Breaking News: Jesus Is Still Dead

To all my readers, I want to wish you a Happy Atheist Easter.

For your reading pleasure, here is an article about John Safran joining those wacky Filipinos in getting himself crucified on Good Friday.

King Bhumibol of Thailand Is A Dick

Whatever you do, don't make fun of his silly hat.

To be honest, I don't really have a personal problem with him. I am just expressing my opposition to Thailand's "lese majeste" laws, which makes it a crime to insult the royal family of Thailand.

Now, how serious is this?

From the BBC:

A Thai citizen has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for violating strict laws against insulting the monarchy.

A court in Bangkok said Suwicha Thakho, 34, digitally altered images of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his family and posted them on the internet.

Thailand's royal family is sheltered from public debate by some of the world's most stringent lese-majeste laws, as the police and army try to suppress what they fear is a rising tide of anti-monarchy sentiment.

One political activist was jailed for six years in November for an anti-monarchy speech she made just a stone's throw from the old royal palace last July.

But this insanity doesn't just apply to Thai citizens. Foreigners in Thailand are also at risk of falling afoul of these laws, no matter how inadvertent the offense might be.

Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer jailed in Thailand for defaming its monarch, has returned home after being pardoned by the king and set free.

The charges arose from a passage in a largely unknown novel he wrote in 2005, of which only seven of 50 copies printed were ever sold.

Mr Nicolaides was met by his family in Melbourne. He would next see his mother in hospital, his father told reporters.

He told reporters he had been crying for eight hours, having only learnt moments before his flight that his mother had suffered a stroke while he was imprisoned.

"A few hours before that I was informed I had a royal pardon... A few hours before that I was climbing out of a sewerage tank that I fell into in the prison," AP quotes him as saying.

So, in the spirit of irreverence, I invite all readers here, Thai and non-Thai, to insult the royal family...just because it should be your right and because you can.

The Lubavitcher Bus

Well, it was more like a camper really.

Last week a friend and I were walking east from 6th Avenue down 48th Street in Manhattan to eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant. There was this loud and annoying music playing from this long, white camper with a large picture on the side of the late Lubavitcher rebbe Schneerson. Inside were a number of Lubavitchers, an Orthodox Jewish sect, many of them young men bouncing and swaying to the music like some Jewish hip-hop posse.

I said to my friend, "I would rather listen to rap music then this." I shouted at the people in the bus to "turn that crap down," but did so halfheartedly, knowing it was a futile gesture. We crossed the street and went into the Chinese restaurant, and forgot about the Lubavitcher bus.

After lunch, my friend and I walked back towards 6th Avenue and turned left as I intended to walk with her until we got to the corner of 47th Street. And lo and behold, there was the camper, parked on 6th Avenue across the street from my office. Up ahead, I could see two of the Lubavitcher boys accosting men who walked past them on the sidewalk, asking "Are you Jewish?"

Apparently, what these Lubavitchers were engaging in is something called kiruv, which the Wikipedia link describes as "the collective work or movement of Orthodox Judaism that reaches out to non-Orthodox Jews to believe in God, engage in Torah study, and practice the Mitzvot in the hope that they will live according to Orthodox Jewish law. The process and act/s of any Jew becoming more observant of Judaism is called teshuva ("return" in Hebrew) making the "returnee" a baal teshuva ("master of return")."

As my friend and I closed the distance with them, I anticipated that I would be approached by one of the Lubavitcher boys and was ready for them. "Are you Jewish?" one of them asked as I walked near him.

I turned to face him and said "No, I'm an atheist, and you should be too." With that, I turned away and kept on walking with my female friend (apparently, the Lubavitcher males don't address women). She expressed some surprise at what I had said, but I replied to her that once they insert themselves into the public square like that, I am under no obligation to respect the substance of their beliefs. If they have the right to accost me in the street and ask me if I am Jewish, then I have every right to tell that person he shoud be an atheist.

One of these days, if I have the time and the requisite amount of chutzpah, I might identify myself as Jewish to these clowns just to see what they do next. If so, you will be sure to read about it here!

The Rise of Christianity Part 2: It's All About The Women

As I wrote in Part 1 of this series, "in order for the Church to survive and prosper, it needed the Germanic kings who occupied the former Roman territories to convert to Christianity and be baptized in the Church."

Of course, in order to get these Germanic kings to open themselves up to the prospect of conversion to Christianity, the faith had to be presented to them with a pretty face. In other words, the first stage in getting a Germanic king to embrace Christianity was for him to be presented with a Christian bride.

Returning to the Frankish king Clovis, the starting point for his conversion, and the subsequent conversion of the Franks, began with Clotild, his Catholic Burgundian wife. The historian Edward James, in his book The Franks, summarizes the narrative of Gregory of Tours, whose Ten Books of Histories is one of the major source writings for the period.

"Clovis's Burgundian wife Clotild wanted him to agree to baptize their first son, Ingomer. Gregory devises a little sermon for her to preach to her husband, which made the same points that early medieval preachers tended to make to pagans: your gods are bits of stone or wood; they were men, not gods; they set examples of immorality...The child was baptized, and promptly died. Undaunted, Clotild had her second son baptized, and when he too fell ill she prayed and the child recovered: a sign from Heaven."

It was some time afterwards that Clovis allegedly decided to be himself baptized following a battle against the Alemmani, in which he supposedly had called on Jesus Christ for aid and promised to be baptized if he was victorious. The likely story is that Clovis had already considered conversion to Christianity before the battle, but that he needed a suitable pretext before making his intentions public, in the same way that Abraham Lincoln was waiting for the right moment, the repulse of Robert E. Lee at Antietam, to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. After all, when you are a manly Germanic king, you can't expect your people to cast off their old gods just because it will make your wife happy. But Clovis's agreement to be baptized undoubtedly made conversation at the Merovingian family dinner table a lot less contentious.

Following the conversion of the Franks (at least superficially, but more on that in a future post), the Frankish kingdom itself became a new source of royal Christian brides to be dispatched to new pagan kings as part of a strategy to bring them into the community of Christian kingdoms. Thus, a Christian Frankish lady named Bertha was married to Ethelbert of Kent in the latter half of the sixth century. Writes Richard Fletcher in The Barbarian Conversions, "[w]e do know that Bertha's kinsfolk had been able to insist that Ethelbert permit his wife to practise her religion. She came to Kent accompanied by a bishop named Liudhard."

"Bertha would have known of her great-grandmother's part in the conversion of her husband Clovis. She may well have received a hortatory letter reminding her of it...when she went off as a bride to Kent. Her assistance in the conversion of Ethelbert was acknowledged by Pope Gregory in a letter he sent to her in 601."

The story repeats itself with Edwin of Northumbria, who married Ethelburga, a Christian princess from Kent, the aforementioned kingdom of the Christian convert Ethelbert. "Diplomatic presents of rich apparel, gold embroidered, cunningly hinted at the splendid trappings of Christian civilization. Queen Ethelburga was firmly reminded of her duty as wife and queen to bring about Edwin's conversion." Well, it certainly adds a whole new meaning to the phrase 'missionary position'! Edwin finally succumbed and was baptized on Easter Sunday in the year 627.

It seems clear that the marriage of a Christian princess to a pagan king played an important role in getting the king to convert to Christianity. The princess would be accompanied by her own retinue, including her own priest to minister to her and her attendants, thus providing a foothold for the Christian faith in the king's court. As to how much the king's resistance to conversion was broken down by his Christian queen's pleading and cajoling is difficult to say. There were other factors at work of course. By marrying a princess from a Christian kingdom, a pagan king became increasingly drawn into a network of political and trading relations with Christian kingdoms such as the Franks. Ultimately, a pagan king would proclaim his conversion to Christianity and be baptized because he found it to be advantageous to do so. Since there was no aggressively proselytizing alternative faith, and the Catholic Church carried with it the prestige of being a Roman institution, adopting Christianity was a way of formal joining the club of "civilized" nations. And an important first step in the process of conversion was marrying a Christian princess from one of those Christian kingdoms.

Coming soon: The Rise of Christianity Part 3: The Sacred Oak of Geismar

Speaking of Banks...

Why the f%#k is it so easy to rob them?

I was reading this week's issue of the Plainview-Old Bethpage Herald. At the bottom of page three was an article about how Nassau County Robbery Squad detectives are still looking for a bank robbery suspect who robbed a Chase Bank on Old Country Road this past March 23.

The suspect, a white male between the ages of 27 to 32, approximately 5'8" in height, passed a note to the teller demanding money. After being handed the cash, he fled the scene.

The article then lists the following bank robberies he is suspected of carrying out based on photographs taken of him by the bank security cameras:

March 21 @ 12:30 p.m., Washington Mutual Bank at 3345 Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown.

March 21@ 1:55 p.m., Citibank at 670 Merrick Avenue in East Meadow.

March 23 @ 5:04 p.m., at the aforementioned Chase Bank at 1100 Old Country Road in Plainview.

March 26 @ 5:45 p.m., CapitalOne Bank at 1145 Willis Avenue in Albertson.

March 29 @ 1:30 p.m., TD Bank at 4126 Merrick Road in Massapequa.

March 30 @ 7:10 p.m., TD Bank at 416 Central Avenue in Cedarhurst.

As you can see, the suspect was especially ambitious on his first outing on the 21st, robbing two banks close to each other geographically in a narrow time frame. Judging by his targets, he either drives himself around or he has an accomplice, as his targets are scattered throughout the county. I would guess that he figures if he does not confine his robberies to a specific area, it will lessen his chances of being caught.

But back to the question I asked at the beginnning of this post, I have personally never worked in a bank, so I do not know what their procedures are in these situations. If anyone reading this has or currently does work in a bank, I would appreciate your comments. It looks to me though that the policy is for tellers to automatically comply with a request for money under the assumption that the robber is armed. But it strikes me as being way too pathetically easy for any loser or lowlife to walk in and demand money knowing that he or she will make an easy score. I do recall reading a few months ago where one bank robbery was foiled when a teller, in response to a demand for money, laughed at the would-be robber and said "Are you kidding me?" Apparently, that was all it took for the robber to lose his/her nerve and flee.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert on issues of security, but it seems to me that there are plenty of low-tech, commonsense methods that banks can adopt to reduce the number of robberies. How about requiring every person who enters a bank to show a valid identification? Every dance club that serves alcohol requires patrons to show i.d. at the door before entering the premises. Why the fuck can't banks do that? Or, if that is too much trouble, how about requiring everyone who enters the bank to remove their hats or hoods or anything else that obstructs views of their faces and to stand in a spot that enables the security camera to get a clear photograph? The article on the suspect in the Plainview robbery shows two separate photos of him wearing a baseball cap that partially obscures his face.

I understand that there are legitimate concerns about bank robberies turning into violent stand-offs. But it appears the overwhelming majority are like those perpetrated by the aforementioned suspect, a lone, in all likelihood unarmed individual, whose demands for cash made to a teller are meekly complied with. It would not surprise me if the suspect in the Plainview robbery was a heroin or other drug addict looking for cash to feed his habit. If that is the case, he is going to keep on committing robberies until he eventually slips up and gets caught. I just can't help thinking that people like him wouldn't be as successful as they are if banks would be take some proactive security measures.

Please, Don't Do Me Any Favors

At the bottom of the page of the statement for my Money Market Savings Account, the following language appears:

You earned a higher interest rate on your XXXXX Money Market Savings account during this statement period because you had a qualifying XXXXX Better Banking Checking account.

And what was this "higher" interest rate I earned? Drum roll please.........

0.01%!

Last month I earned a whopping eight cents in interest! Whoooey! I wonder what my rate would have been if I did not have the savings account linked to a checking account, 0.00001%? Or maybe it would be a negative number. Of course, this savings account does not constitute the main core of my savings. It's meant to be an easily accessible fund to tap for unbudgeted emergency expenses such as having to get the car repaired or to have an appliance fixed or replaced. But an interest rate of 0.01%? I guess I can understand if that is the best my bank can do under the present circumstances, but it shouldn't act like it's doing me a favor by offering me such a piddling rate.

Thoughts On Overpopulation - Part 1

The April 2009 edition of Free Inquiry magazine has a number of articles addressing the issue of human population numbers and its impact on the environment and ultimately our quality of life. Unfortunately, only one article, by David and Marcia Pimentel, is available online.

The following sentence from the article by the Pimentels jumped out at me:

"To be able to ensure a reasonable standard of living, Americans will have to reduce their population and their consumption of goods and energy by one-half."

Without getting into whether the Pimentels are right or wrong, there is no way, absent genocide or a massive die-off from a lethal pandemic, that the populaton of the United States will ever be reduced to half its present level. Our current population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's population clock, is approximately 306 million. The Census Bureau estimates that as early as 2039 our population will reach 400 million. So, those of us and our descendants who will be alive in 2039 will either have to endure an "unreasonable" standard of living or find a way of maintaining the standard of living that most of us are accustomed to today.

One of the things that makes me, and I suspect many other people, uncomfortable about population control is that it conjures up images of some self-annointed cabal of "experts" deciding how many children can be born and imposing draconian restrictions on us in order to make us live according to what they believe to be the planet's "carrying capacity."

Some environmental activists concerned about the adverse effects of human overpopulation advocate that couples have at best one, and no more than two, children, depending on whether or not the goal is voluntary population reduction or stabilization. Regular readers of this blog know that I am the father of two children. If my wife was the same age as me or younger than me, rather than being six years older than me, we might have tried for a third child and limited ourselves to that. But my wife's biological clock, and the need to maintain our sanity(!), meant that we would have only two children. So, by circumstance, my wife and I are contributing to a replacement level population.

I also happen to be the youngest of three brothers. I was born a year after the publication of Paul Ehrlich's provocative 1968 book The Population Bomb. If my mother and father had heeded the message of Ehrlich's book, I would not be here typing this post right now. Of course, if I didn't exist, 99.999% of humanity wouldn't miss me. But one person who definitely would be negatively impacted by my nonexistence would be my mother. My father died almost three years ago from complications resulting from surgery. As I wrote at the top of this paragraph, I am the youngest of three brothers. Also, as regular readers of this blog will recall, my two older brothers are not, to put it delicately, paragons of responsibility. Therefore, the burden of helping to care for my mother falls pretty much on my shoulders. In fact, my uncle, my mother's brother, contributes more than both of my brothers combined. So, it is safe to say that if I didn't exist, my mom's situation would be much worse than it is. My being alive and responsible makes the difference between my mom being able to live in her own home or living in a nursing home that would rapidly deplete her life savings.

It is a simple fact of life that as most people get older, they expect to be able to rely on at least one of their children to provide them with support and comfort in their later years. I don't doubt that my mom is not the only senior citizen in the United States whose most reliable offspring is the last one who was born. In cases like mine, it is because the other siblings lead troubled lives. In other cases, the first born might have been born retarded or with a serious birth defect, or perhaps might even have died or suffered a crippling injury.

To subordinate the human race to a concept like "carrying capacity" reduces us to just a statistic. Once you do that, then it is not such a big leap to implementing policies to reduce our numbers to fit somebody's calculation of this carrying capacity. If it is so important to reduce our population back down to one billion in the next 50 to 100 years, then why not find a way to introduce some disease into given areas of the world that are perceived as being overpopulated? Why not kill off the elderly? Because the plain, hard truth is that it is not likely that the human race will ever reach a broad consensus across the many nations and ethnicities of which it is comprised to voluntarily reduce its growth by having fewer children, and even if it could, it certainly would not happen within the time frame that the population doomsayers say it needs to be done.

Are there too many people on this planet stressing the Earth's ability to feed us and provide us all with a "reasonable" standard of living? Probably. I will get into that in Part 2. But suffice it to say that even if the answer to that question is yes, we are going to have to find a way to make it work for all of us.

The Spread of Christianity Part 1: In Hoc Signo Vinces

Everyone who is at least vaguely familiar with the history of Christianity and the Roman Empire knows the story. The emperor Constantine, shortly before engaging his rival Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in the year 312, allegedly saw a vision in the sky of the Christian Cross above the words "In Hoc Signo Vinces", Latin for "by this sign, conquer." As the story goes, Constantine had his soldiers mark their shields with the sign of the cross, and they proceeded to defeat Maxentius. Constantine afterwards issued the Edict of Milan, officially putting an end to the persecution of Christians that had reached a crescendo under the reign of his predecessor Diocletian. From there onwards, Christianity embarked on what in hindsight seems to have been its inevitable march from a recognized faith in the empire to the official faith of the empire, the brief speedbump that was Julian's reign notwithstanding.

Constantine's victory and embrace of Christianity, while a major milestone in the history of the religion, was the first of what would prove to be a recognizeable pattern in the rise of the faith into the early Middle Ages. In other words, the spread of the teachings of Jesus Christ owed a great deal to emperors and kings being victorious in battles that resulted in the deaths of other people.

In the wake of the disintegration of the Western Empire in the latter half of the fifth century (which some people mistakenly attribute to Christianity itself), the Catholic Church was the only "Roman" institution that remained. In order for the Church to survive and prosper, it needed the Germanic kings who occupied the former Roman territories to convert to Christianity and be baptized in the Church. Filling the power vacuum left by the collapse of Roman authority in Gaul (modern day France) was the kingdom of the Franks under its aggressively expansionist ruler Clovis.

While the wife of Clovis was a Catholic, Clovis himself was not quite prepared at first to take the plunge. Then, in the thick of battle against the Alamanni in the year 496, Clovis is said to have called upon Jesus Christ and promised to to be baptized if he was victorious. As it turned out, Clovis won the battle and eventually fulfilled his promise to be baptized. His decision was momentous not only for Christianity in general, but for Catholicism in particular, as at that time in history the Catholic Church was in competition with what it deemed to be the heresy of Arianism.

The story would repeat itself in post-Roman Britain. From Richard Fletcher's The Barbarian Conversions, "The contemporary written sources bearing upon the conversion of kings prompt reflection on a number of themes. First, we observe the repeated assurance that acceptance of Christianity will bring victory, wide dominion, fame and riches. This is what Germanic kings wanted to hear, because their primary activity was war." (Text bolded for emphasis)

From the standpoint of the Church, in order to be able to proselytize in a given territory, it needed to curry the favor of the local ruler. If a warrior king could be convinced that his success in battle was due to the support of the Christian god, then that king would allow himself to be baptized and encourage his subjects to follow suit. And struggles with neighboring pagan kings would not simply be a conflict over territory or wealth, but literally a war between the forces of good and evil.

Prior to Constantine's victory at Milvian Bridge, Christianity was more of a grassroots movement. It spread and gained adherents in spite of the position of the Roman government. But from Constantine onward, Christianity became an instrument of state policy. Thus, with the disintegration of Roman governmental authority in Western Europe, the Church sought to continue this pattern by marrying itself to the barbarian kings, which in turn paved the way for spreading the faith to their subjects. What started out as a faith that spread from the bottom-up had turned into a top-down affair that relied on good, old fashioned brute force.

Ooops! I Totally Forgot!

Yeah, that's right. Shame on me. I totally forgot to participate in Earth Hour, wherein from 8:30 to 9:30 local time, participants turn off the power to all nonessential items in their home. To be honest, I meant to. But around 7:30 I had to go to my mom's to fill up her electronic pill dispenser for the following week, pay some of her bills, and take out the trash. Between all that and chatting with her for a short while, all thoughts of dimming lights had vacated my head. I had also neglected to tell my wife, who was home with the kids, so she had no inkling. Not that she would have cared anyway, as she knew nothing about it at all.

Oh well, there's always next year.

Kudos to those who did participate though. While it is just a purely symbolic gesture, its promoters have their heart in the right place. If you can do it, you do. If you can't, or, in my case, you forget, you don't.

What annoys me are these mostly right wing jerkoffs with the maturity of a seventh grader who see the event as an occasion to gleefully turn on ALL of the lights and appliances in their homes out of sheer spite. Way to go guys. I swear, some of these conservative dickheads seem to get such a thrill out of acting in a way to purposefully offend people they deride as liberals that I get the impression that they might even cut off their own penises if they thought it would offend a liberal. Well, I for one would be very offended if they did that, so I guess they had better start looking for some clean, sharp blades.

What I Have Been Reading

Yeah, I know, I have been an absentee blogger lately. I just can't seem to find the time to sit down and crank out substantive posts, nor did I want to do lazy posts where you just link to some article and write "Check out this craziness."

Anyway, one of the things I have been doing lately is reading lots of books. One I just finished is Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne. Coyne, a professor at the University of Chicago, has given us a useful primer on evolution and the evidence that supports it to the extent that Coyne feels confident enough to label evolution "true."

Of course, this book will not persuade die-hard Biblical Literalists or Harun Yahya types. In fact, in the opening of Chapter 9, Coyne describes how after he gave a presentation a few years ago to a group of businessmen in Chicago, one of the members of the audience went up to him and said, "I found your evidence for evolution very convincing-but I still don't believe it." This book is not for people like that. Instead, Why Evolution Is True serves as a useful primer for lay persons such as myself who are interested in science but do not have an educational background in biology and evolutionary theory.

So Much For Turkey Power

Several weeks ago, I read The Long Emergency by James Kunstler. Kunstler is a critic of suburbia and in addition to his books, he has a blog with the rather blunt title Clusterfuck Nation.

The gist of Kunstler's argument in The Long Emergency is that the American suburban lifestyle will soon become unsustainable because it depends on a finite supply of cheap oil to sustain it. "The key to understanding what is about to happen to us," he writes on page 24, "is contained in the concept of global oil production peak. This is the point at which we have extracted half of all the oil that has ever existed in the world-the half that was easiest to get, the half that was most economically obtained, the half that was the highest quality and cheapest to refine."

With that, what Kunstler derides as our "happy motoring" way of life and the days of the "3,000 mile caesar salad" will soon be coming to an end. But what about alternatives to fossile fuels like wind power, solar power or biofuels? Nonsense, retorts Kunstler. "Based on everything we know right now, no combination of so-called alternative fuels or energy procedures will allow us to maintain daily life in the United States the way we have been accustomed to running it under the regime of oil." Why? "To some degree, all of the non-fossil fuel energy sources actually depend on an underlying fossil fuel economy. You can't manufacture metal wind turbines using wind energy technology. You can't make lead-acid storage batteries for solar electric systems using any known solar energy system."

But in the chapter that Kunstler devotes to deconstructing fossil fuel alternatives, the part that I found the most amusing was where he writes about a company called Changing World Technologies, which claimed that it could make oil from turkey guts via a process called thermal depolymerization. "The company's first commercially scaled plant, a $20 million installation in Carthage, Missouri, was built next to a ConAgra Foods Butterball Turkey processing factory. Company spokespersons claimed that they would ultimately make oil by this method for $10 a barrel in 2003 dollars." This made me think of the end of the first Back to the Future movie, wherein Doc Brown powers his flying Delorean with the McFly family's household trash. Kunstler goes on to to dismiss it with "Anything that sounds too good to be true usually is."

And, as recent events demonstrated, it was too good to be true. Last week I read this article, which reported that Changing World Technologies was filing for bankruptcy. From the article:

Renewable diesel fuel from the Carthage plant cost more than $11.18 a gallon to make, yet Changing World was only able to sell it for an average $1.19 last year, the filings reported. Since it began operations in 1999, the company posted accumulated losses of $117.9 million, including $60 million in the last three years.

The Carthage plant also was the subject of odor complaints from residents and state officials, who hit it with a cease-and-desist order and fines and required odor-reducing retrofits. The plant suffered from regular shutdowns - it was 80 percent operational at best, the company said. When it wasn't operating, Changing World had to pay to "divert or dispose of [turkey parts] that we received but were unable to store or process."

The claim that the plant would also be able to self-produce all the fuel needed to heat the diesel-making animal parts turned out to be optimistic. Last year alone, the company spent $900,000 to buy natural gas, nearly 7 percent of its total cost of goods sold.

In a 2004 Newsday interview, Appel predicted the company would have 10 big plants across the United States by 2009.

So, it looks like leftover turkey parts are not going to help us reduce our dependence on imported oil.

Back to Kunstler, I can't say if the dire picture he paints for us is going to come to pass or not. Generally being optimistic by nature, I like to think that we will find a way to muddle through. And yet, at the same time, if I as an atheist am skeptical about faith claims when it comes to religion, shouldn't I also be skeptical about having faith that some technological solution will be found that will provide us and our children with cheap and abundant clean energy in the coming decades? The answer of course is yes, I should be skeptical, though I would not assume the worst either. At the very least, I can do my part to try and reduce my use of fossil fuels and educate myself on energy issues so that I can be an informed advocate.

Premature Friday Funnies: The Appropriate Response to Anti-Semitism

One of my favorite movies from the early 1980's was Bad Boys, starring a young Sean Penn in a stark departure from his previous role as the stoner surfer dude Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times At Ridgement High.

Bad Boys is largely set within the confines of a facility for hardcore juvenile delinquents. As good as Penn's performance was in the movie, the most memorable character in the movie is the intelligent but twisted Jewish misfit named Horowitz, who shares a cell with Penn's character.

Below is a funny scene from the movie wherein Horowitz retaliates when the alpha male bully of the inmates, the towering Viking Lofgren (played by Clancy Brown) taunts him with anti-semitic language. As crazy as Horowitz is, you just gotta love his ballsy, take no-shit response to someone who physically outmatches him.

Isn't It Strange?

Inspired by the recent chain e-mail I received the other day, which I discussed in this post, I have decided to write my own version of "Isn't It Strange?" Here it goes:

It's strange, isn't it, that atheists and non-religious people can behave just as morally as religious people, but only in the context of religion does it seem normal when:

People walk around in public once a year with ashes smeared on their foreheads:

When men walk about in public dressed like this:

When women walk around in public dressed like this:

When people do their dishes using scouring pads like this*:

Isn't it strange?

*Not only are there color coded scrub pads so that observant Jews don't accidentally use the same scrub pad to clean a dish that contained a meat product and a dish that contained a dairy product, I also noticed that my local Shoprite sells color coded oven mitts too! Take away the religious justification for this, and we're talking about obsessive-compulsive behavior. So, what do you call it when people behave like this to appease a god that does not even exist?

Annoying Filipino Catholic Chain E-mails - Part 2

This particular one isn't as bad as the one below, but is more annoying in a way because it contains mostly commonsensical advice that does not require the God stuff mixed into it. Here goes:

This is the most beautiful advice I have ever received in an email ... Please don't close or delete this one before reading!

Fine, if you say so.

An Angel says, 'Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice.'

An angel said that? Really? Which one? When?

1. Pray Why?
2. Go to bed on time. If I stop to pray, I might not get to bed on time.
3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed. Sorry, I gotta press the snooze button two or three times.
4. Say No to projects that won't fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health. No disagreement there. Though in the real world we don't always have that luxury. If you stop going to church, you might have some more free time.

5. Delegate tasks to capable others. Sure. Go to church and say my prayers for me so I don't have to.
6. Simplify and unclutter your life. I work full time, have two young kids, have a house to run, and my mother to take care of. I can't simplify and unclutter my life.
7. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.) Give me half of your money. That way you will have twice as much as before.
8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places. Pure genius!

9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together. No disagreement here.
10. Take one day at a time. Ditto.
11. Separate worries from concerns . If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety . If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it. There is no God to tell me what to do.
12. Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases. More simple commonsense. No need to bring God into the equation.
13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc. Ditto.
14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble. I guess that means I really can't tell you what I really think of these e-mails.
15. Do something for the Kid in You everyday. You're a dork! There, I did it.

16. Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line. Why the Bible when there are so many more interesting and informative books out there?
17. Get enough rest. As soon as I finish this blog post.
18. Eat right. Maybe the Bible would be useful if it contained some really good recipes.
19 Get organized so everything has its place. Come on, get real. Who has time for that?

20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life. I can't. I need to pay attention to the road so I don't get into an accident and totally fuck up my quality of life.
21. Write down thoughts and inspirations. That's what this blog is for.
22. Every day, find time to be alone. My wife is at work and my kids are in bed. I'm alone now.
23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don't wait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray. All you really needed to do was write "Try to nip small problems in the bud." The rest was totally unnecessary.
24. Make friends with Godly people. I guess that means you don't want to be friends with me.

25. Keep a folder of favorite scriptures on hand. Why?
26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good 'Thank you Jesus .' What has Jesus done for me lately?
27. Laugh. You make me laugh.
28. Laugh some more! Let's not get carried away now.
29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all. I prefer the reverse, actually.
30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can). I forgive you for writing these stupid e-mails I keep getting.
31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most). Perhaps. But some people are really just assholes.
32. Sit on your ego. If you say so.
33 Talk less; listen more. Okay.
34. Slow down. I wasn't going fast to begin with.
35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe. Why? It never occurs to me to think that I am.
36 Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before. GOD HAS A WAYOF TURNING THINGS AROUND FOR YOU. I'm grateful that the God of the Bible doesn't exist.

'If God is for us, who can be against us?' (Romans8:31) That's why the Philippines is such an economic success story, right? The only reason you're Catholic is because the Spanish got to your ancestors before the Muslims did. If the Spanish got there 100 years later, you would probably sending Muslim chain e-mails right now.

My instructions were to send this to four people that I wanted God to bless and I picked you. I decided to send it to more than four, because I didn't want to limit blessings. So God, if He exists, isn't going to bless me unless you send me an e-mail?

SEND IT FORWARD PLEASE, Not backward! You do realize this is the 21st century, right? It's really long overdue that you put this silly, superstitious bullshit behind you.

Annoying Filipino Catholic Chain E-mails - Part 1

One of my wife's friends from nursing school days back in the Philippines has our e-mail address and has recently taken to forwarding chain e-mails to us. Since my wife never really uses e-mail, I am the one who ends up reading these damned things. Being the atheist that I am, I really have to suppress the urge to fire off a response to these silly things. After all, I wouldn't want to alienate my wife's friends, though it is quite a double standard that they can bombard us with Christian e-mail chains, but if I provide an atheist critique then I am upsetting the apple cart.

So, in order to give vent to my frustrations, I will reproduce and respond to them here.

Okay, here is the first one, followed by my responses in red:

IT IS STRANGE ISN'T IT...
how a 20 dollar bill seems like such a large amount when you donate it to church, but such a small amount when you go shopping?

Uh, no, not really. Because when you spend money in a store, you are actually buying stuff that you need like food or gasoline. When you drop $20 in a collection box in church, you are not acquiring anything of value. And, when the price of gasoline was over $4.00 per gallon last summer, twenty bucks barely amounted to half a tank of gas.

Isn't it strange how 2 hours seem so long when you're at church, and how short they seem when you're watching a good movie?

No, because church (at least mass at a Catholic church) is immensely boring whereas a good movie engages your senses.

Isn't it strange that you can't find a word to say when you're praying but.. you have no trouble thinking what to talk about with a friend?

What is this statement based on? Why does this person believe that one can't find a word to say when praying? When I was a Catholic, I knew exactly what I wanted to say when I prayed. As for talking with a friend, when you know someone well, you have common frames of reference and shared experiences. What a stupid question!

Isn't it strange how difficult and boring it is to read one chapter of the Bible but how easy it is to read 100 pages of a popular novel or ZANE GREY book?

Well, maybe because the Bible is a boring book to read. What possible relevance does the Book of Nahum have to my life?

Isn't it strange how everyone wants front-row-tickets to concerts or games but they do whatever is possible to sit at the last row in Church?

Is this asshole seriously suggesting that nobody sits in the front row in Church? Comparing a sports stadium or a concert arena to a Catholic church is disingenuous. The former are much larger, and the further away you are the less involved you are in the action. Besides, it is physically impossible for everyone to sit in the back of Church.

Isn't it strangehow we need to know about an event for Church 2-3 weeks before the day so we can include it in our agenda, but we can adjust it for other events in the last minute?

"Honey, my car broke down on the freeway. Can you come and pick me up?" "Sorry, I can't. I have a church picnic to attend in 15 minutes." Fucking stupid!

Isn't it strangehow difficult it is to learn a fact about God to share it with others; but how easy it is to learn, understand, extend and repeat gossip?

What facts about God are there? Beliefs about God are not facts. The most one can say about God, if such an entity exists, is that it is too vast for the human mind to comprehend. Apart from that, what else can one say?

Isn't it strange how we believe everything that magazines and newspapers say but... we question the words in the Bible?

Who believes everything they read in the magazines and newspapers? I don't. And is this person seriously suggesting we shouldn't question the Bible?

Isn't it strange how everyone wants a place in heaven but... they don't want to believe, do, or say anything to get there?

Sure, everyone likes the idea of a place where there is no suffering. But if such a place really exists, how do I know that you know what I need to believe, do, or say to get there?

Isn't it strange how we send jokes in e-mails and they are forwarded right away but when we are going to send messages about God, we think about it twice before we share it with others?

More like "Isn't it strange how I can have e-mail messages sent to me about God, but I have to think twice about replying with an atheist critique because it will offend everyone?"

IT'S STRANGE ISN'T IT?

No, the person who wrote these questions is strange.

Now that you've read this message, will you forward it to anybody that you consider a friend, family member or foe (enemy).

No, I will not.

If you choose not to share His message you may deprive yourself from being blessed as well as depriving others.... who may need God in their life.

Right. This God is supposed to be so powerful and intelligent and perfect, and yet His message is supposed to be conveyed to me by some idiot who asks stupid questions. I for one am not impressed.

The Cabbie For Christ

With all my posts about my family vacation to Puerto Rico, I had to find some way to slip in a religion/atheism angle, being this is a primarily atheist themed blog.

Because our flight for Puerto Rico last Sunday was scheduled to fly out of JFK at 7:30 A.M., it made more sense to take a taxi to the airport rather than ride the LIRR in the cold and darkness to Jamaica Station to catch the Air Train.

My wife called the taxi company and our driver was literally there like 5 minutes later. As my wife used to take the taxi home from the train station before we got a second car, the cab driver was a man that she knew.

He was quite a gregarious fellow, and he was talking with my wife who was seated behind him about the latest developments in his life. It didn't take him long before he dropped this bombshell:

"A couple of months ago I became a born again Christian! All this time, I was looking for God, but it was God who found me!" I could barely suppress a groan.

It turns out the guy was raised Jewish and had been having a crisis of faith or something, so his mom pushed him to go to Israel, which would supposedly reconnect him with his Jewish roots.

"Who would have guessed," he declared, "that a Jewish man would become a Christian by going to Israel."

It was my wife however, who astutely guessed the real reason. She asked him if he had met a girl.

"Yes, I did," he replied. "She was the daughter of a missionary."

It turned out that they had since broken up, but are apparently still on good terms. From there, he proceeded to blab about the Jews and the Catholics getting it all wrong, and then rambling something about a section of Romans being banned in Canada. I had guessed that what he was driving at was some verse or other that condemned homosexuality. As my two young children were sitting in the back seat, I said, "I would prefer that you don't talk about this in front of my kids."

"Sure, no problem!" he cheerfully complied. He also made mention of some Christian radio station he listened to that had all kinds of important things to say about the future, and he mentioned some date in March or May of 2010 or 2011, I can't remember which, in which something really profound would happen.

As much as I was tempted to take the Cabbie for Christ to task for some of the things he said or ask him what he would do if nothing happened on the date he mentioned, as he was zipping along the parkway in the darkness of the predawn hour, my primary concern was that my family and I make it to JFK safely. The last thing I wanted was for the guy to get into a traffic accident because he was distracted by the argumentative atheist in the passenger seat. Afterwards, my wife said to me that she was surprised that I had kept quiet, and I explained to her why.

The El Conquistador Resort in Puerto Rico

In making the decision as to where to stay during our vacation in Puerto Rico, I picked the El Conquistador in Fajardo because (1) I decided that on our first visit to Puerto Rico we would see the north east corner of the island, and (2) the El Conquistador seemed like a family friendly place.

For the most part, we enjoyed our stay at the El Conquistador. Our children liked the water park and my wife and son liked Palomino Island. The resort was in close proximity to El Yunque and the bioluminescent lagoon, which were two highlights of the trip.

The El Conquistador itself is a sprawling resort, and according to my Insight Guide, was at some point in the past a Maharishi University. My family stayed in the section of the resort called Las Olas, which in retrospect is probably the worst place to stay in the resort. The room itself was pretty nice and spacious, and we had a great view from our balcony. The problem with the Las Olas section was the location.

In the picture above, taken from the ferry as we were headed for Palomino Island, Las Olas is mostly obscured by the marina section, except for the scalloped roof. Las Olas and the marina were physically separated from the main part of the resort, which was set on the hill above. The only way to get to the main section was to take a tram car called a funicular to the top of the hill. There were actually two funicular tracks, an express track that went directly from the main resort to the marina, and a local that also stopped at Las Olas. The problem was, if you wanted to go from Las Olas to the top level, and you just missed the funicular as it was headed to the top, you would have to wait for the funicular to come back to Las Olas, go down to the marina, then back up to Las Olas before proceeding back up to the main level. Another option would be to go down the stairs to the marina level to catch the express funicular to the top level. Once you finally arrive at the top stop on the funicular, it was then a long walk and an elevator ride to get to the main lobby area where all the restaurants were and where you boarded the buses to go on the trips.

Another problem with Las Olas was that it was not very well maintained. In particular, the carpets in the hallway were noticeably worn and stained, and the building looked like it was in need of some serious overhaul. A number of reviewers at Tripadvisor.com made the same observation.

As I mentioned in another post, the El Conquistador is also incredibly expensive, especially the restaurants. While the food was good for the most part, considering that they were banging us on average $150 per dinner for the four of us, it should have been better than good. That being said, the staff were nearly all friendly and accomodating, with the exception of one girl who manned the ice cream and sandwich window at the El Caribe during the evening hours.

I had heard from a number of people, including our guide on the El Yunque rainforest tour that there were a lot of layoffs recently and that business is down at the resort due to the economy. The guide said that the week we were there was the first week where they had full attendance for the tour. Likely, that was due to the fact that the public schools were closed for the week and parents such as myself had the opportunity to take the family on a vacation without missing school.

I was also surprised by the number of fellow New Yorkers staying at the resort, including a family whose daughter attended the same kindergarten as our daughter. We also ran into the daughter of my uncle's second wife.

We plan on visiting Puerto Rico again at some point in the near future. For the next visit, I envision that we will start at the north west corner of the island, around Aguadilla, then make our way east to Arecibo and then San Juan so that we have the chance to stroll through Old San Juan at a more leisurely pace without having to worry about getting back in time to a tour bus. As for the El Conquistador, I don't expect that we will stay there again. If you are contemplating spending time in north eastern Puerto Rico, and you don't mind spending a lot of money, you might want to stay at the El Conquistador. There are steps you can take to reduce your costs, such as bringing your own water and juice for the kids, and researching local restaurants outside of the resort that serve good food at an affordable price. While I was not impressed with the Las Olas wing of the resort, I didn't really see much of the rooms in the other parts of the resort, so perhaps they are nicer as well as being more conveniently located.

El Yunque and Coqui Water Park

Monday, the 16th, was our first full day in Puerto Rico. We started off the day with a trip to the El Yunque tropical rain forest. Because we had two small kids with us, my wife and I had to opt for the easy tour that did not involve much walking, though at a couple of points we did have to make our way up and down some narrow, rocky paths. It was a very nice trip though, and my kids seemed to enjoy it.

The pool in the background in the photo above was built in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was used as a public swimming pool until 1975.

I had a hard time getting a shot of the Walking Stick insect on the leaf hanging down in the center of the picture above. The other shots came out really blurry for some reason, and this one was the best I got.

This shot was taken from near the Yokahu Observation Tower, though not from the tower itself. The view is towards the north east corner of the island, and if you can magnify the picture, you just might be able to make out the El Conquistador resort. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have gotten a shot of El Yunque from the resort. It really looms large and mysterious over the north east corner of Puerto Rico, and its peak is often shrouded in mist. Looking up at it, I can understand why so many cultures believed that the gods dwelled at the tops of mountains.

After we got back to the El Conquistador, we spent the afternoon at the resort's signature attraction, the Coqui Water Park. It's not all that big, but it had several really good water slides, and my kids enjoyed floating around the Lazy River on a tube.

Day Trip to Old San Juan

On Tuesday morning, we went on a day trip through the resort to Old San Juan. I was looking forward to seeing the old forts and my wife was eager to do some window shopping. Unfortunately, because someone who shall remain nameless took so long to get ready, we were unable to eat breakfast before the bus was ready to leave at 9:00 a.m. Thus, when we arrived at Plaza Colon in Old San Juan around an hour later, we had to find a place to eat breakfast, which burned up nearly an hour. The closest fort was the massive complex of San Cristobal, which we arrived at around 11:00 a.m.

This is an inner wall at San Cristobal that overlooks an outer wall. Thus, if an attacking army managed to breach the outer wall, they would still find themselves facing these ramparts, which in its heyday would have been bristling with cannons.

The fortress of El Morro at the tip of Old San Juan, as seen from San Cristobal. Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit El Morro. After we were done at San Cristobal around 1:00 p.m., we ate lunch at some restaurant on Calle Fortaleza. The next thing we knew, it was nearly 2:30, and we needed to get back to Plaza Colon before 3:00 p.m. for the van ride back to the El Conquistador. El Morro and the rest of Old San Juan will have to wait for another visit to Puerto Rico.

San Cristobal as seen from Plaza Colon.

This is a school near Plaza Colon that I photographed because I liked the architectural style of the building.

The Christopher Columbus statue in Plaza Colon, honoring a man whose discovery of Puerto Rico was the catalyst for the destruction of the native Tainos on the island.

The Bioluminescent Experience

One of the main attractions around Fajardo is a nighttime kayak outing into a lagoon near the Cabezas de San Juan Nature Preserve at the northeastern tip of Puerto Rico. The waters of the lagoon and the path through the mangroves to the lagoon are filled with bioluminescent dinoflagellates that light up when moved, either by the blades of your kayak paddle, the wind, or drops of rain falling on the waters. I got to do this on the evening of Tuesday, the 17th. It was really cool, particularly when the canopy of the mangrove forest blocked out the light and enhanced the bioluminescence. Besides slashing the paddle blades through the water to light it up, I also achieved a sparking effect by splashing the water off the paddles onto the surface.

This was probably my favorite part of the trip, though sadly I had to experience it without the rest of my family. Since I did not know if the paddling would be strenuous beforehand or what the conditions would be like, I was reluctant to take my children on a trip that they might not want to endure, and I couldn't take my wife, otherwise, there would be no one to watch the children. In retrospect though, they probably could have all handled it.

If anyone reading this is planning on staying at the El Conquistador and wants to go on the bioluminescent kayaking trip, DO NOT book the trip through El Conquistador, as they will charge you twice the price. I was fortunate enough to have read about this while researching for the trip. The El Conquistador charges its guests about $89.00 per person. However, if you walk north for about ten minutes along the back road that hugs the shoreline, you will come upon a park in Las Croabas where the various kayak companies are lined up, with most of them charging as little as $45.00 per person. As I did not have reservations, I walked up to each outfit and inquired if they could fit me in and was told they were all booked, until I came upon the one furthest away manned by a guy who works for Eco Action Tours. He had plenty of availability and was happy to accomodate me. Another outfit that offers the tour for $45.00 is Kayaking Puerto Rico.

The group turned out to be rather small actually, a young Puerto Rican couple, and a nice Indian family of four from upstate New York. Because the largest kayaks held a maximum of three persons, their son, about 5 or 6, rode with the guide, while the daughter, about 10, rode with the parents. Unfortunately, the husband and wife did not have any kayaking experience, as they showed up dressed in plain clothes and didn't even have any kind of dry bag for their camera. However, I asked the company rep if he had a dry bag he could loan them and he did, so they were able to take their camera. Also, unfortunately, the husband and wife couldn't paddle very well either, as I observed that they were unable to synchronize their paddling. Consequently, by the time we had entered the mangrove forest, they had fallen far behind us. The guide ended up going back to them, taking their daughter in his kayak along with their son, and then tying their kayak to his.

The rest of the trip proceeded rather smoothly, until a kayaker from another group returning from the lagoon crossed over to our side of the pathway in the mangroves and collided with me, temporarily separating me from my group. Otherwise, the only time the paddling became somewhat difficult was in the lagoon, which got rather choppy as we headed back towards the mangrove. After that, it got quite easy, as the current was in our favor. In fact, the water was so calm that for a little while I was actually handling the paddle with one hand. The Indian man took the picture of me above with my camera and I happily reciprocated and took pictures of them with their camera. All in all it was a nice trip and I would have liked to have done it again with my family, but the weather the following two nights was not favorable. Perhaps on a future trip to Puerto Rico!

Lost In Translation

I got a kick out of this sign at the El Conquistador.

Expedition to Palomino Island

One of the attractions offered by the El Conquistador resort is that it has its own private little island called Palomino Island (or, Isla Palominos for you Spanish speakers!) just offshore from the resort, which we visited on Wednesday, the 18th. It's close enough that you can make out the El Conquistador across the water in the center of the picture above. In fact, I was surprised at how close many of the neighboring islands were. Puerto Rico's eastern islands of Culebra and Vieques were in easy view, and on a clear day, it was possible to glimpse the island of Saint Thomas beyond Culebra.

Overall, we had a nice time on Palomino, though my snorkelling excursion was disappointing and frustrating. First off, the coral formations were so close to the surface that it was impossible to swim over them, as I feared that I would scrape my legs against them. I would end up having to back up and look for a gap I could swim over. Then, on the return swim back to the beach I came up against a strong current that really wore me out. At one point, a staff member came up to me on a jet ski and asked me if I needed assistance. I decline the offer, and after resting for a few minutes, I was able to make my way back to shore.

Your friendly neighborhood iguana.

The kids and yours truly wearing his favorite t-shirt.

My wife as swimsuit fashion model. Almost every day she was bugging me to take pictures of her wearing one of the three new bathing suits she bought for the trip.

My "honeybuns".

The Highlight of Our Last Full Day in Puerto Rico

Thursday the 19th was our last full day at the El Conquistador. Truth be told, we could have just as well flown home that day, as we had done just about everything we had set out to do. My wife and my son wanted to go back to Palomino Island, which we did, but we had barely gotten to the island and commenced refortifying an abandoned sand castle when the already hazy, cloud covered sky unleashed its rain upon us. As the resort ferry docked at the pier, there began a hasty exodus of the majority of the guests present on the island, including us.

After drying off and getting dressed in our room, we made for the Cafe Bella Vista for lunch. After eating, my wife wandered off to one of the shops while my kids and I went outside to explore parts of the resort we had not seen before. When we returned to the main lobby, I heard a loud drum beating and a whistle blowing. I saw a group of men dressed in white playing some instruments as they walked through the lobby. Then I saw what was in front of them, a troupe of lovely, feathered dancing ladies.

At one point, the dancing ladies were pulling guys out of the audience to dance with them. One of them, the yellow feathered one if IIRC, reached out to me, but I declined, as my wife was not around to take a picture of me with her. However, I did get a nice shot of my kids with the purple garbed one. The yellow feathered one was the best dancer of the four and appeared to be the leader, but for sheer eye candy (and I hope in advance I am not offending any of my female readers), my favorite was the tall one who appears in the middle in the top picture. She wuz smokin' hot! I tried to get a better picture of her, but my efforts were in vain. Just when I would get a good focus on her, she would turn and face a different direction. After several failed attempts, I gave up as I didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable.

After about 20 minutes or so had gone by, the dancing ladies and the band players took the show outside and entertained the diners at the Bella Vista. At that point, the ladies were starting to show their fatigue, as they started dapping the sweat off their faces with napkins and taking turns getting glasses of water. Shortly after they went outside we left, so I don't know how much longer the show went on. But the ladies did a fine job and were the high point of an otherwise waste of a day.

Water That Will Cost You An Arm And A Leg

These bottles were standing conspicuously over the refrigerator located in the bathroom of our room. I expect that resorts such as the El Conquistador will be a bit on the expensive side, but $7.00 for a bottle of water? You would really have to be desperately thirsty to twist off the caps of one of these, given that bottled water can be purchased for much less at any of the shops at the resort.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

At the Cafe Bella Vista, an open air eatery near the main pool of the El Conquistador, one cannot help but notice the large numbers of a local grackle that Puerto Ricans call a chango. These particular birds are quite brazen, swooping down on nearby tables to help themselves to scraps left behind by customers who departed only seconds earlier. Anyone who reads this who has stayed at the El Conquistador will undoubtedly remember the changos.

Parting Shot From Puerto Rico

I couldn't leave Puerto Rico without getting a shot of the Kinky Condom Shop in Luquillo on the north side of the main road connecting Fajardo to San Juan. A little further east, on the south side of the ride was another similar establishment called Condom World. I was a little surprised to see these condom stores, given that Puerto Rico is majority Catholic and the Catholic Church's opposition to "artificial" methods of contraception is so well known.

I snapped this photo on the bus ride from the El Conquistador Resort back to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport to catch our flight home.

* I am writing my posts on our Puerto Rico vacation in reverse chronological order so that they can be read in chronological order by scrolling down.

Blogging Hiatus

Well, it's not like I have been that prolific lately, due to demands on my time, but Exercise in Futility will be on hiatus until next weekend, as the wife, kids and I will be spending the next 5 days basking in the warmth of Puerto Rico. I hope to have some good pictures posted for you when I return. Until then, best wishes to you all.

Pet Peeve of the Day - February 14, 2009

It seems whenever I go to a card and gift shop, I always see somebody hovering near the counter with a stack of scratch-off lottery cards in hand, furiously scraping away the silver coating to reveal the nothing that they've won.

Late this morning, I was at the card and gift shop near the Shoprite in Plainview Plaza, waiting for someone to help me with getting a balloon for my daughter's birthday party. While waiting, I observed this lady who looked to be in her late sixties, holding several lottery cards, a ten dollar bill and a five dollar bill in her left hand. She was scratching away at the cards with a coin and it was evident to me that when she finished with them that she had not won a penny. Having exhausted her supply, she proceeded to buy another ten dollars worth and continued again with her exercise in futility. Again, she came up donuts. So, did she learn her lesson? Nope, she then blew her Abe Lincoln bill on another one. How pathetic, I thought.

From my own personal observation, this seems to be a common activity. I see these people barking to the register clerk behind the counter, ordering 2 of this one and 3 of that one, with an air of self importance, as if they have convinced themselves that if they order a variety of different scratch-off cards in different amounts that it will somehow dramatically improve their chances of winning the jackpot. Usually, if they win anything at all, it's a couple of dollars that they then use to buy another scratch-off card until they have expended all of their cash.

Sometimes I feel like grabbing these people and yelling at them, "What the fuck is the matter with you!" I mean seriously. If they put the $25 or $30 they spent on this shit everytime they went to the card shop and put it in a cookie jar instead, by the end of the year they would accumulate enough money to actually buy something or go on a trip or whatever. My oldest brother Bobby was like that. The concept of setting aside money and accumulating savings never seemed to have seeped into his brain. Instead, it's either poverty or getting lucky that one time. He was the kind of guy who, for my birthday, would give me a card with $20 worth of scratch-off cards in them. Typically, I wouldn't win a cent, and I would tell him that he should have just given me the $20 instead.

What really annoys me about this scratch-off lottery thing, or lotteries in general, is that they end up becoming a voluntary tax paid by poor people. After all, it's not like rich people are playing the lottery. They've already got theirs. A lot of these people are struggling to make ends meet and they are just pissing their money away chasing a fantasy. I just find that very sad.

Taking The Plunge

This year I am going to be hitting 40. As is typical of many people who reach this milestone age, I have a growing awareness of my own mortality and a desire to do "something" while I still can.

Regular readers of this blog for the past year may remember that last spring I became a PADI Certified Open Water Diver. As I believe I wrote in a post last year, I don't know why it never occurred to me do something like that when I was younger and single. But in the last couple of years, I have developed an interest in diving and a desire to explore. What can I say, I'm a late bloomer.

So, in celebration of turning 40 this year, I am going to do "something." In fact, I have already taken the first step. Today I signed up for a trip my dive shop is offering to Belize this coming August and have put down the $1,000 deposit. I will be spending a week aboard the Sun Dancer II as it moves about from one dive site to the next. You can check out the web site for it here.

Even though the trip is not going to be for almost another six months from now, I am thrilled at the prospect of finally doing something adventurous in my life.