I love Diners. The greasier spoonier the better.

But since leaving PA with my Dad for the 10 hour drive out here yesterday, we've eaten at a Bob Evans, a Red Robin's, Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast, a Street-something or other (we don't have them in PA, I don't think. Can't remember the name) which is a chain that specializes in chili cheese dogs, and a Twin-Dragon Chinese buffet. And that's all I've eaten. I feel unbelievably bloated and greasy, actually. This isn't even fast food, folks! Well, mostly not. But the point is, I'm beginning to suspect that chain restaurants are no better for you than fast food, and that our finer dining-out options are slowly disappearing. And that the food in our grocery stores is slowly becoming pre-cooked individually wrapped crap.

Not totally of course, but think back to what grocery stores and restaurants were like when you were a kid... there is a definite downward progression in quality. Hell, I remember going to Pizza Hut when I was like 6 or 7 and the pizzas were made totally from scratch in an oven and they served beer and the place was cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoky as hell. And you could play Space Invaders on a glass table top console. Those pizzas were awesome, and it was before they began joining the fast food method of streamlining everything into utter shit. Ah well... I'm just sore and cranky and full of chain food gas, don't mind me. I'm not even being consistent. I may have to think deeper about my argument before I even know if I have a point.

But actually it hasn't been a bad trip. I got to see my cousins, and my closest cousin, Karen, has a 1 & 1/2 year old daughter named Kennedy, who is , I suppose as these things work, my 2nd cousin, and she was alot of fun to meet. While we were moving Grandmother's stuff, my other cousin Keith and I stumbled upon her photo albums, which generally we avoid like the plague because if she sees you with them she will want to go through every single picture with you for hours and I've lost one or two cousins to insanity that way, I'm sad to say. But it was an altogether different matter without her around, and I got to see alot of pictures that I haven't seen in maybe 25 years of when Cousin Karen and I were babies and of my very young Mom and Dad... It was nice because I often forget how beautiful my Mom was (My sister Katie looks alot like Mom did then) and how much I loved my cousin back then... but sorry, you guys don't really care about all of this. It was just one of those deeply nostalgic moments for me and I didn't want to forget.

But one thing I do want to mention is the story that I finally got straight (well, mostly straight) from my Grandmother on my great great (great?) Grandfather, Hawkins Hart Hatchett. I love this story and am very proud of it. His dad stole a horse. He was caught, and although he could have been sentenced to hang, Judge Hart was lenient and only made him pay a fine or something. So great great great (great?) grandpa middle-named his firstborn son after the Judge that didn't hang him, and Hart has been the firstborn's middle name ever since. Of course my line came through my Grandmother (née Hatchett), but she passed on the Hart name nonetheless. And on the Williams side... well, all we know there is that great great (great?) grandpa was a stowaway on a ship from Portugal, possibly a pirate, and when he hightailed it off the ship upon arrival in the New World he changed his name to Williams and we haven't got a clue what family he was originally from. Horsethieves, pirates and mysterious stowaways, that's my heritage. And I couldn't be more set-up about it.

Also, I may have embelleshed one or two details purely for my pleasure, but it's all essentially true. He could have been a pirate. What else was he doing, all stowing away like that on Portugese "Trading Vessels?"

Anyway, I've got another long day of driving back to PA with Dad tomorrow, and possibly some disgusting food to vomit up later. Time for sleeping and dreaming of my gloriously shady ancestors.

What Damn Part Of This Blog Is So Confusing? All You Have To Do Is Read. 1st Graders And Below, And Short Bus Riders Are Exempt

Dr. Chate, the mad Thai eye guy who performed my Lasik operation, was very pleased with his performance. After my post-op exam yesterday, he said I have 20/20, so, sweet. Apparently, and I knew this going in, but it's actually pretty rare to achieve 20/20, especially if you're starting with an astigmatism, which I had. So today, I feel extremely fortunate, and hope that several months down the road, I am able to appreciate it fully. I'm unable to at the moment, except you know, aesthetically, because there are still some side effects that typically do not go away for up to 6 months, and in some cases may not go away at all. For the last 12 days, since the operation, I've had to use a variety of medicated eye drops quite regularly, but I finished the prescriptions up on most of them the other day. I have to keep using the natural tear eyedrops though, because every morning when I wake up, my eyes are as dry as the desert, and so that's uncomfortable. Also, I am still wearing those eyeshields to bed every night, so that I don't unconsciously poke myself in the eye and all that. It's quite a production, taping those things to my face every evening. I've kind of turned it into an art form; see what creative way I can tape the plastic bug eyes on so they don't fall off whilst tossing and turning in my sleep. If anyone had been around to see some of the more amusing configurations... well, I'm just glad nobody was. Anyway, I only have to do that for two more nights, so I'm looking forward to stopping that. But the best side effects are the visuals. At night, lights get this crazy starburst/halo effect. Like you've been swimming in a heavily chlorinated pool for too long. Sometimes you see it during the day, if the lighting condition is right. If it's a really bright day, everything can get rather halo-y, which is disconcerting from time to time. There's a small small chance that the dry eye and internal starburst filter, as Scott likes to call it, will never go away. Which would be a bummer, but I think I could probably get used to it. The fact of the matter is, when it comes down to it, is that I HAVE 20/20!!! Any side effects, since I didn't go blind, are totally worth that. It's hard to explain, but after Lasik, it's like being able to see with glasses, only without the glasses.

Um... I guess it's not that hard to explain.
(That was a line break, right? See, I can use 'em if I want. Look here, I'll do it again.)

But seriously folks, the next time I go scuba diving, I'll really be able to see everything, because you can't dive with glasses. Even just normal swimming, for heaven's sake! The next time I snowboard I don't have to worry about falling and breaking them, or the next time I walk into a warm room from out in the cold (foggy glasses are irritating), no more falling asleep with them on and waking to find you've bent them, no more smudgey spots to clean, (Actually, sometimes I might miss that one. Cleaning your glasses is a great way to pretend to be listening to someone while in fact trying to tune them out. I learned that from watching Buffy, which, hey! I can now watch TV without glasses. Don't know if that actually will make any difference, as I haven't watched any in a very long time, but I don't care. From now on, everything without glasses is cool.) no more unsightly bridge spots on my nose, or frame arm marks on the sides of my head, no more having to choose out a pair of stylish frames that identify me as an individual from the weak-ass selection the optical center has, no more having to strategically place them on my nose so I can see under my chin in the mirror while shaving, because I now have full peripheral vision! Not that that's as cool as I thought it was going to be. I had this notion that the full range of my eyes would be clearly seeable at all times, but no, it doesn't work that way. Still have to look in the direction you're interested in, at the moment. But still, my spectacles' frames are no longer the limiting factor, and that's pretty nice. There is one dream I've had to give up, unfortunately, one thing which Dr. Chate said I could never ever do again, no matter how well my eyes heal. "Michael", he told me 12 days ago, "I'll perform the operation, but there is one thing, one thing that I'm afraid you'll have to give up, because your eyes simply won't be able to take it."
"What is it, Dr.?" I trembled.
"I'm very sorry, but you'll never be able to box again." He shook his head.
(In Darth Vader's voice, upon hearing Padme was dead) "NNNNOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
So, my career in boxing is finished, and that Tyson exhibition fight cancelled, but I'll live with it. I asked him if it was still ok to hit a guy, and he said oh yeah sure, no problem. Just don't take hits to the face every day. So, whew, right?
So, now that the credits are rolling, I have to give some mad props out to my peeps. Y'all. Specifically, thanks to Scott, for all the advice on places to eat in Bangkok, the play by play of his own Lasik surgery experience, which certainly gave me a heads up on one or two things I otherwise may have been unpleasantly surprised by, and lastly, even though I didn't take him up on it, his helpful map which he drew in great detail for me of all the best hooker bars he discovered through painful legwork. It's the thought that counts, bro.
(Just kidding. He didn't do that. And Steven, if you tease H. about loose Thai women any more, I'm going to hurt you.)
Also, thanks to all the fine people over at Luongoworld for the moral support... Civil Service forms, my ass.
Anyway, see you soon.

I Know, I'm Sorry, I'm Behaving Like A Total Particle Accelerator. I'll Stop, Truly I Will, Please Don't Stay.

So one of the more vexing problems facing scientists who explore the quantum universe is that the very act of observing quantum phenomena (do dooo do do do) changes the thing observed. (Mah-nah-mah-nah.) That's why when looking at particles in a particle accelerator, they sometimes behave as a wave and other times behave as separate little bits. It just depends on what criteria you're observing by. That's where Schrodinger's Cat comes from, also, and why a quantum physicist can't tell you if the lab kitty is alive or dead for sure either way, until you poke it with a stick. Actually that's not quite right, it's weirder than that. If you put a cat in a box and point a laser at it, which is set off by a quantum trigger that goes off (or not) while the box is closed, the cat, until you actually open the box and observe it, is in a quantum simultaneous alive/dead state, being neither wholly one nor the other. I think. Dammit, it's been a while since I read any popular Quantum Physics books. That stuff is hard to keep in your head. Is my brain dead, or alive? I'd prefer a constant either/or state to actually knowing, thank you very much. Anyway, all this really goes to show is why people avoid scientists at parties, and especially avoid those of us who aren't scientists but try to explain scientific matters as if we had any clue about them whatsoever. But I had a point, really I did. Wait, it's coming back to me... oh there it is! So, quantum problem, the mere viewing of a quantum particle will alter it's behaviour, so you can never really know what it was up to or what it would have gotten up to until you came along and freaked it all out; you can only know what it did self-consciously under the lens of a quantum particle accelerator. And here's what I was trying to get at: Tourism, it's the same thing. But without the particle accelerator. The very act of tourism somewhat destroys what it is people were going to see in the first place. It's not as noticeable in places like Europe, except in small ways. The Vatican, for instance, since it was built, has always looked more or less the same, and remains unaffected physically by tourism, excepting minimal wear and tear. But the difference there is more aesthetic. There is a huge difference, I imagine, between being alone in the Sistine chapel and soaking in all that art at your leisure, and being one of 1000 people and fighting for space, with the whispers gradually reaching a level to where the priests in attendance have to go "SHHHHHHHHH!!", then the whispers die down for a time, gradually rising over the next five minutes until the priests do the dreaded "SHHHH!" again, this wave of whisperage going on constantly until, hot sweaty and tired of bumping into people, you leave.
But in places like Thailand, tourism does much worse. Think back to four score and seven years ago, maybe multiply that by 10 or so since I'm not actually entirely sure what quantity four score is. I think maybe I used to know. Anyway, back in those pristine days of yore, Thailand's beaches were, in all likelihood, serene, untouched places of indescribable beauty. Some intrepid hippie backpacker came across it one day, and pow, fast forward to four score and seven times ten years later, there are thousands and thousands of tourists (including me, I'm not judging) who all came in search of fabled beauty, but in the process tore it up and filled the place with dive shops and 7elevens, and lots of levelled jungle to make room for 5 star beach resorts. It's just not the same anymore. It's still really nice, but not the paradise it was, and I imagine it's only going to get worse. Ohh, maybe the particle accelerator could metaphorically be word-of-mouth and/or advertising about certain tourist hotspots! Well, no need to really run with metaphor, I suppose. The point is more or less made.
But where I was really going with all this, was that Cambodia is both more and less than Thailand, for me. So far. I really like Phnom Penh in some ways: There are a lot fewer white people around, so I can kind of feel like I'm treading new ground, (I know I'm not, it's just the feeling that modern tourists have to hope for the best for) and there is next to none of the usual tourist infrastructure, so you don't get cut off from the normal daily life of locals. I mean, there are hotels, even a few really big expensive ones, but the city itself is a thriving mass of streetlife, motorbikes, tuk tuks, people asking for money or begging you to take a ride on their cyclo, and there is no getting away from it! Not that you want to, when travelling. That's why you travel. But sometimes it's easy to avoid actually experiencing a country and just sit in cafes and go to museums and whatnot. Here, it's in your face and I kind of like that. I had a blast taking a 30 minute tuk tuk ride out to Choeung Ek today... dodging people, other vehicles, everybody waving hello because they're not entirely jaded on western tourists yet... it's a really poor country though, so that takes some of the fun out of it. Meaning that you wind up feeling bad about yourself alot for being able to afford to jaunt off to Cambodia, when alot of them make $20 a month... Choeung Ek, by the way, is the villiage where Pol Pot had his famous Killing Fields. That was also a downer, but interesting. I overheard one guide telling his group the grisly manner in which they killed children and babies, bashing them on trees and even worse. The S-21 prison, which is now a genocide museum dedicated to Pol Pot's victims, was sobering also. You know, most of his soldiers, the ones who did the majority of murdering, were little more than children themselves? That always seems to be the way, in murderous holocausts. Hitler had his Youth, Pol Pot brainwashed young Cambodians... beware of activist organizations breeding armies of children. Hmmm... we should all keep our eyes on this type of behaviour.
Anyway, things I don't like about Phnom Penh; ultimately, it's small and you can do everything in a day, and following the oft-quoted travelling rule of 1 day or 1 month (or is it 3 days or 3 months? Meh, in Phnom Penh, it's 1 day 1 month), I've been here a day too long. That's why I have so much time to blather. But tomorrow, Angkor Wat, for 5 days. I understand that that is a good amount of time there, so we'll see.

Oh Pity! I Can Feel Your Pitying Eyes Burning Into My Heart Even As Far Away As I Have Run To Thailand! Pity Me Not, However, For Good Times Will Come Again, Someday...

Here's a picture I took that I didn't get to post in my last entry. I call it; 'Boy Shocked By The Monkey.'

Well anyway, I said it would be awhile. It’s hard to post when things are as crazy and hectic and as full of obligations as my last week in Thailand has been. I mean, it wasn’t easy several days ago, (I’ve lost track of what day it is, my head is so empty from my busy schedule) finding a place to stay that had the right mix of infrastructure (restaurants, bars, dive shops, motorbike rental) and also a quiet stretch of beach to live on that had that good get-away-from-it-all feeling that everyone seems to crave on their family holidays so much. In Thailand, it seems it’s either that full-tilt pandemonious crowd-seeking thing where the object is more to party than to relax, (Ko Samui, Ko Phi Phi, or Phuket) or to find that small, barely inhabited island where all there is is the beach and you, and if you’re lucky a place that serves food. (Ko Jam)
So, after much head-scratching research and hard, slogging footwork, I found the best of both worlds. I have actually found what I believe to be the best spot in Thailand, though I suppose you could ask any one of a million Thailand enthusiasts and they would each say something different, suggest that they know of a better spot for relaxation. There’s something for everyone somewhere in this country. But let me tell you what I have found: A bungalow operation, my own humble domicile being a 30 second saunter from clean white sand, with an outdoor restaurant serving incredibly good Thai food (The Pad Thai! Oh my!) by little smiling sing-song Thai girls right on the beach, with an excellent view of the ocean. At night there are wood-carved lanterns, hanging from a large leafy tree in the center of the dining area, swaying in the breeze while the sounds of the quiet ocean and Bob Marley, Jack Johnson, Bob Dylan, various Buena Vista Social Clubbers, occasional Jimmy Hendrix, Astrud Gilberto, and even Lemon Jelly and Belle & Sebastian, waft lazily from the adjacent bamboo bar, where long-haired tattooed Thai guys, who look like they meant to go to Jamaica but wound up here, sling drinks and smiles of ultimate sanguinity. A scrawny goofy-smiled Thai lad, who reminds me of the kid from ‘Dazed and Confused’, DJs from a small enclosure behind the bar and with a single-minded intensity flips through his CD book, always trying to pick out the next, perfect song, and every night plays the exact same set nonetheless. A wooden placard hanging over the entrance reads: “Most people see the world as it is and ask, ‘Why?’ We see the world as it isn’t and ask, ‘Why not?’” This, I believe, references more of a “Why not have a drink or a nap or play a game of hackey sack on the beach with us?” sort of attitude than a call to greater productivity, as it initially sounds. The beach itself is a half-moon shape about a kilometer long, creating an enclosed area on which I’ve never seen more than thirty people at one time, and often it is empty, the clear sea-green waves beckoning one for a private swim.
Yes, life here is hard. Every day I am faced with having to make hard decisions, such as: Do I sleep in? Do I get up and try to accomplish something? The day I arrived, for instance, it was already 2 o’clock in the afternoon by the time I settled my small bag of belongings into my bungalow, and after some deep thought, decided on activity. I rented a motorbike from the family who owns the bungalow operation, and drove the length and breadth of this island, discovering an old town inhabited by Thais and not very visited, and a Sea Gypsy villiage, where a Thai man in dreadlocks was whittling at something and gave me a crooked smile, being used to curious gawkers, I imagine.

The next day I went scuba diving… I’d forgotten how much I love scuba diving. The last time I went was seven years ago in Croatia. I needed a refresher course, which I thought I would have to do class and swimming pool time for, but no. I went to the dive shop, got all the gear thrown at me by a beach-bum lookin’ Thai as I walked through the entrance, got shoved onto a boat with several other divers, and was given a quick rundown, verbally, of diving procedure on the way to the dive site. When we got there, the beach bum Thai dive leader said “Now you ready! Get you gear on, follow me!”

It was, despite my initial panic and fear of getting nitrogen narcosis or the bends, fantastic. It came back to me pretty quickly, the conservation of motion necessary while flying with the fishes. I saw moray eels and tons of exotic fish of all sizes and colors swimming about the coral studded with starfish and sea anemones, lobsters, a sea turtle, went into an undersea cave, did a few flips just for the freedom of it. There was an underwater photographer along for the ride, and he got this shot of us and the sea turtle. I am the bald guy directly under the turtle.

The days following from then until now have sort of gotten run together in my head. All that busyness, you know. One day I sat around a lot, drinking amazing fruit drinks brought to me in the shade on the beach and feeling the pain of activity seeping in, that sort of full body-tiredness one feels when one has been doing more than is good for oneself. (And oh, those fruit drinks… I tell you, in the west when you drink fruit juices, all you are getting is flavor, and sugar. Here, you get fruit in a glass. I’ve never tasted such a great thing. I mean, back home there are juice bars where they blend up fruit and give you the freshest drink possible, but it’s still not the same. I think it must be because of the way they grow their fruit here, or because of the particular strains they have. At any rate, believe me when I tell you, Thai fruit drinks rule the most) I rode an elephant at some point, to a rather pitiful waterfall (it being the dry season here) and a cave in which tigers used to live inside the jungle which dominates the center of the island, seeing a large cobra slithering by and a large black poisonous spider of undetermined type hanging in his web along the way.

Another time I took a boat ride to a small uninhabited island nearby where we were allowed to jump out and do some snorkelling… Which, after scuba diving I would have thought would be anticlimactic, but was in fact another fantastic way of interacting with coral life. They provided fish food, and it was a wondrous feeling, being surrounded by hundreds of exotic fish nibbling out of my hand, occasionally having my arm, fingers or even my back bitten gently by them as if they thought that I also might be tasty. I wasn’t, I suppose. Lucky for me.
However, all this hard work has had side-effects, of course. So much so that one day, being so wearied with the labours of this so-called vacation, I was forced to utilize the cabana which sits outside the restaurant, a bit closer to the beach and ocean, where they have employed four chattering, strong-fingered Thai women to relax the aching backs and muscles of their clientele with an hour and a half of traditional Thai massage. And this ain’t your grandma’s massage, neither. Those tiny little girls with their tiny little fingers will tear you up! They pull out your muscles from their cramped hiding spaces and lay them down, ship-shape and no-nonsense, back where they belong! Also, after several hours of snorkelling, my 45 spf sun-block having fled from my body quite naturally in the sea water, I received an awful sunburn on my back, and was duly obligated to re-visit the cabana for some perilous after-sun treatment. Ice-soaked towels applied repeatedly for half an hour, chilling me to the spine and back again! And then some sort of medicinal compound gently massaged in. Of course there is no total cure for sunburn, other than time, and I still feel some achiness even today as I recline on soft blankets in the shade of a tree here on the beach, trying to convey to you the hardness of my travails. Life is hell, and travel is its spiked whip, it is indeed.
Actually, this is the first proper vacation I’ve ever taken with a beach and tropicalia and loads of nothing to do and all that, excepting of course the family ones my parents brought me along to the Jersey shore for as a child. My first proper vacation as a hard-working adult, I should say… no need to make any comments, the snark is built-in. But seriously, no one ever told me how difficult and full of tests such a vacation can be! Never again! From now on in, it’s back to hypertrekking in strange and possibly dangerous places on my holidays, no more of this island paradise insanity. I hope I’ve been able to impart to you some of the reasons why these sorts of trips are best avoided. Who needs scuba, beach relaxation and friendliness when you could be roaming the unfriendly clime of northern Iraq with an Iraqi family you trust more than the Americans? Or being harangued by Egyptian touts while trying to view the Great Pyramids, then getting sick three different ways from some unnamed Nile virus? Or strolling down the streets of Fez where nobody leaves you alone and everybody trying to sell you something? Or getting whipped by drunken demons in a chill Bavarian night in December? Or sneaking across the Israeli/Palestine border in an attempt to get to Bethlehem with only one day to spare before your flight to Moscow leaves from Amman, Jordan? Or drinking absinthe in the Vatican? Or flying in a communist-era Russian Mig-25 fighter plane to the edge of space? Who needs a week of laborious fun on a tropical island when you could have all that? Well, don’t worry about me too much, dear friends. I only have four more days of this dull torture before I leave for Bangkok to have my eyeballs sliced open for refractive laser surgery, so soon I’ll be out of this dreary hell for some real excitement.