I'm officially getting old

In high school my sleeping schedule was that of a stereotypical teenager – if I could (like in the summer), I’d be perfectly happy going to bed at 4 am and waking up at 1 pm every day. Coming to college I shifted more from 1 am to 10 pm, mainly because I had early classes and a summer job doing research, so no sleeping in. I’ve always needed at least 9 to 10 hours of sleep to be functional, I think because I just tend to sleep so horribly that I’m not getting restful sleep for a good chunk of the time.

However, I think I’m finally getting old. The past couple months I’ve found it physically impossible to sleep past 8:30 am, no matter how exhausted I am, when I went to bed, or if it’s a weekend. I used to be able to sleep through blaring music, bright lights, and loud roommates, but now the second a ray of light slips through my blinds, I’m up. But the scary thing is that I actually feel well rested. Maybe I’m just finally starting to sleep through the night (a skill acquired by most as toddlers, but apparently not by me). I don’t know what to do with myself this early in the morning. I mean, I don’t even have breakfast food in my apartment – I usually just eat lunch first!

Oh well, as long as I don’t get rid of my elaborate dreams, I’ll be okay. Last night I dreamt that I took in two cute kittens as pets and named them Watson and Crick. I sooo wish that I could have a pet in my apartment. That will be a mental health requirement once I leave for grad school.

I’m officially getting old

In high school my sleeping schedule was that of a stereotypical teenager – if I could (like in the summer), I’d be perfectly happy going to bed at 4 am and waking up at 1 pm every day. Coming to college I shifted more from 1 am to 10 pm, mainly because I had early classes and a summer job doing research, so no sleeping in. I’ve always needed at least 9 to 10 hours of sleep to be functional, I think because I just tend to sleep so horribly that I’m not getting restful sleep for a good chunk of the time.

However, I think I’m finally getting old. The past couple months I’ve found it physically impossible to sleep past 8:30 am, no matter how exhausted I am, when I went to bed, or if it’s a weekend. I used to be able to sleep through blaring music, bright lights, and loud roommates, but now the second a ray of light slips through my blinds, I’m up. But the scary thing is that I actually feel well rested. Maybe I’m just finally starting to sleep through the night (a skill acquired by most as toddlers, but apparently not by me). I don’t know what to do with myself this early in the morning. I mean, I don’t even have breakfast food in my apartment – I usually just eat lunch first!

Oh well, as long as I don’t get rid of my elaborate dreams, I’ll be okay. Last night I dreamt that I took in two cute kittens as pets and named them Watson and Crick. I sooo wish that I could have a pet in my apartment. That will be a mental health requirement once I leave for grad school.

Boobs and Atheism

Man, I just can’t stop talking about boobs lately.

Anyway, Friendly Atheist shared this idea for the “Atheist Bust Campaign” the other day:

Other than the fact that it’s hard to read (should be one phrase per cup!), I personally thought it was hilarious. Bus. Bust. Har har. A play on words, plus it’s a bit ridiculous – who would expect to see this on a bra if you’re getting hot an heavy with some girl? What a silly way to advertise! Funny, right?

“Do we really need to objectify women to make our case? This seems pretty tasteless to me.”

“I know it seems to be the consensus that anyone calling this sexist needs to “lighten up,” but I’m pretty sure this is exactly what stopped a lot of people from listening to Peta (in addition to a variety of other hypocrisies of course, but this is one reason). Objectification is bad no matter who does it, and it’s especially annoying as a feminist to see another cause I care about wanting to use it in order to reach out to nonbelievers.”

“I find the ad mildly offensive and somewhat humorous, but I’d be much less annoyed if there were another ad showing off a close up of men’s filled out briefs. But then that begs the question of what exactly do a bra and briefs have to do with the message here?”

“For those of you suggesting that the users who rightfully mentioned this should just “lighten up,” I ask–do you really want atheism reflecting such narrow-minded views about gender stereotypes, too? Atheism is supposed to be a part of the movement of intelligible REASON. It’s bad enough the religious are so willing to persecute women for being even remotely sexual and the LGBT community for merely existing. Also, if you disagree that subtle forms of sexism–even sexist humor–can be harmful to women, I suggest you read up on the stereotype threat literature.”

The comments for this post annoy the crap out of me. Yes, you all need to take a fucking chill pill, and that’s coming from a fellow feminist. It was one joke based on a play on words. Maybe if there was a national campaign dedicated to nearly naked skeptic girls without equally nearly naked skeptic dudes, then I’d see the objectification and problem with exploiting female sexuality for advertisement. But it’s not. The Richard Dawkins Foundation isn’t funding it; there’s no grassroots atheist boob effort. Maybe if we had been the “Atheist Class Campaign” the joke would be a booty for the “Atheist Ass Campaign.” “Atheist Dunk Campaign” would be “Atheist Junk Campaign” and we could all stare at some guy’s crotch. My point is, the person who made this image probably wasn’t going out of their way to objectify women – bust just sounded like bus, and the idea of atheist advertisements on bras is ludicrous and funny. I hardly see how a single joke is equivalent to PETA’s trashy campaigns or religious oppression of women and LGTB groups.

Are we not allowed to joke about anything sexual at all because of the fear of not being politically correct? My friends and I make jokes that uber-feminists would consider sexist, but you know what, it’s about context. We’re not making them because we think it’s true that women are dumb or emotional or whatever – we make them because we think it’s ridiculous that people actually do think that way. We’re mocking people’s intolerance. I don’t Feminist Avenger Punch my guy friends when they jokingly tell me to get in the kitchen and make them a sammich. Why? Because I know how to take a joke. If they were the type of males who actually believed that, I wouldn’t be friends with them.

This is why a lot of times I hate calling myself a feminist. I want equal pay, equal opportunities, etc, etc… Why don’t we worry about the big problems instead of flipping out over a joke about a bra? Yes, we should have concerns about the objectification of women in our culture – but when it’s something minor like that, I think we all need to calm the fuck down. I hate the fact that I’ve been told I’m not a “real feminist” because I’m not totally extreme. I had a friend once try to argue with me that shaving your legs was just conforming to the oppressive patriarchal rules, and if I disagreed with her I was just not educated enough to understand. No, I fucking like having smooth legs. It feels good. Even if it’s a symbol of the higher standards of beauty women face, I really don’t care. And that was an argument from someone who wears make up, and I don’t wear any. Should we start a jihad against lipstick because of what it symbolically represents, or try to tackle the bigger problem of women’s self image and social standards of beauty?

That being said, here’s a SMBC that I like to believe was released today especially for this post:
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go prepare myself for the upcoming feminist flame war. *crawls in her barricade*

IN Atheist Bus News Coverage

WRTV 6News of Indianapolis had a story last night about Bloomington, IN’s rejection of the slogan “You Can Be Good Without Good” for being too controversial.

The lady shaking her head in disgust and saying “You can’t be good without God”? Yeah, that’s why we need this campaign, people. A statement we see as benign and obvious is terrifying to other people.

There’s also a an article online with…dun dun dun…an internet poll! I’ve already emailed it to PZ, but I figured I’d post it as well. Probably the best thing (or worst, if you’re anti-atheist) you can do to advertise something atheist related is have a dumb poll about it. A poll crashing at Pharyngula is way more advertisement than people ignoring it at Digg and Reddit.

What is your opinion of an advertisement rejected by Bloomington officials because its message of “You Can Be Good Without God” was deemed too controversial?

Choice Votes Percentage of 699 Votes
I agree with the advertisement and I think it should be allowed. 292 42%
I don’t agree with the advertisement, but I think it should be allowed. 87 12%
I don’t agree with the advertisement and I don’t think it should be allowed. 287 41%
I agree with the advertisement, but I don’t think it should be allowed. 23 3%
I don’t know. 10 1%

Alright, off to bomb my Physics exam! Woo!

Oh Germany

Still cramming for exams (futilely, I should add), but here’s a hilariously weird advertisement for a currency trading company. I can assure you this would never be seen on American TV:

(Via Gawker)

Hmm…

I woke up this morning with a blotch of black ink on my bedsheets and smeared all over my legs. Either I accidentally left a pen in my bed, or I’m slowly evolving ink squirting powers. I’m going to go with the latter.

The young exodus from religion

Both Pharyngula and Friendly Atheist have already commented on this lovely new study: Professor Robert Putnam from Harvard has found that the number of young people who have no religious affiliation has skyrocketed to 30% – 40%. Now, these aren’t all necessarily atheists, but one can hope this is the first step for many of them to go down the slippery slope of Heathendom.

When I was about ten years old I confidently told my father that by the time I was 40, no one would go to church anymore. He looked at me shocked (especially since I didn’t know what church was actually for, or who Jesus/God were at the time).

“Why do you think that?” he asked. I told him everyone my age always complains about how much they hate going, so why would they keep doing it when they grow up? He chuckled at me, thinking this was a ridiculous idea, even though he himself was not religious. “We’ll see,” he said sarcastically.

Maybe in 19 years people will still be going to church, but I still consider this trend a victory. Take that, dad!

I also consider this a success for the atheist dating market, though I don’t have to worry about that too much as an atheist chick. Though the odds are good, the goods are odd… or to quote Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “The male to female ratio, yeah? I mean you have your veritable pick of the litter. You can choose from all kinds of guys who have no idea how to please you.” (Just kidding, male readers! I <3 all of you, and I'm sure us uninhibited atheists win when it comes to being kinky in the sack)

Because two tiny triangles of fabric mark the line between sexy and slutty

Womanist Musings has a great summary of why the new development in the Miss California controversy sucks. If you desperately try to avoid tabloid style news, let me fill you in on what has happened. Miss California says she’s against gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant to Perez Hilton, of all people. She loses, scandal ensues saying she lost because of her views, yadda yadda. Miss C claims she’s just a good Christian girls with strong morals and all that jazz. Photos are released of a topless Miss C that she took when she was trying to become a Victoria’s secret model. Both sides freak out. Conservative pageant people are pissed because you’re not allowed to have any nude or semi-nude photographs. Liberal people are gleefully chuckling at her hypocrisy and are glad she’ll probably lose her title.

…

There is so much Wrong floating around that I don’t even know where to start. Pageants are such patriarchal stereotypical sexist bullshit to begin with that ranting about them is a waste of time, but one thing really bugs me. Let’s compare the two photos, shall we?

What the hell is the big flipping difference here? It’s okay for girls to parade around in skimpy bikinis so we can judge them on their sex appeal, but remove two tiny pieces of fabric and it instantly becomes slutty and bad? It’s not like the right photo is hard core porn (which still shouldn’t matter, but whatever, I have to fight the small battles first). I’d even say it’s a pretty tasteful nude if you removed all the Dirty watermarks. It really makes me wonder what’s going to happen when my generation is the politicians and businessmen of the world. There will probably be so many “scandalous” photos floating around that they won’t be scandalous anymore.

“Ms. President, another topless photo has surfaced. The elderly members of the press want a statement.”
“Oooh, I remember that one! That was some good tequila. Man, look how nice my boobs looked.”
“Uh, they’re great, Ms. President.”

But you know what, okay. She signed a contract saying she didn’t have any nude or semi-nude problems, and the pageant people get to make their own dumb rules. So fine, punish away. But to all the liberal people who think these rules are stupid and don’t have a problem with boobies, but are just glad to get revenge on a conservative girl…shame on you. She’s not the freaking Westboro Baptist Church. She said she doesn’t support gay marriage, not “all fags should die in a fire” or something. People say she’s a hypocrite because she’s claiming to have conservative values yet has posed topless…but seriously, so what? Why are liberals forcing anti-toplessness to be a conservative value? If we want people to stop freaking out about women’s boobs, we need to stop treating it like it matters. Why can’t we all be accepting of teh boobies?

Maybe I’m just a softie, but I don’t wish bad things upon people even if I fervently disagree with their political viewpoints. I also think boob scandals are about the most stupid thing ever (the Janet Jackson incident made my head nearly explode), so I just wish we’d stop making such a big deal out of them. Pro-boobs people unite!

I love when internet culture sneaks into real life

As I was leaving my programming exam in the computer science building tonight, I noticed they had put up a new kiosk outside. We staple flyers to these things to advertise for events and such. Student groups (including ours) have been whining for a while now that there aren’t enough on campus, so I was pretty excited to see a new one. I was more excited when I read the lone flyer someone had pinned on.Wait a second, what does that say? Let’s zoom in a bit:
I love internet culture so much. I should expect nothing less from computer science students, but I still love it. I feel like I’m in some secret club that only the cool kids know about. Good to know we have silly comment trolls for tangible objects.

(And I apologize for the crappy photos. Only had my camera on me, and I got out of my exam at 9 pm)

Another religious resolution wasting our congressmen's time

Via Friendly Atheist:

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) sponsored House Resolution 397 yesterday, titled “Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as “America’s Spiritual Heritage Week” for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.”

Oh, you know it’s going to be good. Most of the quotes are either misinformed, scary, or just plain stupid (go to Friendly Atheist for examples), but let’s look at my favorite one in particular:

“Whereas in 1853, the United States Senate declared that the Founding Fathers ‘had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people . . . they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy’”

…Wow, just wow. Can a congressman seriously not see the problem with this statement? Maybe if we reword it a bit he can take a hint:

“revolting spectacle of Jewish greed”
“revolting spectacle of Islamic violence”
“revolting spectacle of Christian intolerance”
“revolting spectacle of Hindu cow worship” (okay, I kind of got nothing here)

Since when is it okay to single out a group of American citizens and call them revolting with a stereotype? If any of these other groups had been mentioned, you can be sure as hell people would be all over his ass about it. This is why we need atheist activism – not because we’re on a crusade to convert people, but because we don’t want to be the punching bag for religious people.

EDIT: Ok, apparently I can’t read and I missed the fact that that awful phrase was written in 1853, not as a new part of the resolution. Still, it shows a lack of judgment to include it in the resolution, so I stand by my snarky comments.