Movie Friday: Even Handed Odds

Some of you may know that I play in a band called CROWN. What you may not know is that I don’t play in a band called CROWN anymore. We changed our name back in April to Even Handed Odds, reflecting not only a change in our lineup (we added a drummer), but the fact that there are a million things out there called “Crown”, which made us really tough to find on the internet. Since the name change, we played our first show as a 5-piece at The Backstage Lounge, a restaurant/live music venue on Vancouver’s beautiful Granville Island.

We shot this video at the gig:

Anyway, more shameless self-promotion.

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Because I am an atheist: GodVlogger

Today’s submission was rescued from the comment thread of Hemant Mehta’s post about this topic, submitted by GodVlogger:

Because I am an atheist…

STRANGERS: I feel more connected with strangers, somehow realizing that we are all just spinning through space together on this ‘pale blue dot’ of a planet called earth.

SPACE: Speaking of outer space, I notice the stars more, and am more likely to have glimpses of the vastness of the universe compared with our own comfort zones.

FEAR OF DEATH: I was on a commercial airplane not long ago when we hit a LOT of turbulence the pilot announced that we should prepare for a crash landing. We ended up flying through the storm ok, but what amazed me afterwards was how CALM and peaceful I was during that time. I had practically zero fear of death. Not that I wanted to die, and yes I thought about being gone from my role as a son, brother, father, husband, etc., but it was more of a calmly nostalgic “Hey, I’ve had a pretty good run of it here, and if I don’t make it well I think I’ve done a lot of good for others and they’ll eventually get by without me”, rather than a frantic anxiety that would not be able to change the outcome anyway (I don’t know how to make turbulence stop and I know that frantically praying it to stop would do nothing).

GAYS: I find myself much more sympathetic to the LGBT folks, knowing that almost all of the discrimination against them is based on mythology and fairy tales.

NEWS: I notice religion creeping in all over the place in the news, etc., whereas before I mainly noticed the role that religion plays in opposition abortion. Now I notice religion impacting a whole spectrum of women’s health issues, condoms in Africa, worldwide terrorism, the religious blame game after natural disasters, the preponderance of Catholics on the US Supreme Court, laws against buying a car on a Sunday, God Bless You when someone sneezes, national prayer day (days like that I would never have even noticed  before), etc. It’s like I see religion almost everywhere.

Consider submitting your own statement, by e-mail or as a comment!

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Movie Friday: RCA, Sony, and big black cocks

Name three stereo types…

Animated gif of a young man shaking his head 'no'

No? Not even a little? All right then, let’s move on.

One of the things that stuck out for me when I was studying cognitive psychology is the extent to which our brains are happiest when they have the least amount of work to do. We have a wide variety of mechanisms evolved specifically to let our brains ‘coast’ and do as little work as possible. Stereotypes, whether about people or groups or behaviours (or anything, really) are one very popular and powerful way of classifying information without having to put a lot of thought into it. Of course, the downside of stereotypes is that they often lead us to make erroneous conclusions based on bad information.

Those stereotypes propagate, and we come to see the entire world through the lens of our own lazy ignorance. For example: [Read more…]

The worst thing in the world (Thursday edition)

Trigger warning: sexual assault and other violence. Also, police.

When they tore down the Occupy Vancouver tent city, I was there. I was all geared up to get arrested for peacefully resisting the destruction of what was ultimately an important and helpful resource, not only for Canadian democracy, but for the city of Vancouver. I called my parents to tell them I might be thrown in jail; I called my close friends to put them on notice that if they didn’t hear from me in the next few hours, I would need them to start making phone calls. Then I headed downtown, fully expecting to see the scowling face of a judge before I saw my own bed again. What I saw instead was a massive cleanup crew with police helping to facilitate the voluntary removal of a bunch of supplies. The square was cleared without any confrontation whatsoever.

My Occupy experience was entirely bloodless, with the Vancouver Police Department behaving as though they truly understood the concept of peaceful protest and civil liberty. Their professionalism and restraint stands in sharp contrast with what we’re seeing out of their comrades in New York City: [Read more…]

Because I am an atheist: Rogue

Today’s submission comes courtesy of Rogue via e-mail:

Because I am an atheist…

Life has more meaning…and more pain.

There is only one shot.  I cannot look forward to anything after this.
Whatever my life if going to mean, I have to do it here and now.

I will not see my daughter after I die, I will be just as non-existent as she is.  Those who have died before me have only my memories and the memories of those whom they have touched.  I must carry on without them even as I hold on to those memories.

Pain and suffering is not admirable and has no spiritual purpose, it only detestable and should be fought against.  I cannot comfort myself with the “knowledge” that everything has a purpose from some wise director.

I am the only one who has the power to bring meaning to my life.  This is an awesome power, and a great responsibility.  And more than a little frightening.

Consider submitting your own statement, by e-mail or as a comment!

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Race and gay marriage: the story of a proposition

It’s been a weird week for Americans who support equal marriage rights for gay people. On the disappointing side, there was the more-or-less inevitable passage of an amendment to North Carolina’s state constitution that doubly extra-bans gay marriage (while smuggling in a bunch of other assholish nonsense for good measure). It also appears that Colorado would rather dither and adopt a faux-libertarian posture than see gay people achieve even second-class status. On the other hand, the President finally decided to alight from his perch on the fence* and state, finally, that he supports gay marriage. Of course, marriage is not the be-all-end-all of the gay rights struggle, but it has become a proxy for general acceptance of gay Americans as full-fledged citizens.

Whenever the gay marriage issue comes up, there is always someone in the conversation (and sometimes it’s me) who brings up the intersectionality between race and homophobia – pointing out that in California’s notorious “Proposition 8” battle in 2008, black Californians voted 70% in favour of denying marriage equality to gay people. It is often raised in discussions of the seeming hypocrisy in a group that was so long denied civil rights using those freshly-granted rights to deny others the same. I stumbled across an interesting analysis of actual voting data (rather than exit polls) that examines this exact question, and I thought it would be worth taking a closer look. [Read more…]

The worst thing in the world (Wednesday edition)

Trigger warning: violence against children, women, and humanity at large. Also, cults.

As much as my lizard brain would love me to, I have a really tough time (intellectually) branding someone as ‘evil’. Sure, I am happy to call actions, ideologies, and institutions evil. By their fruits ye shall know them and all that – judge things by their consequences. Even in yesterday’s condemnation of neo-Nazi and murderer J.T. Ready, I avoided (with middling success) implying that Mr. Ready was an organically evil person. I find such descriptions do little to further our understanding of how to prevent these kinds of problems in the future. We only know who ‘evil people’ are after they’ve already done something evil, by which time it is too late. Plus, nobody ever thinks they’re evil – just misunderstood or held back by the forces of political correctness or something.

People are not ‘evil’ in the sense that such language use would suppose. People are people, and we are all occasionally cognitively lazy enough to embrace ideas uncritically. The worst offenders among us embrace ideas that, directly or indirectly, hurt our fellow human beings. When we see that behaviour in someone else, we should be able to recognize our own shared failings. In so doing, we are better equipped to act with compassion and critical thought rather than knee-jerk blame, which only narrows our own field of vision for potential solutions.

I know all this, and have believed it for some time. That being said, it’s sometimes hard for me to put that principle into practice: [Read more…]

Because I am an atheist: Jennifer

Reader Jennifer offers today’s submission:

Because I am an atheist…

…I am able to truly appreciate my marriage. It’s not foreordained that I love my husband, which means that every minute I spend with him is a conscious choice to invest time and love and energy in this relationship. I don’t feel like I’m failing God when I fail to do my part to maintain the relationship; instead, I just recognize that it’s a failure on my part to put in the work necessary to sustain this choice that makes me so happy, and I fix it. I don’t get complacent about it because, again, it’s a choice, and it takes work. We’ve only been together a few years, and we are a good enough fit that it hasn’t felt like work yet, but in the more difficult moments we’ve had I have reveled in the fact that no, I am staying *here* because it is what *I* want, and that he is doing the same, because we love and value one another, not because we feel like we have to. It’s glorious.

I’m also more amazed at my children, and I wonder more what impact they will have on the world, because that’s the only way that I will live on: through teaching my values to other people. I’m fascinated by watching my daughter grow into this compassionate, articulate little person who is going to grow up to be a big, fierce, empathetic, brilliant adult, and who will hopefully be better than me. I don’t need an afterlife if I have that (although I’m not getting an afterlife anyway). I may end up with a book or something anyway, but I want to live on through what I can do for other people, and my children are one of the most at-hand ways to do so. [Read more…]

A chip off the old blockhead

So, for reasons that I honestly cannot fathom, Ted Nugent has been in the news lately. A man who has not had a certified album since 1980 (i.e., 4 years before I was born) is suddenly being solicited for his political “opinions” – a more accurate term would be lunatic ravings. It’s kind of like asking MC Hammer for his opinion on the state of contemporary French cuisine – why on Earth would anyone care what a ridiculously out-of-fashion rock “star” thinks about the political process? Is partial name recognition and possible clinical psychosis all that is required to become a political player? If that’s the case, much of the mystery surrounding the morass of American politics has been rendered much clearer.

I feel more or less the same about Ashton Kutcher. I didn’t understand why anyone cared that Kelso from The 70s Show was on Twitter, I couldn’t fathom why the douche who “Punk’d” half of Hollywood was appointed to the lofty position of “less funny Charlie Sheen”*, and I was baffled by the fact that anyone would want him to be the face of their snack food. But whatever, that’s modern celebrity for you, right? At least he can’t fuck up a chip, right? [Read more…]