At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. The grading pile is shrinking, at least, but there’s much more to go.
This image has some personal meaning, as well as some larger irony.
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Cuttlefish is sharing the latest poll results — we’re winning.
Behold the change between 2003 and 2013: god belief declined 11% in America, while the ranks of the unbelievers swelled by 7%; the agnostics are hesitantly riding our coattails, and they’ve also increased in numbers by 4%.
Cuttlefish also notes the likely cause: the establishment of a publicly accessible font of information on righteous godlessness, Freethoughtblogs. Obviously. I should probably point out that “Support FtB” donation link over there on the left sidebar. Keep us going so we can continue to push back the forces of ignorance.
I suppose there are also a few other organizations, like the FFRF, American Atheists, American Humanists, Americans United, or your local freethinking group that have been making some contribution as well, so it would also be OK if you sent them an end-of-the-year donation in appreciation of their work.
It’s always nice to hear the grown ups talking. Last night on Virtually Speaking Science, Tom Levenson interviewed Janet Stemwedel and Maryn McKenna on the subject of science writers and sexual harassment/gender discrimination. I listened to it while I was grading papers, and I think it may have contributed half a grade point or so on my evaluations, just by putting me in a more positive mood.
Now you can listen in too — it’s a pleasantly rational discussion of a real problem, and that’s how we take a small step towards correcting it.
This is what Catholics need: a sense of justice, and a desire to vigorously pursue abuse within the church, rather than covering it up. Transparency and a willingness to change! Investigation and ending the abuse! So in the St Paul diocese there in my backyard, we’ve got a priest, Archbishop John Nienstedt, who has been charged with touching a choir boy inappropriately, and I would expect the church to take the issue seriously and bring in secular investigators to either clear his name or get a dangerous man out of their church. The Catholic League is willing to help and … OH BILL DONOHUE NO!
“Somebody knows who this character is who is making these accusations — I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this,” said Catholic League President Bill Donahue. “Nienstedt has been the subject of a non-stop crusade orchestrated by enemies of the Catholic Church. The time has come when people need to fight back.”
Donohue’s solution to the problem of pedophilia in his beloved church is … to hunt down and expose the names of children who dare to accuse priests. He also accuses the St Paul police of anti-Catholic bias.
Not that the Catholic church needs his help. They’ve got their response down to a ritual.
St. Paul Police has yet to comment. However, St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith accused the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Tuesday of not fully cooperating with investigations into alleged sex abuse by priests. He said that church officials declined to make clergy available to investigators.
I don’t think I’ve ever met one of these face to face: an unapologetic libertarian fanatic who denies the existence of poverty, and claims that private charity would take care of it if it did exist. And at the same time, he’s stupid enough to voluntarily allow himself to be interviewed for the Daily Show! Oh, right, those two things are not contradictions.
The Daily Show
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Because here and now, in this shining moment of time, the Chthucken has been invented.
I could weep. Just a few years ago, I could have had the glory of bringing this out to serve the family on Christmas day.
Fox News has been promoting this strange new sin: the failure to say “Merry Christmas”. Some woman who was raising money for the Salvation Army — an organization for which I have absolutely no sympathy, but that still doesn’t warrant assault — was struck for saying "Happy Holidays".
Kristina Vindiola said she was ringing a bell outside the Walmart to raise money for the charity when a woman took exception to her saying "Happy Holidays," KNXV-TV, Pheonix, reported Tuesday.
"The lady looked at me," said Vindiola. "I thought she was going to put money in the kettle. She came up to me and said, ‘Do you believe in God?’ And she says, ‘You’re supposed to say Merry Christmas,’ and that’s when she hit me."
The Christmas War is taking an interesting turn. The Christians are going to battle it out among themselves over who is the most pious, while the atheists stand by the side deploring the whole silly shenanigans. But then, that’s what Christians have done best, historically.
The web has been resounding with a mighty echoing “WTF?” — David Brooks has written another column in the New York Times, and it’s weird, even for Brooks. He’s sneering at “Thought Leaders”, apparently this new generation of pundits who are beneath his contempt. At first I thought maybe it was entirely autobiographical, and that he was describing his own career, in which case he really needed to be put on suicide watch. And then I thought, nah, it’s David Brooks — I’m assuming a degree of self-awareness that simply isn’t there.
So I wrote my own impression of Brooks.
David Brooks. Paris. 1789.
David Brooks was awakened early by the shouting and rumbling of carts outside his apartment window — why, it was perhaps as early as 11 o’clock, a most uncivilized hour for a gentleman. It was one of the obligations of nobility, however, to be willing to address his duties at any hour, and by God, he could rise even before the sun had reached its zenith.
He rang the little silver bell by his bedside to summon his servants to come and dress him, rose, and slipped on his silk dressing gown. A pinch of snuff to invigorate the blood, and he was ready to investigate. He looked out his window, down upon the unwashed mobs of Paris.
The tumbrels were rolling. Yet another day when the ranks of the aristocracy would be purged of their dead weight, he thought, leaving only the deserving to lead the country. He recognized one of the men roped in the cart, despite the shabbiness of his velvet coat and the loss of his wig; that young cockerel! His great grandparents had been merchants, and even now he was rumored to dabble in trade. No loss there. Just another trumped up nobody who had dared to regard himself as a match for those privileged by righteous birth.
He was moved to write another missive for the King — the last had been well received and read aloud at court, and he was gaining quite the reputation as the clever wordsmith. His dismissal of the middle class as the “bohemian burgeoisie” had provoked mirthful titters from the right courtiers. An elegant letter explaining how the regime was right and natural and safe, and that the elimination of the arrogant young upstarts was only right and proper would strike just the right tone. He rang his bell again. Where were those lazy servants? He had work to do! These nouveau rapscallions needed to be named and chastised. How else will everyone know the right people to rebuke? And behead?
He rang the bell insistently. Hands on his hips, he stood facing the entry door: the instant that worthless layabout finally arrived, he was going to receive the fiercest verbal scourging, and be thrown out on the street with the rest of the rabble. You do not question the right of David Brooks to be treated with respect and dignity and the deepest humility. You do not delay him.
He waited.
There was a loud and ferocious pounding on the main doors downstairs. The servants will get it.
What is that crashing great racket?
Damn it. Charles Pierce has already done it so much better.
Many people wonder how they too can become Thought Leaders and what the life cycle of one looks like.
Well, you start out being a coddled little genius nurtured by the think tanks and vanity publications and fanzines of the American right. Then you make a career out of whatever pop sociology text you read 10 minutes ago. Then you write a couple of books about how the American genius for mindless consumerism is the future of the country. Then you get a column in the New York Times. Unfortunately, there comes a conservative president who fks up everything from hell to breakfast, and all of the intellectual arboretums in which you were raised fall into disrepute. Dutch Elm disease of the mind become epidemic. So you backpedal as fast as you can, running over several of your previous selves in the process until you finally end up one day writing a column in which you pretend that you haven’t spent your adult life pumping your speaking fees and grazing the buffet tables at various brainiac circle jerks.
I’m sorry. Were we talking about someone else?
Yeah, that’s David Brooks alright.
