Invoking the Kindly Ones

So Arizona State Representative Juan Mendez gave a secular invocation in the state House of Representatives on Tuesday. (Invocation. Honestly, what a word. Normally the legislators in Arizona call up spirits every morning. “Hellooo. Hellooooooo, is anyone there?” Then one day there’s a slip-up and one legislator talks sense for once.) Well we can’t have that.

American Atheists announced Friday that it has demanded an apology on behalf of all non-Christians for disparaging remarks made by Arizona state Senator Steve Smith on Wednesday. Smith’s remarks were in response to the secular invocation offered by state Representative Juan Mendez on Tuesday in the state House of Representatives.

Smith, a conservative Christian, opened Wednesday’s House session with not one, but two prayers, the second in “repentance” of the secular invocation offered the day before by Mendez. Smith invited the other lawmakers present to join him; about half of the sixty did. Smith said, “When there is a time set aside to pray …, if you are a nonbeliever, don’t ask for time to pray.” [Read more…]

Don’t just tell the grunts

Obama gave a commencement speech at the Naval Academy today, and used the occasion to tell them to quit saying “shut up and listen” to their superior officers. No no I’m kidding, he used it to tell them not to do sexual assaulting.

President Obama used a commencement speech before Naval Academy graduates on Friday to urge them to follow an “inner compass” and to warn that rising numbers of sexual assaults in the military threatened to erode America’s faith in the armed forces.

No, it doesn’t “threaten to”; it’s already done it. It’s not so much eroded as gutted my trust in the willingness of the people who are in charge of the armed forces to do a god damn thing about rampant sexual harassment. They act like the Vatican and I don’t trust them at all. [Read more…]

Bridges

No not bridges between atheists. Not bridges between atheists and People of Faith. Not bridges between the Boy Scouts and faggots their friends in the gay community. No, bridges. The kind that carry cars and trucks across rivers.

Yesterday evening one such bridge carried one such truck across the Skagit River, some 90 miles north of Seattle (where I am). It was a big truck, with an oversize load, and the load whacked into one of the overhead girders – and that span of the bridge fell into the river. [Read more…]

How stereotypical environments

There was that panel Saturday morning.

One question Greta gave us was “does affirmative action work?”

I don’t think I started by saying it depends what we mean by “work” but I think I did indicate that that’s what I meant. Maybe I started with “Yes in the sense that” and went on from there. I think it does work in the (familiar) sense that if you always see X job or vocation or career full of all or mostly men (or white people or rich people and so on) then if you are not a man (or white etc) you will conclude, without deciding to conclude it, that you’re not supposed to be there. [Read more…]

A melancholy part of modern life

Mark Urban at the BBC explains the ways the Woolwich murder is different from other such murders – it’s not networked, it’s just a couple of guys with everyday tools, so it’s not the kind of thing that intelligence services can prevent; the guys look ordinary; there’s no way to prevent their “message” from spreading; responses have changed…

Governments have become better at calibrating their response to these acts and so has the public. After Boston and Woolwich, for example, they were careful not to leap to conclusions or to issue responses of the “War on Terror” kind that would have inflamed communal tensions. [Read more…]

American Atheists cares about feminism and social justice

I mentioned PZ’s post about Silverman v Vacula on Twitter. (PZ is on his way to Romania. Jeez. I felt all exotic going to DC.) Dave Muscato also mentioned it. First he quoted this part.

How much do I appreciate it? With my dollars. My wife is going to sign us up for a lifetime membership in American Atheists while I’m away. It’s not a casual investment, so not everyone can do that, but you could send them a donation to let the organization know that you like a leader with a spine.

That’s a big deal, a lifetime membership. They get special treatment at the AA convention. (Like what? Well, I forget. A shout-out, I think. Applause. Admiration.) [Read more…]