Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Old Rant: Net Illiterati

Something I wrote back in the late 90s… [original here]

I need to start updating this site, so I dragged this nugget out of my old closet to build on a Tweet I made earlier:

Dear radio ad writers: URLs *never* hv a “backslash” in ‘em. VO peeps, if u see it in a script, complain! I won’t buy from proven idiots…

I think that if someone is going to build a website, especially if they plan to CHARGE for something there, they should take a few minutes to at least spell check the damned things! How in the Hell did these people manage to get out of high school, and even in some cases get college degrees without knowing the difference between the possessive word “your” and the contraction “you’re?” I’d guess that 8 out of 10 web sites that I visit have multiple instances of the confusion of the two!  Another word that is consistently misspelled is “categories.” It’s obvious to me that many people have gone through life learning everything from television, and have very little experience with the printed word.  Since I’ve read thousands of books, misspellings and grammatical errors LEAP off a page at me; but apparently the Illiterati of the Net are the rule and not the exception.  I suppose this speaks volumes for the state of our educational system.  I wonder sometimes if it isn’t a government plot - after all, the ignorant and stupid are more easily led, and if the Net is a fair representation of the American public we’ve got a disproportionately large population of morons in this country.

Yup. It’s only gotten worse in the years since my original post. Pretty sad.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Laurie Higgins Wants Parents to Know a HS Math Teacher is an Atheist

A call to arms for the godless, for the sake of our CHILDREN!

Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute Sends an Open Letter to the Friendly Atheist - Repost of my comment on Hemant’s blog:

This makes my blood boil. Who the hell does this woman think she is? Christian busybodies injecting their views into educational settings BY COMPLAINING about things their small minds find “offensive” is a reprehensible tactic that’s proven effective more often than not.

The reason the so-called “New Atheist” movement is an absolute necessity (like yesterday), is because these fundamentalist crybabies like Laurie Higgins have enjoyed 30 years of empire-building in the media, accomodation, appeasement and outright, illegal government endorsement allowing them to manipulate public policy in their favor. They insist on their First Amendment rights while seeking to restrain everyone else’s. They’re out of control and it’s long past time to remind them of their place. In church and homeschooling, if they’re so determined to raise generations of Jesus-bots devoid of intellectual curiosity.

With the sorry state of affairs in American education – in large part due to the dumbing down of our curriculum in order to not piss off Christians – I’m thrilled to have good teachers out there, and what they say or do outside the classroom is none of my concern.

These bullshit “Family” organizations are an obstacle to our kids’ education and a threat to the First Amendment liberties of every citizen. I consider this attack upon the Friendly Atheist (a teacher, no less!) yet another call to arms for all the rest of us, from closeted to militant. Ladies and gentlemen get those arms in (ergonomically correct typing) position and fire at will. No quarter given.
BUY HEMANT’S BOOK “I SOLD MY SOUL ON EBAY”

Monday, September 11, 2006

9/11, Jesus the scene-stealer, and losing god(s)

I started this entry on 9/8, and although I’ve flogged myself for being a bad blogger and not posting, I suppose it’s fitting that it be published on 9/11 as people remember that day that took, and changed, so many American lives. Mine was but one of them, and for me that tragic day ties in with another, of which PZ reminded me.

Steve Irwin’s death is a tragic loss to his family and all the good work he’s done for the natural world.  My heart goes out to his loved ones, and the man has my respect for sharing his knowledge in such a way as to engage the interest of those who might not otherwise learn about some of the “monsters” we share the planet with.

So, in my blog-wandering, I came across PZ’s post, “Ken Ham spits on Steve Irwin’s Corpse”, wherein he describes what it’s like to attend a loved one’s “memorial” and… well, I’ll let him tell it:

My baby sister (she was in her thirties and had two kids of her own, but she’ll always be my little sis) died a few years ago of one of those sudden, massive infections - the kind of unexpected reminder of bacterial dominance that killed Jim Henson. When I attended the funeral, I was reminded of another lower life form that afflicts humanity: the minister was an ecstatic Jesus freak who, rather than talking about the young woman we’d lost, or trying to give words of reassurance to a grieving family, instead tried to turn the affair into a revival meeting, asking people to TESTIFY FOR JESUS!!! and otherwise making her superstition the center of attention, rather than Lisa and loss. It galled me no end, as you might guess, and if it weren’t for my respect for members of my family I would have grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and thrown her into the street.

Maybe I should have anyway. Goddamn all preachers, pastors, and priests.

It was a nearly identical experience that removed the last shread of tolerance I had for Christians in general, and fundamentalists in particular. In retrospect, that day was probably the one on which I decided I’d have to stop pretending that I believed in any sort of afterlife, and impress upon the people I loved how important it is for me to make THIS life a full one instead. There are people in my life with whom I have left things unsaid, or undone… and to me, it is those missed opportunities for shared moments and memories (sometimes even painful ones) that make some losses more agonizing than others, and become catalysts for sweeping changes in one’s own life.

My dear departed friend was “born again” in the late-80s/early 90s, and at the time I had been Wiccan for several years. To her credit, she did live up to her faith and take every opportunity to bring me to Jesus; and although I thanked her and told her I understood her motivation, by then I’d not been a Christian for nearly twice as many years as I had been one, or at least nominally so.  I remember clearly the day that I tearfully asked her to not let our religious differences get in the way of a friendship that began in grade school, and she said she wouldn’t.

As it happened, something entirely unrelated (but painful and catalytic in its own right) caused our contact with one another to change from an almost-daily occurrence to such infrequency that by the time she died, it had probably been at least 8 years since we’d spent any time together.  When I got married, almost 11 years ago now, I’d heard that although she wished me well, she was frightened for the immortal souls of her loved ones who attended my pagan wedding ceremony. Again, although I truly understood her POV, hearing those words - fundy “talking points” - hurt my heart.

On 9/11/2001, fundamentalists flew airplanes into buildings and killed over 3000 Americans, and when I posted on a message board that such tragedy is what happens when religious people take their invisible friends and their ancient myths too seriously, I was accused of being a godless anti-American, damned to Hell and called the foulest names in Christendom. And perhaps that day I did become godless… and definitely anti-fundamentalist… but certainly not anti-American. If the horrific aftermath of the acts of fundamentalist Muslims wasn’t enough to show convince me that I wanted no part of the Abrahamic deity, the words and acts of Christians in their response was a clear demonstration of what a monster this God is; or more particularly, just how far His followers will go in their pursuit of pleasing such a monster.

I didn’t pray on 9/11.  And although I lit a candle, I recall thinking that it was a memorial in honor of everyone who died and NOT a small ritual beseeching an invisible friend for blessings or help to defeat “our enemies”. On that day, it really hit home just how irrational, unnecessary and downright dangerous it is to give credence to invisible friends of any stripe. As the smoking ruins of the WTC stood testament to, some people are religious enough, committed enough, BATSHIT CRAZY enough to kill themselves and others at the behest of their invisible friends. Others still are batshit crazy enough to say that those thousands of Americans died because their invisible friend is punishing the country for the religious tolerance, laws and public policy He supposedly disapproves of.

Free thought, science, dissent, free speech and religious tolerance have been victimized as well since the attacks on America that day. We are being intimidated into giving up our liberties in the name of security, while on the frontlines of the Culture War you can’t listen to 3 minutes of conversation or swing a fucking dead cat in public without running into Jesus.  The god-talk everywhere was bad enough for 10 years before 9/11… it’s unbearable now.

So back to my story…

My friend died quite suddenly later in 2001, and my first thought after hearing the news was, “Where was that fucking Jesus, to whom she’d enslaved her mind and spent the best years of her life in dedicated service to? What grievous ‘sin’ did a 38 year old mother commit that she deserved death NOW, when her children are almost grown?”

If her service was any indication, that Jesus character was right there, right now, and demanded the spotlight to the exclusion of any of those mere mortals who might get up there and profane the occasion by, y’know, talking about their daughter/mother/sister/friend/wife, whom they loved and now mourned the loss of. My despair and sense of decorum prevented me from making a scene, but between my ire at my friend’s taking a backseat to Jesus and having some rather emotional, long-overdue reunions with her family members, I remember that I was having spasms in my back muscles that made it difficult to walk, and breathe.  I escaped the church with all due haste, screaming and howling in pain and rage alone in my car until I got to her sister’s house where we’d gather after the burial.

There is no afterlife, no “better place” for a person to be, especially when they were young enough to be enjoying their family and friends.  The way I see it, even if you believe in an afterlife, living as though you don’t at least ensures you’ll enjoy THIS one to its fullest.  I will never see my friend again, and unlike believers, I find no comfort in the irrational precept that her death is somehow less tragic because “she’s with Jesus,” even though I know she’d have liked nothing better than for that guy-in-the-sky thing to be true.  Despite her commitment to Christ, I can’t help but think she’d much rather have waited a few more decades before going off to “be with” Him.

I sure as hell know I’d have liked her to become a crazy old lady with the rest of us, with or without Jesus.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Udargo sums it up

Found in the comments on one of PZ Myers’ posts on Pharyngula, concerning Rabbi Avi Shafran’s assertion that atheists can’t be moral:

There’s something disturbing about these people who can’t comprehend how humans can be moral without fear of the “glaring cosmic policeman.”

And this perhaps shows us the true value of religion: There are a lot of people who need a belief in the glaring cosmic policeman to keep them in line. If Rabbi Shafran wasn’t a rabbi, he’d probably be a pretty scary dude. He’d be raping, pillaging and murdering, apparently.

And maybe some people will never be able to develop a more sophisticated moral awareness, based on empathy and respect for the truth (which I believe are the twin pillars of a healthy, adult morality). Maybe that’s why we do need religion. Maybe it does us more good than we realize.

I think this is actually what many of the Founding Fathers believed about the Christian religion. It was something necessary to keep those less philosophically sophisticated in line. Maybe they were right.

Posted by: udargo May 21, 2006 03:59 PM

Respect for the truth, and empathy… that’s what “morality” boils down to for me.  The only way to educate is to tell the truth, and the foundation of nearly every religion on earth is “treat others as you’d like to be treated.”

Not only does religion, and in particular Judeo-Christianity, require one to ignore certain truths, but by painting humans as inherently sinful beings’ whose only salvation lies in denying their natural biological instincts except under strict rules (say… sex exclusively within marriage), it fosters guilt and shame that leads to secrets and lies. In turn those “sins” or vices end up breeding entire subcultures where there are bound to be extremists. Not to mention entire families whose “history” is peppered with lies because someone was afraid of what the ladies at church would say about Grandpa’s “breakdown” or Aunt Sally’s unwed pregnancy.

The truth may not be pretty, or welcomed… in fact, it may be downright offensive or painful to hear.  But it’s infinitely more useful to have accurate information by which to live your life, and in the end spares you the unnecessary pain of having been deceived.  It’s not always the easiest or most comfortable course of action to tell the truth, either, and as cliche as it may be, honesty IS always the best policy.

Except of course, when listing one’s weight on her driver’s license

Monday, March 06, 2006

‘New act of terrorism in New York,’ my ass!!!

I just got this email, and although I didn’t take the infected bait, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who do.  After all, who can resist breaking news of a “New act of terrorism in New York,” that looks like it’s coming from the BBC?

To: OB
Subject: New act of terrorism in New York
From: “New York BBC News”
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 16:34:36 -0600

Today the FBI has informed new act of terrorism in New York.
Look details in an applied file.

Well… it’s immediately apparent that the person who wrote the above message is either a.) a child, b.) a moron, or more probably c.) a non-English speaker.

I, however, am none of those things. So, on top of the fact that I know better than to open *zip files (or ANY attachments) coming from people I don’t know, I’m quite sure that this did not come from the BBC.  They wouldn’t butcher English so thoroughly as this piece of shit, virus-peddling douchebag has in this abortion of a scam email.  I’m not sure whether they should be punished more severely for the virus or the murder of my beloved language.

The attached file is called “main.zip” and is 34k of some sort of shit that’d probably turn my computer into a zombie and start spamming beasty porn or ads for C1@L!S… so I hit the Delete button while shouting a hearty “Fuck Off!”

Who is it that buys into such a badly worded email claiming to be a “news story,” which not only isn’t spelled out IN the email, but requires opening a separate file?  Are there really still people out in the world that are THAT naive?  I have a difficult time believing it… or perhaps I’m just in denial.

Jesus.  Stupidity should be painful.