It’s also loud and rude. Don’t crank up the volume if you’re at work.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
It’s also loud and rude. Don’t crank up the volume if you’re at work.
I’m going to dope myself up and flop into bed so I can get over this slimy cold — and speaking of slimy cold, here are some deep sea creatures to tide you over for a bit.
The freethought community is grieving at the loss of Helen Kagin, and Ken Ham, petty whiner that he is, has decided to complain about her obituary.
We found it unfortunate that someone took this sad time as an opportunity to take a shot at the Creation Museum in an obituary. And sad, too, that some of the information was not correct. There were not hundreds at the protest rally outside the gates of the Creation Museum when it opened–we counted perhaps 70 people. Also it was not so “peaceful,” considering that the protestors brought in a loud rock band to disrupt our opening day, and also rented a plane to circle and buzz the museum for a few hours, dragging a banner stating: “Thou shalt not lie.”
She was one of Ken Ham’s many enemies, so I could understand a little fist-shaking…but this is so piously hypocritical. He finds it unfortunate that someone would snipe at the idiocy of his “museum” in an obituary, but doesn’t seem to find it at all unfortunate that he has chosen to snipe at the deceased.
And that’s without even the standard Christian snideness of opening up his complaint by pointing out how sad it is when someone dies…but at least Christians get to live forever in the “arms of the Lord and Savior”! I’ve run into more than a few Christians like that, who find their joy in the misfortune of others amplifed by the fact that not only are they dead, but they’re burning in hell, unlike his or her prospects.
Although I do find some personal satisfaction that Ken Ham is seething in this life over the contempt the Kagins have frequently expressed for Ham’s follies.
Rom Houben, the unfortunate fellow with severe brain damage who doctors claimed to be conscious via facilitated communication, is silent again. Investigators did the trivial experiment of sending his facilitating communicator outside the room while they showed Houben a series of simple objects, then brought her back in, and asked him to name them. Suddenly, facilitated communication failed…to nobody’s surprise, except perhaps to the gullible medical staff.
I’m amazed it took them so long to do something so trivial and so conclusive.
Somehow, listening to John Waters reading the liner notes to an album he’s putting out sounds an awful lot like the never-ending thread. I think he’d feel right at home here, someone invite him over for a date.
I was briefly interviewed for Sunday Night Safran, with John Safran and Father Bob Maguire. It’ll be broadcast on Triple J radio at 9pm Sunday, and will be available as a download sometime the day after.
Don’t expect too much — it was a short interview. I think they’re just beginning to warm Australian audiences up for the big conference next month.
As are we all, of course, but Ebert is setting an example for us all.
Ebert is dying in increments, and he is aware of it.
I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled “Go Gently into That Good Night.” I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.
There has been no death-row conversion. He has not found God. He has been beaten in some ways. But his other senses have picked up since he lost his sense of taste. He has tuned better into life. Some things aren’t as important as they once were; some things are more important than ever. He has built for himself a new kind of universe. Roger Ebert is no mystic, but he knows things we don’t know.
I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
Ebert takes joy from the world in nearly all the ways he once did. He has had to find a new way to laugh by closing his eyes and slapping both hands on his knees but he still laughs. He and Chaz continue to travel. (They spent Thanksgiving in Barbados.) And he still finds joy in books, and in art, and in movies a greater joy than he ever has. He gives more movies more stars.
There is no dignity in death, but we can achieve some grace in life…and clearly, Roger Ebert is doing it.
Now Andreas Moritz is featured by Orac. If he was concerned because a little criticism from a student got a fair amount of attention from Google, now he has Pharyngula and Respectful Insolence highlighting his quackery.
I hate to give hints to kooks, but really, you should study the Streisand effect. Attempts at legal intimidation, threats to silence web sites, and those kinds of nasty shenanigans to squelch bad publicity always backfire on the internet.
Oh, and WordPress? You still suck.
Unfortunately, these stats don’t look much different from what we’d get in Minnesota.
