Well, won’t that cheer us all up

The CBC has one of those awful year-end countdown shows, and this one is rather appalling. It’s a countdown of the top 10 miracles of 2010. Hey, there, Canada, I thought we were supposed to be the crazy country, while you were supposed to be the polite, serious brother! What happened?

It gets worse. As Canadian Cynic points out, they’re devaluing the word “miracle”. Among the tripe they’re promoting is a statue of the Madonna that weeps oil (fake!), and the usual business of people going in for treatment of serious medical ailments, and ta-daaaa, the doctors fix them. But the #1 top “miracle” of the year was a plane crash—a plane that carried 104 people, 103 of whom died instantly, bloodily, with shattered bodies and splintered bones. Isn’t it wonderful that one person survived?

I don’t know whether the people who toss around that artless, useless word “miracle” are freakin’ ghouls or simply stupid. It’s Christmas, and I’m feeling charitable, so I guess I’ll go with stupid.

The War on Christmas, xenophobic edition

You know who really hates Christmas?

MUSLIMS!

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I bet you didn’t know that if you converted to Islam you’d get immunity to STDs, your debt would disappear, rapes, teen pregnancy, and abortions would never occur, the rave would be canceled, you’d stop making that silly claim that god had a son, there’d be no exploitation or promiscuity or crime, the night clubs would shut down, nobody would have sex with 9 year old girls (oh, wait a minute…), you wouldn’t be a pagan anymore (duh), you’d get a house, but you wouldn’t drink alcohol or do drugs in it. Amazing stuff. The Muslim world must be a quiet little paradise, kind of like Wally and Beaver’s neighborhood.

Actually, this seems to be the work of a deranged lunatic, kind of like a browner, Englisher, Islamicer Fred Phelps. That doesn’t stop the Daily Mail from having vapors over the Islamic threat and MPs demanding that the signs all be ripped down. Alas, this is one of the prices we pay for free speech: people get to say stupid things.

The War on…Asgard?

The Council of Conservative Citizens is very angry, and is calling for a boycott of an upcoming movie that offends their values. The CofCC is a paleoconservative organization which has as its first principle the myth that the United States is a Christian country, so you might think that the reason it objects to the Marvel superhero movie Thor is that it promotes a pagan religion. You’d be wrong. They’re upset because Marvel Studios has declared war on Norse mythology, which you’d think they’d consider a good thing, except that it violates another of their principles, that America is supposed to be a white country.

You see, Marvel cast Idris Elba, a black man, to play the god Heimdall.

We may yet witness angrily protesting against the giving of offense to non-existent followers of a non-existent god whose religion is based on a practically non-existent connection between an ancient pagan faith and a comic book. I kind of expect the story to dribble away as everyone realizes how ridiculous they look, but then, I’ve been deeply wrong about how rational people are before. Oh, and I know about Asatru: it’s a wanna-be religion that mainly appeals to the stupidly macho; the Marvel comic book has nothing to do with any real religion, except that it stole its cast of characters from mythology.

And if you think the C of CC is cranky, you should see Stormfront! (Warning! That is a link to a rabidly racist site that I despise so much that references to it are on the comment filter list: you’ll have to refer to it by euphemisms — be creative — in the comments). They’re very indignant. Heimdall is supposed to be white, dammit. And you know what else is wrong with the casting?

Not only that, Natalie Portman (Jane Foster) is a Jew.

Man, those people must be completely incapable of watching a single movie ever made. They just sit in their living room fuming at all the blacks and Jews and Asians and Italians and Inuit and Lakota wandering about in their yards.

I think they’re getting more and more easily offended

This is getting ridiculous. Now people are getting irate at the use of a common word.

The teacher…was explaining to the class how the cold climate in Trevélez, Granada province, aided in the curing of the village’s most famous local product, jamón serrano. The boy told his teacher that hearing the word ‘ham’ in class was offensive to him because of his religion and asked his geography teacher to stop referring to the product which caused him offence.

El Mundo newspaper reports that the boy’s parents then reported the teacher to both the National Police and to the courts. It’s understood that an internal investigation is also underway by the education authority in Cádiz province.

Personally, I only have temper tantrums over “ham” when it’s preceded by “ken”.

New rules: there are some things you are not allowed not to say anymore

Sorry, fellow atheists, but if you thought you could just get away with sitting quietly and not making a noise, you’re doomed. The situation is worse than simply some silly believers flying into a snit because horribly militant, aggressive, obnoxious atheists put up signs that say something offensive and vile, like “you can be good without god” — you thought if you just avoided confronting people with such criminal sentiments, you’d escape their notice and condemnation.

But soon, they’ll be coming for you if you are insufficiently fervent in cheerleading for god. Look at this: a group of atheists attended a city council meeting to protest (politely, of course) prayer before meetings and ten commandments signs, and they were threatened with expulsion for the terrifying t-shirts they were wearing. They bore a slogan that other attendees complained about as “offensive”. That slogan was simply One nation, indivisible.

Did you catch that horror? They left out the words “under god” that are supposed to be there, dividing “nation” from “indivisible”! I don’t know how Cape Coral City will cope with all these people going around not saying things.

Here’s another example of this amazing touchiness. Elizabeth Edwards recently died of cancer, and she left a final statement for her family and friends. It’s a nice, brief farewell, and in it she says, “You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces—my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope.”

Did you catch that one, too? I know, you can hardly believe it, and you’re probably shocked to your core by her dreadful omission: she didn’t mention her faith in Jesus! Holy crap, you mean women are going around dying of cancer without words of praise for their lord and savior on their mind?

Wait, you’re thinking, no one could possibly be so insensitive and arrogant that they think they should dictate what a dying person’s final thoughts should be — other than us atheists, that is, who are expected to barge into the deathbed scenes and slap the weak-willed fading sap until they renounce their false beliefs in gods.

Oh, hang on…we don’t do that, either.

OK then, no one could be that arrogant…except a Christian. Get a napkin ready, just in case you feel an urge to throw up a little when you read how one Christian reacted to Edwards’ farewell.

Clearly Elizabeth Edwards wants to put her faith in something, be it hope or strength or anything. But not God. I wonder if it’s just bitterness, that’s she’s been forsaken by more than just her estranged husband — that’s she’s been forsaken by Him. And imagine if she’d have become First Lady. Americans generally expect outward expressions of faith in our presidents, Christian faith especially, and thus in our First Ladies as well. The Democratic base obviously doesn’t care, as we can see in the “wow factor” expressed by the author at the American Prospect. Being anti-religion is cool, so Edwards’ non-theological theology gets props from the neo-communists. Still, at her death bed and giving what most folks are calling a final goodbye, Elizabeth Edwards couldn’t find it somewhere down deep to ask for His blessings as she prepares for the hereafter? I guess that nihilism I’ve been discussing reaches up higher into the hard-left precincts than I thought.

“neo-communists”? “nihilists”? “You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces—my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope” is nihilism now?

Please, people, this is one reason I get rather peeved at all the internal chastising going on within the godless community about who is a dick and who isn’t. There are no atheists who can compare in dickishness to your average, pedestrian conservative Christian.

Also, you might want to start working on your deathbed lines now. If they aren’t all about Jesus, there’s a mob of ghoulish Christian dicks who’ll be gnawing on your corpse afterwards.

Oh, thank you, Oprah!

We’ve all been sitting around wondering what big questions would ever completely stymie science — we’ve been just knocking ’em down right and left, and scientists have been completely baffled about what good question they could possibly ask next. We’ve all had serious concerns that maybe we were all done, and we’d have to go work for a living or something terrible like that.

But we’ve been saved by Oprah. She, or rather the scientifically deep team of scientific and philosophical experts on her staff, have come up with a challenging list of Humongous Questions that we’ll have to address in our next grant proposals. Here they are, Six Questions Science Can’t Answer.

  • Padre Pio’s Stigmata! Old dead Italian priest would poke himself to make himself bleed every day, and people worshipped him like Jesus!

  • Hindu statues drink milk! When offered sips of milk, statues of Ganesha are claimed to have drunk it, and people believed it!

  • Mosque didn’t fall down! Old mosque in city damaged by tsunami failed to collapse; populace dumbfounded and consternated!

Well golly gee. I am sorta puzzled…not by the questions, which are trivial and stupid, but by the fact that the authors, Jennifer Margulis and Meredith Bryan, managed to find gainful employment as writers and that CNN thought this crap was worth publishing. More Mysteries! That Science Can’t Answer!

But wait! I’m sure at this point, Jennifer and Meredith — hang on, I need a cutesy name for this couple…Jennidith! — Jennidith looked at their list of big questions and pondered. They’d hit up a couple of the Big Religions, and they were probably thinking that they could have gone on in this vein for a while. After all, they haven’t said anything about Judaism or Buddhism yet (maybe, “Why is a Catholic girl like Madonna suddenly so Jewish?” or “How will you explain what the Dalai Lama will be reincarnated as in his next life?”), but they were unsatisfied. These questions didn’t sound very sciencey. They weren’t even sciencish.

So they puzzled and they pondered and they contemplated, and they thought of some big science-like questions that had nothing at all to do with the first three questions, but kind of looked like questions a really smart person might ask, and since they didn’t know the answers, they must be the big questions we should shoo the scientists off to find out.

  • How did the universe begin? Like, planetariums are really awesome. Especially during Laser Floyd.

  • Do aliens exist? We’re not crazy to believe in space aliens, and we found a scientist who says there are other planets out there for them!

  • How many species live on earth? So many of those species are really, really small, so they must be hard to count!

I’d say more, but right now I’m just looking at Jennidith, shaking my head sadly, and wondering if maybe there isn’t somewhere else I’d rather be. Somewhere else with beer, maybe. And maybe with grown-ups who can talk intelligently. Because Jennidith, poor Jennidith, is an airhead.

They shouldn’t feel too bad, though. You can’t even imagine what I think of Oprah!

Smithsonian announces that art can’t be controversial

Bill Donohue is on a roll. First he bravely put up a billboard that reassures everyone that Jesus was real, which is no problem, as far as I’m concerned; it’s not true, but he isn’t interfering with other people’s right to express themselves. But now he has really done it: he has successfully pressured the National Portrait Gallery to remove an art work that Donohue did not like. That is obstructing the right of free expression, and is deplorable.

The work in question was a video about the pain of AIDS victims in Mexico, and references the Catholicism of that country by showing a crucifix with ants crawling on it. Apparently, you can make explicit movies that show Jesus getting whipped, tortured, nailed, and stabbed (Donohue loved Gibson’s Passion!), but we’ve got to draw the line at showing bugs crawling on him. Although, probably, Donohue doesn’t so much object to tormenting Jesus as he does to the implicit criticism of Catholicism, which is his true god. And perhaps also to the fact that it was part of an exhibit on sexual and gender identity, which makes all patriarchal homophobes a little queasy.

But so what? Since when do individuals or organizations get to declare what kind of art is permissible, and get national art institutions to yank out exhibits? I am unsurprised that Donohue brayed like an idiot, because that’s what he does, but I am appalled at the response from the gallery.

National Portrait Gallery Director Martin Sullivan said in a statement about the current video that Wojnarowicz’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. He said the museum did not intend to offend anyone.

If the museum did not intend to offend anyone, then it wasn’t doing its job. Great art is supposed to challenge the mind, and sometimes that means by necessity that it will offend. Does the National Portrait Gallery include religious art? I know it does. Then it offends atheists. Does it include works by abstract expressionists? I know it does. Then it offends all those people who will declare that they have pictures by their 3 year old on their refrigerators that look better. They’d best get rid of those bold and aggressive paintings by Picasso and replace them with something safer … say, some Thomas Kinkade originals, or perhaps a wing of Elvii painted on black velvet.

Are they going to let Bill Donohue dictate everything that they’re allowed to exhibit? And if Bill Donohue, why not me, or John Waters, or Al Goldstein? Oh, maybe because non-authoritarians are willing to allow work they dislike to stand, unlike wretched bluenoses like Bill Donohue.

You know what’s really sweet about this, though? Donohue’s protest got one obscure exhibit pulled from one art gallery, and now it’s going to blossom on a thousand web sites and millions of people will see it. Quite the triumph, Billy!

Oklahoma ain’t Christian enough for Jim Inhofe

He’s in a snit. He refuses to participate in Tulsa’s Holiday Parade of Lights because it doesn’t have “christmas” in the title.

“I did not do so last year because I’m not going to ride in a Christmas parade that doesn’t recognize Christmas,” he said. “I am hopeful that the good people of Tulsa and the city’s leadership will demand a correction to this shameful attempt to take Christ, the true reason for our celebration, out of the parade’s title. Until the parade is again named the Christmas Parade of Lights, I will not participate.”

What a silly man. The parade, by the way, is on 11 December…which last I heard, is not Christmas.

Our Republican choices

So North Korea is rattling the sabre again, and I’m hoping some serious, mature people on our side will step up and act responsibly…but I’m pretty sure we won’t find those people on the Republican side. So far, their responses range from the stupid to the evil.

Here’s Sarah Palin babbling away on the Glenn Beck show (Can you guess that this is the stupid part of the range?)

CO-HOST: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? […]

PALIN: But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by treaty –

CO-HOST: South Korean.

PALIN: Eh, Yeah. And we’re also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

I really think calling North Korea was nothing but an accidental slip of the tongue, but even without that, the totality of her comments are vacuous, simple-minded chit-chat. And this insipid person wants to be president?

At least she’s better than the odious Glenn Reynolds.

JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW: North Korea fires artillery barrage on South. If they start anything, I say nuke ’em. And not with just a few bombs. They’ve caused enough trouble — and it would be a useful lesson for Iran, too. We can’t afford another Korean war, but hey, we’re already dismantling warheads. . . .

Yeah, because the oppressed people of North Korea deserve to have the flesh seared from their bones in a nuclear hell. You might be able to easily convince me that the ruling dynasty of that sad country deserve it, but civilized people don’t commit such barbarities, and especially don’t commit them indiscriminately against entire populations.

UN priorities are a little screwy

So, various factions at the United Nations have been pushing for anti-blasphemy motions — after all, we can’t go around picking on weak ideas. But do you know who the UN thinks are fair game? Non-heterosexual people.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people were once again subject to the whims of homophobia and religious and cultural extremism this week, thanks to a United Nations vote that removed “sexual orientation” from a resolution that protects people from arbitrary executions. In other words, the UN General Assembly this week voted to allow LGBT people to be executed without cause.

Jesus and Mohammed get a little cranky at the idea of someone being rude to their books of magic spells, but setting a gay man on fire? That’s just an excuse to party.

The United Nations is a wonderful idea in principle, except for the little problem of giving barbarians a vote.