Portland, Oregon is having a humanist film festival!

I wish I could be there. The Humanist Film Festival is happening on 26-28 October, and they’re looking for submissions. If you’ve got anything that fits their categories, send them in soon. They’re looking for films that speak to humanist themes, including:

  • Reason, Critical Thinking and Skepticism (such as claims of the paranormal, critical thinking education, rational living, etc.)

  • Ethics and Human Wellbeing (including human rights, women’s rights, gay rights, rational ethics, challenging scriptural ethics, sex education and attitudes about sex, etc.)

  • Science and the Natural World (e.g. science appreciation, science education, evolution, global warming, pseudo-science and pseudo-medicine etc.)

  • Freedom of Thought, Speech and Critical Inquiry

  • Challenging the Claims and Value of Religion (e.g. anti-apologetics, education about atheism and atheists, uncovering problems with religion, etc.)

  • Separation of Church and State

  • Joie de vivre and human thriving (art and aesthetics, living the good life, human progress etc.)

And here’s their mission:

The Portland Humanist Film Festival is an outreach event designed to broaden the understanding and acceptance of a secular, humanist world view. It specifically addresses audiences who are friendly to our views but who are not necessarily familiar with atheism or humanistic ethics, or why we value reason and scientific thinking. The Film Festival presents these themes through an accessible, entertaining medium.

Got any suggestions? If you’re a godless filmmaker, think about sending them something!

A voice of reason

Massimo Pigliucci lays out the story of the misogyny wars tearing bloody great rifts in the atheist/skeptic community. I doubt that it will heal anything, though, because the reasonable position he lays out is exactly the one that the freethoughtblogs and skepchick communities have been arguing for since the very beginning.

But one can hope that one more reasonable voice might wake up a few more people.

An excellent suggestion for the Bible-believing Christians

I approve this message: write in Jesus’ name for president in the November elections.

It’s the only principled choice you can make!

I suppose if you’re Catholic you could write the Pope’s name in. I have no problem with that, either. The Supreme Court would probably approve that, as well, given its current constitution.

Eclipsed!

I knew this whole network thing was a bad idea — all the great writers here sometimes make readers forget that I’m supposed to be the ☆star☆. The other day, Taslima Nasrin got more traffic that day than I did, all for this horrific post (warning, very chilling, with many photos of woman mutilated by acid). And then that odious twit, JohnTheOther, picked up on it and started ranting about how evil Taslima was, on his psycho MRA site, AVoiceForMen (nope, not linking there). Furious denunciations from demented sociopaths and lots of attention to the criminal abuse of women around the world? Good work, Taslima!

And then Ophelia Benson hit the two million page views mark (just since joining FtB). Way to grow, Ophelia!

And now Jason is bragging that he he has fans who give him free beer in my presence. I’d congratulate him too, but I’m too busy clinging to the tattered, fading fragments of my fame and weeping.

Me. James Mason. A Star is Born. And everyone else on FtB is Judy Garland.

How is Britain like Louisiana?

They’re not much alike, except in one thing: they’re both supporting creationist schools.

A group of creationists has gained approval from the Government to open a fully state-funded Free School in 2013. The group are behind the plans for ‘Exemplar – Newark Business Academy’, a revised bid from the same people who proposed ‘Everyday Champion’s Academy’ last year. Everyday Champion’s Academy, which was formally backed by Everyday Champions Church, was explicitly rejected due to concerns surrounding the teaching of creationism.

In February 2011, while promoting the Everyday Champions Academy bid, Everyday Champions Church leader Gareth Morgan stated that ‘Creationism will be taught as the belief of the leadership of the school. It will not be taught exclusively in the sciences, for example. At the same time, evolution will be taught as a theory.’

And the United Kingdom won’t even have the compensatory advantages of great jazz, cajun food, and a willingness to party all night long. Creationism, boiled cabbage, and Morris dancing? There’s not one win anywhere in there.

Follow the link, read the details, and complain to your government!

Ed Clint has been working hard

I agree. Ed Clint deserves the reputation he’ll acquire from his hard work.

If only he had some talent or a sense of humor, it wouldn’t have required quite so much work…but I’m glad he’s found a way to compensate for his shortcomings with obsessive diligence.

Ed Clint now denies having anything to do with that site. I guess I’ll have to accept his word.

Ed Clint also says Paula Kirby’s “Sisterhood of the Oppressed” was a fair and reasonable document. Calling people Nazis is OK when it is carefully justified.

NSFW

It’s a shame that I can only feature an occasional panel from my favorite webcomic of them all, Oglaf, because it tends to get raunchy, explicit, NSFW, rude, cartoonishly pornographic, and silly, but who cares? I thought I’d mention the message in this one, at least. Only tune in if you like your humor lowbrow and occasionally obscene.

Also, if you’d ever read the comic, you’d know that the last thing that anyone would do is go home and lead calm, rational lives.

P.S. The author is Trudy Cooper. She’s Australian, which explains a lot.

Confirmed: Hotel owners are tasteless

Sure, you say—look at the Hiltons and Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump, and it looks clear that hotel ownership is either a magnet for horrible awful people, or it’s a profession that rots the mind. But this goes too far: a British hotel is replacing Gideon’s Bible with Fifty Shades Of Grey. Well, it’s reported to be so in The Mail, which while making the claim a little more dubious also magnifies the tackiness.

Also, who reads any of the crap literature tossed into hotel room drawers?