Nicholas Kristof On The Origin of Stars

Apologies again for my lack of posting lately. However, I wanted to respond to this column (registration required) by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.

While I agree with the overall point of the column, about revitalizing oneself by getting back to nature, the following item from his list of ten tips made me roll my eyes:

4. Skip a tent. To keep off rain, carry an ultralight tarp that you tie between two trees and stake to the ground, like a pup tent. But if there’s no rain, sleep under the stars. God made stars so that humans could fall asleep admiring them. (Emphasis mine)

Kristof's remark manifests the egocentrism that one finds in much of religious expression. The stars in the sky are not the product of a process that began billions of years ago, if one takes Kristof literally, but rather they are just part of some grand cosmic tapestry weaved by God specifically for our viewing pleasure. This is an echo from Genesis 1:16-17, wherein the stars are described as being set in the sky to provide us with light in the sky during the night. As I wrote in another post on this blog, if there are intelligent beings living on a planet circling one of those stars in our night sky, they would probably be amused to learn that the sun that provides them with heat and light exists primarily for our aesthetic benefit.

I ran across this same kind of thinking in a letter to the editor in an issue of National Geographic last year. In responding to an article from an earlier issue about the loss of dark skies to manmade light, the letter writer saw fit to remind readers that after all, God created the night for us. Silly me, I thought we had darkness because the Earth rotates on its axis, which means that half of the planet's surface at any given moment is facing away from the light of the sun.

In fairness to Kristof though, his remark could be taken as some form of poetic license. But it does reflect an all too common mode of thought by religious believers that anything beautiful or beneficial in nature is somehow proof that there is a God who cares about us. In the comments to one of my earlier posts, a Christian commenter mentioned reading about how Jupiter's gravitational pull sucks in a lot of meteors that might otherwise have impacted on Earth, thereby sparing us destruction. Wasn't this proof of intelligent design? My response was two-fold. First, why would a loving god need to introduce into the universe planet killing asteroids at all? Alternatively, God could have programmed such asteroids to miss the Earth anyway. Second, in a vast universe filled with billions of galaxies each filled with billions of stars of their own, shouldn't we expect to find some solar systems where gas giants like Jupiter play the part of some kind of celestial vacuum cleaner? To me, at least, there is no need for an egocentrical explanation that it is all there simply because of us.

I'm Back

But I haven't had the time yet to write about it. Suffice it to say that I had a really great time. Hopefully by this weekend I will be able to share my experiences with all of you.

Taking The Plunge - Part 2

Last February, I wrote a post titled Taking The Plunge, wherein I described my plans to go on a scuba diving trip to Belize. Well, in a few hours from now, I will be on the plane headed for Belize City, and a few hours after touching down there, I will be on board the Sundancer II for five and a half days of intensive diving.

I'm both excited and nervous. I'm excited about the prospect of seeing so many amazing places and things underneath the surface of the Caribbean. I'm nervous for a number of reasons. First, I will be far away from and possibly out of touch with my family. I am not sure if my cell phone will work down there. Secondly, because I have very little diving experience, I can't help but feel a little intimidated being around a lot of divers who have done this many times before and who can don and doff their scuba gear with their eyes closed. At the same time, depending on the personalities of the people I will be living with on the boat, I am sure I can learn a lot from them to improve my own skills and confidence. I expect though that for my first dive or two I will stumble a bit, but I hope to get my bearings after that.

Posting here will likely not resume until Sunday, August 9, the day after I return from Belize. During my time there, I plan to keep a journal where I will write down my observations and experiences (what can I say, I don't have a lap top!) and then convert them into blog posts so that you all can get an informative eyewitness account to give you a feel for what it is like. I hope to have some pictures too, but very few will be underwater. Because of my inexperience, it is better if I focus on working on an improving my dive experiences. I did get a disposable underwater camera from the dive shop that can be taken as deep as sixty feet so I can at least get a few shots, plus I would like to have some pictures of me underwater as well. The bulk of my pictures though will be taken with my digital camera on board the boat and any interesting things that can be seen from land. If I get the chance to snorkel, I am also bringing a dry bag for my digital camera so that I can use it to take some shallow underwater pictures.

Okay, I have rambled enough for now. Best wishes to all of you in my absence, and I hope to have some good stuff for you 10 days from now.

Some Values

By way of Pandagon, I have learned that Rush Limbaugh has been invited to be one of the speakers at the 2009 Values Voters Summit, one of those get-togethers of right-wing cultural conservatives to complain about how liberals, feminists and atheists are undermining the country's moral foundation.

Personally, I find it rather interesting that such a gathering would seek to include a thrice divorced Viagra® fuelled tourist to the Dominican Republic to pontificate on matters of traditional family values. Of course, what matters to these people is not Rush's morals, or lack thereof, but of his ability to promote their ideological agenda. After all, everyone has values. But it is these right wing conservatives who seek to make matters of morality their personal monopoly.

Drops of Water In A Water Jar - Part 2 - How About Drops of Water In A Water Barrel?

A couple of of months ago, I purchased a rain water collection barrel made by Fiskars. However, because I lacked a special kind of drill bit needed for drilling a one inch hole in the side of the barrel, and I never seemed to find the time to get to the store to by it, it was only today that I finally got it set up.

While Long Island has thus far had more than its fair share of rain this summer, there have been a few years here and there where we have had lack of rainfall. So, the rain barrel will certainly come in handy for situations like that. However, my primary intention is to use it as my first source for water when I water my vegetable garden, which by the way, is coming along nicely. I hope to be able to start harvesting the lettuce, carrots and broccoli in August.

In order for the rain barrel to be useful though, I need it to start raining so that enough water accumulates inside to rise above the level of the spout. If the weather forecast is anything to go by, the storm we are supposed to get tonight should help make this a reality.

The only downside is that I had to place the barrel so that it stands several feet away from the house rather than standing alongside the wall. The barrel is connected to a gutter at the northeast corner in the back of the house, which, from an aesthetic standpoint, is not exactly ideal. Nevertheless, if all goes well, it should help to reduce somewhat our household's water use.

Conformity - The Foundation That Props Up The System

As I have mentioned before on this blog, my wife believes in god in the Christian sense of the word. She also knows that I am an atheist. Apart from having our children baptized (I was raised Catholic and she is still at least nominally one), I have been successful at keeping religion out of their lives. My kids know that I don't believe in god either. However, I also stress to them that they should never tell any of their friends or classmates who mention god to say things like "My daddy says there is no god" or to otherwise talk about the issue.

Yesterday morning though, for reasons I cannot recall, the subject of god came up as I was making ready to leave for work. My wife suddenly came over and started saying things to the kids like "It's better to believe in god then not to believe in god," to which I replied "Which one, honey?" She sort of dodged the question, but kept insisting to the kids "If someone asks you if you believe in god, you have to say yes. You have to conform or else everyone will make fun of you." And she repeated a number of times about the necessity of conformity.

Of course, it is no secret that an important factor in the staying power of religious belief, or at least organized religious belief such as Roman Catholicism, is the power of conformity. To not believe is considered strange, so one should profess belief, whatever one's doubts may be, for fear of being ostracized by the community at large.

I also suspect my wife's cultural background plays a part in her concerns. In her native Philippines, the vast majority of the people are Roman Catholic, except for the Muslim majority in the southern part of the country. And many Filipinos are staunchly Catholic, as I have seen not only from visiting the country on two occasions, but in visiting the homes of Filipino immigrants here in the United States. Most Filipino-Americans have at least one area in their homes set aside for displaying all sorts of Catholic paraphernalia, including images of the Virgin Mary, Jesus on the cross, candles with crosses or other religious imagery on them, and so forth. Coming from that cultural environment, my wife probably projects the pervasiveness of god belief onto American society as well. Of course, there are many parts of the United States where this holds true, but at least in my corner of suburban Long Island, I don't feel any personal pressure to conform to religious belief. I don't advertise my atheism, and nobody really seems to care what my beliefs are.

But back to my children, my goal is not so much to raise them to be atheists but rather to be religiously neutral. Rather than having a particular religious doctrine drilled into them, I would prefer that they be taught about different religious beliefs along with my own secular humanist outlook and make their own informed choices when they get older.

Of course I'm still going to burn in hell when I die!

This afternoon, I had another one of those moments where circumstance put me in the position of going out of my way to help a complete stranger. And of course, I couldn't help but go through with it.

Around 2:30, feeling a little sleepy-headed at my desk, I decided to go across the street to Cosi and get my usual iced mocha with soy. As I normally do, I went down to the concourse below street level and emerged on the other side, at 48th and 6th. As I was ascending the stairs to street level, I saw a woman on the sidewalk above look down and then call out to a group of people who had just walked by, "Excuse me, did one of you drop an ATM card!"

I emerged onto the sidewalk at that moment. One young African-American woman came over to take a look just as I reached down for it. I read off the name, which was clearly a Korean name, though I could not determine the gender, and the woman turned around and went back the way she was going, knowing that it was not hers.

It was a Citibank debit card with a toll free number on the back. I decided I would get my iced mocha and then call the number when I got back to my desk. Naturally, I botched the number at first, because Citibank, like so many other companies, uses letters instead of numbers (which is something that really fucking annoys me!), and I wrote down one of the numbers wrong. After realizing my error upon encountering numerous busy signals, I dialed the correct number and spoke to a customer service representative. I gave her my work and telephone number so that the cardholder could call me.

To my surprise, the cardholder must have gotten the message rather swiftly, as I received a call from an outside line around 4 p.m., with the voice of a heavily accented Korean lady on the other line. In addition to her accent, she must have been in a rather cavernous room, as there was a tremendous echo that made it difficult to understand her. She acknowledged the echo and told me that she would call me back. Several minutes later she called again, and we made arrangements to meet at the corner of 6th and 47th.

To wrap this story up, I met her at the appointed location and returned her ATM debit card to her. After the exchange of the usual pleasantries in situations like this, we went our separate ways.

So what are the lessons to be learned from this? First, ducking away from your desk to grab an iced coffee drink can become the catalyst for doing a good deed. Second, for religious people reading this who like to diss' on atheists, someday a total stranger will go out of his or her way to help you, and that stranger might turn out to be an atheist.

Hiking The Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail

This morning I finally had the opportunity to do something I have been meaning to do for quite some time, to hike a portion of Trail View State Park, which is itself part of the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail, which extends from Massapequa Lake near the South Shore, up to Cold Spring Harbor on the North Shore. (No jokes about Argentine mistresses, please!)

I accessed the trail from the parking lot on Jericho Turnpike and headed north. To my surprise, and pleasure, I had the hiking portion of the trail virtually to myself. To the left, about 50 feet, is a trail for bikers, and every now and then I would see one of them heading south on the trail. Early on in my walk, I encountered an elderly couple coming from the opposite direction, and then afterwards a younger guy jogging, also heading southwards.

The trail itself starts off deceptively easy. For about the first third to half a mile, the ground is mostly flat, with occasional rises and dips. But after half a mile or so, the terrain becomes noticeably more hilly. The trail itself is quite narrow, and at times, looking to either side, you can see houses or other buildings through breaks in the tree cover. In spite of it, the trail was rather quiet, broken only by the calls of the various birds who inhabit the park. A number of times I paused to listen to and watch the birds, including one very noisy gray catbird. I also spotted a couple of Eastern Chipmunks, which are distinguishable from field mice by the stripes on their backs.

But by far, the most unusual thing I encountered on the trail was the remains of an automobile. The chassis was gone, and all that was left was the interior. Given that the part of the trail where it sits is rather secluded and hilly, I must confess I am baffled as to how it got there. The next time I hike the trail I will bring my camera with me and take a picture of it.

Being that this is suburban Long Island, it is impossible to completely avoid civilization while hiking the trail. After about three quarters of a mile, I emerged at the intersection of Syosset and Woodbury Road. You have to cross the road, looking both ways of course, and pick up the trail again on the other side. The beginning part of this section of the trail winds up a rise in the ground before becoming straight again. It was here that I stopped again, as this section of the trail seemed to be a gathering place for a multitude of birds of different species emitting their calls as they flitted about from one tree branch to another. There were cardinals, gray catbirds (who were rather ubiquitous in the park), robins, blue jays, and one or two others that I did not recognize.

After another quarter mile, I finally saw what had been the goal I set for myself, a section of the Long Island Rail Road's Huntington line. I was on a hill overlooking the tracks, and it was here that the trail became confusing, as it wasn't clear to me whether the bike trail and the foot trail came together. As I wound my way down the hill towards the track, I found myself walking on trails that had visible tire tracks. Fortunately though, no bikers came by at the moment, and I gradually descended down to a private gravel road called Whitney Lane. A section of the road continued underneath the rail road track, and led to the driveways of two houses that were themselves out of view. I thought to myself, "Now these are people who must really cherish their seclusion."

I crossed to the other side of Whitney Lane and followed a path that led right up to the rail road tracks. It was quiet and the tree cover mostly blocked out the backyards of the houses on either side. Standing there, I couldn't help but think of the movie Stand By Me.

Having reached my objective, I still found myself wanting to press on a little further. I walked back down to Whitney Road and went underneath the elevated portion of the track and turned left to where the trail picks up again. Almost immediately upon entering this part of the trail I found to my surprise a stand of bamboo. For a brief moment, I felt as though I was in some bamboo forest in China.

Passing through the bamboo stand, the trail then zigzagged its way up another steep hill. I decided I would make my way to the top of the hill and call it a day. Not only did I have a family obligation in the afternoon that I had to get back home and get ready for, my water supply was running low and I was beginning to feel fatigued.

When I made it back down to Whitney Road, I saw a man up ahead walking his dog, a large white poodle. The man was ahead of the dog, which had stopped to look at me and would not move. The man turned back to see why his dog wasn't moving and saw me. The dog became rather animated as I approached, so I let it sniff and lick my hand for a moment.

I then began the arduous journey back the way I had came. As this section was rather hilly, every walk uphill felt physically draining. I encountered another couple, probably in their fifties, heading in the direction from which I had come. I declared to them, "The trip back really knocks the wind out of you" or something like that, to which they chuckled in reply.

The walk back was like playing back the hike in reverse, only faster, as this time I was not pausing to listen to or observe my surroundings. I began to notice familiar landmarks from earlier, the derelict automobile, a fallen tree, an open area where there was little tree cover and one could feel the hot rays of the sun. Rather than drinking what was left of the water in my bottle, I instead liberally pressed the button to spray my face with mist. The ground eventually became level again and I could see the parking lot. All in all, I hiked about two and a half miles round trip in a little more than an hour and a half. It was an invigorating walk and I look forward to my next outing.

The Dragonfly

While I was watering the garden the other day, I saw land on one of the plants the dragonfly you see above. Unless my memory fails me, I do believe it is the largest one I have ever seen. When it had settled down on the branch, I just knew I had to take a picture of it, so I ran inside and retrieved my camera to snap this shot. I then went around to the front of the house to try and get a picture of the dragonfly from behind, but as I got into position to take the picture, it suddenly took off.

Why Does Jesus Need a Military Jet Flyover?

Plenty has already been written in the atheist blogosphere (like here, for example) about the Pentagon's recent decision to break with a 42 year tradition and refuse a request by the God and Country festival in Idaho for a flyover by military jets.

However, reading about it reminded me of this scene from the generally abysmal Star Trek V.

Something From Nothing

Physicist Lawrence Krauss recently had an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) inspired by his participation in a panel discussion at the recent World Science Festival in New York City (and as an aside, I so wanted to be able to attend but was not able to) titled "Science, Faith and Religion."

Krauss refers to "J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, [who] understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a "god, angel, or devil" will interfere with one's experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science."

Krauss goes on to conclude "while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature."

As can be expected, Krauss's op-ed provoked a number of spirited responses in the Letters to the Editor page in the July 3rd edition of the Journal. Again, a subscription to the online edition of the Journal is needed to see the letters in their entirety.

First up is Catholic bishop William Lori, who maintains that science cannot "without ethical limits and respectful conversation with other disciplines, including the humanities and theology, can eventually explain all there is to know about human life and the universe in which we live."

Maybe so, but how can theology explain anything about the universe in which we live? And whose theology? This conceit rests on the assumption that certain people have had insights about our universe personally communicated to them by its creator. For example, before Galileo first peered into the night sky with his telescope, in what way were his observations informed by Catholic theology? Galileo in no way expected to see moons orbiting Jupiter, rings around Saturn, or sun spots on our sun.

What I would concede, though I don't expect my fellow atheists to agree with me, is that theology can provide a framework by which we can choose to see ourselves in relation to the universe, as well as to each other and our environment. But such a framework would be necessarily subjective.

Next in the firing line is one David Cartwright of Lake Zurich, Illinois. Cartwright evidently was too obtuse to understand Krauss's reference to Haldane when he asks "Atheism provides no foundation whatsoever for science. On what basis can an atheist assume there should or will be order in the universe? And when he sees order, where does he think it came from? And on what basis can he even trust his reason?"

On what basis? How about observation or experimentation? I would ask, in a universe with an interventionist god, how can we trust anything? After all, if the god of the Bible exists, I can't rule out the possibility that when I wake up tomorrow, the moon will orbit the Earth in the opposite direction or that a volcano will emerge here on Long Island, where there is no history of vulcanism.

Next, Cartwright burps out "Further, the atheist has no explanation for where the world came from, yet science indicates it had a beginning." I am going to be charitable and assume that Cartwright meant the "universe" instead of the "world," because science does have an explanation for where our world came from. In short, small particles orbiting the sun billions of years ago collided with one another to form protoplanets which continued to grow as they accreted more materials. Contrast that with the Biblical account in Genesis, which claims that the Earth was created by God and plants grew upon it before the creation of the sun around which the Earth orbits.

As for the universe, I am constantly amazed that a theist thinks that an atheist's inability to explain the origin of the universe means that the theist wins by default. Rather, to me, the two sides can be summed up as "God did it" versus "We can't be certain at the moment, but it is a fascinating and important subject and we expect that continued study will reveal more and more clues to how it happened."

Cartwright then goes on to roll out the popular canard that "atheists, if honest, will admit they have no basis for objective morals, or the dignity and freedom of man." And as I keep saying in response to this allegation, religious believers have no objective basis for morality either. What they subscribe to is a set of subjective beliefs that have been wrapped up in the guise of divine command to give them the appearance of objectivity. After all, if atheism is to be blamed for the Holocaust, then Christianity must be to blame for the vicious pogroms against the Jews during the Crusades and at various regions and time periods in Europe. When you believe that someone who does not share your religious beliefs is an enemy of god and deserves to suffer for an eternity in the afterlife, then I fail to see how you can believe in that other person's right to dignity and freedom.

Following Cartwright is Martin Bednar of North Stonington, Connecticut. Like Carwright, Bednar asks "If the universe was not ultimately created by an almighty God, then where did it come from? Without an eternal omnipotent being, Mr. Krauss must conclude that the universe, ultimately, came from nothing." But why limit ourselves to one omnipotent being? Maybe there is an entire race of higher beings who collectively created our universe. However, even if one eternal and omnipotent being created everything, it does not necessarily follow that this being picked our little speck of a planet in the vast cosmos to promise a patch of land in the Middle East to a man named Abraham, and then a couple of thousand years later this deity decides to impregnant a virgin Jewish teenage girl in the Galilee.

Bednar laments that under atheism, "the truth would always be a moving target and always relative, defined only by the individual or by the society the individual lives in." Well, I already addressed that above in response to Cartwright. That is always going to happen, no matter what moral system one lives under, because humanity will never reach a state where everyone agrees on everything which will last in perpetuity from then on. There will always be conflict between those who feel the system does not give them a fair shake and those who want to deny others a fair shake, or deny that inequity even exists, because they feel it would violate their own privileged position. And while the Catholic Church's requirement for celibacy for priests is viewed as a matter of immutable doctrine, if the number of Catholic priests continued to shrink until it threatened the very existence of the Church itself, does anyone really doubt that a future pope would not find some theological hook upon which to hang the newly conferred right of priests to marry in order to increase the number or priests? If this does occur at some point in the future, would it be fair to say that doctrinal truth was adjusting to a change in social conditions?

Now we turn to Brett Alder of San Diego, California. Alder claims that "It is a religious notion that 'all men are created equal.'" No, Mr. Alder. It is a secular notion that we are all to be equal under the law. It is a religious notion that we are created equal in the eyes of a loving god, though of course that equality seems subject to modification. What one believes about whether god exists or what god wants seems to make some people more equal than others according to the doctrines of various religions. Evangelical Christians believe that I as an atheist deserve to burn in hell. Muslims believe that I as an atheist deserve to burn in hell. Evangelical Christians believe that Muslims deserve to burn in hell, and Muslims feel likewise about the Christians. All I can say is that they are both equally deluded.

Lastly, there is Professor Thomas Woolley of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Woolley claims that it "is this Western religious belief in a reasoned creator that laid the foundation and became the catalyst for the scientific revolution, ultimately leading to the crowning of the modern priesthood of scientists." I have seen this argument before, that Christianity was necessary for bringing about the scientific revolution. To be honest, I have not devoted a lot of time to trying to come up with a response to this argument. But let's pretend it's true. It still does not prove that the creator of the universe impregnated a virgin Jewish teenage girl in the Galilee who gave birth to a man who would perform miracles and rise from the dead. What it would suggest is that the intellectual climate in late medieval Christian Europe served as a scaffolding for erecting the edifice of scientific inquiry and advance. As with any building or structure that is constructed though, the scaffolding is eventually torn down and the structure still remains in place.

In parting, I wish to thank the gentlemen I quote above for giving me something to blog about.

Thorns In His Side

One of the blogs I visit frequently is Gordo's Appletree, the link to which appears to the right under my Brothers and Sisters in Disbelief blogroll. Like myself, Gordo is generally liberal in his political and social views, though his blog leans more towards political topics. One of the regular commenters at Appletree is a crusty conservative South Carolinian septaguenarian who goes by the moniker "Bedrocktruth." One of the things that Bedrock (I leave out the "truth" part on purpose!) constantly bewails is how liberals and atheists have destroyed the public expression of religious faith, particularly that of Christianity, in this country.

Anyway, I was looking through my copy of Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, a Southern Slaveholder for information to respond to comments Bedrock made on one of Gordo's posts when I came across a little known incident in the history of the separation of church and state in the United States.

While almost everyone in America knows about Mark Sanford, the current governor of South Carolina and his propensity for "hiking the Appalachian Trail" in Buenos Aires (and didn't the bastard catch a lucky break with Michael Jackson's death diverting some of the media attention away from him?), Sanford is not the first controversial governor in that southern state that was first in secession.

James Henry Hammond was born in 1807 into a family of modest means in the best of times. But he evidently grew to become a handsome and dashing young man. He managed quite a coup for himself when he courted and married a plantation heiress in 1831. From there, Hammond became involved in politics and got elected to the House of Representatives. In Congress, he was an ardent defender of slavery, which he described as "the greatest of all the blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon our favored region." In the 1840's, he would be elected governor of South Carolina.

In his diary entry dated November 21, 1844, Hammond writes of the following incident:

I announced and set apart the 3rd day of October for Thanksgiving. In my Proclamation I invited the State to worship "God the Creator and His Son Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the World." The Jews of Charleston took great offence, announced themselves greatly displeased at being apparently excluded, and called on me for an explanation through the public papers and by private letter. I informally answered them through Col. Pinckney, Sec. of State, in Charleston that it was an oversight. But they wanted some public notice and apology. They refused to open their Synagogues and finally about the 5th inst. addressed me a long and impertinent Memorial and signed, I presume, by every Jew in Charleston, 110 names. I answered it pretty sharply, refused to make an apology, and defended my Proclamation. I hoped the matter would end there. But they called a meeting, had a report in reply to my letter, and published the whole in yesterday's Charleston papers. My letter badly printed, which I must have corrected up here. This will be a three days talk for the public. But it has drawn on me the everlasting and malignant hostility of the whole tribe of Jews, which is very unpleasant in many ways. Their Report declares that they wish to drop the matter, and so do I. Publicly it will end here, but privately they will be thorns in my side.

So, while people like Bedrock and other conservatives cling to a mythical American past where public expressions of Christianity were the norm until those awful atheists and ACLU people came along and wrecked everything in the 1960's, the episode described by Hammond in his diary shows that even as far back as 1844, in conservative South Carolina nonetheless, religious minorities protested against official government proclamations that favored Christianity to the exclusion of other religions.

The supreme irony in this though is that Hammond, like Mark Sanford, also had a propensity for "hiking the Appalachian Trail," which included making mistresses out of some of his African-American slave girls, as well as debauching several of his own nieces.

Now, though I am an atheist, I don't have any problem with people being Christians, nor do I object to public displays of religious faith. But I should think, and hope, that even many Christians would agree with me that politicians who wear Jesus Christ on their sleeves in public should be regarded with a great deal of skepticism.

Updated: Weekend Funnies - Funny Death Scenes

I haven't done a Friday funnies in a while. I meant to put this up last night, but didn't get around to it. So I guess I will call this one Weekend Funnies. The first scene is from Robocop, wherein one of the bad guys gets toxic waste all over him. The second is the great Samuel Jackson death scene from Deep Blue Sea. Enjoy.





Update! Here's another great scene, this one a classic from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Rant of the Day - June 17, 2009

It's been a while since I really complained about something I personally encounter in the course of my day. But today I got a parking ticket that's got me really teed-off.

But first I need to put things in context.

This morning, I was looking to catch the 9:07 train to Hicksville. Now, normally, I park at the Sears parking lot, where the Town of Oyster Bay provides a shuttle bus that takes commuters to and from the lot to the Hicksville Train Station. The last bus leaves for the station at 9:00 a.m. However, I was working late in the office tonight and did not expect to be back in time for the last shuttle bus that takes commuters back to Sears at 9:00 p.m.

Since the parking lot at Sears is quite a long way to walk on foot at night, instead I planned to try and get a spot near the ticket office at the train station this morning. Quite often, it is possible to get a good spot if you time your arrival just as an east bound train arrives at Hicksville from Penn Station. What happens is that people who work overnight shifts in the city are able to get good parking spots at the Hicksville Station at night, so if you set yourself in the right spot at 9:00 a.m., you can snag a spot as one of the overnighters pulls out.

Unfortunately, this morning I got to the station just a bit too late, so I was unsuccessful at getting a parking spot by the train station. It was already too late to go to the Sears lot and catch the shuttle bus, so the only other option was to park in the lot by the Peppercorn's restaurant at East Marie Street. The problem is, many of the spots by Peppercorn's are metered spots, so even if you have a town parking sticker, you still can be ticketed. The unmetered parking spaces in this lot set aside for town residents are normally all filled by 8:00 a.m. However, in the past, I have found that even when I parked in the metered spots, I hardly ever got a ticket. And even then, the fine was $25, which was bearable.

Well, this morning, when I got to the lot, I had no choice but to park in a metered spot. The problem is, the maximum time you can park there for a quarter is 4 hours, and the meter does not allow you to put in 2 quarters for 8 hours. I put a quarter in anyway in the hope that I would be able to squeak by and avoid a ticket. But much to my chagrin, when I got to my car tonight, I looked and saw the ticket underneath the driver's side windshield wiper.

As annoyed as I was, I resigned myself to paying another $25 or $35 fine. But when I got home a short while ago and looked at the ticket, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I saw the amount of the fine. NINETY DOLLARS! Let me repeat that. NINETY FUCKING DOLLARS for a parking spot that costs 25 cents. I'm sorry, but that is an absolutely outrageous amount of money to fine people. I guess it is a sign as to how starved our local government is for revenue that they have raised the fine for overstaying in a metered spot to such an onerous amount.

Of course, I have no choice to suck it up and pay it. And it goes without saying that I will never park in a metered spot again. Which just goes to show that hiking the fine so high might end up costing them revenue. Paying $25 here and there was an acceptable risk to me, and it ended up being extra revenue for the town. By hiking the fine to such exorbitant levels, virtually no one will end up parking in the metered spots for the day, which could end up in ticket revenues plummeting. Way to go, guys!

The Head of the Household

This afternoon I got one of those telephone survey calls. As is often the case with these types of calls, the caller asked me if I was the head of the household. I started to say something along the lines of "Yeah, I guess so." But then I stopped and said, "Well, actually I like to think of myself as an equal partner."

When the call terminated, it occurred to me for the first time how such a term, "head of the household," seems so anachronistic to me. It hearkens back to an era where women tended to stay at home and raise the children while the men were the breadwinners of the family. When you have been exposed to feminist ideas and accept them, you find your consciousness being raised about such things as how every day language perpetuates patriarchal ways of thinking.

Do I tend to take a leadership role in certain aspects of the family business (as opposed to the Family business!)? Yes, I do. But my wife helps set the agenda in our home as well. And as a professional who brings home more take home pay than I do, I bristle at the notion implicit in the term "head of the household" that she has some subordinate position when it comes to affairs of house and family. Personally, I think I will go with the term that Filipinos applied to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, a "conjugal dictatorship"! :-)

Please Save My Marriage From The Gays, Ex-Senator Santorum

But before I get into that, first off, I apologize for the lack of posting lately. I just haven't had the time or the energy these last two months to be as productive as I would have liked. Okay, end of apology.

As I have stated in the past, one of my main sources of inspiration for posts on this blog are solicitations I get in the mail from right wing Christian organizations.

The latest piece of nonsense I have gotten comes from the National Organization for Marriage. The solicitation comes in the form of a hyperbole filled letter from Republican ex-Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

What follows are excerpts from Santorum's letter (in manly blue colored text, of course), followed by my responses in faggy lavender.

My friend, I've never come to you with a more urgent message: we must act NOW to protect marriage.

First off, asshole, I'm not your friend. Second, my marriage, the 10th anniversary of which I will be celebrating next week, is doing just fine. I do not require your "protection."

In Iowa and Vermont, an out-of-control court and an out-of-control legislature have forced same-sex marriage on unwilling voters and New Hampshire and other New England states are in the fights of their lives to protect marriage.

Gosh, there's a lot of lunacy packed into that one sentence. For openers, I can't help but notice that whenever a court or a legislature or agency goes against the wishes of religious conservatives, these institutions are described as being "out-of-control" or "out of touch." And New England states are in the "fights of their lives"? You can almost picture the streets of New England's capital cities littered with dead bodies and crumbling buildings like Berlin in the spring of 1945, as the last die-hard gay marriage opponents desperately fire their panzerfausts at the unstoppable lumbering T-43 tanks of the tyrannical gay marriage lobby, while Rick Santorum and Maggie Gallagher exhort their supporters to fight to the death over the loud speakers.

With one stroke of the pen, President Obama could sign into law a bill that allows judges in one state to impose gay marriage on 47 other states. (Bolded and underlined in the original.)

That's another thing I have noticed about these people. They always try to frame the issue of marriage equality to make it look like it is an imposition on the rest of us. Listen, the only way gay marriage can be imposed on you is if you are forced to marry another person of the same gender as you against your will. You know, the way the daughters of kings and nobles of old were married off against their will to cement alliances or in exchange for territory, all with the blessings of the church, of course.

Will you join me, Dr. James Dobson, and thousands of other people of faith who support the National Organization for Marriage? Together, we can stop those who would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. (Bold in original)

No, I won't.

I was in the Senate chamber on that historic day back in 1996 when an overwhelming majority of Senators and Congressman came together to pass the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which is the ONLY federal law that protects marriage as the union of husband and wife.

Yes, you were in the Senate chamber on that day. And now you're not, because you lost your bid for re-election. There's democracy in action for ya!

DOMA makes sure that four judges based in Boston or San Francisco cannot impose gay marriage on the rest of us. It also makes sure that taxpayers like you and me cannot be forced by judges or gay marriage activists to subsidize same-sex unions as if they were just traditional marriages.

Here we go again with this "impose" bullshit. And guess what Ricky Boy, gays pay taxes too! By the way you describe it, you would almost think that every homosexual in America is living large on the public dole like Ronald Reagan's mythical Welfare Queen. Maybe gay Americans don't feel they should be forced to subsidize the multiple marriages of such bastions of conservative morality as the thrice married Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

As I sat in the Senate that day I can remember what an extraordinary moment it was: How proud you and I could be of the way Americans of every party and creed came together to to protect our common sense understanding of marriage. Even Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law-that's how broad and powerful the bipartisan consensus for marriage is.

You came together? What, did you all have some kind of circle jerk in Congress that day? As for Bill Clinton, he was a president faced with Republican control of both houses of Congress. Of course he signed it into law. It would have been too politically costly for him not to have signed it. He's a politician and that is what politicians do. In 1996, I thought the idea of same-sex marriage was taking things too far, as much as I considered myself pro-gay rights at the time. But you know what, Ricky? People change their minds over time on some issues. Sometimes it takes decades. Other times it is just a matter of a few years. It's what Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion calls the changing moral zeitgeist. So, you can keep looking back on the passage of DOMA with fond nostalgia all you want, but it is not 1996 anymore.

Marriage is a sacred union of male and female.

Not entirely. A marriage is not inherently sacred. The sanctity of a marriage rests on the level of commitment between the participants in the marriage. If one or both spouses routinely engages in affairs outside of their marriage, or they just plain don't love each other anymore, then there is nothing sacred at all about their marriage.

Marriage should never be turned into a politicized plaything that powerful politicians misuse to placate their clamorous partisan bases.

I guess Ricky's irony meter was broken when he wrote that line.

Not while you and I have a breath left in our bodies, right? (Bolded in original)

Good grief! Here we go with the overwrought rhetoric again.

That's right, while we are tending our jobs, going to church, and raising our families, a handful of wealthy gay men are plotting to use their giant fortunes to reshape the entire American political landscape in their own image.

Yeah, because we all know gays don't have jobs, don't go to church, and don't help take care of family members. And wealthy gay men using their money to help promote gay rights? Gosh, the nerve of them. How dare they lend their financial support to causes that they believe in? After all, it's not like wealthy conservative white men never use their fortunes to support conservative causes!

You and I and millions of other Americans know that we don't want courts telling us our views of marriage are just old-fashioned bigotry.

Okay, as an ordinary American citizen, I will tell you then. It is old-fashioned bigotry.

We want and expect respect for marriage as an ideal because the ideal for children is a mother and a father united by bonds of matrimony.

Yes, when all else fails, THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Does this mean that Santorum opposes heterosexual marriage for couples that are well beyond child bearing age? After all, last year my 67 year old uncle got married to the 65 year old woman he met after his first wife died from cancer 9 years ago. Not all marriages are about children. But since Santorum wants to drag kids into the equation, is he seriously suggesting that children raised in a heterosexual marriage where one or both of the parents is addicted to drugs or alcohol, or is abusive or neglectful, is better than a child raised by same-sex parents who are loving and make a decent income? Mind you, I am not saying that every same-sex couple that wants to raise children will make the best parents. But we all read of plenty of examples in the news of heterosexual couples wherein one parent leaves children in the car of a mall parking lot while he or she goes shopping, or who takes the child with them while attempting to purchase heroin or crystal meth from a street dealer.

What matters is not whether the couple is heterosexual, gay, or alternatively, a single parent household. What matters is the level of love and commitment of the parents or parent, gay or straight.

Marriage is a gift from God, a sacred bond.

Uh, no it's not. It is a human institution that has been dressed up in the garb of religion.

Marriage is not at all like racism, it is not founded on hatred, and we will NOT accept in silence these BIG LIES endlessly repeated to our children and our grandchildren.

Wow, what stupidity! Who is saying that marriage is like racism or that it is founded on hatred? And opposing same-sex marriage is obviously not racism, so Ricky is getting overly emotional here. But the attempts by Santorum and religious conservatives to demonize the gay marriage movement is based on a foundation of bigotry. What gays who have been in monogamous relationships for many years are asking for is that they be accorded the same rights as two heterosexual senior citizens who can lawfully marry. Does it mean that every same-sex marriage will be a paragon of domestic bliss? Absolutely not. As we all know, nobody is perfect.

We are eached called to "faith, hope and love." It is the fuel for our battles with the forces of hate who seek (in the name of tolerance!) to silence God's own truth.

It is not "God's own truth" that you are advocating. What you are advocating is what you choose to believe is the truth of a god that was created by somebody in the Middle East thousands of years ago. The collections of books in the Bible are not some objective truth handed down from on high, but rather the subjective beliefs of the people who wrote them.

And don't forget: we need your prayers, too.

You know what, Ricky? I just might pray for you. Because, as an atheist, I know that my prayers for your success will not be answered nor will they improve your chances for success in any way.

Won't you take a stand for marriage and give today?

The only marriage I can take a stand for is my own, and I will try to give my best to my marriage every day.

God bless you, Rick Santorum.

Yeah, and fuck you too!

David Carradine, R.I.P.

A Step In the Right Direction for Kuwait

First off, apologies for the lack of posting here the past three weeks. I just couldn't seem to find the time to plant my ass in front of my computer and crank out some posts. I hope to get back in the saddle again soon.

Anyway, I meant to do a post about this several days ago when I first read about it, but thought I would give it a belated mention. In a positive turn in Kuwait, women (four of them, in fact) were elected to this Arab Gulf state's parliament for the first time in its history. Since I devote not a few posts on this blog decrying the unequal status of women in many Muslim states, including this post last year when I decried that not a single woman candidate for parliament in Kuwait was elected last year, it is only right that I highlight the good news as well.

The Fit Has Hit The Shan in Pakistan

Read all about it here at the BBC Online, or a host of other places.

From the International Red Cross Committee:

The ICRC said that although figures remain unverifiable at this stage, reports indicated that up to 500,000 Pakistanis have been recently displaced by conflict in Dir, Buner and Swat.

The ICRC and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society are currently marshaling their resources to be able to provide 120,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) affected by the fighting with food and essential relief items. The ICRC also hopes to be able to provide basic heath care for about 30,000 displaced people. Its recently inaugurated 60-bed surgical hospital in Peshawar is scaling up its capacity to be able to receive up to 100 weapon-wounded patients at a time. The organization has also been in daily contact with hospitals in Timmergarah, Mardan and Swat to find out about their needs and discuss possible ways of providing support.

It looks like the Pakistani government has finally realized you can't make deals with the Taliban fundamentalists. They have to be eradicated before they metastasize like a cancer throughout the country. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent Pakistani civilians are being displaced as a result of the crackdown by the Pakistani army in the Swat Valley region.

Now, there is no shortage of worthy causes in the world that need your help. But I would urge you to make a donation, if you are financially able, to the International Red Cross so that they can help the people of Pakistan who are being turned into refugees in their own country. You can make an online donation here. There is a drop-down screen where you can select Pakistan as your donation choice. I just made a donation a moment ago, as I wouldn't ask anyone to do so unless I had done so myself. Thank you for your consideration.

They Got Him!

No, not Osama bin Laden.

Several weeks ago, I wrote this post titled Speaking of Banks to vent my frustration over how easy it is for any lowlife knucklehead to rob banks.

Well, I just learned that the suspect who inspired the post, one David Graf of Seaford, was caught along with his accomplice, Lauren Becker of Commack. I had suspected as much, as I wrote in my post, "Judging by his targets, he either drives himself around or he has an accomplice, as his targets are scattered throughout the county."

Newsday has his mug shot here. As the text below the photo indicates, "they robbed banks to fuel a drug addiction." I mentioned that in my previous post as well, "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." Of course, anybody could have guessed that.

Graf and Becker are just two more sad examples of the tragedy of drug addiction. They not only hurt those around them, but they waste their own lives as well, all in pursuit of that next high.