So I'm working the counter at the hotel, and this guy walks in. He starts talking, and I learn from his ID that he's Italian. Named Salvatore'. Thick accent, but very funny. So I just start making banal chit-chat and say, "Man, I've always wanted to go to Italy."
So, the guy just looks dead at me and asks, "So, why you don't go?"
He just floored me with that and I just laughed my ass off for a few seconds, and could hardly complete the sale.
Really good question, though. Why I don't go?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Interesting lecture...
Spurred on by my Creation seminar reaction from my last blog entry, I clicked over to RichardDawkins.net and found a link to a very interesting lecture on the psychological nature of suicide bombing. In the second part of the lecture the speaker touches on how religion tends to fracture kin loyalties and subvert family bonds in order to use them to other ends. I found this tidbit somewhat personally relevant, though I dislike the tendency to grant "religion," as opposed to religious people, with any moral responsibility for anything. Religions may serve a number of ends, but in the end people make the decision to use religious thought to further personal goals. Let us not confuse the sword and the hand the wields it. In any case, if you like lectures I would recommend this one. It is in 3 parts, the third part being a Q&A which is rather dull.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
I'm Out...
I'm in the KFC today getting my prework din-din, and out of the corner of my eye I catch a sight of a word that I have an odd sensitivity for. Creationism. It hits me like a bolt from the blue because I understand that I'm in a KFC attached to a gas station in St. George, SC. This word isn't supposed to be here. So, I turn to check it out and see this...
A seminar? A SEMINAR?!?! My town, that can't bother to have a movie theater or a decent library, that doesn't have an Applebee's or anywhere else to buy a decent steak, that doesn't even have a damned record store, is hosting a fucking Creationism Seminar?!?!? With Brad Fucking Harrub, the young-earther apologist dressed in a Ph. D.! What.The.Fuck.
I suddenly felt very tired. Exhausted, even. I had a brief glimpse of this pageant of idiocy that is to occur less than a month from today. This Pee-Hache-Dee feller is going to get up at his podium and tell us rubes that the world is 6,000 years old, and science backs it up! He's gonna tell us that all the damn Commie-Athiest-Liberal-Hippies are trying to hit our children because they know us grown folks are too sharp to be taken in by all that Maoist bunk. He's gonna tell us that we didn't come from no damn monkeys, and there ain't nothing that's gonna prove we did. Hell, he'll say, this theory of evolution is nothing more than a guess anyway. Well, he'll add with a pause to build tension, I don't need no guess. I've got my answer right there in the book of Genesis. I realize that he'll use a lot of fifty cent words, and proper grammar. He'll talk about scientific findings and fossils a bit, and toss in some shaky "evidence" that would point to a young earth. Evidence that actual scientists have been guffawing over for two decades or more.
He'll come here and do his song and dance (What kind of ism? Creationism!) and at least one budding mind that was almost ready to actually question the bullshit Christian mythology that's been pulled over their eyes to make them feel safe will slink safely back into their Cave of Happy Thoughts and Shadow Puppets. The rest of the room will applaud and be happy that someone finally said what they'd been thinking all along, and remind themselves to bring some of this stuff up at the next PTA or School Board meeting. Ain't no Commie-Atheists molesting my kid's young mind.
Part of me wants to think that maybe the people that will show up to this "Seminar" will be people that are savvy enough to know that this guy is peddling bullshit. Maybe they'll be smart enough to recognize a shill when they see one, and perhaps ask him a difficult question he can't answer without tap-dancing. But that part of me is the same part that really wants to believe in Santa Clause. That part of me is the part Mr. Harrub wants to sell a 6,000 year old universe to, complete with an army of world-building angelic engineers. I wonder if they had to wear hard-hats when they were sinking those dinosaur bones into the earth, below any trace of where human remains would be found. I wonder if God knew, or if it was Lucifer's last practical joke. Maybe he snickered as he thought about how we'd find these props and completely reinvent the myths that explain our own origins.
No, Mr. Harrub will be long gone by the time the fallout of his speech is revealed. He'll be counting his twenties on a bus or train while some random St. George parent is screaming blue in the face to get evolutionary theory taken out of biology class. With any luck, I'll be long gone too. As I glanced at this poster and thought about all that probably will or won't happen in this seminar's aftermath I realized that I don't like living here. I don't like the fact that Mr. Harrub can get on a podium and peddle his horse-pucky science-like explanations about why the Bible is the inerrant Truth, but I have to feel embarrased at every family meeting when I'm asked why I don't go to church. I don't like people telling me my father is living in a mansion in heaven when I'm quite sure he's still firmly underground where we buried him.
So, that said...I'm out. I hope that Mr. Harrub's seminar (and yes, I know he's got a Ph.D. and should be called "Doctor." I've never seen any evidence of his Ph.D. so I'm going to operate as though it doesn't exist.) is the last thing I do in this shit-stain of a town before I pack up my suitcases and head toward anywhere I can buy a decent steak and visit a movie theater and safely say out loud in the street, "I don't go to church because I think Christianity is the biggest bullshit con-job ever pulled on this unfortunate planet, and I don't wish to be anymore complicit in it than I already am" without so much as a raised eyebrow. I'll probably end up in Charleston, which at least has 2 out of 3.
As an aside, my favorite form of proof that the Universe is older than 6,000 years is this. Some of the stars in the sky are so far away that it takes millions of years for their light to reach us. If they were only 6,000 years old then we wouldn't be able to see them. But we can.
A seminar? A SEMINAR?!?! My town, that can't bother to have a movie theater or a decent library, that doesn't have an Applebee's or anywhere else to buy a decent steak, that doesn't even have a damned record store, is hosting a fucking Creationism Seminar?!?!? With Brad Fucking Harrub, the young-earther apologist dressed in a Ph. D.! What.The.Fuck.
I suddenly felt very tired. Exhausted, even. I had a brief glimpse of this pageant of idiocy that is to occur less than a month from today. This Pee-Hache-Dee feller is going to get up at his podium and tell us rubes that the world is 6,000 years old, and science backs it up! He's gonna tell us that all the damn Commie-Athiest-Liberal-Hippies are trying to hit our children because they know us grown folks are too sharp to be taken in by all that Maoist bunk. He's gonna tell us that we didn't come from no damn monkeys, and there ain't nothing that's gonna prove we did. Hell, he'll say, this theory of evolution is nothing more than a guess anyway. Well, he'll add with a pause to build tension, I don't need no guess. I've got my answer right there in the book of Genesis. I realize that he'll use a lot of fifty cent words, and proper grammar. He'll talk about scientific findings and fossils a bit, and toss in some shaky "evidence" that would point to a young earth. Evidence that actual scientists have been guffawing over for two decades or more.
He'll come here and do his song and dance (What kind of ism? Creationism!) and at least one budding mind that was almost ready to actually question the bullshit Christian mythology that's been pulled over their eyes to make them feel safe will slink safely back into their Cave of Happy Thoughts and Shadow Puppets. The rest of the room will applaud and be happy that someone finally said what they'd been thinking all along, and remind themselves to bring some of this stuff up at the next PTA or School Board meeting. Ain't no Commie-Atheists molesting my kid's young mind.
Part of me wants to think that maybe the people that will show up to this "Seminar" will be people that are savvy enough to know that this guy is peddling bullshit. Maybe they'll be smart enough to recognize a shill when they see one, and perhaps ask him a difficult question he can't answer without tap-dancing. But that part of me is the same part that really wants to believe in Santa Clause. That part of me is the part Mr. Harrub wants to sell a 6,000 year old universe to, complete with an army of world-building angelic engineers. I wonder if they had to wear hard-hats when they were sinking those dinosaur bones into the earth, below any trace of where human remains would be found. I wonder if God knew, or if it was Lucifer's last practical joke. Maybe he snickered as he thought about how we'd find these props and completely reinvent the myths that explain our own origins.
No, Mr. Harrub will be long gone by the time the fallout of his speech is revealed. He'll be counting his twenties on a bus or train while some random St. George parent is screaming blue in the face to get evolutionary theory taken out of biology class. With any luck, I'll be long gone too. As I glanced at this poster and thought about all that probably will or won't happen in this seminar's aftermath I realized that I don't like living here. I don't like the fact that Mr. Harrub can get on a podium and peddle his horse-pucky science-like explanations about why the Bible is the inerrant Truth, but I have to feel embarrased at every family meeting when I'm asked why I don't go to church. I don't like people telling me my father is living in a mansion in heaven when I'm quite sure he's still firmly underground where we buried him.
So, that said...I'm out. I hope that Mr. Harrub's seminar (and yes, I know he's got a Ph.D. and should be called "Doctor." I've never seen any evidence of his Ph.D. so I'm going to operate as though it doesn't exist.) is the last thing I do in this shit-stain of a town before I pack up my suitcases and head toward anywhere I can buy a decent steak and visit a movie theater and safely say out loud in the street, "I don't go to church because I think Christianity is the biggest bullshit con-job ever pulled on this unfortunate planet, and I don't wish to be anymore complicit in it than I already am" without so much as a raised eyebrow. I'll probably end up in Charleston, which at least has 2 out of 3.
As an aside, my favorite form of proof that the Universe is older than 6,000 years is this. Some of the stars in the sky are so far away that it takes millions of years for their light to reach us. If they were only 6,000 years old then we wouldn't be able to see them. But we can.
Friday, October 5, 2007
1408
I watched the film "1408" last night. I live way out in the sticks, and it was 2 AM. These two factors contributed to me getting zero sleep last night. I will keep this short. 1) This film scared the hell out of me, mostly because I was alone in the woods at 4 AM (by the time it ended). 2) The Carpenters now cause me to pee in my pants. If you've seen the movie then you get it.
I used to like this song, and now it creeps me out. Thanks Mr. King.
I used to like this song, and now it creeps me out. Thanks Mr. King.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
If it weren't for bad luck...
Those of you who follow this blog might have wondered where I've been. The answer is...nowhere special. My bike has been acting up lately, so I'm stranded close to home until the parts come in. Apparently the bearings need to be replaced every 20,000 miles, and when they wear out the bike starts driving really crazy. If you go too long without replacing them the rear end will sieze up and cause an uncomfortable accident. The good news is that the parts are pretty cheap, and fairly easy to replace. That said, there won't be much in the way of news until I get this junk heap fixed and roadworthy again. I might find something to bitch about, but probably no events.
Later
Later
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