Random Notes from a Crank

The other day I watched a commercial that touted "pre-tariff pricing." I suspect we might see more of that kind of advertising in the future. 

Here are some statistics from the July and August Harper's Indexes:

• Percentage of Americans who fear that they or a loved one will be deported: 19
• Portion of Americans who say they have recently delayed a major purchase because of tariffs: 1/3
• Who say they have cancelled such a purchase entirely: 1/4
• Percentage of Americans who said last year that foreign trade represented an opportunity to grow the U.S. economy: 60
• Who say so now: 81
• Average number of instruction hours that it takes to become a lawyer in the United States: 1,250
• To become a licensed hairdresser: 1,500
• Number of excess deaths projected to occur by 2040 if cuts to foreign aid remain in place: 25,300,000
• Portion of people worldwide who say they would contribute 1 percent of their income toward combating climate change: 7/10
• Of Americans who say they would do so: 1/2
• Percentage of Americans who said that the Bible was "true" in 2016: 36
• Who say so now: 48
• Portion of Americans who regard religious leaders as trustworthy sources of medical information: 1/3

I'm surprised the fear of someone being deported is that low. I thought it would be higher. However, maybe the stat reflects the percentage of the Latino population in the U.S. 

Fucking tariffs. 

81% saying that foreign trade is a good thing is reinforced by President Adolf's stupid policies. 

The number of projected deaths because of lack of foreign aid is mind boggling. 

Too few Americans care about climate change. It's embarrassing. 

Regarding the Bible being "true" and trusting religious leaders, way too many people believe in magical thinking. Imbeciles.

Two of the biggest scams in the U.S. is how much ministers get paid and that churches don't get taxed. 

The nonsense Moscow Don is doing with Washington D.C. only strengthens my feelings that both D.C. and Puerto Rico need to become states. 

Puerto Rico has a larger population than these states: Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming. That's 18 states. 

D.C. has a larger population than two states: Vermont and Wyoming.  

Random Notes from a Crank

Watching Northern Exposure with all its Red Hook beer advertising reminds me of one of my favorite breweries. I drank my fair share of Red Hook ESBs and Long Hammer IPAs. Strangely enough, I drank lots of Red Hook, a beer made in Seattle, when I lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I've never seen it around these parts, unfortunately. And now they have all kinds of interesting IPAs that I can't get my hands on.

I searched for it on Binny's website, and all I got was squat.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that show, Northern Exposure. It has to be my favorite TV series of all time. I'm so glad Amazon made it available on Prime.

Because of a possible "wintry mix," the schools around here did not have have classes. All it did was rain. The silliness of people who aren't used to snow...

I've seen a trend recently of mid-size cities or larger cities making people their area's poet laureate. When did this move of laureating poets in places like Mobile and Mufreesboro start to happen? 

I'm not against it or anything. In fact, I like it because it supports the artistic community, but I'm just wondering when this trend started. 

Who started the laureating fire? And where else will it spread to? 

NPR has an interesting article out about the "Nones," who are apparently the largest group in the US in regard to religion. I fit into that group because I'm a highly skeptical agnostic.

The article is "Religious 'Nones' Are Now the Largest Single Group in the U.S." 

The good news to me is that this group is growing and they are likely to be liberal.  In addition, apparently Evangelicals is a group that's shrinking. More good news. 

Stay Positive: Embracing Agnosticism & Atheism

I read an opinion piece in The Washington Post today that I had to share.  

It's titled "America Doesn't Need More God. It Needs More Atheists" (gifted article) It's an article reformulated from Kate Cohen's book We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too). 

The article speaks to me in many ways. 

If I had to describe myself from a faith-based standpoint, I'd call myself a skeptical agnostic or, if you go by the bar Cohen has in the article, I'm basically an atheist. 

I guess it's possible that there's something going on with the "thousand faces of the hero" (Joseph Campbell's work) and the similarities of many different religions, but the likelihood of there being some divine being or set of beings who created the universe and have a hand in what people do in their lives is highly improbable. 

Slim chance. 

If anything, if we consider Jung's archetypes and Freud's idea of wish-fulfillment, perhaps myths/religions are simply a manifestation of some massive human wish-fulfillment that there's something after we die and that there is some kind of higher meaning to everything. 

I doubt it. 

Cohen has some great points for her thesis that the world needs more atheism and less religion. 

Here are some good points to be positive about being an agnostic or atheist:

• "My children know how to distinguish between fact and fiction - which is harder for children raised religious. They don't assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expected arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens." 
• "We need American who demand - as atheists do - that truth claims be tethered to fact." 
• Researchers have done the appropriate data crunching, and it seems the percentage of atheists is around 26%. 
• "In some ways, this [being atheist] makes life easier. You don't have to work out why God might cause or ignore suffering, which parts of this broken world are God's plan, or what work is his to do or what is yours." 
• "But you also don't get to leave things up to God.... Atheists believe people organized the world as it is now, and only people can make it better." 
• Apparently atheists are "more politically active" and "about 30 percent more likely to vote than religiously affiliated voters." 
• Basically, instead of relying on a divine being, atheists think people need to do good in the world. 

Cohen does an excellent job of providing the perspective that many atheists are unlikely to share their dispositions because they are a minority in a world where lots of people want to share their religious ideas and force their religious/political viewpoints on others. 

As a result, we need to rebuild the "wall of separation between church and state" that Jefferson talked about and Cohen references.  

And like Cohen relates, people should embrace their agnosticism/atheism because there are a lot of us out there. 

Musing of the Moment: April Harper's Index

Here are some interesting stats and factoids from the April "Harper's Index":

• Amount, in hours, by which the top-earning 10 percent of U.S. men worked less last year than in 2019: 77
• By which the bottom-earning 10 percent of men worked more: 37
• Percentage of U.S. workers who have used ChatGPT for work who have not disclosed this: 68
• Portion of K-12 educators who have caught students using ChatGPT to cheat: 1/4
• Portion of parents with children under 18 who are worried about their children's mental health: 3/4
• Who are worried about their children being kidnapped: 3/5
• Being shot: 1/2
• Percentage decrease over the past five years in the number of Americans who believe in God: 6
• Chances that a U.S. adult under 30 believes in astrology: 2 in 5

The rich get richer and work less, and the poor work more. 

Do Chatbots dream of electric sheep?

At risk of sounding like an old fart, when I was a kid, I don't think parents gave much thought about a kid's "mental health" unless the kid showed some kind of severe problems. 

Hell, I was a depressed kid. Heck, I'm in general a depressed individual. But you don't see me going around whining about my "mental health." Some days were good. Other days weren't so good. 

So it goes. 

Considering the number of guns that are out and about in the U.S., I'm more worried about my kids getting shot at school/college or me getting shot.

I'm astounded by how many people believe in astrology. That crap is goofier in believing in a dude who turned water into wine.  

Random Notes from a Crank

One of my FB friends shared this article by RawStory the other day that I found interesting. It's written by a neuroscientist: "Link between Religious Fundamentalism and Brain Damage Established by Scientists." 

The gist is that in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that does critical thinking, religious fundamentalist don't have a propensity for "cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness." 

As the author states, "Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge." 

They're not open to change: "Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview."

Religious fundamentalism is one of the things wrong in this world. 

And this all reminds me that I need to reread Mencken's Treatise on the Gods. 

Wales made the World Cup for the first time since 1958. So the group the US is in includes England, Iran, and Wales. 

This fine article from The Onion hits a little close to home since I'm usually geeked up when blue jays and woodpeckers show up: "Area Bird Creeped Out by Bird Watcher.

I need this notebook.  

Random Notes from a Crank

 I'm trying to catch up on my public affairs magazine reading. 

Here are some factoids from the last three months of "Harper's Indexes":

• Percentage decrease in the number of flu cases in the United States this season: 99
• Factor by which U.S. police officers are more likely to use force against left-wing protesters than right-wing protesters: 3.4
• Percentage of Black Lives Matter protests during which the police used force against protesters: 5
• Of Stop the Steal protests during which police did so: 1
• Percentage of Americans who identified as Republicans and Democrats, respectively, at the outset of 2020: 47, 45
• At the end of 2020: 39, 50
• Number of U.S. members of Congress who are not affiliated with a religion: 1
• Portion of the American population that is not: 1/4
• Percentage of 2020 Trump voters who feel more loyal to Trump than to the Republican Party: 54
• Who would support a Trump party over the Republican Party: 46
• Minimum number of identified long-term effects from contracting COVID-19: 55
• Factor by which a solar farm was more expensive to build and maintain than a coal plant in 2009: 3.2
• By which a coal plant is more expensive to build and maintain than a solar farm today: 2.2
• Estimated number of Earths that humanity would require to sustain its current level of resource consumption: 1.6
• Year in which humanity  is expected to require two Earths: 2030
• Number of U.S. state legislatures that are considering new voting restrictions: 47
• Number of such bills being considered: 361
• Percentage of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters who are "extremely concerned" about Trump supporters: 82
• Who are "extremely concerned" about voter suppression: 53
• Percentage of U.S. electric-car owners who are concerned about being able to charge their vehicles on the road: 47
• Portion of U.S. electric-car charging outlets that are in California: 1/3
• That support only Tesla vehicles: 1/5
• Minimum number of state governments that are funding efforts to modify the weather with cloud seeding: 6

Usually when I provide the stats and figures from the Harper's Index, I just leave them as for readers to ponder for themselves. But for this post since it's three-months worth of numbers and percentages, I thought I'd comment on some of them. 

With the drop of flu cases, it's clear that masks work, people. That's why people in certain countries in Asia wear masks during flu season. 

In response to the "Blue Lives Matter" crowd, it seems that the police feel conservative lives matter more. 

I hesitantly take the party affiliation changes from the start of 2020 to the end as a good sign. The Republican Party has lost any sense of a moral and/or philosophical compass with people's irrational support of Moscow Don. 

That long-term effects figure should be a part of PSAs about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. 

We need to build more solar farms and electric-car charging outlets. 

Back to the GOP, they want to restrict voting access because doing so helps them. But will it? I wonder if these ridiculous bills like the one in Georgia will only motivate people to vote. That's my hope. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I think I need to start working in Bugs Bunny's catchphrase of "What a maroon" into my regular vocabulary. It will serve as a strong euphemism for some naughtier words I want to use. 

I would assume Mel Blanc and others had Bugs say "maroon" instead of "moron" because it's not as harsh. 

The dog we adopted does something all of the other dogs I've had have never done. When he takes a leak, right aftewardr he uses his back legs to kick dirt or leaves where he peed. Now I've never had a male dog before. The other dogs I've had have been bitches. I'm wondering if it's a male dog thing, but maybe it's just this dog wanting to mask his markings. 

And that dog is full of pee. When I take him on walks, my acronym for his behavior is AMT: Always Marking Territory. 

I know what the idiots at FoxNews need to focus instead of Moscow Don's legal troubles. They should worry about this: The War on Hanukkah. 

What a bunch of maroons. 

Last night I watched Life of Brian, which I hadn't watched in a while. It seemed like a good choice considering the holidays. Always look on the bright side of life, folks. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The Atlantic has a couple of articles worth a thinking person's time in the April issue. 

The first is "The Nancy Pelosi Problem," an article that demonstrates that the vitriol spewed against Pelosi by various people has a gendered proclivity. As the article shows, she's been pretty darn good at her job as Majority and Minority Leader. But a lot of what she's up against (and the Democrats for that matter) is showcased in the study that presents how people react to "John Burr" and "Ann Burr."

Another good piece features Julie Washington's work and research. She's a linguist who is trying to use AAV to help students succeed. Check out "The Code-Switcher: Julie Washington's Lifelong Quest to Change the Way We Teach Young Speakers of African-American English." 

"More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows" by Melinda Wenner Moyer in Scientific American should be required reading. I read it when it came out in October. The article won the American Society of Jounralists and Author's Excellence in Reporting Award.

In a more recent article in Scientific American, "The Number of Americans with No Religious Affiliation is Rising," the author reports on how the number of "nones" is getter larger in the US. I tend to agree with Shermer's statement that "This shift away from the dominance of any one religion is good for a secular society whose government is structured to discourage catch basins of power from building up and spilling over into people's private lives." Also, like the author, I find some of the beliefs of these non-religious people puzzling and downright silly.

Random Notes from a Crank

Because I "like" Vice News on Facebook, the article "What Happens to Your Brain When You Stop Believing in God" came across my feed this morning for whatever reason. It's an interesting article that incorporates personal experience with neurological research. Here are some snippets that seem noteworthy: 

• Over time, religious ideas become rewarding in and of themselves. This is a powerful, unconscious motivation to keep believing.
• "Religion works exactly like a drug—like cocaine, or methamphetamine—or like music, or like romantic love," says Jeffrey Anderson, a radiology professor at the University of Utah who studies religion in the brain. "
• New beliefs join the same neurological framework as old ones. It's even possible that an existing belief network paves the way for additional beliefs. 
• This scientific descent from religion is common. Pew's 2016 survey on why now-unaffiliated Americans lost faith yielded explanations such as, "Rational thought makes religion go out the window," "Lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator," and "I'm a scientist now, and I don't believe in miracles."
• Eventually, non-religious people who once had religious epiphanies get those same feelings from being in nature, or from seeing profound scientific ideas expressed, Anderson says. "The context changes but the experience doesn't." Most non-religious people are "passionately committed to some ideology or other," explains Patrick McNamara, a neurology professor at Boston University School of Medicine. These passions function neurologically as "faux religions."

I stopped by my local CVS the other and discovered a fifth of Jack Daniel's Rye Whiskey on the shelf. I had read years ago that Jack Daniel's was intent on producing a rye whiskey, but I didn't know it had come out yet. 

I have an on-again off-again relationship with rye whiskey. I like that a great deal of the whiskey made during the early days of the Republic was strongly rye. I also enjoy rye whiskey when it's spicy. At one time Wild Turkey provided an outstanding rye whiskey at 101 proof, but nowadays they reduced the proof probably because of the penny-pinchers. Jim Beam rye is not good at all. Old Overholt is terrible. Templeton Rye is a marketing scam of the highest proportions. Bulleit Rye is way overpriced. Whistlepig is out of my price range. Sazerac is respectable. And Rittenhouse is a solid, consistent offering. So it is with some trepidation that I bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's rye because there are so few rye whiskeys I'm willing to pay for. 

I can't say I'm spurred to give it a ton of praise, but it's a solid offering with a 70% rye mash bill. My complaint is that it's only 80 proof. I like my bourbons at a high proof for more flavor, but I will say JD Rye is a tasty offering from the massive conglomerate Brown-Forman. It's the best thing to come out of Tennessee since Bessie Smith. 

Music Friday: "Pure Comedy"

I've heard good things about Father John Misty, but I got intrigued after reading "Here Is the Scandalous Father John Misty Interview You've Been Waiting For" on Pitchfork. 

So yesterday I purchased I Love You, Honeybear. 

I'm looking forward to the new release, Pure Comedy. Here's the title track with lyrics afterward. 



"Pure Comedy"

The comedy of man starts like this.
Our brains are way too big for our mothers' hips.
And so Nature, she divines this alternative.
We emerged half-formed and hope that whoever greets us on the other end
Is kind enough to fill us in.
And, babies, that's pretty much how it's been ever since.

Now the miracle of birth leaves a few issues to address.
Like, say, that half of us are periodically iron deficient.
So somebody's got to go kill something while I look after the kids.
I'd do it myself, but what, are you going to get this thing its milk?
He says as soon as he gets back from the hunt, we can switch.
It's hard not to fall in love with something so helpless.
Ladies, I hope we don't end up regretting this.

Comedy, now that's what I call pure comedy.
Just waiting until the part where they start to believe
They're at the center of everything.
And some all-powerful being endowed this horror show with meaning.

Oh, their religions are the best.
They worship themselves, yet they're totally obsessed
With risen zombies, celestial virgins, magic tricks, these unbelievable outfits.
And they get terribly upset
When you question their sacred texts
Written by woman-hating epileptics.

Their languages just serve to confuse them.
Their confusion somehow makes them more sure.
They build fortunes poisoning their offspring
And hand out prizes when someone patents the cure.
Where did they find these goons they elected to rule them?
What makes these clowns they idolize so remarkable?
These mammals are hell-bent on fashioning new gods,
So they can go on being godless animals.

Oh comedy, their illusions they have no choice but to believe
Their horizons that just forever recede.
And how's this for irony, their idea of being free is a prison of beliefs
That they never ever have to leave.

Oh comedy, oh it's like something that a madman would conceive!
The only thing that seems to make them feel alive is the struggle to survive.
But the only thing that they request is something to numb the pain with
Until there's nothing human left.
Just random matter suspended in the dark.
I hate to say it, but each other's all we got.

Random Notes from a Crank

I enjoy satirical letters to the editor. Check out John Kilgore's "Trump Move Great for Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." 

The Church of the FSM has been noted before on this blog via an article from The Atlantic. 

Here's an article from Alternet that is quite disturbing but not surprising: "A United States of Hate Has Exploded Under Trump." 

As I watch Parks and Recreation, I find myself attracted to the character of Leslie Knope. 

How you doin'?

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm quite late to the party, but I recently read Nick Offerman's book, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living. A fine piece of nonfiction. Two back chapters, "Horse Sense > The Bible" and "Leviticus Can Blow Me," are worth the price of the paperback. And there is plenty of wisdom in those pages. 

Like me, Mr. Offerman is man who enjoys a fine whiskey. I, however, prefer bourbon. I'd like to try some of the Scotches he touts though, but those single malts are expensive for this nice hombre. 

Reading his book made me start watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix. Great show. Like I said, "late to the party." 

Regardless, his "Leviticus Can Blow Me" chapter got me a bit riled up about how people use the Bible to discriminate. A person's religious "liberties" are not being protected if they refuse to sell this or that to a gay person. That person is just being an asshole. 

Speaking of Leviticus, let's explore some of the injunctions found in that crazy-ass book of the Bible that bigots like using to discriminate against gay people. 

Here are some selected ones (I cut the ones that are downright gross or common sense--you know, the ones about screwing family members and farm animals, etc.) that so-called Christians should be following if they really believe that the injunctions of Leviticus are proper guidelines to live one's life:

• Eating fat
• Touching an unclean animal
• Letting your hair become unkempt
• Tearing your clothes
• Eating an animal that doesn't chew cud and has cloven hooves
• Eating any seafood without fins or scales
• Touching the carcass of a weasel, rat, any kind of great lizard, monitor lizard, skink, etc.
• Making idols or "metal gods"
• Picking up grapes fallen in one's vineyard
• Stealing 
• Lying
• Perverting justice by showing partiality to the poor or rich
• Spreading slander
• Seeking revenge or bearing a grudge
• Trimming your beard
• Cutting your hair at the sides
• Getting tattoos
• Not standing in the presence of the elderly
• "the foreigner residing among you must be treated as one of your native-born"
• Working on the Sabbath
• Selling land permanently

Obviously, you can see how some people of the Jewish faith abide by these rules (eating pigs and shellfish, for example). 

But what I'm trying to get at here is that some Christians obviously use Leviticus to discriminate against gay people, whereas they're not apt to follow injunctions found in the same book about eating fat, touching animals, eating pork, having crappy looking hair, eating shellfish, having non-typical pets, lying, gossiping (spreading slander), getting themselves tatted up, and doing stuff on Sundays. Also, this whole principle about treating "foreigners" should be relevant to the Republican Administration's executive order about banning people from seven certain countries that recently got overturned. Some of these Christians love to cherry-pick passages that fit their needs. Keep "loving thy neighbor," douchebags.  

Random Notes from a Crank

At the Friendly Atheist, there's a short article about how a group of humanists, agnostics, and atheists at the U of Wisconsin do an annual "Graveyard of the Gods." Check out "In Madison, 'Graveyard of the Gods' Asks Students when Their Theology Will Become Mythology." 

Also religiously related is The Atlantic's interesting article on Pastafarians: "The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster." I like the critique of organized religion they're doing, but in some cases, it's actually becoming like a religion. 

Over at the Daily Stoic, Stephen Hanselman gives out some good advice about Election Day: "A Stoic Remedy for Election 2016: Choices, Character, and the Common Good." 

My beloved Cubs won the World Series last night. My years of torment are finally over. 

And some people are likely to be gettin' it on: "Brace Yourself for a Chicago Cubs Baby Boom Next August." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm happy to relate I'm not part of organized religion anymore. That change happened decades ago. I'm more a believer in disorganized spirituality. One of the bonuses of that stance is that I don't have any kind of religious-based rationale to hate gay people. 

My daughter, on the other hand, has been going to this youth group for over a year now. I have misgivings about it for various reasons. I know exactly how the main characters of The Americans feel about their daughter Paige getting involved with a church. 

In The Atlantic online, the magazine solicited readers' replies to this question: "What is the greatest prank of all time?" The one I liked the best was from Frank Tokarsky: "To paraphrase George Carlin, the greatest prank of all time must be what organized religion is trying to peddle: 'There's this man who lives in the sky; he knows everything, and he sees everything ... and he needs your money." 

Here's an extended version of those sentiments: "The greatest bullshit story every told." 




I started out my resurrected softball career with a groundout (5-3) in my first at bat, a mildly pulled groin, a misplay in right field, a much needed walk for my second at bat, and a run scored. That certainly checks off the boxes for middle-aged man. The last time I played softball was when I severely dislocated my left thumb (the bone was sticking out) back in the mid-90s. I'm a bit rusty. 

Check out Robert H. Frank's "Why Luck Matters More Than You Think." That article spurred me buy his book, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Frank is an economist, a profession stereotyped as being abstruse writers. However, the book is very readable and thought provoking.  

Stay Positive: Greatest Simpsons Religious Jokes

As much as the Simpsons' cavalcade of characters are seen in church, the series definitely has had some satirical comments about religion. 

Check out "The 18 Greatest Simpsons Religion Jokes." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I was happy to see this article from Grist: "Obama's Big Climate Plan is Now Final -- And It's Even Stronger Than Expected." 

The plan tends to go along with Saudi Arabia and China getting themselves together as I related in my last Random Notes... post. 

This morning two ladies came to my front door to let me know about the glory of God and all that kind of stuff. I told them that I was an agnostic and thanked them for coming by. Score that a major victory for me because I had just gotten up and didn't have any coffee in me yet. I thought I had left all those door-to-door church people behind when I left Alabama where I had a few come to my door to chatter on about whether I had "accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior." My usual answers were that I was an agnostic (the truth) or that I was Buddhist, an answer that usually bewilders people with a "Christianity is the only true religion" mindset. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Though it's a bit bombastic, the article "Independent Study Finds That Every Republican Prediction About Obamacare Was Wrong" is an interesting read if you like facts trumping fear mongering. 

So this bit of satire, "Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans," seems appropriate.

The Pew Research Center study says that in the US, the number of Christians has gone down 8% since 2007, and atheists and agnostics have gone from 25% to 31%. Huzzah for freedom from religion. 

In general, I'm a fan of Anthony Bourdain. If you're so inclined, check out "23 Brilliant Life Lessons from Anthony Bourdain." I'm partial to numbers 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 22. 

I would imagine many folks are fans of the eephus pitch. If you are one of those people, check out Alfredo Simon throwing two eephus pitches to Torii Hunter.

Random Notes from a Crank

With all the talk about the Indiana law about "religious freedom" dying down because the 24-7 news media outlets are focused on something new, I've been thinking about how there should be such a thing as freedom from religion. Stop shoving your Jesuses and other saviors down my throat, people. 

I've never been a big fan of the Clintons, but "8 Nightmare Scenarios That Would Come to Pass If GOP Presidential Speech Became Reality" scares the hell out of me. 

Interestingly, Grist provides its own eight-item article: "8 Things You Need to Know about Hillary Clinton and Climate Change." 

I'm not a fan of Angry Birds, but I might be now. 

Speaking of video games, I'm hopelessly addicted to Star Wars Commander. I haven't felt this way since Dig Dug.

Stay Positive: How To Suck at Your Religion

I'm not as huge of a fan of The Oatmeal as I'm sure other people are, but the recent offering of "How to Suck at Your Religion" hits my sweet spot. Check it out. 

Random Notes from a Crank

As Xmas approaches, I've seen all kinds of jewelry commercials. I don't know why anyone would actually name a jewelry company Jared, an innocuous male name but one that reminds of some bitter late-20s dude who lives in his parent's basement. And Kay jewelers, right... Every kiss begins with them supposedly. How annoying. The portrayal of women is both commercials is the same sexist tripe we see lots of places, but I wonder if "If you liked it, you should have put a ring on it" is not much, if at all, different? 

On one of the InterWeb fora I visit regularly, people were talking about their top five John Cusack movies. Lots of people like Say Anything, but it never blew me away like it has other people. I'm a big fan of one of Cusack's early comedies, Better Off Dead. In the midst of the discussion about Say Anything though, I was reminded of Lloyd Dobler's excellent answer about his career interests. 



I don't have a ton to say about the Phil Robertson interview and suspension, but it's not surprising he holds such dumb, intolerant views. As one of my buddies on FB pointed out, Christians don't pay attention to all kinds of passages anymore, such as the ones that condone slavery, so this seems just to be another case of applying silly passages to the real world. The whole deal reminds me of what either H.L. Mencken said about Christianity (or maybe was it Twain?). I'm paraphrasing here, but the statement was something like this: It's not that Christianity is a bad religion. It's just some of the followers are whack-jobs. 

Nevertheless, here are some quotations about religion by Mencken if you're so inclined: Mencken on religion. 

This statement seems relevant: "The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by person who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has the right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge."