Tom Cotton’s Dear Muslima

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton said it to Wolf Blitzer on CNN: check your priorities, aka Dear Muslima. Arkansas’s RFRA is no big deal because hey, it doesn’t kill you.

But I also think it’s important we have a sense of perspective about our priorities. In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay; they’re currently imprisoning an American preacher for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in Iran. We should focus on the most important priorities that our country faces right now.

So passing the RFRA was an important-enough priority, and signing it was an important-enough priority, but objecting to it apparently is a frivolous diversion. How does that work, exactly?

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What happens when you open a book

My eye was caught by a wide yellow-spined book on a shelf at the library, which turned out to be Arguably, a fat collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens. I plucked it off the shelf and checked it out. Later, I opened it at random and started to read – on page 234, under the subheading The Afterlife of Animal Farm, in an essay on Animal Farm that originated as an introduction to a 2010 edition.

It starts with the “some animals are more equal than others” line. It cites communism in Russia and Eastern Europe and its “New Class” system, “with grotesque privileges for the ruling elite and a grinding mediocrity of existence for the majority,” and the moral effects that Orwell’s work had. He moves on to China, and a phone conversation with a Communist friend of his there. [Read more…]

A free pass to be a whiny baby

A gay atheist doctor in Indiana wonders if the shiny new RFRA lets him refuse service to assholes.

“Dear Governor Pence and the Republicans in the state legistlature,” Freiheit’s letter begins, “As a gay atheist doctor in a small town in Indiana, I want to applaud your bravery and standing up for your principles, because it would seem that you have given me a chance to finally stop having to treat asshole, bigoted Christians at my practice, based on my own deeply held religious views, and not anything more sinister or petty, of course.”

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Much to agree on

I’m reading tweets from the American Atheists Convention again – there’s a lot of good stuff going on there, despite all the disagreement over CPAC and humanism/social justice/feminism. My friend Vyckie Garrison is this year’s Atheist of the Year; there was an ex-Muslims panel with Heina Dadabhoy and Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider, and Asif Mohiuddin just did a talk.

They all stood in solidarity:

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Guest post: That’s going to be quite a picture

Originally a comment by hotshoe on No snow at the Phillips Station site.

A slow-motion natural disaster which directly affects at least 40 million people – and indirectly affects all 320 million USAians, as well as having international implications – is bound to create a little emotional tension. It’s bound to lead to finger-pointing and blame-games, but those are worthless (even if accurate, which they’re mostly not) unless in turn they lead to actual solutions.

Yes, turning off the fountains is a good minor solution; Las Vegas is criminally wasteful. Turning off the agricultural output — which has up till now been larger than the output of entire countries such as Mexico, Germany, and Canada — is not a good solution. However, turning off CA agriculture has already happened in some degree, and we’re just waiting to find out what fresh disaster that causes. [Read more…]

The worst the Christian community can do in America

Ayaan Hirsi Ali gave the keynote at the AA Convention, and James Croft livetweeted it. There was some…dubious stuff in it.

Such as a Dear Muslima for teh gayz.

James Croft @JFLCroft 5 hours ago
“If you are gay the worst the Christian community can do in America is not serve you cake.” @Ayaan #AAcon15 Privilege check needed!

Oy. That’s so not the worst the Christian community can do in America. [Read more…]