bloggin' out in jesusland, a sad day for a smart ass
"So every year on Fourth of July my Dad and I would go out, have a barbecue, and burn an American flag. As I got older, like, seven or eight I asked my Dad if he hated America.
'Of course not, Son. In America, we have freedom of speech, and press and religion. America is the greatest country in the world, and I love it.'
'If you love America so much,' I would ask him, 'then why do you burn the American flag on the Fourth of July?'
'Son, in America we have freedom of speech, and press, and religion, to say whatever we want no matter how unpopular. The day that I can no longer burn the flag, of the country that I love will be the day that I no longer love America.'"
That story was told about ten years ago at the In One Ear open mic at the No Exit Cafe. At the time I was an anarchist, but I felt a swell of pride when I heard it. That same day, the Oklahoma City Federal Building was bombed and the news flashed pictures of various Arab suspects, all of them paper tiger bogeymen like Sadaam Hussein. It turned out it was a few guys from Michigan, who didn't like the way the country they loved was heading.
A lot of my friends are radicals or whatever you want to call them. Hippies. Anarchists. Leftists. Idealists. Despite petty crimes against the state and my vehement hatred of the police. I have always been pretty vaguely patriotic and defended our little attempt at Democracy. I've exercised my 1st amendment rights to the best of my ability, as loudly as possible for the most part. I'm not so sure anymore.
Last year, during the election, I defended the South, and religious people for sticking to their beliefs even when it meant electing a monster. Stop calling them inbred. Look at how organized their churches are, and how passionate they are
Sarah, an atheist, slurred, "Then they're stupid because they're religious."
And I slurred back, "Then so am fucking I."
We got into a very awkward screaming match in Jonesy's living room. We'd never really talked about religion.
Today, the Kansas school board voted 6-4 that Intelligent Design could be taught on par with evolution.
Because I cannot conceive of an eternity forward and an eternity backwards, of space with no beginning, I believe in the Hebrew god I was raised with. I know I am probably wrong, but in my head, someone had to start it all off. The big bang, evolution, chaos theory, et cetera...it all had to start somewhere. I don't have the pride of Southern Fundies and I'm embarassed to admit it. My view is a vaiation of Intelligent Design theory (which is not even a real theory) and I think that their decision is a travesty.
Not only is it a backdoor way of bringing in the Judeo-Christian creation myth, which is bullshit, but it is fake science. In the trial, Kansas' ID expert was given the actual definition of a theory, which is
"a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena"
and the definition of a hypothesis, which is more like
"this is what I think and it makes a lot of sense."
Their expert admitted that Intelligent Design is a hypothesis. Apparently, even his own admission is worthless.
I can now, at least in Kansas, espouse my theories that one-out-of-every-five white men under thirty can play Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" on guitar and that Jewish girls are more likely than white girls to take it up the butt. I am willing to test these theories to make them scientifically sound in every state (especially the second) but would like to start teaching them somewhere now.
For all of you who think that we're all that much smarter than our parents and grandparents were, I want you to go read the transcripts of the Scopes Monkey trial, seventy-some years ago and tell me the same.
America is getting dumber and prouder of our dumbness. Soon we will be a working-class superpower, scraping to get by and perpetually keepin' it real, in spite of the facts. Last week Texas overwhelmingly passed an amendment to their state constitution banning same-sex marriage (in a very sad 3-1 margin). Due to clunky wording, the text kinda, sorta makes ALL marriage illegal, but we can ignore those passages. Words don't matter anymore.
Fifty years ago, people were giving up weeks and months at a time, just to get arrested in the name of civil rights. There was a framework. There was a plan. People took risks, and they did it in their church clothes. Last week a few thousand motley kids exercised their right to free speech and their right of assembly. This is good. They burned flags and they denounced the president, which is good, but they called it resistance, which it is not. They walked in the borders the police gave them, because they didn't think they had the numbers to do otherwise. This is not resistance.
Resistance is what's happening in France; it's what just happened in Argentina; it's what's been happening in Palestine for years. Resistance doesn't have to be violent, but it does have to actually resist something, I'm pretty sure. That walk last week was a hand out.
Our newest Supreme Court Justice doesn't have to be our newest Supreme Court Justice. He believes that a cop can strip search you without a warrant, that women will stop having abortions if abortions are made illegal, and that the country's long history of racism is exaggerated and no longer an issue anyway. Our vice president and our commander-in-chief are arguing against a bill stating that Americans will not commit acts of torture. It was penned by a man who spent three years as a prisoner of war himself, and will be vetoed by a man who has never seen active combat. It will be the first veto of this term, but it can still be ratified. This is something that anarchy can't stop, and Democracy can.
Please, for the handful of you who will read this blog and the couple that will finish it, please write to your senators and your representatives. Even the littlest email, telling them how you feel they should act. Stop being paranoid, you're probably on file already.
Just a few more hurdles, then we can stop talking about evolution and start the talk about revolution.
'Of course not, Son. In America, we have freedom of speech, and press and religion. America is the greatest country in the world, and I love it.'
'If you love America so much,' I would ask him, 'then why do you burn the American flag on the Fourth of July?'
'Son, in America we have freedom of speech, and press, and religion, to say whatever we want no matter how unpopular. The day that I can no longer burn the flag, of the country that I love will be the day that I no longer love America.'"
That story was told about ten years ago at the In One Ear open mic at the No Exit Cafe. At the time I was an anarchist, but I felt a swell of pride when I heard it. That same day, the Oklahoma City Federal Building was bombed and the news flashed pictures of various Arab suspects, all of them paper tiger bogeymen like Sadaam Hussein. It turned out it was a few guys from Michigan, who didn't like the way the country they loved was heading.
A lot of my friends are radicals or whatever you want to call them. Hippies. Anarchists. Leftists. Idealists. Despite petty crimes against the state and my vehement hatred of the police. I have always been pretty vaguely patriotic and defended our little attempt at Democracy. I've exercised my 1st amendment rights to the best of my ability, as loudly as possible for the most part. I'm not so sure anymore.
Last year, during the election, I defended the South, and religious people for sticking to their beliefs even when it meant electing a monster. Stop calling them inbred. Look at how organized their churches are, and how passionate they are
Sarah, an atheist, slurred, "Then they're stupid because they're religious."
And I slurred back, "Then so am fucking I."
We got into a very awkward screaming match in Jonesy's living room. We'd never really talked about religion.
Today, the Kansas school board voted 6-4 that Intelligent Design could be taught on par with evolution.
Because I cannot conceive of an eternity forward and an eternity backwards, of space with no beginning, I believe in the Hebrew god I was raised with. I know I am probably wrong, but in my head, someone had to start it all off. The big bang, evolution, chaos theory, et cetera...it all had to start somewhere. I don't have the pride of Southern Fundies and I'm embarassed to admit it. My view is a vaiation of Intelligent Design theory (which is not even a real theory) and I think that their decision is a travesty.
Not only is it a backdoor way of bringing in the Judeo-Christian creation myth, which is bullshit, but it is fake science. In the trial, Kansas' ID expert was given the actual definition of a theory, which is
"a set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena"
and the definition of a hypothesis, which is more like
"this is what I think and it makes a lot of sense."
Their expert admitted that Intelligent Design is a hypothesis. Apparently, even his own admission is worthless.
I can now, at least in Kansas, espouse my theories that one-out-of-every-five white men under thirty can play Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" on guitar and that Jewish girls are more likely than white girls to take it up the butt. I am willing to test these theories to make them scientifically sound in every state (especially the second) but would like to start teaching them somewhere now.
For all of you who think that we're all that much smarter than our parents and grandparents were, I want you to go read the transcripts of the Scopes Monkey trial, seventy-some years ago and tell me the same.
America is getting dumber and prouder of our dumbness. Soon we will be a working-class superpower, scraping to get by and perpetually keepin' it real, in spite of the facts. Last week Texas overwhelmingly passed an amendment to their state constitution banning same-sex marriage (in a very sad 3-1 margin). Due to clunky wording, the text kinda, sorta makes ALL marriage illegal, but we can ignore those passages. Words don't matter anymore.
Fifty years ago, people were giving up weeks and months at a time, just to get arrested in the name of civil rights. There was a framework. There was a plan. People took risks, and they did it in their church clothes. Last week a few thousand motley kids exercised their right to free speech and their right of assembly. This is good. They burned flags and they denounced the president, which is good, but they called it resistance, which it is not. They walked in the borders the police gave them, because they didn't think they had the numbers to do otherwise. This is not resistance.
Resistance is what's happening in France; it's what just happened in Argentina; it's what's been happening in Palestine for years. Resistance doesn't have to be violent, but it does have to actually resist something, I'm pretty sure. That walk last week was a hand out.
Our newest Supreme Court Justice doesn't have to be our newest Supreme Court Justice. He believes that a cop can strip search you without a warrant, that women will stop having abortions if abortions are made illegal, and that the country's long history of racism is exaggerated and no longer an issue anyway. Our vice president and our commander-in-chief are arguing against a bill stating that Americans will not commit acts of torture. It was penned by a man who spent three years as a prisoner of war himself, and will be vetoed by a man who has never seen active combat. It will be the first veto of this term, but it can still be ratified. This is something that anarchy can't stop, and Democracy can.
Please, for the handful of you who will read this blog and the couple that will finish it, please write to your senators and your representatives. Even the littlest email, telling them how you feel they should act. Stop being paranoid, you're probably on file already.
Just a few more hurdles, then we can stop talking about evolution and start the talk about revolution.
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