Attack Of The Undead Scarecrows II

Atheists! Look in your purse or your pocket;
There’s God on the money you carry around!
The motto is yours, though you atheists mock it,
And God’s how we know that our money is sound!

Your using this money is clearly hypocrisy
Atheists ought to refuse it—the fools!
Sucks to be you, though; our Christian democracy
Trusts in our God—and majority rules!

The courts say it’s legal, so quit your complaining—
No reason to get all your bills in a wad!
We Christians find atheists so entertaining—
Each time you use money, you’re praising our God!

Rant, after the jump: [Read more…]

As Predicted (The Cranston Ruling)

As I wrote at the time of the court case…

This isn’t religious, it’s merely tradition
I’m certain our case will be met with approval
A secular prayer—just a trivial thing—
So we’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent its removal

The prayer was a gift from a class in the sixties
Its place in tradition just can’t be denied
This isn’t religious! It’s all about freedom!
And we’ll fight, with our secular god on our side

For decades, the mural’s been there in the hallway
And no one—not one—had complained it’s religious
The taunting and threats that this Jessica’s getting?
It’s her fault alone, cos she’s so damned litigious

She’s out for attention! That’s all that this is!
The god-hating liberal, atheist slut!
We good Christian people should teach her a lesson
How sometimes it’s safer to keep your mouth shut.

How dare she insult us? How dare she mock God?
How dare she belittle the prayer in the hall?
How dare she believe that the law’s on her side—
Remember… this isn’t religious at all!

All the good stuff after the jump:
[Read more…]

A Win For The Bravest Girl In Rhode Island

There was never a question
No slightest suggestion
That Jessica would not prevail
The Cranston West banner
In no form or manner
Was legal, or so goes the tale.
The Judge has decided;
The school has been chided—
The ruling: It must be removed!
It’s great! Well, it ain’t if
You’re not with the Plaintiff
But only the wrong disapproved!
As a matter of prudence
It’s worth telling students
That Jessica’s view is the law
And I’m sure that they’ll cope,
But in truth, it’s my hope
That they see what Jessica saw

Via Ophelia and PZ, Jessica Ahlquist has prevailed! No great surprise–we knew she was on the side of right. We knew there were idiots massing against her. But frankly, it’s easy being the people watching from the sidelines. As much as we knew the outcome, it can’t have been easy being Jessica.

I know there have been other contests, but Jessica Ahlquist gets my nod for person of the year. Not just atheist of the year, let alone female atheist of the year. Person of the year. I (vaguely–I’m old) remember being that age. Jessica is braver than I have ever been. My hat is off to her!

The Endangered Twinkie

If the living undead
Have your thoughts filled with dread
And you’re seeking a morsel of heaven
Well, the people who make
All that spongy, filled cake
Have just filed for chapter eleven!

Yes, for some, dreadful news
And they’re singing the blues,
But some info is poorly construed
See, this cream-filling log,
On the NPR blog,
Has been categorized under “food”!

Yes, NPR is reporting that Hostess Brands Inc. is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Now, I haven’t eaten any of their products in years–perhaps decades–but think of them fondly, in the same way I think of avocado-colored kitchen appliances, greasy-spoon diners and curling linoleum, as icons of my early memories.

Michael Pollan would, of course, not call Twinkies a food at all, but a food-like substance. One could wish that the decline of Hostess might be blamed on a new health-conscious attitude; that is one of the company’s claims. But I don’t think whole-wheat twinkies will sell. If they are to survive, how will they be re-framed? Collector’s items? Zombie insurance?

I think the GOP candidates need to put out the word that Twinkies are patriotic. Eat them at every photo op, sign them for supporters, use them as props to evoke that nostalgia for a better, more simpler time. Plus, it could come in handy to explain some of their behavior.

Yeah, But What About The Other Guys?

He helpfully points
To the cracks in the joints–
You will give them attention, he’s hopin’
That should cut down the breeze
Unless nobody sees
He’s conveniently propped the door open.
There’s a draft in the room
But he’d rather assume
That the open door isn’t the cause
Just attend to a crack,
Cos he’s coming right back
With an armfull of hole-cutting saws.
[Read more…]

Off To Vote–Where’s My Check?

Image: Michael McRae

Having faced the new reality that money equals speech,
Now they babble by the billions at the folks they want to reach;
There’s millionaires and billionaires, each racing toward the right
And the even bigger moneybags—they’re keeping out of sight
As the voters mark their ballots, cos they know it’s what they ought,
There are votes that people earned, this year, and others that they bought

This year is Cuttledaughter’s first where she is eligible to vote (yes, I feel old, why do you ask?), and she is excited. Wants me to wait (polls have been open for a while now, but she’s still asleep) so I can keep her from getting in the wrong line or something. It’s nice to see the idealism, before it gets pulverized by repeated insults to intelligence over the decades.

Headline Muse, 1/9

As endorsements go, this one’s a beaut—
And it’s not just some guy in a suit
When you’ve got the First Dude
Your opponents are screwed:
Todd Palin endorses The Newt

Headline: Todd Palin endorses Newt Gingrich; Sarah Palin still undecided in GOP race

Favorite line:

He said he supports Gingrich, who was first elected to Congress in 1978 and served as the Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, because he’s not one of those “beltway types.”

NH Voting Nears An End

New Hampshire’s high hopes for a finish diminish
As candidates stumble their way to the line
It isn’t exciting. It’s boring; I’m snoring
While watching the ads on the local News Nine.
When crowds get Ron Paul or Santorum to bore ‘em,
Or Romney or Huntsman or Perry or Newt,
They can’t escape thinking that choosing is losing:
“Oh, just what we needed—a guy in a suit.”

The sound bites we hear from this circus should irk us—
And insider politics makes me just scream
Just one wants to pull back the curtain for certain:
The alternate candidate, Vermin Supreme
The media stick with the boring, ignoring
The man with the big rubber boot on his head
When voters review this election’s selections
They’ll wish they had voted for Vermin instead

I have a dream. It’s an impossible dream, but those can be fun. My dream is that Vermin Supreme will gather more votes than Rick Perry.

Sadly, Supreme is running as a Democrat this year, so any votes he get will be compared to Obama’s, not Perry’s, sending the wrong message. So my dream requires a write-in campaign on the Republican side.

But wouldn’t it be worth it?

NH Primary, Written In The Stars

The stars and the planets don’t give half a fuck
For the fates of the people on earth
But astrologers think they can tell us the luck
Of the candidates, based on their birth.
Who will win? Who will lose? How can anyone know?
All the pundits are seeking an answer;
Can we know who will win, who will place, who will show,
By who’s Scorpio, Virgo, or Cancer*?
Although soccer told odds based on cephalopods
They were wrong when predicting the cup
So astrology’s stars, or entreaties to gods,
May be likely to mess it all up.
Though the candidates promise, in diners and bars,
They’ll be faithful, that’s apt to be fiction;
Any outcome that anyone sees in the stars
Is a thoroughly useless prediction.

Some really cool stuff, after the jump: [Read more…]