It’s not that I question your judgment—I do,
But for now this is all I am saying:
Why would you want someone writing for you
Whom you don’t seem to think is worth paying?
So she turns down your offer (completely expected)
With “thanks but no thanks”, and no more…
Just act like professionals do when rejected,
And ask if she’s some kind of wh–wait, what? Really?
The Digital Cuttlefish Blog, that is. 10/10/07 marked my first four posts on the olde blogge, including one that was probably the comment that earned my Molly award that month. Come to think of it, that first month also has a verse that was in the book of best science blogging for that year. Not a bad month, all in all.
It’s also World Cuttlefish & Squid Day (10/10, for us ten-appendaged critters, like the 8th was World Octopus Day). So what better day to spend exploring the archives, and looking for forgotten gems and well-forgotten detritus.
Happy blogoversary to mee.. happy blogoversary to meeeeee….
Looking back those six long years, to the verses that commenced it,
Who would have thought I’d still be here? I would have bet against it.
So, to my muses–the politicians, creationists, and cranks–
And to, of course, my readers… I am humbled. Really, thanks!
It’s rare, of course, but not unheard of. This recent case from China:
…reminds me of the last time I visited this subject, thanks to Shelley at Retrospectacle (now defunct), when the muse was a… unique… knitting project.
“Teratoma”, or “Knit me a Sister”.
“I have an invisible friend”, I said,
“But she doesn’t hide beneath my bed,
Or in my closet–no, instead,
I keep her tucked inside.”
“We do not mean to condescend,
But we all know, there’s no such friend;
This fabrication now must end.”
My Mom and Dad replied.
“But Mommy! Daddy! Please, I swear!
She’s closer than my teddy bear!
See my tummy? She’s in there!
I even feel her growing!”
My parents didn’t scream or shout;
They trusted me, despite their doubt,
And had a doctor check me out
When something started showing!
My friend was real! I hadn’t lied!
At first, my twin, but then she died.
The doctors cut me open wide
And shoveled out my basement.
I never knew I had a sister,
But once my friend was gone, I missed her;
So, knitting till she raised a blister
My Mom made a replacement!
The cross is there, on public land;
It’s been there fifty years.
The courts will say it cannot stand;
So, surely, it appears.
The local Christians see the case
A battle for our soul
Instead of legal argument…
It’s time to run a poll.
In Middleboro, MA, there is a cross on the median strip of a bit of Route 28. A 7-foot cross of red brick, with the word “WORSHIP” in faded white letters, that has been there for 50 years, since the Kiwanis club constructed it. The grassy island is owned in part by the city, in part by the state, but
In an effort to resolve the matter, the state and county agreed to donated their shares of the island to the town, which in turn will sell it to the local Kwianas Club.
At least one citizen is worried there will be trouble:
Jeff Stevens lobbied town meeting to stay out of the fray, fearing the town will become embroiled in a lawsuit threatened by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“This is not a Middleboro problem,” Stevens said. “It will open up our town to legal challenges.”
I’m sure you can guess how the vote went:
Town meeting ignored Stevens’ petition by a wide margin and supported selectmen 228 to 10. The vote drew a round of applause.
It’s like Cranston, and Jackson, and so many more… never happened.
Anyway, there is currently a poll at the site, asking your opinion of the cross– is it “a religious symbol that has no place on public property”, or “an appropriate expression of religious freedom”? As of now, it’s roughly two to one the wrong way.
In Montgomery, Alabama,
As the victim of a crime
You might want the cops to move
A little faster
They’ll be there, if you are lucky,
In the very nick of time,
But they’ll make one stop
To bring along a pastor
When they bring along “Good Shepherds”
They don’t mean the K-9 corps—
But evangelists, whose job
Is just to preach
Simply spreading Christianity
Is what this program’s for—
And at crime scenes, there’s
An audience to reach
It’s a blatant violation
Of our first amendment rights!
This conjoining of a
Pastor and a cop…
It’s a weapon for the church—
The constitution in its sights—
Alabama’s got to understand,
And stop!
Seriously, what? Montgomery, Alabama is using public funds “to place Evangelical Christian Pastors at crime scenes“. I can’t see why American Atheists might object to that… I mean, other than every single thing about it.
Maybe this is all just a misunderstanding…
The department’s official chaplain Corp. David Hicks said in an interview on Christian radio, “What we want to do is combine the religious community and the Montgomery Police Department and we want to unite those as one.”
Ah. No, then.
Can’t wait to see how this one plays out.
The Jesus portrait has to go,
We finally agree
It’s like you told us long ago
Before we paid your fee
If we had only listened then
We might have known you’re right…
But someone hollered “atheist!”
And so we had to fight.
We didn’t think the painting
Would offend a Christian soul—
We thought it was the atheists
Exerting their control
But freedom of religion means
A Christian can complain
When schools promote religion
When they’d really best abstain.
In Jackson, where the headlines say
“The atheists have sued”
It seems the story’s incorrect—
The facts are misconstrued—
One plaintiff is a Christian girl
It chastens us to say
Who saw the Jackson painting, but
Views Christ a different way
And victory for atheists
(As all the papers say)
Is victory for her as well
The schools, of course, must pay
We’ve learned a costly lesson, here
In Jackson public schools:
Tradition might speak loudly, but…
The constitution rules
I missed it Friday, but the parties have reached a settlement in Jackson, Ohio, and the portrait of Jesus has to go. Reactions are … predictable. It’s an ACLU and FFRF “Shakedown”, with the lawyers getting some $80,000 (which they had warned the schools about) and plaintiffs getting “the paltry sum of $3,000 each” (which I predict will be framed as sufficient motive that their suit can be dismissed as money-grubbing). Of course, nearly every report labels it an “atheist lawsuit”, which is worth unpacking.
A local news channel, WSAZ, has a nice collection of the major events in the case, updated at every turn (though the video at the top is not current). But even there, there is no mention of one fact that spoils everyone’s narrative.
One of the plaintiff children is a Christian. From the FFRF complaint:
Plaintiff Same Doe 2, attends Jackson Middle School and views the portrait of Jesus every day when Plaintiff walks through the entranceway to the Middle School. Sam Doe 2 identifies as a person of Christian faith and is offended by the religious portrait hanging in Jackson Middle School because it portrays the image of Jesus in a manner that is inconsistent with said Plaintiff’s religious beliefs and expresses the Christian faith in a way that distorts Sam Doe 2’s own beliefs about morality and religion.
The promotion of one view of Christianity does not just offend non-Christians, it offends other Christians who do not share that particular view. It is trivially true that different Christian faiths disagree with one another–and this was clearly the case during the writing of the constitution, when (for instance) Catholics were viewed as a threat to local governance.
This is precisely the sort of thing the first amendment was meant to deal with, and this is precisely the outcome that could be seen from months ago.
The Washington chaplain attempts, every morning,
To start off the day with a prayer and a warning
A message for senators, angry and bold
As it offers a chance for the chaplain to scold
(They all say they’re Christian, except for a few,
So you’d think there’s a chance that they’d listen to you!)
But the senators listen, and nod with a smile
To a prayer that is aimed at the folks ‘cross the aisle
(It just couldn’t be that our side has done wrong,
So we’ll do what we do, as we’ve done all along.)
So, yeah… keep on praying; go nuts. What the hell…
I mean, why would you quit, when it’s working so well?
“Save us from the madness,” the chaplain, a Seventh-day Adventist, former Navy rear admiral and collector of brightly colored bow ties named Barry C. Black, said one day late last week as he warmed up into what became an epic ministerial scolding.
“We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness and our pride,” he went on, his baritone voice filling the room. “Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable.”
I’m torn. Partly I view his prayers as an exercise in futility, a useless waste of time where he might as well be talking to a wall. And frankly, that’s about as much influence as I want him to have. I’d rather have him outside the senate, literally talking to walls. But there is a hint that maybe some senators are listening:
During his prayer on Friday, the day after officers from the United States Capitol Police shot and killed a woman who had used her car as a battering ram, Mr. Black noted that the officers were not being paid because of the government shutdown.
Then he turned his attention back to the senators. “Remove from them that stubborn pride which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism,” he said. “Forgive them the blunders they have committed.”
Senator Harry Reid, the pugnacious majority leader who has called his Republican adversaries anarchists, rumps and hostage takers, took note. As Mr. Black spoke, Mr. Reid, whose head was bowed low in prayer, broke his concentration and looked straight up at the chaplain.
In which case, he’s moved from ineffectual to evil. “Attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable” is an apt description, but not of both sides. When negotiating with a firebug, finding a reasonable number of fires he can be allowed to set should not require one side to move from a strong position of “zero”.
We need a world religion—
Who could dare to disagree?—
Yes, a universal mixture
Of the best of what we see!
Choose the best among the principles,
One faith to serve us all
Free of lies, and war, and prejudice
Duplicity and thrall
One path for us to follow
One road to the divine:
Which faith should be our template?
I’m suggesting, maybe… mine
“Religion in its present sectarian form will not work in today’s world-we require a universal religion,” said Ramjee Singh, Gandhian and former member of Parliament. Pointing out that there have been 7,500 wars in the name of religion, Singh said, “The Muslims and the Hindus are fighting, the Christians and Jews are fighting, the Protestants and Catholics are fighting; what is the use of having so many religions? The world should adopt a universal religion that merges the best principles of all religions, a faith that is free of all duplicity, violence and undue temptation.
Actually, it looks like his talk was mostly not about religion, but about politics and public life–the call for a universal religion was made out of the assumption that religion is the necessary path to morality. I’d say his opening pretty much refutes that.
But I have, previously, discovered the distillation of religious truth. He might want to reconsider his plan.
I, myself, think his argument works equally well as an argument against religion at all.
When, in Tennessee, there’s hatin’
There’s no time to waste in waitin’—
Best to blame it all on Satan
And the atheists as well
Time to blame, for this infliction
(Without thought of contradiction),
Folks who think the devil fiction
Likewise heaven; likewise hell.
The graffiti was Satanic
Which, of course, ignited panic
(Could be worse; could be Koranic):
Must be atheists to blame!
See, cos atheists are people
Who, while Christians are asleep, ‘ll
Spray-paint pictures on their steeple
To their everlasting shame
Yes, their godless souls are sinking
Or at least, so goes the thinking
Of the church, forever linking
Us, our good name to besmirch
Cos the atheists are blameless
And the Satanists still nameless—
Casting blame like this is shameless
And it’s stupid of the church.
Actually, it might not be stupid of the church at all; the report (“Tennessee Church Vandalized with Atheist Themes”), from the Western Center for Journalism (we’ve seen them before), does not quote church members as blaming atheists at all. It could just be the incredibly bad journalism practiced by the Center for Journalism.
Members indicated that two crosses were inverted in an apparent attempt to recreate a common satanist symbol; and page 666 — a number often associated with Satan — was burned out of a Bible at the location. That number was also carved into the church altar.
To remove any doubt regarding their intended message, the vandals also carved a succinct and disturbing message into the altar: “Smoke meth and hail Satan.”
Now, get out your word salad bingo cards:
As Christians across the world face persecution and even death at the hands of Islamic terrorists, the U.S. remains a nation in which believers of all faiths can gather to openly worship. We must remain dedicated to preserving that right, though, as it continually faces opposition.
While this Tennessee church experienced an outright attack, secular humanists continue to work behind the scenes to surreptitiously silence the Christian voice within America. Whether through ObamaCare mandates, anti-discrimination lawsuits, or any other desperate ploy, the left understands that the only way to continue its transformation of this nation is by maintaining a stranglehold on those fighting to preserve it.
Satanist atheist Islamic secular humanist leftist Obamacare advocates trying to strangle Christians. It must be horrible being a powerless persecuted minority.
Really, a center for journalism?
“Our message is not ‘handle snakes, handle snakes, handle snakes,’ ” he says. “But our message is, ‘Be saved by the blood of Christ.’ We’re not a cult. We’re not freaks. We’re Christians.”
Source–NPR: Snake-Handling Preachers Open Up About ‘Takin’ Up Serpents’. (A nice, and sympathetic, portrait of a snake-handling congregation in Kentucky.)
Some people think the Son of God
Came down to earth to die
To cleanse us with His sacrifice
(He loves us all; that’s why.)
They wear a cross to show their faith—
A fishy on their car…
But dancing with a rattlesnake?
That’s gone a step too far! [Read more…]